At Dorothy's age the outward signs of great emotions last but for a little while. Tears may come, but they do not flow so plentifully as in youth: the springs are deeper down, and more difficult to reach, and when found are sometimes almost dry. As age creeps on, and one or other of our loved ones drops silently from our side, it seems but such a little time till we hope to see them again, the period of separation is so short, as they are we ourselves shall so soon be, that we cannot mourn their loss with that intensity which we should have felt in youth, when the plains before us stretched to a limitless horizon, and our heartstrings were responsive to the slightest touch.
The young mistress sat down beside Dorothy, and took one of the old woman's withered hands between her own. That soft, warm, caressing touch unsealed again the fountains of the aged heart. With her other hand she lifted a corner of her apron to her eyes. For a minute or two neither of them spoke.
"What a handsome, brave lad he was, Miss Ella!" cried Dorothy at length. "Fit to be a lord's son, any day; and with as bold and masterful a spirit as any gentleman need wish to have: and now to think of him lying there, white and cold and dumb--he that had a laugh and a ready word for everybody. Alack! alack! if I could but be lying there instead of him!"
"My poor Dorothy! I do indeed feel for you."
"I knew when I saw the headless horses and the black coach that night in the park that there would be a death among us before long," she continued; "but I little thought my own bright boy would be the one to go. Ah! we never know; we never know. Though he was ill that night with his throat; and that might have whispered to me that the apparition was for him."
"Dorothy, do not dwell upon such things."
"Miss Ella, trust an old woman who has had a vast experience of life. Such signs and tokens are not sent for nothing, though some folks may laugh at you for heeding them. They are warnings from another world," added the old woman solemnly, "and some day it may be made plain to us why they are sent."
An inquest was held; some evidence was taken; and then it was adjourned for a week that the police might have time to make further investigations. They could not, as yet, learn that one suspicious person had known of the jewels.
Of all Miss Winter's friends, the one to make himself most busy was the Vicar of Nullington. An idle, easy-going man in general, Mr. Kettle could be aroused in a case like this: all his sympathies were with Miss Winter, and his curiosity was on the alert.
"After all," he observed to that young lady, one day when he was sitting with her to discuss details, "after all, the most mysterious part of the affair is not the sudden appearance of Hubert Stone on the scene. I daresay he could readily account for that, poor fellow, if he were living; perhaps he got in by the mail-train on the Sunday night, which you know passes at nearly one o'clock in the morning, and did not care to knock people up. No, the mystery lies in how the information, as to the hiding-place of the jewels, reached the cognisance of the rogue who stole them. And really, as Chief-Constable Wade justly observed, it would seem next to a certainty that the thief must be someone who had an intimate knowledge of the premises of Heron Dyke. You must see that, my dear, for yourself."