“I will go too,” said the Squire, his hand on the bell. “You can’t get on with the same horse, Lewis. We must put in one of mine.”
“Quarter to nine,” said the Vicar, pulling out his watch. “It was nearly eight when I left. Two hours ago I knew nothing.”
As the two sat side by side they did not exchange a word. The horse was a good trotter, and the Squire, who drove, put him to his utmost pace.
The Vicar looked blankly out on the hedges and fields which approached, passed, and dropped behind, bitterness round his closed lips. The few illusions he had ever had about his niece were fallen from him, and he understood her thoroughly. It was sordid money that had made her do this thing, that had decoyed her out into the darkness of the winter morning, and not the man who was waiting for her. If love had undone Isoline as it had undone Mary, he felt he could have recoiled from her less, though the outside world would have deemed it a worse calamity. It would have struck him to the earth indeed, but it could hardly have sickened him as this had done. He would have given all he possessed to prevent any one belonging to himself from dealing such a blow to those he loved. There was no pretence, no veil, however thin, no excuse. It was money, money, money. She had encouraged Harry when she thought him rich, dropped him angrily, resentfully, as one drops a kitten that has scratched one, when she knew he was poor, and sprung at him again the moment his fortunes mended. And he was the son of the best friends he had. He had left Waterchurch without seeing Lady Harriet, for he had felt unable to face her.
They pulled up at the toll on the near side of Llangarth, where the gatekeeper gave them what information he had. The carriage had gone through Crishowell very early, before it was light, and had repassed on its return journey about a quarter-past six—maybe twenty past, or thereabouts—he could not tell exactly. There was a lady in a black veil. He knew that, because he had turned the lantern on the inside of the carriage, and the gentleman who paid the toll was young—fair, he thought—but he couldn’t say; he didn’t know them, not he, for he was new to the place, but the gentleman had seemed in a hurry. He could give no further clue. But it was enough.
They drove on to the Bull Inn, which was the only posting-house in the town, and Mr. Fenton sprang out and went in to find the landlord.
“Ain’t a pair left in the place,” said an ostler, who emerged from the stable. “The ’ole lot’s out.”
He began mechanically to take the Squire’s horse out of the shafts.
The landlord’s tale was the same. There was a postchaise, but nothing to put into it; they might get something at the next posting-house in Welchurch, seven miles on.
“What is that over there?” inquired the Vicar, pointing to a brown muzzle which was pushed out of a box at the end of the court.