In the morning they met again.
“I was thinking last night,” said Constance, “about the Inquest. There are two or three points——”
“I was thinking about the Trial,” said Leonard. “There are a few doubts in my mind——”
“Let us have out the book again.”
Once more it was produced. Once more it lay on the table: once more they sat on opposite sides and read and considered and took counsel together—with no result: once more they locked up the book, and agreed that further investigation was impossible.
“To-morrow,” said Leonard, “I shall go on with my work again. This is like the following of Jack-a-Lantern.”
“To-morrow,” said Constance, with a sigh. “Strange that we should have been led to consider the subject at all. Let the dead bury their dead. It is an old story, and nothing more remains to be found out. Why have we been so foolish?”
Despite this agreement, they continued at their hopeless task. They sat together day after day; during this time they talked and thought of nothing else. Again and again they agreed there was nothing more to be found. Again and again they made a show of putting the book away and locking it up. Again and again they took it out again and read it till they knew it all by heart. Together they went once more to Campaigne Park; they visited the fatal wood, they wandered about the deserted rooms of the house, haunted by the dreadful memory. How could they expect to find anything now after all these years?
“We have,” said Leonard, repeating the words a hundred times, “all the evidence that can now be discovered—the evidence of the wood and the place, the evidence of one survivor, the evidence of the trial. If the truth cannot be discovered, why should we go on? Moreover, after all these years nothing more can be discovered.”
“Nothing more, except the hand that did it.”