“Always remember your mother tenderly, my child,” said Amelius, as they left the burial ground. “She was sorely tried, poor thing, in her life time, and she loved you very dearly.”
“Do you know anything of my father?” Sally asked timidly. “Is he still living?”
“My dear, you will never see your father. I must be all that the kindest father and mother could have been to you, now. Oh, my poor little girl!”
She pressed his arm to her as she held it. “Why should you pity me?” she said. “Haven’t I got You?”
They passed the day together quietly at the cottage. Amelius took down some of his books, and pleased Sally by giving her his first lessons. Soon after ten o’clock she withdrew, at the usual early hour, to her room. In her absence, he sent for Toff, intending to warn him not to be alarmed if he heard footsteps in the garden, after they had all gone to bed. The old servant had barely entered the library, when he was called away by the bell at the outer gate. Amelius, looking into the hall, discovered Morcross, and signed to him eagerly to come in. The police-officer closed the door cautiously behind him. He had arrived with news that Jervy was found.
CHAPTER 4
“Where has he been found?” Amelius asked, snatching up his hat.
“There’s no hurry, sir,” Morcross answered quietly. “When I had the honour of seeing you yesterday, you said you meant to make Jervy suffer for what he had done. Somebody else has saved you the trouble. He was found this evening in the river.”
“Drowned?”