2. MARCH THE TWENTIETH. SIX TO NINE O'CLOCK P.M.
Two evenings later, to the total disarrangement of his dinner-hour, Mr. Raunham appeared at Owen's door. His arrival was hailed with genuine gratitude. The horse was tied to the palings, and the rector ushered indoors and put into the easy-chair.
Then Graye told him the whole story, reminding him that their first
suspicions had been of a totally different nature, and that in
endeavouring to obtain proof of their truth they had stumbled upon
marks which had surprised them into these new uncertainties, thrice
as marvellous as the first, yet more prominent.
Cytherea's heart was so full of anxiety that it superinduced a
manner of confidence which was a death-blow to all formality. Mr. Raunham took her hand pityingly.
'It is a serious charge,' he said, as a sort of original twig on
which his thoughts might precipitate themselves.
'Assuming for a moment that such a substitution was rendered an easy
matter by fortuitous events,' he continued, 'there is this
consideration to be placed beside it--what earthly motive can Mr. Manston have had which would be sufficiently powerful to lead him to run such a very great risk? The most abandoned roue could not, at that particular crisis, have taken such a reckless step for the mere pleasure of a new companion.'
Owen had seen that difficulty about the motive; Cytherea had not.
'Unfortunately for us,' the rector resumed, 'no more evidence is to
be obtained from the porter, Chinney. I suppose you know what
became of him? He got to Liverpool and embarked, intending to work
his way to America, but on the passage he fell overboard and was
drowned. But there is no doubt of the truth of his confession--in
fact, his conduct tends to prove it true--and no moral doubt of the
fact that the real Mrs. Manston left here to go back by that
morning's train. This being the case, then, why, if this woman is
not she, did she take no notice of the advertisement--I mean not
necessarily a friendly notice, but from the information it afforded
her have rendered it impossible that she should be personified
without her own connivance?'
'I think that argument is overthrown,' Graye said, 'by my earliest
assumption of her hatred of him, weariness of the chain which bound
her to him, and a resolve to begin the world anew. Let's suppose
she has married another man--somewhere abroad, say; she would be
silent for her own sake.'
'You've hit the only genuine possibility,' said Mr. Raunham, tapping
his finger upon his knee. 'That would decidedly dispose of the
second difficulty. But his motive would be as mysterious as ever.'
Cytherea's pictured dreads would not allow her mind to follow their
conversation. 'She's burnt,' she said. 'O yes; I fear--I fear she
is!'
'I don't think we can seriously believe that now, after what has
happened,' said the rector.
Still straining her thought towards the worst, 'Then, perhaps, the
first Mrs. Manston was not his wife,' she returned; 'and then I
should be his wife just the same, shouldn't I?'
'They were married safely enough,' said Owen. 'There is abundance
of circumstantial evidence to prove that.'
'Upon the whole,' said Mr. Raunham, 'I should advise your asking in
a straightforward way for legal proof from the steward that the
present woman is really his original wife--a thing which, to my
mind, you should have done at the outset.' He turned to Cytherea
kindly, and asked her what made her give up her husband so
unceremoniously.
She could not tell the rector of her aversion to Manston, and of her
unquenched love for Edward.