"If you assist them to learn that which had better be hidden, you will ruin me," cried Paynton, with a passionate gesture.
"Yes! It means ruin, disgrace--perhaps death! Ah!"
He broke down with a cry, and Hilliston, taking Jenny by the hand, led her to the door.
"Go away, my dear. Your father is ill," he said, in a whisper, and pushing her outside the door, locked it forthwith. Jenny stood in the passage, in an agony of fear and surprise. Ruin! Disgrace! Death! What was the meaning of those terrible words?
LEAVING the two men to talk over their dark secrets together, Jenny went into the garden. Her brow burned as with fever, and her understanding was confused by the thoughts which filled her mind. What was the meaning of her father's words? Why had Mr. Hilliston come over from Eastbourne to request her silence? And what was the connection between him and her sole surviving parent? She paced up and down the gravel walk vainly asking herself these questions, and racking her brain as to possible answers. Hitherto the sky of her young life had been pure and serene; but now, by her own act--as though she had unconsciously wrought a malignant spell--a sudden storm had arisen, which threatened to overturn the foundations of her small world. In the very unexpectedness of these events lay their terror.
As Tait shrewdly surmised, Jenny was by no means satisfied with the evidence of Hilliston at the trial of Mrs. Larcher. So far as she could judge from the unsatisfactory report in _The Canterbury Observer_, he had given his version of the affair glibly enough; yet there seemed to be something behind which he was anxious to suppress. Definitely enough he stated that he had not been at The Laurels on the fatal night; that he had not seen Captain Larcher since he left for London; that he had not noted whether Mrs. Larcher wore that all-important dagger when she left the ballroom. But, pressed by an evidently suspicious counsel, he accounted so minutely for every moment of his time, his evidence had about it such an air of frank falseness, that even unsophisticated Jenny saw that the man was acting a part. She did not believe him guilty of the crime, but she was certain in her own mind that he knew who had struck the fatal blow; nay more, Jenny thought it not impossible that he had been at The Laurels after three that morning, in spite of his denial, and had seen the tragedy take place. Tait's hints, confirming her own doubts, led her to gravely doubt the purity of Mr. Hilliston's motives then and now.