Yesterday evening, I had returned to my house, before it occurred to me that Mrs. Winterfield had not mentioned your address.
My only excuse for this forgetfulness is, that I was very much distressed while I was writing by her bedside.
I at once went back to the lodgings, but she had fallen asleep, and I dared not disturb her.
This morning, when I returned to the house, she was dead.
There is an allusion to Devonshire in her letter, which suggests that your residence may be in that county; and I think she once spoke of you as a person of rank and fortune.
Having failed to find your name in a London Directory, I am now about to search our free library here for a county history of Devon, on the chance that it may assist me.
Let me add, for your own satisfaction, that no eyes but mine will see these papers.
For security’s sake, I shall seal them at once, and write your name on the envelope.
Added by Father Benwell.
How the boy contrived to possess himself of the sealed packet we shall probably never discover.
Anyhow, we know that he must have escaped from the rectory, with the papers in his possession, and that he did certainly get back to his mother and sister in London.
With such complete information as I now have at my disposal, the prospect is as clear again as we can desire.
The separation of Romayne from his wife, and the alteration of his will in favor of the Church, seem to be now merely questions of time.
BOOK THE FOURTH.
CHAPTER I. THE BREACH IS WIDENED.
A FORTNIGHT after Father Benwell’s discovery, Stella followed her husband one morning into his study.
“Have you heard from Mr. Penrose?” she inquired.
“Yes. He will be here to-morrow.”
“To make a long visit?”
“I hope so.
The longer the better.”
She looked at him with a mingled expression of surprise and reproach.
“Why do you say that?” she asked.
“Why do you want him so much—when you have got Me?”
Thus far, he had been sitting at his desk, resting his head on his hand, with his downcast eyes fixed on an open book.
When she put her last question to him he suddenly looked up.
Through the large window at his side the morning light fell on his face.
The haggard look of suffering, which Stella remembered on the day when they met on the deck of the steamboat, was again visible—not softened and chastened now by the touching resignation of the bygone time, but intensified by the dogged and despairing endurance of a man weary of himself and his life.
Her heart ached for him.
She said, softly:
“I don’t mean to reproach you.”
“Are you jealous of Penrose?” he asked, with a bitter smile.
She desperately told him the truth.
“I am afraid of Penrose,” she answered.
He eyed her with a strange expression of suspicious surprise.
“Why are you afraid of Penrose?”
It was no time to run the risk of irritating him.
The torment of the Voice had returned in the past night.
The old gnawing remorse of the fatal day of the duel had betrayed itself in the wild words that had escaped him, when he sank into a broken slumber as the morning dawned.
Feeling the truest pity for him, she was still resolute to assert herself against the coming interference of Penrose.
She tried her ground by a dangerous means—the means of an indirect reply.
“I think you might have told me,” she said, “that Mr. Penrose was a Catholic priest.”
He looked down again at his book.
“How did you know Penrose was a Catholic priest?”
“I had only to look at the direction on your letters to him.”
“Well, and what is there to frighten you in his being a priest?
You told me at the Loring’s ball that you took an interest in Penrose because I liked him.”
“I didn’t know then, Lewis, that he had concealed his profession from us.
I can’t help distrusting a man who does that.”
He laughed—not very kindly.