When he was gone, Mr. Juxon paced his library alone in the greatest uncertainty.  He had told the vicar in his anger that he would find Goddard with the help of Stamboul.  That the hound was able to accomplish the feat in the present weather, and if Goddard had actually stood some time at the cottage window on the previous night, he did not doubt for a moment.  The vicar had mentioned the window to him when he told him that Mrs. Goddard had seen her husband.  He had probably been at the window as late as midnight, and the scent, renewed by his visit, would not be twelve hours old.  Stamboul could find the man, unless he had got into a cart, which was improbable.  But a new and startling consideration presented itself to the squire’s mind when the vicar was gone and his anger had subsided; a consideration which made him hesitate what course to pursue.

That he would be justified in using any means in his power to catch the criminal seemed certain.  It would be for the public good that he should be delivered up to justice as soon as possible.  So long as Goddard was at large the squire’s own life was not safe, and Mrs. Goddard was liable to all kinds of annoyances at any moment.  There was every reason why the fellow should be captured.  But to capture him, safe and sound, was one thing; to expose him to the jaws of Stamboul was quite another.  Mr. Juxon had a lively recollection of the day in the Belgrade forest when the great hound had pulled down one of his assailants, making his fangs meet through flesh and bone.  If Stamboul were set upon Goddard’s track, the convict could hardly escape with his life.  In the first flush of the squire’s anger this seemed of little importance.  But on mature reflection the thing appeared in a different light.

He loved Mrs. Goddard in his own way, which was a very honourable way, if not very passionate.  He had asked her to marry him.  She had expressed a wish that she were a widow, implying perhaps that if she had been free she would have accepted him.  If the obstacle of her living husband were removed, it was not improbable that she would look favourably upon the squire’s suit; to bring Goddard to an untimely end would undoubtedly be to clear the way for the squire.  It was not then, a legitimate desire for justice which made him wish to catch the convict and almost to wish that Stamboul might worry him to death; it was the secret hope that Goddard might be killed and that he, Charles James Juxon, might have the chance to marry his widow.  “In other words,” he said to himself, “I really want to murder Goddard and take his wife.”