So, all this knit their loves:  she knew, and he felt, that he was going in the road of nobleness and honour; and the fiery ordeal which he had to struggle through, raised that hearty earthly lover more nearly to a level with his heavenly-minded mistress.  Through misfortune and mistrust, and evil rumours all around, in spite of opposition from false friends, and the scorn of slanderous foes, he stood by her more constantly, perchance more faithfully, than if the course of true-love had been smoother:  he was her escort morning and evening to and from the prison; his strong arm was the dread of babbling fools that spoke a word of disrespect against the Actons; and his brave tongue was now making itself heard, in open vindication of the innocent.

CHAPTER XL.

SUSPICIONS.

YES—­Jonathan Floyd was beginning to speak out boldly certain strange suspicions he had entertained of Jennings.  It was a courageous, a rash, a dangerous thing to do:  he did not know but what it might have jeoparded his life, say nothing of his livelihood:  but Floyd did it.

Ever since that inquest, contrived to be so quickly and so quietly got over, he had noticed Simon’s hurried starts, his horrid looks, his altered mien in all he did and said, his new nervous ways at nightfall—­John Page to sleep in Mr. Jennings’s chamber, and a rush-light perpetually—­his shudder whenever he had occasion to call at the housekeeper’s room, and his evident shrinking from the frequent phrase “Mrs. Quarles’s murder.”

Then again, Jonathan would often lie awake at nights, thinking over divers matters connected with his own evidence before the coroner, which he began to see might be of great importance.  Jennings said, he had gone out to still the dog by the front door—­didn’t he?—­“How then, Mr. Jennings, did you contrive to push back the top bolt?  The Hall chairs had not come then, and you are a little fellow, and you know that nobody in the house could reach, without a lift, that bolt but me.  Besides, before Sir John came down, the hinges of that door creaked, like a litter o’ kittens screaming, and the lock went so hard for want of use and oil, that I’ll be sworn your gouty chalkstone fingers could never have turned it:  now, I lay half awake for two hours, and heard no creak, no key turned; but I tell you what I did hear though, and I wish now I had said it at that scanty, hurried inquest; I heard what I now believe were distant screams (but I was so sleepy), and a kind of muffled scuffling ever so long:  but I fancied it might be a horse in the stable kicking among the straw in a hunter’s loose box.  I can guess what it was now—­cannot you, Mr. Simon?—­I say, butler, you must have gone out to quiet Don—­who by the way can’t abear the sight of you—­through Mrs. Quarles’s room:  and, for all your threats, I’m not afeard to tell you what I think.  First answer me this, Mr. Simon Jennings:—­where were you all that night, when we were looking for you?—­Oh! you choose to forget, do you?  I can help your memory, Mr. Butler; what do you think of the shower-bath in Mother Quarles’s room?”