Graye was lost in a long consideration.  ‘Ah!’ he said, ’it would be difficult to prove anything of that sort now.  The writing could not be sworn to, and if he is guilty the letter is destroyed.’

‘I have other suspicions—­’

‘Yes—­as you said’ interrupted Owen, who had not till now been able to form the complicated set of ideas necessary for picturing the position.  ’Yes, there is this to be remembered—­Cytherea had been taken from him before that letter came—­and his knowledge of his wife’s existence could not have originated till after the wedding.  I could have sworn he believed her dead then.  His manner was unmistakable.’

‘Well, I have other suspicions,’ repeated Edward; ’and if I only had the right—­if I were her husband or brother, he should be convicted of bigamy yet.’

‘The reproof was not needed,’ said Owen, with a little bitterness.  ’What can I do—­a man with neither money nor friends—­whilst Manston has Miss Aldclyffe and all her fortune to back him up?  God only knows what lies between the mistress and her steward, but since this has transpired—­if it is true—­I can believe the connection to be even an unworthy one—­a thing I certainly never so much as owned to myself before.’

3.  THE FIFTH OF MARCH

Edward’s disclosure had the effect of directing Owen Graye’s thoughts into an entirely new and uncommon channel.

On the Monday after Springrove’s visit, Owen had walked to the top of a hill in the neighbourhood of Tolchurch—­a wild hill that had no name, beside a barren down where it never looked like summer.  In the intensity of his meditations on the ever-present subject, he sat down on a weather-beaten boundary-stone gazing towards the distant valleys—­seeing only Manston’s imagined form.

Had his defenceless sister been trifled with? that was the question which affected him.  Her refusal of Edward as a husband was, he knew, dictated solely by a humiliated sense of inadequacy to him in repute, and had not been formed till since the slanderous tale accounting for her seclusion had been circulated.  Was it not true, as Edward had hinted, that he, her brother, was neglecting his duty towards her in allowing Manston to thrive unquestioned, whilst she was hiding her head for no fault at all?

Was it possible that Manston was sensuous villain enough to have contemplated, at any moment before the marriage with Cytherea, the return of his first wife, when he should have grown weary of his new toy?  Had he believed that, by a skilful manipulation of such circumstances as chance would throw in his way, he could escape all suspicion of having known that she lived?  Only one fact within his own direct knowledge afforded the least ground for such a supposition.  It was that, possessed by a woman only in the humble and unprotected station of a lady’s hired companion, his sister’s beauty might scarcely have been sufficient to induce a selfish man like Manston to make her his wife, unless he had foreseen the possibility of getting rid of her again.