Whilst Springrove had been speaking the two had sat down together.  The conversation, hitherto distinct to every corner of the room, was carried on now in tones so low as to be scarcely audible to the interlocutors, and in phrases which hesitated to complete themselves.  Three-quarters of an hour passed.  Then Edward arose, came out of the rector’s study and again flung his cloak around him.  Instead of going thence homeward, he went first to the Carriford Road Station with a telegram, having despatched which he proceeded to his father’s house for the first time since his arrival in the village.

3.  FROM NINE TO TEN O’CLOCK P.M.

The next presentation is the interior of the Old House on the evening of the preceding section.  The steward was sitting by his parlour fire, and had been reading the letter arrived from the rectory.  Opposite to him sat the woman known to the village and neighbourhood as Mrs. Manston.

‘Things are looking desperate with us,’ he said gloomily.  His gloom was not that of the hypochondriac, but the legitimate gloom which has its origin in a syllogism.  As he uttered the words he handed the letter to her.

‘I almost expected some such news as this,’ she replied, in a tone of much greater indifference.  ’I knew suspicion lurked in the eyes of that young man who stared at me so in the church path:  I could have sworn it.’

Manston did not answer for some time.  His face was worn and haggard; latterly his head had not been carried so uprightly as of old.  ’If they prove you to be—­who you are. . . .  Yes, if they do,’ he murmured.

‘They must not find that out,’ she said, in a positive voice, and looking at him.  ’But supposing they do, the trick does not seem to me to be so serious as to justify that wretched, miserable, horrible look of yours.  It makes my flesh creep; it is perfectly deathlike.’

He did not reply, and she continued, ’If they say and prove that Eunice is indeed living—­and dear, you know she is—­she is sure to come back.’

This remark seemed to awaken and irritate him to speech.  Again, as he had done a hundred times during their residence together, he categorized the events connected with the fire at the Three Tranters.  He dwelt on every incident of that night’s history, and endeavoured, with an anxiety which was extraordinary in the apparent circumstances, to prove that his wife must, by the very nature of things, have perished in the flames.  She arose from her seat, crossed the hearthrug, and set herself to soothe him; then she whispered that she was still as unbelieving as ever.  ’Come, supposing she escaped—­just supposing she escaped—­where is she?’ coaxed the lady.

‘Why are you so curious continually?’ said Manston.

‘Because I am a woman and want to know.  Now where is she?’

‘In the Flying Isle of San Borandan.’

’Witty cruelty is the cruellest of any.  Ah, well—­if she is in England, she will come back.’