They both went searching in the mud, which their own trampling had reduced to the consistency of pap, the postman unstrapping his little lantern from his breast, and thrusting it about, close to the ground, the rain still drizzling down, and the dawn so tardy on account of the heavy clouds that daylight seemed delayed indefinitely. The rays of the lantern were rendered individually visible upon the thick mist, and seemed almost tangible as they pa.s.sed off into it, after illuminating the faces and knees of the two stooping figures dripping with wet; the postman"s cape and private bags, and the steward"s valise, glistening as if they had been varnished.
"It fell on the gra.s.s," said the postman.
"No; it fell in the mud," said Manston. They searched again.
"I"m afraid we shan"t find it by this light," said the steward at length, washing his muddy fingers in the wet gra.s.s of the bank.
"I"m afraid we shan"t," said the other, standing up.
"I"ll tell you what we had better do," said Manston. "I shall be back this way in an hour or so, and since it was all my fault, I"ll look again, and shall be sure to find it in the daylight. And I"ll hide the key here for you." He pointed to a spot behind the post. "It will be too late to turn the index then, as the people will have been here, so that the box had better stay as it is. The letter will only be delayed a day, and that will not be noticed; if it is, you can say you placed the iron the wrong way without knowing it, and all will be well."
This was agreed to by the postman as the best thing to be done under the circ.u.mstances, and the pair went on. They had pa.s.sed the village and come to a crossroad, when the steward, telling his companion that their paths now diverged, turned off to the left towards Carriford.
No sooner was the postman out of sight and hearing than Manston stalked back to the vicarage letter-box by keeping inside a fence, and thus avoiding the village; arrived here, he took the key from his pocket, where it had been concealed all the time, and abstracted Owen"s letter.
This done, he turned towards home, by the help of what he carried in his valise adjusting himself to his ordinary appearance as he neared the quarter in which he was known.
An hour and half"s sharp walking brought him to his own door in Knapwater Park.
2. EIGHT O"CLOCK A.M.
Seated in his private office he wetted the flap of the stolen letter, and waited patiently till the adhesive gum could be loosened. He took out Edward"s note, the accounts, the rosebud, and the photographs, regarding them with the keenest interest and anxiety.
The note, the accounts, the rosebud, and his own photograph, he restored to their places again. The other photograph he took between his finger and thumb, and held it towards the bars of the grate. There he held it for half-a-minute or more, meditating.
"It is a great risk to run, even for such an end," he muttered.
Suddenly, impregnated with a bright idea, he jumped up and left the office for the front parlour. Taking up an alb.u.m of portraits, which lay on the table, he searched for three or four likenesses of the lady who had so lately displaced Cytherea, which were interspersed among the rest of the collection, and carefully regarded them. They were taken in different att.i.tudes and styles, and he compared each singly with that he held in his hand. One of them, the one most resembling that abstracted from the letter in general tone, size, and att.i.tude, he selected from the rest, and returned with it to his office.
Pouring some water into a plate, he set the two portraits afloat upon it, and sitting down tried to read.
At the end of a quarter of an hour, after several ineffectual attempts, he found that each photograph would peel from the card on which it was mounted. This done, he threw into the fire the original likeness and the recent card, stuck upon the original card the recent likeness from the alb.u.m, dried it before the fire, and placed it in the envelope with the other sc.r.a.ps.
The result he had obtained, then, was this: in the envelope were now two photographs, both having the same photographer"s name on the back and consecutive numbers attached. At the bottom of the one which showed his own likeness, his own name was written down; on the other his wife"s name was written; whilst the central feature, and whole matter to which this latter card and writing referred, the likeness of a lady mounted upon it, had been changed.
Mrs. Manston entered the room, and begged him to come to breakfast. He followed her and they sat down. During the meal he told her what he had done, with scrupulous regard to every detail, and showed her the result.
"It is indeed a great risk to run," she said, sipping her tea.
"But it would be a greater not to do it."
"Yes."
The envelope was again fastened up as before, and Manston put it in his pocket and went out. Shortly afterwards he was seen, on horseback, riding in a direction towards Tolchurch. Keeping to the fields, as well as he could, for the greater part of the way, he dropped into the road by the vicarage letter-box, and looking carefully about, to ascertain that no person was near, he restored the letter to its nook, placed the key in its hiding-place, as he had promised the postman, and again rode homewards by a roundabout way.
3. AFTERNOON
The letter was brought to Owen Graye, the same afternoon, by one of the vicar"s servants who had been to the box with a duplicate key, as usual, to leave letters for the evening post. The man found that the index had told falsely that morning for the first time within his recollection; but no particular attention was paid to the mistake, as it was considered. The contents of the envelope were scrutinized by Owen and flung aside as useless.
The next morning brought Springrove"s second letter, the existence of which was unknown to Manston. The sight of Edward"s handwriting again raised the expectations of brother and sister, till Owen had opened the envelope and pulled out the twig and verse.
"Nothing that"s of the slightest use, after all," he said to her; "we are as far as ever from the merest shadow of legal proof that would convict him of what I am morally certain he did, marry you, suspecting, if not knowing, her to be alive all the time."
"What has Edward sent?" said Cytherea.
"An old amatory verse in Manston"s writing. Fancy," he said bitterly, "this is the strain he addressed her in when they were courting--as he did you, I suppose."
He handed her the verse and she read--
"EUNICE.
"Whoso for hours or lengthy days Shall catch her aspect"s changeful rays, Then turn away, can none recall Beyond a galaxy of all In hazy portraiture; Lit by the light of azure eyes Like summer days by summer skies: Her sweet transitions seem to be A kind of pictured melody, And not a set contour.
"AE. M."
A strange expression had overspread Cytherea"s countenance. It rapidly increased to the most death-like anguish. She flung down the paper, seized Owen"s hand tremblingly, and covered her face.
"Cytherea! What is it, for Heaven"s sake?"
"Owen--suppose--O, you don"t know what I think."
"What?"
""_The light of azure eyes_,"" she repeated with ashy lips.
"Well, "the light of azure eyes"?" he said, astounded at her manner.
"Mrs. Morris said in her letter to me that her eyes are _black_!"
"H"m. Mrs. Morris must have made a mistake--nothing likelier."
"She didn"t."
"They might be either in this photograph," said Owen, looking at the card bearing Mrs. Manston"s name.
"Blue eyes would scarcely photograph so deep in tone as that," said Cytherea. "No, they seem black here, certainly."
"Well, then, Manston must have blundered in writing his verses."
"But could he? Say a man in love may forget his own name, but not that he forgets the colour of his mistress"s eyes. Besides she would have seen the mistake when she read them, and have had it corrected."
"That"s true, she would," mused Owen. "Then, Cytherea, it comes to this--you must have been misinformed by Mrs. Morris, since there is no other alternative."
"I suppose I must."
Her looks belied her words.
"What makes you so strange--ill?" said Owen again.