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But I read all the evidence before the magistrates with great care, and I have just talked over the crucial points with Aldous, who followed everything to-day, as you know, and seems to have taken special note of Mr. Wharton's speeches." "Aldous!" her voice broke irrepressibly into another note "I thought he would have let me speak to you first! to-night!"
"That means in three quarters of an hour, Johnny. I'll be there. Three saddle-horses and a pack." Where the trail divided they separated. Aldous went directly to the Blacktons'. As he had expected, the bungalow was alight. In the kitchen he saw Tom, the Oriental cook, busy preparing breakfast.
When they entered the edge of the Miette clearing and saw the glow of lights ahead of them, Aldous caught the sudden upturn of his companion's face, laughing at him in the starlight. "Kind, thoughtful John Aldous!" she whispered, as if to herself.
"One can shave as well as another can make curls," she reminded him, and there came an adorable little dimple at the corner of her mouth as she looked toward Paul Blackton. Aldous was glad that Paul and Peggy Blackton did most of the talking that morning.
But although Aldous, thinking no doubt that he had been already sufficiently premature, had said nothing at all as to his own feelings to his great-aunt, she knew perfectly well that he had said a great deal on the subject of Miss Boyce and her mother to Lady Winterbourne, the only woman in the neighbourhood with whom he was ever really confidential.
"I will do everything I can," she said in a low, distinct voice to Wharton. "Good-bye." She held out her hand. To both the moment was one of infinite meaning; to her, in her high spiritual excitement, a sacrament of pardon and gratitude expressed once for all by this touch in Aldous Raeburn's presence. The two men nodded to each other. Wharton was already busy, putting his papers together.
He was looking to the west, where the sun was beginning to sink behind the mountains. "An' now, Johnny, if you're ready, an' if Joanne is ready, we'll go," he said. As they went up out of the basin into the broad meadows of the larger valley, MacDonald rode between Aldous and Joanne, and the pack-horses, led by Pinto, trailed behind.
When they arrived at Maxwell Court, the sound of the carriage brought Lord Maxwell and Miss Raeburn at once into the hall. Aldous went forward in front of Marcella. "I have brought Marcella," he said hastily to his aunt. "Will you take her upstairs to your sitting-room, and let her have some food and rest?
"He might let something out to Joanne and his wife, and I've got reasons mighty good reasons, Mac for keeping this affair as quiet as possible. We'll have to discover what Rann and Quade are doing ourselves." MacDonald edged his horse in nearer to Aldous. "See here, Johnny, boy tell me what's in your mind?"
"An' the clothes were laid out so prim an' nice." Aldous laid his hand on MacDonald's. "It's easy, Mac," he said, and he wanted to laugh at the disappointment that was still in the other's face. "Don't you see? He never expected any one to dig into the grave. And he put the clothes and the watch and the ring in there to get rid of them. They might have revealed his identity. Why, Donald "
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