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I would go, I decided, almost immediately, lunching at the nearest decent inn to Purley Lock, and turning up at Wildred's house at four or five in the afternoon. I would spend an hour there, perhaps, and return to town in time for dinner. I had not got up particularly early, had breakfasted late, and by the time I was inclined to start it was past one o'clock.
We were vastly polite to each other during what remained of the conversation, far more ceremoniously so than we should have been likely to be had there been any solid liking on either side under the thin veneer of friendliness. In a few moments I had got away, despite Wildred's repeated request that I should remain and share his lonely Christmas dinner with him.
What if this were the plan of Carson Wildred's wily accomplice for getting safely rid of me? I had no intention of being got rid of thus easily, however. I found the window and opened the lower sash.
I had not counted upon the chance that Wildred would be permitted to hurry on the wedding during my absence, and now I felt as though a chasm had suddenly yawned under my feet. Karine was Carson Wildred's wife! "What are we to do?" questioned her brother dully. "We can't leave her with him, you know." Leave her with him!
The larger one was doubtless that on which Carson Wildred's house was situated; the smaller one a mere alley of water, leading away under a drooping tangle of willow and chestnut branches one had to pass in walking from Purley to the House by the Lock. I was sure, as I recalled the place in memory, that the scene of the discovered mystery could have been no other than this.
So much having been gained, Wildred must perforce be relieved of all suspicion of the crime which I had tried to fasten upon him, and this being the case, I assured myself that it was Wildred's hand only which had contrived this intricate and ingenious plot.
Already I had been given a sign that Wildred's cleverness had projected itself across the width of ocean. "Ah, indeed, I'm sorry to hear that he has left. Is he with friends in town, or has he gone to Denver?" I questioned, with as bland an air as I could well command. "Can't tell you whether he's gone to Denver, I'm sure, sir.
"I should certainly like to see him before I go back to the East," I said; and I spoke no more than the truth, for, putting my cordial feeling for Farnham out of the question, it might be that valuable information concerning Wildred's past could be wrested from him with due diplomacy. "Still, I hardly feel like hanging about Denver for an indefinite length of time, doing nothing.
She must be shown the black depths of Carson Wildred's villainy, and be dragged back from the brink of the precipice on which she had stood. Ours was a quick train, and went straight through to London without stopping. After arriving at Waterloo station, therefore, we were obliged to wait for nearly an hour before we could get another which would take us to Haslemere.
For the rest of the evening I kept my room, meditating many things, and becoming more and more desirous of learning Carson Wildred's secret, if secret indeed he had. At all events, I still had six weeks in which to work, with the hope ever before me of saving Karine Cunningham from the man whom, by her own confession, she did not love. Strange and desperate expedients passed in review before me.
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