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Nobody could see me; nobody could despise me I burst out crying. Twice, I looked into Toller's room during the remainder of the night, and found him sleeping. When the sun rose, I could endure the delay no longer. I woke him. "What is it?" he asked peevishly. "You must be the last person who saw Cristel," I answered. "I want to know all that you can tell me."
Cristel's father shall I confess I had hoped that it might be Cristel herself? let me in. In by-gone days, I dimly remembered him as old and small and withered. Advancing years had wasted him away, in the interval, until his white miller's clothes hung about him in empty folds.
In two words, sir, if you mean to charge him before the magistrates with attempting your life, I'll take my Bible oath he did attempt it, and you may call me as your witness. There! Now it's out." What his master had no doubt inferred, was what I saw plainly too. Cristel had saved my life, and had been directed how to do it by the poor fellow who had suffered in my cause.
"Not now!" she said and went on sadly with her household work. "May I see you to-morrow?" I asked. "It had better not be here, sir," was the only reply she made. I offered to meet her at any other place which she might appoint. Cristel persisted in leaving it to me; she spoke absently, as if she was thinking all the time of something else.
Gloody's eyes rested steadily on Cristel: she failed to notice him, being occupied at the moment in replacing the pin of a brooch which had slipped out of her dress. The man withdrew into the second bedroom, and softly closed the door. Our host recovered his good humor. He took a wooden stool, and seated himself by Cristel. "Borrowed furniture," he said, "as well as borrowed tea-things.
He still followed his own train of thought, as resolutely and as impertinently as ever. "I haven't seen you talking to Cristel before to-night. Have you been meeting her in secret?" In justice to the girl, I felt that I ought to set him right, so far.
"I can't endure my life, if I'm not helping to trace Cristel." He was most kind. "I understand," he said. "Try what you can get those two ladies to tell you and you may help us materially." Mrs. Roylake was nearest to me. I appealed to her womanly sympathies, and was answered by tears.
"Surely a little coarse and vulgar?" she suggested, reverting to poor Cristel. "Would you like to judge for yourself?" I asked. "I shall be happy, Mrs. Roylake, to take you to the mill." My stepmother's knowledge of the world implied considerable acquaintance how obtained I do not pretend to know with the characters of men.
Men will wonder what possessed me women will think it a proceeding that did me credit I took the familiar road which led to the gloomy wood and the guilty river. The longing in me to see Cristel again, was more than I could resist. Not because I was in love with her; only because I had left her in distress.
He tore from his pocket his little book, filled with blank leaves, and threw it at Toller's head. "Write," he repeated. "If you murder me with your screeching again, look out for your skinny throat I'll throttle you." Cristel picked up the book. She was gratefully sensible of her father's interference. "He shall know what you said to him," she promised the old man. "I'll write it myself."
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