But he did not. He told himself that nothing could help poor John
Clive, and that any precipitate action on his part might still
fatally compromise his plans, which were now so near completion.
But his real reason was that he knew that if he came forward he
would be very closely questioned, and sooner or later forced to tell
the things he knew so terribly involving Ella.
And he knew that to surrender her to the police and proclaim her to
the world as guilty of such things were tasks beyond his strength;
though, to himself, with a touch of wildness in his thoughts, he
said that no proved and certain guilt should go unpunished even
though his own hand-- It was a train of ideas he did not pursue.
"Charley Wright first and now John Clive," he said to himself. "But
the end is not yet."
Again he would not let his thoughts go on but checked them abruptly.
In this dark and troubled mood he went out to busy himself with the
garden, and all the time he worked he watched with a sort of vertigo
of horror where Ella sat in the sunshine by her mother's side, her
white hands moving nimbly to and fro upon her needlework.
It was not long, however, before the tragedy of the wood was
discovered, for Clive had been seen to go in that direction, and
when he did not return a search was made that was soon successful.
The news was brought to Bittermeads towards evening by a tradesman's
boy, who came up from the village to bring something that had been
ordered from there.
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