THE RETURN TO NEWTON--FRESH DETAILS.

During the railway journey the whole talk was naturally of the robbery. Even if the little party had been disposed to discuss other matters the speakers would have been perpetually recalled to the main theme. Every time they stopped at a station and saw the newspapers on a bookstall, there would be a reminder. Wherever people strolled up and down on the platform talking to each other, passing and repassing the open windows of the carriages, certain words would be overheard. If fresh passengers entered, after the staple remarks on the weather were got through, the speakers had immediate recourse to the topic of the hour. ‘Seen the papers? Heard of the bank robbery at Newton, in ----shire? Most audacious thing of the kind that has happened for a long time. Bankers had better look sharp.’ Sometimes the remarks were more personal. Crabtree’s Bank was mentioned, and Mat Crabtree began to wince at the association of the two words, while his companions felt conscious and uncomfortable. A knowing stranger was heard to observe, ‘The banker’s having been absent was a dooced unlucky coincidence--I should not like to be the fellow,’ then Mat Crabtree frowned heavily and Jane Prior felt furious for him. It was that strangest experience which comes to some of us in the course of our lives, which strikes us with a curious disembodied sensation--as if we were dead and buried, and the surviving world were discussing us and our affairs impartially over our graves. The experience occurs when, by some unusual chance, some notable deed or misdeed we or our friends have done, some striking misfortune or stroke of luck which has befallen us, we are talked about by absolute strangers. They discuss the matter as we have discussed similar events relating to others, in our very presence, of which the speakers are unaware. We feel that we ought to enlighten their ignorance and warn them of the interested character of their audience; but something--sheer wretchedness or recklessness, or pride or shame--holds our tongues. And we listen like ghosts to what men and women say about us when they think we do not hear and that there is little likelihood of their words ever reaching our ears.

A growing constraint laid hold of the travellers. At the beginning of their journey they might have addressed their fellow travellers without scruple, careless of concealing any Crabtree or Prior identity--though they could not have made stock of it, as Susie would have done in the circumstances--and asked for the latest intelligence. But now Mat Crabtree and Jack Prior, with the girls, drew apart, and conversed only among themselves of the all-engrossing subject.

Jack Prior said least of all, which was not like him, for he had naturally plenty to say, and when a burden had been lifted off his mind, he might have been expected to show himself diffuse in his lightness of heart. He only declared, in answer to questions, that, except for the Bank House’s having been repainted, the place was the same on the night he had slept there as it had always been. He was not prepared with the slightest statement of anything that had happened where he was concerned. He said this a little impatiently and doggedly, as if it annoyed him to be brought into the story, and as if he did not wish his mind to dwell on his personal contact with it, which was a mere accident.

Indeed, Jack had happier things to think of. His course was not clear, so far as he saw, by any means. But the simple fact that he had been grossly mistaken in his temporary misjudging of Bennet Gray, together with their present relations to each other, was joy to him. She was there in the same carriage with him, so that by a little manœuvre he could sit opposite her, look out of the same window, touch her fingers incidentally, as they lay on the sash, hand her out and in, exchange a sentence aside with her at intervals, and always have her fair, sweet face, brimming over with wit and intelligence, a beacon and loadstone for any man to watch covertly. No horribly awkward, unpropitious position on his part, no thunder-cloud of disaster hanging over others, no crazy suspicion of his--which he put sternly from him--could shroud his joy in gloom. The unconfessed, disallowed lovers had not seen so much of each other--above all had not established so clear an understanding between the two before, as to make the company of the one comparatively indifferent to the other, or the knowledge that they were fully plighted to each other, with the next step in their history excitingly uncertain, a thing of no consequence to either.

Bennet was still happier than Jack, in spite of her sympathy with Mr. Crabtree and Jane, and her alarmed, vague comprehension that there was sorrow on its way to all the Priors through the robbery of Mr. Lambert Crabtree’s bank. But she herself could not be very sorry--not on this day, which had brought back Jack to her. How brave and manly, and a thousand times better than handsome, he looked. But for that matter he was ‘handsomely ugly’; he had turned the corner and arrived at that pitch of plain looks which is as good as beauty, and has a more unique attraction. Besides, beauty fades, whilst Jack’s ugliness would never fade. Dear, short, broad, hard-favoured Jack, his mother’s darling and hers! And he had come straight to her without an instant’s hesitation, not knowing a syllable to this moment of the change in her circumstances. He was going back with her to own her and their engagement before his people--to brave, as he imagined, his father’s anger and his mother’s entreaties and reproaches. She knew it by the droop of his lips and the sudden gravity which came over his face when he ceased to look at her.

This woman was in some respects more intellectual than Jack Prior. She had shown far greater courageous self-denying application and diligence, she had no particular reason to feel proud of him according to the common standard. Yet she had honest pride and delight in his truth and disinterestedness. She so longed that he should have the full credit of the qualities, and they were so sweet to her that she dallied still with her secret and kept it back, though it could not be much longer withheld, especially when Mr. Crabtree was privy to it. Poor Mr. Crabtree! he had no common sense remonstrance and covert amusement to give to it to-day. The truth must be told, for everybody’s sake, presently; and though Bennet was in thought a little abashed and a little frightened before Mrs. Prior, strange to say, even more than before Mr. Prior or Jane the culprit, would not be really sorry that everything should be known. On the contrary, it was part of her pleasant meditations to consider how the good news was to be broken, and whether she might be allowed for once to give everybody--down to the youngest child and the lowest servant--down to Tommy in fried liver and sponge cake--the wish of the soul of each individual out of Bennet’s abundance.

As the train drew near Newton, even Jack and Bennet--the former with a peculiar reluctance--gave themselves up to the consideration of the robbery. They greedily listened to the conflicting rumours which were openly discussed and frankly addressed to Mr. Crabtree and the Priors by people who knew them, as to persons deeply interested in the business. Some said the money had been recovered, some that it had not been traced. It was confidently asserted that Mr. Lambert Crabtree had arrived late last night. It was alleged that he had not yet come back, as he had been out of town when the telegram was delivered, but he was expected every moment. All agreed that the police were in possession of the Bank House, and that detectives had been brought down from London.

‘You had better take your sister and Miss Gray to the White Hart, and wait there till a trap can be got to drive over to Redcot,’ suggested Mat Crabtree to Jack. ‘I’ll go up to the Bank House and see what Susie is doing, and what has turned up. I’ll be back to let you know before you start.’

The girls were glad to go to the inn, which was not far off, where the Redcot phaeton and horse were put up when they were not accommodated in the Bank House stable. Jane and Bennet wished to be under cover and out of sight, though they had done no wrong. Jack shared the inclination. The whole three had an uncomfortable impression that the old-fashioned streets were unusually crowded, though it was not market day. There were loungers about, and the shopkeepers were standing talking in their shop doors. The place was not like itself, or like what it had been on the evening of the volunteer ball. The town had been in a state of excitement then, but it was mere pleasurable, ordinary excitement. Now everybody was experiencing a strong sensation outside of himself or herself, and was on the _qui vive_ for more thrilling sensations of a similar kind. The summer sunshine felt overpoweringly hot and dazzling. Scores of eyes seemed greedily following the Priors and Miss Gray, who, if not the victims of the robbery, were the next thing to them--near relations and familiar acquaintances.

Mat Crabtree was as good as his word. He came in trying to look cheerful and indifferent, but he was more flushed, and there was a deeper contraction between the whitening brows than when he went away. Yes, the police were there. Susie was not.

‘What?’ interposed Jack sharply, ‘where is she?’

‘At your father’s, of course,’ answered Mat Crabtree. ‘Though she sent for the police the first thing yesterday and told them all she knew, I suppose she was put about by their investigations, for she went off with the children in the course of the afternoon to Redcot. It was so natural that nobody could say anything against it, only Spiers,’ naming his brother’s lawyer, ‘whom I had the good luck to see in the street, who had been sent for along with the police, told me it was an injudicious step, and he had hinted as much to Susie. But I don’t fancy it matters.’

‘Has her husband----Is your brother not there?’ faltered Jane, not able to look him in the face.

‘Not yet, I am sorry to say,’ he replied briefly, turning half away, and turning as quickly back again. ‘There is sufficient explanation of his delay. He had gone out of town without leaving his address. In fact, it was thought at the hotel that he had taken a run to Scilly with a yachting man who had been staying in the house. They have sent after him as well as they could. He may have written to Susie.’ There was a constrained silence, broken by Jack’s remarking, with an effort, that Lambert Crabtree was fond of yachting when he had the chance.

‘I saw the head of the police,’ Mat Crabtree resumed his story with greater ease. ‘Of course, he was cautious, and declined to supply me with information; but I believe the money, or the greater portion of it, has been found.’

‘Oh, how fortunate,’ was exclaimed simultaneously.

‘How thankful I am,’ cried Jane.

‘Yes; but as it had been secreted in different parts of the house,’ Mr. Crabtree went on, drily, ‘the circumstance seems to criminate somebody who had a knowledge of the locality--not a strange thief. Do you know anything in particular about the servants, Jane?’

‘Nothing,’ said Jane, considering, ‘except that Susie was continually praising them and making them presents, and very often changing the whole set. It appeared to me that though they gave her satisfaction she tried them by asking too much from them and overworking them. You know Susie has a habit of thinking that nobody can do too much for her. The servants always began splendidly, and the next thing one heard of them was that they were gone.’

‘I know Parsons, the old clerk who used to sleep in the house when Lambert was away, is as honest a soul as ever breathed,’ said Mat Crabtree.

‘Parsons was not there,’ put in Jack, abruptly; ‘it was I.’

By a curious impulse, common to everybody in the room, they all turned to Jack and looked inquiringly at him.

He coloured crimson, under the tan of his voyage. ‘Who knows but that the police and the public may accuse me of the robbery?’ he said, with a laugh that did not sound natural. There was something discordant not merely in the tone, but also in the ill-timed jocular defiance.

‘For Heaven’s sake don’t say anything so horrid, Jack,’ protested the literal Jane.

‘They are not such idiots,’ said Mat Crabtree impatiently.

Only one person present replied to Jack’s laugh with another, which rang out for a second with blithe, fearless scorn. The laugher was Bennet Gray.

‘I shall wait here for Lambert, but, at all events, I shall try to ride over and see your father to-night; tell him so,’ was Mat Crabtree’s parting assurance as he despatched the party.

Everything that could be brought forward with regard to this last mystery of the lost money having been found in the Bank House had been said long before the dogcart which Jack was driving reached Redcot. For the shadows of the afternoon were lengthening--it was just about the time when Mrs. Prior--in Jane’s absence--would be having tea brought into the drawing-room. Extreme quiet had fallen on the party, when Jane raised her voice and said she thought it would not do for them to make so much of this robbery of Lambert Crabtree’s bank, or to take it so greatly to heart. It was most distressing, everything considered, but it seemed to her that they ought to be careful, on Susie’s account, to prevent her from being more put out and unable for what she must go through. Jane had known her sister, in spite of her airy, inconsequent ways, get hysterical on occasions. The party were bound to spare her father and mother, who must have received a shock, and should seek to silence exaggerated talk--among the servants, for instance. They--the family--ought to look on the affair calmly, and not let it weigh on their minds as it was doing, particularly when Jack’s coming home just at this time would afford a natural diversion.

Jane’s listeners started--started guiltily at her sage injunction, delivered solemnly. The couple had actually been forgetting all about the robbery which she was urging them not to take so greatly to heart. Young love would have its way and its day in the face of all obstacles. This was the first time the man and woman had been together in scenes of which the two had often spoken, amidst which, if all went well with them, they ought to spend the greater part of their lives. Every field, every coppice, was full of interest. Long eloquent looks around and loving glances interchanged were serving Jack Prior and Bennet Gray for reminders in speech when Jane thus inopportunely broke in upon their thoughts.