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That afternoon, while Abel Perris was being carried on the final dreary stages of his journey northward, Taffendale rode into the market-town, and leaving his horse at his accustomed house of call, strode off to his solicitor's office. Every mile that he covered of the dull December landscape increased the anger, the resentment, the hopelessness of fighting against Fate. which ever since the episode of the stang-riding had been making his life a misery. He knew what was being said; he knew that there were many folk of the countryside who would not say, never would say, being wise, what they thought. He knew that men had changed to him personally, that those who had once been only too proud to get a nod of his head, a shake of his hand, were now quick to turn down a by-lane or to cross the street in order to get out of his way. Ever since the discovery of Pippany Webster's body he had ceased attendance at market, at auction, at the various committees on which he sat; it was not that he was afraid of showing himself, but that he was too proud to go where suspicion and covert looks awaited him. Now, as he strode out of the inn yard he could not avoid the bitter reflection that all was changed with him. Before this came to be he would have flung his bridle to the stable lads and have turned within the house, to pass the time of day in cheery fashion with the landlady behind her well-provisioned bar, maybe to have spent half-an-hour in friendly gossip over a glass and a cigar with such of the local worthies as might be gathered there. He had no heart for such things now; he already felt a pariah; it seemed to him that in every face he met he read the question, "What do you and that woman know of this mystery?"

Taffendale knew that he himself knew nothing, and it was not from mere chivalry or loyalty that he believed Rhoda to be as innocent as himself. He it was who had carried to her the news of the discovery of Pippany Webster's body, and he knew with the knowledge of absolute conviction that her blanching cheeks and dilating eyes meant innocence. He felt, with invincible certainty, that that was the first she had ever heard of the matter; she had been keeping no secret. And he knew, too, that she had told him the truth when she had sent for him to tell him that Perris had disappeared and that she never set eyes on him since the hour in which he set out from Cherry-trees to sell his wheat. And yet, certain as he was of the innocence of both of them, Taffendale was just as certain that all around them all over the countryside folk were putting heads together and whispering in corners, and some declaring openly, and some only saying to themselves that Perris's wife was a murderess, and that he, Taffendale, was in some fashion her accomplice.

He strode into his old schoolmate's private office and threw his gloves and his riding-whip on the solicitor's desk with the gesture of a man who is being hunted to desperation.

"Look here, Wroxdale," he said, as he dropped into a chair; "this has got to stop. Understand me—it's got to be stopped!"

Wroxdale shifted the papers before him with a gesture which signified helplessness.

"How, Mark?" he asked quietly. "How?"

"That's for you," replied Taffendale brusquely.

You re a lawyer. Isn't there any law for me? Isn't there any for this poor woman? D'ye think we're both made of stone? I tell you the air's full of this poison. God—I seem to smell the very stink of it wherever I go!"

"You can't go to law with a rumour, Mark. You can't tackle suspicion as you'd tackle a man in the flesh," said Wroxdale.

"D'ye mean to tell me the law won't help me to make some of these lying scoundrels eat their own words?" demanded Taffendale. "Won't the law help me to crush down a damned lie?"

"Let anybody make a definite libel or slander on you, Mark, and the law will be there," answered Wroxdale. "But you can't put law into action against whisperings, gossipings, abstract things. As you say, the whole air is charged with this. Very well—you can't fight the air. This thing, Mark, is like all things of the same nature—it will have to pursue its natural course until its natural event is reached."

"And that?" growled Mark. "That?"

"The truth will come out," answered Wroxdale. "That's all."

Taffendale smote the desk at his side.

"Will? Aye, but when?" he exclaimed. "When? Are we to be under this vile suspicion for ever? I'm conscious that there's something going on all round us that I don't know of, that

Wroxdale lifted a finger.

"Stop, Mark," he said. "I'll tell you all I know. I get to hear things, you understand. I believe matters are coming to a head. Mark, you needn't be surprised if Mrs. Perris is arrested before long."

Taffendale's anger suddenly cooled. He made an effort to keep himself within strict control, and after a moment's thought he spoke quietly.

"Now, then, Wroxdale," he said, "just tell me, between ourselves, what, in your mind, they can have against her? Speak straight. Straight!"

The solicitor looked searchingly at his old schoolmate.

"Very well, Mark," he answered. "Quite straight, mind. Nothing, then, I think, that is direct. But try to be dispassionate and to consider plain facts. It is matter of common knowledge that Mrs. Perris did not care for her husband. They had frequent scenesquarrels—or, perhaps, one should say, she, to use countryside parlance, often let him hear her tongue. She was ill-advised enough, foolish enough, to let other people know that she despised him—she said more than she should have said about him to the woman who went to work there—Mrs. Graddige. She came across you—she made your acquaintance. She was known to spend some time with you in your house when the rest of your household had retired—this happened on two occasions. It is known that on the second of these occasions you left the house with her late at night, and were absent nearly two hours. It is known—by the curious piecing together of things by that gamekeeper, Justice—that you and she used to meet in Badger's Hollow, and that the man Pippany Webster became cognisant of the fact. Now, consider—Pippany Webster is seen to enter the premises at Cherry-trees and he is never seen again. Shortly afterwards Perris leaves his house one day, tells his wife he is coming here to town to sell his spring wheat. He does that, and he also sells some stock. He tells the people to whom he sells these things that he may not be at home next day, and gives them written authority to take away their purchases. Next day his wife sends for you and shows surprise, genuine or affected—"

"It was real!" exclaimed Taffendale. "Real, I say!"

"Genuine or affected," continued Wroxdale coolly, "that her husband has not returned home. But it is now established, on the testimony of two good witnesses, that Perris was seen near Cherry-trees at twelve o'clock that night, and the presumption is that he did return home, to a house in which there was no one but his wife. From that day to this Perris has never been seen or heard of. Rumours begin to spread—the conduct of Mrs. Perris and yourself is discussed, and the village tongues wag. Mrs. Perris's position becomes painful, and she feels that she must leave the place. Here you make a foolish step. Instead of insisting on her returning to her friends, her relations, you arrange that she shall go to a seaside place and you furnish her with funds. Mrs. Perris is again so ill-advised as to make a confidante of Mrs. Graddige, to whom she tells this—"

"She trusted the damned old harridan!" growled Taffendale. "She'd no one else to confide in."

"—and, who, woman-like, was quick to remember what she had been told when the time came for remembering it to some purpose," continued Wroxdale. "Now, before Mrs. Perris could leave, the affair of the stang-riding took place. That, through a series of events into which we need not go, led to the discovery of the body of Pippany Webster. And it is impossible to deny, Mark, that here is a body of evidence which must needs make Mrs. Perris an object of suspicion. All sorts of theories might be evolved out of it. Pippany Webster might have threatened her with exposure—she is a strong, muscular young woman, and she could kill him easily. She might have quarrelled with her husband on his return the night he sold that stock—he was probably the worse for liquor—and killed him, possibly accidentally, in the course of the quarrel."

Tatfendale threw up his head and laughed sneeringly.

"Where's the man's body, then?" he asked.

"I said I would tell you plain facts," said Wroxdale. "Well, one plain fact is that there is a theory abroad that she concealed Perris's body somewhere on the premises, and that it was burned in the course of that fire. A wild theory, you may say—but a possible one, Mark, a very possible one. Remember, in all cases like this, cases of mystery, everybody will theorise. I dare say the wildest, the most extravagant theories have been made in the various bar-parlours, and round the inn kitchen fires. Folks will talk."

Taffendale picked up his gloves and his riding-whip.

"I wish it was all over," he said "I wish something would bring it to a head. It's like fighting something in the dark, a shadow, something that you can't get hold of. It's—awful!"

He rose to his feet, turning to the door, and Wroxdale rose, too. The solicitor trifled with the papers on his desk for a while before speaking again.

"Well, Mark," he said, at last, "perhaps it may come to a head sooner than you think. Between you and me, I've heard that there's been a Scotland Yard man down here for a week or two. My information may be wrong, but I have heard that he's working disguised as a labourer at Cherry-trees, on the cottages you're building If he and the local police get anything like a decent clue, a line to follow, they 'll act. And then—well, then a great deal of suspense will be over. At any rate, Mrs. Perris will know what she's called upon to face."

"Man, she's as innocent as a child!" exclaimed Taffendale. "Whatever her faults are or may have been, I'd stake all I've got in the world and whatever I hope for in whatever there is to come on her innocence. She knows no more of the death of that man Webster, nor where Perris is, dead or alive, than you do! By God!—I'm sure she doesn't. And see here, Wroxdale—supposing she is tried, and found innocent, as she must be—there's lots of 'em round here 'll go on saying she's guilty. Bah!—I wish I could shoot most of 'em—a pack of canting hypocrites!"

"Human nature, Mark, human nature! But you're right," said Wroxdale, "you're quite right. Nothing will make this matter clear, white, plain again until two things can definitely be proved—who killed Pippany Webster, and where is Abel Perris, dead or alive? That's the truth."

Taffendale turned to the door and hesitated before he had taken more than a step. He turned again, laughing bitterly.

"You see what a coward I've become, Wroxdale!" he said. "I hate the thought of going to the George for my horse, although it's dark, for I know that the very stable lads look at me with curiosity."

"Then don't go," said Wroxdale kindly. "I'll send for your horse round here, to my garden gate."

But Taffendale shook his head and put on his hat with a firmer pressure. No, he was going to keep a stiff upper lip through it all. And he strode away to the inn and got his horse and rode off into the darkness, breathing more freely when the lights of the little town were left behind.

It was half-past five o'clock when Taffendale reached the Limepits, and the land was lying under a wintry pall of drear blackness around the solidly built farmstead and its long range of gaunt buildings. There was not a sign of a star in the sky, but from the quarry a circling shaft of flame was shooting up to the night from a newly-lighted kiln. It made a pillar of fire in the gloom, and as Taffendale glanced that way, previous to passing in at his yard gate, he saw a dark figure standing outlined against it on the edge of the quarry at the spot where he and the gamekeeper had talked that morning which now seemed so far off. There was something curiously sinister in the sight of that figure, made preternaturally tall and spectral by the flame behind it, but Taffendale gave it no more than a glance. He took his horse to the stables, and going through the house went to the parlour, where he expected to find his housekeeper and Rhoda at tea. The housekeeper was alone, and as the door opened she looked up with something of anxiety.

"Where's Mrs. Perris?" asked Taffendale.

The housekeeper, an elderly woman, who had managed Taffendale's domestic affairs for many years, shook her head.

"I don't know," she answered. "She's been out nearly all this afternoon—at any rate, since long before it was dark. And, Mark—I'm beginning to get frightened about her."

"Frightened?" said Taffendale. "Why?"

"I don't know. She—she seems strange, abstracted in her manner," replied the housekeeper. "She never talks now, and she sits staring at—nothing. She oughtn't to be left alone, Mark. And I didn't mean to leave her alone this afternoon—she slipped off when my back was turned."

Taffendale stood for a moment trying to realise this new trouble. He suddenly remembered the dark figure outlined on the edge of the quarry, against the leaping pillar of flame.

"I'll go out and see if I can find her," he muttered.

He went across the garden and the land which separated the farmstead from the lime-pits with new sensations of fear in his heart. He was not unobservant and he had long known what Rhoda was suffering. She talked little: she never smiled; she had begged to be allowed to take part in the house-work, and the housekeeper, like a wise woman, had kept her fully employed. But Taffendale had seen that she was every day becoming more and more melancholy, and a vague dread, which he could not analyse, was springing up in his heart about her. What if—but at the first prompting of what was in his mind he tightened his hold upon himself and strode on.

The figure which he had seen on the edge of the quarry was no longer there, no longer, at any rate, between him and the leaping flame. He hurried on until he came to the very edge of the great chasm which many generations of the Taffendale lime-burners had made in the land; the yellow light from the newly-built kiln gleamed on the uneven flooring far below. And glancing anxiously about him, he was suddenly aware of a dark figure which sat, huddled up, in a little alcove cut out of the bank, and with a stride he reached and touched it.

"Rhoda!" he said fearfully. "Rhoda!"

And with a quick leaping of something that he could not explain, he dropped on his knees at her side and felt for her hands. In the light of the flame beneath them she lifted her face, and Taffendale groaned at the pain in it.

"Oh, Rhoda!" he cried. "What's this? Why are you here? Your hands—they're like ice. You'll catch your death of cold sitting here. Come away, Rhoda, come away!"

For a moment she made no answer, and in the stillness Taffendale heard two sounds. One was the cheery crackle and splutter of the fire burning merrily in the quarry; the other the onward rush of an express train tearing its way across the level land some miles off across country. In that train sat Perris, sucking stolidly at his pipe—but of that Taffendale knew nothing. He only knew that Rhoda was in the grip of a power beyond him.

She turned her face full upon him presently, and he saw that it was white and drawn, and that her eyes were full of something that he had never seen there before. And suddenly she disengaged one of her hands, and lifting it, smoothed the hair away from his forehead. Until then he had not realised that he had hurried out of the house without hat or cap.

"Mark!" she said quietly. "Mark!—I came out here to kill myself."

Taffendale, overwrought already by the conversation which he had had with Wroxdale, felt a great sickness break over him on hearing these words, spoken so calmly as to carry conviction of a sure purpose. He never afterwards heard the crackling of a kiln fire nor the roar of a distant train without remembering them and his own terrible sense of helplessness to answer them. He could say nothing, but he bent his head on the woman's shoulder and groaned.

"I didn't see aught else to do," Rhoda said, after a long silence. "I've laid awake at night and seen no other way. It's come up before me as I went about the house and did what bit of work I could find to do, and still there seemed nothing else—nothing. I know what they're all saying, and how they look at you and I've thought that if—if I was out of the way things might be different."

"No!" said Taffendale. "No!"

"And there's another thing," continued Rhoda, as if she had not heard him. "I've thought that it was all my fault. I did wrong to Perris. I never ought to have married him. I treated him had—now and then. And I did wrong to you—only I got fond of you all of a sudden, before I knew, and without thinking. I—I treated Perris better after I loved you, because I was sorry for him. And though I'm as innocent as can be about these things, still it's been my fault, and I've thought that perhaps if I died all might come right. I don't know why I thought that—my head gets so queer—but I thought it. And when I came out this afternoon I meant to go, Mark. I'd reckoned it all up—I'd wait till dark and then I'd walk along the edge of the quarry here—there's a bit of old paling just there that's rotten: I meant to lean against it, and I should have fallen over when it broke under my weight, and then, you see, everybody would have thought it was an accident. And I came here and stood a long time, watching the kiln burn, and something was always telling me to wait, to wait!"

Taffendale put his arm round her with a strong grip. His resolution had come back to him as he listened to the confession of feminine weakness.

"Come away, Rhoda!" he said. "Come away—now! You're innocent, and God knows it, and I know it—come, be brave. Perhaps you're to wait for something that's going to prove it. Come away!"

Rhoda sighed heavily, but she made no resistance when he raised her to her feet. For a moment he took her into his arms and drew her face to his.

"Promise me you'll never think of that again," he said. "Or that if you do you'll come to me."

"I'll come to you," she answered quietly, "be sure to come to you."

Taffendale led her across to the house in silence and into the parlour. He gave the housekeeper a look and a nod as they entered, and the housekeeper understood and began to bustle around the tea-tray. And Taffendale, with a heart as heavy as lead, endeavoured to make conversation over the tea and the toast, and while he chattered was thinking vaguely of something which he had once read about some man or other who played the fool and made merriment on the stage while his heart was torn within him because at home a child lay dying. He knew that that cosy parlour, with its evidences of prosperity, made a warm and attractive picture; he knew also that on the hearts of two people who sat in it the fear of the unknown lay heavy and cold.

"There's a gentleman at the garden door wants to see the master, if you please," said one of the maids, entering the room as Taffendale was talking for talk's sake. "Shall I take him into the little room, sir?"

"Aye, take him into the little room," replied Taffendale. He made a pretence of lingering to drink his tea, and he murmured something about having expected a customer for a supply of lime. But he knew that Rhoda had started when the maid tapped at the door, and that for the first time in his life his own hands were trembling. And when he rose and left the parlour he was careful to avoid the woman's eyes.

There was a small room near the garden door, which Taffendale used as a sort of office. He braced himself as he opened the door and walked in, for he had a curious presentiment of what he was about to face. And suddenly he was within the room, and the door was shut behind him, and he was mechanically shaking hands with the district superintendent of police—an elderly, bearded man, whose face expressed anxious concern.

"Yes?" said Taffendale.

The superintendent glanced at the door.

"Mr. Taffendale," he said in a low voice, "I'd rather this had been anybody's job than mine. Mrs. Perris—you understand, sir?"

"There's been a warrant issued?" said Taffendale dully. "Eh?"

The superintendent tapped the breast of his overcoat.

"Just so, sir," he answered. "I have it here. And down the lane there I have a very comfortable two-horse cab from the George. Now, Mr. Taffendale, I want to do all this with as little trouble to Mrs. Perris as ever I can. She's here, of course, sir?"

"She's here," said Taffendale.

"Well, now, now, sir, I've no doubt she'll do anything that you suggest," said the superintendent. "How would it be, Mr. Taffendale, if you just prepared her and asked her to come with us, and we'll put off the formal business until we get to the office? Then I needn't bother her just now, you see. I've no doubt she's ready to meet this charge, and she'll be glad to get it over."

"Yes," said Taffendale. "Yes—that will do. Thank you—it's good of you. I'll prepare her, and then we'll go with you. I may come, I suppose?"

"Certainly, certainly, Mr. Taffendale—there's plenty of room in the cab for you, sir," replied the superintendent. "Oh, certainly, come by all means."

"And another thing," said Taffendale; "on our way to the police-station, may we call at Mr. Wroxdale's, my solicitor, and take him on with us? I want him to be there."

"Certainly you may, sir, with pleasure. I'll give orders to the driver, who, between ourselves, is one of my men," said the superintendent. "Yes—anything to make matters pleasant."

"We shall be ready in a few minutes," said Taffendale. He crossed the room to a cupboard and brought out whisky and soda and glasses. "You'll take a drink?" he said. "Well!" he went on, as he helped the superintendent and poured out a glass for himself. "I'm glad it's come at last—the suspense was killing her."

"Poor thing—poor thing!" said the superintendent sympathetically. "I've no doubt it was. Yes, it's best to get at these things and be done with 'em, one way or the other. Your health, sir. Now, you'll bring her here to me all ready, Mr. Taffendale—you'll understand that after I've once seen her I can't lose sight of her again. There shall be naught said now, sir, beyond a pleasant word or so—a 'good evening,' eh?—and we'll drive straight to Mr. Wroxdale's and he shall go on with us. And—and tell her not to be afraid, sir."

Taffendale nodded and left the room. He stood in the hall for a minute, thinking. Then from an old chest he took out two thick carriage rugs and laid them in readiness; near them he placed a heavy travelling cloak, which had been his mother's. That done, he opened the parlour door and called the housekeeper, and in a word or two explained what had happened and bade her keep out of the way for a few minutes. And then he opened the door again and went in to Rhoda. She gave him one quick look and rose, and the colour flushed into her pale cheeks. He saw that she knew.

Taffendale took her hands.

"You wanted this to be settled, Rhoda?" he said.

"Yes—yes!" she breathed quickly. "Yes—oh, yes!"

"Then—it's going to be settled now," he said.

"They've—come for me?" she whispered. Taffendale nodded.

"I'm ready—and I'm glad," she said. "Now—tell me what to do. But first—"

She threw her arms about him passionately and kissed him. And Taffendale asked himself as their lips met if that was for the last time.

Five minutes later Taffendale opened the door of the little room, and cried cheerily and bravely—

"Now, Mr. Superintendent, here's Mrs. Perris—all ready for you, and well wrapped up for a cold drive!"