"Well, we'll see about that! I'll see what I can do for you. You're not
to be charged till to-morrow morning. Then you'll be charged along with
that man--the man who came to the Trellis House this morning. He's been
found too. He went straight to those Pollits--you follow my meaning?
Mrs. Pollit is the daughter of that old German woman. I never could
abide _her_! Often and often I said to my missis, as I see her go
crawling about, 'There's a German as is taking away a good job from an
English woman.' So she was. Well, I must now tell them where to take
you. And I'm afraid you'll have to be stripped and searched--that's the
order in these kind of cases."
Alfred Head nodded. "I don't mind," he said stoutly. "I'm an innocent
man." But he had clenched his teeth together when he had heard the name
of Pollit uttered so casually. If Pollit told all he knew, then the game
was indeed up.
CHAPTER XXXIV
After the door had shut behind Alfred Head, Anna Bauer sat on, quite
motionless, awhile. What mind was left to her, after the terrifying and
agonising interview she had just had, was absorbed in the statement made
to her concerning Jervis Blake.
She remembered, with blinding clearness, the afternoon that Rose had
come into her kitchen to say in a quiet, toneless voice, "They think,
Anna, that they will have to take off his foot." She saw, as clearly as
if her nursling were there in this whitewashed little cell, the look of
desolate, dry-eyed anguish which had filled Rose's face.
But that false quietude had only lasted a few moments, for, in response
to her poor old Anna's exclamation of horror and of sympathy, Rose Otway
had flung herself into her nurse's arms, and had lain there shivering
and crying till the sound of the front door opening to admit her mother
had forced her to control herself.
Anna's mind travelled wearily on, guided by reproachful memory through a
maze of painful recollections. Once more she stood watching the strange
marriage ceremony--trying hard, aye, and succeeding, to obey Sir
Jacques's strict injunction. More than one of those present had glanced
over at her, Anna, very kindly during that trying half-hour. How would
they then have looked at her if they had known what she knew now?
She lived again as in long drawn-out throbs of pain the piteous days
which had followed Mr. Blake's operation.
Rose had not allowed herself one word of fret or of repining; but on
three different nights during that first week, she had got out of bed
and wandered about the house, till Anna, hearing the quiet, stuffless
sounds of bare feet, had come out, and leading the girl into the still
warm kitchen, had comforted her.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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