Juliet failed to extract much comfort from Gimblet when, about six o'clock, she met him coming up through the garden to Inverashiel Cottage.
All the afternoon she had possessed her soul in what patience she could muster, which was not a great deal. Still, by dint of repeating to herself that she must give the detective time to study the facts, and opportunity to verify them at his leisure and in his own way, she had managed to get through the long inactive hours, and to force herself not to dwell upon the vision of David in prison, which, do as she would, was ever before her eyes.
Events had followed one another so fast during the last few days that her mind was dulled, as by a succession of rapid blows, and she was hardly conscious of anything beyond the unbearable pain caused by the cumulative shocks she had undergone.
First had come the heart-rending knowledge that David loved her; heart-rending only because he was bound to Miss Tarver, for, if it had not been for that paralyzing obstacle, she knew she would have gladly followed him to the ends of the earth. Indeed, in spite of everything, his betrayal of his feelings towards her had filled her with a joy that almost counterbalanced the hopeless misery to which, on her more completely realizing the situation, it gradually gave place.
Then had come the swift physical disaster from which she had barely escaped with her life. She had not had time to recover from this when, a few hours later, she had been called upon to face the emotions and agitations aroused by the news of her relationship to Lord Ashiel, and the history of her birth and parentage. In the midst of this excitement had come the sudden tragedy of which she had been a witness, and which had overwhelmed and prostrated her with grief and horror. Next day she had been obliged to undergo the ordeal of being cross-questioned by the police, and close upon that had come the final catastrophe of David's arrest and departure. This last shock so overshadowed all the rest of her misfortunes that it stimulated her to action, and she had herself run most of the way to the post office two miles down the road, to send the telegram of appeal to Gimblet.
Once that was dispatched, hope revived a little in her heart.
Lord Ashiel, her father, had told her to send for the detective if she were in trouble. Well, she was in trouble; she had sent for him; he would come, and somehow he would find a way of putting straight this hideous nightmare in which she found herself living. How happy, in comparison, had been her life in Belgium, in the household of her adopted father and stepmother! She could have found it in her heart to wish she had never left their roof; but that would have involved never making the acquaintance of David, a possibility she could not contemplate.