here he was obliged to order a private conveyance, there was no
objection to Alicia and Mrs. Baggs following it. Where we got into a
coach, there was no harm in their hiring two inside places. I gave my
watch, rings, and last guinea to Alicia, enjoining her, on no account,
to let her box of jewels see the light until we could get proper advice
on the best means of turning them to account. She listened to these and
other directions with a calmness that astonished me.

"You shan't say, my dear, that your wife has helped to make you uneasy
by so much as a word or a look," she whispered to me as we left the inn.

And she kept the hard promise implied in that one short sentence
throughout the journey. Once only did I see her lose her
self-possession. At starting on our way south, Mrs. Baggs--taking the
same incomprehensible personal offense at my misfortune which she
had previously taken at the doctor's--upbraided me with my want of
confidence in her, and declared that it was the main cause of all my
present trouble. Alicia turned on her as she was uttering the words,
with a look and a warning that silenced her in an instant:

"If you say another syllable that isn't kind to him, you shall find your
way back by yourself!"

The words may not seem of much importance to others; but I thought, as
I overheard them, that they justified every sacrifice I had made for my
wife's sake.

CHAPTER XVI.

ON our way back I received from the runner some explanation of his
apparently unaccountable proceedings in reference to myself.

To begin at the beginning, it turned out that the first act of the
officers, on their release from the workroom in the red-brick house,
was to institute a careful search for papers in the doctor's study and
bedroom. Among the other documents that he had not had time to destroy,
was a letter to him from Alicia, which they took from one of the pockets
of his dressing-gown. Finding, from the report of the men who had
followed the gig, that he had distanced all pursuit, and having
therefore no direct clew to his whereabout, they had been obliged to
hunt after him in various directions, on pure speculation. Alicia's
letter to her father gave the address of the house at Crickgelly; and to
this the runner repaired, on the chance of intercepting or discovering
any communications which the doctor might make to his daughter, Screw
being taken with the officer to identify the young lady. After leaving
the last