ed by cynicism
becomes a brain that is to be tenderly assisted; feet that were to
be tested in the dance become feet that are not to be distressed; the
once-criticized accent, manner, and dress, become the clients of a
special pleader.

6. FIVE TO EIGHT O'CLOCK P.M.

Now that he was fairly on the track, and had begun to cool down, Edward
remembered that he had nothing to show--no legal authority whatever to
question Manston or interfere between him and Cytherea as husband
and wife. He now saw the wisdom of the rector in obtaining a signed
confession from the porter. The document would not be a death-bed
confession--perhaps not worth anything legally--but it would be held by
Owen; and he alone, as Cytherea's natural guardian, could separate them
on the mere ground of an unproved probability, or what might perhaps be
called the hallucination of an idiot. Edward himself, however, was as
firmly convinced as the rector had been of the truth of the man's story,
and paced backward and forward the solitary compartment as the train
wound through the dark heathery plains, the mazy woods, and moaning
coppices, as resolved as ever to pounce on Manston, and charge him with
the crime during the critical interval between the reception of the
telegram and the hour at which Owen's train would arrive--trusting to
circumstances for what he should say and do afterwards, but making up
his mind to be a ready second to Owen in any emergency that might arise.

At thirty-three minutes past seven he stood on the platform of the
station at Southampton--a clear hour before the train containing Owen
could possibly arrive.

Making a few inquiries here, but too impatient to pursue his
investigation carefully and inductively, he went into the town.

At the expiration of another half-hour he had visited seven hotels and
inns, large and small, asking the same questions at each, and always
receiving the same reply--nobody of that name, or answering to that
description, had been there. A boy from the telegraph-office had called,
asking for the same persons, if they recollected rightly.

He reflected awhile, struck again by a painful thought that they might
possibly have decided to cross the Channel by the night-boat. Then he
hastened off to another quarter of the town to pursue his inquiries
among hotels of the more old-fashioned and quiet class. His stained and
weary appearance obtained for him but a modicum of civility, wherever he
went, which ma