He was wondering what it was that had made Rhoda send for him; what she meant by her use of the term "wrong." Going to the sideboard in his parlour he poured out a glass of sherry, and sipped it slowly as he stood ruminating on the events of the morning. First Justice and his blackmailing demand; now this urgent message from Rhoda—it seemed strange, he thought, that they should come together. And yet there was, perhaps, nothing strange in it; there had always been a consciousness in Taffendale's mind that he and Perris's wife had been skating on thin ice which might at any moment crack beneath them. And all this, he said to himself with a grim smile, might be the first sign of the crack.
Taffendale's farm-men were crossing the fold to the dinner awaiting them in the kitchen, and he threw open the window and bade one of them saddle his horse. He himself never dined until two o'clock; he would have ample time to ride to Cherry-trees and back before his dinner-hour arrived, unless something unforeseen awaited him there. And again he fell to wondering why Rhoda had sent for him with such evidence of urgency.
There was nothing in the appearance of Cherry-trees, when Taffendale rode up to it a little while later, to show that anything unusual had happened. The lad who had been sent to fetch him was just turning in at the orchard gate as Taffendale came in sight of it; he had evidently taken his time as he traversed the footpath way. At the sound of the horse's ringing feet he glanced round before vanishing into the house. Rhoda came out at once, and on seeing her, Taffendale drew rein. She hurried down the orchard to meet him, stopping at the very place where Tibby Graddige had stood when she called him to render assistance to Pippany Webster. Taffendale saw at once that she was alarmed and uneasy; there was a sense of some unknown fear in her eyes, and she kept looking from him to the house.
"What is it?" he asked, drawing his horse along side the hedge and bending from the saddle. "What's the matter?"
Rhoda, as with an effort, concentrated her attention upon him.
"It's Perris," she said in a low voice. "He's—gone."
"Gone!" exclaimed Taffendale. "Gone?" Rhoda inclined her head and made no answer in words.
"You don't mean he's left home—run away?" asked Taffendale. "What is it you mean? Speak out!"
Rhoda nervously began breaking bits of twigs and leaves off the top of the low hedge behind which she stood. She looked at Taffendale as if she scarcely knew what to say.
"I'm—I'm frightened," she said at last. "There's something wrong, and I don't know what. He wasn't at home when I came in last night—he'd gone to town to sell that new wheat, you know. And—he never came home."
"Well, but that's not so extraordinary," said Taffendale. "There might be reasons."
Rhoda shook her head.
"No!" she said. "I know him. He'd have been home last night if—if there wasn't something wrong. But he didn't come—and there is."
The persistent harping upon this feature of the matter began to irritate Taffendale. He repressed an exclamation of impatience, and drew his horse closer to the hedge.
"But—what do you think is wrong?" he said. "You're thinking something, you know. What is it?"
Rhoda gazed full at him for a moment, and made no answer.
"Come, now!" he said insistently.
But she only shook her head again and continued to stare at him. Suddenly she broke into more voluble speech.
"And he never came back this morning," she said, "and then, just before noon, a man came with a wagon and horses, and said that Perris had sold the wheat yesterday to Mr. Mawson, and that he'd come to fetch it—he'd a written order for its delivery, had the man, signed by Perris, and he said he'd seen his master pay Perris for it. There were seventy quarters, and they agreed at thirty shillings a quarter."
"Hundred guineas," muttered Taffendale. "Well, has the man taken it?"
"No," replied Rhoda. "I asked him to wait until I'd seen you. He's put up his horses, and gone down to the Bear for an hour."
"Well, he'll have to take it," said Taffendale. "It's Perris's, and nobody can stop him from selling it. You say the man saw him paid?"
"Yes, Mr. Mawson paid him in cash," answered Rhoda. "But—that's not all. After—after the man had gone down to the Bear I bethought myself of the money I had put away. There was some left of what you lent, and there was some of my own, out of the fowls and such like, and there was some that Perris got last week for pigs. You see, he's been so steady, and all that of late, that I let him know where I kept the money, and he gave me whatever came in to put with it. It was in a secret drawer in that old bureau, in the parlour. And when I'd heard from Mr. Mawson's man about the wheat I went to look in the drawer, and the money was all gone. He must have taken it yesterday before he went off."
"How much was there?" asked Taffendale. He was beginning to see now that there was something out of the common in all this; and Perris was carrying some design into execution, and he grew vaguely fearful of what its meaning might be.
"How much?" he repeated.
Rhoda hesitated as if she feared to answer. She was still nervously plucking at the twigs and leaves of the hedge, and alternately glancing from Taffendale to the house.
"I'm afraid it was a foolish thing to keep so much there," she said, at last. "We'd been talking about putting it in the bank only last Sunday."
"How much was there?" asked Taffendale, impatiently.
"There was between fifty and sixty pounds," she answered.
Taffendale screwed up his lips.
"So that, if he has gone away, he's carried at least a hundred and fifty pounds with him," he said, presently. "Well—I'm afraid he's off. It looks like it—it looks very like it!"
Rhoda pushed herself forward over the top of the hedge. Her face flushed as Taffendale bent nearer to her.
"Mark!" she said. "Mark! Do you think it's because—because he'd heard aught about—you and me?"
Taffendale frowned. But when he remembered his interview with the gamekeeper that morning he felt that Rhoda's suggestion was probable.
"I don't know—I don't know!" he said hastily. "There's time enough to think about that. I'm afraid he's gone, though. I shouldn't have thought anything at all about his selling the wheat and being away for a day or two; it's the taking of the money from the drawer that seems to settle it. He hasn t left a scrap of writing about, saying anything?"
Rhoda shook her head.
"I never thought to look, but I'm sure he hasn't," she answered. "No, it's just what he would do, Perris, to go off in that quiet, sly way. He—here's the man coming back for the wheat."
At sight of Mawson's wagoner coming round the corner of the garden, Taffendale edged his horse away from the orchard fence and rode on to the gate.
"I'll speak to him," he said, over his shoulder.
"Of course, he'll have to take it."
The wagoner, who knew Mr. Taffendale well enough, touched his cap as the limeburner rode up to him.
"Now, my lad," said Taffendale, pleasantly.
