Page:The Last Chronicle of Barset Vol 2.djvu/298

268 to Rome. But there was no journey to Rome before him. Mrs. Arabin was almost in the next room, and there he found her.

The reader will understand that they had never met before, and hitherto knew nothing of each other. Mrs. Arabin had never heard the name of John Eames till John's card was put into her hands, and would not have known his business with her had he not written those few words upon it. "You have come about Mr. Crawley?" she said to him, eagerly. "I have heard from my father that somebody was coming."

"Yes, Mrs. Arabin; as hard as I could travel. I had expected to find you at Venice."

"Have you been at Venice?"

"I have just arrived from Venice. They told me at Paris I should find you there. However, that does not matter, as I have found you here. I wonder whether you can help us?"

"Do you know Mr. Crawley? Are you a friend of his?"

"I never saw him in my life; but he married my cousin."

"I gave him the cheque, you know," said Mrs. Arabin.

"What!" exclaimed Eames, literally almost knocked backwards by the easiness of the words which contained a solution for so terrible a difficulty. The Crawley case had assumed such magnitude, and the troubles of the Crawley family had been so terrible, that it seemed to him to be almost sacrilegious that words so simply uttered should suffice to cure everything. He had hardly hoped,—had at least barely hoped,—that Mrs. Arabin might be able to suggest something which would put them all on a track towards discovery of the truth. But he found that she had the clue in her hand, and that the clue was one which required no further delicacy of investigation. There would be nothing more to unravel; no journey to Jerusalem would be necessary!

"Yes," said Mrs. Arabin, "I gave it to him. They have been writing to my husband about it, and never wrote to me; and till I received a letter about it from my father, and another from my sister, at Venice the day before yesterday, I knew nothing of the particulars of Mr. Crawley's trouble."

"Had you not heard that he had been taken before the magistrates?"

"No; not so much even as that. I had seen in "Galignani" something about a clergyman, but I did not know what clergyman; and I heard that there was something wrong about Mr. Crawley's money, but there has always been something wrong about money with poor Mr. Crawley; and as I knew that my husband had been written to also, I did not interfere, further than to ask the particulars. My