CHAPTER XII
THE POWER OF ATTORNEY
Collingwood had many things to think over as he walked across Normandale
Park that morning. He had deliberately given up his Indian appointment
for Nesta's sake, so that he might be near her in case the trouble which
he feared arose suddenly. But it was too soon yet to let her know that
she was the cause of his altered arrangements--in any case, that was not
the time to tell her that it was on her account that he had altered
them.
He must make some plausible excuse: then he must settle down in Barford,
according to Eldrick's suggestion. He would then be near at hand--and if
the trouble, whatever it might be, took tangible form, he would be able
to help. But he was still utterly in the dark as to what that possible
trouble might be--yet, of one thing he felt convinced--it would have
some connection with Pratt.
He remembered, as he walked along, that he had formed some queer, uneasy
suspicion about Pratt when he first hurried down to Barford on hearing
of Antony Bartle's death: that feeling, subsequently allayed to some
extent, had been revived. There might be nothing in it, he said to
himself, over and over again; everything that seemed strange might be
easily explained; the evidence of Pratt at the inquest had appeared
absolutely truthful and straightforward, and yet the blunt, rough,
downright question of the blacksmith, crudely voiced as it was, found a
ready agreement in Collingwood's mind.
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