"On the following morning, at half-past ten, our reporter presented himself at the Bow Street Police Court, and was allowed a private interview with Constance's mother, whom we must for the present designate by the name she had assumed, Mrs. Weston. She looked worn and pale, but beneath these traces of physical fatigue our reporter observed in her an undefinable expression of moral strength which surprised him. He had yet to learn, as our readers have, that this woman's delicate frame was ennobled by those lofty attributes of endurance and fortitude and moral power which in human history have helped to make both heroes and martyrs.
"'You have passed a bad night,' said our reporter, commiseratingly.
"'In one sense I have,' said Mrs. Weston, 'but hope and prayer have sustained me, and the Inspector has been very kind to me. Tell me of my daughter.'
"He briefly related the particulars of his interview with Constance, but made no mention of the red silk scarf. She thanked him with great sweetness for the trouble he had taken, and said that she had been wonderfully comforted by the belief that she had providentially met with so true a friend.
"'Time will prove,' said our reporter, 'that you are not deceived in your belief, but the manifestation of this proof will depend greatly upon yourself. To speak more precisely, in your hands appears to me to rest the power of accelerating events and of setting wrong things right. I am speaking partly in the dark, from a kind of spiritual intuition as it were, but when I strike a trail I have something of the bloodhound in me; innocence will find in me a firm champion, guilt I will pursue till I track it to its threshold.'
"The words were grandiloquent, it is true, but it was scarcely possible to doubt their sincerity.
"'In resolving to confide thoroughly in you,' said Mrs. Weston, gazing earnestly at him, 'I am risking more than you can possibly imagine. I am like a shipwrecked woman to whom a prospect of deliverance has suddenly appeared. I ask for no professions; I will trust you.'
"'You will live to thank the chance which has thrown us together,' said our reporter. 'I do not hesitate to say that you have aroused in me a strange interest; I devote myself to your cause heartily, in the conviction that I am championing the cause of right and innocence.'