And it was he himself, Sir
Gilbert Gildersleeve, who was that term to take the Western Circuit.
He would be called upon to sit on the bench himself, and try Guy
Waring for the murder he had himself committed!
No wonder that thought sent him ill to bed at once. He lay and
tossed all night long in speechless agony and terror. It was an
appalling night. Next morning he was found delirious with fever.
When the news reached Elma, she saw its full and fatal significance.
Cyril had stopped on for three days at the Holkers', and he came
over in the course of the morning to take a walk across the fields
with her. Elma was profoundly excited, Cyril could hardly see why.
"This is a terrible thing," she said, "about Sir Gilbert's illness.
What I'm afraid of now is that he may die before your brother
returns. The shock must have been awful for him; mamma noticed it
every bit as much as I did; and so did Miss Ewes. They both said
at once, 'This blow will kill him!' And they both knew why, Cyril,
as well as I did. It's the Ewes' intuition. We've all of us got it,
and we all of us say, at once and unanimously--it was Sir Gilbert
Gildersleeve."
"But suppose he DID die," Cyril asked, still sceptical, as he
always was when Elma got upon her instinctive consciousness; "what
difference would that make? If Guy's innocent, as I suppose in some
way he must be, from the tone of his telegram, he'll be acquitted
whether Sir Gilbert's alive or not.
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