This indeed he had confided
to his lost nephew, before the occasion for his present
inflexibility arose.
That he must know of Rosa's abrupt departure, and that he must
divine its cause, was not to be doubted. Did he suppose that he
had terrified her into silence? or did he suppose that she had
imparted to any one--to Mr. Crisparkle himself, for instance--the
particulars of his last interview with her? Mr. Crisparkle could
not determine this in his mind. He could not but admit, however,
as a just man, that it was not, of itself, a crime to fall in love
with Rosa, any more than it was a crime to offer to set love above
revenge.
The dreadful suspicion of Jasper, which Rosa was so shocked to have
received into her imagination, appeared to have no harbour in Mr.
Crisparkle's. If it ever haunted Helena's thoughts or Neville's,
neither gave it one spoken word of utterance. Mr. Grewgious took
no pains to conceal his implacable dislike of Jasper, yet he never
referred it, however distantly, to such a source. But he was a
reticent as well as an eccentric man; and he made no mention of a
certain evening when he warmed his hands at the gatehouse fire, and
looked steadily down upon a certain heap of torn and miry clothes
upon the floor.
Drowsy Cloisterham, whenever it awoke to a passing reconsideration
of a story above six months old and dismissed by the bench of
magistrates, was pretty equally divided in opinion whether John
Jasper's beloved nephew had been killed by his treacherously
passionate rival, or in an open struggle; or had, for his own
purposes, spirited himself away.
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