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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..d7b82bc --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,4 @@ +*.txt text eol=lf +*.htm text eol=lf +*.html text eol=lf +*.md text eol=lf diff --git a/LICENSE.txt b/LICENSE.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6312041 --- /dev/null +++ b/LICENSE.txt @@ -0,0 +1,11 @@ +This eBook, including all associated images, markup, improvements, +metadata, and any other content or labor, has been confirmed to be +in the PUBLIC DOMAIN IN THE UNITED STATES. + +Procedures for determining public domain status are described in +the "Copyright How-To" at https://www.gutenberg.org. + +No investigation has been made concerning possible copyrights in +jurisdictions other than the United States. Anyone seeking to utilize +this eBook outside of the United States should confirm copyright +status under the laws that apply to them. diff --git a/README.md b/README.md new file mode 100644 index 0000000..4eb525d --- /dev/null +++ b/README.md @@ -0,0 +1,2 @@ +Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for +eBook #68688 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/68688) diff --git a/old/68688-0.txt b/old/68688-0.txt deleted file mode 100644 index 4be0d8c..0000000 --- a/old/68688-0.txt +++ /dev/null @@ -1,15701 +0,0 @@ -The Project Gutenberg eBook of The mill of silence, by Bernard Edward -Joseph Capes - -This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and -most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions -whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms -of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at -www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you -will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before -using this eBook. - -Title: The mill of silence - -Author: Bernard Edward Joseph Capes - -Release Date: August 5, 2022 [eBook #68688] - -Language: English - -Produced by: an anonymous Project Gutenberg volunteer - -*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE MILL OF SILENCE *** - - - - - - THE MILL OF SILENCE - - BY - B. E. J. CAPES. - - CHICAGO AND NEW YORK: - RAND, McNALLY & COMPANY, - MDCCCXCVII. - - - - - [MISC/COPYRIGHT] - - A PRIZE STORY - - In The Chicago Record’s series of “Stories of Mystery.” - - THE MILL OF SILENCE - - BY - B. E. J. CAPES, - Author of “The Uttermost Farthing,” “The - Haunted Tower,” etc. - - (This story--out of 816 competing--was awarded the second prize in The - Chicago Record’s “$30,000 to Authors” competition.) - - Copyright, 1896, by B. E. J. Capes. - - - - - CONTENTS. - - I. THE INMATES OF THE MILL. - II. A NIXIE. - III. THE MILL AND THE CHANGELING. - IV. ZYP BEWITCHES. - V. A TERRIBLE INTERVIEW. - VI. THE NIGHT BEFORE. - VII. THE POOL OF DEATH. - VIII. THE WAKING. - IX. THE FACE ON THE PILLOW. - X. JASON SPEAKS. - XI. CONVICT, BUT NOT SENTENCED. - XII. THE DENUNCIATION. - XIII. MY FRIEND THE CRIPPLE. - XIV. I OBTAIN EMPLOYMENT. - XV. SWEET, POOR DOLLY. - XVI. A FATEFUL ACCIDENT. - XVII. A TOUCHING REVELATION. - XVIII. A VOICE FROM THE CROWD. - XIX. A MENACE. - XX. DUKE SPEAKS. - XXI. THE CALM BEFORE. - XXII. THE SHADOW OF THE STORM. - XXIII. A LETTER AND AN ANSWER. - XXIV. LOST. - XXV. A LAST MESSAGE. - XXVI. FROM THE DEPTHS. - XXVII. AN UNEXPECTED MEETING. - XXVIII. THE TABLES TURNED. - XXIX. A SUDDEN DETERMINATION. - XXX. I GO HOME. - XXXI. ONE MYSTERY EXPLAINED. - XXXII. OLD PEGGY. - XXXIII. FACE TO FACE. - XXXIV. I VISIT A GRAVE. - XXXV. ONE SAD VISITOR. - XXXVI. I GO TO LONDON. - XXXVII. A FACE. - XXXVIII. A NIGHT PURSUIT. - XXXIX. A STRANGE VIGIL. - XL. A STORY AND ITS SEQUEL. - XLI. ACROSS THE WATER. - XLII. JASON’S SECOND VISIT. - XLIII. ANOTHER RESPITE. - XLIV. THE SECRET OF THE WHEEL. - XLV. I MAKE A DESCENT. - XLVI. CAUGHT. - XLVII. SOME ONE COMES AND GOES. - XLVIII. A FRUITLESS SEARCH. - XLIX. A QUIET WARNING. - L. STRICKEN DOWN. - LI. A MEETING ON THE BRIDGE. - LII. A WRITTEN WORD. - LIII. AN ATTEMPT AND A FAILURE. - LIV. A LAST CONFESSION. - LV. A SHADOW FROM THE PAST. - LVI. ALONE. - LVII. A PROMISE. - LVIII. THE “SPECTER HOUND.” - LIX. INTO THE DEPTHS. - LX. WHO KILLED MODRED? - - - - - THE MILL OF SILENCE. - -Yesterday came a knock at the door--a faint, tentative knock as from -childish knuckles--and I went to see who it was. A queer little figure -stood outside in the twilight--a dainty compendium of skirt and cape -and frothy white frills--and a small elfish face looked up into mine -through shimmering of hair, like love in a mist. - -“If you please,” she said, “Zyp’s dead and will you take care of poor -Zyp’s child?” - -Then at that moment the hard agony of my life broke its walls in a -blessed convulsion of weeping, and I caught the little wanderer to my -heart and carried her within doors. - -“And so poor Zyp is dead?” said I. - -“Yes,” answered the elfin; “and, please, will you give me back to her -some day?” - -“Before God’s throne,” I whispered, “I will deliver up my trust; and -that in such wise that from His mercy some little of the light of love -may, perhaps, shine upon me also.” - -That night I put my signature to the last page of the narrative here -unfolded. - - - - - CHAPTER I. - THE INMATES OF THE MILL. - -My story begins like a fairy tale. Once upon a time there was a miller -who had three sons. Here, however, the resemblance ceases. At this -late date I, the last stricken inmate of the Mill of Silence, set it -down for a warning and a menace; not entirely in despair, perhaps, but -with a fitful flickering of hope that at the last moment my soul may -be rent from me into a light it has never yet foreseen. - -We were three brothers, sons of a gray, old man, whose father, and his -father before him, had owned and run a flour mill in the ancient city -of Winton in Hampshire. This mill stood a little back from the north -side of the east and more deserted end of the High street, and faced a -little bridge--wooden in those days, but stone now--through which -raced the first of the mill fall that came thundering out from under -the old timber building, as though it had burst at a push some ancient -dam and were hurrying off to make up for lost ages of restraint. The -house, a broad single red-tiled gable, as seen from the bridge, stood -crushed in between other buildings, and in all my memory of it was a -crazy affair in appearance and ever in two minds about slipping into -the boisterous water below and so flushing all that quarter of the -town with an overflow, as it were, of its own ancient dropsy. It was -built right across the stream, with the mill wheel buried in its -heart; and I can recall a certain childish speculation as to the -results which would follow a possible relaxing of the house pressure -on either side; in which case I hopefully assumed the wheel would slip -out of its socket, and, carrying the frail bridge before it, roll -cheerfully down stream on its own axle to the huge delight of all -adventurous spirits. - -Our reputation in Winton was not, I am sorry to say, good. There was a -whispered legend of uncanniness about the mill itself, which might -mean little or nothing, and a notoriety with regard to its inmates -which did mean a good deal. The truth is, not to mince matters, that -my father was a terrible drunkard, and that his three sons--not the -eldest of whom retained more than a shadowy remembrance of a -long-departed mother’s influence--were from early years fostered in an -atmosphere that reeked with that one form of moral depravity. A quite -youthful recollection of mine is the sight of my father, thin, bent, -gray bearded, and with a fierce, not uncomely face, jerking himself to -sudden stoppages at points in the High street to apostrophize with -menacing fury the devils born of his disease. - -To the world about us my father was nothing but a worthless inebriate, -who had early abandoned himself to profligate courses, content to live -upon the little fortune left him by his predecessors and to leave his -children to run to seed as they listed in the stagnant atmosphere of -vice. What the world did not know was the secret side of my father’s -character--the wild, fierce imagination of the man; the creative -spirit of his healthier moods and the passionate reverence of beauty -which was as habitual to him as the craze for strong waters. - -He exercised a despotic influence over us, and we subscribed -admiringly to his rule with the snarling submissiveness of young tiger -cubs. I think the fragmentary divinity that nests in odd, neglected -corners of each and every frame of life, took some recognition of a -higher type from which it had inherited. Mentally, at his best, my -father was as much above us as, by some cantrip of fate, he was -superior to the sullen, plodding stock of which he was born. - -Three days out of the week he was drunk; vision-haunted, almost -unapproachable; and this had been so from time that was immemorial to -us. The period of compulsory education had not yet agitated the -community at large, and our intellects he permitted to run to grass -with our bodies. On our pursuits, pastoral, urban, and always -mischievous if occasion offered, he put no restraint whatever, yet -encouraged a sort of half-savage clannishness among us that held the -mill for fortress and the world for besiegers. - -Perhaps it was not until I was rising 18 that any speculation as to -the raison d’être of our manner of life began to stir in my brain. My -eldest brother, Jason, was then a tall, handsome fellow of 19, with a -crisp devil in his corn-colored hair and a silent one in his eyes, -that were shot with changing blue. Modred, the youngest, some eighteen -months my junior, was a contrast to Jason in every way. He was a -heavy, pasty boy, with an aggravating droop in his lids and a large -unspeculative face. He was entirely self-contained, armored against -satire and unmoved of the spirit of tears. A sounding smack on the -cheek, delivered in the one-sided heat of argument, brought his face, -like a stolid phantasm, projected toward the striker’s in a wooden -impassivity that was infinitely more maddening than abuse. It showed -no more resentment than a battered Aunt Sally’s, but rather assumed a -mockery of curiosity as to the bullying methods of the strong against -the weak. Speaking of him, I have no object but to present a portrait, -unprejudiced alike of regard or disfavor. This, I entreat, may be -borne in mind. - -One afternoon, in late April weather, Jason and I were loitering and -idling about some meadows within rifle shot of the old city outskirts. -We lay upon our faces in the long grass beside a clear, shallow burn, -intent upon sport less lawful than exciting. The country about Winton -is laced with innumerable streams and freshets and therein without -exception are trout in great quantity, though mostly shy to come at -from the little depth and extreme transparency of the water. That the -fishing is everywhere “preserved” goes without saying, and it follows -in order that poaching is pretty general. - -We were poaching, in truth, and extremely enjoying it as usual. Jason -held in his hand a willow wand, fitted with a line, which was baited -with a brandling fat from the manure heap. This it was essential to -swing gently, ourselves crouching hidden as far as possible, into the -liveliest streaks of the current where it ran cleanly over pebbles, -and to let it swim naturally downstream the length of the rod’s -tether. Occasionally, if not so often as one could wish, the plump -bait would lure some youngling, imperfect in guile, from security of -the stones and a sudden jerking of the tough willow would communicate -a galvanic thrill of excitement to our every fiber. The experience did -not stale by a too-frequent repetition, and was scarcely marred in our -eyes by the ever-present necessity of keeping a vigilant lookout for -baleful intruders on our privacy. Our worst foe, in this respect, was -a great bosom of chalk and turf, known as St. Catherine’s hill, which -rose directly in front of us some short distance on the further side -of the stream, and from which it was easy for any casual enemy to -detect our every movement. However, as fortune would have it, the hill -was but comparatively little favored of the townsfolk. - -“Ware!” said I, suddenly. - -Jason drew his line swiftly and horizontally from the water and -dropped it and the rod deftly under the fringe of the bank. - -We turned on our backs, lazily blinking at the sky. - -A figure was sauntering along by the side of the little river toward -us. It was that of an ill-dressed man of 45 or so, ball-jointed and -cadaverous, with a wet, wandering blue eye and light brick-colored -hair brushed back into rat-tails. His mouth was one pencil mark -twitched up at the corners, and his ears, large and shapeless, stood -up prominently like a bat’s. He carried his hands behind his back and -rolled his head from side to side as he walked. He espied us a long -way off and stopped presently, looking down upon us. - -“Sinews of whipcord,” he said, in a voice thin as his lips, “and -hearts of cats! What tomfoolery now?” - -My brother raised his head, yawning lazily. - -“Tom Fool hisself,” said he. - -“I am not,” said the newcomer, “near such a fool as I look. I can tell -the likeliest place for tickling trouts, now, anywhere.” - -Jason grunted. - -“And that’s the Itchen,” went on the other with an enjoying chuckle. - -We vouchsafed him a patronizing laughter. - -“Too good,” he said; “too good for lob worms and sand-hoppers. Where’s -the best place to find trouts, now--the little speckled trouts?” - -“Where?” said I. - -“Caught!” he cried, and pounced upon Jason. - -There was a short, bitter struggle between them, and the man, leaving -the boy sitting panting on the grass, leaped apart with a speckled -trophy held aloft in his hand. - -“Give it back!” cried my brother, rising, white and furious, “or I’ll -brain you!” He seized up a great lump of chalk as he spoke and -balanced it in his hand. - -“Softly,” said the other, very coolly slipping the trout into the wide -pocket of his coat. Jason watched him with glittering eyes. - -“Give it back to him, Dr. Crackenthorpe,” I cried, “or he’ll do you a -hurt!” - -In one moment the doctor dropped on his knees at the instant that the -missile spun over him and splashed among the marigolds far in the -meadow beyond; in the next Jason was down on his back again, with the -tall man’s knuckles at his throat and his bony knee planted on his -chest. - -“Puppy of Satan!” he hissed in grim fury. “D’ye dare to pursue me with -murderous hate!” - -Tooth and nail I fell upon the victor like a wild cat and tore at him. -His strength was marvelous. Holding my brother down with his left -hand, he swung his right behind his back, clutched me over, and rolled -us both together in a struggling heap. - -“Now,” said he, jumping to his feet and daring us, “move a muscle to -rise and I’ll hold your mouths under water for the frogs to dive in.” - -It was the only sort of argument that appealed to us--the argument of -resourceful strength that could strike and baffle at once. - -When he had recovered his breath sufficiently to laugh, Jason -tittered. From the first the fateful charm of my brother was the -pleasant music of his voice and the pliant adaptability of his moods. - -“Keep the fish, doctor,” he said; “we give in.” He always answered for -both of us. - -“Well,” said Dr. Crackenthorpe, “that’s wise.” He stepped back as he -spoke to signify that we might get on our feet, which we did. - -“I keep the trout,” he said, grandly, “in evidence, and shall cast -over in my mind the pros and cons of my duty to the authorities in the -matter.” - -At this, despite our discomfiture, we laughed like young hyenas. The -trout, we knew, was destined for the doctor’s own table. He was a -notorious skinflint, to whom sixpence saved from the cooking pot was a -coin redoubled of its face value. - -He made as if to continue his way, but paused again, and shot a -question at Jason. - -“Dad had any more finds?” - -“No,” said Jason, “and if he had you wouldn’t get ’em.” - -Dr. Crackenthorpe looked at the boy a minute, shrugged his shoulders -and moved off. - -And here, at this point, his question calls for some explanation. - -One day, some twelve months or so earlier than the incident just -described, we of the mill being all collected together for dinner and -my father just coming out of one of his drunken fits, a coin tinkled -on the floor and rolled into the empty fireplace, where it lay shining -yellow. My father, who had somehow jerked it out of his pocket from -the trembling of his hand, walked unsteadily across the room and stood -looking down upon it vacantly. There he remained for a minute or two, -we watching him, and from time to time shot a stealthy glance round at -one or other of us. Twice or thrice he made as if to pick it up, but -his heart apparently failed him, for he desisted. Suddenly, however, -he had it in his hand and stood fingering it, still watchful of us. - -“Well,” he said at last, “there it is for all the world to see,” and -placed it on the mantelpiece. Then he turned round to us expectant. - -“That coin,” he said, slowly, “was given me by a man who dug it up in -his garden hereabouts when he was forking potatoes. It’s ancient and a -curiosity. There it remains for ornament.” - -Now whether this was only some caprice of the moment or that he -dreaded that had he then and there pouched it some boyish spirit of -curiosity might tempt one or other of us to turn out his pockets in -search of the treasure when he was in one of his liquorish trances, -and so make further discoveries, we could never know. Anyhow, on the -mantelpiece the coin lay for some weeks; a contemptible little disk to -view, with an odd figure of an ill-formed mannikin stamped on one side -of it, and no one of us offered to touch it, until one day Dr. -Crackenthorpe paid us a visit. - -This worthy had only recently come to Winton, tempted hither, I think, -more by lure of antiquities than by any set determination to establish -a practice in the town. Indeed, in the result, as I have heard, his -fees for any given year would never have quarter filled a wineglass -unless paid in pence. He had a small private income and two -weaknesses--one a craze for coin collecting, the other a feverish -palate, which brought him acquainted with my father, in this -wise--that he encountered the old man one night when the latter was -complacently swerving into the Itchen at a point known as “The Weirs,” -where the water is deep, and conducted him graciously home. The next -day he called, and, it becoming apparent that fees were not his -object, a rough, queer acquaintance was struck up between the two men, -which brought the doctor occasionally to our mill at night for a pipe -and a glass. He was the only outsider ever admitted to our slightest -intimacy, with the single exception of a baneful old woman, known as -Peg Rottengoose, who came in every day to do the cooking and housework -and to steal what scraps she could. - -Now, on one of these visits, the doctor’s eye was casually caught by -the glint of the coin on the mantelpiece. He clawed it at once, and as -he examined it the man’s long, gaunt face lighted from inward with -enthusiasm. - -“Where did you get this?” he cried, his hands shaking with excitement. - -“A neighbor dug it up in his garden and gave it me. Let it be, can’t -you?” said my father, roughly. - -“Pooh, man! Such things are not given without reason. What was the -reason? Stay--tell me the name of the man.” - -I thought my father paled a little and shifted uneasily in his chair. - -“I tell you,” he said, hoarsely, “he gave it me.” - -“And I don’t believe it,” cried the other. “You found it yourself, and -where this came from more may be.” - -My father sprung to his feet. - -“Get out of my house!” he shouted, “and take your ‘may be’s’ to the -foul fiend!” - -Dr. Crackenthorpe placed his pipe and the coin very gently on the -table and walked stiffly to the door. He had almost reached it when my -father’s voice, quite changed and soft, stopped him. - -“Don’t take offense, man. Come and talk it over.” - -Dr. Crackenthorpe retraced his steps, resumed his chair, and sat -staring stonily at my father. - -“It’s true,” said the latter, dropping his eyes, “every word. It’s -true, sir, I tell you.” - -The doctor never spoke, and my father stole an anxious glance up at -him. - -“Well,” he said, with an effort; “anyhow, it’s a small matter to -separate cronies. I don’t know the value of these gimcracks, but as -you take pleasure in collecting ’em, I’ll--I’ll--come now, I’ll make -you a present of it.” - -The doctor became human once more, and for a second time clutched the -coin radiantly. My father heaved a profound sigh, but he never moved. - -“Well,” he said, “now you’ve got it, perhaps you’ll state the -particular value of that old piece of metal.” - -“It’s a gold Doric!” cried the doctor; “as rare a----” he checked -himself suddenly and went on with a ludicrous affectation of -indifference--“rare enough just to make it interesting. No intrinsic -value--none whatever.” - -A little wicked smile twitched up my father’s bearded cheeks. Each man -sat forward for some minutes pulling at his pipe; but it was evident -the effort of social commonplace was too much for Dr. Crackenthorpe. -Presently he rose and said he must be going. He was obviously on -thorns until he could secure his treasure in a safe place. For a -quarter of an hour after the door had closed behind him, my father sat -on gloomily smoking and muttering to himself. Then suddenly he woke to -consciousness of our presence and ordered us, savagely, almost madly, -off to bed. - -This explains the doctor’s question of Jason and is a necessary -digression. Now to the meadows once more and a little experience that -befell there after the intruder’s departure. - - - - - CHAPTER II. - A NIXIE. - -My brother tired of his fishing for the nonce, and for an hour we lay -on our backs in the grass chatting desultorily. - -“Jason,” said I, suddenly, “what do we live on?” - -“What we can get,” said my brother, sleepily. - -“But I mean--where does it come from; who provides it?” - -“Oh, don’t bother, Renny. We have enough to eat and drink and do as we -like. What more do you want?” - -“I don’t know. I want to know, that’s all. I can’t tell why. Where -does the money come from?” - -“Tom Tiddler. He was our grandfather.” - -“Don’t be a fool. Dad never worked the mill that we remember.” - -“But Tom Tiddler did before him.” - -“Not to the tune that would keep four loafers in idleness for sixteen -years.” - -“Well, I don’t care. Perhaps dad’s a highwayman.” - -I kicked at the grass impatiently. - -“It must end some day, you know.” - -Jason tilted his cap from his eyes and blinked at me. - -“What d’ye mean, piggy?” - -“Suppose dad died or went mad?” - -“We’d sell the mill and have a rare time of it.” - -“Oh, you great clown! Sell it for what? Driftwood? And how long would -the rare time last?” - -“You’re mighty particular to-day. I hate answering questions. Let me -alone.” - -“I won’t,” I said, viciously. “I want your opinion.” - -“Well, it’s that you’re a precious fool!” - -“What for?” - -“To bother your head with what you can’t answer, when the sun’s -shining.” - -“I can’t help bothering my head,” I said. “I’ve been bothering it, I -think, ever since dad gave old Crackenthorpe that medal last year.” - -Jason sat up. - -“So you noticed it, too,” he said. “Renny, there’s depths in the old -man that we sha’n’t plumb.” - -“Well, I’ve taken to thinking of things a bit,” said I. - -Jason--so named, at any period (I never saw a register of the -christening of any one of us) because of his golden fleece, shook it -and set to whistling softly. - -His name--Modred’s, too--mine was Renalt, and more local--were -evidence of my father’s superior culture as compared with most of his -class. They were odd, if you like, but having a little knowledge and -fancifulness to back them, gave proof of a certain sum of desultory -reading on his part; the spirit of which was transmitted to his -children. - -I was throwing myself back with a dissatisfied grunt, when of a sudden -a shrill screech came toward us from a point apparently on the river -path fifty yards lower down. We jumped to our feet and raced headlong -in the direction of the sound. Nothing was to be seen. It was not -until the cry was repeated, almost from under our very feet, that we -realized the reason of it. - -All about Winton the banks of the main streams are pierced at -intervals to admit runlets of clear water into the meadows below. Such -a boring there was of a goodish caliber at the point where we stopped; -and here the water, breaking through in a little fall, tumbled into a -stone basin, some three feet square and five deep, that was sunk to -its rim in a rough trench of the meadow soil. Into this brimming -trough a young girl had slipped and would drown in time, for, though -she clung on to the edge with frantic hands, her efforts to escape had -evidently exhausted her to such an extent that she could now do no -more than look up to us, as we stood on the bank above, with wild, -beseeching eyes. - -I was going to jump to her help, when Jason stayed me with his hand. - -“Hist, Renny!” he whispered. “I’ve never seen a body drown.” - -“Nor shall,” said I, hoping he jested. - -“Let me shove her hands off,” he said, in the same wondering tone. One -moment, with a shock, I saw the horrible meaning in his face; the -next, with a quick movement I had flung him down and jumped. He rose -at once with a slight cut on his lips, but before he could recover -himself I had the girl out by the hands and had stretched her limp and -prostrate on the grass. Then I paused, embarrassed, and he stood above -looking down upon us. - -“You’ll have to pay for that, Renny,” he said, “sooner or later”--and, -of course, I knew I should. - -“Turn the creature on her face, you dolt!” he continued, “and let the -water run out of her pipes.” - -I endeavored to comply, but the girl, always keeping her eyes shut, -resisted feebly. I dropped upon my knees and smoothed away the sodden -tresses from her face. Thus revealed it seemed an oddly pretty one; -the skin half transparent, like rice paper; the forehead rounding from -the nose like a kitten’s. But she never opened her eyes, so that I -could not see what was their color, though the lashes were black. - -Presently a horror seized me that she was dead, and I shook her pretty -roughly by the shoulder. - -“Oh,” she cried, with a whimper, “don’t!” - -I was so rejoiced at this evidence of life that I gave a whoop. Then I -bent over her. - -“It’s all right, girl,” I said; “you’re safe; I saved you.” - -Her lips were moving again and I stopped to listen. “What did he want -to drown me for?” she whispered. - -She was thinking of my brother, not of me. For a flash her eyes -opened, violet, like lightning, and glanced up at him standing above; -then they closed again. - -“Come,” I said, roughly; “if you can talk, you can get up.” - -The girl struggled into a sitting posture and then rose to her feet. -She was tall, almost as tall as I was, and about my age, I should -think. Her dress, so far as one could judge, it being sopped with -water, was a poor patched affair, and rough country shoes were on her -feet. - -“Take me somewhere, where I can dry,” she said, imperiously. “Don’t -let him come--he needn’t follow.” - -“He’s my brother,” I said. - -“I don’t care. He wanted to drown me; he didn’t know I can’t die by -water.” - -“Can’t you?” I said. - -“Of course not. I’m a changeling!” - -She said it with a childish seriousness that confounded me. - -“What made you one?” I asked. - -“The fairies,” she said, “and that’s why I’m here.” - -I was too bewildered to pursue the subject further. - -“How did you fall in there?” I asked. - -“I saw some little fish, like klinkents of rainbow, and wanted to -catch them; then I slipped and soused.” - -“Well,” I said, “where are you going now?” - -“With you,” she answered. - -I offered no resistance. I gave no thought to results, or to what my -father would say when this grotesque young figure should break into -his presence. Mechanically I started for home and she walked by my -side, chatting. Jason strode in our rear, whistling. - -“What a brute he must be!” she said once, jerking her head backward. - -“Leave him alone,” I said, “or we shall quarrel. What’s a girl like -you to him?” - -I think she hardly heard me, for the whistle had dropped to a very -mellow note. To my surprise I noticed that she was crying. - -“I thought changelings couldn’t cry?” I said. - -“I tell you water does not affect me,” she answered, sharply. “What a -mean spy you are--for a boy.” - -I was very angry at that and strode on with black looks, whereupon she -edged up to me and said, softly: “Don’t be sore with me, don’t.” - -I shrugged my shoulders. - -“Let’s kiss and be friends,” she whispered. - -For the first time in my life I blushed furiously. - -“You beast,” I said, “to think that men would kiss!” - -She gave me a sounding smack on the shoulder and I turned on her -furiously. - -“Oh, yes!” she cried, “hit out at me, do! It’s like you.” - -“I won’t touch you!” I said. “But I won’t have anything more to do -with you,” and I strode on, fuming. She followed after me and -presently I heard her crying again. At this my anger evaporated and I -turned round once more. - -“Come on,” I said, “if you want to, and keep a civil tongue in your -head.” - -Presently we were walking together again. - -“What’s your home, Renny?” she asked, by and by. - -“A mill,” I answered, “but nothing is ground there now.” - -She stopped and so did I, and she looked at me curiously, with her red -lips parted, so that her teeth twinkled. - -“What’s the matter?” said I. - -“Nothing,” she said, “only I remember an old, old saying that the -woman told me.” - -“What woman?” I asked, in wonder, but she took no notice of my -question, only repeated some queer doggerel that ran somewhat as -follows: - - “Where the mill race is - Come and go faces. - Once deeds of violence; - Now dust and silence. - Thither thy destiny - Answer what speaks to thee.” - - - - - CHAPTER III. - THE MILL AND THE CHANGELING. - -The outer appearance of the old mill in which we lived and grew up I -have touched upon; and now I take up my pen to paint in black and -white the old, moldering interior of the shell. - -The building stood upon a triple arch of red brick that spanned the -stream, and extended from shore to shore, where, on each side, a house -of later date stood cheek to jowl with it. It looked but an -indifferent affair as viewed from the little bridge aforesaid, which -was dedicated to St. Swithun of watery memory, but in reality extended -further backward than one might have suspected. Moreover, to the east -side a longish wing, with a ridged roof of tiles, ran off at right -angles and added considerably to the general dimensions. To the west -stood a covered yard, where once the mill wagons were packed or -unloaded; but this, in all my memory of it, yawned only a dusty spave, -given over to the echoes and a couple of ancient cart wheels whose -rusty tires and worm-pierced hubs were mute evidence of an inglorious -decay. - -These were for all to see--but behind the walls! - -Was the old mill uncanny from the first, or is it only the ghosts with -which our generation of passions has peopled it that have made it so? -This I can say: That I never remember a time when Jason or I, or even -Zyp, dared to be in the room of silence alone--and in company never -for more than a few minutes. Modred had not the same awe of it, but -Modred’s imagination was a swaddled infant. For my father I will not -speak. Maybe he was too accustomed to specters to dread them. - -This room was one on the floor above the water, and the fact that it -harbored the mill wheel, whose booming, when in motion, shook the -stagnant air with discordant sounds, may have served as some -explanation of its eeriness. It stood against the east wing and away -from the yard, and was a dismal, dull place, like a loft, with black -beams above going off into darkness. Its only light came from a square -little window in front that was bleared with dust and stopped outside -with a lacework of wire. Against its western wall was reared a huge -box or cage of wood, which was made to contain the upper half of the -wheel, with its ratchet and shaft that went up to the great stones on -the floor above; for the mill race thundered below, and when the great -paddles were revolving the water slapped and rent at the woodwork. - -Now it behooves me to mention a strange fancy of my father’s--which -was this, that though no grain or husk in our day ever crumbled -between the stones, the wheel was forever kept in motion, as if our -fortunes lay in grinding against impalpable time. The custom was in -itself ghostly, and its regularity was interrupted only at odd -moments, and those generally in the night, when, lying abed upstairs, -we boys would become conscious of a temporary cessation of the -humming, vibrating noise that was so habitual to the place. To this -fancy was added a strange solicitude on the part of my father for the -well-being of the wheel itself. He would disappear into the room of -silence twice or thrice a day to oil and examine it, and if rarely any -tinkering was called for we knew it by the sound of the closing of the -sluice and of the water rush swerving round by another channel. - -Now, for the time I have said enough, and with a sigh return to that -May afternoon and little Zyp, the changeling. - -She followed me into the mill so quietly that I hardly heard her step -behind me. When I looked back her eyes were full of a strange -speculation and her hands crossed on her breast, as if she prayed. She -motioned me forward and I obeyed, marveling at my own submission. I -had no slightest idea what I was to say to my father or what propose. -We found him seated by the table in the living room upstairs, a bottle -and glass before him. The weekly demon was beginning to work, but had -not yet obtained the mastery. He stared at us as we entered, but said -nothing. - -Then, to my wonder, Zyp walked straight up to the old man, pulled his -arms down, sat upon his knee and kissed his rutted cheek. I gave a -gasp that was echoed by Jason, who had followed and was leaning -against the lintel of the open door. Still my father said nothing and -I trembled at the ominous silence. At last in desperation I stammered, -and all the time Zyp was caressing the passive face. - -“Dad, the girl fell into the water and I pulled her out, and here she -is.” - -Then at length my father said in a harsh, deep voice: - -“You pulled her out? What was Jason there doing?” - -“Waiting for her to drown,” my brother answered for himself, defiantly -forestalling conviction. - -My father put the girl from him, strode furiously across the room, -seized Jason by one arm and gave him several cruel, heavy blows across -his shoulders and the back of his head. The boy was half stunned, but -uttered no cry, and at every stroke Zyp laughed and clapped her hands. -Then, flinging his victim to the floor, from which he immediately rose -again and resumed his former posture by the door, pale but unsubdued, -my father returned to his seat and held the girl at arm’s length -before him. - -“Who are you?” he said. - -She answered, “A changeling,” in a voice soft as flowers. - -“What’s your name?” - -“Zyp.” - -“Your other name?” - -“Never mind; Zyp’s enough.” - -“Is it? Where do you come from? What brings you here?” - -“Renny brought me here because I love him.” - -“Love him? Have you ever met before?” - -“No; but he pulled me out of the water.” - -“Come--this won’t do. I must know more about you.” - -She laughed and put out her hand coaxingly. - -“Shall I tell you? A little, perhaps. I am from a big forest out west -there, where wheels drone like hornets among the trees and black men -rise out of the ground. I have no father or mother, for I come of the -fairies. Those who stood for them married late and had a baby and they -delayed to christen it. One day the baby was gone and I was there. -They knew me for a changeling from the first and didn’t love me. But I -lived with them for all that and they got to hate me more and more. -Not a cow died or a gammer was wryed wi’ the rheumatics but I had done -it. Bit by bit the old man lost all his trade and loved me none the -more, I can tell you. He was a Beast Leech, and where was the use of -the forest folk sending for him to mend their sick kine when he kept a -changeling to undo it all? At last they could stand no more of it and -the woman brought me away and lost me.” - -“Lost you?” echoed my father. - -“Oh,” said Zyp, with a little cluck, “I knew all along how the tramp -was to end. There was an old one, a woman, lived in the forest, and -she told me a deal of things. She knew me better than them all, and I -loved her because she was evil, so they said. She told me some rhymes -and plenty of other things.” - -“Well?” said my father. - -“We walked east by the sun for days and days. Then we came to the top -of a big, soft hill, where little beetles were hopping among the -grass, and below us was a great town like stones in a green old -quarry, and the woman said: ‘Run down and ask the name of it while I -rest here.’ And I ran with the wind in my face and was joyful, for I -knew that she would escape when I was gone, and I should never see her -again.” - -“And then you tumbled into the water?” said my father. - -Zyp nodded. - -“And now,” she said, “I belong to nobody, and will you have me?” - -My father shook his head, and in a moment sobs most piteous were -shaking the girl’s throat. So forlorn and pretty a sight I have never -seen before or since. - -“Well,” he said, “if nobody comes to claim you, you may stop.” - -And stop Zyp did. Surely was never an odder coming, yet from that day -she was one of us. - -What was truthful and what imaginative in her story I have never -known, for from first to last this was the most we heard of it. - -One thing was certain. Zyp was by nature a child of the open air and -the sun. Flowers that were wild she loved--not those that were -cultivated, however beautiful, of which she was indifferent--and she -had an unspeakable imagination in reading their fanciful histories and -a strange faculty for fondling them, as it were, into sentient beings. -I can hardly claim belief when I say that I have seen a rough nettle -fade when she scolded it for stinging her finger, or a little yellow -rock rose turn from the sun to her when she talked to it. - -Zyp never plucked a flower, or allowed us to do so if she could -prevent it. I well remember the first walk I took with her after her -establishment in the mill, when I was attracted by a rare little -blossom, the water chickweed, which sprouted from a grassy trench, and -pulled it for her behoof. She beat me savagely with her soft hands, -then fell to kissing and weeping over the torn little weed, which -actually appeared to revive a moment under her caresses. I had to -promise with humility never to gather another wild flower so long as I -lived, and I have been faithful to my trust. - -The afternoon of her coming old Peg rigged her up some description of -sleeping accommodation in a little room in the attic, and this became -her sanctuary whenever she wished to escape us and be alone. To my -father she was uniformly sweet and coaxing, and he for his part took a -strange fancy to her, and abated somewhat of his demoniacal moodiness -from the date of her arrival. - -Yet it must not be imagined, from this description of her softer side, -that Zyp was all tender pliability. On the contrary, in her general -relations with us and others as impure human beings, she was the -veritable soul of impishness, and played a thousand pranks to prove -her title to her parentage. - -At first she made a feint of distributing her smiles willfully, by -turn, between Modred and me, so that neither of us might claim -precedence. But Jason was admitted to no pretense of rivalry; though, -to do him justice, he at once took the upper hand by meeting scorn -with indifference. In my heart, however, I claimed her as my especial -property; a demand justified, I felt no doubt, by her manner toward -me, which was marked by a peculiar rebellious tenderness she showed to -no other. - -The day after her arrival she asked me to take her over the mill and -show her everything. I complied when the place was empty of all save -us. We explored room by room, with a single exception, the ancient -building. - -Of course Zyp said: “There’s a room you haven’t shown me, Renny.” - -“Yes,” said I; “the room of silence.” - -“Why didn’t we go there?” - -“Never mind. There’s something wicked in it.” - -“What? Do tell me! Oh, I should love to see!” - -“There’s nothing to see. Let it alone, can’t you?” - -“You’re a coward. I’ll get the sleepy boy to show me.” - -“Come along then,” I said, and, seizing her hand, dragged her roughly -indoors. - -We crossed a dark passage, and, pushing back a heavy door of ancient -timber, stood on the threshold of the room of silence. It was not in -nature’s meaning that the name was bestowed, for, entering, the full -voice of the wheel broke upon one with a grinding fury that shook the -moldering boards of the floor. - -“Well,” I whispered, “have you seen enough?” - -“I see nothing,” she cried, with a shrill, defiant laugh; “I am going -in”--and before I could stop her, she had run into the middle of the -room and was standing still in the bar of sunlight, with her arms -outspread like wings, and her face, the lips apart, lifted with an -expression on it of eager inquiry. - -What happened? I can find an image only in the poison bottle of the -entomologist. As some shining, flower-stained butterfly, slipped into -this glass coffin, quivers, droops its wings and fades, as it were, in -a moment before its capturer’s eyes, so Zyp faded before mine. Her -arms dropped to her sides, her figure seemed as if its whole buoyancy -were gone at a touch, her face fell to a waxen color and “Oh, take me -away!” she wailed in a thin, strangled voice. - -I conquered my terror, rushed to her, and, dragging her stumbling and -tripping from the room, banged to the door behind us and made for the -little platform once more and the open air. - -She revived in a wonderfully short space of time, and, lifting up her -head, looked into my eyes with her own wide with dismay. - -“It was hideous,” she whispered; “why didn’t you stop me?” - -Zyp, it will be seen, was not all elf. She had something in common -with her sex. - -“I warned you,” I said, “and I know what you felt.” - -“It was as if a question was being asked of me,” she said, in a low -voice. “And yet no one spoke and there was no question. I don’t know -what it wanted or what were the words, for there were none; but I feel -as if I shall have to go on thinking of the answer and struggling to -find it forever and ever.” - -“Yes,” I whispered, in the same tone; “that is what everybody says.” - -She begged me not to follow her, and crept away quite humbled and -subdued, and we none of us saw more of her that day. But just as she -left me she turned and whispered in awe-stricken tone, “Answer what -speaks to thee,” and I could not remember when and where I had heard -these words before. - - - - - CHAPTER IV. - ZYP BEWITCHES. - -In the evening Dr. Crackenthorpe paid us a visit. He found my father -out, but elected to sit with us and smoke his pipe expectant of the -other’s return. - -He always treated us boys as if we were so much dirt, and we respected -his strength just sufficiently to try no pranks on him in the absence -of the ruling power. But nevertheless we resented his presumption of -authority, and whenever he sat with us alone made an exaggerated -affectation of being thick in whispered confidences among ourselves. - -Zyp was still upstairs and the doctor had not as yet seen her, but he -was conscious, I think, in some telepathic way, of an alien presence -in the house, for he kept shifting his position uneasily and looking -toward the door. A screech from his lips suddenly startled us, and we -turned round to see the long man standing bolt upright, with his face -gone the color of a meal sack, and his bold eyes staring prominent. - -“What’s the matter?” said Jason. - -Gradually the doctor’s face assumed a dark look of rage. - -“Which of you was it?” he cried in a broken voice; “tell me, or I’ll -crack all your fingers up like fire sticks!” - -“What’s the matter?” said Jason, again; “you see for yourself we’ve -been sitting by the table all the time you’ve been there.” - -“Something spoke--somebody, I tell you, as I sat here in the chimney -corner!” He was beside himself with fury and had great ado to crush -his emotion under. But he succeeded, and sat down again trembling all -over. - -“A curse is on the house!” he muttered; then aloud: “I’ve had enough -of your games, you black vermin! I won’t stand it, d’ye hear? Let -there be an end!” - -We stared, dropped into our seats and were beginning our confidences -once more, when the doctor started up a second time with a loud oath, -and leaped into the middle of the room. - -“Great thunder!” he shouted; “d’ye dare!” - -This time we had all heard it--a wailing whisper that seemed to come -from the neighborhood of the chimney and to utter the words: “Beware -the demon that sits in the bottle,” and of the whole company only I -was not confounded. - -As to the doctor, he suddenly turned very white again, and muttered -shakingly: “Can it be? I don’t exceed as others do. I swear I have -taken less this month than ever before.” - -With the terror in his soul he stumbled toward the door and was moving -out his hand to reach it, when it opened from the other side and Zyp, -as meek and pure looking as a young saint, met him on the threshold. - -Now, I had that morning, in the course of conversation with the -changeling, touched upon Dr. Crackenthorpe and his weaknesses, and -that ghostly mention of the bottle convinced me on the moment that -only she could be responsible for the mystery--a revelation of -impishness which, I need not say, delighted me. The method of her -prank I may as well describe here. The embrasure for a fireplace in -her room had never been fitted with a grate, and the hearthstone -itself was cracked and dislocated in a dozen places. By removing some -of these fragments she had actually discovered a broken way into the -chimney of the sitting room below, down which it was easy to slip a -hollow rail of iron which with other lumber lay in the attic. This she -had done, listened for her opportunity, and thereupon spoken the -ominous words. - -I think her appearance was the consummation of the doctor’s terror, -for a shuddering “Oh!” shook from his lips, and he seemed about to -drop. And indeed she was somewhat like a spirit, with her wild white -face looking from a tangle of pheasant-brown hair and her solemn eyes -like water glints in little wells of shadow. - -She walked past the stricken man all stately, and then Modred and I -jumped up and greeted her. At this the doctor’s jaw dropped, but his -trembling ceased and he watched us with injected eyes. Holding my two -hands, Zyp looked coyly round, leaning backward. - -“I love a tall man,” she whispered; “he has more in him than a short -one.” - -The doctor pulled himself together and came straggling across to the -table. - -“Who the pestilence is this?” he said, in a voice not yet quite under -his command. - -Zyp let go my hands and curtsied like a wild flower. - -“Zyp, the orphan, good gentleman,” she said; “shall I fill your pipe -for you?” - -It had fallen on the floor by the chimney, and she picked it up and -went to him with a winning expression. - -“Where is your tobacco, please?” - -Mechanically he brought a round tin box from his pocket and handed it -to her. Then it was a study in elfin coquetry to see the way in which -she daintily coaxed the weed into the bowl and afterward sucking at -the pipe stem with her determined little red lips to see if it drew -properly. This done, she presented the mouthpiece to the doctor’s -consideration, as if it were a baby’s “comforter.” - -“Now,” she said, “sit down and I’ll bring you your glass.” - -But at this the four of us, including Dr. Crackenthorpe, drew back. My -father was no man to allow his pleasures to be encroached upon -unbidden, and we three, at least, knew it as much as our skins were -worth to offer practical hospitality in his absence. - -Zyp looked at our faces and stamped her foot lively, with a toss of -disdain. - -“Where is the strong drink?” she said. - -Modred tittered. “In that cupboard over the mantel shelf, if you must -know,” he said. - -Zyp had the bottle out in a twinkling and a glass with it. She poured -out a stiff rummer, added water from a stone bottle on a corner shelf, -and presented the grateful offering to the visitor, who had reseated -himself by the table. - -His scruples of conscience and discretion grew faint in the near -neighborhood of the happy cordial. He seized the glass and impulsively -took half the grog at a breath. Zyp clapped her hands joyfully, -whereupon he clumped down the glass on the table with a dismayed look. - -“Well,” he said, “you’re an odd little witch, upon my word. What Robin -Goodfellow fathered you, I should like to know?” - -“He’s no father,” said Zyp. “He’s too full of tricks for a family man. -I could tell you things of him.” - -“Tell us some then,” said the doctor. - -What Zyp would have answered I don’t know, for at that moment my -father walked into the room. If he had had what is vulgarly called a -skinful, he was not drunk, for he moved steadily up to the little -group at the table with a scowl contracting his forehead. The -half-emptied tumbler had caught his eye immediately and he pointed to -it. I was conscious that the doctor quaked a little. - -“Pray make yourself at home,” said my father, and caught up the glass -and flung its contents in the other’s face. In a moment the two men -were locked in a savage, furious embrace, till, crashing over a chair, -they were flung sprawling on the floor and apart. Before they could -come together again Zyp alone of us had placed herself between them, -fearless and beautiful, and had broken into a quaint little song: - - “Smooth down her fur, - Rub sleep over her eyes, - Sweet, never stir. - Kiss down the coat of her - There, where she lies - On the bluebells.” - -She sung, and whether it was the music or the strangeness of the -interruption, I shall never know; only the wonderful fact remains -that, with the sound of her voice, the great passion seemed to die out -of the two foes and to give place to a pleasant conceit, comical in -its way, that they had only been rollicking together. - -“Well,” said my father, without closer allusion to his brutality, “the -liquor was choice Schiedam, and it’s gone.” - -He sat down, called for another glass, helped himself to a noggin and -pushed the bottle roughly across to Dr. Crackenthorpe, who had already -reseated himself opposite. - -“Sing again, girl,” said my father, but Zyp shook her head. - -“I never do anything to order,” she said, “but the fairies move me to -dance.” - -She blew out the lamp as she spoke and glided to a patch of light that -fell from the high May moon through the window on to the rough boards -of the room. Into this light she dipped her hands and then passed them -over her hair and face as though she were washing herself in the -mystic fountain of the night; and all the time her murmuring voice -accompanied the action in little trills of laughter and words not -understandable. Presently she fell to dancing, slowly at first and -dividing her presence between glow and gloom; but gradually the supple -motion of her body increased, step by step, until she was footing it -as wildly as a young hamadryad to her own leaping shadow on the floor. - -Suddenly she sprung from the moonlit square, danced over to Dr. -Crackenthorpe and, whispering awfully in his ear, “Beware the demon -that sits in the bottle,” ran from the room. - -My father burst into a fit of laughter, but I think from that day the -doctor fully hated her. - - - - - CHAPTER V. - A TERRIBLE INTERVIEW. - -Zyp had been with us a month, and surely never did changeling happen -into a more congenial household. - -Jason she still held at arm’s length, which, despite my admiration of -my brother, I secretly congratulated my heart on, for--let me get over -it at the outset--from first to last, I have never wavered in my -passion of love for this wild, beautiful creature. The unexpectedness -of her coming alone was a romance, the delight of which has never -palled upon me with the deadening years. Therefore it was that I early -made acquaintance with the demon of jealousy, than whom none, in -truth, is more irresistible in his unclean strength and hideousness. - -Zyp and I were one day wandering under the shadow of the mighty old -cathedral of Winton. - -“I don’t like it, Renny,” she said, pressing up close to me. “It’s -awful and it’s grand, but there are always faces at the windows when I -look up at them.” - -“Whose?” I said, with a laugh. - -“I don’t know,” she said; “but think of the thousands of old monks and -things whose home it was once and whose ghosts are shut up among the -stones. There!” she cried, pointing. - -I looked at the old leaded window she indicated, but could see -nothing. - -“His face is like stone and he’s beckoning,” she whispered. “Oh, come -along, Renny”--and she dragged me out of the grassy yard and never -stopped hurrying me on till we reached the meadows. Here her gayety -returned to her, and she felt at home among the flowers at once. - -Presently we wandered into a grassy covert against a hedge on the -further side of which a road ran, and threw ourselves among the “sauce -alone” and wild parsley that grew there. Zyp was in one of her softest -moods and my young heart fluttered within me. She leaned over me as I -sat and talked to me in a low voice, with her fair young brow gone -into wrinkles of thoughtfulness. - -“Renny, what’s love that they talk about?” - -I laughed and no doubt blushed. - -“I mean,” she said, “is it blue eyes and golden hair or brown eyes and -brown hair? Don’t be silly, little boy, till you know what I mean.” - -“Well, what do you mean, Zyp?” - -“I want to know, that’s all. Renny, do you remember my asking to kiss -and be friends that day we first met, and your refusing?” - -“Yes, Zyp,” I stammered. - -“You may kiss me now, if you like,” and she let herself drop into my -arms, as I sat there, and turned up her pretty cheek to my mouth. - -My blood surged in my ears. I was half-frightened, but all with a -delicious guilt upon me. I bent hastily and touched the soft pink -curve with my trembling lips. - -She lay quite still a moment, then sat up and gently drew away from -me. - -“No,” she said, “that isn’t it. Shall I ever know, I wonder?” - -“Know what, Zyp?” - -“Never mind, for I shan’t tell you. There, I didn’t mean to be rude,” -and she stroked the sleeve of my jacket caressingly. - -By and by she said: “I wonder if you will suffer, Renny, poor boy? I -would save you all if I could, for you’re the best of them, I -believe.” - -Her very words were so inexplicable to me that I could only sit and -stare at her. I have construed them since, with a knife through my -heart for every letter. - -As we were sitting silent a little space, steps sounded down the road -and voices with them. They were of two men, who stopped suddenly, as -they came over against us, hidden behind the hedge, as if to clinch -some argument, but we had already recognized the contrary tones of my -father and Dr. Crackenthorpe. - -“Now, harkee!” the doctor was saying; “that’s well and good, but I’m -not to be baffled forever and a day, Mr. Ralph Trender. What does it -all amount to? You’ve got something hidden up your sleeve and I want -to know what it is.” - -“Is that all?” My father spoke in a set, deep manner. - -“That’s all, and enough.” - -“Then, look up my sleeve, Dr. Crackenthorpe--if you can.” - -“I don’t propose to look. I suggest that you just shake it, when no -doubt the you-know-whats will come tumbling out.” - -“And if I refuse?” - -“There are laws, my friend, laws--iniquitous, if you like; but, for -what they are, they don’t recognize the purse on the highway as the -property of him that picks it up.” - -“And how are you going to set these laws in motion?” - -“We’ll insert the end of the wedge first--say in some public print, -now. How would this look? We have it on good authority that Mr. -Trender, our esteemed fellow-townsman, is the lucky discoverer of----” - -“Be silent, you!” My father spoke fiercely; then added in a low tone: -“D’ye wish all the world to know?” - -“Not by any means,” said the other, quietly, “and they shan’t if you -fall in with my mood.” - -“If I only once had your head in the mill wheel,” groaned my father, -with a curse. “Now, harken! I don’t put much value on your threat; but -this I’ll allow that I court no interference with my manner of life. -Take the concession for what it is worth. Come to me by and by and you -shall have another.” - -“A couple,” said the doctor. - -“Very well--no more, though I rot for it--and take my blessing with -them.” - -“When shall I come?” said the doctor, ignoring the very equivocal -benediction. - -“Come to-night--no, to-morrow,” said my father, and turning on his -heel strode heavily off toward the town. - -I heard the doctor chuckling softly with a malignant triumph in his -note. - -I clenched my teeth and fists and would have risen had not Zyp -noiselessly prevented me. It was wormwood to me; the revelation that, -for some secret cause, my father, the strong, irresistible and -independent, was under the thumb of an alien. But the doctor walked -off and I fell silent. - -On our homeward way we came across Jason lying on his back under a -tree, but he took no notice of us nor answered my call, and Zyp -stamped her foot when I offered to delay and speak to him. -Nevertheless I noticed that more than once she looked back, as long as -he was in view, to see if he was moved to any curiosity as to our -movements, which he never appeared to be in the least. - -Great clouds had been gathering all the afternoon, and now the first -swollen drops of an advancing thunderstorm spattered in the dust -outside the yard. Inside it was as dark as pitch, and I had almost to -grope my way along the familiar passages. Zyp ran away to her own den. - -Suddenly, with a leap of the blood, I saw that some faintly pallid -object stood against the door of the room of silence as I neared it. -It was only with an effort I could proceed, and then the thing -detached itself and was resolved into the white face of my brother -Modred. - -“Is that you, Renny?” he said, in a loud, tremulous voice. - -“Yes,” I answered, very shakily myself. “What in the name of mystery -are you doing there?” - -“I feel queer,” he said. “Let’s get to the light somewhere.” - -We made our way to the back, opened the door leading on to the little -platform and stood looking at the stringed rain. Modred’s face was -ghastly and his eyes were awakened to an expression that I had never -thought them capable of. - -“You’ve been in there?” I said. - -“Yes,” he whispered. - -“More fool you. If you like to tempt the devil you should have the -brass to outface him. Why, you’ve got it!” I cried, for he suddenly -let fall from his trembling hand a little round glittering object, -whose nature I could not determine in the stormy twilight. - -He had it in his clutch again in a moment, though I pounced for it, -and then he backed through the open doorway. - -“It’s naught that concerns you,” he said; “keep off, you beast!” - -“What is it?” I cried. - -“Water-parings,” said he, and clapped to the door in my face as I -rushed at him, and I heard him scuttle upstairs. The latch caught me -in the chest and knocked my breath out for a bit, so that I was unable -to follow, and probably he ran and bolted himself into his bedroom. In -any case, I had no mind for pursuit, my heart being busy with other -affairs; and there I remained and thought them out. Presently, being -well braced to the ordeal, I went indoors and upstairs to the living -room, where I was persuaded I should find my father. And there he sat, -pretty hot with drink and with a comfortless, glowering devil in his -eyes. - -“Well!” he thundered, “what do you want?” - -I managed to get out, with some firmness, “A word with you, dad,” -though his eyes disquieted me. - -“Make it one, then, and a quick one!” - -“Zyp and I were sitting behind a hedge this afternoon when you and Dr. -Crackenthorpe were at words on the other side.” - -His eyes shriveled me, but the motion of his lips seemed to signify to -me that I was to go on. - -“Dad, if he has any hold over you, let me share the bother and help if -I can.” - -He had sat with his right hand on the neck of the bottle from which he -had been drinking, and he now flung the latter at me, with a snarl -like that of a mad dog. Fortunately for me, in the very act some flash -of impulse unnerved him, so that the bottle spun up to the ceiling and -crashed down again to the floor, from which the scattered liquor sent -up a pungent, sickening odor. Then he leaped to his feet and yelled at -me. I could make nothing of his words, save that they clashed into one -another in a torrent of furious invective. But in the midst his voice -stopped, with a vibrating snap; he put his hand to his forehead, -which, I saw with horror, was suddenly streaked with purple, and down -he sunk to the floor in a heap. - -I was terribly frightened, and, running to him, endeavored in a -frantic manner to pull him into a sitting posture. I had half -succeeded, when, lying propped up against the leg of the table, he -gave a groan and bade me in a weak voice to let him be; and presently -to my joy I saw the natural color come back to his face by slow -degrees. By and by he was able to slide into the chair he had left, -where he lay panting and exhausted, but recovering. - -“Renalt, my lad,” he said, in a dragging voice, “what was that you -said just now? Let’s have it again.” - -I hesitated, but he smiled at me and bade me not to fear. Thus -encouraged, I repeated my statement. - -“Ah,” he said; “and the girl--did she hear?” - -“She couldn’t help it, dad. But she can’t have noticed much, for she -never even referred to it afterward.” - -“Which looks bad, and so much for your profound knowledge of the sex.” - -He looked at me keenly for some moments from under his matted -eyebrows; then muttered as if to himself: - -“Here’s a growing lad, and loyal, I believe. What if I took him a yard -into my confidence?” - -“Oh, yes, dad,” I said, eagerly. “You can trust me, indeed you can. I -only want to be of some use.” - -He slightly shook his head, then seemed to wake up all of a sudden. - -“There,” he said; “be off, like a good boy, and don’t worry me a -second time. You meant well, and I’m not offended.” - -“Yes, dad,” I said a little sadly, and was turning to go, when he -spoke to me again: - -“And if the girl should mention this matter--you know what--to you, -say what I tell you now--that Dr. Crackenthorpe thinks your father can -tell him where more coins are to be found like the one I gave him that -night; but that your father can’t and is under no obligation to Dr. -Crackenthorpe--none whatever.” - -So I left him, puzzled, a little depressed, but proud to be the -recipient of even this crumb of confidence on the part of so reserved -and terrible a man. - -Still I could not but feel that there was something inconsistent in -his words to me and those I had heard him address to the doctor. -Without a doubt his utterances on the road had pointed to a certain -recognition of the necessity of bribing the other to silence. - - - - - CHAPTER VI. - THE NIGHT BEFORE. - -Full of dissatisfaction I wandered into the shed and loitered -aimlessly about. As I stood there Jason came clattering homeward, his -coat collar turned up and his curly head bowed to the deluge. - -“So you got home before me?” he said, shaking himself and squeezing -his cap out as he spoke. - -“Yes; we came straight.” - -“It was lovely in the meads, wasn’t it?” said he, with an odd glance -at me. - -“It’s been lovely all this May,” said I. - -“And that means a fat churchyard. Old Rottengoose says: ‘A cold May -and windy makes a full barn and findy.’ A queer one, old Peg is. She’d -die if she cast a woolen before the first of June. I wonder what she’d -think of sitting under a hedge in a northeaster?” - -I started a little and shot a look askance at my brother. Could he -have seen us? But his next words reassured me. - -“Or of falling asleep in the shade, as I did, till the rain on my face -woke me up.” - -“Then you didn’t see us pass----” I began and stopped. - -“See what? I saw nothing but my eyelids and the sky through ’em.” - -I gave a sigh of relief. My feelings toward Zyp were boyish and -bashful and innocent enough, heaven knows; but in the shadow of my -rough past they were beginning to glimmer out so strange and sweet -that the merest suspicion of their incurring publicity filled me with -a shame-faced terror of ridicule that was agony. - -Freed from this dread, I fell into an extreme of garrulity that landed -me in a quagmire of discomfiture. - -After I had thus talked for a while, rather disconnectedly, he -interrupted me. - -“Renny,” he said, “you’re pretty fond of the girl, aren’t you?” - -I heard him with a little shock of surprise. - -“Not that I care,” he went on, airily, “except for your sake, old -boy.” - -“What do you mean?” I said. - -“We’re up to a thing or two, aren’t we?” said he, “but she’s fifty -tricks to our one.” - -“She has her good points, Jason.” - -“Oh, yes; lots of them. So many that it hardly seems worth while -noticing her setting you up against me.” - -“She’s never done anything of the sort!” I cried, hotly. - -“Hasn’t she? Well, that’s all right, and we can be chums again. I only -wanted to warn you against putting faith in a chit that can wear a new -face easier than her dress, to you, or Modred, or--or any one.” - -“Modred!” I cried, in astonishment. - -“Oh, don’t suppose,” he said, “that you’re sole lord of her heart.” - -“I never did suppose it,” I answered, thickly. “Why should I? She’s -free to fancy whom she likes”--but my heart sunk within me. - -“Yes; that’s the way to look at it,” he said. “You wouldn’t think she -could find much to admire in that fatty, now, would you?” - -“How do you know she does?” - -“I do know--that’s enough.” - -“Well, isn’t he a sort of brother to her?” I said--with a courageous -effort--“as we all are.” - -“Of course. That’s it.” - -“And I don’t know what you mean by ‘any one’ else.” - -“Don’t you?” He laughed and flung away a stone he had been idly -playing with. “Well, I meant Modred, or--or any one else.” - -“Who else?” - -“Dad, say--or Dr. Crackenthorpe.” - -“Oh, you’re an idiot!” I cried; “I won’t talk to you”--and I left him -and ran indoors. - -But he had driven the sting home and the poison already worked -furiously in me. How can I explain why? It was true, what he had said, -every word of it. She had set me against him, Jason--not in words, but -by a tacit conviction of him as one who had of his own act bared his -soul momentarily, and revealed a sinister brand across it hitherto -unguessed at. - -Well, this was the first waking from the boyish dream, and should I -ever dream it again? I had said we were all in a manner her brothers, -and that she was free to smile on whom she chose. What a pitiful -handful of dust for all eyes but my own! I felt the passion of longing -for her single love surge in me as I spoke. I had never till that -moment dreamed of combating another for possession of it. She had -seemed mine by right of fortune’s gift from the first, nor had she by -her behavior appeared to question the right. We had confidences, -discussions, little secrets together, which none but we might share -in. We walked and talked and leaned toward one another, with a sense -of mutual understanding that was pathetic, I am sure--at least as to -my share in it--in God’s eyes. - -And now to find that all the time she was on like secret terms with -Modred--with Jason, too, perhaps, judging by his sidelong innuendoes, -though it made my heart sick to think that she could play so double -faced a game between me and one whom she professed to hate and -despise. - -What a drama of dolls it was! And how soon the drama was to turn into -a tragedy! - -I went indoors and upstairs to the room which Jason and I shared and -flung myself on the bed. Then I was properly shocked and horrified to -find that my cheeks were suddenly wet with tears--a humiliating -discovery for a tough-sinewed young barbarian to make. What an -admirable sight, indeed! Renalt Trender, sniffing and snuffling for a -girl’s favor! - -Pride, however, is everywhere indigenous, and this came to my -assistance. If the minx played sham with me I would meet her with her -own tactics and affect indifference. What a triumphant picture this: - -Zyp--“Why have you been different to me of late, Renny? Aren’t you -fond of me now?” - -Renny--“My good little Zyp, the fact is I have tired a bit of the -novelty. It has been my first experience of the society of a girl, you -know, and very pleasant while it lasted; but I confess to a little -longing for a resumption of the old independence and freedom. Perhaps -some day again we will walk and converse together as of old.” - -Atop of this imaginary question and answer rose a smugly anguishing -picture of Zyp flushed and in tears (my imagination insisted on these -in bucketsful, to out-flood my own temporary weakness); of Zyp hurt -and sorrowing, but always striving by every means in her power to win -back my lost favor. - -Alas, poor little clown! I fear it is just those who have the fancy to -conjure up such pictures who suffer most cruelly from the -non-realization of the hopes of youth. Braced to the test, however, -and not knowing myself in weak armor, I came down to supper that -evening prickling all through with resolve. - -Jason was in the room alone, as I entered, and was walking feverishly -up and down. - -“Hist!” he said, softly, seizing me by the arm; “come here and look -for yourself.” - -He dragged me to the little square window, which was open. It looked -out at the back, and beneath was the railed platform before mentioned. - -I knew that I was urged to act the spy, and yet--so demoralizing is -jealousy--like a dog I went. Softly we craned our necks through the -opening and looked down. Trees all about here bordered the river -banks, so as to make the rear of our mill quite secret and secluded. - -She, Zyp, was standing on the platform with her arm round Modred’s -neck. She seemed trying to coax something from him which he was -reluctant to part with. As he evaded her efforts I saw what it -was--the little round yellow object I had noticed in his hand earlier -in the afternoon. - -“Darling,” she said, in a subdued voice, “do let me have it.” - -He laughed and looked at her loutishly. - -“You know the condition, Zyp.” - -“I have let you kiss me over and over again.” - -“But you haven’t kissed me yet.” - -She stamped her foot. “Nor ever shall!” she cried. - -“Then here goes,” he said, and slipped it into his pocket. - -At that she rushed at him and wound her arms about him like a young -panther. - -“Shall I tear you with my teeth?” she said, but instead she smoothed -his face with one hand disengaged and murmured to him: - -“Modred, dear, you got it for me, you know; you said so.” - -“And precious frightened I was, Zyp.” - -“Well, it is mine, isn’t it?” - -“If you give me the kiss.” - -My father’s step on the stairs brought our heads in with a clatter. We -heard them scuttle into the house, and a moment later they appeared in -the room. Modred’s face was flushed and bore a heavy, embarrassed -expression, but Zyp looked quite cool and self-possessed. - -I took no notice of her during the meal, but talked, daring in my -misery, to my father, who condescended to answer me now and again, and -I could see that she wondered at me. - -Supper over, I hurried to my room, and shutting myself in, went and -sat by the window and gave my tormented soul to the night. Had I never -met Zyp, I doubt if I should ever in my manhood have realized what the -grown-up, I think, seldom do, the amount of torture and wrong the -young heart may endure without bursting--with no hope of sympathy, -moreover, except that half-amused tolerant form of it which the old -think it sufficient to extend to youth’s elastic grievances. - -By and by Jason stole in. For some little time he sat upon his bed, -silent; then he said in a soft voice: - -“Let’s cry quits, Renny. I think I’ve paid you out for that little -accident of the meads.” - -“I hate you!” I said, quietly, and indeed it seemed to me that his -cruelty deserved no better a reward. - -He laughed, and was silent again, and presently began to undress for -bed, whistling softly all the time. - -I took no notice of him; but long after when he was breathing -peacefully asleep, I laid my own aching head, tired with misery, on -the pillow, and tried to follow his example. I was not to succeed -until faint daylight came through the casement and the birds were -twittering outside--was never, indeed, to know sleep in its innocence -again. - - - - -CHAPTER VII. -THE POOL OF DEATH. - -Morning brought a pitcher of comfort with it on its gossamer wings. -Who, at 17, can wake from restoring sleep to find the June sun on his -face and elect to breakfast on bitter wormwood, with the appetizing -fry of good country bacon caressing his nostrils through every chink -of the boards? Indeed, I was not born to hate, or to any decided vice -or virtue, but was of those who, taking a middle course, are kicked to -the wall or into the gutter as the Fates have a fancy. - -I was friendly with myself, with Jason--almost with Zyp, who had so -bedeviled me. After all, I thought, the measure of her regard for me -might be more in a winning friendliness than in embraces such as she -had bestowed upon Modred. - -Therefore I dressed in good heart, chatting amiably with Jason, who, I -could not help noticing, was at some pains to study me curiously. - -Such reactionary spirits are the heritage of youth. They decline with -the day. My particular relapse happened, maybe, ungenerously early, -for it was at breakfast I noticed the first tremulous vibrations of -Zyp’s war trumpet. Clearly she had guessed the reason of the change in -my manner toward her yesterday evening and was bent upon disabusing my -mind of the presumptuous supposition that I held any monopoly -whatsoever of her better regard. To this end she showered exaggerated -attentions upon Modred and my father--even Jason coming in for his -share. She had little digs at my silence and boorishness that hugely -delighted the others. She slipped a corner of fat bacon into my tea -and spilled salt over my bread and jam, and all the time I had to bear -my suffering with a stoic heart and echo the merriment, which I did in -such sardonic fashion as to call down fresh banter for my confusion. -At our worst, it must be confessed, we were not a circle with a -refined sense of humor. But when we rose, and Zyp brushed rudely by me -with a pert toss of her head, I felt indeed as if life no longer held -anything worth the striving after. - -I walked out into the yard to be alone, but Jason followed me. Some -tenderness for old comradeship sake stirred in him momentarily, I -think, for his blue eyes were good as they met mine. - -“What an ass you are, Renny,” he said; “to make such a to-do about the -rubbish!” - -“I don’t know what you mean,” I said, in miserable resentment. “I’m -making no to-do about anything.” - -My chest felt like a stone, and I could have struck him or any one. - -“Oh, I can see,” said he. - -“See what you like,” I replied, furiously, “but don’t bother me with -it. I’ve nothing to do with your fancies.” - -“Oh, very well,” he said, coolly; “I don’t want to interfere, I’m -sure.” - -I bounced past him and strode out of the yard. My blood was humming in -my veins; the sunny street looked all glazed with a shining gray. I -walked on and on, scarcely knowing whither I went. Presently I climbed -St. Catherine’s hill and flung myself down on the summit. Below me, a -quarter of a mile away, the old city lay in the hollow cup of its -down. Who, of all its 17,000 souls, could ever stir my pulses as the -little stranger from the distant shadowy forest could? We had no -forests round Winton. Perhaps if we had the spirit of the trees would -have colored my life, too, so that I might have scorned “the blind -bow-god’s butt shaft.” - -No doubt I was young to make such capital out of a little boyish -disappointment. Do you think so? Then to you I must not appeal. Oh, my -friend! We are not all jack-o’-lanterns at 17, and the fire of -unrequited affection may burn fiercer in the pure air of youth than in -the vitiated atmosphere of manhood. Anyhow believe me that to me my -misery was very real and dreadful. Think only, you who have plucked -the fruit and found it bitter--you whose disenchantment of life did -not begin till life itself was waning--what it must be to feel -hopeless at that tender age. - -All day long I lay on the hill or wandered about the neighboring -downs, and it was not till the shadows of the trees were stretching -that I made up my mind to return and face out the inevitable. - -I was parched and feverish, and the prospect of a plunge in the river -on my way home came to me with a little lonely thrill as of solace to -my unhappiness. - -There was a deep pool at a bend of the stream, not far from where Zyp -and I had sat yesterday afternoon (was it only yesterday?) which we -three were much in the habit of frequenting on warm evenings; and -thither I bent my steps. This part of the water lay very private and -solitary, and was only to be reached by trespassing from the road -through a pretty thick-set blackthorn hedge--a necessity to its -enjoyment which, I need not say, was an attraction to us. - -As I wriggled through our individual “run” in the hedge and, emerging -on the other side, raised my face, I saw that a naked figure was -already seated by the side of the running pool, which I was not long -in identifying as Modred’s. - -I hesitated. What reason had I for hobnobbing with mine enemy, as, in -the bitterness of my heart, I called him? I could not as yet speak to -him naturally, I felt, or meet him without resentment. Where was the -object in complicating matters? I turned, on the thought, to go, and -again hesitated. Should he see me before I had made my escape, would -he not attribute it to embarrassment on my part and crow triumphant -over my discomfiture? Ah, why did I not act on my first impulse? Why, -why? The deeps of perdition must resound with that forlorn little -word. - -When a second time the good resolve came to me, it was too late. He -rose and saw me and, under his shading hand, even at that distance, I -could mark the silent grin of mockery on his face. I walked -deliberately toward him, my hands in my pockets, my cap shading my -eyes. - -“Aren’t you coming to bathe?” he said, when I drew near. “It’ll cool -your temper.” - -I could have struck him, but I answered nothing and only began to -undress. - -“Where have you been all day? We were wondering, Zyp and I, as we lay -in the meadow out there.” - -Still I answered nothing, but I knew that my hands trembled as I -pulled off my coat and waistcoat. - -He stood watching me a little while in silence, then said: “You seem -to have lost your tongue, old Renny. Has it followed your heart -because Zyp talks for two?” - -I sprung up, but he eluded me and, with a hateful laugh, leaped on the -moment into the deep center of the pool. A horrible tightness came -round my throat. Half-undressed as I was I plunged after him all mad -with passion. He rose near me, and seeing the fury of my face, dived -again, and I followed. It took but an instant, and my life was -wrecked. We met among the weeds at the bottom, and he jumped from me. -As he rose I clutched him by one foot, and swiftly passed a great -sinew of weed three or four times around his ankle. It held like a -grapnel and would hold; for, though he was a fair swimmer, he was -always frighted and nervous in the face of little difficulties. Then -swerving away, I rose again, with laboring lungs, to the surface. - -Barely had my drenched eyes found the daylight again, when the hideous -enormity of my crime broke into my brain like the toll of a death -bell. The water near me was heaving slightly and some welling bubbles -swayed to the surface. They were the drowning gasps of my brother--my -own brother, whom I was murdering. - -I gave a thin, wretched scream and sunk again into the deep hole -beneath me. He was jerking convulsively, and his hands clutched vainly -at his feet and slipped away in a dying manner. I tore at the weed to -unwind it--only to twist it into new fetters. I pulled frantically at -its roots. I felt that I should go mad if it did not yield. In a -moment it came away in my hands and I shot upward, struggling. But the -other poor body followed me sluggishly, and I seized it by the hair, -with all my heart gone crazy, and towed it ashore. - -His face, I thought, looked fallen away already and was no longer -loutish or malicious. It seemed just a white, pathetic thing freed -from suffering--and I would have given my life--ay, and my love--ten -times over to see the same expression come back to it it had worn as -it turned to me before he dived. - -I fell on my knees beside him and broke into a passion of tears. I -kissed, with no shame but a murderer’s, the wet forehead, and beat and -pressed, in a futile agony too terrible for words, the limp -unresisting hand against my breast. It seemed that he must wake if I -implored him so frantically. But he lay quiet, with closed eyes, and -the water ran from his white skin in trickling jerks and pauses. - -In the midst of my useless anguish some words of Jason’s recurred to -me, and, seizing my coat for a pillow to his forehead, I turned him, -with a shuddering horror of his limpness, upon his face. A great gush -of water came with a rumble from his mouth, but he did not stir; and -there I stood looking down upon him, my hand to my forehead, my mad -eyes staring as Cain’s must have stared when he wrought the deed of -terror. - -And I was Cain--I who yesterday was a boy of loving impulses, I think; -whose blackest crime might be some petty rebellion against the lesser -proprieties; who had even hugged himself upon living on a loftier -plane than this poor silenced victim of his brutality. - -As the deadly earnest of my deed came home to my stunned mind, I had -no thought of escape. I would face it out, confess and die. My -father’s agony--for he loved us in his way, I believe; Jason’s -condemnation; Zyp’s hatred; my own shame and torture--I put them all -on one side to get full view of that black crossbeam and rope that I -felt to be the only medicine for my sick and haunted soul. - -As I stood, the sound of wheels on the road beyond woke me to some -necessity of action. Stumbling, as in a nightmare; not feeling my -feet, but only the mechanical spring of motion, I hurried to the hedge -side and looked over. - -A carter with a tilt wagon was urging his tired team homeward. - -“Help!” I cried. “Oh, come and help me!” And my voice seemed to me to -issue from under the tilt of the wagon. - -He “woa’d” up his horses, raised his hat from his forehead, wrinkled -with hot weariness, and came toward me, his whip over his shoulder. - -“What’s toward?” said he. - -“My brother!” I gasped. “We were bathing together and he’s drowned.” - -The man’s boorish face lighted up like a farthing rushlight. Here was -something horribly sordid enough for all the excitement he was worth. -It would sweeten many a pot of swipes for the week to come. - -“Wheer be the body?” said he, eagerly. - -“Over yonder, on the grass. Oh, won’t you help me to carry it home?” - -He looked at the hedge critically. - -“Go, you,” he said, “and drag ’en hither. We’ll gat ’en over hedge -together.” - -I ran back to where it lay. It had collapsed a little to one side, and -for an instant my breath caught in a wild thrill of hope that he had -moved of himself. But the waxen hue of the face in the gathering dusk -killed my emotion on its very issuing. - -A strange loathing of the thing, lying so unresponsive, had in my race -backward and forward sprung upon me, but before it could gain the -mastery I had seized it under the arm-pits and was half-dragging, -half-carrying it toward the road. - -I was at the hedge before I knew it, and the red face of the carter -was peering curiously down at the white heap beneath. - -“Harned ’en up,” he said. “My, but it’s cold. Easy, now. Take the toes -of ’en. Thart’s it--woa!” and he had it in his strong arms and -shuffling heavily to the rear of his wagon, jerked back the flap of -the tilt with his elbow and slid the body like a package into the -interior. - -“Get your coat, man,” he cried, “and coom away.” - -I had forgotten in the terror of it all my own half-dressed state, for -I had stripped only to my underclothes, and my boots were still on my -feet. Mechanically I returned to the riverside, and hastily donning my -coat and trousers, snatched up the other’s tumbled garments and ran -back to the road. - - - - - CHAPTER VIII. - THE WAKING. - -The carter was holding the curtain back and critically apostrophizing -the thing within. - -“Ay, he be sound enough. Reckon nought but the last trump’ll waken -yon. Now, youngster, where may you live?” - -I told him. - -“Sure,” he said, “the old crazed mill?” Then I thought he muttered: -“Well, ’tis one vermin the less,” but I was not sure and nothing -mattered--nothing. - -He asked me if I would like to ride with it inside. The mere -suggestion was terror to me, and I stammered out that I would rather -walk, for I had tried my best already and had given up hope. - -So we set off slowly through the dumb, haunted twilight. Thoughts -would not come to me in any definite form. I imagined the cathedral -bells were ringing, till I found it was only a jangling in my brain, -discordant and unearthly. People came toward us who on nearing were -resolved into distorted rags of mist; voices croaked with laughter, -and they were only the swung branches of trees. - -Suddenly I heard an exclamation--real enough this time--and saw the -carter run to the head of his team and stop them. - -“Woa, then!” he cried, in a frightened voice; and then with terrified -impatience: “Coom hither, marn; I tell ’ee. Don’t ’ee stand theer -gawking at the air. Dang it, the ghost walks!” He stamped his heavy -foot, seeing me motionless; then cried again: “Take thee foul burden -out o’ the wain and dang me for a fool ever to have meddled wi’t!” - -A gush of wondrous hope flooded my breast. I tore to the rear of the -wagon, dashed back the curtain--and there was Modred sitting up and -swaying feebly from side to side. - -I leaped; I caught him in my arms; my breath came in laughter and -sobs. “Oh, Modred, Modred!” I cried. “I didn’t mean it--it wasn’t -me--I’m not like that!” and then I broke down and wept long and -convulsively, though I would never let him out of my clutch. - -“Where am I?” he said, faintly; “oh, it hurts so. Every vein in my -body is bursting with pain.” - -At this I beat under my hysterical outburst and set to rubbing him all -over in frantic eagerness. It seemed to ease him a little and I -blessed him that he lay passively against me and did not offer to push -me away. Poor fellow, he was far too weak as yet for any resistance. - -Presently I heard the carter bawl in tremulous tones: “Art gone, the -two of ’ee?” - -“Come here,” I called back, with a tearful laugh. “He’s better; he’s -recovered!” - -The fellow came round gingerly and stood a little distance off. - -“Eh?” he said, dubiously. - -“See for yourself!” I cried. “He wasn’t drowned after all. He’s come -round!” - -The man spat viciously in the road and came sullenly forward. He was -defrauded of an excitement and he felt the injury grievously. - -“You young varmint!” he growled. “Them’s your tricks for to get a free -lift.” - -“Nonsense!” I said, buoyantly; “you yourself thought him dead. Carry -us on to the mill and I’ll promise you a proper skinful of liquor.” - -He was crabbed and undecided, but presently he went forward and -whipped up his horses with a surly oath. As the wagon pitched, Modred -opened his eyes, which he had shut, and looked up at me. - -“Are you feeling better, old boy?” I said, tenderly. - -“The pain isn’t so bad, but I’m tired to death,” said he. - -“Rest, and don’t talk. You’ll be stronger in a bit.” - -He closed his eyes again and I tried to shield him as much as I could -from the jolting. I had already wrapped him up warm in some old sacks -that were heaped in a corner of the wagon. So all the way home I held -him, counting his every breath, loving him as I had never done before. - -It was dark when we reached the mill and I laid him gently back and -leaped down. - -“Dad! Dad!” I shouted, running down the yard and into the house; but -he was already standing at the head of the stairs, with a candle in -his hand. - -“Modred’s had an accident!” I cried, in a subdued voice--I could not -keep the lie back. It seemed so dreadful at the outset to confess and -stand aside condemned--while others helped. Jason and Zyp came out on -the landing and my father ran down the stairs hurriedly. - -“What’s that?” he said--“Modred!” - -“He got caught in the weeds and was nearly drowned, but he’s getting -better.” - -“Where is he?” He seized me by the arm as he spoke, and dragged me to -the mill door. I could feel the pulses in his finger tips through my -coat. - -“He’s in a wain outside, and I promised the man a long drink for -bringing us home.” - -“There’s a full bottle in the cupboard--bring it down,” shouted my -father to Jason. Then he hurried to the wagon and lifted out the -breathing figure and looked into its face. After all, it was his -youngest. - -“Not much harm, perhaps,” said he. “Run and tell them to heat some -water and the blankets.” - -While I was finding old Peg and explaining and giving the order, they -carried him upstairs. I did not dare follow them, but, the reaction -over, leaned, feeling sick and faint, in the passage outside the -little kitchen. Perhaps even now he was telling them, and I dreaded -more than I can describe the sentence which a first look at any one of -their faces might confirm. - -Presently old Peg came out to me with a can of boiling water and flung -an armful of warm blankets over my shoulder. - -“There’s for you, Renalt,” she cried in her thin, rusty voice; then -muttered, clawing her hips like a monkey: “’Tis flying in the Lord’s -face o’ Providence, to me a old woman; like as restoring a froze snake -on the hearth.” - -I had no heart for retort, but sped from the sinister old witch with -my burden. I saw Zyp and Jason in the living-room as I passed, but, -though they called to me, I ran on and upstairs to the door of -Modred’s room, which was next ours. - -My father came out to my knock and took the things from me. - -“Now,” said he, “I want nobody here but myself and Dr. Crackenthorpe. -Go you and fetch him, if he’s to be found.” - -Happy to be employed in any useful service, I hurried away on my -errand. The door of the sitting-room was shut, at which I was glad. -Very little respite gave me fresh lease of hope. - -The doctor’s home was close by, in a straggling street of old -buildings that ran off our end of the High street, and the doctor -himself was, I was told, within. - -I found him seated in a musty little parlor, with some ugly casts of -murderers’ heads facing him from the top of a varnished bookcase. - -“Ah, my friend!” he screeched, cracking his knuckles; “those interest -you, eh? Well, perhaps I shall have the pleasure of adding your -picture to them some day.” - -An irrepressible shudder took me and he laughed, not knowing the -reason of it. - -“Now, what’s your business?” said he. - -I told him. - -“Eh,” he said, and bent forward and looked at me narrowly. “Near -drowned, eh? Why, what were you doing, you young limb?” - -“I went after him,” I answered, faintly, “but I couldn’t get the weeds -loose.” - -“Dressed, too?” he said, for the sop of my underclothes had come -through the upper, and nothing escaped his hawk’s eye; “why, you’re a -hero, upon my word.” - -He bade me begone after that and he would follow immediately. And I -returned to the mill, and, softly climbing the stairs, shut myself -into my room and sat upon the edge of the bed listening--listening for -every breath and sound in the old eerie house. I heard the doctor come -up the stairs and enter the room next door. I heard the low murmur of -voices and strained my ears to gather what was said, but could not -make out a word. And the darkness grew into my soul and shut out all -the old light of happy reason. Should I ever feel innocent again? And -would Modred, satisfied with his knowledge of the dreadful heritage of -remorse I had laid up for myself, forego his right to denounce me and -to forever make me an outcast and alone? I hardly dared to hope it, -yet clung with a strenuous longing to thought of his mercy. - -It may have been hours I sat there. I do not know. I had heard -footsteps go up and down the stairs many times. And then a silence -fell. What was the meaning of it? Was it possible that life had only -rallied in him momentarily, like the flame of a dying candle and had -suddenly sunk for good and all into endless darkness? Had he told? Why -did no one come near me? I could stand it no longer. - -As I sprung to my feet I heard a footstep again on the stairs and -Jason walked into the room and shut the door. He took no notice of me, -but began to undress. - -“Jason!” I cried, and the agony in my voice I could not repress. “How -is he? Has he spoken? Oh, don’t keep me in this torture.” - -“What torture?” said my brother, looking at me with a cold, -unresponsive eye. “Why should you be upset more than the rest of us? -He’s asleep all right, and not to be bothered with any questions.” - -Thank God! Oh, thank God! I took no notice of his looks or tone, for I -was absorbed in great gratitude to heaven that my worst fears were -idle ones. - -“Where’s dad?” I said. - -“Drinking downstairs with the doctor. They’ll make high revel of it, I -expect.” - -He was already in bed; but I sat on and on in the darkness. I had only -one thought--one longing to wait till Jason was fast in slumber, and -then to creep to Modred’s side and implore his forgiveness. - -Presently the deep, regular breathing of my brother announced to me -the termination of my vigil. With my heart beating in a suffocating -manner, I stole to the door, opened it and stood outside that of -Modred’s room. I listened a moment. A humming noise of garrulous -voices below was the only sound that broke the silence of the house. -Softly I turned the handle and softly crept into the room. There was -light in it, for on the wash-hand stand a rush candle burned dimly in -an old lanthorn. - -He gave a start, for he was lying awake in his bed, then half-rose on -his elbow and looked at me with frightened eyes. - -“Don’t come near,” he whispered. “What do you want? You aren’t going -to try to kill me again?” - -I gave a little strangled, agonized cry, and, dropping on my knees -where I stood, stretched out my arms to him imploringly. - -“Oh, Modred, don’t! Don’t! You can’t think I meant it! It was only a -horrible impulse. I was mad, and I nearly drowned myself directly -afterward in saving you.” - -The fright went from his face and something like its familiar look -returned to it. - -“Are you sorry?” he said. - -“Sorry? Oh, I will do anything you like if you will only believe me.” - -“Come here, Renny,” he said, “and stand by me. I want to see you -better.” - -I obeyed humbly--lovingly. - -“You want me to forgive you?” - -“If you could, Modred--if you only could.” - -“And not to peach?” - -I hung my head in shame and the tears were in my eyes again. - -“Well, I’ll agree, on one condition.” - -“Make any you like, Modred. I’ll swear to keep it; I’ll never forget -it.” - -“Zyp’s it,” he said, looking away from me. - -“Yes,” I said, gently, with a prescience of what was coming. - -“You’ll have to give her up for good and all--keep out of her way; let -her know somehow you’re sick of her. And keep Jason out of the way. -You and he were chums enough before she came.” - -“I swear for myself, and to do what I can with Jason,” I said, dully. -What did it matter? One way or another the buoyant light of existence -was shut to me for good and all. - -“It’s the only way,” said Modred, and he gave me a look that I dare -not call crafty. “After all, it isn’t much,” he said, “considering -what you did to me, and she seems to be getting tired of you--now, -doesn’t she?” - -“Yes,” I said in a low voice. - -“Then, that’s settled. And now let me be, for I feel as if I can -sleep. Hand me my breeches first, though. There’s something in the -pocket I want.” - -“Shall I get it out for you, old boy?” - -“No, no!” he answered, hurriedly. “Give them to me, can’t you?” - -I did as he wanted and crept from the room. What did it matter? Zyp -had already cast me off, but for the evil deed I was respited. A -moment ago the girl had seemed as nothing, set in the scale against my -brother’s forgiveness. Could it be the true, loving spirit of -forgiveness that could make such a condition? Hush! I must not think -that thought. What did it matter? - -I did not go back to my room, but sat on a stair at the head of the -downward flight, with a strange, stunned feeling. Below the voices -went on spasmodically--now a long murmur--now a snatch of song--now an -angry phrase. By and by, I think, I must have fallen into a sort of -stupor, for I seemed to wake all at once to a thunderous uproar. - -I started to my feet. Magnified as all sounds are in the moment of -recovered consciousness, there was yet noise enough below to convince -me that a violent quarrel between the two men was toward. I heard my -father’s voice in bitter denunciation. - -“You’ve been hawking over my quarry this long while. I’ll tear the -truth out of your long throat! Give me back my cameo--where is it?” - -“A fig for your cameo!” cried the other in a shrill voice, “and I tell -you this is the first I’ve heard of it.” - -“You’ve been watching me, you fiend, you! Dogging me--haunting me! -I’ll have no more o’t! I’m not to be bribed or threatened or coaxed -any more; least of all thieved from. Where is it?” - -“You aren’t, aren’t you?” screeched the doctor. “You leave me here and -I fall asleep. You’re away and you come storming back that I’ve robbed -you. It’s a trap, by thunder, but you won’t catch me in it!” - -“I believe you’re lying!” cried my father. His voice seemed strained -with passion. But the other answered him now much more coolly. - -“Believe what you like, my friend. It’s beneath my dignity to -contradict you again; but take this for certain--if you slander me in -public, I’ll ruin you!” - -Then silence fell and I waited to hear no more. I stole to my room and -crept to bed. I had never changed my drenched clothes and the deadly -chill of my limbs was beginning to overcome the frost in my heart. - -It seemed hours before the horrible coldness relaxed, and then -straightway a parching fever scorched me as if I lay against a -furnace. I heard sounds and dull footsteps and the ghostly creaking of -stairs, but did not know if they were real or only incidents in my -half-delirium. - -At last as day was breaking I fell into a heavy, exhausted sleep. It -merged into a dream of my younger brother. We walked together as we -had done as little children, my arm around his neck. “Zenny,” he said, -like a baby paraphrasing Zyp’s words, “what’s ’ove dat ’ey talk -about?” I could have told him in the gushing of my heart, but in a -moment he ran from me and faded. - -I gave a cry and woke, and Jason was standing over me, with a white, -scared face. - -“Get up!” he whispered; “Modred’s dead!” - - - - - CHAPTER IX. - THE FACE ON THE PILLOW. - -Often the first shock of some unexpected mental blow shakes from the -soul, not its corresponding emotion, but that emotion’s exact -antithesis. Thus, when Jason spoke I laughed. I could not on the -moment believe that such hideous retribution was demanded of my -already writhed and repentant conscience, and it seemed to me that he -must be jesting in very ugly fashion. - -Perhaps he looked astonished; anyhow he said: - -“You needn’t make a joke of it. Are you awake? Modred’s dead, I tell -you.” - -I sprung from the bed; I clutched him and pulled him to and fro. - -“Tell me you lie--you lie--you lie!” I cried. - -He did not. I could see it in his face. There and then the drought of -Tophet withered and constricted my life. I was branded and doomed -forevermore; a thing to shudder at and avoid. - -“I will dress and come!” I said, relaxing from my hold on him, and -turned away and began to hurry on my clothes. I had not felt so set in -quietness since the morning of two days past. I could even think -calmly and balance the pros and cons of my future behavior. - -Each man must be his own judge, his own plaintiff, his own -defendant--an atom of self-contained equity. By his own ruling in -matters of right and wrong he must abide, suffer his own punishments, -enjoy his own rewards. He is a lonely organism, in whom only himself -took an interest, and as such he must be content to endure with -calmness the misinterpretations of aliens. - -Modred had forgiven me. Whatever was the condition, whatever the deed, -it was too late now to convince me that no justification existed for -my rebellion against fate. - -My elder, my only brother now, watched me in silence as I dressed. - -“Where is he?” I said, when I had finished. - -“In bed as he was left,” said Jason. “I went in this morning, while -you were asleep, and found him--ah, he looks horrible,” he cried, and -broke off with a shudder. - -I did not shrink; I felt braced up to any ordeal. - -They were all in the room when we entered it. My father, Dr. -Crackenthorpe, Zyp--even old Peggy, who was busying herself, with the -vulture relish of her kind, over the little artificial decencies of -dress and posture that seem such an outrage on the solemn unresistance -of the dead. - -Directly we came in Zyp ran to Jason and clung to him sobbing. I -noticed it with a sort of dull resignation, and that was all; for -Peggy, who had drawn a sheet over the lifeless face, pulled it down -that I might look. - -Then, for all my stoicism, I gave a cry. - -I had left my brother the night before tired, needing rest, but, save -for the extra pallor of his complexion that never boasted a great deal -of color, much like his usual self. Now the dead face lying back on -the pillows was awful to look upon. Spots and bars of livid purple -disfigured its waxen whiteness--on the cheeks, the ears, the throat, -where a deep patch was. It was greatly swollen, too, and the mouth so -rigidly open that it had defied all effort to bind it close. A couple -of pennies, like a hideous pair of glasses, lay, one over each eye, -where they could only be kept in position by means of a filament drawn -tightly round the head. The hands, stiffly crossed, with the fingers -crooked like talons, lay over the breast, fastened into position with -a ligature. - -I turned away, feeling sick and faint. I think I reeled, for presently -I found that Dr. Crackenthorpe was supporting me against his arm. - -“Oh, why is he like that?” I whispered. - -“’Tis a common afterclap in deaths by drowning,” said he, speaking in -a loud, insistent voice, as if not for the first time. “A stoppage--a -relapse. During the weak small hours, when the patient’s strength is -at its lowest, the overwrought lungs refuse to work--collapse, and he -dies of suffocation.” - -He looked at my father as he spoke, but elicited no response. It was -palpable that the heavy potations of the night had so deadened the -latter’s faculties as to make him incapable for the moment of -realizing the full enormity of the sight before him. - -“Mark me,” said the doctor; “it’s a plain case, I say, nothing out of -the way; no complications. The wretched boy to all intents and -purposes has been drowned.” - -“Who drowned him?” said my father. He spoke thickly, stupidly; but I -started, with a dreadful feeling that the locked jaws must relax and -denounce me before them all. - -Seeing his hopeless state, the doctor took my father’s arm and led him -from the room. Zyp still clung to my brother. - -“Cover it up,” whispered Jason. “He isn’t a pretty sight!” - -“He wasn’t a pretty boy,” muttered Peggy, reluctantly hiding the -dreadful face; “To a old woman’s view it speaks of more than his -deserts. Nobody’ll come to look at me, I expect.” - -“You heard what the doctor said?” asked Jason, looking across at me. - -“Yes.” - -“Drowned--you understand? Drowned, Renny?” - -“Drowned,” I repeated, mechanically. - -“Come, Zyp,” he said; “this isn’t the place for you any longer.” - -They passed out of the room, she still clinging to him, so that her -face was hidden. - -I did not measure his words at that time. I had no thought for nice -discriminations of tone; what did I care for anything any longer? - -Presently I heard old Peg muttering again. She thought the room was -emptied of us and she softly removed the face cloth once more. - -“Ay, there ye lies, Modred--safe never to spy on poor old Rottengoose -again! Ye were a bad lot, ye were; but Peg’s been more’n enough for -you, she has, my lad.” - -Suddenly she saw me out of the tail of her eye, and turned upon me, -livid with fury. - -“What are ye listening to, Renalt? A black curse on spies, Renalt, I -say!” - -Then her manner changed and she came fawning at me fulsomely. - -“What a good lad to stay wi’ his brother! But Peg’ll do the tending, -Renalt. She be a crass old body and apt to reviling in her speech, but -she don’t mean it, bless you; it’s the tic doldrums in her head.” - -I repelled the horrible old creature and fled from the room. What she -meant I neither knew nor cared, for we had always looked upon her as a -feckless body, with a big worm in her brain. - -All the long morning I wandered about the house, scarcely knowing what -I did or whither I went. Once I found myself in the room of silence, -not remembering when I had come there or for what reason. The fact, -merely, was impressed upon me by a gradual change in the nature of my -sensations. Something seemed to be asking a question of me which I was -striving and striving to answer. It didn’t distress me at first, for a -nearer misery overwhelmed everything, but by and by its insistence -pierced a passage through all dull obstacles, and the something took -up its abode in me and reigned and grew. I felt myself yielding, -yielding; and strove now to beat off the inevitable horror of the -answer that was rising in me. I did not know what it was, or the -question to which it was a response--only I saw that if I yielded to -it and spoke it, I should die then and there of the black terror of -its revelation. - -I sprung to my feet with a cry, and saw, or thought I saw, Modred -standing by the water wheel and beckoning to me. If I had strength to -escape, it was enough for that and no more, for everything seemed to -go from me till I found myself sitting at the foot of the stairs, with -Jason looking oddly down upon me. - -“I needn’t get up,” I said. “Modred isn’t dead, after all.” - -I think I heard him shout out. Anyhow, I felt myself lifted up and -carried somewhere and put down. If they had thought to restrain me, -however, they should have managed things better; for I was up in a -moment and out at the window. I had often thought one wanted only the -will to forget gravity and float through the air, and here I was doing -it. What a glorious sensation it was! I laughed to think how long I -had remained like a reptile, bound to the plodding miserable earth, -when all the time I had power to escape from myself and float on and -on far away from all those heart-breaking troubles. If I only went -very swiftly at first I should soon be too distant for them to track -me, and then I should be free. I felt a little anxious, for there was -a faint noise behind me. I strove to put on pace; if my limbs had -responded to my efforts no bird could have outstripped me. But I saw -with agony that the harder I fought the less way I made. I struggled -and sobbed and clutched myself blindly onward, and all the time the -noise behind grew deeper. If I pushed myself off with a foot to the -ground I only floated a very little way now. Then I saw a railing and -pulled myself along with it toilsomely, but some great pressure was in -front of me and my feet slipped into holes at every step. Panting, -straining, slipping, as if on blood--why! It was blood! I had to yield -at last. - -My passion of hope was done with. I lay in a white set horror, not -daring to move or look. How deadly quiet the room was, but not for -long, for a little stealthy rustle of the sheet beside me prickled -through my whole being with its ghastly stirring. Then I knew it had -secretly risen on its elbow and was leaning over and looking down upon -me. If I could only perspire, I thought, my bonds would loosen and I -could escape from it. But it was cunning and knew that, too, and it -sealed all the surface of my skin with its acrid exhalations. Suddenly -it clutched me in its crooked arms and bore me down, down to the room -of silence. There was a sickening odor there and the covering of the -wheel was open. Then, with a shudder, as of death, I thought I found -the answer; for now it was plain that the great wheel was driven by -blood, not water. As I looked aghast, straining over, it gave me a -stealthy push and, with a shriek, I splashed among the paddles and was -whirled down. For ages I was spun and beaten round and round, mashed, -mangled, gasping for breath and choked with the horrible crimson broth -that fed the insane and furious grinding of the wheel. At the end, -glutted with torture, it flung me forth into a parching desert of -sand, and, spinning from me, became far away a revolving disk of red -that made the low-down sun of that waste corner of the world. - -I was alone, now--always alone. No footsteps had ever trod that -trackless level, nor would, I knew, till time was ended. I had no -hope; no green memory for oasis; no power of speech even. Then I knew -I was dead; had been dead so long that my body had crackled and fallen -to decay, leaving my soul only, like the stone of a fruit, quick with -wretched impulse to shoot upward but dreadfully imprisoned from doing -so. - -Sometimes in the world the massive columns of the cathedral had -suggested to me a like sensation; a moral impress of weight and -stoniness that had driven me to bow my head and creep, sweating away -from their inexorable stolidity. Now I was built into such a -body--more, was an integral part of it. Yet could my pinioned nerves -never assimilate its passionless obduracy, but jerked and struggled in -agony to be free. Oh, how divine is the instinct that paints heaven -all light and airiness, and innocent forevermore of the sense of -weight! - -Suddenly I heard Zyp’s voice, singing outside in the world, and in a -moment tears, most blessed, blessed tears, sprung from my eyes and I -was free. The stone cracked and fell asunder, and I leaped out madly -shrieking at my release. - -She was sitting under a tree in a beautiful meadow and her young voice -rose sweetly as she prinked her hat with daisies and yellow king-cups. -She called me to her and gave me tender names and smoothed away the -pain from my forehead with kisses and the cunning of her elfish brown -hand. - -“Come, drink,” she said, “and you will be better.” - -I woke to life and looked up. She was standing by my bed, holding a -cup toward my lips, and at the foot Jason leaned, looking on. - -“Have I been ill?” I said, in a voice so odd to me that I almost -laughed. - -“Yes, yes--a little; but you have come out of the black pit now into -the forest.” - - - - - CHAPTER X. - JASON SPEAKS. - -For some three weeks I had lain racked and shriveled in a nervous, -delirious fever. It left me at last, the ghost of my old self, to face -once more the problems of a ruined life. For many days these gave me -no concern, or only in a fitful, indifferent manner. I was content to -sip the dew of convalescence, to slumber and to cherish my exhaustion, -and the others disturbed me but little. My recovery once assured, they -left me generally to myself, scarce visiting me more often than was -necessary for the administering of food or medicine. Sometimes one or -other of them would come and sit by my bedside awhile and exchange -with me a few desultory remarks; but this was seldom, and grew, with -my strength more so, for the earth was brilliant with summer outside -and naturally fuller of attractions than a sick-room. - -Their neglect troubled me little at first; but by and by, when the -first idle ecstasy of convalescence was beginning to deepen into a -sense of responsibilities that I should soon have to gather up and -adjust, it woke day by day an increasing uneasiness in my soul. As -yet, it is true, the immediate past I could only call up before my -mental vision as a blurred picture of certain events the significance -of which was suggestive only. Gradually, however, detail by detail, -the whole composition of it concentrated, on the blank sheet of my -mind, and stood straight before me terribly uncompromising in its -sternness of outline. Had I any reason to suppose, in short, that my -share in Modred’s death was known to or guessed at by my father, Jason -or Zyp? On that pivot turned the whole prospect of my future; for as -to myself, were the secret to remain mine alone, I yet felt that I -could make out life with a tolerable degree of resignation in the -certain knowledge that Modred had forgiven me before he died, for a -momentary mad impulse, the provocation to which had been so -bitter--the reaction from which had been so immediate and so equally -impulsive. - -Of my father, I may say at once, I had little fear. His manner toward -me when, as he did occasionally, he came and sat by me for a half-hour -or so, was marked by a gentleness and affection I had never known him -to exhibit before. Pathetic as it was, I could sometimes almost have -wished it replaced by a sterner mood, a more dubious attitude; for my -remorse at having so bereaved him became a barbed sting in presence of -his new condescension to me that dated from the afternoon of my appeal -to him, and was intensified by our common loss. - -Of Zyp I hardly dared to think, or dared to do more than tremulously -hover round the thought that Modred’s death had absolved me from my -promise to him to avoid her. Still the thought was there and perhaps I -only played with self-deception when I affected to fly from it out of -a morbid loyalty to him that was gone. I could not live with and not -long for her with all the passion I was capable of. - -Therefore it was that I dreaded any possible disclosure of a suspicion -on her part--dreaded it with a fever of the mind so fierce that it -must truly have retarded my recovery indefinitely had not a -counter-irritant occurred to me, in certain moods, in the form of a -thought that perhaps, after all, my deed might not so affright one -who, on her own showing, found a charm in the contemplation of evil. - -But it was Jason I feared most. Something--I can hardly give it a -name--had come to me within the last few weeks that seemed to be the -preface to an awakening of the moral right on my part. In the -unfolding of this new faculty I was startled and distressed to observe -deformities in my brother where I had before seen nothing but manly -beauty and a breezy recklessness that I delighted in. Beautiful -bodily, I and all must still think him, though it had worried me -lately to often observe an expression in his blue eyes that was only -new to my new sense. This I can but describe, with despair of the -melodramatic sound of it, as poisonous. The pupils were as full and -purple as berries of the deadly nightshade. - -It was not, however, his eyes only that baffled me. I saw that he -coveted any novelty of sensation greedily, and that sooner than forego -enjoyment of it he would ruthlessly stamp down whatever obstacle to -its attainment crossed his path. - -Now I knew in my heart that his hitherto indifference to Zyp was an -affectation born only of wounded vanity, and that such as he could -never voluntarily yield so piquant a prize to homelier rivals. I -recalled, with a brooding apprehension, certain words of his on that -fatal morning, that seemed intended to convey, at least, a dark -suspicion as to the manner of Modred’s death. Probably they were bolts -shot at random with a sinister object--for I could conceive no shadow -of direct evidence against me. In that connection they might mean much -or little; in one other I had small doubt that they meant a good -deal--this in fact, that, if I got in his way with Zyp, down I should -go. - -Daily probing and analyzing such darkly dismal problems as these, I -slowly crawled through convalescence to recovery. - -It was a sweltering morning in early July that I first crept out of -doors, with Zyp for my companion. It was happiness to me to have her -by my side, though as yet my weak and watery veins could prickle to no -ghost of passion. I had thought that life could hold nothing for me -ever again but present pain and agonized retrospects. It was not so. -The very smell of the freshly watered roads woke a shadowy delight in -me as we stepped over the threshold. The buoyant thunder of the river, -as it leaped under the old street bridge seemed to gush over my heart -with a cleansing joyousness that left it white and innocent again. - -We crossed the road and wandered by a zig-zag path to the ancient -close, where soft stretches and paddocks of green lawn, “immemorial -elms” and scattered buildings antique and embowered wrought such an -harmonious picture as filled my tired soul with peace. - -Here we sat down on an empty bench. I had much to question Zyp -about--much to reflect on and put into words--but my neglected speech -moved as yet on rusty hinges. - -“Zyp,” I said presently, in a low voice; “tell me--where is he -buried?” - -“In the churchyard--St. John’s, under the hill, Renny.” - -Not once until now had I touched upon this subject or mentioned -Modred’s name to any one of them, and a great longing was upon me to -get it over and done with. - -“Who went?” - -“Dad and Jason and Dr. Crackenthorpe.” - -“Zyp, nobody has asked me anything about it. Don’t you all want to -know how--how it happened?” - -“He was caught in the weeds--you said so yourself, Renny.” - -Vainly I strove to get under her words; intuition was, for the time -being, a sluggish quantity in me. - -“Yes; but----” I began, when she took me up softly. - -“Dad said it was all clear and that we were never to bother you about -it at all.” - -A sigh of gratitude to heaven escaped me. - -“And I for one,” said Zyp, “don’t intend to.” - -Something in her words jarred unaccountably on my sick nerves. - -“At first,” she said, just glancing at me, “dad thought there ought to -be an inquest, but Dr. Crackenthorpe was so set against it that he -gave in.” - -“Dr. Crackenthorpe? Why was----” - -“He said that juries took such an idiotic view of a father’s -responsibilities; that dad might be censured for letting the boy run -wild; that in any case the family’s habits of life would be raked over -and cause a scandal that might make things very uncomfortable; that it -was a perfectly plain case of drowning, and that he was quite willing -to give a certificate that death was due to a rupture of some blood -vessel in the brain following exhaustion from exposure--or something -of that sort.” - -“And he did?” - -“Yes, at last, after a deal of talk, and he was buried quietly and -there was an end of it.” - -Not quite an end, Zyp--not quite an end! - -She was very gentle and patient with me all the morning, and my poor -soul brimmed over with gratitude. My pulses began even to flicker a -little with hope that things might be as they were before the -catastrophe. After all she was a very independent changeling and, if -there existed in her heart any bias in my favor, Jason might find -himself quite baffled in his efforts to control her inclinations. - -Presently I turned to the same overclouding subject. - -“What happened the day I was taken bad, Zyp?” - -“Jason found you on the stairs, talking rubbish. They carried you to -bed and you hardly left off talking rubbish for weeks. Don’t you -remember anything of it?” - -“Nothing, after--after I saw him lying there so dreadful.” - -“Ah, it was ugly, wasn’t it? Well, you must have wandered off -somewhere--anywhere; and the rest of us to the parlor. There dad and -the doctor fell to words. They had spent all the night over that -stupid drink, sleeping and quarreling by fits and couldn’t remember -much about it. They had not heard any noise upstairs, either of them; -but suddenly the doctor pointed to something hanging out of dad’s -pocket. ‘Why, you must have gone to the boy’s room some time,’ he -said. ‘Look there!’ Dad took it out and it was Modred’s braces, all -twisted up and stuffed into his pocket.” - -“Modred’s braces?” - -“Yes; they all knew them, for they were blue, you know--the color he -liked. Dad afterward thought he must have put them there to be out of -the way while he was carrying Modred upstairs, but at the time he was -furious. ‘D’ye dare to imply I had a hand in my son’s death?’ he -shrieked. ‘I imply nothing; I mean no offense; they are plain for -every one to see,’ said the doctor, going back a little. I thought he -was frightened and that dad would jump at his throat like a weasel, -and I clapped my hands, waiting for the battle. But it never came, for -dad turned pale and called for brandy, and there was an end of it.” - -This story of the doctor’s horrible suggestion wrought only one -comfort in me--it warmed my heart with a great heat of loyalty to one -who, I knew, for all his faults, could never be guilty of so inhuman a -wickedness. - -“I should like to kill that doctor,” I said, fiercely and proudly. - -“So should I,” said Zyp. “I believe he would bleed soot like a -chimney.” - -Zyp was my companion during the greater part of that day and the next. -Her manner toward me was uniformly gentle and attentive. Sometimes -during meals I would become conscious of Jason’s eyes fixed upon one -or other of us in a curious stare that was watchful and introspective -at once, as if he were summing up the voiceless arguments of counsels -invisible, while never losing sight of the fact that we he sat in -judgment on were already convicted in his mind. This, for the time -being, did not much disturb me. I was lulled to a sense of false -security by the gracious championship I thought I now could rely upon. - -It was the evening of the second day and we three were in the -living-room together; Jason reading at the window. Zyp had been so -kind to me that my heart was very full indeed, and now she sat by me, -one hand slipped into mine, the other supporting her little pointed -chin, while her sweet, flower-stained eyes communed with other, it -seemed, than affairs of earth. A strange wistful tenderness had marked -her late treatment of me; a pathetic solicitude that was inexpressibly -touching to one so forlorn. Suddenly she rose and I heard Jason’s book -rustle in his hand. - -“Now, little boy,” she said, “’tis time you were in bed.” - -Then she leaned toward me and whispered: - -“Is he so unhappy? What has he done for Zyp’s sake?” - -In a moment she bent and kissed me, with a soft kiss, on the forehead, -and shooting a Parthian glance of defiance at Jason, who never spoke -or moved, ran from the room. - -All my soul thrilled with a delicious joy. Zyp, who had refused to -kiss him, had kissed me. The ecstasy of her lips’ touch blotted out -all significance her words might carry. - -Half-stunned with triumphant happiness, I climbed the stairs and, -getting into bed, fell into a luminous dream of thought in which for -the moment was no place for apprehension. - -I did not even hear Jason enter or shut the door, and it was only when -he shook me roughly by the shoulder that I became conscious of his -presence in the room. - -He was standing over me, and the windows of his soul were down, and -through them wickedness grinned like a skull. - -“I’ve had enough of this,” he said in a terrible low voice. “D’you -want to drive me to telling that I know it was you who killed Modred?” - - - - - CHAPTER XI. - CONVICT, BUT NOT SENTENCED. - -So the blow had fallen! - -Yet a single despairing effort I made to beat off or at least postpone -the inevitable. - -I sat up in bed and answered my brother back with, I could feel, ashen -and quivering lips. - -“What do you mean?” I said. “How dare you say such a thing?” - -“I dare anything,” he said, “where I have a particular object in -view.” He never took his eyes off me, and the cold devil in them froze -my blood that had only now run so hotly. - -“For yourself,” he went on, “I don’t care much whether you hang or -live. You can come to terms with your own conscience I dare say, and a -fat brother more or less may be a pure question of fit survival. -That’s as it may be--but the girl here is another matter.” - -“I didn’t kill him,” I could only say, dully. - -Still keeping his eyes on me he sought for and drew from his jacket -pocket a twist of dry and shrunken water weed. A horrible shudder -seized me as I looked upon it. - -“You didn’t think to see that again?” he said. “Do you recognize it? -Of course you do. It was the rope you twisted round his foot, and that -I found round his foot still, after dad had carried him upstairs, -bundled round with those sacks, and I was left alone in the room with -him a minute.” - -My heart died within me. I dropped my sick, strained eyes and could -only listen in agonized silence. And he went on quite pitilessly. - -“You shouldn’t have left such evidence, you know--least of all for me -to see. I had not forgotten the murder in your eyes when I spoke to -you that morning and the evening before.” - -He struck the weed lightly with his right hand. - -“This stuff,” he said, “I know it, of course--grows up straight enough -of itself. It wanted something human--or inhuman--to twist it round a -leg in that fashion.” - -I broke out with a choking cry. - -“I did it,” I said; “but it wasn’t murder--oh, Jason, it wasn’t -murder, as you mean it.” - -He gave a little cold laugh. - -“No doubt we have different standards of morality,” he said. “We won’t -split hairs. Say it was murder as a judge and jury would view it.” - -“It wasn’t! Will you believe me if I tell you the truth?” - -“That depends upon the form it takes.” - -“I’ll tell you. It is the truth--before God, it is the truth! I won’t -favor myself. I had been mad with him, I own, but had nearly got over -it. I was out all day on the hills and thought I should like a bathe -on my way home. I went through the ‘run’ and saw he was there. At -first I thought I would leave him to himself, but just as I was going -he saw me and a grin came over his face and--Jason, you know that if I -had gone away then, he would have thought me afraid to meet him.” - -“You can leave me, Renalt, out of the question, if you please.” - -“I meant no harm--indeed I didn’t--but when I got there he taunted and -mocked at me. I didn’t know what I was doing; and when he jumped for -the water I followed him and twisted that round. Then in a single -moment I saw what I had done--and was mad to unfasten it. It would not -come away at first, and when at last I got him free and to the shore -he was insensible. If you could only know what I suffered then, you -would pity me, Jason--you would; you could not help it.” - -I stole a despairing look at his face and there was no atom of -softness in it. - -“He came to on the way home and I was wild with joy, and at night, -Jason, when you were in bed and asleep, I crept into his room and -begged for his forgiveness and he forgave me.” - -“Without any condition? That wasn’t like Modred. What did he ask for -in return?” - -I was silent. - -“Come,” he persisted, “what did he want? You may as well tell me all. -You don’t fancy that I believe he forgave you without getting -something substantial in exchange?” - -“I was to give up all claim to Zyp,” I said in a low, suffering voice. - -Jason laughed aloud. - -“Oh, Modred,” he cried, “you were a pretty bantling, upon my word! Who -would have thought the dear fatty had such cunning in him?” - -His callous merriment struck me with a dumb horror as of sacrilege. -But he subdued it directly and returned to me and my misery in the -same repressed tone as before. - -“Well,” he said, “I have heard it all, I suppose. It makes little -difference. You know, of course, you are morally responsible for his -death, just the same as if you had stuck a knife into his heart.” - -I could only hide my face in the bedclothes, writhed all through with -agony. There was a little spell of silence; then my brother bespoke my -attention with a gentle push. - -“Renny, do you want all this known to the others?” - -I raised my head in a sudden gust of passion. - -“Do what you like!” I cried. “I know you now, and you can’t make it -much worse!” - -“Oh, yes,” he said, coolly; “I can make it a good deal worse. Nobody -but I knows at present, don’t you see?” - -I looked at him with a sudden gleam of hope. - -“Don’t you intend to tell, Jason?” - -He laughed again, lightly. - -“That depends. I must borrow my cue from Modred and make conditions.” - -I had no need to ask what they were. In whatever direction I looked -now, I saw nothing but a blank and deadly waste. - -“I want the girl--you understand? I need not go into particulars. She -interests me and that’s enough.” - -“Yes,” I said, quietly. - -“There must be no more of that sentimental foolery between you and -her. I bore it as long as you were ill; but, now you’re strong again, -it must stop. If it doesn’t, you know what’ll happen.” - -With that he turned abruptly on his heel and began to undress. I -listened for the deep breathing that announced him to be asleep with a -strained fever of impatience. I felt that I could not think cleanly or -collectedly with that monstrous consciousness of his awake in the -room. - -Perhaps, in all my wretchedness, the full discovery of his baseness of -soul was as bitter a wound as any I had received. I had so looked up -to him as a superior being, so sunned myself in the pride of -relationship to him; so lovingly submitted to his boyish patronage and -condescension. The grief of my discovery was very real and terrible -and would in itself, I think, have gone far to blight my existence had -no fearfuller blast descended to wither it. - -Well, it was all one now. Whatever immunity from disaster I was to -enjoy henceforth must be on sufferance only. - -Had I been older and sinfuller I might have grasped in my despair at -the coward’s resource of self-destruction; as it was, I thought of -flight. By and by, perhaps, when vigor should return to me, and with -it resolution, I should be able to face firmly the problem of my -future and take my own destinies in hand. - -Little sleep came to me that night, and that only of a haunted kind. I -felt haggard and old as I struggled into my clothes the next morning, -and all unfit to cope with the gigantic possibilities of the day. -Jason had gone early to the fatal pool for a bathe. - -At breakfast, in the beginning, Zyp’s manner to me was prettily -sympathetic and a little shy. It was the first of my great misery that -I must repel her on the threshold of our better understanding, and see -her fall away from me for lack of the least expression of that -passionate devotion and gratitude that filled my heart to bursting. I -could see at once that she was startled--hurt, perhaps, and that she -shrunk from me immediately. Jason talked airily to my father all -through the meal, but I knew his senses to be as keenly on the alert -as if he had sat in silence, with his eyes fixed upon my face. - -I choked over my bread and bacon; I could not swallow more than a -mouthful of the coffee in my cup, and Zyp sat back in her chair, never -addressing me after that first rebuff, but pondering on me angrily -with her eyes full of a sort of wonder. - -She stopped me peremptorily as, breakfast over, I was hastening out -with all the speed I could muster, and asked me if I didn’t want her -company that morning. - -“No,” I answered; “I am well enough to get about by myself now.” - -“Very well,” she said. “Then you must do without me altogether for the -future.” - -She turned on her heel and I could only look after her in dumb agony. -Then I crept down into the yard and confided my grief to the old cart -wheels. - -Presently, raising my head, I saw her standing before me, her hands -under her apron, her face grave with an expression, half of concern, -half of defiance. - -“Now, if you please,” she said, “I want to know the meaning of this?” - -“Of what?” I asked, with wretched evasiveness. - -“You know--your manner toward me this morning.” - -“I have done nothing,” I muttered. - -“You have insulted me, sir. Is it because I kissed you last night?” - -“Oh, Zyp!” I cried aloud in great pain. “You know it isn’t--you know -it isn’t!” - -I couldn’t help this one cry. It was forced from me. - -“Then what’s the reason?” - -“I can’t give it--I have none. I want to be alone, that’s all.” - -She stood looking at me a moment in silence, and the line of her mouth -hardened. - -“Very well,” she said, at last. “Then, understand, I’ve done with you. -I thought at first it was a mistake or that you were ill again. I’ve -been kind to you; you can’t say I haven’t given you a chance. And I -pitied you because you were alone and unhappy. Jason, I will tell you, -hinted an evil thing of you to me, but even if it was true, which I -didn’t believe, I forgave you, thinking, perhaps, it was done for my -sake. Well, if it was, I tell you now it was useless, for you will be -nothing to me ever again.” - -And, with these cruel words, she left me. The proud child of the woods -could brook no insult to her condescension, and from my comrade she -had become my enemy. - -I suppose I should have been relieved that the inevitable rupture had -occurred so swiftly and effectually. Judge you, you poor outcasts who, -sanctifying a love in your tumultuous breasts, have had to step aside -and yield to another the fruit you so coveted. - -Once pledged to antagonism, Zyp, it will be no matter for wonder, -adopted anything but half-measures. Had it only been her vanity that -was hurt she would have made me pay dearly for the blow. As it was, -her ingenuity in devising plans for my torture and discomfiture verged -upon the very bounds of reason. - -At first she contented herself with mere verbal pleasantries and -disdainful snubbings. As, however, the days went on and my old -strength and health obstinately returned to me, despite the irony of -the shattered soul within, her animosity grew to be an active agent so -persistent in its methods that I verily thought my brain would give -way under the load. - -I cannot, indeed, recall a tithe of the Pucklike devices she resorted -to for my moral undoing, and which, after all, I might have endured to -the end had it not been for one threading torment that accompanied all -her whimsies like a strain of diabolical music. This was an -ostentatious show of affection for Jason, which, I truly believe, from -being more or less put on in exaggerated style for my edification, -became at length such a habit with her as may be considered, in -certain dispositions, one form of love. - -The two now were seldom apart. Once, conscious of my presence, she -kissed Jason on the lips, because he had brought her a little -flowering root of some plant she desired. I saw his face fire up -darkly and he looked across at me with a triumph that made me almost -hate him. - -And the worst of it was that I knew that my punishment was not more -than commensurate with the offense; that my sin had been grievous and -its retribution not out of proportion. How could full atonement and -Zyp have been mine together? - -Still, capable of acknowledging the fitness of things in my sadder -hours of loneliness, my nature, once restored to strength, could not -but strive occasionally to throw off the incubus that it felt it could -not bear much longer without breaking down for good and all. I had -done wrong on the spur of a single wicked impulse, but I was no fiend -to have earned such bitter reprisal. By slow degrees rebellion woke in -my heart against the persistent cruelty of my two torturers. Had I -fled at this juncture, the wild scene that took place might have been -averted, and the exile, which became mine nevertheless, have borne, -perhaps, less evil fruit than in the result it did. - - - - - CHAPTER XII. - THE DENUNCIATION. - -One November morning--my suffering had endured all these months--my -father and Dr. Crackenthorpe stood before the sitting-room fire, -talking, while I sat with a book at the table, vainly trying to -concentrate my attention on the printed lines. - -Since my recovery I had seen the doctor frequently, but he had taken -little apparent notice of me. Now, I had racked my puzzled mind many a -time for recollection of the conversation I had been witness of on the -night preceding my seizure, but still the details of it had eluded me, -though its gist remained in a certain impression of uneasiness that -troubled me when I thought of it. Suddenly, on this morning, a few -words of the doctor’s brought the whole matter vividly before me -again. - -“By the bye, Trender,” he said, drawlingly, and sat down and began to -poke the fire--“by the bye, have you ever found that thing you accused -me of losing for you on a certain night--you know when?” - -“No,” said my father, curtly. - -“Was it of any value, now?” - -“Maybe--maybe not,” said my father. - -“That don’t seem much of answer. Perhaps, now, it came from the same -place those others did.” - -“That’s nothing to you, Dr. Crackenthorpe.” - -“Well, you say it’s lost, anyhow. Supposing I found it, would you -agree to my keeping it? Treasure-trove, you know”--and he looked up -with a grin, balancing the poker perpendicularly in his hand. -“Treasure-trove, my friend,” he repeated, with emphasis, and gave the -other a keen look. - -Something in the tone of his speech woke light in my brain, and I -remembered at a flash. I stole an anxious glance at my father. His -face was pale and set with anger, but there was an expression in his -eyes that looked like fear. - -“You don’t mean to tell me you have found it?” he said in a forced -voice. - -“Oh, by no means,” answered the doctor. “We haven’t all your good -luck. Only you are so full of the unexpected in producing valuables -from secret places, like a conjurer, that I thought perhaps you -wouldn’t mind my keeping this particular one if I should chance to -pick it up.” - -“Keep it, certainly, if you can find it,” said my father, I could have -thought almost with a faint groan. - -“Thanks for the permission, my friend; I’ll make a point of keeping my -eyes open.” - -When did he not? They were pretty observant now on Zyp and Jason, who, -as he spoke, walked into the room. - -“Hullo!” said my brother. “Good-morning to you, doctor, and a sixpence -to toss for your next threppenny fee.” - -“Hold your tongue,” cried my father, angrily. - -“I would give a guinea to get half for attending on your inquest,” -said the doctor, sourly. “Keep your wit for your wench, my good lad, -and see then that she don’t go begging.” - -“I could give you better,” muttered Jason, cowed by my father’s -presence, “but it shall keep and mature.” Then he turned boisterously -on me. - -“Why don’t you go out, Renny, instead of moping at home all day?” - -His manner was aggressive, his tone calculated to exasperate. - -Moved by discretion I rose from my chair and made for the door; but he -barred my way. - -“Can’t you answer me?” he said, with an ugly scowl. - -“No--I don’t want to. Let me pass.” - -My father had turned his back upon us and was staring gloomily down at -the fire. - -I heard Zyp give a little scornful laugh and she breathed the word -“coward” at me. - -I stopped as if I had struck against a wall. All my blood surged back -on my heart and seemed to leave my veins filled with a tingling ichor -in its place. - -“Perhaps I have been,” I said, in a low voice, “but here’s an end of -it.” - -Jason tittered. - -“We’re mighty stiltish this morning,” he said, with a sneer. “What a -pity it’s November, so that we can’t have a plunge for the sake of -coolness--except that they say the pool’s haunted now.” - -I looked at him with blazing eyes, then made another effort to get -past him, but he repelled me violently. - -“You don’t know your place,” he said, and gave an insolent laugh. -“Stand back till I choose to let you go.” - -I heard the doctor snigger and Zyp gave a second little cluck. My -father was still absorbed--lost in his own dark reflections. - -The loaded reel of endurance was spinning to its end. - -“You might have given all your morning to one of your Susans yonder,” -said my brother, mockingly. “Now she’s gone, I expect, with her apron -to her eyes. She’ll enjoy her pease pudding none the less, I dare say, -and perhaps look out for a more accommodating clown. It won’t be the -first time you’ve had to take second place.” - -I struck him full between the eyes and he went down like a polled ox. -All the pent-up agony of months was in my blow. As I stepped back in -the recoil, madly straining even then to beat under the more furious -devil that yelled in me for release, I was conscious of a hurried -breath at my ear--a swift whisper: “Kill him! Stamp on his mouth! -Don’t let him get up again!” and knew that it was Zyp who spoke. - -I put her back fiercely. Jason had sprung to his feet--half-blinded, -half-stunned. His face was inhuman with passion and was working like a -madman’s. But before he could gather himself for a rush, my father had -him in his powerful arms. It all happened in a moment. - -“What’s all this?” roared my father. “Knock under, you whelp, or I’ll -strangle you in your collar!” - -“Let me go!” cried my brother. “Look at him--look what he did!” - -He was choking and struggling to that degree that he could hardly -articulate. I think foam was on his lips, and in his eyes the ravenous -thirst for blood. - -“He struck me!” he panted--“do you hear? Let me go--let me kill him as -he killed Modred!” - -There was a moment’s silence. Dr. Crackenthorpe, who had sat passively -back in his chair during the fray, with his lips set in an acrid -smile, made as if to rise, leaning forward with quick attention. Then -my father shook Jason till he reeled and clutched at him. - -“Have a mind what you say, you mad cur!” he cried in a terrible voice. - -“It’s true! Let me go! He confessed it all to me--to me, I say!” - -I stood up among them alone, stricken, and I was not afraid. I was a -better man than my accuser; a better brother, despite my sin. And his -dagger, plunged in to destroy, had only released the long-accumulating -agony of my poor inflamed and swollen heart. - -“Father,” I said, “let him alone. It is true, what he says.” - -He flung Jason from him with violence. - -“Move a step,” he thundered, daring him, “and I’ll send you after -Modred!” - -He came to me and took me gently by the shoulder. - -“Renalt, my lad,” he said, “I am waiting to hear.” - -I did not falter, or condone my offense, or make any appeal to them -whatsoever. The kind touch on my arm moved me so that I could have -broken into tears. But my task was before me and I could afford no -atom of self-indulgence, did I wish to get through it bravely. - -As I had told my story to Jason, I told it now; and when I had -finished I waited, in a dead silence, the verdict. I could hear my -brother breathing thickly--expectantly. His fury had passed in the -triumph of his own abasement. - -Suddenly my father put the hand he had held on my shoulder before his -face and a great sob coming from him broke down the stone walls of my -pride. - -“Dad--dad!” I cried in agony. - -He recovered himself in a moment and moved away; then faced round and -addressed me, but his eyes looked down and would not meet mine. - -“Before God,” he said, “I think you are forgiven for a single impulse -we all might suffer and not all of us recoil from the instant after, -but I think that this can be no place for you any longer.” - -Then he turned upon Dr. Crackenthorpe. - -“You!” he cried; “you, man, who have heard it all, thanks to that -dirty reptile yonder! Do you intend to peach?” - -The doctor pinched his wiry chin between finger and thumb, with his -cheeks lifted in a contemplative fashion. - -“The boy,” he said, “is safe from any one’s malice. No jury would -convict on such evidence. Still, I agree with you, it’s best for him -to go.” - -“You hear, Renalt?” said my father. “I’ll not drive you in any way, or -deny you harbor here if you think you can face it out. You shall judge -for yourself.” - -“I have judged,” I answered; “I will go.” - -I walked past them all, with head erect, and up to my room, where I -sat down for a brief space to collect my thoughts and face the future. -Hardly had I got hold of the first end of the tangle when there came a -knock at the door. I opened it and Zyp was outside. - -“You fool!” she whispered; “you should have done as I told you. It’s -too late now. Here, take this. Dad told me to give it you”--and she -thrust a canvas bag of money into my hand, looking up at me with her -unfathomable eyes. - -As I took it, suddenly she flung her arms about my neck and kissed me -passionately, once, twice, thrice, on the lips, and so pushed me from -her and was gone. And as I stood there came to my ears a faint wail -from above, and I said to myself doggedly: “It is a gull flying over -the house.” - -Taking nothing with me but cap, stick and the simple suit of clothes I -had on, I descended the stairs with a firm tread and passed the open -door of the sitting-room. There was silence there, and in silence I -walked by it without a glance in its direction. It held but bitter -memories for me now and was scarce less haunted in its way than the -other. And so to me would it always be--haunted by the beautiful wild -memory of a changeling, whose coming had wrought the great evil of my -life, to whom I, going, attributed no blame, but loved her then as I -had loved her from the first. - -The booming of the wheel shook, like a voice of mockery, at me as I -passed the room of silence. Its paddles, I thought, seemed reeling -with wicked merriment, and its creaking thunder to spin monotonously -the burden of one chant. - -“I let you go, but not to escape--I let you go, but not to escape.” -The fancy haunted my mind for weeks to come. - -In the darkness of the passage a hand seized mine and wrung it -fiercely. - -“You don’t mean to let the grass grow on your resolve, then, Renalt?” -said my father’s voice, rough and subdued. - -“No, dad; I can do no good by delaying.” - -“I’m sore to let you go, my boy. But it’s for the best--it’s for the -best. Don’t think hardly of me; and be a fine lad and strike out a -path for yourself.” - -“God bless you, dad,” I said, and so left him. - -As I stepped into the frosty air the cathedral bells rung out like -iron on an anvil. The city roofs and towers sparkled with white; the -sun looked through a shining mist, giving earnest of gracious hours to -come. - -It was a happy omen. - -I turned my back on the old decaying past and set my face toward -London. - - - - - CHAPTER XIII. - MY FRIEND THE CRIPPLE. - -In the year 1860, of which I now write, so much of prejudice against -railways still existed among many people of a pious or superstitious -turn of mind, that I can quote much immediate precedent in support of -my resolve to walk to London rather than further tempt a Providence I -had already put to so severe a strain. It must be borne in mind of -course that we Trenders were little more than barbarians of an unusual -order, who had been nourished on a scorn of progress and redeemed only -by a natural leaning toward picturesqueness of a pagan kind. Moreover, -the sense of mystery, which was an integral part of our daily -experience, had ingrained in us all a general antagonism toward -unconstructed agencies. Lastly, not one of us had ever as yet been in -a train. - -Still, it was with no feeling of inability to carve a road for myself -through the barriers to existence that I drew, on the evening of my -third day’s tramp, toward the overlapping pall that was the roof of -the “City of Dreadful Night.” - -I had slept, on my road, respectively at Farnham and Guildford, where, -in either case, cheap accommodation was easily procurable, and foresaw -a difficulty, only greater in proportion, in finding reasonable -lodging in London during the time I was seeking work. Indifferently I -pictured this city to myself as only an elongated High street, with -ramifications more numerous and extended than those of the old burgh -that was my native town. I was startled, overwhelmed, dazed with the -black, aimless scurrying of those interwoven strings of human ants, -that ran by their thronging brick heaps, eager in search for what they -never seemed to find, or shot and vanished into tunnels and alleys of -darkness, or were attracted to and scorched up by, apparently, the -broad sheets of flame that were the shop windows of their Vanity Fair. -Moving amid the swarm from vision to vision--always an inconsiderable -atom there without meaning or individuality--always stunned and -stupefied by the threatening masses of masonry that hemmed me in, and -accompanied me, and broke upon me in new dark forms through every -vista and gap that the rank growth of ages had failed to block--the -inevitable sense grew upon me, as it grows upon all who pace its -interminable streets friendless, of walking in a world to which I was -by heavenly birthright an alien. - -Near midnight, I turned into a gaunt and lonely square, where -comparative quiet reigned. - -I had entered London by way of Waterloo bridge, as the wintry dusk was -falling over house and river, and all these hours since had I been -pacing its crashing thoroughfares, alive only to wonder and the cruel -sense of personal insignificance. As to a lodging and bed for my weary -limbs--sooner had Childe Roland dared the dark tower than I the -burrows, that night, of the unknown pandemonium around me. I had slept -in the open of the fields before now. Here, though winter, it hardly -seemed that there was an out-of-doors, but that the buildings were -only so many sleeping closets in a dark hall. - -All round the square inside was a great inclosure encompassed by a -frouzy hoarding of wood, and set in the middle of the inclosure was -some dim object that looked like a ruined statue. Such by day, indeed, -I found it to be, and of no less a person than his late majesty, King -George the First. When my waking eyes first lighted on him, I saw him -to be half-sunk into his horse, as if seeking to shield himself -therein from the shafts of his persecutors, who, nothing discomposed, -had daubed what remained of the crippled charger himself with blotches -of red and white paint. - -I walked once or twice round the square, seeking vainly, at first, to -still the tumult of my brain. The oppressive night of locked-up -London, laden like a thunder cloud with store of slumbering passions, -was lowering now and settling down like a fog. The theaters were -closed; the streets echoing to the last foot-falls. Seeing a hole in -the hoarding, I squeezed through it and withdrew into the rank grass -and weeds that choked the interior of the inclosure. I had bought and -brought some food with me, and this I fell to munching as I sat on a -hummock of rubbish, and was presently much comforted thereby, so that -nothing but sleep seemed desirable to me in all the world. Therefore I -lay down where I was and buttoning my coat about me, was, despite the -frosty air, soon lost in delicious forgetfulness. At first my slumber -was broken by reason of the fitful rumble of wheels, or pierced by -voices and dim cries that yet resounded phantomly here and there, as -if I lay in some stricken city, where only the dying yet lived and -wailed, but gradually these all passed from me. - -I awoke with the gray of dawn on my face and sat up. My limbs were -cramped and stiff with the cold, and a light rime lay upon my clothes. -Otherwise no bitterer result had followed my rather untoward -experiment. - -Then I looked about me and saw for the first time that I was not -alone. Certain haggard and unclean creatures were my bed-fellows in -that desolate oasis. They lay huddled here and there, like mere -scarecrows blown over by the wind and lying where they fell. There -were women among them, and more than one pinched and tattered urchin, -with drawn, white face resolved by sleep into nothing but pathos and -starvation. - -There they lay at intervals, as if on a battlefield where the crows -had been busy, and each one seemed to lie flattened into the earth as -dead bodies lie. - -I could not but be thankful that I had stumbled over no one of them -when I had entered--an accident which would very possibly have lost me -my little store of money, if it had, indeed, led to nothing worse. As -it was, I prepared for a hasty exit, and was about to rise, when I -became conscious that my movements were under observation by one who -lay not twenty feet from me. - -He was so hidden by the rank grass that at first I could make out -nothing but a long, large-boned face peering at me above the stems -through eyes as black and glinting as boot buttons. A thatch of dark -hair fell about his ears and forehead, and his eyebrows, also black, -were sleek and pointed like ermine tips. - -The face was so full and fine that I was startled when its owner rose, -which he did on the instant, to see that he was a thick-set and -stunted cripple. He shambled toward me with a winning smile on his -lips, and before I could summon resolution to retreat, had come and -sat down beside me. - -“We seem the cocks of this company,” he said, in a deep musical voice. -“Among the blind the one-eyed--eh?” - -He was warmly and decently clad, and I could only wonder at his choice -of bedroom. He read me in a look. - -“I’ve a craving for experiences,” he said. “These aren’t my usual -quarters.” - -“No,” I said; “I suppose not.” - -“Nor yours?” he went on, with a keen glance at me. - -To give my confidence to a stranger was an unwise proceeding, but I -was guileless as to the craft of great cities, and in this case my -innocence was in a manner my good fortune. - -I told him that I was only yesterday from the country, after a three -days’ tramp, and how I was benighted. - -“Ah,” he said. “Up after work, I suppose?” - -“Yes,” I answered. - -“Well,” said he, “let’s understand your capacities. Guess my age -first.” - -“Forty,” said I, at a venture, for indeed he might have been that or -anything else. - -“I’m 21,” he said. “Don’t I look it? We mature early in London here. -What do you think’s my business?” - -“Oh, you’re a gentleman, aren’t you?” I asked, with some stir of -shyness. - -“I’m a printer’s hand. That means something very different to you, -don’t it? Maybe you’ll develop in time. Where are you from?” - -I told him. - -“Ah,” he said. “You’ve a proverb down your way: ‘Manners makeyth man.’ -So they may, as they construe it--a fork for the fingers and a pretty -trick of speech; but it’s the manners of the soul make the gentleman. -Do you believe in after-life?” - -“Of course I do. Where do the ghosts come from otherwise?” - -He laughed pleasantly, rubbing his chin in a perplexed manner, and -then I noticed that his fingers were stunted like a mechanic’s and -stained with printer’s ink. - -“Old Ripley would fancy you,” he said. - -“Who’s he?” - -“My governor--printer, binder and pamphleteer, an opponent of all -governments but his own. He’s an anarchist, who’d like to transfer -himself and his personal belongings to some desert satellite, after -laying a train to blow up the earth with nitro-glycerin and then he’d -want to overturn the heavenly system.” - -“He doesn’t sound hopeful.” - -“No, he isn’t, but he’s fairly original for a fanatic. I wonder if -he’d give you work?” - -“Oh, thanks!” I exclaimed. - -“Nonsense; you needn’t mind him. He’s only gas. Unmixed with his -native air he wouldn’t be explosive, you know. I can imagine him a -very unprogressive angel. It’s notoriety he wants. Nothing satisfies -his sort in the end like a scaffold outside of Newgate with 40,000 -eyes looking on and 12 guineas paid for a window in the ‘Magpie and -Stump.’” - -“Are you----” I began, when he took me up with: - -“His kind? Not a bit of it. I’m an idealist--a dreamer asking the way -to Utopia. I look about for the finger-posts in places like this. One -must learn and suffer to dream properly.” - -“You can do that and yet have ugly enough dreams,” I said, with -subdued emphasis. - -“That oughtn’t to be so,” he said, looking curiously at me. “Nightmare -comes from self-indulgence. Cosset your grievances and they’ll control -you. You must be an ascetic in the art of sensation.” - -“And starve on a pillar like that old saint Mr. Tennyson wrote of,” I -answered. - -“Go and hang yourself,” he cried, pushing at me with a laugh. “Hullo! -Who’s here?” - -A couple of the scarecrows, evil-looking men both, had risen, and -stood over us to one side, listening. - -“Toff kenners,” I heard one of them mutter, “and good for jink, by the -looks.” - -“Tap the cady,” the other murmured, and both creatures shuffled round -to the front of us. - -“Good for a midjick, matey?” asked the more ruffianly looking of the -two in a menacing tone. - -I started, bewildered by their jargon. My companion looked up at them -smiling and drumming out a tune on his knee. - -“Stow it,” said the smaller man to the other; “I’ve tried the griffin -and it don’t take.” Then he bent his body and whined in a fulsome -voice: “Overtaken with a drop, good gentlemen? And won’t you pay a -trifle for your lodgings, now?” - -I was about to rise, but a gesture on the part of both fellows showed -me that they intended to keep us at our disadvantage. A blowzed and -noisome woman was advancing to join the group. - -“Be alert,” whispered my companion. “We must get out of this.” - -The words were for me, but the men gathered their import and assumed a -threatening manner. No doubt, seeing but a boy and a cripple, they -valued us beneath our muscular worth. - -“Come,” said the big man, “we don’t stand on ceremony; we want the -price of a drink.” - -He advanced upon us, as he spoke, with an ugly look and in a moment my -companion had seized him by the ankles and whirled him over against -his friend, so that the two crashed down together. The woman set up a -screech, as we jumped to our feet, and we saw wild heads start up here -and there like snakes from the grass. But before any one could follow -us we had gained the rent in the hoarding and slipped through. -Glancing back, after I had made my exit, I saw one of the men strike -the woman full in the face and fell her to the ground. It was his -gentle corrective to her for not having stopped us, and the sight made -my blood so boil that I was on the point of tearing back, had not my -companion seized and fairly carried me off. As in many cripples, his -strength of arm was prodigious. - -“Now,” he said, when he had quieted me, “we’ll go home to breakfast.” - -“Where?” said I. - -“Home, my friend. Oh, I have one, you know, for all my sleeping out -there. That was a test for experience; my first one of the kind, but -valuable in its way.” - -“But----” I began. - -“Yes, you will,” he cried. “You’ll be my guest. I’ve taken a bit of a -fancy to you. What’s your name?” - -When I had told him, “Duke Straw’s mine,” he said; “though I’m not of -strawberry-leaf descent. But it’s a good name for a dreamer, isn’t it? -Have you ever read ‘Feathertop,’ by Hawthorne?” - -“No,” I said. - -“Never mind, then. When you do, you’ll recognize my portrait--a poor -creature of straw that moves by smoke.” - -“What smoke?” I asked, bewildered. - -“Perhaps you’ll find out some day--if Ripley takes a fancy to you.” - -“You don’t want me to go to him?” - -“Certainly I do. I’m going to take you with me when I tramp to work at -9 o’clock.” - -He was so cool and masterful that I could only laugh and walk on with -him. - - - - - CHAPTER XIV. - I OBTAIN EMPLOYMENT. - -It was broad day when we emerged from the inclosure, and sound was -awakening along the wintry streets. London stood before me rosy and -refreshed, so that she looked no longer formidably unapproachable as -she had in her garb of black and many jewels. I might have entered her -yesterday with the proverbial half-crown, so easily was my lot to fall -in accommodating places. - -Duke Straw, whom I was henceforth to call my friend, conducted me by a -township of intricate streets to the shop of a law stationer, in a -petty way of business, which stood close by Clare market and abutted -on Lincoln’s Inn Fields. Here he had a little bedroom, furnished with -a cheap, oil-cooking stove, whereon he heated his coffee and grilled -his bacon. - -Simon Cringle, the proprietor of the shop, was taking his shutters -down as we walked up. He was a little, spare man, with a vanity of -insignificance. His iron-gray hair fell in short, well-greased -ringlets and his thin beard in a couple more, that hung loose like -dangled wood shavings; his coiled mustaches reminded one of watch -springs; his very eyebrows, like bees’ legs, were humped in the middle -and twisted up into fine claws at the tips. Duke, in his search for -lodging and experience, had no sooner seen this curiosity than he -closed with him. - -He gave my companion a grandiloquent “Good-morning.” - -“Up with the lark, Mr. Straw,” said he, “and I hope, sir, with success -in the matter of getting the first worm?” Here he looked hard at me. - -“He found me too much of a mouthful,” said I; “so he brought me home -for breakfast.” - -Duke laughed. - -“Come and be grilled,” said he. “Anyhow they roast malt-worms in a -place spoken of by Falstaff.” - -We had a good, merry meal. I should not have thought it possible my -heart could have lightened so. But there was a fascinating -individuality about my companion that, I am afraid, I have but poorly -suggested. He gave me glimmerings of life in a higher plane than that -which had been habitual to me. No doubt his code of morals was -eccentric and here and there faulty. His manner of looking at things -was, however, so healthy, his breezy philosophy so infectious, that I -could not help but catch some of his complaint--which was, like that -of the nightingale, musical. - -Perhaps, had I met him by chance six months ago, my undeveloped soul -would have resented his easy familiarity with a cubbish snarl or two. -Now my receptives were awakened; my armor of self-sufficiency eaten to -rags with rust; my heart plaintive for communion with some larger -influence that would recognize and not abhor. - -At 8:45 he haled me off to the office, which stood a brief distance -away, in a thoroughfare called Great Queen street. Here he left me -awhile, bidding me walk up and down and observe life until his chief -should arrive, which he was due to do at the half-hour. - -I thought it a dull street after some I had seen, but there were many -old book and curiosity shops in it that aroused my interest. While I -was looking into one of them I heard Duke call. - -“Here,” he said, when I reached him; “answer out and I think Ripley -will give you work. I’m rather a favorite with him--that’s the truth.” - -He led me into a low-browed room, with a counter. Great bales of print -and paper went up to the ceiling at the back, and the floor rumbled -with the clank of subterranean machinery. One or two clerks were about -and wedged into a corner of the room was a sort of glazed and wooden -crate of comfortable proportions, which was, in fact, the chapel of -ease of the minister of the place. - -Into this den Duke conducted me with ceremony, and, retreating -himself, left me almost tumbling over a bald-headed man, with a matted -black beard, on which a protruding red upper lip lay like a splash of -blood, who sat at a desk writing. - -“Shut the door,” he said, without looking up. - -“It is shut, sir.” - -He trailed a glance at me, as if in scrutiny, but I soon saw he could -only have been balancing some phrase, for he dived again and went on -writing. - -Presently he said, very politely, indeed, and still intent on his -paper: “Are you a cadet of the noble family of Kinsale, sir?” - -“No, sir,” I answered, in surprise. - -“You haven’t the right to remain covered in the presence of the king?” - -“No, sir.” - -“Well, I’m king here. What the blazes do you mean by standing in a -private room with your hat on?” - -I plucked it off, tingling. - -“I’m sorry,” I said. “Mr. Straw brought me in so suddenly, I lost my -head and my cap went with it, I suppose. But I see it’s not the only -thing one may lose here, including tempers!” And with that I turned on -my heel and was about to beat a retreat, fuming. - -“Come back!” shouted Mr. Ripley. “If you go now, you go for good!” - -I hesitated; the memory of my late comrade restored my equilibrium. - -“I didn’t mean to be rude, sir,” I said. “I shall be grateful to you -if you will give me work.” - -He had condescended to turn now, and was looking full at me with -frowning eyes, but with no sign of anger on his face. - -“Well, you can speak out,” he said. “How do you come to know Straw?” - -“I met him by chance and we got talking together.” - -“How long have you been in London?” - -“Since yesterday evening.” - -“Why did you leave Winton?” - -“To get work.” - -“Have you brought a character with you?” - -Here was a question to ask a Trender! But I answered, “No, I never -thought of it,” with perfect truth. - -“What can you do?” - -“Anything I’m told, sir.” - -“That’s a compromising statement, my friend. Can you read and write?” - -“Yes, of course.” - -“Anything else?” - -“Nothing.” - -“Nothing? Don’t you know anything now about the habits of birds and -beasts and fishes?” - -“Oh, yes! I could tell you a heap about that.” - -“Could you? Very well; I’ll give you a trial. I take you on Straw’s -recommendation. His opinion, I tell you, I value more than a score of -written characters in a case like this. You’ve to make yourself useful -in fifty different ways.” - -I assented, with a light heart, and he took me at my word and the -further bargain was completed. My wages were small at first, of -course; but, with what I had in hand, they would keep me going no -doubt till I could prove myself worth more to my employer. - -In this manner I became one of Ripley’s hands and later on myself a -pamphleteer in a small way. I wrote to my father that evening and -briefly acquainted him of my good fortune. - -For some months my work was of a heterogeneous description. Ripley was -legitimately a job printer, on rather a large scale, and a bookbinder. -To these, however, he added a little venturesomeness in publishing on -his own account, as also a considerable itch for scribbling. Becoming -at a hint a virulent partisan in any extremist cause whatsoever, it -will be no matter for wonder that his private room was much the resort -of levelers, progressives and abolitionists of every creed and -complexion. There furious malcontents against systems they were the -first to profit by met to talk and never to listen. There fanatical -propagandists, eager to fly on the rudimentary wing stumps of first -principles, fluttered into print and came flapping to the ground at -the third line. There, I verily believe, plots were laid that would -presently have leveled powers and potentates to the ground at a nod, -had any of the conspirators ever possessed the patience to sit on them -till hatched. This, however, they never did. All their fiery -periphrastics smoked off into the soot of print and in due course -lumbered the office with piles of unmarketable drivel. - -Mr. Ripley had, however, other strings to his bow, or he would not -have prospered. He did a good business in bookselling and was even now -and again successful in the more conventional publishing line. In this -connection I chanced to be of some service to him, to which -circumstance I owed a considerable improvement in my position after I -had been with him getting on a year. He had long contemplated, and at -length begun to work upon, a series of handbooks on British birds and -insects, dealt with county by county. In the compilation of these much -research was necessary, wherein I proved myself a useful and -painstaking coadjutor. In addition, however, my own knowledge of the -subject was fairly extensive as regarded Hampshire, which county, and -especially that part of it about Winton, is rich in lepidoptera of a -rare order. I may say I fairly earned the praise he bestowed upon me, -which was tinged, perhaps, with a trifle of jealousy on his part, due -to the fact that the section I touched proved to be undoubtedly the -most popular of the series, as judged subsequently by returns. - -Not to push on too fast, however, I must hark back to the day of my -engagement, which was marked by my introduction to one who eventually -exercised a considerable influence over my destinies. - -During the course of that first morning Mr. Ripley sent me for some -copies of a pamphlet that were in order of sewing down below. By his -direction I descended a spiral staircase of iron and found myself in -the composing-room. At a heavy iron-sheeted table stood my new-found -friend, who was, despite his youth, the valued foreman of this -department. He hailed me with glee and asked: “What success?” - -“All right, thanks to you,” I said; “and where may the bookbinding -place be and Dolly Mellison?” - -“Oh, you’re for there, are you?” he said, with I thought a rather -curious look at me, and he pointed to a side door. - -Passing through this I found myself in a long room, flanked to the -left with many machines and to the right with a row of girls who were -classifying, folding or sewing the sheets of print recent from the -press. - -“I’m to ask for Dolly Mellison,” I said, addressing the girl at my end -of the row. - -“Well, you won’t have far to go,” she said. “I’m her.” - -She was a pretty, slim lily of a thing, lithe and pale, with large -gray eyes and coiled hair like a rope of sun-burned barleystraw, and -her fingers petted her task as if that were so much hat-trimming. - -“I’m sent by Mr. Ripley for copies of a pamphlet on ‘The Supineness of -Theologicians,’” I said. - -“I’m at work on it,” she answered. “Wait a bit till I’ve finished the -dozen.” - -She glanced at me now and again without pausing in her work. - -“You’re from the country, aren’t you?” - -“Yes. How do you know?” - -“A little bird told me. What gave you those red cheeks?” - -“The sight of you,” I said. I was growing up. - -“I’m nothing to be ashamed of, am I?” she asked, with a pert laugh. - -“You ought to be of yourself,” I said, “for taking my heart by storm -in that fashion.” - -“Go along!” she cried, with a jerk of her elbow. “None of your gammon! -I’m not to be caught by chaff.” - -“It wasn’t chaff, Dolly, though I may be a man of straw. Is that what -you meant?” - -“You’re pretty free, upon my word. Who told you you might call me by -my name?” - -“Why, you wouldn’t have me call you by any one else’s? It’s pretty -enough, even for you.” - -“Oh, go away with you!” she cried. “I won’t listen.” - -At that moment Duke put his head in at the door. - -“The governor’s calling for you,” he said. “Hurry up.” - -“Well, they’re ready,” said the girl--“here,” and she thrust the -packet into my hands, with a little blushing half-impudent look at me. - -I forgot all about her in a few minutes. My heart was too full of one -only other girlish figure to find room in itself for a rival. What was -Zyp doing now?--the wonderful fairy child, whose phantom presence -haunted all my dreams for good and evil. - -As I walked from the office with Duke Straw that afternoon--for, as it -was Saturday, we left early--a silence fell between us till we neared -Cringle’s shop. Then, standing outside, he suddenly stayed me and -looked in my face. - -“Shall I hate or love you?” he said, with his mouth set grimly. - -He made a gesture toward his deformed lower limbs with his hands, and -shrugged his shoulders. - -“No,” he said; “what must be, must. I’ll love you!” - -There was a curious, defiant sadness in his tone, but it was gone -directly. I could only stare at him in wonder. - -“You’re to be my house-fellow and chum,” he said. “No, don’t protest; -I’ve settled it. We’ll arrange the rest with Cringle.” - -And so I slept in a bed in London for the first time. - -But the noise of a water wheel roared in my ears all night. - - - - - CHAPTER XV. - SWEET, POOR DOLLY. - -“Trender,” said Duke, unexpectedly after a silence the next morning, -as we loitered over breakfast, “pay attention to one thing. I don’t -ask you for a fragment of your past history and don’t want to hear -anything about it. You’ll say, as yet you haven’t offered me your -confidence, and quite right, too, on the top of our short -acquaintance. But don’t ever offer it to me, you understand? Our -friendship starts from sunrise, morning by morning, and lasts the day. -I don’t mean it shall be the less true for that; I have a theory, -that’s all.” - -“What is it, Straw?” - -“Sufficient for the day, it’s called. Providence has elected to give -us, not one existence, but so many or few, each linked to the next by -an insensibility and intercalated as a whole between appropriate -limits.” - -“I don’t quite understand.” - -“Wait a bit. Each of these existences has its birth and death, and -should be judged apart from the others; each is pronounced upon in -succession by one’s familiar spirit and its minutes pigeon-holed and -docketed above there. When the chain of evidence, for or against, is -complete, up these links are gathered in a heap and weighed in both -sides of the balance.” - -“It sounds more plausible than it is, I think,” said I, with frank -discourtesy. “The acts of one day may influence those of the next--or -interminably.” - -“That’s your lookout; but they needn’t necessarily. With each new -birth comes a new capacity for looking at things in their right -proportions.” - -“How far do you push your theory?” - -“As far as you like. I’d have, all the world over, a daily revival of -systems.” - -“Government--law?” - -“Certainly. Of everything.” - -“Then justice, injustice, vindictiveness, must all revive, too.” - -“No. They’re recalled; they don’t revive.” - -“But must a criminal, for instance, be allowed to escape because they -have failed to catch him the day he did the deed?” - -“That’s exactly it. It makes no difference. He couldn’t atone here for -an act committed by him during another existence. But that particular -minute goes pretty red into its pigeon-hole, you may be sure.” - -“Oh, it’s wild nonsense,” I laughed. “You can’t possibly be -consistent.” - -“Can’t I? Look here, you are my friend yesterday, and to-day, and -always, I hope. I judge you daily on your merits, yet, for all I know, -you may have committed murder in one of your past existences?” - -The blood went back upon my heart. Then a great longing awoke in me to -tell all to this self-reliant soul and gain comfort of my sorrow. But -where was the good in the broad face of his theory? - -“Well,” I said, with a sigh, “I’ve done things at least I bitterly -repent of.” - -“That’s the conventional way of looking at it. Repentance in this -won’t avail a former existence. Past days of mine have had their -troubles, no doubt, but this day I have before me unclouded and to do -what I like with.” - -“Well, what shall we do with it?” said I. “I hand it over to you to -make it a happiness for me. I dare say we shall find plenty of sorrows -between sunrise and evening to give it a melancholy charm.” - -“Rubbish!” cried my friend. “Cant, cant, cant, ever to suppose that -sorrow is necessary to happiness! We mortals, I tell you, have an -infinite capacity for delight; given health, spiritual and bodily, we -could dance in the sunbeams for eternity and never reach a surfeit of -pleasure.” - -“Duke,” said I--“may I call you Duke?” - -“Of course.” - -“It puzzles me where you got--I don’t mean offense--only I can’t help -wondering----” - -“How I came to have original thoughts and a grammatical manner of -speech? Look here----” he held up his stained fingers--“aren’t these -the hands of a man of letters?” - -“And a man of action,” I said, with a laugh. “But----” - -“It’s no use, Renny. I can’t look further back than this morning.” - -“You can recall, you know. You don’t deny each existence that -capacity?” - -“Perhaps I could; but to what advantage? To shovel up a whole -graveyard of sleeping remembrances to find the seed of one dead nettle -that thrusts its head through? No, thank you. Besides, if it comes to -that, I might put the same question to you.” - -“Oh, I can easily answer it. I get all my way of speaking from my -father first, and, secondly, because I love books.” - -He looked at me oddly. - -“You’re a modest chicken,” he said. “But I should like to meet your -father.” - -I could not echo his wish. - -“Still,” he went on, “I will tell you, there was a little inexperience -of mankind in your wonder. I think--I don’t refer to myself, of -course--that no man in the world is more interesting to talk with than -the skilled mechanic who has an individuality and a power of -expressing it in words. He is necessarily a man of cultivation, and an -‘h’ more or less in his vocabulary is purely an accident of his -surroundings.” - -At this moment Mr. Cringle tapped at the door and walked into the -room. - -“I hope I see you ro-bust, gentlemen? And how do you like this village -of ours, Mr. Trender?” - -“It’s dirty after Winton,” said I. - -“Ah,” he said, condescendingly; “the centers of such enormous forces -must naturally rise some dust. It’s a proud thing, sir, to contribit -one’s peck to the total. I feel it in my little corner here.” - -“Why,” said I, “you surprise me, Mr. Cringle. I’m only an ignorant -country lad, of course; but it seems to me you are quite a remarkable -figure.” - -He gave an extra twist to his mustache and sniggered comfortably. -“Well,” he said, “it is not for me to contradict you--eh, Mr. Straw?” - -“Certainly not,” said Duke; “why, you are famous for your deeds.” - -“Very good, Mr. Straw, and perhaps, as you kindly mean it in the -double sense. You mightn’t think it, but it wants some knowledge of -the law’s mazes to turn a rough draft into a hold-fast agreement or -indenture.” - -“And you can do that?” - -“I flatter myself, Mr. Trender, that it’ll want a microscoptic eye to -find flaws in my phraseology.” - -He thrust back his head and expanded his chest. - -“But I’m overlooking my errand,” said he. “The young lady, as has -called before, Mr. Straw, rung me down just now for a message to you.” - -“Oh, what was it?” - -“She wanted to know if you was game for a walk and she’d be waiting -under the market till half after nine.” - -“Very well,” and Mr. Cringle took himself off. - -“It’s Dolly Mellison,” said Duke to me. “We often go for a Sunday -tramp together.” - -“Well, don’t stop for me, if you want to go.” - -“We’ll both go--why not?” - -“Oh, not for anything. Fancy my intruding myself on her.” - -“I’ll answer she’ll not object,” said my companion, and again I was -half conscious of something unusual in his tone. - -“But you might,” said I. - -“Not a bit of it. Why should I? We’re not betrothed, you know.” - -He answered with a laugh, and pointed, or seemed to point at his -twisted lower limbs. “You wouldn’t believe me, would you, if I told -you she expects you?” he added. - -“Oh, very well,” said I, “if you put it in that way.” - -We found Dolly standing under the piazza of Covent Garden market. She -made no movement toward us until we were close upon her, and then she -greeted us with a shy wriggle and a little blush. She was very -daintily dressed, with a fur tippet about her throat, and looked as -pretty as a young Hebe. - -“Oh,” she said, “I didn’t suppose you would come, too, Mr. Trender.” - -“There!” I cried to Duke, with perfect good nature. “I told you I -should be in the way.” - -“Nonsense!” he said. “Miss Mellison didn’t mean it like that, did you, -Dolly?” - -“Didn’t I? You see how he answers for me, Mr. Trender?” And she turned -half from him with a rosy pout. - -“Come!” I cried gayly. “I’ll risk it. I do not believe you’ve the -heart to be cruel, Miss Mellison.” - -“Thank you for the surname, and also for telling me I’m heartless.” - -“You can’t be that as long as mine goes a-begging,” I said, -impudently. - -She peeped up at me roguishly from under her long lashes and shook her -head. - -“Come,” said Duke, impatiently; “what are we going to do? Don’t let’s -stand chattering here all day.” - -“I’ll tell you,” I cried in a sudden reckless flush of extravagance. -“Aren’t there pretty places on the Thames one can get to from here?” - -“Oh, plenty,” said Duke, dryly, “if one goes by train.” - -“Then let’s go and make a pleasant water party of it.” - -He shook his head with a set of the lips. - -“Those are rare treats,” he said. “Our sort can’t afford such jinks -except after a deal of saving.” - -“I don’t want you to,” said I. “It’s my business and you’re to come as -my guests.” - -“Oh, nonsense,” he said, sharply; “we can’t do that.” - -“Please speak for yourself, Mr. Straw,” said Dolly. I had noticed her -eyes shine at the mere prospect. “If Mr. Trender is so kind as to -offer, and can afford it, I’m sure, I, for one, don’t intend to -disappoint him.” - -“Can he afford it?” said Duke, doggedly. - -“I shouldn’t propose it if I couldn’t,” said I, very much on the high -horse. - -“Of course you wouldn’t,” said Dolly. “I wonder at you, Mr. Straw, for -being so insulting.” - -“Very well,” said Duke, “I meant it for the best; but let’s be off. -I’m for a shallop in Arcady, with Pleasure in a pork-pie hat (it’s -very pretty, Dolly) at the helm.” - -We went down to Richmond by train, and Duke--good fellow that he -was--made a merry company of us. If he felt any soreness over his -rebuff he hid it out of sight most effectually. - -It was early in November--a beautiful, sparkling morning, and the -river bore a fairish sprinkling of pleasure craft on its silvery -stretches. - -We were neither of us great oarsmen and at first made but poor way, -owing to a tendency Duke of the iron sinews showed to pulling me -completely round. But presently we got into a more presentable swing -and fore-reached even upon a skiff or two whose occupants had treated -us to some good-humored chaff upon our starting. - -“Woa!” cried Duke. “This pulling is harder than pulling proofs, Renny. -Let’s stop by the bank and rest a bit.” - -We ran the boat’s nose aground, fastened her painter to a stump and -settled down for a talk. - -“Enjoying yourself, Dolly?” asked Duke, mopping his forehead. - -“Yes, of course--thanks to Mr. Trender.” - -“This is a fine variety on our walks, isn’t it?” - -“Oh, they’re jolly enough when you’re in a good temper.” - -“Am I not always?” - -“Oh, I don’t know. Sometimes you say things I don’t understand.” - -“See there, Renny,” cried Duke. “If I express myself badly she calls -me cross.” - -“It isn’t that,” said the girl. “I know I’m ignorant and you’re -clever, but you seem to read me and then say things out of yourself -that have nothing to do with me--just as if I was a book and you -a--what do they call it?--cricket or something.” - -We both laughed aloud. - -“Oh, Dolly,” said Duke, “what pretty imp taught you satire? Are you a -book to Mr. Trender?” - -“Oh, no! He talks what I can understand.” - -“Better and better! But take comfort, Renny; you’re downed in sweet -company.” - -“Hush,” said Dolly; “it’s Sunday.” - -She dabbled her slender hand in the water and drew it out quickly. - -“Oh,” she cried, “it’s cold. I hope we shan’t be upset. Can you swim, -Mr. Trender?” - -“Yes, like a duck.” - -“That’s a comfort, if I fall in. Mr. Straw, here, can’t.” - -“I’m built top-heavy,” said Duke, “but I’d try to save you, Dolly.” - -The girl’s eyes shone with a momentary remorseful pity. - -“I know you would,” she said, softly; “you aren’t one to think about -yourself, Duke. How I wish I could swim! I don’t believe there can be -anything in the world like getting that medal they give you for saving -people from drowning. Have you ever saved any one, Mr. Trender?” - -Oh, gentle hand to deal so cruel a stroke! For a moment my smoldering -sense of guilt flamed up blood-red. - -“No, no,” I said, with a forced laugh. “I’m not like Duke. I do think -of myself. I’m afraid.” - -We lapsed into silence, out of which came Dolly’s voice presently, -murmuring a queer little doggerel song that seemed apt to her childish -nature: - - “‘Who owns that house on yonder hill?’ - Said the false black knight to the pretty little child on the road. - ‘It’s my father’s and mine,’ - Said the pretty little child scarce seven years old. - - “‘Will you let me in?’ - Said the false black knight to the pretty little child on the road. - ‘Oh, no; not a step,’ - Said the pretty little child scarce seven years old. - - “‘Then I wish you deaf and dumb,’ - Said the false black knight to the pretty little child on the road. - ‘And I wish you the same, with a blister on your tongue!’ - Said the pretty little child scarce seven years old.” - -“Where on earth did you learn that?” said Duke, with a laugh, as Dolly -ceased, her eyes dreaming out upon the shining river. - -“I don’t know. Mother used to sing it, I think, when I was a little -girl.” - -“We must question her,” said I. - -“Mother’s dead,” said Dolly. - -I could have bitten out my tongue. - -Duke again exerted himself to put matters on a comfortable footing. - -“Dolly and I are both orphans,” said he; “babes in old Ripley’s wood.” - -“And I am the remorseless ruffian,” I broke in. - -“All right. You didn’t know, of course. Look at that girl on the bank, -with the crinoline; she might be riding a hobby-horse.” - -“Ain’t she a beauty?” said Dolly, enviously. Her own subscribing to -the outrageous fashion then fortunately in its decay was limited to -her slender means and the necessities of her work. - -“You don’t mean to say you admire her?” said I. - -“Don’t I, Mr. Trender? Just as she’d admire me if I was dressed like -that.” - -“Heaven forbid, Dolly. I won’t call you Dolly if you call me Mr. -Trender.” - -“Won’t you, now? Upon my word, you’ve got the impudence of twenty.” - -“Look here,” said Duke, “I’m for paddling on. I don’t know your views -as to dinner, Mr. Renalt, but mine are getting pretty vociferous.” - -“My idea is to pull on till we sight a likely place, Mr. Duke Straw.” - -We rowed up past Kingston, a cockney town we all fought shy of, and on -by grassy reaches as far as Hampton bridge, where we disembarked. Here -was a pleasant water-side inn, with a lawn sloping down to the -embankment, and, sitting in its long coffee-room, we made a hearty -dinner and a merry company. Dolly was flushed and happy as a young -naiad when we returned to our boat, and she rippled with laughter and -sweetness. - - - - - CHAPTER XVI. - A FATEFUL ACCIDENT. - -We loitered on the river till the short day was threatening dusk, and -then we were still no further on our homeward way than a half-mile -short of Kingston. A little cold wind, moreover, was beginning to -whine and scratch over the surface of the water, and Dolly pulled her -tippet closer about her bosom, feeling chilled and inclined to -silence. - -“Come,” said Duke, “we must put our shoulders to it or we shan’t get -into the lock before dark.” - -“Oh!” cried the girl, with a half-whimper, “I had forgotten that -horrible lock with its hideous weedy doors. Must we go through it?” - -“I’m afraid so,” said Duke; “but,” he added cheerily, “don’t you be -nervous. We’ll run you down and through before you have time to count -a hundred--if you count slowly.” - -She sunk back in her seat with a frightened look and grasped the -rudder lines, as if by them only could she hold on to safety. The dusk -dropped about us as we pulled on, strain as we might, and presently we -both started upon hearing a strangled sob break from the girl. - -“Oh,” said Duke, pausing for a moment, “this will never do, Dolly. -Why, you can’t be afraid with two such knights to protect you?” - -“I can’t help it,” said the poor child, fairly crying now. “You don’t -know anything about the river, either of you; and--and mayn’t I get -out and walk?” - -“Very well. One of us will go with you, while the other pulls the boat -down. Only we must get across first. Steady, now, Renny; and cheer up, -Doll, and put her nose to the shore opposite.” - -We had drifted some little distance since we first easy’d, and a dull -booming, that was in our ears at the time, had increased to a -considerable roar. - -“Give way!” cried Duke; “turn her, Dolly!” - -The girl tugged at the right line, gave a gasp, dropped everything, -scrambled to her feet, and screamed in a dreadful voice: “We are going -over the weir!” - -“Sit down!” shouted Duke. “Pull, Renny, like a madman!” - -He shipped his oar, forced the girl into a sitting posture and -clutched the inner line all in a moment. His promptitude saved us. I -fought at the water with my teeth set; the boat’s nose plunged into -the bank with a shock that sent us two sprawling, and the boat’s stern -swung round dizzily. But before she could cast adrift again I was on -my knees and had seized at a projecting root with a grasp like -Quasimodo’s. - -“Hold on!” cried Duke, “till I come to you. It’s all right, Dolly; -you’re quite safe now.” - -He crawled to me and grasped the root in his more powerful hands. - -“Now,” he said, “you take the painter and get out and drag us higher, -out of the pull of the water. I’ll help you the best I can.” - -I complied, and presently the boat was drawn to a point so far above -as to leave a wide margin for safety. - -We took our seats to pull across, with a look at one another of -conscious guilt. Dolly sat quite silent and pale, though she shivered -a little. - -“We didn’t know the river, and that’s a fact,” whispered Duke to me. -“Of course we ought to have remembered the lock’s the other side.” - -We pulled straight across; then Duke said: - -“Here’s the shore, Dolly. Now, you and Trender get out, and I’ll take -the boat on.” - -“By yourself? No, I won’t. I feel safe with you.” - -“Very well,” he answered, gently. “We’ll all go on together. There’s -really no danger now we know what we’re about.” - -She cried, “No, Duke,” in a poor little quaking voice. - -We pulled into the lock cutting without further mishap, though the -girl shrunk and blenched as we slid past, at a safe distance, the -oblique comb of the weir. - -It was some minutes before the lock-keeper answered to our ringing -calls, and then the sluices had to be raised and the lock filled from -our side. The clash and thunder of the hidden water as it fell into -the pit below sounded dismal enough in the darkness, and must, I knew, -be dinning fresh terror into the heart of our already stricken naiad. -But the hollow noise died off in due course, the creaking gate -lumbered open and we floated with a sigh of relief into the weltering -pool beyond. - -The sluices rattled down behind us, the keeper walked round to the -further gate, and his figure appeared standing out against the sky, -toiling with bent back at the levers. Suddenly I, who had been pulling -bow, felt myself tilting over in a curious manner. - -“Hullo!” I cried. “What’s up with the boat?” - -In one moment I heard a loud shout come from the man at the gates, and -saw Dolly, despite her warning, stand hurriedly up and Duke make a -wild clutch at her; the next, the skiff reeled under me and I was -spun, kicking and struggling, into the water. - -An accident, common enough and bad enough to those who know little of -Thames craft, had befallen us. We had got the boat’s stern jammed upon -a side beam of the lock, so that her nose only dropped with the -sinking water. - -I rose at once in a black swirl. The skiff, jerked free by our -unceremonious exit, floated unharmed in the lock, but she floated -empty. Risen to the surface, however, almost with me, Duke’s dark head -emerged close by her, so that with one frantic leap upward he was able -to reach her thwarts, to which he clung. - -“Dolly!” he gasped--“Dolly!” - -I had seen her before he could cry out again, had seized and was -struggling with her. - -“Don’t hold me!” I cried; “let me go, Dolly, and I’ll save you.” - -She was quite beyond reason, deaf to anything but the despairing call -of life. In another instant, I knew, we should both go under and be -dragged into the rush of the sluices. Seeing the uselessness of trying -to unclasp her hands, I fought to throw myself and her toward the side -of the lock nearest. The water was bubbling in my mouth, when I felt a -great iron hook whipped into the collar of my coat and we were both -hauled to the side. - -“Hold on there, mate!” cried the lock-keeper, “while I get your boat -under.” - -I had caught at a dangling loop of chain; but even so the weight of my -almost senseless burden threatened to drag me down. - -“Be quick!” I gasped, “I’m pretty near spent.” - -With the same grapnel he caught and towed the boat, Duke still hanging -to it, to where I clung, and leaped down himself into it. - -“Now,” he said, “get a leg over and you’re right.” - -It was a struggle even then, for Dolly would not let me out of her -agonized clutch--not till we could lay her, white as a storm-beaten -lily, on the bottom boards. Then we turned and seized Duke over the -thwarts and he tumbled in and lay in a heap, quite exhausted. - -His mind relieved, our preserver took off his cap, scratched his -forehead and spat into the water. - -“I’ve known a many wanting your luck,” he said, gruffly. “What made -you do it, now?” - -Judging our ignorance to be by no means common property, I said, “Ah, -what?” in the tone that suggests acquiescence, or wonder, and asked -him if he had a fire handy. - -“There’s a bright one burning inside,” he said. “You’re welcome to -it.” - -He punted the boat to a shallow flight of steps, oozy with slime, that -led to the bank above, where his cottage was. - -“We’ll carry the gal to it,” said he. “See if she can move herself.” - -I bent down over the prostrate figure. It looked curiously youthful -and slender in its soaked and clinging garments. - -“Dolly,” I whispered, “there’s a fire above. Will you let me carry you -to it?” - -I thought my voice might not penetrate to her dulled senses, but to my -wonder she put her arms round my neck immediately. - -“Yes,” she moaned, “I’m so cold. Take me to the warmth or I shall -die.” - -We lifted her out between us and carried her into the house kitchen. -There a goodly blaze went coiling up the chimney, and the sight was -reviving in itself. - -“Shall we leave you here alone a bit?” said I, “to rest and recover? -There’s to be no more of the river for us. We’ll walk the distance -that remains.” - -She gave me a quick glance, full of a pathetic gratitude, and -whispered, “Yes; I’d better be alone.” - -“And if you take my advice,” said our host, “you’ll strip off them -drownded petticuts and wrap yourself in a blanket I’ll bring you while -they’re a-drying; wait, while I fetch it.” - -As he went out Dolly beckoned me quickly to her. - -“I heard you tell me to leave go,” she said, hurriedly, in a low -voice; “but I couldn’t--Renny, I couldn’t; and you saved my life.” - -Her lips were trembling and her eyes full of tears. She clasped her -hands and held them entreatingly toward me. - -A gust of some strange feeling--some yearning sense of protection -toward this pretty, lovable child--flooded my heart. - -“You poor little thing,” I whispered, in a pitying voice, and taking -her two hands in one of mine I passed my other arm around her. - -Then she lifted her face eagerly and I bent and softly dropped a kiss -on her warm, wet lips. - -The moment I had done it I felt the shame of my action. - -“There, dear, forgive me,” I said. “Like you, Dolly, I couldn’t let go -at once,” and our friend returning just then with the blanket, we left -the girl to herself and stepped outside. - -A queer exultant feeling was on me--a sense as of the lightening of -some overburdening oppression. “A life for a life.” Why should the -words ring stilly, triumphantly in my brain? I might earn for my -breast a cuirass of medals such as Dolly had desired, and what would -their weight be as set in the scale against the one existence I had -terminated? - -Perhaps it was not that. Perhaps it was that I felt myself for the -first time in close touch with a yearning human sympathy; that its -tender neighborhood taught me at a breath to respect and stand by what -was noble in myself. The shadow that must, of course, remain with me -always, I would not have away, but would only that it ceased to -dominate my soul’s birthright of independence. - -There was in my heart no love for Dolly--no passion of that affinity -that draws atom to atom in the destiny that is human. There was only -the pitying protective sense that came to man through the angels, and, -in its sensual surrender, marked their fall from divinity. For to the -end, without one thought of wavering, Zyp must shine the mirage of my -barren waste of love. - -Suddenly I remembered, with a remorseful pang, that all this time I -had forgotten Duke. I hurried down to the steps, calling him. He was -sitting in the boat, his elbows on his knees, his face buried in his -hands. - -“Duke!” I cried, “come out and let’s see what we can do for a dry. -You’ll get the frost in your lungs sitting there.” - -He rose at once, staggering a little. I had to run down the steps to -help him ashore, where he stood shaken all through with violent -shiverings. - -“Whisky,” said our host, laconically, watchful of the poor fellow, -“and enough of it to make your hair curl.” - -Between us we got him into the house, where he was made to swallow at -a gulp three finger-breadths in a tumbler of the raw spirit. Then -after a time the color came back to his cheeks, the restored nerves to -his limbs. - -At that our kindly host made us strip, and providing us with what -coverings he could produce, set us and our soaked belongings before a -second fire in his little parlor, and only left us when summoned -outside to his business. As the door closed behind him Duke turned to -me. A sort of patient sorrow was on his face--an expression as of -renunciation of some favored child of his fancy--I cannot express it -better. - -“You carried her in?” he said, quietly. - -“Dolly? Yes.” - -“Where is she?” - -“Baking before the kitchen fire. She’ll be ready before we are.” - -“Well--I had no right. What a chapter of mishaps.” Then he turned upon -me with a sudden clap of fierceness. “Why did you ever propose this -trip? I tried to dissuade you, and you might have known I was an idiot -on the water.” - -“My good Duke,” I answered, with a coolness that covered a fine glow -of heat, “that don’t sound very gracious. I meant it for a pleasure -party, of course. Accidents aren’t matters under human control, you -know.” - -He struck his knee savagely. - -“No,” he muttered, “or I shouldn’t have these.” - -Then in a moment the sweetness came back to his face, and he cried -with a smile, half-humorous and all pathetic: - -“Here’s the value of my philosophy. I’m no more consistent than a -Ripley pamphlet and not a quarter so amusing. But--oh, if I had only -learned to swim!” - - - - - CHAPTER XVII. - A TOUCHING REVELATION. - -For nearly four years did I work persistently, striving to redeem my -past, at the offices in Great Queen Street. At this period my position -was greatly improved, my services estimated at a value that was as -honorable to my employer as it was advantageous to me. I had grown to -be fairly at peace with myself and more hopeful for the future than I -had once deemed it possible that I could ever be. - -Not all so, however. The phantom light that had danced before my -youthful eyes, danced before them still, no whit subdued in -brilliancy. With the change to wider and manlier sentiments that I was -conscious of in my own development, I fostered secret hope of a -similar growth in Zyp. At 22, I thought, she could hardly remain the -irresponsible, bewitching changeling she had been at 17. Womanliness -must have blossomed in her, and with it a sense of the right -relationship of soul to body. Perhaps even the glamour of mystery that -must surround my manner of life had operated as a growing charm with -her, and had made me, in her eyes, something of the fascinating figure -she always was and would be in mine. - -Sometimes now, in thinking of him, I had fear of Jason, but more often -not. Zyp’s parting words to me--that were ever in my ears--seemed -weighted with the meaning, at least, that had I fought my battle well -I should have won. - -To think of it--to recall it--always gave me a strange, troubled -comfort. In my best moments it returned upon me, crying--crying the -assurance that no selfish suit pressed by my brother could ever -prevail over the inwarder preference her heart knew for me. In my -worst, it did no more than trouble me with a teasing mock at my human -passion so persistent in its faith to a will-o’-the-wisp. - -I think that all this time I never dared to put bravely to myself the -thought--as much part of my being as my eyesight--that not for one -true moment had I yielded my hope of Zyp to circumstances. All my -diligence, all my labor, all my ambition, were directed to this -solitary end--that some day I might lay them at her feet as bribes to -her favor. Therefore, till self-convinced of their finished -worthiness, I toiled on with dogged perseverance, studying, observing, -perfecting, denying myself much rest and pleasure till my heart should -assure me that the moment was come. - -And what of them at the old haunted mill? News was rare and scanty, -yet at intervals it came to link me with their destinies. The first -year of my banishment my father wrote to me three times--short, rugged -notes, void of information and negatively satisfactory only in the -sense that, had anything of importance taken place, he would, I -concluded, have acquainted me of it. These little letters were -answered by me in epistles of ample length, wherein I touched upon my -manner of life and the nature of my successes. The second year, -however, the desultory correspondence was taken up by Jason, who -wrote, as he talked, in a spirit of boisterous banter, and, under -cover of familiar gossip, told me less, if possible, than my father -had. Dad, he said in his first, had tired of the effort and had handed -the task over to him. Therefore he acquitted himself of it in long -leaps over gaps that covered months, and it was now more than four or -five since I had received any sort of communication from him. - -This did not greatly trouble me. There was that between us, which, it -always seemed to me, he sought to give expression to in his letters--a -hint secretly conveyed that I must never forget I lived and prospered -on sufferance only. Now my own knowledge of the methods of justice, no -less than the words Dr. Crackenthorpe had once applied to my case, had -long been sufficient to assure me that I had little or nothing to fear -from the processes of the law. No less peremptory, however, was the -conviction that Jason had it in his power to socially ruin me at a -word; and the longer that word was delayed--that is to say, so long as -my immunity did not clash with his interests--the better chance I had -of testing and retesting my armor of defense. Yet, for all my care, he -found out a weak place presently. - -In the meantime I lived my life, such as it was, and found a certain -manner of pleasure in it. Duke and I, still good friends, changed our -lodgings, toward the last quarter of the fourth year, and moved into -more commodious ones over an iron-monger’s shop in Holborn. Here we -had a sitting-room as well as a bedroom common to both of us, and -tasted the joys of independence with a double zest. - -Since our river experience it had become a usual thing for me to join -my friend and Dolly in their frequent Sunday walks together. This, at -first, I deprecated; but Duke would have it so; and finally it lapsed -into an institution. Indeed, upon many occasions I was left to escort -the girl alone, Duke pleading disinclination or the counter-attraction -of some book he professed to be absorbed in. - -Was I quite so blind as I appeared to be? I can hardly say myself. -That the other entertained a most affectionate regard for the girl was -patent. He was always to me, however, such a quaint medley of -philosophical resignation and human susceptibility that I truly -believe I was more than half inclined to doubt the existence in him of -any strong bias toward the attractions of the other sex. - -His behavior to Dolly was generally much more that of an elder brother -toward a much younger half-sister born into the next generation, than -of a lover who seeks no greater favor from a woman than that she shall -keep the best secrets of her womanhood for him. He petted, indulged, -and playfully analyzed her all in one. Now, thinking of him in the -stern knowledge of years, I often marvel over the bitter incapacity of -the other sex to choose aright the fathers of its children. How could -the frailest, prettiest soul among them turn from such luminous depths -as his to the meretricious foppery of emptier Parises? - -But then I was greatly to blame. The winning ways of the girl, no less -than Duke’s persistent deprecation of any affectation of -proprietorship in her, are my one excuse. A poor one, even then, for -how may I cry out on simple-hearted Dolly, when I failed to read the -little history of sorrow that was daily before my eyes. It was after -events only that interpreted to me the pride that would not let the -cripple kneel, a suitor to pity. - -As to my own feelings toward the pretty soul I had once so basely -linked to my own with an impulsive kiss--they were a compound of -indulgence and a tenderness that fell altogether short of love. I -desired to be on brotherly terms of intimacy with her, indeed, but -only in such manner as to preclude thought of any closer tie. When she -was shy with me upon our first meeting after that untoward contact in -the lock-house, I laughed her into playfulness and would have no -sentimental glamour attaching to our bond of sympathy. Alas! I was to -learn how reckless a thing it is to seek to extinguish with laughter -the fire of a woman’s heart. - -One Sunday afternoon in the early autumn of that fourth year, Dolly -and I were loitering together about the slopes and byways of Epping -forest. There is no season more attuned to the pathetic sympathies of -young hearts than that in which the quiet relaxing of green life from -its hold on existence speaks only to grayer breasts of premature decay -and the vulgar ceremonial of the grave. Youth, however, recognizes -none of this morbid aspect. To it the yellowing leaf, if it speaks of -desolation, speaks from that “passion of the past” the poets strove to -explore. It stands but two-thirds of the way up to the hill of years, -and flowering stretches are beneath it to the rear and above, before -its eyes, the fathomless sky and the great clouds nozzling the -mountain crests like flocks of sheep. - -All that afternoon as we wandered we came across lizards sprawling -stupefied--as they will in October--on buskets of gorse, too -exhausted, apparently, to feel the prick of thorn or fear, and -butterflies sitting on blades of grass with folded wings, motionless -as those that are wired to bonnets. The air was full of a damp -refreshing sweetness, and the long grass about every bush and hedge -side began to stir with the movement of secret things, as though -preparations for mystic revel were toward and invitations passing. I -could almost see the fairy rings forming, noiseless, on the turf, when -the lonely moon should hang her lantern out by and by. - - - - - CHAPTER XVIII. - A VOICE FROM THE CROWD. - -Dolly had been unusually silent during the afternoon, and now, as we -turned to retrace our steps in the direction of the station from which -we were to take train for London, she walked beside me without -uttering a word. - -Suddenly, however, she put her hand upon my arm and stayed me. - -“Renny,” she said, “will you stop a little while? I want to speak to -you.” - -“All right,” I said; “speak away.” - -“Not here--not here. Come off the path; there’s a seat out there.” - -Seeing with surprise that her face was pale and drawn with -nervousness, and fancying our tramp might have over-tired her, I led -her to the place she indicated--a bench set in the deep shadow of a -chestnut tree--and we both sat down. - -“Now, Doll,” I said, gayly, “what’s the tremendous confidence?” - -“Renny,” she said, quietly, “William Reid has asked me to marry him.” - -“No! William Reid--the young fellow over at Hansard’s? Well, I can -only tell you, Dolly, that I know nothing but what’s good of him for a -steady and promising chap, who’s sure to make as fine a husband as he -is a workman.” - -“Do you advise me to take him, then? Do you want me to?” - -“You might do much worse--indeed you might, Dolly. Why, to my -knowledge, he’s drawing £3 a week already. Of course I shall be very, -very sorry to lose my little chum and companion, but I always foresaw -that this would have to be the end of our comradeship some day.” - -She sat looking at the ground a little while and adjusting a fallen -twig with the point of her parasol. Then she rose and said, in the -same quiet tone, “Very well,” and moved a step away. - -I rose also and was about to resume the subject, when in a moment, to -my horror, she threw herself back on the bench and, flinging her hands -up to her face, burst into a passion of tears. - -I was so startled and shocked that for the instant I could think of -nothing to do or say. Then I bent down and cried: - -“Dolly, what is it? What’s the matter? Have I hurt you in any way?” - -She struggled with her sobs, but made a brave effort to command -herself. - -“Oh, don’t look, don’t listen! I shall be all right in a minute.” - -I moved away a little space and stood anxiously waiting. When I turned -again her face was still buried in her arm, but the keenness of the -outburst was subdued. - -I approached and leaned over her tenderly, putting a kind hand on her -shoulder. - -“Now, little woman,” I said, “won’t you tell me what it is? I might -comfort and counsel you at least, Dolly, dear.” - -She answered so low that I had to stoop further to hear her. - -“I only thought, perhaps--perhaps you might care more and not want me -to.” - -What a simple little sentence, yet how fierce a vision it sprung upon -my blindness! I rose and stepped back almost with a cry. Then Dolly -sat up and saw my face. - -“Renny,” she cried, “I never meant to tell; only--only, I am so -miserable.” - -I went to her and took her hand and helped her to her feet. - -“Dolly,” I said, in a low, hoarse voice, “I have been a selfish brute. -I never thought what I was doing, when I should have thought. Now, you -must give me time to think.” - -“You didn’t know. Renny”--her pretty eyes were struggling with tears -again, and her poor face looked up into mine, entreating me not to -take base advantage of her surrender--“if I kissed you as you kissed -me once do you think it would come?” - -“It isn’t right for us to try, dear.” - -Thank heaven my manhood stood the test--the inference so pathetic in -its childish simplicity. - -“Come,” I said, “we will go back now. I want time to think it all over -by myself. You mustn’t refer to it again, Dolly, in any way--not till -I can see you by and by alone.” - -She said, “Yes, Renny,” humbly. Her very manner toward me was marked -by a touching obedience. - -We caught our train and sped back to London in a crowded compartment, -so that the present embarrassment of tete-a-tete was spared us. At the -terminus we parted gently and gravely on both sides and went each of -us home. - -Duke was in bed when I reached our lodgings, and for that I was -grateful, for I felt far too upset and confused to relish the idea of -a talk with him. Indeed, since the moment Dolly had confessed to me, -he had hung strangely in the background of my thoughts. I felt a -comfortless dawning of apprehension that all along he had been keen -witness of the silent little drama in which unconsciously I was an -actor--had sat in the pit and sorrowfully gauged the purport of the -part I played. - -I went to bed, but never to sleep. All night long I tossed, struggling -to unravel the disorder in my brain. I could think out nothing -collectively--warp and woof were inextricably confused. - -At length, in despair, I rose, redressed and went outside. The church -clocks clanged six as I stepped onto the pavement; there was a -fresh-blown coolness in the dusky air; the streets stretched emptily -to the dawn. - -In the very contact with space, the tumult in my head settled down -into some manner of order, and I was able to face, after a fashion, -the problem before me. - -Here, to one side, would I place Zyp; to the other Dolly. Let me plead -to each, counseled by heart and conscience. To Zyp: You have and have -ever had that of mine to which I can give no name, but which men call -“love,” as an expression of what is inexpressible. I know that this -gift, this sixth sense, that, like the soul, embraces all the others, -once acquired, is indestructible. For joy or evil I am doomed to it, -spiritually to profit or be debased by it. You may scorn, but you -cannot kill it, and exiled in material form from you here it will make -to you in the hereafter as surely as a stone flung from a crater -returns to the earth of which it is kin. - -Say that the accidents of existence are to keep us here apart; that -your heart desires to mate with another more picturesque than mine. It -may be so. During these long four years you have never once directly, -by word or sign, given proof that my being holds any interest for you. -You banished me, I must remember, for all my efforts to torture hope -out of them, with words designed to be final. What if I accept the -sentence and say: “I yield my material form to one who desires its -affections; who will be made most happy by the bestowal of them upon -her; who yearns to me, perhaps, as I to you.” I may do so and none the -less be sure of you some day. - -To Dolly: I have done you a bitter wrong, but one, I think, not -irremediable. Perhaps I never thought but that friendship apart from -love was possible between man and woman. In any case, I have given far -too much consideration to myself and far too little to you. You love -me by your own confession, and, in this world of bitter troubles, it -is very sweet to be loved, and loved by such as you. I am pledged, it -seems, to a hopeless quest. What if I give it up? What if we taste joy -in this world--the joy of a partnership that is graced by strong -affection and cemented by a respect that shall be mutual? I can atone -for my error to you here; my wilder love that is not to be controlled -by moral reasoning I consign to futurity. - -Thinking these thoughts, a picture rose before me of a restful haven, -wherein my storm-beaten life might rock at anchor to the end; of Dolly -as my wife, in all the fascination of her pretty, winning -personality--her love, her playfulness, her wistful eyes and rosy -mouth so responsive to laughter or tears. I felt very tender toward -the child, who was glorified into woman by her very succumbing to the -passion she had so long concealed. “Why should I struggle any longer?” -I cried in my heart, “when an earthly paradise opens its gates to me; -when self-sacrifice means peace and content, and to indulge my -imagination means misery?” - -It was broad daylight by the time I had touched some clew to the -problem that so bewildered me, and suddenly I became aware that I was -moving in the midst of a great press of people. They were all going in -one direction and were generally of the lowest and most degraded -classes in London. There was a boisterous and unclean mirth rampant -among them. There was a ravenous eagerness of haste, too, that one -seemed to associate instinctively with the hideous form of vampire -that crouches over fields of slain and often completes what the bullet -has but half done. Women were among them in numbers; some carrying -infants in their gaunt, ragged arms; some plumed and decked as if for -a gala sight. - -I was weary with thought; weary with the monotony of introspection. -Evidently there was some excitement toward, and to follow it up would -take me out of myself. - -Toiling up Ludgate hill we went, an army of tramping feet. Then, like -a sewer diverted, we wheeled and poured into the noisome alley of the -Old Bailey. - -In a moment the truth burst upon me with a shock. There was a man to -be hanged that morning! - -I twisted hurriedly about and strove to force my way out again. I -might as easily have stayed the Thames with a finger. I was beaten -back with oaths and coarse ribaldry--gathered up and carried -ruthlessly in the rush for place--hemmed in, planted like a maggot in -one great trunk of bestial and frouzy human flesh. Had I striven again -I should have been smashed and pounded underfoot, all semblance of -life stamped from me. - -I looked about me in agony. Before and around was one huge sea of -faces, from the level of which rose a jangling patter of talk and -cries, like bubbles bursting on the surface of a seething tank of -corruption. And under the grim shadow of Newgate there stood, in full -view, a hideous machine. Barriers were about it, and a spruce cordon -of officials, who stood out humanly in that garden of squalid refuse. -It was black, with a black crossbeam; and from the beam a loop hung -motionless, like a collar for death to grin through, and the crowd -were already betting on the expression of his face when he should -first see it. - -I do not know how long or short a time my anguish lasted. It may have -been half an hour, when the deep tolling of a bell wrought sudden -silence in the fetid air. At its first stroke the roar of voices went -off and lessened, rolling like a peal of thunder; at its third the -quiet of eternity had fallen and consumed the world. - -A mist came before my eyes. When it cleared I was aware of a little -group on the platform, and one, with a ghastly white face, the center -of it. - -“Who is it?” I whispered, in intolerable agony. - -“Curse you!” growled my next neighbor. “Can’t you hold your tongue and -let a cove look?” - -A word marred the full relish of his appetite. - -I managed to slew my head away from the direct line of vision. A low -babble of voices came from the scaffold. He must be reprieved, I -thought, with a leap of the heart. I could not conceive voices -sounding natural, otherwise, under such fearful circumstances. - -Suddenly, as I was on the point of looking once more to ease my -horrible tension of mind, there dropped upon my ears a low rumbling -flap, and immediately a hoarse murmur went up from the multitude. -Then, giving a cry myself, I turned my face. The rope hung down in a -straight line, but loop and man were gone. - -From the universal murmur, by claps and starts, the old uproar bubbled -forth from the faces, till the pent-up street resounded with it. An -after-dinner loquacity was on all and the fellow who had cursed me a -minute ago addressed me now with over-brimming geniality of -information. - -“Who’s him, says you? Why, where’s your wits gone, matey? Him was -Mul-ler, the greasy furriner as murdered old Briggs.” - -The trial had made sensation enough of late, but the date of the poor -wretch’s execution I had had no thought of. - -When at last I could force a passage through the press--for they -lingered like ghouls over the crumbs of the banquet--I broke into -Holborn, with my whole soul panting and crying for fresh air and -forgetfulness. It was hideous, it was inhuman, it was debasing, I -cried to myself, to launch that quivering mass of terror into eternity -in a public shambles! To such as came to see, it must be grossly -demoralizing; to those who, like me, were enforced spectators, it was -a sickening experience that must leave an impression of morbidity -almost indelible. - -Suddenly I felt a hand grasp my shoulder and a voice exclaim: “Renny, -by all the saints!” - -I turned--and it was Jason. - -He held me at arm’s length and cried again: “Renny? Really?--and a -true sportsman as of old!” - -Then he leaned to me and whispered with a grin: “I say, old fellow, if -it wasn’t for luck you might be any day where he stood just now.” - - - - - CHAPTER XIX. - A MENACE. - -At first I hardly grasped the import of my brother’s words, or the -fact that here was the old fateful destiny upon me again, so lost were -the few faculties I could command in wonder at his unexpected -appearance in London. - -I stared and stared and had not a word to say. - -“Where’s your tongue, old chap?” he cried. “This is an affectionate -greeting on your part, upon my word, and after near four years, too.” - -I pressed my hand across my forehead and strove to smooth the -confusion therefrom. - -“You must forgive me,” I said at length; “this sudden meeting has -driven me all abroad; and then I got stuck down there by mistake, and -the sight has half-turned my brain, I think.” - -“By mistake, was it?” he said, with a mocking titter. “Oh, Renny, -don’t I know you?--though your looks are changed, too, for the matter -of that; more than mine are, I expect.” - -I could well believe. Soul and manhood must have wrought new -expression in me; but, for Jason, he was the Jason of old--fuller, -more set and powerful; yet the same beautiful personality with the -uninterpretable eyes. - -“Well,” he said, “aren’t you surprised to see me?” - -“Surprise isn’t the word.” - -“Nor pleasure either, I expect.” - -“No. I should be a liar to say it was.” - -“Well, you used to be that, you know; though I dare say you’ve found -out the better policy now.” - -“At any rate, as you’re here, you’ll come home with me, won’t you?” - -“Of course. That’s what I intend. I’ve been in London three or four -days, and went over to your old place yesterday, but found you had -left. I got the new address off a queer old chap there. Why didn’t you -tell us you had changed?” - -“I did. I wrote to dad about it.” - -“Well, anyhow, he never told me.” - -“That seems funny. How is he?” - -“Oh, the same old besotted curmudgeon as ever.” - -“Don’t, Jason. Dad’s dad for all his failings.” - -“Yes, and Zyp’s Zyp for all hers.” - -It gave me a thrill to hear the old name spoken familiarly, though by -such reckless lips. - -“Is--is she all right?” - -“She’s Zyp, I tell you, and that means anything that’s sprightly and -unquenchable. Let her alone for a jade; I’m sick of her name.” - -Was it evident from this that his suit had not prospered? I looked at -his changing eyes and my heart reeled with a sudden sick intoxication -of hope. Was my reasoning to be all gone through with again? “Come,” -I said, “let’s make for my place. A fellow-hand lives with me there.” - -We walked up Holborn together. He had eyes for every incident, a -tongue that seldom ceased wagging. Many a smart and powdered working -girl, tripping to her business, nudged her companion and looked after -him. He accepted it all with a bold indifference--the masterful -condescension that sets tight-laced breasts a-twittering under their -twice-turned jackets. He was much better dressed than I was and -carried himself with some show of fashion. - -Duke had left when we reached home, and his absence I hardly -regretted. - -“Well,” said my brother, as we entered the sitting-room, “you’ve -decent quarters, Renny, and no doubt deserve them for being a good -boy. You can give me some breakfast, I suppose?” - -“If you don’t mind eating alone,” I said. “I’ve got no appetite.” - -“All the worse for you. I never lose mine.” The table was already laid -as Duke had left it. I fetched a knuckle of ham from our private store -and placed it before my unwelcome guest, who fell to with a healthy -vigor of hunger. - -“It’s as well, perhaps, I didn’t find you last night,” he said, -munching and enjoying himself. “We should have sat up late and then I -might have overslept myself and missed the fun. I say, didn’t he go -down plump? I hoped the rope would break and that we should have it -over again.” - -“Jason!” I cried, “drop it, won’t you? I tell you I got caught there -by mistake, and that the whole thing was horrible to me!” - -“Oh, all right,” he said, with a laugh. “I shouldn’t have thought -you’d have cared, but I won’t say anything more about it.” - -I would not challenge word or tone in him. To what could I possibly -appeal in one so void of the first instincts of humanity? - -He pushed his plate away presently and fetched out a little pipe and -began to smoke. I had sat all the time by the window, looking vaguely -upon the crowded street. - -“Now,” I said, turning to him, “let’s hear why you are in London?” - -He raised his eyebrows with an affectation of perplexity. - -“Didn’t I tell you?” he said. “But there’s nothing to explain. I -wanted to come and I came.” - -“Four days ago?” - -“More or less.” - -“But what brought you? Where did you get the money?” - -“Never mind. That’s my affair. I did get it, and there’s an end.” - -“How long do you intend to stop?” - -“It all depends upon circumstances. Maybe I shall get something to do -here.” - -“Well, you might. I had nothing more to recommend me than you have -when I first came.” - -“Not so much, my good fellow.” - -He threw out his chest and a whiff of smoke together. - -“I’ve more about me to take the fancy, I believe, and I’m not -handicapped with a depressing secret for the unscrupulous to trade -upon. Besides, you forget that I’ve a friend at court, which you never -had.” - -“Meaning me. It’s no good, I can tell you in the very beginning. I’ve -not influence enough with my employer to foist a useless fresh hand -upon him.” - -“We’ll see, my friend--we’ll see, perhaps, by and by. I’m not in any -hurry. I haven’t the slightest intention of working till I’m forced -to.” - -“I suppose not. But what are you going to do in the meantime?” - -“Enjoy life, as I always do.” - -“Here, in London?” - -“Yes, of course.” - -“We can’t put you up at this place. It’s impossible.” - -“Wait till you’re asked. I’ve got my own quarters.” - -“Where?” - -“Find out if you can. I keep my private burrow secret.” - -“Well, it’s all very queer, but I suppose you know your own business -best.” - -“Naturally,” he said, and sat frowning at me a little while. - -Then presently he rose and came and looked down upon me. - -“Renny,” he said, quietly, “I’m going now, but I shall look you up -from time to time. I just want to say a thing first, though. You -haven’t received me very well, and I shan’t forget it. There’s a new -manner about you that’s prettier than it’s quite safe. You seem to -have thought matters over and to have come to the conclusion that this -lapse of years has tided you over a little difficulty we remember. I -only want to suggest that you don’t presume upon that too far. Grant -it to be true, as old Crackenthorpe said, that that fellow Muller’s -fate isn’t likely to be yours. I can make things pretty hot for you, -nevertheless.” - -He nodded at me once or twice, with his lips set, and so walked from -the room. - -For an hour after he had gone, regardless of the calls of business, I -sat on by the window pondering the meaning of this down-swoop and its -likely influence on my fortunes. - -The nervous apprehension of boyhood had left me; I had carved out an -independent path for myself and had prospered. Was it likely that, -thus restored, as it were, to manliness, I could weakly succumb to a -sense of fatality? I was stronger by nature and experience than this -blackest of blackmailers. He who takes his moral fiber from humanity -must necessarily surpass the egotist who habitually drains upon -himself. - -As to the mere fact of my brother’s journey hither, and his -acquirement of the means which enabled him to do so and to present a -becoming appearance, I cared to speculate but little. London was the -natural goal of his kind, and when the migratory fit came he was bound -by hook or by crook to gather the wherewith for his flight. - -It was the immediate presence of his blackrent mood that I had to -combat, and I found myself strong to do so. I would not own his -mastery; I would anticipate him and force the crisis he wished to -postpone for his own gain and my torment. That very evening would I -tell Duke all and abide by his judgment. - -And Dolly? Here on the instant I compromised with manliness and so -admitted a weak place in my armor. Viewed through the dizzy mist of my -own past and haunted suffering, this sweet and natural child stood -out, such a tender vision of innocence that I dared not arrogate to -myself the right of informing it with an evil that must be negative -only in the first instance. How can I imperil her soul, I thought, by -shattering at a blow the image, my image, that enlightens it? -Sophistry--sophistry; for what true woman is the worse for learning -that her idol is poor humanity after all--not a thing to worship, but -a soul to help and protect--a soul thirsting for the deep wells of -sympathy? - -Had I been wise to forestall my brother with all whose influence was -upon my life a great misery might have been averted. In this instance -I temporized, and the fatal cloud of calamity rose above the horizon. - -Why was it that, at the first, Dolly was much more in my mind than -Zyp? That I cannot answer altogether, but so it was. The balance of my -feelings was set no differently; yet, while it seemed quite right and -proper that Zyp should estimate me at my dual personality, I shrunk -with shuddering from the thought of Dolly knowing me as I knew myself. -Perhaps it was that, for all my sense of passionate affinity to the -wild creature once so part of my destinies, I recognized in the other -the purer soul; that it was the love of the first I desired, the good -will of the second. Perhaps, also, the recognition of this drove me on -again to abide by my decision of the morning. It is useless to -speculate now; for the little unhappy tale ended otherwise than as I -had prefigured it. My day had begun with an omen as ghastly as its -sequel was to be. - - - - - CHAPTER XX. - DUKE SPEAKS. - -That evening, in the luminous dusk of our sitting-room, I sat up and -gave Duke my history. He would have stopped me at the outset, but I -would brook no eccentric philosophy in the imperious fever of -insistence that was my mood. I told him of all that related personally -to me--my deed, my repentance--my brother’s exposure and renewed -menaces; but to Zyp I only referred in such manner as to convey the -impression that whatever influence she had once exerted over me was -dead with boyhood and scarcely to be resurrected. - -That here I intentionally told a half-truth only, cowardly in the -suspicion that the whole would be resented by my hearer on Dolly’s -behalf, I cannot deny. I dared not commit myself to a policy of -absolute confidence. - -When I had finished there was a silence, which I myself was forced to -at length break. - -“Duke,” I said, “haven’t you a remark to make--no word of advice or -rebuke?” - -“Not one, Renny. What concern have we with that past existence of -yours?” - -“Oh, for heaven’s sake drop that nonsense for once in a way. It’s a -very real trouble to me, whatever it is to you.” - -“Old man, you did and you repented in one day. The account up there -must balance.” - -“You think it must?” - -“We are masters of our acts--not of our impulses. You strike a bell -and it clangs. You strike a man and the devil leaps out at his eyes. -It’s in the rebound that the thought comes that decides the act. In -this case yours was natural to yourself, for you are a good fellow.” - -“And so are you, a hundred times over, to take it so. You don’t know -the terror it has been to me--that it must be to me still in a -measure. The account may balance; but still----” - -“Well?” - -“The boy--my brother--died.” - -“Yes--after you had tried to save him.” - -“Duke--Duke, you can’t hold me not to blame.” - -“I don’t, indeed. You were very much to blame for not retreating when -your better angel gave you the chance. It’s for that you’ll be called -to account some day--not the other.” - -“Well, I’ll stand up and cry ‘peccavi!’” I said, sadly. - -“Renny,” said Duke, from the shadow of his side of the room, “what’s -this elder brother of yours like?” - -I explained Jason’s appearance to the best of my power. - -“Ah,” he said, quietly, “I thought so.” - -“What do you mean?” - -“Nothing. Only I saw him this afternoon taking the bearings of the -office from t’other side the street.” - -“Very likely. He mentioned something about using my influence with -Ripley to give him a berth later on. Probably he was debating his -ground.” - -“You haven’t given your confidence to any one but me in this matter?” - -“No.” - -“Do you intend to?” - -“If you think it right. Shall I tell Ripley?” - -“It’s my opinion you should. Forestall your brother in every -direction.” - -“Well, yours and his are the only two that concerns me.” - -“One other, Renny.” - -“Who?” - -“Dolly.” - -He leaned forward and looked at me with such intensity of earnestness -that his black eyes seemed to pierce to my very soul. - -“Shall I,” he said--and his gaze never left my face--“shall I -acknowledge your confidence with another?” - -“It shall be sacred, Duke,” I answered low, “if it refers to past or -present.” - -He threw himself back with a sudden wail. - -“To both!” he cried; “to both!” - -He was himself again directly. - -“Bah!” he cried; “what a woman I am! Renny, you shall for once find me -sick of philosophy and human.” - -I resumed my seat, fairly dumfounded at this revelation of unwonted -depths in my friend, and stared at him in silence; once more he leaned -forward and seemed to read me through. - -“Renny, tell me--do you wish to make Dolly your wife?” - -“Duke, upon my soul I don’t know.” - -“Do you love her?” - -“If I thought I did, as you meant it, I could answer your first -question.” - -“And you can’t?” - -“No, I can’t.” - -“Renny, make her happy. She loves you with all her heart.” - -“Would that be fair to her, Duke? Let me know my own mind first.” - -“Ah, I am afraid you don’t care to know it; that you are playing with -a pleasurable emotion. Take care--oh, take care, I tell you! The halt -and maimed see further in the dark than the vigorous. Renny, there is -trouble ahead. I know more of women than you do, perhaps, because, cut -off from manly exercises, I can gauge their temptations and their -weaknesses. I see a way of striking at you that you don’t dream of. Be -great with resolve! Save my little book-sewer, I implore you.” - -“Duke,” I said, with extreme emotion, for I fancied I could catch the -shine of most unaccustomed tears in his dark eyes, “my good, dear -fellow, what is the meaning of this? I would do anything to make you -or Dolly happy; but where is the sense of half-measures? If you feel -like this, why don’t you--I say it with all love--why don’t----” - -He struggled to his feet, and with a wild, pathetic action drew -emptiness about him with enfolding arms. - -“I tell you,” he cried, in a broken voice, “that I would give my life -to stand in your shoes, valuing the evil as nothing to the sweet.” - -He dropped his head on his breast and I had no word to say. My willful -blindness seemed to me at that moment as vile a thing as any in my -life. - -Suddenly he stood erect once more. - -“Renny,” he said, with a faint smile, “for all your good friendship -you don’t know me yet, I see. I’m too stiff-jointed to kneel.” - -“Don’t curse me for blighting your life like this. But, Duke--I never -guessed. If I had--it didn’t matter to me--I would have walked over a -precipice rather than cross your path.” - -“How could you know? Wasn’t I sworn to philosophy?” - -“And it can’t be now?” - -“It can never be.” - -“Think, Duke--think.” - -“I never do anything else. Love may exist on pity, but not on charity. -I put myself on one side. It is her happiness that has to be -considered first; and, Renny, you know the way to it.” - -“Duke, have you always felt like this toward her?” - -“Always? I feel here that I should answer you according to my theory -of life. But I have shown you my weak side. Every negro, they say, -worships white as the complexion of his unknown God. From my first -sight of her I have tried to rub my sooty soul clean--have tried every -means like the ‘Black-Gob’ committee in Hood’s poem.” - -“I think you have been successful--if any rubbing was necessary. I -think at least you have proved your affinity to her, and will claim -and be claimed by her in the hereafter.” - -“I shall not have the less chance then, for striving to procure her -happiness here.” - -“Oh, Duke--no!” - -I stood abashed in presence of so much lofty abrogation of self. - -“What am I to do?” I said, humbly. “I will be guided by you. Shall I -study to make our interests one and trust to heaven for the right -feeling?” - -“First tell her what you have told me. You need have no fear.” - -“Very well. I will do so on the first opportunity.” - -“That confidence alone will make a bond between you. But, Renny--oh, -don’t delay.” - -“I won’t, Duke--I won’t. But I wish you would tell me what danger it -is you fear.” - -“If I did you would think it nothing but a phantom of my brain. I have -said I see in the dark. This room is full of fantastic shapes to me. -Perhaps they are only the goblin lights born of warp and disease.” - -“I will speak to her next Sunday.” - -“Not sooner?” - -“I can’t very well. We must be alone together without risk of -interruption.” - -I would have told him of our yesterday’s talk, only that it seemed a -cruel thing to take even him into that broken and tender confidence. - -“Very well. Let it be then, as you value her happiness.” - -All day it had been close and oppressive and now thunder began to moan -and complain up the lower slopes of the night. - -Suddenly, in the ominous stirring of the gloom, I became conscious -that my companion was murmuring to himself--that a low current of -speech was issuing from his lips monotonous as the babble of delirium. - -“There was a window in the roof, where stars glittered like bubbles in -the glass--and the ceiling came almost down to the floor on one side -and I cried often with terror, for the window and I were alone. -Sometimes the frost gathered there, like white skin over a wound, and -sometimes the monstrous clouds looked in and mocked and nodded at me. -I was very cold or else my face cracked like earth with the heat, and -I could not run away, for he had thrown me down years before and the -marrow dried in my bones. There had been a time when the woman came -with her white face and loved me, always listening, and crept away -looking back. But she went at last and I never saw her again.” - -“Duke!” I whispered--“Duke!” but he seemed lost to all sense of my -presence. - -“He came often, and there was a great dog with him, whose flesh -writhed with folds of gray, and the edges of his tongue were curled up -like a burning leaf--and the dog made my heart sick, for its eyes were -full of hate like his, and when he made it snarl at me I shivered with -terror lest a movement of mine should bring it upon me. And sometimes -I heard it breathing outside the door and thought if they had -forgotten to lock it and it came in I should die. But they never -forgot, and I was left alone with the window in the roof and nothing -else. But now I feel that if I could meet that dog--now, now I should -scream and tear it with my teeth and torture it inch by inch for what -it made me suffer.” - -I cried to him again, but he took no heed. - -“There was water, in the end, and great dark buildings went up from it -and the thunder was thick in the sky. Then he said, ‘Drink,’ and held -something to my lips; and I obeyed because I was in terror of him. It -was fire he gave me, and I could not shriek because it took me by the -throat--but I fell against the water and felt it lap toward me and I -woke screaming and I was in a boat--I was in a boat, I tell you.” - -There came a booming crash overhead and the room for a moment weltered -with ghastly light. In its passing I saw Duke leap to his feet, and -there was something beside him--a shape--a mist--one of the phantoms -of his brain--no, of mine--Modred, pointing and smiling. It was gone -in an instant--a mere trick of the nerves. But, as I stood shivering -and blinded, I heard Duke cry in a terrible voice: - -“Renny--listen! It was on such a night as this that my father poisoned -me!” - - - - - CHAPTER XXI. - THE CALM BEFORE. - -Long after the storm had broken and rolled away were we still sitting -talking in the dim lamplight. In these hours I learned what dark -confidences my friend had to give me as to his solitary and haunted -past; learned more truly, also, than I had ever done as yet, the value -of a moral courage that had enabled him, dogged by the cruelest hate -of adversity, to emerge from the furnace noble and thrice refined. - -He had been picked up, as a mere child drowning in the river, by the -Thames police and had been ultimately consigned to a charity school, -from which, in due course, he had been apprenticed to a printer. Thus -far had his existence, emerging from profoundest gloom, run a straight -and uneventful course--but before? - -Into what deadly corner of a great city’s most secret burrows his -young life had been first hemmed and then crushed out of shape who may -say? When I had got him down again, unnerved but quiet now and wistful -with apology over his outburst, he told me all that he knew. - -“Thunder always seems to turn my brain a little, Renny, perhaps -because it is associated in the depths of my mind with that strange -young experience. The muttering sound of it brings a picture, as it -were, before my eyes. I seem to see a confusion of wharfs and -monstrous piles of blackness standing out against the sky; deadly -water runs between, in which smudges of light palpitate and are -splintered into arrows and come together again like drops of -quicksilver.” - -“And you are given something to drink?” - -“It is poison; I know it as certainly as that it is my father who -wishes to be quit of me. I can’t tell you how I know.” - -“And before?” - -“There is only the room and the window in the roof, and myself, a -sickly cripple lying in bed, always alone and always fearful of -something.” - -“Duke, was the gentle woman your mother?” - -“I feel that it must have been. But she went after a time. Perhaps he -killed her as he wished to kill me.” - -“Can you remember him at all?” - -“Only through a dreadful impression of cruelty. I know that I am what -I am by his act; though when made so, or under what provocation, if -any, is all a blank. It is the dog that haunts my memory most. That -seems queer, doesn’t it? I suppose it was the type or symbol of all -the hate I was the victim of, and I often feel as if some day I shall -meet it once more--only once more--and measure conclusions with it on -that little matter of the suffering it caused me.” - -We fell silent for awhile. Then said I, softly: “Duke, with such a -past for background, I think I can understand how Dolly must stand out -in the front of your picture.” - -“Yes,” he said, with a tender inflection in his voice. “But anyhow I -have no quarrel with her sex. What should I have been without that -other presence in the past? I have known only two women intimately. -For their sake my right arm is at the service of all.” - -His eyes shone upon me from the sallow, strong face. He looked like a -crippled knight of errantry, fearless and dangerous to tamper with -where his right of affection was questioned. - -The week that followed was barren of active interest. It was a busy -one at Great Queen street, and all personal matters must needs be -relegated to the background. Occasionally I saw Dolly, but only in the -course of official routine, and no opportunity occurred for us to -exchange half a dozen words in private. - -Nevertheless, there was in the dusty atmosphere of the place a -sensation of warmth and romance that is scarcely habitual to the -matter-of-fact of the workshop. Compromise with my heart as I might on -the subject of Zyp’s ineffaceable image, I could not but be conscious -that Ripley’s at present held a very pretty and tender sentiment for -me. The sense of a certain proprietorship in it was an experience of -happiness that made my days run rosily, for all the perplexity in my -soul. Yet love, such as I understood it in its spiritual -exclusiveness, was absent; nor did I ever entertain for a moment the -possibility of its awakening to existence in my breast. - -So the week wore on and it was Saturday again, and to-morrow, for good -or evil, the question must be put. - -That evening, as Duke and I were sitting talking after supper, Jason’s -voice came clamoring up the stairs and a moment after my brother burst -into the room. He was in high spirits--flushed and boisterous as a -young Antinous--and he flung himself into a chair and nodded royally -to Duke. - -“Renny’s chum, I suppose?” said he. “And that’s a distinction to be -proud of, for all it’s his brother that says so. Glad to know you, -Straw.” - -Duke didn’t answer, but he returned the nod, striving to gloze over -prejudice genially for my sake. - -“Renny, old chap!” cried Jason, “I sha’n’t want my friend at court -yet--not yet, by a long chalk, I hope. Look here.” - -He seized a purse from his pocket and clapped it down on the table -with a jingling thud. - -“There’s solid cash for you, my boy! Forty-three pounds to a penny, -and a new pleasure to the pretty face of each of ’em.” - -“Where on earth did you get it, Jason?” - -“Won’t you be shocked, Barebones? Come with me some night and see for -yourself.” - -“You’ve been gambling, I believe.” - -“Horrid, isn’t it?--the wailing baby and the deserted wife and the -pistol in a garret--that’s what you are thinking of, eh? Oh, you dear -thing! But we aren’t built alike, you and I.” - -“Be quiet, can’t you?” I cried, angrily. - -“Not a bit of it. I’m breezy as a weathercock to-night. I must talk, I -tell you, and you always rouse the laughing imp in me. Where’s the -harm of gambling, if you win? Eh, Jack Straw?” - -“It’s no very good qualification for work, if that’s what you want to -get, Mr. Trender.” - -“Work? Hang the dirty rubbish! Work’s for the poor in pocket and in -spirit. I want to see life; to feel the sun of enjoyment down to my -very finger-tips. You two may work, if you like, with your codes of -cranky morals. You may go back to your mill every Monday morning with -a guilty sense of relief that another weekly dissipation on Hampstead -heath is over and done with. That don’t do for me. The shops here -aren’t all iron-ware and stationery. There’s color and glitter and -music and rich food and laughter everywhere around, and I want my -share of it. When I’m poor I’ll work; only--I don’t ever intend to be -poor again.” - -“Well, we don’t any of us intend to, for the matter of that,” said -Duke. - -“Oh, but you go the wrong way about it. You’re hampered in the -beginning with the notion that you were made to work, and that if you -do it in fine manly fashion your wages will be paid you in full some -day. Why, what owls you are not to see that those wages that you think -you are storing up so patiently are all the time being spent by such -as me! Here’s happiness at your elbow, in the person of Jason -Trender--not up in the skies there. But it’s your nature and luckily -that’s my gain. You wouldn’t know how to enjoy ten thousand a year if -you had it.” - -“You think not?” - -“I know it. You’d never be able to shake off the old humbug of -responsibility.” - -“Toward others, you mean?” - -“Of course I do, and that’s not the way to make out life.” - -“Not your way?” - -“Mine? Mine’s to be irresponsible and independent--to act upon every -impulse and always have a cat by me to claw out the chestnuts.” - -“A high ideal, isn’t it?” - -“Don’t fire that nonsense at me. Ideal, indeed! A cant term, Jack -Straw, for a sort of religious mania. No ideal ever sparkled like a -bottle of champagne. I’ve been drinking it for the first time lately -and learning to play euchre. I’ve not proved such a bad pupil.” - -He slapped the pocket to which he had returned his purse, with a -joyous laugh. - -“Champagne’s heaven!” he cried. “I never want any better. Come out -with me to-morrow and taste it. Let’s have a jaunt!” - -Duke shook his head. - -“We shouldn’t agree in our notions of pleasure,” said he. - -“Then, come you, Renny, and I’ll swear to show you more fun in a day -than you’ve known in all your four years of London.” - -“I can’t, Jason. I’ve got another engagement.” - -“Who with?” - -“Never mind. But I can’t come.” - -“Oh, rubbish! You’ll have to tell me or else we go together.” - -“Neither the one nor the other.” - -For a moment he looked threatening. “I’m not fond of these mysteries,” -he said. Then his face cleared again. - -“Well,” he cried, “it’s a small matter for me, and, after all, you -don’t know what you miss. You don’t keep whisky here, I suppose?” - -“No, we don’t drink grog, either of us.” - -“So I should have thought. Then I’ll make for livelier quarters”--and -crying good-night to us, he went singing out of the room. - -The moment I heard the outer door shut on him, I turned to Duke. - -“Don’t hold me responsible for him,” I said. “You see what he is.” - -“Renny,” said Duke, gravely, “I see that friendship is impossible to -him, and can understand in a measure what he made you suffer.” - -“Yet, I think, it’s true that he’s of the sort whom fortune always -favors.” - -“They sign a compact in blood for it, though, as the wicked baron does -in the story books.” - -He smiled and we both fell silent. Presently Duke said from the -darkness: - -“Where has he put up in London?” - -“I don’t know. He wouldn’t say. I’m not particularly anxious to find -out as long as he keeps away from here.” - -“Ah, as long as he does,” said my companion, and sunk into a pondering -fit again. - -“Get off early to-morrow,” he said, suddenly. “What time have you -arranged to--to meet Dolly?” - -“Half-past nine, Duke.” - -“Not before? Well, be punctual, there’s a good fellow. She’s worth an -effort.” - -I watched him, as he rose with a stifled sigh and busied himself over -lighting our bedroom candle. In the gusty dance of the flame his eyes -seemed to change and glint red like beads of garnet. I had no notion -why, but a thrill ran through me and with it a sudden impulse to seize -him by the hand and exclaim: “Thank God, we’re friends, Duke!” - -He startled a little and looked full in my face, and then I knew what -had moved me. - -Friends were we; but heaven pity the man who made him his enemy! - - - - - CHAPTER XXII. - THE SHADOW OF THE STORM. - -Dolly met me the next morning, looking shy and half-frightened as a -child caught fruit-picking. She gave me her hand with no show of -heartiness, and withdrew it at once as if its fingers were the -delicate antennae of her innocent soul and I her natural enemy. - -“Where shall we go, Renny?” she asked, glancing timidly up at me. - -“To Epping again, Dolly, dear. I’ve set my heart on it.” - -She seemed at first as if about to ask me why; then to shrink from a -subject she dreaded appearing to have a leading interest in. - -“Very well,” she answered, faintly. “It will be lovely there now.” - -“Won’t you help a poor woman to a crust of bread, kind lidy?” said a -voluble whining voice at our ears, and a sturdy mendicant thrust her -hand between us. She was a very frouzy and forbidding-looking -mendicant, indeed, with battered bonnet askew and villainous small -eyes, and her neighborhood was redolent of gin. - -“Spare a copper, kind lidy and gentleman,” she entreated, with a -bibulous smirk, “and call down the blessings of ’eving on a widowed -’art as ’an’t tysted bit or sup since yesterday come to-morrer, and -five blessed children wantin’ a ’ome, which it’s the rent overdue and -these ’ands wore to knife powder scrapin’ in the gutters for scraps -which one crust of bread would ease. Kind lidy, oh, just a copper.” - -Dolly was for putting a charitable hand into her pocket as the -creature followed us, but I peremptorily stopped her and would not -have her imposed upon. - -“Kind lidy,” continued the woman, “I’ve walked the streets all night -since yesterday morning and the soles off my feet, kind lidy; won’t -you spare a copper? And I dursn’t go ’ome for fear of my man, and I -buried the youngest a week come yesterday, and praise ’eving I’m a -lonely widder, without child or ’usband, kind lidy; just a copper for -the funeral--and rot the faces off of you for a couple of bloomin’ -marks in your silks and satings and may you die of the black thirst -with the ale foamin’ in barrils out of reach. You a lidy? Oh, yes, -sich as cocks her nose at a honest woman starvin’ in her rags, and so -will you some day, for all your pink cheeks, when you’ve been thrown -over like this here bloomin’ bonnet!” - -She screamed after us and caught the moldy relic from her head and -slapped it upon the pavement in a drunken frenzy, and she reviled us -in worse language than I can venture to record. Poor Dolly was -frightened and urged me tremblingly to hurry on out of reach of that -strident, cursing voice. I was so angry that I would have liked to -give the foul-mouthed harridan into custody, but the nervous tremors -of my companion urged me to the wiser course of leaving bad alone, and -we were soon out of earshot of the degraded creature. - -“Renny,” whispered the girl in half-terrified tones, “did you hear -what she said?” - -“What does it matter what she said, Dolly?” - -“She cursed me. God wouldn’t allow a curse from a woman like that to -mean anything, would He?” - -“My dear, you must cure yourself of those fancies. God, you may be -sure, wouldn’t use such a discordant instrument for His divine -thunders. The market value of her curse, you see, she put at a -copper.” - -She looked up at me with her lips quivering a little. She was -evidently upset, and it was some time before I could win her back to -her own pretty self. - -“I wish the day hadn’t begun like this,” she said in a low voice. - -“It shall come in like the lion of March, Dolly, and go out like a -lamb--at least, I hope so.” - -“So do I,” she whispered, but with the fright still in her eyes. - -“Why, Dolly,” I said, “I could almost think you superstitious--and you -a Ripley hand!” - -She laughed faintly. - -“I never knew I was, Renny. But everything seemed bright and peaceful -till her horrible voice ground it with dust. I wonder why she said -that?” - -“Said what, Dolly?” - -“That about being thrown over.” - -“Now, Doll, I’ll have no more of it. Leave her to her gin palace and -set your pretty face to the forest. One, two, three and off we go.” - -We caught our train by the tail, as one may say, and took our seats -out of breath and merry. The run had brought the bloom to my -companion’s face once more and the breeze had ruffled and swept her -shining hair rebellious. She seemed a very sweet little possession for -a dusty Londoner to enjoy--a charming garden of blossom for the -fancies to rove over. - -Ah, me; how can I proceed; how write down what follows? The fruit was -to fall and never for me. The blossoms of the garden were to be -scattered underfoot and trodden upon and their sweet perfume -embittered in death. - -As we walked down the platform a voice hailing me made the blood jump -in my heart. - -“Renny--Renny! What brings you here? Why, what a coincidence! Well -met, old fellow! And I say, won’t you introduce me?” - -“Miss Mellison--this is my brother.” I almost added a curse under my -breath. - -I was striving hard for self-command, but my voice would only issue -harsh and mechanical. He had overreached me--had watched, of course, -and followed secretly in pursuit. - -“How delighted I am to meet you,” he said. “Here was I--only lately -come to London, Miss Mellison--sick for country air again and looking -to nothing better than a lonely tramp through the forest and fate -throws a whole armful of roses at me. Are you going there, too? Do let -me come with you.” - -Dolly looked timidly up at me. We had left the station and were -standing on the road outside. - -“Oh, Miss Mellison’s shy in company,” I said. “Let’s each go our way -and we can meet at the station this evening.” - -“I’m sure you won’t echo that,” said Jason, looking smilingly at the -girl. “I see heaven before me and he wants to shut me out. There’s an -unnatural brother for you.” - -“It seems unkind, don’t it, Renny? We hadn’t thought to give you the -slip, Mr. Trender. Why, really, till now I didn’t even know of your -existence.” - -“That’s Renalt’s way, of course. He always wanted to keep the good -things to himself. But I’ve been in London quite a long time now, Miss -Mellison, and he hasn’t even mentioned me to you.” - -Dolly gave me a glance half-perplexed, half-reproachful. - -“Why didn’t you, Renny?” - -I struggled to beat down the answer that was on my lips: “Because I -thought him no fit company for you.” - -“I didn’t see why I should,” I said, coolly. “I’m not bound to make my -friends his.” - -“How rude you are--and your own brother! Don’t mind him, Mr. Trender. -He can be very unpleasant when he chooses.” - -She smiled at him and my heart sunk. Was it possible that his -eyes--his low musical voice--could he be taking her captive already? - -“Come,” I said, roughly. “We’re losing the morning chattering here, -Dolly. You’re not wanted, Jason. That’s the blunt truth.” - -Dolly gave a little, pained cry of deprecation. - -“Don’t, Renny! It’s horrible of you.” - -“I can’t help it,” I said, savagely. “He’s as obtuse as a tortoise. He -ought to see he’s in the way.” - -“You give me credit for too delicate a discrimination, my good -brother. But I’ll go if I’m not wanted.” - -“No, you sha’n’t, Mr. Trender. I won’t be a party to such behavior.” - -I turned upon the girl with a white face, I could feel. - -“Dolly,” I said, hoarsely. “If he goes with you, I don’t!” - -Her face flushed with anger for the first time in my knowledge of her. - -“You can do just as you like, Renny, and spoil my day if you want to. -But I haven’t given you the right to order me about as if I was a -child.” - -Without another word I turned upon my heel and left them. I was -furious with a conflicting rage of emotions--detestation of my -brother, anger toward Dolly, baffled vanity and mad disappointment. In -a moment the sunshine of the day had been tortured into gloom. The -sting of that was the stab I felt most keenly in the first tumult of -my passion. That this soft caprice of sex I had condescended to so -masterfully in my thoughts should turn upon and defy me! I had not -deemed such a thing possible. Had she only played with me after all, -coquetting and humoring and rending after the manner of her kind? Were -it so, she should hear of the mere pity that had driven me to -patronizing consideration of her claims; should learn of my essential -indifference to her in a very effectual manner. - -I am ashamed to recall the first violence with which, in my mind, I -tortured that poor gentle image. As my rage cooled, it wrought, I must -confess, an opposite revenge. Then Dolly became in my eyes a treasure -more desirable than ever, now my chance of gaining her seemed shaken. -I thought of all her tender moods and pretty ways, so that my eyes -filled with tears. I had behaved rudely, had shocked her gentle sense -of decorum. And here, by reason of an exaggerated spleen, had I thrown -her alone into the company of the very man whose influence over her I -most dreaded. - -And what would Duke say--Duke, who in noble abrogation of his own -claims had so pathetically committed to my care this child of his deep -unselfish love? - -I had been walking rapidly in the opposite direction to that I fancied -the other two would take; and now I stopped and faced about, scared -with a sudden shock of remorse. - -What a fool, a coward, a traitor to my trust I had been! I must -retrace my steps at once and seek them up and down the forest alleys. -I started off in panic haste, sweating with the terror of what I had -done. I plunged presently into the woods, and for a couple of hours -hurried hither and thither without meeting them. - -By and by, breaking into the open again, I came upon an inn, favored -of tourists, that stood back from a road. I was parched and exhausted, -and thought a glass of beer would revive me to a fresh start. Walking -into the tap I passed by the open door of the coffee-room, and there -inside were they seated at a table together, and a waiter was -uncorking a bottle of champagne behind them. - -Why didn’t I go in then and there? I had found my quarry and the game -might yet be mine. Ask the stricken lover who will pursue his lady -hotly through anxious hours and then, when he sees her at last, will -saunter carelessly by as if his heart were cold to her attractions. -Some such motive, in a form infinitely baser, was mine. I may call it -pride, and hear the wheel creak out a sardonic laugh. - -“They seem happy enough without me,” my heart said, but my conscience -knew the selfishness that must nurse an injury above any sore need of -the injurer. - -Their voices came to me happy and merry. They had not seen me. I drank -my beer and stole outside miserably temporizing with my duty. - -“She sha’n’t escape again,” I thought; “I’ll go a little distance off -and watch.” - -I waited long, but they never came. At length, stung to desperation, I -strode back to the inn and straight into the coffee-room. It was -empty. Seeing a waiter, I asked him if the lady and gentleman who had -lunched at such a table had left. - -“Yes,” he said. He believed the lady and gentleman had gone into the -forest by the garden way. - -Then I was baffled again. Surely the curse of the virago of the -morning was operating after all. - -Evening drew on, and at last there was no help for it but to make for -the station and catch our usual train back to town. - -They were standing on the platform when I reached it. I walked -straight up to them. Dolly flushed crimson when she saw me and then -went pale as a windflower, but she never spoke a word. - -“Hullo!” said Jason. “The wanderer returned. We’ve had a rare day of -it; and you have, too, no doubt.” - -I spoke steadily, with a set determination to prove master of myself. - -“I’ve been looking for you all day. Dolly, I’m sorry I left you in a -temper. Please forgive me, dear.” - -“Oh, yes,” she said, indifferently and weariedly. “It doesn’t matter.” - -“But it does matter to me, Dolly, very much, to keep your good -opinion.” - -She turned and looked at me with a strange expression, as if she were -on the point of bursting into tears, but she only ended with a little -formless laugh and looked away again. - -“I don’t think you can value my good opinion much, and I’m sure I -don’t know why you should.” - -The train lunging in at this point stopped our further talk; and, once -seated in it, the girl lay back in her corner with closed eyes as if -asleep. - -Jason sat silent, with folded arms, the lamplight below the shadow -cast by his hat brim emphasizing the smile on his firmly curved lips; -and I, for my part, sat silent also, for my heart seemed sick unto -death. - -At the terminus Dolly would have no further escort home. She was tired -out, she said, and begged only we would see her into an omnibus and go -our ways without her. - -As the vehicle lumbered off I turned fiercely upon my brother. - - - - - CHAPTER XXIII. - A LETTER AND AN ANSWER. - -“You dog!” I said, in a low, stern voice; “tell me the meaning of -this.” - -He gave a little, mocking, airy laugh and, thrusting his hands into -his pockets, wheeled round upon me. - -“What’s your question?” said he. - -“You know. What have you said to the girl to make her treat me like -this?” - -He raised his eyebrows in assumed perplexity. - -“Really,” he said, “you go a long way to seek. What have I said? How -have you behaved, you mean.” - -“You lie--I don’t! I know her, that’s enough. If you have told her my -story----” - -“If?” he repeated, coolly. - -“I may add a last chapter to it, in which you’ll figure--that’s all.” - -He was a little startled, I could see, but retained his sang froid, -with an effort. - -“You jump too much to conclusion, my good fellow. I have said nothing -to her about your little affair with Modred as yet.” - -“That means you intend to hold it over my head as a menace where she -is concerned. I know you.” - -“Then you know a very charming fellow. Why, what a dolt you are! -Here’s a pother because I play cavalier to a girl whom you throw over -in a fit of sulks. I couldn’t do less in common decency.” - -“Take care that you do no more. I’m not the only one to reckon with in -this business.” - -“A fig for that!” he cried, snapping his fingers. “I’m not to be -coerced into taking second place if I have a fancy for first.” - -“I warn you; that’s enough. For the rest, let’s understand one -another. I’ll have no more of this sham for convention’s sake. We’re -enemies, and we’ll be known for enemies. My door’s shut to you. Keep -out of my way and think twice before you make me desperate.” - -With that I turned and strode from him. His mocking laugh came after -me again, but I took no notice of it. - -Should I tell Duke all? I shrunk from the mere thought. A coward even -then, I dared not confess to him how I had betrayed my trust; what -fearful suspicions of the nature of my failure lay dark on my heart. -No--I must see Dolly first and force my sentence from her lips. - -He put down the book he was reading from, as I entered the -sitting-room. - -“Well,” he said, cheerily, “what success?” - -I sat away from him, beyond the radiance of the lamp, and affected to -be busy unlacing my boots. - -“I can’t say as yet, Duke. Do you mind postponing the question for a -day or two?” - -“Of course, if you wish it.” I felt the surprise in his tone. “Mayn’t -I ask why?” - -“Not now, old fellow. I missed my opportunity, that’s all.” - -“Is anything wrong, Renny?” - -“Not all right, at least.” - -“Renny, why shouldn’t it be? I can’t be mistaken as to the direction -of her feelings--by my soul, I can’t.” - -“I’m not so sure,” I said, in a voice of great distress. - -He recognized it and stopped questioning me at once. - -“You want to be alone, I see,” said he, gently. “Well, I’ll be off.” - -As he passed me, he placed his hand for a moment on my shoulder. The -action was tender and sympathetic, but I shrunk under it as if it had -been a blow. - -When the door had closed upon him I rose and sat down at the table. I -wrote: - - “Dear Dolly: I made a fool of myself to-day and have repented it ever - since in sackcloth and ashes. I had so wished to be alone with you, - dear, and it made me mad that he should come between us. He isn’t a - good companion for you. I must say it, though he is my brother. Had I - thought him so I should have brought him to see you before. I only say - this to explain my anger at his appearance, and now I will drop the - subject for another, which is the real reason of my writing. I had - hoped, so much, dear, to put it to you personally, there in the old - forest that we have spent so many happy hours in, but I missed my - opportunity and now I am in too much of a fever to wait another week. - Dolly, will you be my wife? I can afford a home of my own now, and I - shall be glad and grateful if you will consent to become mistress of - it. I feel that written words can only sound cold at best; so I will - say nothing more here, but just this--if you will have me, I will - strive in all things to be your loving and devoted husband. - - “Renalt Trender.” - -All in a glow of confident tenderness, inspired by the words I had -written, I added the address and went out and posted my little -missive. Its mere composition, the fact of its now lying in the -postbox, a link between us, gave me a chastened sense of relief and -satisfaction that was restorative to my injured vanity. The mistake of -the morning was reacted upon in time, and I felt that nothing short of -a disruption of natural affinities could interfere to keep back the -inevitable answer. So assured was I, indeed, that I allowed my -thoughts to wander as if for a last farewell, into regions wherein the -simple heart of my present could find no way to enter. “Good-by, Zyp,” -the voiceless soul of me muttered. - -That night, looking at Duke’s dark head at rest on the pillow, I -thought: “It will be put right to-morrow or the next day, and you, -dear friend, need never know what might have followed on my abuse of -your trust.” Then I slept peacefully, but my dreams were all of -Zyp--not of the other. - -The next day, at the office, I was careful to keep altogether out of -Dolly’s way. Indeed, my work taking me elsewhere, I never once saw her -and went home in the evening unenlightened by a single glance from her -gray eyes. This, the better policy, I thought, would save us both -embarrassment and the annoyance of any curiosity on the part of her -fellow-workers, who would surely be quick to detect a romantic state -of affairs between us. - -Nevertheless, despite my self-confidence, I awaited that evening in -some trepidation the answer that was to decide the direction of my -future. - -We were sitting at supper when it came, held by one corner in her -apron by our landlady, and my face went pale as I saw the schoolgirl -superscription. - -“From Dolly?” murmured Duke. - -I nodded and broke the seal. My hands trembled and a mist was before -my eyes. It ran as follows: - - “Dear Renny: Thank you very, very much for your kind offer, but I - can’t accept it. I thought I had so much to say, and this is all I can - think of. I hope it won’t hurt you. It can’t, I know, for long, - because now I see I was never really the first in your heart; and your - letter don’t sound as if you will find it very difficult to get over. - Please forgive me if I’m wrong, but anyhow it’s too late now. I might - have once, but I can’t now, Renny. I think perhaps I became a woman - all in a moment yesterday. Please don’t write or say a word to me - again about this, for I mean it really and truly. Your affectionate - friend, - - Dolly Mellison.” - - “P. S.--It was a little unfair of you, I must say, not to tell me - about that Zyp.” - -I sat and returned the letter to its folds quite coolly and calmly. If -there was fire in me, I kept it under then. - -“Duke,” I said, quietly, “she has refused me.” - -He struggled up from his chair. His face was all amazement and his -voice hoarse. - -“Refused you? What have you said? What have you done? Something has -happened, I tell you.” - -“Why? She was at perfect liberty to make her own choice.” - -“You wrote to her last night?” - -“Yes.” - -“Why did you? Why didn’t you do as I understood you intended to -yesterday?” - -“I asked you to leave that question alone for the present.” - -“You’ve no right to. I----” his face flamed up for a moment. But with -a mighty effort he fought it under. - -“Renny,” he said, in a subdued voice, “I had no business to speak to -you like that. But you don’t know upon what a wheel of torment I have -been these last weeks. The girl--Dolly--is so much to me, and her -happiness----” he broke off almost with a sob. - -I sprung to my feet. I could bear it no longer. - -“Think what you like of me!” I cried. “I have made a muddle of the -whole business--a wretched, unhappy muddle. But I suffer, too, Duke. I -never knew what Miss--Miss Mellison was to me till now, when I have -lost her.” - -“I don’t ask to see her letter. You haven’t misread it by any -possibility?” - -“No--it’s perfectly clear. She refuses me and holds out no hope.” - -He set his frowning brows and fell into a gloomy silence. He took no -notice of me even when I told him that I must go into the open air for -awhile to walk and try to find surcease of my racking trouble. - -“Now,” I thought, when I got outside, “for the villainous truth. To -strike at me like that! It was worthy of him--worthy of him. And I am -to blame for leaving them together--I, who pretended to an affection -for the girl and was ready to swear to love and protect her -forevermore. What a pitiful rag of manliness! What courage that -daren’t even now tell the truth to my friend up there! Friend? He’s -done with me, I expect. But for the other. He didn’t give her my -history--not he. Perhaps he didn’t as I meant it, but I never dreamed -that he would play upon that second stop for his devils of hate to -dance to; I never even thought of it. What a hideous fool I have been! -Oh, Jason, my brother, if it had only been you instead of Modred!” - -I jerked to a stop. Some formless thoughts had been in my mind to -hurry on into the presence of the villain who had dealt me such a -coward blow, and to drive his slander in one red crash down his -throat. Now, in an instant, it broke upon me that I had no knowledge -of where he lived--that by my own act I had yesterday cut off all -communication between us. Perhaps, though, in his cobra-like dogging -of me he would be driven before long to seek me out again of his own -accord, that he might gloat over the havoc he had occasioned. I must -bide my time as patiently as I could on the chance. - -Late at night I returned and lay down upon the sofa in the -sitting-room. I felt unclean for Duke’s company and would not go up to -him. Let me do myself justice. It was not all dread of his anger that -kept me from him. There was a most lost, sorrowful feeling in me at -having thus requited all his friendship and his generosity. - -As I lay and writhed in sickly thought, my eye was attracted by the -glimmering of some white object set prominently on the mantelpiece. I -rose and found it was a letter addressed to me in his handwriting. -Foreseeing its contents I tore it open and read: - - “I think it best that our partnership should cease and I find lodging - elsewhere. You will understand my reasons. Dolly comes first with me, - that’s all. It may have been your error; I can’t think it was your - willful fault; but that she would have refused you without some good - reason I can’t believe. Your manner seems to point to the suspicion - that somehow her happiness is threatened. I may be wrong, but I intend - to set myself to find out; and until some explanation is forthcoming, - I think it best that we should live apart. I shall call here to-morrow - during the dinner hour and arrange about having my things moved and - settle matters as far as I am concerned. Your friend, - - Duke Straw.” - -I stood long with the letter in my hand. - -“Well, it’s best,” I muttered at last, “and I thought he would do it. -He’s my friend still, thank heaven, for he says so. But, oh, Jason, -your debt is accumulating!” - - - - - CHAPTER XXIV. - LOST. - -The week that followed was a sad and lonely one to me. My romance was -ended--my friend parted from me--my heart ever wincing under the -torture of self-reproach. - -As to the first, it would seem that I should have no great reason for -insuperable regret. The situation had been made for, not by me; I was -free to let my thoughts revert unhampered to the object of my first -and only true love. - -That was all so; yet I know I brooded over my loss for the time being, -as if it were the greatest that could have befallen me. Such is human -inconsistency. So he who, vainly seeking some large reward, -condescends half-disdainfully to a smaller, is altogether -disproportionately vexed if the latter is unexpectedly denied him. - -I went about my work in a hopeless, mechanical manner that only -scarcely concealed the bitter ache my heart endured. Occasionally, at -rare intervals, I came across Dolly, but formally only and never to -exchange a word. Furtively glancing at her when this happened, I -noticed that she looked pale, and, I thought, not happy, but this may -have been nothing but fancy, for my hasty view was generally limited -to half-profile. Of me she took no heed, desiring, apparently, the -absolute close of our old intercourse, and mere pride precluded me -from making any further effort toward an explanation. - -Would that even then I had been wise or noble enough to force the -barrier of reserve. God knows but I might have been in time to save -her. Yet maybe my attitude was not altogether unjustified. To put me -on the footing of a formal stranger was heavy punishment for a fault -committed under motives that were anything, at least, but base. - -With Duke my intercourse was confined to the office and to matters of -business. He showed no unfriendly spirit toward me there and no desire -for a resumption of our old terms. He never, in public or private, -touched upon the subject that was nearest both our hearts, or alluded -to it in any way. If I was conscious of any melancholy shadow towering -between us it was not because he sought to lend to its features the -gloom that must be enwrapping his own soul. - -At last the week ended, and the silence, that had lain black and -ominous as a snake along it, was awakened and reared itself, poisonous -for a spring. Yet its voice spoke up musical at first. - -It was Saturday afternoon, and I was walking home toward my lodgings -in a very depressed frame of mind, when a step came behind me and Duke -fell into step alongside. - -“Renny,” he said, “I think it right to tell you. I have taken the -privilege of an old friend and spoken to Dolly on a certain subject.” - -I nodded. The mere fact was a relief to me. - -“We could only exchange a few words, but she has promised to come out -with me to-morrow; and then, I hope, I shall learn more. What time -will you be at home?” - -I told him all day, if there was a chance of his turning up. - -“Very well,” he said; “then I will call in upon you some time or -other. Good-by.” - -He seemed to be on the point of going, but to alter his mind, and he -suddenly took my hand and pressed it hard. - -“Are you lonely, old fellow?” - -“Very, Duke--and I deserve to be.” - -“It’s for the best? You agree with me?” - -“Quite.” - -He looked sorrowfully in my face, wrung my hand a second time and -walked off rapidly. - -It was the expression of his I ever after remembered with most -pathetic heart-sickness and love. I never saw it in his eyes -again--never again. - -I rose upon the Sunday morning restless still and unrefreshed. An -undefinable feeling of ominous expectancy would not let me sit quiet -or read or do anything but lend my mind to extravagant speculations -and pace the room up and down in nervous irritability. - -At last, thoroughly tired out, I threw myself into an easy-chair and -dozed off from sheer exhaustion. I could not have slept many minutes, -when a clap in my ears awoke me. It might have been an explosive burst -of thunder, so loudly it slammed upon my senses. Yet it was nothing -more than the closing of the room door. - -Then I struggled to my feet, for Duke stood before me, and I saw that -his face was white and menacing as death’s own. - -“Get up!” he cried, in a harsh, stern voice. “I want to ask you -something.” - -I faced him and my heart seemed to suddenly swerve down with a sickly -sensation. - -“What is it?” I muttered. - -“She’s gone--that’s all!” - -“Gone?” - -“She never met me this morning as she promised. I waited an -hour--more. Then I grew frightened and went to her lodgings. She had -left the evening before, saying she wasn’t coming back. A man came to -fetch her and she went away with him. Do you understand?--with him!” - -“With whom?” I asked, in a confused, reeling manner; yet I knew. - -“I want you to tell me.” - -“How can I, Duke?” - -“I want you to say what you have done with your trust? There has been -something going on of late--some secret kept from me. Where is that -brother of yours?” - -“I know no more than you do.” - -“I shall find out before long. The cunning doesn’t exist that could -keep him hidden from me if--if he is a party to this. Why are you -silent? I can read it in your eyes. They have met, and it must have -been through you.” - -“Before God, it wasn’t!” - -“Then they have!” He put his hand to his face and staggered as if he -had been struck there. - -“Oh!” he gasped; “the horror of what I dreaded!” - -Then he came closer and snarled at me: - -“Here’s a friend, out of all the world! So patronizing to accept the -poor little treasure of my life and soul, and so royal to roll it in -the mud! Was this a put-up affair between you?” - -“You are hateful and unjust!” I cried, stung beyond endurance. “He -forced himself upon us last Sunday. I was brutal, almost, in my -efforts to get rid of him. But for some reason or other, Dolly--Miss -Mellison--took his side. When I found so, I left them in a huff and -repented almost immediately. But, though I sought far and near, I -never came across them again till evening.” - -He listened with a black, gloomy impatience. - -“You acted well, by your own confession,” said he. “You played the -part of a true friend and lover by leaving her alone for a moment only -in the company of that paragon.” - -“I oughtn’t to, I know.” - -He gave a high, grating laugh. - -“But, putting me on one side,” I began, when he took me up with the -most intense acrid bitterness. - -“Why can’t I, indeed--you and all your precious kith and kin? Why did -I ever save you from being knocked on the head in that thieves’ -garden? I was happy before--God knows I might have been happy in -another way now. You’ve proved the viper on my hearth with a -vengeance. Put you on one side? Ah, I dare say that would suit you -well--to shirk the responsibility of your own act and leave the -suffering to others.” - -“I have suffered, Duke, and always shall. I won’t gainsay you--but -this hurts me perhaps only one degree less than it does you. Why put -the worst construction on it?” - -He gave another cruel laugh. - -“Let’s have your theory of her vanishing without a word to me,” he -said. - -“At least you can’t be certain that it--it was my brother.” - -“How perspicacious of you! You don’t think so yourself, do you? Or -that I should have meekly accepted that woman’s statement without some -inquiry as to the appearance of the interesting stranger?” - -He dropped his cruelly bantering manner for one hard as iron and -ferocious. - -“Let’s stop this double-faced foolery. I want his address of you.” - -“I haven’t got it, you know.” - -“You can’t guess at it?” - -“Not possibly. What would you do if you had it?” - -“What do you think? Call and offer my congratulations, of course.” - -“Don’t be a madman. You know nothing for certain. Wait and see if she -doesn’t turn up at the office as usual to-morrow.” - -He seemed to think a moment, and then he threw up his hands with a -loud, wailing moan. - -“Lost!” he cried. “In my heart I know it.” - -Did I not in mine? It had rung in my ears all night. I took a step -toward him, greatly moved by his despairing, broken tone, but he waved -me back fiercely. - -“I curse the day,” he cried in bitter grief, “that ever I came across -you. I would have let you rob me--that was nothing to her happiness; -but now----” - -“Let him look to himself,” he went on after a pause, in which he had -mastered his emotion. “After to-morrow--I will wait till then--but -afterward--the world isn’t wide enough to keep us apart. Better for -him to run from an uncubbed tigress than this twisted cripple!” - -He tossed one arm aloft with a wild, savage gesture and strode heavily -from the room. - - - - - CHAPTER XXV. - A LAST MESSAGE. - -Dolly never came to work the next morning, but there arrived a little -letter from her to Mr. Ripley, giving notice, that was all, with no -address or clew to her whereabouts, and an intimation that it was -understood she sacrificed her position--pitiful heaven, for what? - -My employer tossed the note to me indifferently, asking me to see -about the engagement of a fresh hand, if necessary. He little guessed -what those few simple words meant to two of his staff, or foresaw the -tragedy to which they were the prelude. - -When the dinner hour came I followed Duke out and put the scrap of -paper into his hand without a word. He was not unprepared for it, for -he already knew, of course, that his worst apprehensions were realized -by the non-appearance of the girl at her usual place in the office. - -He read it in silence, and in silence handed it back to me. His face -in twenty-four hours seemed to have grown to be the face of an old -man. All its once half-sad, half-humorous thoughtfulness was set into -a single hard expression of some dark resolve. - -“Well,” he said, suddenly, stopping in his walk and facing me, for I -still kept pace with him. - -“What do you intend doing, Duke?” - -“I have one mission in life, Mr. Trender. Good-afternoon to you.” - -I fell back and watched him go from me. Maimed as I was myself, how -could I in any way help him to cure his crueler hurt? - -But now began a curious somber struggle of cross purposes. To find out -where Jason had sunk his burrow and hidden the spoils of his ugly -false sport--there we worked in harness. It was only when the quarry -should be run down that we must necessarily disagree as to the terms -of its disposition. - -For myself: A new despairing trouble had been woven into my life by -the hand that had already wrought me such evil. Its very touch had, -however, made wreck of an impression that had been in a certain sense -an embarrassment, and my movements became in consequence less -trammeled. Let me explain more definitely, if indeed I can do so and -not appear heartless. - -Dolly, innocent, bewitching and desirable, had so confused my moral -ideas as to imbue them with a certain sweet sophistry of love that -half-deceived me into a belief in its fundamental soundness. That was -done with. Dolly dethroned, earthly, enamored of a brazen idol could -be no rival to Zyp. My heart might yearn to her with pity and a deep -remorse that it was I who had been the weak, responsible minister of -her perversion, but the old feeling was dead, never to be revived. I -longed to find her; to rescue her from the black gulf into which I -feared she had leaped; to face the villain who had bruised her heart -and wrench atonement from him by the throat, as it were. Not less it -was my duty to warn him; stand between him, worthless as he was, and -the deadly pursuit alert for his destruction. - -For Duke: I must judge him as he revealed himself to me, and baffle, -if possible, the terrible spirit of what I dared not name to myself. -Think only that at one wicked blow he was deprived of that whole -structure of gentle romance that had saved his moral life from -starvation! - -Therefore it was that during the after hours of work I became for long -a restless, flitting ghost haunted by a ghost. By street and rail and -river, aimless apparently, but with one object through all, we went -wandering through the dark mazes of the night and of the city, always -hoping to light upon that we sought and always baffled. Theaters, -restaurants, music halls, night shows and exhibitions of every -description--any place that was calculated to attract in the least a -nature responsive to the foppery of glitter or an appeal to the -senses--we visited and explored, without result. Gambling dens--such -as we could obtain the entree to--were a persistent lodestone to our -restlessness; and here, especially, was I often conscious of that -shadow of a shade--that dark ghost of my own phantom -footsteps--standing silent at my elbow and watching--watching for him -who never came. - -Whithersoever we went the spur of the moment’s qualm goaded us. Any -little experience, any chance allusion, was sufficient to suggest a -possibility in the matter of the tendency of a lost and degenerate -soul. Now we foregathered on the skirt of some fulsome and braying -street preacher’s band; now suffered in a music hall under the -skittish vapidity of a “lion comique”; now, perhaps, humbled our hot -and weary pride in the luminous twilight of some old walled-in church, -where evening service brought a few worshipers together. - -I say “we,” yet in all this we acted independently. Only, whether in -company or apart, the spirit of one common motive linked us together, -and that so that I, at least, never felt alone. - -So the weeks drew into months and Dolly herself was a phantom to my -memory. By day the mechanism of our lives moved in the accustomed -grooves; by night we were wandering birds of passage flitting dismally -over waste places. More than once on a Sunday had I taken train to -Epping, driven by the thought that some half-forgotten sentiment might -by chance move other than me to the scene of old pleasant experiences. -But she never came. Her “seasick weary bark” was nearing the rocks, -and the breakers of eternity were already sounding in her ears. - -Why postpone the inevitable or delay longer over description of that -pointless pursuit that was to end only in catastrophe and death? - -Christmas had come and gone with me--a mockery of good will and -cheer--and a bitter January set in. That month the very demon of the -east wind flew uncontrolled, and his steely sting was of a length and -shrewdness to pierce thickest cloth and coverlet, frame and lung and -heart itself. - -One evening I had swallowed my supper and was preparing for my nightly -prowl. Duke had remained at the office overtime, and my tramp was like -to be unhaunted of its familiar. I had actually blown out the lamp, -when his rapid footstep--I knew it well--came up the stairs, and in a -moment the door was thrown open with a crash and I heard him breathing -in the room. - -“He’s gone!” he ejaculated in a quick, panting voice. - -“No; I’m here, Duke!” - -“My God! Renny--do you hear? Come--come at once. No--light the lamp; -I’ve something to show you.” - -I struck a match, with shaking hand, and put it to the wick. As the -dull flame sputtered and rose I turned and looked at my friend. The -expression of his face I shall never forget till I die. It was -bloodless--spectral--inhuman; the face of one to whom a great dread -had been realized--a last hope denied. - -He held out to me a little soiled and crumpled sheet of paper. I took -it, with a spasm of the heart and breath that seemed to suffocate me. -My eyes turned from and were fascinated by it at once. - -“You had better read,” he said. “It’s the last chapter of your own -pretty romance. Make haste--I want to get to business.” - -It was from her, as I had foreseen--a few sad words to the old good -friend who had so loved and protected her: - - “I must let you know before I go to die. I couldn’t meet you that - morning--what a time ago it seems! He wouldn’t let me, though I cried - and begged him to. I don’t know now what made me do it all; how he - upset my faith in Renny and turned my love to himself in a moment. I - think he has a dreadful influence that made me follow him and obey - him. It doesn’t matter now. I went to him, that’s enough; and he’s - broken my heart. Please ask Renny to forgive me. Perhaps if he had had - a little more patience with me I might have acted different--but I - can’t be certain even of that. I’m going to kill myself, Duke, dear, - and before I do it I just want to say this: I know now you loved poor - Dolly all the time. How I know it I don’t understand, but somehow it’s - quite clear. Oh, what have I thrown away, when I might have been so - happy! You were always good to me, and I thank you with my last - breath. Don’t hurt him, Duke; I don’t think he understands the - difference to me. But he always promised to be a faithful lover--and - yesterday I found that he’s married already. That’s why I’m going to - do it.” - -The paper dropped from my hand. Duke picked it up with an evil laugh -and thrust it into his breast pocket. - -“Married!” I muttered. - -“Oh!” he cried; “it’s all one for that! That’s a family matter. The -question here goes beyond--into the heart of this--this death -warrant.” - -He struck savagely where the letter lay and stood staring at me with -gloating eyes. - -“Duke--are you going to murder him?” - -“I’m going to find her. Let that do for the present--and you’ve got to -help me.” - -“Where are we to look? Did the letter give an address?” - -“No. She kept her secret to the last. It was a noble one, I swear. -There’s a postmark, though, and that’s my clew. Hurry, will you?” - -I seized my hat and stick. - -“Duke--for the love of heaven, why must it be too late even now?” - -“Because I know it is. Doesn’t that satisfy you? I loved her--do you -understand it now for the first time? The fiend tread on your heels. -Aren’t you ever coming?” - -I hurried after him into the street. A clap of wind struck and -staggered us as if it had been water. Beating through the night, its -icy fury clutched at us, stinging and buffeting our faces, until it -seemed as though we were fighting through an endless thicket of -brambles. Struggling and panting onward--silent with the silence of -the lost--we made our way by slow degrees to the low ground about -Chelsea, and presently came out into a freer air and the black vision -of the river sliding before us from night into night. - -“Duke,” I whispered, awfully--“is this what you fear?” - -“Follow!” he cried. “I fear nothing! It’s past that!” - -By lowering factory and grimy wall; by squalid streets peeled of -uncleanliness in the teeth of the bitter blast; by low-browed taverns, -that gushed red on us a moment and were gone, he sped with crooked -paces, and I followed. - -Then he stopped so suddenly that I almost stumbled against him, and we -were standing at the mouth of a shadowy court, and overhead a -hiccoughing gas jet made a gibbering terror of his white face. - -“Where are we?” I said, and he answered: - -“Where we naturally take up the clew--outside a police station.” - - - - - CHAPTER XXVI. - FROM THE DEPTHS. - -Into a dull, gusty room, barren of everything but the necessities of -its office, we walked and stopped. - -Distempered walls; a high desk, a railed dock, where creatures were -put to the first question like an experimental torture; black windows -high in the wall and barred with network of wire, as if to break into -fragments the sunshine of hope; a double gas bracket on an arm hanging -from the ceiling, grimly suggestive of a gallows; a fireplace whose -warmth was ruthlessly boxed in--such was the place we found ourselves -in. Its ministers figured in the persons of a half-dozen constables -sitting officially yawning on benches against the walls, and looking -perplexingly human shorn of their helmets; and in the presence of a -high priest, or inspector, and his clerk who sat respectively at the -desk and a table placed alongside of it. - -The latter rose upon our entrance and asked our business. - -“It’s plain enough,” said Duke. “I have received, by post, an hour -ago, a letter from a young woman threatening suicide. I don’t know her -address, but the postmark is this district.” - -The officer motioned us to the higher authority at the desk. - -“May I see it?” said the latter. - -My companion produced the letter and handed it over. Throughout his -bearing and behavior were completely collected and formal--passionless -altogether in their studied unemotionalism. - -The inspector went through the poor little scrawl attentively from -first word to last. No doubt he was a kindly family man in private. -Officially these pitiful warrants of heartbreaks were mere items in -his day’s business. - -When he had finished he raised his eyes, but not his head. - -“Sweetheart?” he said. - -“No,” answered Duke, “but an old friend.” - -“Renny?” asked the inspector, pointing a pen at me. - -“Yes.” - -“She ran away?” - -“Yes.” - -“Who with?” - -“This man’s brother.” - -“How long ago?” - -“Three months, about.” - -“And you have never seen her since?” - -“No.” - -“Nor him?” - -“No.” - -“And don’t know where they lived?” - -“No--or I shouldn’t be here.” - -The inspector caressed his short red beard, looked thoughtfully again -at the letter a moment or two, placed it gently on the desk and leaned -forward. - -“You’d better take a man and hunt up the waterside. She hasn’t come -ashore here.” - -“You think she means it?” - -“I think--yes; you’d better go and look.” - -“By water, I mean?” - -“Yes--by water. That’s my opinion.” - -He called to one of the seated men and gave him certain directions. A -minute later we were all three in the street outside. - -What happened or whither we went during that long night remains only -in my memory the ghastly shadow of a dream. I can recall the white -plate of the moon, and still the icy wind and the spectral march -onward. This seemed the fitting outcome of our monotonous weeks of -wandering--this aimless corpse-search on the part of two passionate -fools who had failed in their pursuit of the living woman. To my sick -fancy it seemed the monstrous parody of chase--an objectless struggle -toward a goal that shifted with every step toward any determined -point. - -Still we never stopped, but flitted hopelessly from station to -station, only to find ourselves baffled and urged forward afresh. I -became familiar with rooms such as that we had left--rooms varying -slightly in detail, but all furnished to the same pattern. Grewsomer -places knew us, too--hideous cellars for the dead, where clothes were -lifted from stiff yellow faces and from limbs stuck out in distorted -burlesque of the rest that is called everlasting. - -Once, I remember, it came upon us with a quivering shock that our -mission was fulfilled; a body had been brought in--I forget where--the -body of a young woman. But when we came to view it it was not that -that we sought. - -Pitiful heaven, was our tragedy, then, but a common fashion of the -dreadful waterway we groped our passage along? How was it possible in -all that harvest of death to find the one awn for our particular -gleaning? - -But here--though I was little conscious of it at the time--an -impression took life in me that was to bear strange fruit by and by. - -Dawn was in the air, menacing, most chill and gloomy, when we came out -once more upon the riverside at a point where an old rotting bridge of -timber sprawled across the stream like a wrecked dam. All its -neighborhood seemed waste ground or lonely deserted tenements standing -black and crookedly against a wan sweep of sky. - -In the moment of our issuing, as if it were a smaller splinter -detached from the wreck, a little boat glided out from under the -bridge and made for a flight of dank and spongy steps that led up from -the water not ten yards from where we stood. - -Something in the action of the dim figure that pulled, or the other -that hung over the stern sheets of the phantom craft, moved our -unwearying guide to motion us with his arm to watchfulness and an -immediate pause. In the same instant he hollowed his hand to his mouth -and hailed: - -“Any luck, mate?” - -The man who was rowing slowed down at once and paddled gingerly to -within a few yards of the steps. - -“Who be you?” he growled, like a dog. - -Our friend gave his authority. - -“Oh,” said the fellow. “Yes; we’ve found one.” - -“What sex, my man?” - -“Gurl!” - -I could have cried out. Something found my heart and seized it in a -suffocating grip. - -“Where was it?” - -“Caught yonder in the timbers.” - -I reeled and clutched at Duke, but he shook me off sternly. I knew as -surely as that the night was done with that here our search ended. - -That I stood quaking and shivering as nerveless as a haunted drunkard; -that I dared not follow them when they moved to the steps; that Duke’s -face was set like a dying man’s as he walked stiffly from me and stood -looking down upon the boat with a dreadful smile--all this comes to me -from the grim shadows of the past. Then I only knew a huddled group--a -weighted chamber of shapes with something heavy and sodden swung among -them--a pause of hours--of years--of a lifetime--and suddenly a -hideous scream that cleft like a madman’s into the waste silence of -the dawn. - -He was down upon his knees by it--groveling, moaning--tearing tufts of -dead wintry grass with his hands in ecstasy of pain--tossing his wild -arms to the sky in impotent agony of search for some least grain of -hope or comfort. - -I hurried to him; I called upon his name and hers. I saw the sweet -white face lying like a stone among the grass. - -Wiser than I, the accustomed ministers of scenes such as this stood -watchful by and waited for the fit to pass. When its fury was spent, -they quietly took up their burden once more and moved away. - -I had no need then to bid my comrade command himself. He rose on the -instant from the ground, where he had lain writhing, and fiercely -rejecting all offer of assistance on my part, followed in the wake of -the ghastly procession. - -They bore it to the nearest station and there claimed their reward. -Think of it! We, who would have given our all to save the living -woman, were outbidden by these carrion crows who staked upon the dead! - -Again at this point a lapse comes into my memory. Out of it grows a -figure, that of Duke, that stands before me and speaks with the -horrible smile again on its lips. - -“You had better go home,” it says. - -“Duke--why? What comes next? What are you going to do?” - -“What does it matter? You had better go home.” - -“I must know. Was there anything upon the--upon the body? Duke--was -there?” - -“There was a letter.” - -“Who from?” - -“Go home, I tell you.” - -“I can’t--I won’t--I must save you from yourself! I--Duke----” - -He strikes at me--hits me, so that I stagger back--and, with an oath, -he speeds from me and is gone. - -I recover myself and am on the point of giving mad chase, when a -thought strikes me and I rush into the building I have been all this -time standing outside the door of. - - - - - CHAPTER XXVII. - AN UNEXPECTED MEETING. - -Tearing up the steps, I almost fell into the arms of our guide of the -long, hideous night. - -“Can I see it?” I cried. - -“Steady, sir,” he said, staying and supporting me with a hand. “What’s -up now?” - -“I want to see it--there was a letter--I----” - -“All property found on the body is took possession of.” - -“He saw it, I tell you.” - -“Your friend, there? So he did--but he gave it over.” - -“I’ll give it over. I don’t want to keep it, man. There was an address -on it--there must have been, I swear; and if you don’t let me know it, -there’ll be murder--do you understand?--murder!” - -No doubt he did understand. In such matters a policeman’s mind is -intuitive. - -“Come along, then,” he said; “I’ll see what can be done,” and, holding -me along the elbow in the professional manner, he led me through the -building to a sort of outhouse that stood in a gloomy yard to the -rear. - -Pushing open a door, he bid me enter and wait while he went and -communicated with the inspector. - -The room I found myself in was like nothing so much as a ghastly -species of scullery; built with a formal view to cleanliness and -ventilation. All down its middle ran a long zinc-covered table, -troughed slightly at the side and sloping gently like a fishmonger’s -slab. Its purpose was evident in the drenched form that lay on it -covered with a cloth. - -And to this sordid pass had come she, the loving and playful, with -whom I had wandered a few short weeks ago among the green glades of -the old forest. Now more than the solemnity of death pronounced us -apart. - -I shivered and drew back, and then was aware of a man washing his -hands at a sink that stood to one end of the room. - -He turned his head as he washed and looked at me. - -“Now, my man, what is it?” he said. - -He was lean, formal-faced and spectacled--a doctor by every uninviting -sign of the profession. - -I told him my business and referred shrinkingly to the thing lying -hidden there. - -“There isn’t, I suppose, any--any hope whatever?” - -“Oh, dear, no; not the least.” - -He came toward me pruning and trimming his cold finger-nails. - -“She has been in the water, I should say, quite eight hours, or -possibly nine.” - -He pulled the cloth down slightly, with a speculative motion of his -hand, so as to expose the white, rigid face. I had no time to stop him -before its sightless eyes were looking up at me. - -“Oh, Dolly! Dolly! Such a fearful little woman, and yet with the -courage to bring yourself to this!” - -Suddenly, through the heart of my wild pity pierced a thought that had -already once before stirred unrecognized in me. - -“Doctor,” I said, staring down on the poor lifeless face, “do the -drowned always look like that?” - -“Certainly they do, more or less.” - -“But how more? Is it possible, for instance, for a person to -half-drown and then seemingly recover; to be put to bed nearly himself -again, and yet be found dead in the morning?” - -“How can I say? In such a case there must be gross carelessness or -quite unexpected complications.” - -“But if I tell you I once heard of this happening--was witness, -indeed, of the fact?” - -The doctor lifted his shoulder, adjusted his spectacles and shrugged -himself with an awkward posture of skepticism. - -“How did he look?” he said. - -“Dreadful--swollen, horribly distorted. His face was black--his hands -clenched. He seemed to have died in great pain.” - -He gave a little scornful sniff. - -“Do you want my opinion on that?” he cried. “Well--here it is: It was -a case for the police. No drowned man ever looked after that fashion.” - -“Then you think he must have come to his death by other means, and -after he was put to bed?” - -“I haven’t the least doubt about it whatsoever, if it was all as you -say.” - -I gave a thin, sudden cry. I couldn’t help it--it was forced from me. -Then, of my own act, I pulled the cloth once more over the dead face. -It had spoken to me in such a manner as its love had never expressed -in life. - -“You have vindicated me, my sweetheart of the old days,” I murmured. -“Good-by, Dolly, till I may witness your love that is undying in -another world.” - -I think the doctor fancied that the trouble of the night had turned my -brain. What did it matter what he thought--what anybody thought now? I -stood acquitted at the bar of my own conscience. In my first knowledge -of that stupendous relief I could find no place for one other -sentiment but crazy gratitude. - -As I stood, half-stunned in the shock of emotion, the officer I -awaited entered the room bearing in his hand a slip of paper. - -“The letter’s detained,” he said, “but this here’s the address it’s -wrote from, and you’d better act upon it without delay.” - -With a tremendous effort I swept together my scattered faculties and -took it from him. - -It was not much information that the paper contained--an address only -from a certain “Nelson terrace” in Battersea--but such as it was I -held it in common with Duke, whose sole advantage was a brief start of -me. - -Calling back my thanks to the friendly constable, I hurried into the -street and so off and away in wild pursuit. - -Still as I ran a phantom voice went with me, crying: “You did not kill -him--your brother Modred.” - -The rapture of it kept time to my hurrying footsteps; it flew over and -with me, like the albatross of hope, and brought the breeze of a -healthfuler promise on its wings; it spoke from the faces of people I -passed, as if they wished me to know as I swept by that I was no -longer in their eyes a man of blood. - -“You did not kill him!” it sung in my brain--“you did not kill -him--you did not kill him”--then all in a moment, with a dying shock: -“Who did?” - -I stopped, as if I had run against a wall. I swear, till then no -shadowy thought of this side of the question had darkened my heart in -passing. - -Still, impelled to an awful haste, I beat the whole horror resolutely -to one side and rushed on my way. “Presently--presently,” I muttered, -“I will sit down and rest and think it over from beginning to end.” - -By that time I was in a street of ugly cockney houses stretching -monotonously on either side. I was speeding down it, seeking its name, -and convinced from my inquiries that I could not be far from my -destination, when something standing crouched against a low front -garden wall, where it met the angle of a tall brick gate post, caught -the tail of my eye and stopped me with a jerk. It was Duke, and I had -run him down. - -He spat a curse from his drawn, white lips, as I faced him, and bade -me begone as I valued my life. - -“Duke,” I panted, watchful of him, “I do value it now--never mind why. -I value it far above his you have come to take. But he is my -brother--and you were once my friend.” - -“No longer--I swear it,” he cried, blazing out on me dreadfully. “Will -you go while there’s time?” - -Then he assumed a mockery more bitter than his rage. - -“Harkee!” he whispered. “This isn’t the place. I came here to be out -of the way and rest. I’ll go home by and by.” - -“Will you come with me now?” - -“With you? Haven’t I had enough of you Trenders? I put it to you as a -reasonable man.” - -As he spoke the wail of a young child came through the window of an -upper room of the house adjoining. At the sound he seized my wrists in -one of his hands with the grip of iron forceps. - -“Listen there!” he muttered. “That’s his child, do you hear? He -perpetuates his wicked race without a scruple. Wouldn’t it be a good -thing now to cut down the poisonous weed root and branch?” - -I stared at him in horror. Hardly till this moment had the fact of -Jason’s being married recurred to me since I first heard of it the -night before. - -“His child?” I echoed. - -“What’s the fool gaping at? Would his pretty deception be complete -without a wife and baby in the background to spur his fancy?” - -The door of the adjoining house was opened and a light footfall came -down the steps. I saw a devil leap into Duke’s eyes, and on the -instant sprung at him. - -He had me down directly, for his strength was fearful, but I clutched -him frantically as I fell, and he couldn’t shake me off. - -Struggling--sobbing--warding my head as best I could from his -battering blows--I yet could find voice to cry from the -ground--“Jason, in God’s name, run! He’s going to murder you!” - -Up and down on the pavement--bruised, bleeding, wrenched this way and -that, but never letting go my hold, I felt my strength, already -exhausted by the long toiling of the night, ebbing surely from me. -Then in the moment of its final collapse the dreadful incubus was -snatched from me, and I rose half-blinded to my feet to see Duke in -the grasp of a couple of stalwart navvies, who on their way to work -had come to my assistance. - -Trapped and overcome, he made no further struggle, but submitted -quietly to his captors, his chest rising and falling convulsively. - -“Don’t let him go!” I panted; “he means murder!” - -“We’ve got him fast enough,” said one burly fellow. “Any bones broke, -master?” - -“No,” said I; “I’m only a bit bruised.” - -“Renny,” said the prisoner, in a low, broken voice, “have you ever -known me lie?” - -“Never. What then?” - -“Tell them to take their hands off and I’ll go.” - -“That won’t do. You may come back.” - -“Not till the inquest’s over. Is that a fair offer? I can do nothing -here now. I only ask one thing--that I may speak a word, standing at -the gate, to that skulking coward yonder. I swear I won’t touch him or -pass inside the gate.” - -I turned to the two men. - -“I’ll answer for him now,” I said. “He never says what he doesn’t -mean. You can let him go.” - -They did so reluctantly, remonstrating a little and ready to pounce on -him at once did he show sign of breaking his parole. - -He picked up his hat and walked straight to the gate. Jason, who had -been standing on the upmost step of the flight that led to the open -door, regarding the strange struggle beneath him with starting eyes, -moved a pace or two nearer shelter, with his head slewed backward in -a hangdog fashion. - -“Mr. Trender,” said Duke, in a hideous, mocking voice, “Miss Dolly -Mellison sends her compliments and she drowned herself last night.” - -I could see my brother stagger where he stood, and his face grow pale -as a sheet. - -“I won’t discuss the matter further just now,” went on the cripple, -“as I am under promise to these gentlemen. After the inquest I may, -perhaps, have something to say to you.” - -He swept him a grotesque, ironical bow, another to us, and walked off -down the street. - -When he was out of sight, I turned to the men, thanked them warmly for -their assistance, recompensed them to the best of my ability and ran -up the steps to the house. - -I found my brother inside, leaning white and shaky against the wall. - -I shut the door and addressed myself to him roughly. - -“Come,” I said. “There’s a necessity for action here. Where can we -talk together?” - -“How did you find me?” he said, faintly. “It isn’t true, is -it?--no--not there”--for I was turning to the door of a back room that -seemed to promise privacy. - -“Where, then?” I said, impatiently. “Hurry, man! This is no time for -dallying.” - -He tried to pull himself together. For the moment he seemed utterly -unnerved. - -“Jason,” cried a voice from the very room I had approached. - -I dropped my stick with a crash on the floor. - -“Who’s that?” I said, in a loud, wavering voice. - -The handle turned. He came weakly from his corner to put himself -before me. It was too late, for the door had opened and a woman, with -a baby in her arms, was standing on the threshold. - -And the woman was Zyp. - - - - - CHAPTER XXVIII. - THE TABLES TURNED. - -In the first shock of the vision I did not realize to its full extent -the profoundness of my brother’s villainy or of my own loss. Indeed, -for the moment I was so numbed with amazement as to find place for no -darker sentiment in my breast. - -“Why, it’s Renny!” said Zyp, and my heart actually rose with a brief -exultation to hear my name on her lips once more. - -The game once taken out of his hands, Jason, with characteristic sang -froid, withdrew into the background, prepared to let the waters of -destiny thunder over his head. - -The very complication of the situation reacted upon him in such -manner, I think, as to brace him up to a single defiance of fate. From -the moment Zyp appeared he was almost his brazen self again. - -“Zyp,” I muttered, “what are you doing here?” - -“What a wife generally does in her husband’s house, old -fellow--getting in the way.” - -It was my brother who spoke, and in a moment the truth burst upon me. - -“You are married?” I said. - -“Yes,” said Zyp; “this is our baby.” - -“You dog!” I cried---- I turned upon him madly. “You hound! You dog!” - -Zyp threw herself upon her knees on the threshold of the room. - -“Yes,” she cried, “he is, and I never knew it till two nights ago, -when the girl found her way here. She didn’t know he had a wife and it -broke her heart. I can understand that now. But you mustn’t hurt him, -Renny.” - -“The girl has drowned herself, Zyp.” - -“And not for you, Renny? He said it was you she loved and that he was -the mediator. Was that a lie?” - -“It was a lie!” - -“I thought then it was. I never believed him as I believed you. But -tell me you won’t hurt him--he’s my husband. Swear on this, Renny.” - -With an infinitely pathetic action she held toward me the little -bundle she had clasped all through in her arms. It woke and wailed as -she lifted it up. - -“It cries to you, too,” she said; “my little Zyp, that pleads for her -daddy.” - -Jason gave a short, ironical laugh. - -Sick at heart, I motioned the young mother to rise. - -“Not till you swear,” she said. - -“I swear, Zyp.” - -She got up then and led the way into the little dingy sitting-room -from which she had issued. A cradle stood by the fire and an empty -feeding bottle lay on the table. How strange it seemed that Zyp should -own them! - -Jason followed as far as the door, where he stood leaning. - -Then in the cold light of morning I saw how wan was the face of the -changeling of old days; how piercing were her eyes; how sadly had the -mere animal beauty shrunk to make way for the soul. - -“You are brown, Renny,” she said, with a pitiful attempt at gayety. -“You look old and wise to us poor butterflies of existence.” - -“Oh,” said Jason. “I see you are set for confidences and that I’m in -the way. I’ll go out for a walk.” - -“Stop!” I cried, turning on him once more. “Go, as far as I am -concerned, and God grant I may never see your face again. But -understand one thing. Keep out of the way of the man I fought with -just now for your sake. He promised, but even the promises of good and -just men may fail under temptation. Keep out of his way, I warn -you--now and always.” - -“I’m obliged to you,” he answered, in a high-strung voice; “it seems -to be a choice of evils. I prefer evil anyway in the open air.” - -I said not a word more and he left us, and I heard the front door -close on him. Then I turned to Zyp with an agony I could not control, -and she was crooning over her baby. - -“Zyp, I oughtn’t to say it, I know. But--oh, Zyp! I thought all these -years you might be waiting for me.” - -“Hush, Renny! You wrote so seldom, and--and I was a changeling, you -know, and longed for light and pleasure. And he seemed to promise -them--he was so beautiful, and so loving when he chose.” - -“And you married him?” - -“Dad wouldn’t hear of it. Sometimes I think, Renny, he was your -champion--dad, I mean--and wanted to keep me for you; and the very -suspicion made me rebellious. And in the end, we were married at a -registrar’s office, there in Winton, unknown to anybody.” - -“How long ago was that?” - -“It was last February and sometime in August dad found it out and -there was a scene. So Jason brought me to London.” - -“Why, what was he doing to keep a wife?” - -“I know nothing about that. Such things never enter my head, I think. -He always seemed to have money. Perhaps dad gave it to him. He was -afraid of Jason, I’m sure.” - -“Zyp, why didn’t you ever--why did none of you ever write to me about -this?” - -“Why, dad wrote, Renny! I know he did, the day we left. He wanted you -to come home again, now he was alone.” - -“To come home? I never got the letter.” - -“But he wrote, I’m certain, and didn’t Jason tell you?” - -“He told me nothing--I didn’t even know he was married till -yesterday.” - -I bent over the young wife as she sat rocking her baby. - -“Zyp, I must go. My heart is very full of misery and confusion. I must -walk it off or sleep it off, or I think perhaps I shall go mad.” - -“Did you love that girl, Renny?” - -“No, Zyp. I have never had but one love in my life; and that I must -say no more about. I have to speak to you, however, about one who -did--a fierce, strong man, and utterly reckless when goaded to -revenge. He is a fellow-workman of mine--he used to be my best -friend--and, Zyp, his whole unselfish heart was given to this poor -girl. But it was her happiness he strove after, and when he fancied -that was centered in me--not him--he sacrificed himself and urged me -to win. And I should have tried, for I was very lonely in the world, -but that Jason--you know the truth already, Zyp--Jason came and took -her from me; that was three months ago, and last night she drowned -herself.” - -Zyp looked up at me. Her eyes were swimming in tears. - -“I suppose a better woman would leave such a husband,” she said, with -a pitiful sigh, “but I think of the little baby, Renny.” - -“A true woman, dear, would remain with him, as you will in his dark -hour. That is coming now; that is what I want to warn you about in all -terrible earnestness. Zyp, this fierce man I told you about came here -this morning to kill your husband. I was in time to keep him back, but -that was only once. A promise was forced from him that he would do -nothing more until the inquest is over. That promise, unless he is -dreadfully tempted, he will keep, I am sure. But afterward Jason won’t -be safe for an hour. You must get him to leave here at once, Zyp.” - -She had risen and was staring at me with frightened eyes. I could not -help but act upon her terror. - -“Don’t delay. Move now--this day, if possible, and go secretly and -hide yourselves where he can’t find you. I don’t think Jason will be -wanted at the inquest. In any case he mustn’t be found. I say this -with all the earnestness I am capable of. I know the man and his -nature, and the hideous wrong he has suffered.” - -I wrote down my address and gave it to her. - -“Remember,” I said, “if you ever want me to seek me there. But come -quietly and excite the least observation you can.” - -Then gently I lifted the flannel from the tiny waxen face lying on her -arm, and, kissing the pink lips for her mother’s sake, walked steadily -from the room and shut the door behind me. - -As I gained the hall, Jason, returning, let himself in by the front -door. He looked nervous and flustered. For all his bravado he had -found, I suppose, a very brief ordeal of the streets sufficient. - -“I should like a word with you,” I said, “before I go.” - -“Well,” he answered, “the atmosphere seems all mystery and -righteousness. Come in here.” - -He preceded me into the front room and closed the door upon us. Then I -looked him full in the face. - -“Who killed Modred?” I said. - -He gave a great start; then a laugh. - -“You’re the one to answer that,” he said. - -“You lie, as you always do. My eyes have been opened at last--at last, -do you hear? Modred was never drowned. He recovered and was killed by -other means during the night.” - -His affectation of merriment stopped, cut through at a blow. A curious -spasm twitched his face. - -“Well,” he muttered, looking down, away from me, “that may be true and -you none the less guilty.” - -“A hateful answer and quite worthy of you,” I said, quietly. -“Nevertheless, you know it, as well as I do, to be a brutal -falsehood.” - -I seized him by the shoulder and forced him to lift his hangdog face. - -“My God!” I whispered, awfully, “I believe you killed him yourself.” - -It burst upon me with a shock. Why should he not have done it? His -resentment over Zyp’s preference was as much of a motive with him as -with me--ten thousand times more so, taking his nature into account -and the immunity from risk my deed had opened to him. I remembered the -scene by the river, when Zyp was drowning, and my hand shook as I held -him. - -He sprung from me. - -“I didn’t--I didn’t!” he shrieked. “How dare you say such a thing?” - -“Oh,” I groaned, “shall I hand you over to Duke Straw, when the time -comes, and be quit of you forever?” - -“Don’t be a cruel brute!” he answered, almost whimpering. “I didn’t do -it, I tell you. But perhaps he didn’t die of drowning, and I may have -had my suspicions.” - -“Of me?” - -“No, no--not really of you, upon my oath; but some one else.” - -“And yet all these years you have held the horror over my head and -have made wicked capital out of it.” - -“I wanted the changeling--that was why.” - -I threw him from me, so that he staggered against the wall. - -“You are such a despicable beast,” I said, “that I’ll pollute my hands -with you no longer. Answer me one thing more. Where’s the letter my -father wrote to me when you were leaving Winton?” - -“It went to your old lodgings. The man handed it to me to give to you -when I called there.” - -“And you tore it up?” - -“Yes. I didn’t want you to know Zyp and I were married.” - -“Now, I’ve done with you. For Zyp’s sake I give you the chance of -escaping from the dreadful fate that awaits you if you get in that -other’s way. I warn you--nothing further. For the rest, never come -near me again, or look to me to hold out a finger of help to you. -Beyond that, if you breathe one more note of the hideous slander with -which you have pursued me for years, I go heart and soul with Duke in -destroying you. You may be guilty of Modred’s death, as you are in -God’s sight the murderer of that unhappy child who has gone to His -judgment.” - -“I didn’t kill him,” he muttered again; and with that, without another -word or look, I left him. - - - - - CHAPTER XXIX. - A SUDDEN DETERMINATION. - -The inquest was over; the jury had returned a merciful verdict; the -mortal perishing part of poor, weak and lovable Dolly was put gently -out of sight for the daisies to grow over by and by. - -Jason had been called, but, not responding, and his presumed evidence -being judged not necessarily material to the inquiry, had escaped the -responsibility of an examination and, as I knew, for the time being at -least, a deadlier risk. Mention of his name left an ugly stain on the -proceedings, and that was all. - -Now, night after night, alone with myself and my despair, I sat -brooding over the wreck and ruin of my life. Zyp, so far as this life -was concerned, could never now be mine; and full realization of this -had burst upon me only at the moment when the moral barrier that had -divided me from her was broken down. That wound must forevermore eat -like a cancer within me. - -Then, in the worst writhing moments of my anguish, a new savage lust -of sleuth began to prickle and crawl over me like a leprosy. If all -else were taken from me I still had that interest to cheer me through -life--the hounding of my brother’s murderer. This feeling was -curiously intermingled with a revival in my heart of loyalty to -Modred. He had been my friend--at least inextricably kin to me in a -common cause against the world. When I turned to the vile figure of -the brother who survived, the dead boy’s near-forgotten personality -showed up in a light almost lovably humorous and pathetic. My fevered -soul bathed itself in the memory of his whimsicalities, till very -tenderness begot an oath that I would never rest till I had tracked -down his destroyer. - -And was Jason that? If it were so, I could afford to stand aside for -the present and leave him to the mercy of a deadlier Nemesis he had -summoned to his own undoing. - -Set coldly, at the same time, on a justice that should be passionless, -I bore in mind my brother’s hint of a suspicion that involved some -other person whom he left nameless. This might be--probably was--a -mere ruse to throw me off the scent. In any case I should refuse to -hold him acquitted in the absence of directer evidence. - -Still I could not stay a certain speculative wandering of my thoughts. -If not Jason--who then? There were in the house that night but the -usual family circle and Dr. Crackenthorpe. What possible temptation -could induce any one of them to a deed so horrible? Jason alone of -them had the temptation and the interest, and, above all, the nature -to act upon a hideous impulse. On Jason must lie the suspicion till he -could prove himself innocent. - -It was not until about the third night of my gloomy pondering that the -sudden resolution was formed in me to leave everything and return to -my father. The fact of Zyp’s reference to the letter he had sent me -had been so completely absorbed in the tense excitement of the last -few days that when in a moment it recurred to me I leaped to my feet -and began pacing the room like a caged animal that scents freedom. - -So the old man in his loneliness desired me back again. Why not go? -The accustomed life here seemed impossible to me any longer. The -notoriety attaching to these pitiful proceedings was already making my -regular attendance at the office a sore trial. Duke had sent in his -resignation the very morning of his attack on me before Jason’s house. -All old ties were rent and done with. I was, in a modest way, -financially independent, for Ripley’s generous acknowledgment of my -services, coupled with my own frugal manner of life, had enabled me to -put into certain investments sufficient to produce an interest that -would keep me, at least, from starvation. - -And, in addition, how could I prosecute my secret inquiries better -than on the very scene of the deed? I would go. My decision was sudden -and final. I would go. - -Then and there I sat down and wrote a brief letter to my father. - -“I have only within the last few days,” I said, “learned of the letter -you wrote me three months ago. Jason destroyed it lest I should find -out he was married to Zyp. I now tell you that I am ready to do as you -wish--to return and live with you, if you still desire it. In any -case, I can endure my present life here no longer. Upon receipt of a -word from you I will come.” - -As I wrote, the wind, bringing clouds of rain with it, was booming and -thundering against the window. Soft weather had succeeded to the -ice-breathing blasts of a few days back, and I thought of a lonely -grave out there in the night of London, and of how just now the water -must be gushing in veins and runnels over its clayey barrow. - -Dolly--Dolly! May it wash clean your poor wounded heart. “After life’s -fitful fever” you sleep well; while we--oh, shamed and fallen child! -Which of us who walks straightly before our fellows would not forego -passion and revenge, and all the hot raptures of this blood-red world, -to lie down with you deep in the cool, sweet earth and rest and -forget? - -I went out and posted my letter. The streets were swept clean of their -human refuse. Only a few belated vehicles trundled it out against the -downpour, setting their polished roofs as shields against the -myriad-pointed darts of the storm. - -Feeling nervous and upset, I was approaching my own door, when a -figure started from a dark angle of the wall close by and stood before -me. - -“Duke!” I cried. - -He was drenched with rain and mud--his dark clothes splashed and -saturated from boot to collar. His face in the drowned lamplight was -white as wax, but his eyes burned in rings of shadow. I was shocked -beyond expression at his dreadful appearance. - -“What have you been doing with yourself?” I cried. “Duke! Come in, for -pity’s sake, and rest, and let us talk.” - -“With you?” he muttered, in a mad, grating voice. “With any Trender? I -came to ask you where he’s in hiding--that’s all.” - -“I know no more than you do.” - -“You lie! You’re keeping his secret for him. What were her claims -compared to family ties--devil’s ties--such as yours? You know, but -you won’t give him up to me.” - -“I don’t know.” - -He raised and ground his hands together in exquisite passion. - -“They drive me to madness,” he cried, “but in the end--in the end I -shall have him! To hold him down and torture the life out of him inch -by inch, with the terror in his eyes all the time! Why, I could kill -him by that alone--by only looking at him.” - -He gloated over the picture called up in his soul. If ever demon’s -eyes looked from a human face, they looked from his that night. - -“Duke,” I whispered in horror, “you have terrible cause for hate, I -know; but oh, think of how one grain of forgiveness on your part would -stand you with--with God, Duke.” - -He gave a wretched, sickening laugh. - -“By and by,” he cried. “But tell me first where he’s hiding!” - -“I don’t know,” I said. “Duke----” and I held out a yearning hand to -him. - -At that he struck at me savagely and, running crookedly into the -night, was lost in the rainy darkness. - - - - - CHAPTER XXX. - I GO HOME. - -So much of strange incident had crowded with action the long years of -my life in London, that, as I walked from the station down into the -old cathedral town, a feeling of wonder was on me that the hand of -time had dealt so gently with the landmarks of my youth. Here were the -same old gates and churches and houses I had known, unaltered unless -for an additional film of the fragrant lichen of age. The very ruins -of the ancient castle and palace were stone by stone such as I -remembered them. - -There was frost in the air, too; so that sometimes, as I moved -dreamily onward, a sense as if all that gap of vivid life were a -vanished vision and unreality moved strongly in me. Then it seemed -that presently I should saunter into the old mill to find my father -and Zyp and Jason sitting down as usual to the midday meal. - -My appearance was so changed that none of all who would formerly have -somewhat sourly acknowledged my passing with a nod now recognized me. - -Suddenly I caught sight of Dr. Crackenthorpe, moving on in front of me -in company with another man. The doctor was no more altered than his -surroundings, judged at least by his back view. This presented the -same long rusty coat of a chocolate color--relic of a bygone -generation, I always thought--cut after a slightly sporting fashion, -which he wore in all my memory of him throughout the winter; -half-Wellington boots, into which the ends of his trousers were -tucked, and a flat-topped, hard felt hat, under the brim of which his -lank tails of brick-colored hair fell in dry, thin tassels. - -The man he walked with seemed old and bent, and he moved with a -spiritless, hesitating step that appeared to cause the other some -impatience. - -I was so far from claiming knowledge of this second person that, when -he turned his head aside a moment to gaze upon something as I came -near, it was with a most painful shock that I discovered it to be my -father. - -I hurried up, calling to him. He gave a great start--they both -did--and turned round to meet me. - -Then I was terribly taken aback to see the change that had come over -him. He, whom four years ago I had left hale, self-reliant, powerful -in body and intellect, was to all appearance a halting and decrepit -old man, in whom the worst sign was the senile indecision of his eyes. - -He came at me, holding out both his hands in welcome with trembling -eagerness, and I was much moved to see some glint of tears furrowing -his cheeks. - -“Renalt, my boy--Renalt, my boy!” he cried in a gladsome, thin voice, -and that was all; for he could find words for no more, but stood -looking up in my face--I topped him now--with a half-searching, -half-deprecating earnestness of perusal. - -“Well, dad,” I answered, cheerfully--for I would give no hint of -surprise before the other--“you said ‘come,’ and here I am.” - -“A brave fellow--a brown, strong man!” He was feeling me over as he -spoke--running his thumb down the sinews of my hands--pinching the -firm arm in my sleeve. - -“A strong man, my boy,” he said. “I bred him--he’s my son--I was the -same myself once.” - -“You find your father altered--eh, Mr. Bookbinder?” - -“If he is at all, doctor, it’s nothing that won’t improve on a little -management and wholesome company.” - -“Well, he’s had plenty of mine.” - -“Then his state’s accounted for,” I said. - -The long man looked at me with an expression not pleasant. - -“Ay,” he said. “There’s the old spirit forward again. We’ve done very -well without it since the last of the fry took themselves off.” - -“It’s not company you batten on, doctor,” I said. “But loneliness -breeds other evils than coin-collecting.” - -He stared at me a moment, then took off his hat with an ironical -sweep. - -“I mustn’t forget my manners to a London rattle,” he said. “No doubt -you pride yourself on a very pretty wit, sir. But while you talk my -lunch grows cold; so I’ll even take the liberty of wishing you -good-morning.” - -He walked off, snapping his fingers on either side of him. - -When he was gone, I took my father’s arm and passed it through mine. - -“Strong boy,” he said, affectionately--then whispered in my ear: -“That’s a terrible man, Renalt! Be careful before you offend him.” - -I looked at him in startled wonder. This was not how he was used to -speak. - -“I hold him as cheap as any other dog,” said I. - -He patted my hand with a little sigh of comfortable admiration. - -“I want you at home,” he said, “all to myself. I’m glad that you’ve -come, Renalt. It’s lonely in the old mill nowadays.” - -As we walked, my heart was filled with remorseful pondering over the -wrecked figure at my side. Why had I never known of this change in it? -What had caused it, indeed? Gloomy, sinister remembrances of my -one-time suspicion of some nameless hold that the doctor had over my -father stirred in me and woke a deep anger against fate. Were we all -of us, for no fault of our own, to be forever stunted in our lives and -oppressed by the malign influence of the place that had given us -birth? It was hateful and monstrous. What fight could a human being -show against foes who shot their poison from places beyond the limits -of his understanding? - -A trifle more aged looking--a trifle more crazy and dark and -weather-stained--the old mill looked to my returning vision, and that -was all. The atmosphere of the place was cold and eerie and haunted as -ever. - -But a great feast awaited the returned prodigal. The sitting-room -table fairly sparkled with unwonted dainties of the season, and a red -fire crackled on the hearth. - -My father pressed me into a chair; he heaped good things upon my -plate; he could not do enough to prove the warmth of his welcome and -the pathos of loneliness that underlay it. - -“Here’s to my strong son!” he cried, pledging me gayly in a glass of -weak wine and water; “my son that I’m feasting for all the doctor--for -all the doctor, I say!” - -“The doctor, dad?” - -“He wouldn’t have had it, Renalt. He said it was throwing pearls -before swine and most wicked waste. I wouldn’t listen to him this -time--not I.” - -“Why, what has he got to do with it?” - -“Hush!” he paused in his sipping and looked all about him, with a -fearful air of listening. - -“He’s a secret man,” he whispered, “and the mill’s as full of ears as -a king’s palace.” - -I made no answer, but went on with my meal, though I had much ado to -swallow it; but to please my father I made a great show of enjoying -what was put before me. - -One thing I noticed with satisfaction, and that was that my father -drank sparingly and that only of wine watered to insipidity. Indeed, I -was to find that a complete change in him in this respect was not the -least marvelous sign of the strange alteration in his temperament. - -The meal over, we drew our chairs to the fire, and talked the -afternoon away on desultory subjects. By and by some shadowy spirit of -his old intellectual self seemed to flash and flicker fitfully through -his conversation. - -The afternoon deepened into dusk; strange phantoms, wrought of the -leaping flame, came out of corners or danced from wall to ceiling and -were gone. He was in the midst of a fine flow of words descriptive of -some metaphysical passages he had lately encountered in a book, when -his voice trailed off and died away. He crept to me and whispered in -my ear: “He’s there, behind the door!” - -I jumped to my feet, rushed across the room and--met Dr. Crackenthorpe -on the threshold. - -“Can’t you come in like a decent visitor?” I cried, stamping my foot -on the floor. - -He looked pale and, I thought, embarrassed, and he backed a little -before my onset. - -“Why, what’s all this?” he said. “I walked straight up the stairs, as -a body should.” - -“You made no noise,” I said, black and wrathful. “What right have you -to prowl into a private house in that fashion?” - -For a moment his face fell menacing. But it cleared--if such may -express the lightening of those muddy features--almost immediately. - -“Here’s a fine reception!” he cried, “for one who comes to greet the -returned prodigal in all good comradeship; and to an old friend, too!” - -“You were never ours,” I muttered. - -He plucked a bottle of gin from under his arm, where he had been -carrying it. - -“Your father has given up the pernicious habit,” he said, with a grin, -“but I thought, perhaps, he’d break his rule for once on such a -stupendous occasion as this. Let us pledge you in a full bumper, Mr. -Renalt.” - -“Pledge whom you like,” I answered, surlily, “but don’t ask a return -from me. I don’t drink spirit.” - -“Then you miss a very exquisite and esthetic pleasure, I may say. Try -it this only time. Glasses, Mr. Trender.” - -I saw my father waver, and guessed this unwonted liberality on the -part of the doctor was calculated to some end of his own. In an access -of rage I seized the full bottle and spun it with all my might against -the wooden wall of the room. It crashed into a thousand flying -splinters, and the pungent liquor flooded the floor beneath. - -For an instant the doctor stood quite dumfounded, and went all the -colors of the prism. Then he walked very gently to the door and turned -on the threshold. - -“You were always an unlicked cub,” he said, softly, “but this -transcends all your past pleasantries.” - -“I mean it too,” I said, still in a towering passion. “I intend it as -a hint that you had best keep away from here. I’ve no cause to -remember you with love, and from this time, understand, you’ve no -claim of friendship upon this household.” - -“I will remember,” he said. “I always do. Perhaps I’ve another sort of -claim, though. Who knows?” - -He nodded at me grimly once or twice, like an evil mandarin, and -walked off, down the stairs. - -I looked at my father. He was sitting, his hands clasping the elbows -of his chair, with a wild, lost look upon his face. - -“What have you done?” he whispered. “Renalt, what have you done? We -are in that man’s power to ruin us at a word!” - - - - - CHAPTER XXXI. - ONE MYSTERY EXPLAINED. - -The explanation I had desired for the morrow I determined to bring -about there and then. I went and stood above the old man and looked -down upon him. - -“Dad,” I said, softly, “once before, if you remember, I came to you -heart-full of the question that I am now going to put to you again. I -was a boy then, and likely you did right in refusing me your -confidence. Now I am a man, and, dad, a man whose soul has been badly -wounded in its sore struggle with life.” - -He had drooped forward as I began, but at this he raised his head and -looked me earnestly in the eyes. - -“I know, Renalt. It was I broke the bottle then, as you have now. You -have taken the lead into your own hands. What is it you’d ask?” - -“Don’t you know, dad?” - -“Yes, I know. Give me a little time and perhaps some day I’ll tell -you.” - -“Why not now, dad?” - -He seemed to muse a little space, with his brows gone into furrows of -calculation. - -“Why not?” he muttered. “Why not?” - -Suddenly he leaned forward and said softly: - -“Has it ever concerned you to think what might be the source of your -father’s income?” - -“I have thought of it, dad, many and many a time. It wasn’t for me to -ask. I have tried to force myself to believe that it came from our -grandfather.” - -“He was a just man, Renalt, and a hard. I married against his will and -he never spoke to me afterward.” - -“But the mill----” - -“The mill he left to me, as it had been left to him. He would not, in -his justice, deprive me of the means of living. ‘What my hands have -wrought of this, his may do,’ he wrote. But all his little personal -estate he willed elsewhere.” - -“And you never worked the mill?” - -“For a time I worked it, to some profit. We began not all -empty-handed. She brought a little with her.” - -“My mother?” - -At the word he half-started from his chair and sunk back into it -again. His eyes blazed as I had not seen them do since my return. - -“For twenty years and more,” he shrieked, “that name has never been on -your lips--on the lips of any one of you. I would have struck him down -without pity that spoke it!” - -I stood looking at him amazed. For a moment he seemed -transformed--translated out of his fallen self--for a moment and no -more. His passion left him quakingly. - -“Ah!” he cried, with a gasp, and looked up at me beseeching--“you’re -not offended--you are not offended, Renalt?” - -“No, no,” I said, impatiently. “You must tell me why, dad. You will, -won’t you?” - -He answered with a sobbing moan. - -“You, her son, must not know. Haven’t I been faithful to her? Have I -ever by word or sign dishonored her memory in her children’s ears--my -boy, have I?” - -“I have never heard you mention her till now. I have never dreamed of -her but as a nameless shadow, father.” - -“Let her be so always. She wrecked my life--in a day she made me the -dark brute you remember well. I was not so always, Renalt. This long, -degraded life of despair and the bestial drowning of it were her -doing--hers, I tell you. Remorse! It has struggled to master me, and I -have laughed it away--all these years I have laughed it away. Yet it -was pitiful when she died. A heart of stone would have wept to see -her. But mine was lead--lead--lead.” - -He dropped his head on his breast. I stood darkly pondering in the -quiet room. There seemed a stir and rustling all round within the -house, as if ghostly footfalls were restlessly pacing out their -haunting penance. - -“Renalt,” said my father, presently; “never speak of her; never -mention her by that name. She passed and left me what I am. I closed -the mill and shut its door and that of my heart to every genial -influence that might help it to forget. I had no wish to forget. In -silence and solitariness I fed upon myself till I became like to a -madman. Then I roused and went abroad more, for I had a mission of -search to attend to.” - -“You never found him?” - -The words came to my lips instinctively. How could I fail to interpret -that part, at least, of the miserable secret? - -“To this day--never.” - -He answered preoccupied--suddenly heedless of my assurance in so -speaking. A new light had come to his face--an unfamiliar one. I could -have called it almost the reflection of cunning--vanity--a -self-complacent smugness of retrospect. - -“But I found something else,” he cried, with a twitching smirk. - -“What was that?” - -He leaned forward in a listening attitude. - -“Hush!” he murmured. “Was that a noise in the house?” - -“I heard nothing, dad.” - -He beckoned me to stand closer--to stoop to him. - -“A jar of old Greek and Roman coins.” - -He fell back in his chair and stared up at me with frightened eyes. -The mystery was out, and an awful dismay seized him that at length in -one moment of sentiment he had parted with the secret that had been -life to him. - -“What have I said?” he whispered, stilly. “Renalt, you won’t give any -heed to the maundering of an old man?” - -I looked down on him pityingly. - -“Don’t fear me, father,” I said, almost with a groan. “I will never -breathe a word of it to anybody.” - -“Good, dear boy,” he answered, smiling. “I can trust you, I know. You -were always my favorite, Renalt, and----” - -He broke off with a sudden, sharp cry. - -“My favorite,” and he stared up at me. “My favorite? So kings treat -their favorites!” - -He passed a nervous hand across his forehead, his wild eyes never -leaving my face. I could make nothing of his changing moods. - -“What about the jar of coins?” I said. - -“Ah!” he muttered, the odd expression degrading his features once -more. “They were such a treasure it was never one man’s lot to acquire -before or since--heaven’s compensation for the cruelty of the world.” - -“Where did you find them?” - -“In an ancient barrow of the dead,” he whispered, looking fearfully -around him--“there, on the downs. It had rained heavily, and there had -been a subsidence. I was idly brooding, and idly flung a stone through -a rent in the soil. It tinkled upon something. I put in my hand and -touched and brought away a disk of metal. It was a golden coin. I -covered all up and returned at night, unearthed the jar and brought it -secretly home. It was no great size, but full to the throat of gold. -Then I knew that life had found me a new lease of pleasure. I hid the -jar where no one could discover it and set about to enjoy the gift. It -came in good time. The mill had ceased to yield. My store of money was -near spent. I selected three or four of the likeliest coins and -carried them to a man in London that bought such things--a numismatist -he called himself. If he had any scruples he smothered them then and -afterward, in face of such treasures as it made his eyes shoot green -to look upon. He asked me at first where I had got them. Hunting about -the downs, I said. That was the formula. He never asked for more. He -gave me a good price for them, one by one, and made his heavier -profit, no doubt, on each. They yielded richly and went slowly. They -made an idle, debauched man of me, who forgot even his revenge in the -glut of possession.” - -He seemed even then to accuse himself, through an affectation rather -than a conviction of avarice. - -“They went slowly,” he repeated; “till--till--Renalt, I would have -loved you as boy was never loved, if you had killed that doctor, as -you killed----” he stopped and gave a thin cry of anguish. - -“I didn’t kill Modred, father. I know it now.” - -“No, no--you didn’t,” he half-whined in a cowering voice. “Don’t say I -said it. I caught myself up.” - -“We’ll talk about that presently. The doctor----” - -“That night, you remember,” he cried, passionately, “when I dropped a -coin and he saw it--that was the beginning. Oh, he has a hateful greed -for such things. A wicked, suspicious nature. He soon began cajoling, -threatening, worming my secret out of me. I had to silence him now and -again or he would have exposed me to the world and wrenched my one -devouring happiness from me.” - -“You gave him some of the coins?” - -“He has had enough to melt into a grill as big as St. Lawrence’s, and -he shall fry on it some day. More than that--more than that!” - -He clenched his hands in impotent fury. - -“There was one thing in the jar worth a soul’s ransom--a cameo, -Renalt, that I swear was priceless--I, who speak from intuition--not -knowledge. The beauty of the old world was crystallized in it. An -emperor would have pawned his crown to buy it.” - -His words brought before me with a shock the night of Modred’s death, -when I had stood listening on the stairs. - -“One evening--a terrible evening, Renalt--when I went to fetch a new -bribe for him from the hiding-place (he demanded it before he would -move a finger to help that poor boy upstairs), I found this cameo -gone. He swore he hadn’t set eyes on it, and to this day I believe he -lied. How can I tell--how can I tell? Twenty times a week, perhaps, my -vice brought the secret almost within touch of discovery. Sometimes -for days together I would carry this gem in my pocket, and take it out -when alone and gaze on it with exquisite rapture. Then for months it -would lie safely hidden again. If I had dropped and lost it in one of -my fits--as he suggested--should I have never heard of it again? -Renalt”--he held out two trembling hands to me--“it was the darling of -my heart! Find it for me and I will bless you forever.” - -He ended almost with a sob. I could have wept myself over the pitiful -degeneration of a noble intellect. - -“Father, you said he cajoled--threatened. Didn’t you ever reveal to -him----” - -“Where the jar was hid? No; a million times, no! He would have sucked -me dry of the last coin. He knew that I had made a rich find--no -more.” - -“And on the strength of that vague surmise you have allowed him to -blackmail you all these years?” - -He hung his head, as if cruelly abashed. - -“You don’t know the man as I do,” he cried, in a low voice. “He is a -devil--not a man.” - -I was utterly shocked and astounded. - -“Well,” I said at length. “I won’t ask you for your secret. To share -it with any one would kill the zest, no doubt.” - -He lifted his head with a thin wail. - -I put my hand gently on his shoulder. - -“Dad,” I said, “I must never leave you again.” - -He seized my hand and kissed it. - -“Harkee, Renalt,” he whispered. “Many are gone, but there are some -left. Could I find out where the cameo is, we would take it, and what -remains, and leave this hateful place--you and I--and bury ourselves -in some beautiful city under the world, where none could find us, and -live in peace and comfort to the end.” - -“Peace can never be mine again, father. Would you like to know why? -Would you like to know what has made a sorrowful, haunted man of me, -while you were living on at the old mill here these five years past?” - -“Tell me,” he said. “Confide in this old, broken, selfish man, who has -that love in his heart to seek comfort for you where he can find none -himself.” - -Then, standing up in the red dusk of the room, I gave him my history. -“Nothing extenuate, nor set down aught in malice.” And he sat with -face darkened from me, and quivered only when he heard of Jason’s -villainy. - -And at the end he lifted up his voice and cried: - -“Oh, Absolom, my son--my son, Absolom!” - - - - - CHAPTER XXXII. - OLD PEGGY. - -The months that immediately followed my home-coming were passed by me -in an aimless, desultory temporizing with the vexed problems that, -unanswered, were consuming my heart. - -I roamed the country as of old and renewed my acquaintance with bird, -fish and insect. Starting to gather a collection of butterflies and -moths--many of which were local and rare--with the mere object of -filling in the lapses of a restless ennui and in some dull gratitude -to a pursuit that had helped me to a little degree of late success, I -rapidly rose to an interest in its formation that became, I may say, -the then chief happiness of my life. To my father, also, it brought, -in the arrangement and classification of specimens, a certain innocent -pleasure that helped to restore him to some healthier show of -manliness moral and physical. - -Poor, broken old man! I would not now have stultified his pathetic -confidence in me for the biggest bribe the world could hold out. - -Yet it must not be supposed I ever really for a moment lost sight of -the main issues of a mystery that was bitten into my heart with an -acid that no time could take the strength from. Sometime, sooner or -later, I knew it would be revealed to me who it was that killed -Modred. - -As to that lesser secret of the coins--it troubled me but little. Free -of that dread of possible ruin that appeared to cling hauntingly to my -father, I was not disinclined to the belief that the complete -dissipation of his bugbear estate might prove after all his moral -salvation. Remove its source of irritation, and would not the sore -heal? - -Sometimes in the full pressure of this thought I found it almost in my -mind to hunt and hunt until I found his hiding-place and to commit its -remaining treasures to the earth or the waters. Then it would seem a -base thing to do--a mean advantage to take of his confidence--and I -would put the thought from me. - -Still, however I might decide ultimately, this determination dwelt -firmly and constantly in me--to oppose by every means in my power any -further levying of blackmail on the part of the doctor. - -This unworthy eccentricity had not, to my knowledge, been near the -mill since that night of my return. That he presently found means, -nevertheless, of communicating with his victim, I was to find out by a -simple chance. - -June had come upon us leading this placidly monotonous life, when, -returning one afternoon from a ramble after specimens, I found my -father sitting upstairs in a mood so preoccupied that he did not -notice my entrance. His head was bowed, his left arm drooping over one -end of the table. Suddenly hearing my footsteps in the room, he -started and a gold coin fell from his hand and spun and tinkled on the -boards. - -“What’s that?” I said. - -He stooped and clutched it, and hugging it to his breast looked up in -my face with startled eyes. But he gave no answer. - -“Is it necessary to change another, dad?” - -“No,” he muttered. - -A thought stung me like a wasp. - -“Is it for a bribe?” I demanded. Still he kept silence. - -“Father,” I said, “give it to me.” - -“Renalt--I can’t; I mustn’t.” - -“Give it to me. If you refuse--I threaten nothing--but--give it to -me!” - -He held it forth in a shaking hand. I took it and slipped it into my -pocket. - -“Now,” I said, sternly, “I am going to see Dr. Crackenthorpe.” - -He rose from his chair with a cry. - -“You are mad, I tell you! You can do nothing--nothing.” - -“It is time this ceased for good and all, father. I stand between you -now--remember that. You have to choose between me and that villain. -Which is it to be?” - -“Renalt--my son. It is for your sake!” - -“I can look after my own interests. Which is it to be?” - -He dropped back into his chair with a groan. - -“Go, then,” he muttered, “and God help you!” - -I turned and left him. My heart was blazing with a fierce resentment. -But I would not leave the house till my veins ran cooler, for no -advantage of temper should be on the side of that frosty bloodsucker. - -I wandered downstairs, past the door of the room of silence, but the -rough jeering of the wheel within drove me away to where I could be -out of immediate earshot of it. - -From the kitchen at the back came the broken, whining voice of old -Peggy Rottengoose, who yet survived and waited upon the meager -household with a ghoulish faithfulness that no time could impair. - -The words of some sardonic song came sterilely from her withered lips. -She was apt at such grewsome ditties: - - “I saw three ravens up a tree-- - Heigho! - I saw three ravens up a tree; - And they were black as black could be-- - All down by the greenwood side, O! - - “I stuck my penknife in their hearts-- - Heigho! - I stuck my penknife in their hearts; - And the more I stuck it the blood gushed out; - All down by the greenwood side, O!” - -I softly pushed open the door, that stood ajar, and looked in. The old -creature was sitting crooning in a chair, a picture or print of some -kind, at which she was gazing in a sort of hungry ecstasy, held out -and down before her at arm’s length. I stole on tiptoe behind her and -sought to get a glimpse at that she devoured with her rheumy eyes. - -“Why, what are you doing with that, Peg?” I said, with a start of -surprise. - -Cunning even under the spur of sudden discomfiture, she whipped the -thing beneath her apron before she struggled to her feet and faced -round upon me. - -“What ails ye, Renalt?” she wheezed, in a voice like that of one -winded by a blow--“to fright a body, sich like?” - -“You needn’t be frightened, unless you were doing something you -shouldn’t, you know.” - -“Shud and shudn’t,” she said, her yellow under jaw, scratched all over -with fine wrinkles, moving like a barbel’s. “I doesn’t take my morals -fro’ a Trender.” - -“You take all you can get, Peggy. Why not a picture with the rest?” - -“My own nevvy!” she cried, with an attenuated scream--“blessed son to -Amelia as were George’s first wife and died o’ cramps o’ the cold dew -from a shift hung out on St. Bartlemey’s day.” - -“Now, Peggy,” I said sternly, “I saw that picture and it wasn’t of -your nephew or of any other relation of yours. It was a silhouette, as -they call it, of my brother, Modred, made when he was a little fellow, -by some one in a show that came here, and it used to hang in Modred’s -room.” - -“Ye lie, Renalt!” she cried, panting at me. “It’s Amelia’s boy--and -mayn’t I enjoy the fruits o’ my own heritage?” - -“Let me look at it, then; and if I’m wrong I’ll ask your pardon.” - -“Keep arf!” she cried, backing from me. “Keep arf, or I’ll tear your -weasand wi’ my claws!” - -I made a little rush and clutched her. She could not keep her promise -without loosening her hold of the picture, but she butted at me, with -her cap bobbing, and dinted my shin with her vicious old toes. Then, -seeing it was all useless, she crumpled the paper up into a ball and, -tossing it from her, fell back in her chair and threw her apron over -her head. - -I dived for the picture and smoothed out its creases. - -“Peggy!” I said. - -“I tuk it--I tuk it!” wailed the old woman. “I tuk it fro’ the wall -when I come up wi’ the blarnkets and nubbody were there to see!” - -“Why did you take it and why have you riddled it with holes like -this?” - -She slipped down on her trembling knees. - -“Don’tee be hard on me, Renalt--don’tee! I swear, I were frighted -myself at what I done. I didn’t hardly guess it would act so. Don’tee -have me burnt or drownded, Renalt. It were a wicked thing to a body -old enough to be your grandam, and I’ve but a little glint o’ time -left.” - -“I don’t know what you mean, Peggy. You’d no business to take the -picture, of course, and still less to treat it like this. But your -nature’s a thieving one, and I suppose you can’t help it. Get off your -knees. It’s done, and there’s an end of it.” - -She stopped her driveling moan and looked up at me queerly, I thought. - -“Ay, I’d no call to do it, of course,” she said. “Just a body’s -absence o’ mind, Renalt, ye see--same as pricking pastry in time to a -toone like. I thought maybe if ye saw it ye’d want to tell the old man -upstairs, and he’s got the strong arm yet, for all the worm in his -brain.” - -“I sha’n’t tell him this time, but don’t let me catch you handling any -of our property again”; and I left the room. - -A little flustered by my late tussle and hardly yet in a mood for the -interview I clearly foresaw would be no amicable one, I wandered out, -turning my footsteps, not at present in the direction of the doctor’s -house, but toward that part of the river called the “weirs,” which ran -straight away from the mill front. This was a pleasant, picturesque -stretch down which the water, shaded by many stooping trees and -bushes, washed and gurgled brightly. A railed pathway ran by it and, -to the same side, cottages at intervals and little plats of flowering -parterres. - -It was a reach which, unpreserved, was much favored of the townsfolk -for fishing. - -A man was whipping the stream now in its broadest part, and I stopped -to watch him. He was a rosy, well-knit fellow of 35 or so, with a -good-humored, bibulous eye and a foolish underjaw. - -“Any sport?” I asked. - -“Plenty o’ sport,” said he, “but no fish.” - -“You’re a philosopher, it seems.” - -“Mebbe I arm, for what it may mean. A pint of ale ’ud cure it.” - -“Why not a pint of water? It’s there and to spare.” - -“The beggar’s tap, master. I arns my living.” - -“Well, buy your pot of ale out of it.” - -“I’d rather you tuk the responsibility off me.” - -“Well,” said I, with a grin, “let’s see you catch a fish and I’ll -stand treat.” - -He threw for some time in silence. - -“I must be off,” said I. - -“Fair play, master! I harsn’t got my fish yet.” - -“I can’t wait all day for that.” - -“Then, pay up. You put no limit to the time.” - -I laughed and gave him the money, and he spat upon it for luck. - -“You come fro’ yon old mill, don’tee?” said he. - -“Yes, I do. You know me, it appears. Who may you be?” - -“They carls me saxton ower at St. John’s yonder.” - -I received his answer with a little start. Were these the hands that -had dug the grave for my dead brother? - -“They call you? What do you call yourself?” I said. - -“High priest to the worms, wi’ your honor’s leave.” - -He stuck his tongue in his cheek and whipped out his fly again. This -time it disappeared with a fat blob and his hand came smartly up. I -watched him while he wheeled in his floundering prize. - -“Ay,” he went on, as he stooped to unhook the trout, “the worms and I -works on the mutual-profit system. I feeds them and they feeds me. -Sometimes”--he looked round and up at me slyly--“they shows a power o’ -gratitoode ower an uncommon rich meal and makes me a particlar -acknowledgment o’ my services.” - - - - - CHAPTER XXXIII. - FACE TO FACE. - -In the cool of the evening I knocked at Dr. Crackenthorpe’s front -door. No one answering--his one servant was gadding, probably--I tried -the handle, found it to be on the latch only, and walked in. The house -was quiet as a desert, save that from the doctor’s private -consulting-room, as he called it, issued a little, weak, snoring -sound. - -I paused in the dusky passage before tapping at the closed door of -this room. The whole place was faintly stringent with the atmosphere -that comes from a poor habit of ventilation--an atmosphere like that -emitted from crumbling old leather-bound folios. A ragged strip of -carpet, so trodden up its middle to the very string as to give the -impression of a cinder-path running between dully flowering borders, -climbed the flight of stairs before me, and stretched itself upon the -landing above in an exhausted condition. - -In a shallow alcove to one side of me stood a gaunt and voiceless old -grandfather clock. A gas-browned bust of Pitt, rendered ridiculous by -a perfect skull-cap of dust, stood on a bracket over a door opposite -and a few anatomical prints of a dark and melancholy cast broke the -monotony of the yellow walls. - -Rendered none the less depressed in my errand by these dismal -surroundings, I pulled myself together and tapped roundly on the -doctor’s door. No response followed. I knocked again and again, -without result. At length I turned the handle and stepped of my own -accord into the room. - -He was sitting at the table, half his body sprawled over it and an -empty tumbler rolled from one of his hands. Overhead, the row of -murderers’ busts looked down upon him with every variety of unclean -expression, and seemed to prick their ears with sightless rapture over -that bestial music of his soul. - -The doors of a high cabinet, that in other brief visits I had never -seen but closely locked, now stood open behind him, revealing row upon -row of shelves, whereon hundreds of coins of many metals lay nicely -arranged upon cotton wool. A few of these, also, lay about him on the -table, and it was evident that a drunken slumber had overcome him -while reviewing his mighty collection. - -So deep was he in stupor that it was not until I hammered and shook -the very table that he so much as stirred, and it was only after I had -slipped round and jogged him roughly on the shoulder that he came to -himself. - -Then he dragged his long body up, swaying a little at first, and -turning a stupid glazed eye on me two or three times and from me to -the scattered coins and back again. - -Suddenly he scrambled to his feet and backed from me. - -“Thieves!” he yelled. “Thieves!” - -“That’ll do,” I said, coolly. “I’m not the thief in this house, Dr. -Crackenthorpe.” - -“What are you doing here?” he cried in a furious voice. “How did you -get in? What do you want?” - -“I want a word with you--I’ll tell you what when you’re quieter. As to -getting in? I knocked half a dozen times and could get no answer. So I -walked in.” - -“Curse the baggage!” he muttered. “Can’t I rely upon one of them? I’ll -twist her pretty neck for this.” - -“You need twist nothing on my account. If I had failed to catch you -now I would have dogged you for the opportunity.” - -“Oh, that’s it, is it?” he said, with a laugh and a savage sneer. -“Well, state your business and be off.” - -He spoke ferociously, but on the instant, seeing my eye caught by -something lying on that part of the table his body had covered, dived -for it and had it in his grasp. Then with a backward sweep of his hand -he closed the cabinet doors and stood facing me. - -“Now, sir,” he said. - -“Dr. Crackenthorpe,” I answered, “you won’t bully me away from my -purpose. I’m a better man than you, and a stronger, I believe; but I -won’t begin by threatening.” - -“And that’s very kind,” he put in mockingly. “Still we’d better come -to business, don’t you think?” - -“I’m coming to it and straight. What’s that you’ve got in your hand?” - -“What I intend to keep there. Is that all?” - -“It’s a cameo you stole from my father. Don’t take the trouble to deny -it.” - -“I don’t take any trouble on your account, my good fellow. It’s a -cameo, as you very properly observe, but it happens to belong to me.” - -“By thieving, I’ll swear. Now, Dr. Crackenthorpe, I intend to make you -disgorge that cameo, together with one or two other trifles you’ve -coerced my father into handing over to you.” - -“No?” he said, in the same jeering tone. - -“Further than that, I intend to put a stop here and at once to that -blackmailing process you’ve carried on for a number of years.” - -“Blackmailing’s a very good word. It implies a reciprocity of -interests. And how are you going to do all this?” - -“You shall hear at the assizes, maybe.” - -He gave a laugh--quite rich for him; walked to the table, picked up -deliberately the coins lying strewn there; stepped to the cabinet, -deposited all therein; shut and locked it, and put the key in his -pocket. - -“Now, Mr. Bookbinder,” he said, facing me again, “you’ve a very pretty -intelligence; but you’ve not acquired in London that knowledge of the -nine points of the law without which the tenth is empty talk. Here’s -a truism, also, that’s escaped your matured observation, and it’s -called ‘be sure of your facts before you speak.’” - -“Am I not?” I cried, contemptuously. - -“We’ll see. Even a Crichton may suffer trifling lapses of memory. Let -me lead yours back to that melancholy morning of your departure from -the parent nest. Let me recall to you the gist of a few sentences that -passed between your father and myself prior to the advent of your -amiable brother, who was so hard on you. Some mention of a lost trifle -was made then, I believe, and permission given me to keep it if I -happened to alight upon it. Wasn’t that so?” - -“I can remember something of the sort,” I muttered, gloomily. - -“Ah, so far so good. Now, supposing that lost trifle were the very -trinket your most observant eyes just now caught sight of?--I don’t -say it was; but we will presume so, for the sake of -argument--supposing it were, should I not be entitled to consider it -my own?” - -“You may be lying,” I said, angrily. “Probably you are. Where did you -find it?” - -“That is as much outside the question as your very offensive manner.” - -“You’ve always been the bane of our house. What do I care what you -think of my manner? The sharper it cuts, the better pleased am I. -You’ve worked upon moods and weaknesses of the old man with your -infernal cunning and got him under your thumb, as you think. Don’t be -too sure. You’ll find an enemy of very different caliber in me. -There’s a law for blackmailers, though you mayn’t think it.” - -He cocked his head on one side a moment, like a vile carrion crow; -then came softly and pushed a lean finger at my breast. - -“And a law for fratricides,” he said, quietly. - -I laughed so disdainfully that he forgot himself on the instant in a -wild burst of fury. - -“Toad! Filthy, poisonous viper!” he yelled. “You think to combat me -with your pitiful little sword of brass! Have I overlooked your -insolence, d’ye think? Speak a word further--one word, you pestilent -dog, and I’ll smash you, body and soul, as I smash this glass!” - -In his rabid frenzy he actually seized and threw upon the floor the -tumbler from which he had lately been drinking, and, putting his heavy -heel on it, crushed it into a thousand fragments. - -“Oh!” he moaned, his breath chattering like a dry leaf in the wind, -“I’ll be even with you, my friend--I’ll be even with you! You -dare--you dare--you dare! You, the poor dependent on my bounty, whom I -could wither with a word. The law you call upon so glibly has a long -arm for murderers. You think a little lapse of years has made you -safe”--he laughed wildly--“safe? Holy saints in heaven! I’ve only to -step over to the police station--five minutes--and you’re laid by the -heels and a pretty collar weaving for your neck.” - -He checked himself in the torrent of his rage and lifted his hand -menacingly. - -“Harkee!” he cried. “I can do that and at a word I would! Now, d’ye -set your little tin plate against my bludgeon?” - -“Yes,” I said. - -He seemed to doubt my answer, as if his ears had misinterpreted it, -for he went on: - -“If you value your life keep out of my way. Take the lesson from your -father. He knew what I could do if I chose; and he took the best means -in his power to buy my silence.” - -I gave a cry of fierce triumph. - -“So--the secret is out! It was to save me, as he thought, that my -father parted with his treasure!” - -The blackmailer gave no answer. - -I went and stood close up against him, daring him with the manliness -he lacked. - -“You are a contemptible, dastardly poltroon,” I said, with all the -coldest scorn I could muster. - -He started back a little. - -“If I had killed my brother in good reality, I would go to my hanging -with joy if the only alternative were buying my safety from such a -slimy, crawling reptile as you!” - -“If?” he echoed, with a pale effort at another laugh. - -“‘If’ was what I said. Pretty doctor you, not to know, as I have since -found out, that the boy died by other means than drowning!” - -In an ungovernable burst of fury I took him by the throat and drove -him back against the table--and he offered no resistance. - -“You dog!” I cried. “Oh, you dog, you dog! You did know it, of course, -and you had the devil’s heart to lie to my father and beat him down in -the dust for your own filthy ends! Had I a hand in my brother’s death? -You know I had not any more than you--perhaps not so much!” - -On the snap of the thought I spurned him from me and staggered back. - -“Why,” I cried, staring at him standing cowering and sullen before me. -“Had you, if the truth were known? You were in the house that night!” - -He choked once or twice and, smoothing down the apple in his throat -with a nervous hand, came out of his corner a pace or two. - -“You can put two and two together,” he said in a shrill voice, defiant -still, but with a whining ring in it. “What interest could I possibly -have in murdering your brother? For the rest--you may be right.” - -“And you can say it and plume yourself upon having successfully traded -on the lie?” - -“Yes,” he said, with a recovering grin, “I think I can.” - -I turned from him, sick at his mere presence. - -“And now,” said he, “I intend to trade upon the truth.” - -I forced myself to face round upon him again. “The boy,” he said, -looking down hatefully and shifting some papers on the table with his -finger-tips, “it was obvious to any but the merest ignoramus, never -died of drowning.” - -“How then?” - -“From the appearances--of strangulation, I should say.” - -“Strangulation? Who----” - -“Do you want these trifles back? Ask your father first why he had -Modred’s braces in his pocket the morning after? He was very drunk -that night--furiously drunk; and he left me alone in the parlor for -awhile.” - - - - - CHAPTER XXXIV. - I VISIT A GRAVE. - -All that night I tossed and tossed, in vain effort to court the sleep -that should quench the fever in my racked and bewildered brain. My -errand had been a failure. In every sense but the purely personal, it -had been a failure. And now, indeed, that personal side was the one -that least concerned me. As to every other soul in whom I was -interested, it seemed that a single false step on my part might lead -to the destruction of any one of them. Where could I look for the -least comfort or assistance? - -My father had glanced anxiously at me when I returned the evening -before. - -“It has been as you prophesied,” I said. “The man is a devil.” - -He gave a heavy sigh and drooped his head. - -“What did he tell you?” he muttered. - -“He told me lies, father, I feel sure. But he is too cunning a villain -to play without a second card up his sleeve.” - -The old man raised imploring eyes to my face. - -“Dad!” I cried, “is it true you have bought his silence all these -years for my sake?” - -At that he rose to his feet suddenly. - -“No word of that!” he shrieked; “not a word! I can’t bear it!” - -I looked at him with my throat swelling. - -“I’ll not refer to it, if you wish it,” I said, gently. - -“I do wish it. What does it amount to? How could I do less?” - -“Very well, dad. I’ll keep my gratitude in my heart.” - -“Gratitude!” He seemed greatly excited. His voice was broken with -emotion. “Gratitude to me? For what? For driving you from home? For -dealing out your inheritance piecemeal to that hungry vulture yonder? -You kill me with your cruelty.” - -“Father!” I cried, amazed. - -“No, no, Renalt! You don’t mean to be! But you mustn’t talk of it--you -mustn’t! It’s a long knife in my soul--every word! The one thing I -might have done for you--I failed in. The wild girl, Renalt; that you -loved--oh! A little more watchfulness on my part, a little less -selfishness, might have saved her for you!” - -He broke down a moment; then went on with a rough sob: “You think I -love you, and I want you to think it; but--if you only knew all.” - -“I know enough. I hold you nothing to blame in all you have referred -to.” - -He waved me from him, entreating me to leave him alone awhile, and he -was so unstrung that I thought it best to comply. - -But now a new ghost shook my very soul in its walking, and it was the -specter of the blackmailer’s raising. - -Was it possible--was it possible that my father that night--in some -fit of drunken savagery---- - -I put the thought from me, with loathing, but it returned again and -again. - -One fair morning it occurred to me to go and look upon the grave I had -never yet visited. Perhaps, I thought, I should find inspiration -there. This vengeful, bewildered pursuit--I did not know how long I -should be able to endure it. Sometimes, reviewing the latter, I felt -as if it would be best to abandon the chase right then; to yield the -chimera to fate to resolve as she might judge fit or never to resolve -at all, perhaps. Then the thought that only by running to earth the -guilty could I vindicate the innocent, would steel me more rigidly -than ever in the old determination. - -The ancient church, in the yard of which Modred was buried, stands no -great distance away upon a slope of the steep hill that shuts in the -east quarter of Winton. - -As I passed from the road through the little gate in the yard -boundaries a garden of green was about me--an acre of tree and shrub -and grass set thickly with flowering barrows and tombstones wrapped in -lichen, like velvet for the royal dead. The old church stood in the -midst, as quiet and staid and peaceful there in its bower as if no -restless life of a loud city hummed and echoed all about it. - -I paused in indecision. For the first time it occurred to me that I -had made no inquiry as to the position of my brother’s grave; that I -did not even know if the site of his resting-place was marked by stone -or other humbler monument. While I stood the sound of a voice cheerily -singing came to me from the further side of a laurel bush that stood -up from the grass a rood away. I walked round it and came plump upon -my philosophical friend of the “weirs,” knee-deep in a grave that he -was lustily excavating. - -“Hullo,” I said, and “Hullo,” he answered. - -“You seem to find your task a pleasant one?” said I. - -“Ah!” he said. “What makes ’ee think thart, now?” - -He leaned upon his spade and criticised me. - -“You sing at it, don’t you?” - -“Mebbe I do. Men sing sometimes, I’ve heard, when they’ve got the -horrors on ’em.” - -“Have you got the horrors, then?” - -“Not in the sense o’ drink, though mayhap I’ve had them, too, in my -time.” - -He lifted his cap to scratch his forehead and resumed his former -position. - -“Look’ee here,” he said. “I stand in a grave, I do. I’ve dug two fut -down. He could wake to a whisper so be as you laid him there. Did he -lift his arm, his fingers ’ud claw in the air like a forked rardish. I -go a fut deeper--and he’d struggle to bust himself out, and, not -succeeding, there’d be a little swelling in the soil above there -cracked like the top of a loaf. I go another fut, and he’s safe to -lie, but he’d hear arnything louder than a bart’s whistle yet. At two -yard he’ll rot as straight and dumb as a dead arder.” - -“What then?” I said. - -“What then? Why, this: Digging here, week in, week out, I thinks to -myself, what if they buried me six feet deep some day before the life -was out o’ me.” - -“Why should they?” - -“Why shouldn’t they? Men have been buried quick before now, and why -not me?” - -I laughed, but looking at him, I noticed that his forehead was wet -with beads of perspiration not called forth by his labor. - -“How long have you been digging graves?” I asked in a matter of way to -help him recover his self-possession. - -“Six year come Martlemas.” - -He resumed his work for awhile and I stood watching him and pondering. -Presently I said: “You buried my brother, then?” - -“Ay,” he answered, heaving out a big clod of earth with an effort, so -strained that it seemed to twist his face into a sort of leering grin. - -“I was ill when my brother died,” I said, “and have lived since in -London. I don’t know where he lies. Show me and I’ll give you the -price of a drink.” - -He jumped out of the pit with alacrity and flung his coat over his -shoulders, tying the dangling arms across his breast. - -“Thart’s easy arned,” he cried, hilariously. “Come along,” and he -clumped off across the grass. - -“See there!” he said, suddenly, stopping me and pointed to a mangy and -neglected mound that lay under a corner of the yard wall. - -“Is that it?” - -He looked at me a moment before he answered. Through all his -heartiness there was a queer suggestion of craft in the fellow’s face -that puzzled me. - -“It might be for its state,” he said, “but it isn’t. You may as soon -grow beans in snow as grass on a murdered marn’s grave.” - -“Does a murdered man lie there?” - -“Ay. A matter of ten year ago, it may be. He wur found one summer morn -in a ditch by the battery yon, and his skull split wi’ a billhook. -Nubbody to this day knows his name or him as did it.” - -A grim tragedy to end in this quiet garden of death. We moved on -again, not so far, and my guide pointed down. - -“There he lies,” he said. - -A poor shallow little heap of rough soil grown compact with years. A -few blades of rank grass standing up from it, starved and stiff like -the bristles on a hog’s back. All around the barrows stretched green -and kindly. Only here and on that other were sordid desolation. No -stone, no boards, no long-lifeless flower even to emphasize the irony -of an epitaph. Nothing but entire indifference and the withering -footmark of time. - -“I mind the day,” said the sexton. “Looking ower the hedge yon I see -Vokes’ pig running, wi’ a straw in’s mouth. ‘We shall have rain,’ says -I, and rain it did wi’ a will. Three o’ them came wi’ the coffin--the -old marn and a young ’un--him ’ud be your brother now--and the long -doctor fro’ Chis’ll. In the arternoon, as I was garthering up my -tools, the old marn come back by hisself and chucked a sprig o’ verv’n -on the mound. ‘Oho,’ thinks I. ‘That’ll be to keep the devil fro’ -walking.’ The storm druv up while he wur starnding there and sent him -scuttling. I tuk shelter i’ the church, and when I come out by and by, -there wur the witch-weed gone--washed fro’ the grave, you’ll say, and -I’ll not contradict ye; but the devil knows his own.” - -“What do you mean?” - -He turned and spat behind him before answering. - -“He died o’ cold i’ the inside, eh?” - -“Something of that sort. The doctor’s certificate said so.” - -“Ah!” He took off his cap again and rubbed his hot head all over with -a whisp of handkerchief. “Supposing he’d been laid two fut and no -more--it wur a smarl matter arter the rain to bust the lid and stick -his fingers through.” - -“A small matter, perhaps, for a living man.” - -He glanced sidelong at me, then gingerly pecked at the mound with his -foot. - -“No grass’ll ever grow there,” said he. - -“That remains to be seen.” - -I took a sixpence from my pocket and held it out to him. - -“Look here,” I said. “Take this, and I’ll give you one every week if -you’ll do your best to make and keep it like--like the other graves.” - -He put out his hand instinctively, but withdrew it empty. - -“No, no,” he said; “it’s no marner o’ good.” - -“Try.” - -“I’d rather not. Good-marning to ye,” and he turned his back on me and -walked straight off, with his shoulders hunched up to his ears. - -I watched his going moodily, but with no great surprise. It was small -matter for wonder that Modred’s death should have roused uncanny -suspicions among the ignorant and superstitious who knew of us. The -mystery that overhung our whole manner of life was sufficient to -account for that. - -For long after the sexton had resumed his work--so long, indeed, that -when I rose to go, only his head and shoulders bobbed up and down -above the rim of the pit he was digging--I sat on the grass beside -that poor sterile mound and sought inspiration of it. - -But no voice spoke to me from its depths. - - - - - CHAPTER XXXV. - ONE SAD VISITOR. - -The autumn of that year broke upon us with sobbing winds and wild, wet -gusts of tempest laden with flying leaves. In the choked trenches, -drowned grasses swayed and swung like torn skirt fringes of the -meadows; in the woods, drenched leaves clung together and talked, -through the lulls, of the devastation that was wrecking their -aftermath of glory. - -It had been blowing in soft, irresistible onrushes all one dank -October day, and all day had I spent in the high woods that crown the -gentle hills three or four miles to the southwest of the city. The air -in the long, quiet glades was mystic with the smell of decay; the -heels of vanishing forms seemed to twinkle from tangled bends of -undergrowth as I approached them. Then often, in going by a spot I -could have thought lately tenanted, a sense would tingle through me as -of something listening behind some aged trunk that stood back from my -path. - -Gradually dark shut in, and I must needs thread my way among the -trees, while some little show of light remained, if I did not wish to -be belated in the dense thickets. It would not have troubled me -greatly had this actually happened. To yield my tired limbs and -wearier soul to some bed of moss set in the heart of an antique wood -seemed a blessed and most restful thing to do. But the old man awaited -me at home, and thither my duty must carry me. - -I had traversed a darkling alley of leafage, treading noiseless on the -spongy floor of it, and was coming out into a little lap of -tree-inclosed lawn that it led to when I stopped in a moment and drew -myself back with a start. - -Something was there before me--a fantastic moving shape, that footed -the grass in a weird, sinuous dance of intricate paces, and waving -arms, and feet that hardly rustled on the dead leaves. It was all -wild, elfin; ineffably strange and unearthly. I felt as if the dead -past were revealed to me, and that here I might lay down my burden and -yield the poor residue of life to one last ecstasy. - -Dipping, swaying; now here, now there, about the dusky plat of lawn; -sometimes motionless for an instant, so that its drooping skirts and -long, loosened hair made but one tree-like figure of it; again -whirling into motion, with its dark tresses flung abroad--the figure -circled round to within a yard of where I was standing. - -Then in a loud, tremulous tone I cried “Zyp!” and sprung into the -open. - -She gave a shriek, craned her neck forward to gaze at me, and, falling -upon her knees at my feet, clasped her arms about me. - -For a full minute we must have remained thus; and I heard nothing but -the breathless panting of the girl. - -“Zyp,” I whispered at last, “what are you doing here, in the name of -heaven?” - -“I wanted to see you, Renny. I have walked all the way from -Southampton. Night came upon me as I was passing through the -wood--and--and I couldn’t help it--I couldn’t help it.” - -“This mad dancing?” - -“I’m so unhappy. Renny, poor Zyp is so unhappy!” - -“Does this look like it?” - -“The elves caught me. It was so lovely to shake off all the weight and -the misery and the womanliness.” - -“Are you tired of being a woman, Zyp?” - -“Tired? My heart aches so that I could die. Oh, I hate it all! No, no, -Renny, don’t believe me! My little child! My little, little child! How -can I have her and not be a woman!” - -“Get up, Zyp, and let’s find our way out of this.” - -“Not till you’ve promised me. Where can we talk better? The foolish -people never dare to walk here at night. You love the woods, too, -Renny. Oh, why didn’t I wait for you? Why, why didn’t I wait for you?” - -“Come, we must go.” - -“Not till you’ve promised to help me.” - -“I promise.” - -She caught my hand and kissed it as she knelt; then rose to her feet -and her dark eyes burned upon me in the gloom. - -“You didn’t expect to see me?” - -“How could I? Least of all here.” - -“It’s on the road from Southampton. At least, if it isn’t, the woods -drew me and I couldn’t help but go.” - -“Why have you come from Southampton?” - -“We fled there to escape him.” - -“Him? Who?” Yet I had no need to ask. - -“That horrible man. Oh, his white face and the eyes in it! Renny, I -think Jason will die of that face.” - -I remembered Duke’s words and was silent. - -“It comes upon us in all places and at all hours. Wherever we go he -finds means to track us and to follow--in the streets; in churches, -where we sometimes sit now; at windows, staring in and never moving. -Renny,” she came close up against me to whisper in my ear, and put her -arm round my neck like the Zyp of old. Perhaps she was half-changeling -again in that atmosphere of woodland leafiness. “Renny--once he tried -to poison Jason!” - -“Oh, Zyp, don’t say that!” - -“He did--he did. Jason was sitting by an open window in the dark, and -a tumbler of spirit and water was on the table by him. He was leaning -back in his chair, as if asleep, but he was really looking all the -time from under his eyelids. A hand came very gently through the -window, pinched something into the glass, and went away again quite -softly.” - -“Why didn’t Jason seize it--call out--do anything that wasn’t abject -and contemptible?” - -“You don’t know how the long strain has told upon him. Sometimes in -the beginning he thought he must face it out, for life or death, and -end the struggle. But he isn’t really brave, I think.” - -“No, Zyp, he isn’t.” - -“And now it has gone too far. All his spirit is broken. He clings to -me like a child. He sits with his hand in mine, staring and listening -and dreadfully waiting. And that other doesn’t mean to kill him now, I -think--not murder him, I mean. He sees he can do it more hideously by -following--by only following and looking, Renny.” - -In a moment she bowed her head upon my arm and burst into a convulsive -flood of crying. I waited for the first of it to subside before I -spoke again. These, almost the only tears I had ever known fall from -her, were eloquent of her change, indeed. - -“Oh!” she cried, presently, in a broken voice. “He didn’t treat me -well at first--my husband--but this piteous clinging to me -now--something chokes----” she flung her head back from me and -wrenched with her hands at the bosom of her dress, as if the heart -underneath were swollen to breaking. Then she tossed up her arms and, -drooping her head, once more fell to a passion of weeping. - -“Zyp,” I said, quietly, when she could hear me, “what is it you want -me to do?” - -“We want money, Renny----” she gasped, still with fluttering sobs, -drying her eyes half-fiercely as if in resentment of that brief -self-abandonment. “He has no spirit to make it now as he used. We have -escaped to Southampton, intending to go abroad somewhere, and lose -ourselves and be lost. We fled in a fright, unthinking, and now we can -get no further. You’ll help us, Renny, won’t you?” - -“I’ll help you, Zyp, now and always, if you need it--always, as far as -it is possible for me to.” - -“We don’t want much--enough to get away, that’s all. If he could only -be free a little while, I think perhaps he might recover partly and be -strong to seek for work.” - -“It will take me a day or two.” - -“So long? Oh, Renny!” - -“I must go to London to raise it. I can’t possibly manage it -otherwise.” - -She gave a heavy forlorn sigh. - -“I hope it won’t come too late?” - -“You can trust me, dear, not to delay a minute longer over it than is -absolutely necessary.” - -“You are the only one I can always trust,” she said, with a little, -wan, melancholy smile. - -A sleek shine of moonlight was spreading so that I could see her face -turned up to me. - -“You will come on to the mill, Zyp?” - -“Not now; it is useless. I hear my baby calling, Renny.” - -“But--what will you do?” - -“Walk back to Southampton.” - -“To-night?” - -“Part of the way, at least. When I get tired I shall sleep.” - -“Sleep? Where?” - -“Under some tree or bush. Where could I better?” - -“Zyp! You mustn’t. Anything might happen to you.” - -Her face took a flash of scorn. - -“To me--in the woods or the open fields? You forget who I am, Renny.” - -No insistence or argument on my part could alter her determination. -Return she would, then and there. - -“Well,” I said at last, hopeless of shaking her, “how shall I convey -the money to you?” - -“Jason shall come and fetch it.” - -“Jason?” - -“Yes. I can’t leave the child again. Besides, it will be better for -him to move and act than sit still always watching and waiting.” - -“Very well, then. Let him come when he likes. To-morrow I will get the -money.” - -She came and took my hand and looked up in my face. “Good-by, you good -man,” she said. “Give me one kiss, Renny.” - -I stooped and touched her cheek with my lips. - -“That is for the baby,” I said, “and God bless Zyp and the little -one.” - -She backed from me a pace or two, with her dark eyes dreaming. - -“Did you think I could ever be like this, Renny? I wonder if they will -turn to me as they used?” - -She dropped upon her knees before a little plant of yellow woundwort -that grew beside a tree. She caressed it, she murmured to it, she gave -it a dozen fond names in the strangest of elfin language. It did not -stir. It remained just a quiet, drowsy woodland thing. - -“Ah!” she cried, leaping to her feet, “it’s jealous of the baby. What -do I care?” She gave it a little slap with her hand. “Wake up, you -sulky thing!” she cried--“I’m going to tell you something. There’s no -flower like my baby in all the world!” - - - - - CHAPTER XXXVI. - I GO TO LONDON. - -I walked home that night in a dream. The white road lay a long, -luminous ribbon before me; the wet hedges were fragrant with scented -mist; there was only the sound in my ears of my own quick breathing, -but in my heart the echo of the sweet wild voice that had but now so -thrilled and tortured me. - -I thought of her swerving presently from her dreary road southward, to -sleep under some bush or briar, fearless in her beauty--fearless in -her confidence of the rich nature about her that was so much her own. -She seemed a thing apart from the world’s evil; a queenliest queen of -fancy, that had but to summon her good fellows if threatened. - -“Sweet safety go with you, my fairy!” I cried, and, crying, stumbled -over a poor doe rabbit sitting in the road, with glazing eyes and the -stab of the ferret tooth behind her ear. - -“Zyp! Zyp!” I muttered, gazing sorrowfully on the dying bunny, “are -you as much earth, after all, as this poor hunted brute? Ah, never, -never let your kinsfolk strike you through your motherhood.” - -I found my father sitting up for me amid the gusty lights and shadows -of the old mill sitting-room. He welcomed me with a joy that filled my -heart with remorse at having left him so long alone. - -“Dad,” I said, “I have seen Zyp!” - -He only looked at me in wonder. - -“She was coming to implore my help to enable her and--and her husband -to escape--to get away abroad somewhere.” - -“Escape? From what?” - -“That man--my one-time friend--that I told you about. He has pursued -them all the year with deadly hatred. Jason is half-mad with terror of -him, it seems.” - -My father’s face darkened. - -“He summoned his own Nemesis,” he said. “What do they want--money?” - -“Yes. I promised her what I could afford. To-morrow I must run up to -London to raise it.” - -“On what security?” - -“A mortgage, I suppose. I have some small investments in house -property.” - -He mused a little while. - -“It is better,” he said, by and by, “to leave all that intact. We must -part with another coin or so, Renalt.” - -“If you think it best, father. I wouldn’t for my soul go back from my -promise.” - -“Will you take them up and negotiate the business? I grow feeble for -these journeys.” - -“Of course I will, if you’ll give me the necessary instructions.” - -He nodded. - -“I’ll have them ready for you to-morrow,” he said. - -Then for a long time he sat gazing gloomily on the floor. - -“Where are they?” he said, suddenly. - -“Zyp and Jason? At Southampton. She walked from there, and I met her -in the woods, she would come no further, but started on her way back -again.” - -“How are you going to get the stuff to them, then?” - -“Jason is coming here to fetch it.” - -He rose from his chair, with startled eyes. - -“Here? Coming here?” he cried. “Renalt! Don’t bring him--don’t let -him!” - -“Father!” - -“He’s a bad fellow--a wicked son! He’ll drain us of all! What the -doctor’s left he’ll take! Don’t let him come!” - -He spoke wildly--imploringly. He held out his hands, kneading the -fingers together in an agony of emotion. - -“Dad!” I said. “Don’t go on so! You’re overwrought with fancies. How -can he possibly help himself to more than we decide to give him? Try -to pull yourself together--to be your old strong self.” - -“Oh!” he moaned, “I do try, but you know so little. He’s a brazen, -heartless wretch! We shall die paupers.” - -His voice rose into a sort of shriek. - -“Come!” I said, firmly, “you must command yourself. This is weak to a -degree. Remember, I am with you, to look after your interests--your -peace--to defend you if necessary.” - -He only moaned again: “You don’t know.” - -“I know this,” I said, “that by Zyp’s showing my brother is a broken -man--helpless, demoralized--in a pitiable state altogether.” - -He seemed to prick his ears somewhat at that. - -“If he must come,” he said, “if he must come, watch him--grind him -under--never let him think for an instant that he keeps the mastery.” - -“He shall never have cause to claim that, father.” - -He spoke no more, but crept to his room presently and left me -pondering his words far into the night. - -Later on, as I lay awake in bed, I heard his room door open softly and -the sound of his footsteps on the stairs. This, however, being no -unfamiliar experience with us, disturbed me not at all. - -In the morning at breakfast he handed me a couple of ancient gold -coins. - -“Take these,” he said; “they should bring £5 apiece.” - -His instructions as to the disposal of the relics I need not dwell -upon. Their consignee, a highly respectable tradesman in his line, -would no doubt consider any mention of his name a considerable breach -of confidence. I had my own opinion as to the laws of treasure-trove, -and he may have had his as to my father. When, armed with my father’s -warranty, I visited this amiable “receiver,” I found him to be an -austere-looking but pleasant gentleman, with an evident enthusiasm for -the scholarly side of his business. He gave me the price my father had -mentioned, and bowed me to the door, with a faint blush. - -It was so early in the day by the time I had finished my business -that, deeming it not possible that Jason could reach the mill before -the evening at earliest, I determined upon returning by an afternoon -train, that I might make a visit that had been in my mind since I -first knew I was to revisit London. It was to a dull and lonely -cemetery out Battersea way, where a poor working girl lay at rest. - -It was late in the afternoon when I came to the lodge gate of the -burial-place and inquired there as to the position of the grave. - -Indeed, in the quarter where I found her the graves lay so close that -it seemed almost as if the coffins must touch underground. - -My eyes filled with humble tears as I stood looking down on the thin -green mound. A little cross of stone stood at the head and on it “D. -M.” and the date of her death. The grave had been carefully -tended--lovingly trimmed and weeded and coaxed to the greenest growth -in those nine short months. A little bush rose stood at the foot, and -on the breast of the hillock, a bunch of rich, fading flowers lay. -They must have been placed there within the last two or three days -only--by the same hands that had gardened the sprouting turf--that had -raised the simple cross and written thereon the date of a great -heart’s breaking. - -I placed my own sad token of autumn flowers nearer the foot of the -mound, and, going to the cross, bent and kissed it. My eyes were so -blinded, my throat so strangled, that for the moment I felt as if, as -I did so, it put its arms about my neck and that Dolly’s soft cheek -was laid against mine. I know that I rose peaceful with the assurance -of pardon; and that, by and by, that gentle, unresting spirit was to -extend to me once more, in the passing of a dreadful peril, the saving -beneficence of its presence. - - - - - CHAPTER XXXVII. - A FACE. - -Dark was falling as on my return I came within sound of the mill race. -I thought I could make out a little group of people leaning over the -stone balustrade of the bridge as I approached. Such I found to be the -case, and among them Dr. Crackenthorpe standing up gaunt in his long -brown coat. - -I was turning in at the yard, when this individual hailed me, and by -doing so brought all the faces round in my direction. I walked up to -him. - -“Well?” I said. - -“These good folk are curious. It’s no affair of mine, but half a -minute ago there came a yell out of the old cabin yonder fit to wake -the dead.” - -“Well?” I said, again, with a mighty assumption of coolness I hardly -felt. - -“Oh, don’t suppose I care. It only seemed to me that some day, -perhaps, you’ll have the place stoned about your ears, if you don’t -let a little more light in.” - -A murmur went up from the half-dozen rustics and brainless idlers. - -“We don’t warnt no drownding ghosteses in Winton,” said a voice. - -I went straight up to them. - -“Don’t you?” I said. “Then you’d best keep out of reach of them that -can make you that and something worse. I suppose some of you have -cried out with the lumbago before now?” - -“That warn’t no lumbago cry, master.” - -“Wasn’t it, now? Have you ever had it?” - -“No--I harsn’t.” - -“I’ll give you a good imitation”--and I made a rush at the fellow who -spoke. The crowd scattered, and the man, suddenly backing, toppled -over with a crack that brought a yell out of him. - -“See there!” I cried. “You scream before you are touched even. A -pretty fool you, to gauge the meaning of any noise but your own -gobbling over a slice of bread and bacon.” - -This was to the humor of the others, who cackled hoarsely with -laughter. - -“If you want to ask questions,” I said, turning upon them, “put them -to this doctor here, who sits every day in a room with a row of -murderers’ heads looking down upon him.” - -With that I walked off in a heat, and was going toward the house, when -Dr. Crackenthorpe came after me with a stride and a furious menace. - -“You’ll turn the tables, will you?” he said, in a suffocating voice. -“Some day, my friend--some day!” - -I didn’t answer him or even look his way, but strode into the mill and -banged the door in his face. - -As I entered our sitting-room, I found Jason standing motionless in -the shadow a few feet from my father’s chair. - -The old man welcomed me with an agonized cry of rapture, and -endeavored to struggle to his feet, but dropped back again as if -exhausted. I went and stood over him, and he clung to one of my hands, -as a drowning man might. - -“Who cried out just now?” I asked, fiercely, of Jason. - -He gulped and cleared his throat, but could only point nervelessly at -the cowering figure before him. - -“Father! What is the matter?” - -“You wouldn’t come, Renalt--you wouldn’t come! I prayed for you to -come.” - -“What has he been doing?” - -“It was all the old horror over again. Send him away! Don’t let him -come near me!” - -I was falling distracted. I turned to Jason once more. - -“Come! Out with it!” I said. “What have you been doing?” - -He strove to smile. His face was ghastly--pinched and lined. - -“Nothing,” he said at last, with a choking cluck in his throat. “I -have done nothing.” - -“Don’t believe him,” moaned my father. “He wanted all; he wanted to -sink me to ruin.” - -“I wanted to ruin nobody!” cried my brother, finding his voice in a -wail of despair. “I’m desperate, that’s all--desperate to escape--and -he offers me little more than he’d give to a beggar.” - -“I tell him I’m not far from one myself! He won’t believe it. He -threatened me, Renalt. He brought the hideous time back again.” - -A light broke upon me, as from a furnace door snapped open. - -“Dad,” I said, gently, “will you go to your room and leave the rest to -me?” - -I helped him to his feet--across the room. His eyes watched the other -all the time. It was pitiful to see his terror of him. - -Jason stood where he had planted himself, waiting my return with -hanging head and fingers laced in front of him. - -I led the old man to the foot of the stairs. Then I returned to the -room and stood before my brother. - -“I understand it all now,” I said, in a straight, quiet voice. “The -‘some one else’ you suspected, or pretended to, was our father!” - -No answer. - -“While I was in London you traded upon this pretended knowledge to -force money out of the old man.” - -No answer. - -“Your silence will do. What can I say but that it was like you? To -traffic upon a helpless man’s miserable apprehensions for your own -sordid ends--and that man your father! To do this while holding a like -threat over another’s head--your brother’s--still for your own pitiful -ends. And all the time who knows but you may be the murderer?” - -“I am not the murderer. You persist, and--and it’s too cruel.” - -“Cruel! To you? Who killed Modred?” - -“I believe it was dad.” - -“I believe upon my soul it’s a lie!” - -“He thinks it himself, anyhow.” - -“Is it any good saying to you that a man of his habits, as he was -then, might be driven to believe anything of himself?” - -“Why did he have the braces in his pocket, then?” - -“He had carried the boy up-stairs--you know that. He had been bathing -and his things were scattered.” - -“It isn’t all. Modred had discovered his secret.” - -In spite of myself I started. - -“What secret?” I said. - -“Where the coins were hidden.” - -“What coins?” - -For the first time he looked at me with a faint leer of cunning. - -“I won’t condescend to prevaricate for any purpose,” I said. “I do -know about the treasure, because he told me himself, but I swear I -know to this day nothing about its hiding-place.” - -He looked at me curiously. - -“Well,” he said, “Modred had found it out, anyway.” - -“How do you know?” - -“Didn’t he offer to give Zyp something in exchange for a kiss that -night we watched them out of the window?” - -“Go on.” - -“It was gold. I saw it. He must have found his way to the store and -stolen it. Mayn’t it be, now, that dad discovered he had been robbed, -and took the surest way to prevent it happening again?” - -“No--a thousand times!” I spoke stanchly, but my heart felt sick -within me. - -He was silent. - -“So,” I said, in a high-strung voice, “this was your manner of -business during my absence; that the way to the means that helped you -up to London? A miserable discovery for you--for I gather from your -words you, too, found out about the hiding-place. You had better have -left it alone--a million times you had better.” - -Still he was silent. - -“Did Zyp know, too?” - -“No--not from my telling. I can’t answer for what she may have found -out for herself. She sees in the dark.” - -“How much did you have, from first to last? But I suppose you helped -yourself whenever you needed it?” - -“I didn’t--I swear I didn’t! I never put finger on the stuff till dad -handed it over to me. What right had he to keep us without a penny all -those years, when riches were there for the taking?” - -“He could do what he liked with his own, I conclude. At any rate, the -end justified the means. A pretty use you made of your vile -extortion--a bloody vengeance is the price you pay for it!” - -At that he gave a sudden cry. - -“I’m lost--I know it! Help me to escape. Renny, help me to escape.” - -“Do you think you deserve that of me, Jason?” - -He dropped upon his knees, an abject, wailing figure. - -“I don’t--I don’t! But you’re generous--Renalt, I always thought you -good and generous, when I laughed at you most. Save me from that -terror! He strikes at me in the dark--I never know where his hideous -face will show next. He follows me--haunts me--tries to poison me, to -torture me to death! Oh, Renny, help me!” - -“Answer me truly first. For how long were you robbing the old man?” - -“I may have had small sums of him for a year--nothing much. When Zyp -and I made up our minds to go, I bid for a larger, and he gave it me.” - -“He didn’t know you were married?” - -“He wouldn’t hear of it--it’s the truth. He meant her for you, I -think, and the worst threats I could use never shook him from his -refusal to countenance us.” - -“Brave old man!” - -“Renny--help me!” - -“For Zyp’s sake,” I said, sternly--“yes. Were it not for her appeal, I -tell you plainly you might perish for me.” - -He looked so base kneeling there in his craven degradation that I -could not forbear the stroke. - -“My father provides the means,” I said. “I went to London to-day to -realize it. Here it is, and make the most of it.” - -He took it from me with trembling hands. - -“Ten pounds,” he said, blankly. “No more?” - -“Isn’t it enough?” - -“Enough to get away with, not enough to find a living on across the -water.” - -“It’s all you’ll get--that’s final. Remember now that I stand here by -my father. Always remember that when your fingers itch for hush -money--and remember who it was that was once my friend.” - -He rose and crept to the door with bowed head. Some old vein of -tenderer feeling gushed warm in me. - -“Jason,” I cried, “I forgive you for all you have done to me.” - -He turned and came back to me, seized me by the wrist--and his eyes -were moist with tears. - -“For pity’s sake come a little way with me, Renny. You don’t know what -I suffer.” - -“A little way on your road, do you mean?” - -“Yes. I daren’t go by train. He might be there. I must walk; and I -dread--Renny, supposing I should meet him on the way?” - -“Why, that’s nonsense. Haven’t you just come alone?” - -“I was driven by the thought of what I was seeking, then. It was bad -enough. But, now I’ve got it, all nerve seems shaken out of me. I’m -afraid of the dark.” - -Was this the stuff that villains are made of? Almost I could find it -in me to soothe and comfort the poor, terrified creature. - -“Very well,” I said. “I will walk part of the way with you.” - -His wan cheek flushed with gratitude. I got my hat and stick, and ran -up to my father to tell him whither I was off. - -As I came downstairs again Jason was disappearing into the loft, where -the stones were, that stood opposite the sitting-room. The wheel -underneath was booming as usual and the great disks revolved softly -with a rubbing noise. I saw him go to the dim window, that stood out -as if hung up in the black atmosphere of the room, a square of -latticed gray. It was evidently his intention to reconnoiter before -starting, for the window looked upon the bridge and the now lonely -tail of the High street. - -Suddenly a sort of stifled rushing noise issued from his lips, and he -stole back on tiptoe to the passage without the room. There, in the -weak lamplight, he fell against the wall, and his face was the color -of straw paper and his lips were ashen. - -“He’s there,” he said, in a dreadful whisper. “He’s standing on the -bridge waiting for me.” - - - - - CHAPTER XXXVIII. - A NIGHT PURSUIT. - -I rushed across the room and looked out through the dim glass. At -first I could make out nothing until a faint form resolved itself -suddenly into a face, gray and set as the block of stone it looked -over. - -It never moved, but remained thus as if it were a sculptured death -designed to take stock forever with a petrified stare of the crumbling -mill. - -Then, as my eyes grew accustomed to the outlines, I saw that it leaned -down in reality, with its chin resting on its hands that were crossed -over the top of the parapet. Even at that distance I should have known -the mouth, though the whole pose of the figure were not visible to -convince me. - -Jason looked at me like a dying man when I returned to him. The full -horror of a mortal fright, than which nothing is more painful to -witness, spoke from his lungs, that heaved as if the sweet air had -become a palpable thing to enter within and imprison his soul from all -hope of escape. He tried to question me, but only sunk back with a -moan. - -“Now,” I said, “you must summon all your resolution. Act promptly and -in half an hour you will be beyond reach of him.” - -My own nerves were strung to devouring action. A kind of exultation -fired me to master this tyranny of pursuit. Whatever might be its -justification, the tactics of aggressive force should at least be open -and human, I thought. - -“You don’t want to pass the night here?” - -He made a negative motion with his head. - -“I think you’re right. It might only be postponing the end. Will you -place yourself in my hands?” - -He held out his arms to me imploringly. - -“Very well. Now, listen to me. There he will remain in all likelihood -for some time, not knowing he is discovered. We must give him the -slip--escape quietly at the back, while he is intent on the front.” - -I could only make out that his white lips whispered: “You won’t leave -me?” - -“Not till all danger is past. I promise you.” - -I went over the house and quietly tested that every bolt and catch was -secure. Then I fetched a dram of spirit, and made the poor, -demoralized wretch swallow it. It brought a glint of color to his -cheek--a little firmness to his limbs. - -“Another,” he whispered. - -“No,” I answered. “You want the nerve to act; not the overconfidence -that leads to a false step. Come.” - -Together we stole to the rear of the building where the little -platform hung above the race. I locked the door behind us and pocketed -the key. - -“Now,” I said, “quietly and no hesitating. Follow me.” - -The stream here sought passage between the inclosed mill-head, with -its tumbling bay and waste weir--the sluice of which I never remember -to have seen shut--on the one side, and on the other the wall of an -adjoining garden. This last was not lofty, but was too high to scale -without fear of noise and the risk of attracting observation. -Underneath the heavy pull of the water would have spun us like straws -off our feet had we dropped into it there. - -There was only one way, and that I had calculated upon. To the left -some branches of a great sycamore tree overhung the wall, the nearest -of them some five feet out of reach. Climbing the rail of the -platform, I stood upon the outer edge and balanced myself for a -spring. It was no difficult task to an active man, and in a moment I -was bobbing and dipping above the black onrush of the water. Pointing -out my feet with a vigorous oscillating action, I next swung myself to -a further branch, which I clutched, letting go the other. Here I -dangled above a little silt of weed and gravel that stood forth the -margin of the stream, and onto it I dropped, finding firm foothold, -and motioned to Jason to follow. - -He was like to have come to grief at the outset, for from his nerves -being shaky, I suppose, he sprung short of the first branch, hitting -at it frantically with his fingers only, so that he fell with a -bounding splash into the water’s edge. The pull had him in an instant, -and it would have been all up with him had I not foreseen the result -while he was yet in midair and plunged for him. Luckily I still held -on to the end of the second branch, to which I clung with one hand, -while I seized his coat collar with the other. For half a minute even -then it was a struggle for life or death, the stout wood I held to -deciding the balance, but at last he gained his feet, and I was able -to pull him, wallowing and stumbling, toward me. It was not the depth -of the water that so nearly overcame us, for it ran hardly above his -knees. It was the mighty strength of it rushing onward to the wheel. - -He would have paused to regain his breath, but I allowed him no -respite. - -“Hurry!” I whispered. “Who knows but he may have heard the splash?” - -He needed no further stimulus, but pushed at me to proceed, in a -flurried agony of fear. I tested the water on the further side of the -little mound. It was possible to struggle up against it along its -edge, and of that possibility we must make the best. Clutching at the -wall with crooked fingers for any hope of support, we moved up, step -by step, until gradually the wicked hold slackened and we could make -our way without bitter struggle. - -Presently, to the right, the wall opened to a slope of desert garden -ground that ran up to an empty cottage standing on the fall of the -hill above. Over to this we cautiously waded, and climbed once more to -dry land, drenched and exhausted. - -No pause might be ours yet, however. Stooping almost to the earth, we -scurried up the slope, passed the cottage, and never stopped until we -stood upon the road that skirts the base of the hill. - -A moment’s breathing space now and a moment’s reflection. Downward the -winding road led straight to the bridge and the very figure we were -flying. Yet it was necessary to cross the head of this road somehow, -to reach the meadows that stretched over the lap of the low valley we -must traverse before we could hit the Southampton highway. - -Fortunately no moon was up to play traitor to our need. I took my -brother by the coat sleeve and led him onward. He was trembling and -shivering as if with an ague. Over the grass, by way of the watery -tracks, we sped--passing at a stone’s throw the pool where Modred had -nearly met his death, breaking out at last, with a panting burst of -relief, into the solitary stretch of road running southward. Before -us, in the glimmering dark, it went silent and lonely between its -moth-haunted hedges, and we took it with long strides. - -My brother hurried by my side without a word, subduing his breathing -even as much as possible and walking with a light, springing motion on -his toes; but now and again I saw him look back over his shoulder, -with an awful expression of listening. - -It was after one of his turns that Jason suddenly whipped a hand upon -my arm and drew me to a stop. - -“Listen!” he whispered, and slewed his head round, with a dry chirp in -his throat. - -Faintly--very faintly, a step on the road behind us came to my ears. - -“He’s following!” murmured my brother, with a sort of despairing -calmness. - -“Nonsense,” I said; “how do you know it’s he? It’s a public highway.” - -“I do know. Hark to the step!” - -It was a little nearer. There was a queer dragging sound in it. Was it -possible that some demon inspired this terrible man to an awful -species of clairvoyance? How otherwise could he be on our tracks? -Unless, indeed, the splash had informed him! - -There was a gap in the hedge close by where we stood, and not far from -it, in the field beyond, a haystack looming gigantic in the dark. With -a rapid motion I dived, pulling Jason after me--and stooping low, we -scurried for the shelter, and threw ourselves into the loose stuff -lying on the further side of it. There, lying crushed into the litter, -with what horror of emotion to one of us God alone may know, we heard -the shuffling footsteps come rapidly up the road. As it neared the -gap, my brother’s hand fell upon mine, with a convulsive clutch. It -was stone cold and all clammy with the ooze of terror. As the footstep -passed he relaxed his hold and seemed to collapse. I thought he had -fainted, but mercifully I was mistaken. - -The step behind the hedge seemed to go a little further, then die out -all at once. I thought he had passed beyond our hearing, and lay still -some moments longer listening--listening, through the faint rustling -sounds of the night, for assurance of our safety. - -At length I was on the point of rising, when a strained hideous -screech broke from the figure beside me and I saw him sway up, -kneeling, and totter sideways against the wall of hay. With the sound -of his voice I sprung to my feet--and there was the pursuer, come -silently round the corner of the stack, and gazing with gloating eyes -upon his victim. - - - - - CHAPTER XXXIX. - A STRANGE VIGIL. - -Had Jason fainted, as I thought he had, his enemy would have been upon -him before I was aware of his presence even. As it was, in an instant -I had interposed my body between them. - -For a full minute, perhaps, we remained thus, like figures of stone, -before I found my voice. - -“You can go back,” I said, never taking my eyes off him. “It’s too -late.” - -He gave no answer, nor did he change his position. - -“I won’t appeal to you,” I said, “by any claim of old friendship, to -leave this poor wretch in peace. If common humanity can make no way -with you, how shall any words of mine?” - -He made a little sidling movement, to which I corresponded with a -like. - -“You’re welcome to measure your strength with mine,” I said. “You’ll -have to do it before you can think to get at him.” - -He looked at me with glittering eyes, as if debating my power to stop -him. - -“Duke!” I cried, “be merciful! If his crime was great, he has -repented.” - -He spoke at last, screwing out an ugly high little chuckle, with a -straining of his whole body, like a cock crowing. - -“Why, so have I!” he said. “There’s a place waiting for the two of us -among the blessed saints, while she’s frying down below.” - -“It was hers to forgive, and she has forgiven, I know. Be merciful and -worthy of her you are to meet some day.” - -“What can I do more disinterested, then, than send him repentant to -sit with her. There’s a noble revenge to take! If he’d stopped in -London I’d have allowed him a little longer, perhaps; but, as he wants -to escape, I must make sure, or the devil might have me by the leg, -you see.” - -All the time we spoke, Jason was cowering among the hay, his breath -sounding in quick gasps. Now he gave out a pitiful moan, and Duke bent -his head waiting for a repetition, as if it were music to him. - -“For the last time, be merciful, Duke.” - -“Well, so I will.” - -He spoke looking up at me, with his head still bent sideways, and, in -that position, felt in one of his pockets. - -“If the gentleman will condescend to take this,” he said, standing -suddenly erect and holding out a little white paper packet in his -hand, “I will go and welcome. But I must see him swallow it first.” - -“Poison?” - -“Not at all. A love potion--nothing more.” - -Duke stole toward me insidiously, holding out the paper. The moment he -was within reach I struck it out of his hand. While my arm was yet in -the air, he came with a rush at me--caught his foot in a projecting -root--staggered and fell with a sliding thump upon the grass. - -“Keep behind!” I shouted to Jason, who was uttering incoherent cries -and running to and fro like a thing smitten with a sunstroke. He -stopped at sound of my voice; then came and clung to me, feeling me to -be his last hope. - -For a moment Duke lay as if stunned; then slowly gathered himself -together and rose to his feet--rose only to collapse again, with a -snarling curse of agony. He glowered up at us, moaning and muttering, -and nursing his injured limb; for so it seemed that, in falling, he -had cruelly twisted and sprained one of his ankles. - -When the truth broke upon me I turned round upon my brother with a -great breath of gratitude and relief. - -“Run!” I cried. “You can be miles away before he will be able to move, -even.” - -Jason leaped from me, his eyes staring maniacally. - -“You fool!” I cried; “go! Leave him to me! You can be at Southampton -before he is out of the field here. Even if he is able to walk by -morning, which I doubt, he has me to reckon with!” - -Some little nerve came to him, once standing outside the baneful -influence of the eyes. He dashed his hand across his forehead, gave me -one rapid, wild glance of gratitude and renewed hope, and, turning, -ran for his life into the darkness. - -As his footsteps clattered faintly down the road I returned to grapple -with his enemy. - -I almost stumbled over him as I turned the corner. He had rolled and -struggled so far in his rabid frenzy; and now, seeing me come back -alone, he set up a yell of rage, reviling and cursing me and hurling -impotent lightnings of hate after his escaped victim. - -Gradually the storm of his passion mouthed itself away and he lay -silent on the ground like a dead thing. Then I moved to him; knelt and -softly pulled him by the sleeve. - -“Duke, shall I bind it up for you?” - -“What? My heart?” He spoke with his face in the grass. “Bind it in a -sling, you fool--it’s a heavy stone--and smite the accursed Philistine -on the forehead with it.” - -“Has this bitter trouble dehumanized you altogether? Do you blame me -in this? He was my brother.” - -“And you were my friend. What is the value of it all? I would have -crushed you like a beetle if you stood in my way to him. Deviltry is -the only happiness. I think he was beforehand with me in that. What a -poor idiot to let him be! I might have enjoyed a minute’s bliss for -the price of my soul, and now my only hope of it is by killing him.” - -“That you shall never do if I can prevent it.” - -He rolled over on his back, thrust his arms beneath his head and lay -staring at me with deeply melancholy eyes. - -“Let’s cry an armistice for the night,” he said, in a low, gentle -voice. - -“Forever, Duke!” - -“Between us two? Why not--on all questions but the one?” - -“Find some pity in your heart, even for him.” - -“Never!” He jerked out an arm and shook it savagely at the sky. -“Never!” - -I gave a heavy sigh. - -“Well,” I said, “let’s look to your foot, at least.” - -“Is he beyond my reach?” - -“Quite. You can put it out of your head. Even if your limb were sound -you’d never catch him now. With the morning they go abroad.” - -“Where to?” - -“Honestly, I don’t know.” - -“You found him the funds?” - -“Yes.” - -He groaned and turned his face away for a moment. I busied myself over -his bruised ankle. Presently he said: - -“How long am I to lie here?” - -“Till I can see to cut you a stick from the hedge. You wouldn’t be -able to limp a step without one.” - -“Very well. Will you sit by me?” - -“As long as you like.” - -“I have no likes or dislikes now, Renny, and only one hate.” - -“We won’t talk of that.” - -“Not now. This field is the neutral ground. Once outside it, the -armistice ends.” - -“Duke!” - -“How can it be otherwise, Renny, my old friend? Are you going to back -me in the chase? Unless you do, you must see that it is impossible for -us to come together.” - -“I see nothing--feel nothing, but a vast, interminable sorrow, Duke.” - -“And I--you have a gentle hand, Renny. So had she. She bound up my -wrist for me once, when I had crushed it in the galley-puller. Shall -we recall those days?” - -My heart swelled to hear him in this softened mood, as I thought. -Alas! It was only a brief interval of lucidity in his madness. - -“Ah, if we could look beyond!” I finally answered, with a deep sigh. - -“We can--we do. Imagination isn’t guided by rule of thumb. Even here -the promise dawns slowly. Scabs are thickest on the body when it’s -healing of its fever. They will fall off by and by, for all the dismal -shrieks that degeneration has seized us.” - -He closed his eyes and lay back upon his hands once more. - -“Imagination? Was this ever my world? There is a wide green forest, -and the murmur of its running brooks is all of faces sweet as flowers -and voices that I know, for I heard them long ago in a time before I -existed here. And I walk on, free forever of the aching past; the -eternity of most beautiful possibilities and discoveries before me; -joyous all through but for one sad little longing that encumbers me. -Not for long--no, not for long. On a lawn fragrant with loving flowers -and gathered here and there to deep silence by the stooping shadows, I -come upon her--my love; my dear, dear love. And she kisses the sorrow -from my eyes, and holds me to her and whispers, ‘You have come at -last.’” - -His voice broke with a sob. Glancing at him, I saw the tears running -down his cheeks. This grief was sacred from word of mine. I rose -softly and set to pacing the meadow at a little distance. By and by, -when I returned, I saw him sitting up. The mood had passed, but he was -still gentle and human. - -Till dawn was faint in the sky we sat and talked the dark hours away. -The sun had risen and Duke was watching something in the grass, when -suddenly he shook himself and turned to me. - -“Cut me my stick, Renny,” he said. “The pilgrim must be journeying.” - -“Come home with me, Duke.” - -He shook his head. - -“Look!” he said, “I have tried to read a lesson of a spider as Bruce -did. I broke and tangled the little fellow’s web like a wanton and -what did he do but roll the rubbish up into a ball and swallow it. I -can’t get rid of my web in that way, Renny.” - -I did my utmost to hold him to his softer mind. He would not listen, -but drove me from him. - -“Cut me my stick,” he said, “or I shall have to crawl down the road on -all fours.” - -I did his bidding sadly. Propped up by me on one side, he was able -with the help of his staff to limp painfully from the field. Outside -it, he sat himself down on the hedge bank. - -“Good-morning, Mr. Trender,” he said. - -“Duke, let me at least help you to the town.” - -“Not a step, I’m obliged to you. I shall get on very well by and by. -Good-morning.” - -I seized and shook his hand--it dropped listlessly from -mine--hesitated; looked in his face, and, turning from him, strode -sorrowfully off homeward. - - - - - CHAPTER XL. - A STORY AND ITS SEQUEL. - -Nine months had passed since my parting with Duke on the hillside, and -my life in the interval had flowed on with an easy uneventful monotony -that was at least restorative to my turbulent soul. We had not once -heard during this stretch of time from Jason or Zyp, and could only -conclude that, finding asylum in some remote corner of the world, they -would not risk discovery in it by word or sign. Letters, like homing -pigeons, sometimes go astray. - -Duke had put in no second appearance. Dr. Crackenthorpe kept entirely -aloof. All the tragedy of that dark period, crushed within a single -year of existence, seemed swept by and scattered like so much road -dust. Only my father and I remained of the strutting and fretting -actors to brood over the parts we had played; and one of us was gray -at heart forevermore, and the other waxing halt and old and feeble. - -Now, often I tried to put the vexing problem of my brother’s death -behind me; and yet, if I thought for a moment I had succeeded, it was -only to be conscious of a grinning skeleton at my back. - -And in this year a strange and tragic thing happened in Winton that -was indirectly the cause in me of a fresh fungus growth of doubt and -dark suspicion; and it fell out in this wise: - -Some twenty years before, when I was a mere child (the story came to -me later), a great quarrel had taken place between two citizens of the -old burg. They were partners, before the dispute, in a flourishing -business, and the one of them who was ultimately worsted in the -argument had been the benefactor of the man that triumphed. The -quarrel rose on some question as to the terms of their mutual -agreement, the partner who had been taken into the firm out of -kindness claiming the right to oust the other by a certain date. The -technicalities of the matter were involved in a mass of obscurity, but -anyhow they went to law about it and the beneficiary won the case. The -other was forced to retire, to all intents and purposes a ruined man, -but he bore with him a possession that no judge could deprive him -of--a deep, deadly hatred against the reptile whose fortunes he had -made and who had so poisonously bitten him in return. He was heard to -declare that alive or dead he would have his enemy by the heel some -day, and no one doubted but that he meant it. - -Some months later, as the successful partner was returning home from -his office one winter night, a pistol shot cracked behind him and he -was constrained to measure his portly figure in the slush of the -street. There his late partner came and looked upon him and gave a -weltering grunt, like a satisfied hog, and kicked the body and went -his way. But his victim was scarcely finished with in the manner he -fancied. The ball, glancing from a lamp-post, had smashed the bones of -his right heel only, and he was merely feigning death. When his enemy -was retired he crawled home on his hands and knees, leaving a sluggish -trail of crimson behind him, and, once safe in the fortress of his -household, sent for the doctor and an inspector of police. - -The would-be murderer was of course captured, tried and sentenced to a -twenty-year term of penal servitude. He made no protest and took it -all in the nature of things. But, before leaving the dock, he -repeated--looking with a quiet smile on his becrutched and bandaged -oppressor sitting pallidly in the court--his remarkable formula about -“alive or dead” having him by the heel some day. - -Then he disappeared from Winton’s ken and for sixteen years the town -knew him no more, and his victim prospered exceedingly and walked far -into the regions of wealth and honor, for all a painful limp that -seemed as if it should have impeded his advance. - -At the end of this time a little local excitement was stirred by the -return of the criminal, out on ticket-of-leave, and presenting all the -appearance of a degraded, battered and senile old man. His one-time -partner--a town councilor by then--resented his intrusion exceedingly; -but finding him to be impervious, apparently, to the sting of memory, -and presumably harmless to sting any more on his own account, he -bestirred himself to quarter the driveling wreck on an almshouse--a -proceeding which gained him much approval on the part of all but those -who retained recollection of the origin of the quarrel. - -In this happy asylum the poor ruin breathed his last within a month of -its admission, and the rubbish of it was buried--not in the pauper -corner of some city cemetery, as one might suppose, but in the very -yard of the cathedral itself. For, curiously enough, the fading -creature before his death had claimed lying-room in a family vault -sunk in that august inclosure, and his claim was found to be a -legitimate one. - -I knew the place where he lay, well; for an end of the old vault they -had opened for his accommodation tunneled under a pathway that cut the -yard obliquely, and, passing along it one’s feet hit out the spot in a -low reverberating thud of two steps that spoke of hollowness beneath -the gravel. - -The July of the present year I write of being the fourth from that -poor thing’s death and burial, was marked by one of the most terrific -thunderstorms that have ever in my memory visited Winton. - -If there was one man abroad in those bitter hours, there was one only, -I should say, and he paid a grewsome price for his temerity. He was -returning home from a birthday party, was that fated councilor, and, -fired with a Dutch courage, must have taken that very path across the -yard under which his once partner lay, and which he generally for some -good reason rather avoided. What followed he might never describe -himself, for that was the last of him. But a strange and eerie scene -met the sight of an early riser abroad in the yard the next morning. - -It appeared that a bolt had struck and wrenched a huge limb from one -of the great lime trees skirting the path; that the heavy butt of -this, clapping down upon that spot of the gravel under which the end -of the vault lay, had splintered the massive lid stone into half a -dozen pieces, so that they collapsed and fell inward, crashing upon -and breaking open in their fall the pauper’s coffin underneath. - -“Whom God seeks to destroy, He first maddens.” Into this awful trap, -in the rain and storm and darkness, Mr. Councilor walked plump, and -there he was found in the morning, dead and ghastly, his already -once-wounded leg caught in a crevice made by the broken stone and -wood--his heel actually resting in the bony hand of his enemy who had -waited for him so long. - -All that by the way. It was a grim enough story by itself, no doubt, -but I mention it only here as bearing indirectly upon a little matter -of my own. - -Old Peggy had retailed it to me, with much grisly decoration, on the -afternoon following the night of the tempest. The thorns of her mind -were stored with a wriggling half-hundred of such tales. - -By and by I walked out to visit the scene of the tragedy. It was dark -and gloomy and still threatening storm. There was little left of the -ruin of the night. The fallen branch had been sawed to lengths and -carted away, and only its litter remained; the vault had been covered -in again with a great slab lifted and brought from one of the precinct -pathways that were paved with ancient gravestones; a solitary man was -raking and trimming the gravel over the restored surface. The crowds -who no doubt had visited the spot during the day were dwindled to a -half-dozen morbid idlers, and a sweeping flaw of tempest breaking -suddenly from the clouds even as I approached drove the last of these -to shelter. - -I myself scuttled for a long low tunnel that pierced a south wing of -the cathedral and promised the best cover available. This was to be -reached by way of a double-arched portal which enjoyed the distinction -of conveying ill-luck to any who should have the temerity to walk -through a certain one of its two openings. - -Turning when I reached the archway, I saw that the solitary -grave-trimmer was running for the same shelter as myself. With head -bent to the storm, he bolted through the gate of ill-omen; stopped, -recognized his error, hurriedly retraced his steps; spat out the evil -and came through the customary opening at slower pace. As he -approached me I saw, what I had not noticed before, that he was my -friend the sexton of St. John’s. - -“Good-afternoon,” said I, as he walked under the tunnel, seized off -his cap and jerked the rain drops from it. - -I fancied there was a queer wild look on his face, and at first he -hardly seemed to be able to make me out. - -“Ah!” he said, suddenly. “Good-arternoon to you.” - -Even then he didn’t look at but beyond me, following with his -bloodshot eyes, as it were, the movements of something on the stone -wall at my back. - -“So you’re translated, it appears?” - -“Eh?” he said, vaguely. - -“You’re promoted to the yard here, aren’t you?” - -“I come to oblige Jem Sweet, ars be down wi’ the arsmer,” he said. - -“That was friendly, anyhow. It was an unchancy task you took upon -yourself.” - -“What isn’t?” he shouted, quite fiercely, all in a moment. “Give me -another marn as’ll walk all day wi’ the devil arm in arm, as I does.” - -“You found him down there, eh?” - -He took off his cap and flung it with quick violence at the wall -behind me, then pounced upon it lying on the ground, as if something -were caught underneath it. - -“My!” he muttered, rising with the air of a schoolboy who has captured -a butterfly, and, seeking to investigate his prize, made a frantic -clutch in the air, as if it had escaped him. - -“What’s that?” said I, “a wasp?” - -“A warsp!” he cried in a sort of furious fright. “Who ever see a pink -warsp wi’ a mouth like a purse and blue inside?” - -He stood by me, shaking and perspiring, and suddenly seized me with a -tremulous hand. - -“They shudn’t a’ sent me down there,” he whispered; “it give me the -horrors, it did, to see that they’d burried him quick, and that for -fower year he’d been struggling and wrenching to get out.” - -“I’m afraid that the devil’s got you indeed, my friend.” - -“It’s all along o’ thart. He come and he looked down upon me there in -the pit.” - -“Who did? The devil?” - -“Him or thart Chis’ll doctor. It’s all one. I swat cold, I tell ye. I -see his face make a ugly fiddle-pattern on the sky. My mate, he’d gone -to dinner and the yard was nigh empty. ‘Look’ee here,’ I whispered up -to him. ‘He were burried quick, as they burried that boy over in St. -John’s, yonder, that you murdered.’” - - - - - CHAPTER XLI. - ACROSS THE WATER. - -For an instant the blood in my arteries seemed to stop, so that I -gasped when I tried to speak. - -“What boy was that?” I said, in a forced voice, when I could command -myself. - -“What boy?--eh?--what boy?” His eyes were wandering up and down the -wall again. “Him, I say, as they burried quick--young Trender o’ the -mill.” - -“How do you know he was buried alive? How could he have been if he was -murdered?” - -“How do I know? He were murdered, I say. I’m George White, the -sexton--and what I knows, I knows.” - -“And the doctor murdered him?” - -“Don’t I say so?” - -He had hardly spoken, when he put his hand to his head, moved a step -back and stood staring at me with horror-stricken, injected eyes. - -“My God!” he muttered. “He whispered there into the pit that if I said -to another what I said to him I were as good as a dead man.” - -The panic increased in him. I could see the tortured soul moving, as -it were, behind the flesh of his face. When the nerve of endurance -snapped he staggered and fell forward in a fit. - -Helpless to minister to a convulsion that must find its treatment in -the delirium ward of a hospital, I ran to the police station, which -was but a short distance away, and gave information of the seizure I -had witnessed. A stretcher was sent for the poor, racked wretch; he -was carried away spluttering and writhing, and so for the time being -my chance of questioning him further was ended. - -Now, plainly and solemnly: Had I been face to face with an awful -fragment of the truth, or had I been but the chance hearer of certain -delirious ravings on the part of a drink-sodden wretch--ravings as -baseless as the unsubstantial horror at which he had flung his cap? - -That the latter seemed the more probable was due to an obvious -inconsistency on the part of the half-insane creature. If the boy had -been murdered, how could he have been buried alive? Moreover, it was -evident that the sexton was near a monomaniac on the subject of living -interments. Moreover, secondly, it was altogether improbable and not -to be accounted for that the keen-witted doctor should intrust a -secret so perilous to such a confederate. And what object had he to -gain by the destruction of Modred, beyond the satisfying of a little -private malice perhaps? An object quite incompatible with the fearful -danger of the deed. - -On the other hand, I could not but recall darkly that the sexton, on -the morning when, apparently sane and sensible, he had conducted me to -my brother’s grave, had thrown out certain vague hints and -implications, which, hardly noticed by me at the time, assumed a -lurider aspect in the light of his more definite charge; that, by -Zyp’s statement to me after my illness, it would seem that Dr. -Crackenthorpe had shown some eagerness and made voluntary offer of his -services, in the matter of hushing up the whole question of Modred’s -death; that it was not impossible that he also had discovered the -boy’s knowledge of the secret of the hiding-place and had jumped at a -ready opportunity for silencing forever an unwelcome confederate. - -Stung to sudden anxious fervor by this last thought, I broke into a -hurried walk, striving by vigorous motion to coax into consistent -order of progression the dread hypothesis that so tore and worried my -mind. Suddenly I found that, striding on preoccupied, I was entering -that part of the meadowland wherein lay the pool of uncanny memories. -It shone there before me, like a silver rent in the grass, the shadow -of a solitary willow smudged upon its surface, and against the trunk -of the tree that stood on the further side of the water a long, dusky -figure was leaning motionless. It was that of the man who was most in -my thoughts; and, looking at him, even at that distance, something -repellant in his aspect seemed to connect him fittingly with the -stormy twilight around him that was imaged in my soul. - -Straight I walked down to the water’s edge and hailed him, and, though -he made no response, I saw consciousness of my presence stir in him. - -“I want a word with you!” I called. “Shall I shout it across the -river?” - -He slowly detached himself from his position and sauntered down to the -margin over against me. - -“Proclaim all from the housetops, where I am concerned,” he answered -in a loud voice. “Who is it wants me, and what has he to say?” - -“You know me, I suppose?” - -“I have not that pleasure, I believe.” - -“Never mind. I have just come from talk with a confederate of -yours--the sexton of St. John’s.” - -“I know the man certainly. Is he in need of my services?” - -“He would say ‘God forbid’ to that, I fancy. He’s had enough of you, -maybe.” - -“Oh, in what way?” - -“In the way of silencing awkward witnesses.” - -“Pray be a trifle less obscure.” - -“I have this moment left him. He was seized with a fit of some sort. -He’d rather have the devil himself to wait upon him than you, I -expect.” - -“Why so?” - -“I had some talk with him before he went off his head. Do you wish to -know what he charged you with?” - -“Certainly I do.” - -“Murder!” - -Dr. Crackenthorpe looked at me across the water a long minute; then, -never taking his eyes off my face, lifted up the skirts of his coat -and began to shamble and jerk out the most ludicrous parody of a dance -I have ever seen. Then, all of a sudden, he stopped and was doubled up -in a suffocating cackle of laughter. - -Presently recovering himself, he walked off down the bank to a point -where the stream narrowed, and motioned me to come opposite him. - -“It’s not from fear of you and your sexton,” he explained, still -gasping out the dry dust of his humor. “Your exquisite pleasantry has -weakened my vocal chords--that’s all.” - -I treated him to a long stare of most sovereign contempt. For all his -assumed enjoyment, I fancied he was pretty observant of my mood and -that he was calculating the nature of the charge I had fired at him. - -“And whom did I murder?” he said, making a great show of mopping his -face with his handkerchief. - -“Say it was my brother Modred.” - -“I’m glad, for your sake, to hear you qualify it. You should be, that -there is no witness to this gross slander. I presume you to be, then, -one of that pleasant family of Trender, who have a local reputation -none of the sweetest.” - -He came down close to the water’s edge--we were but a little distance -apart there--and shook a long finger at me. - -“My friend, my friend,” he said, sternly, “your excuse must be the -hot-headedness of youth. For the sake of your father, who once enjoyed -my patronage, I will forbear answering a fool according to his folly. -For his sake I will be gentle and convincing, where it is my plain -duty, I am afraid, to chastise. This man you speak of is a heavy -drinker, and is now, by your own showing, on the verge of delirium -tremens. Do you take the gross imaginings of such a person for -gospel?” - -“Dr. Crackenthorpe,” I said, quietly, “your threats fall on stony -ground. I admit the man is hardly responsible for his statements at -the present moment; only, as it happens, I have met and spoken with -him before.” - -I thought I could see in the gathering darkness his lips suck inward -as if with a twitch of pain. - -“And did he charge me then with murdering your brother?” - -“He said what, viewed in the light of his after outburst, has awakened -grave suspicions in me.” - -He threw back his head with a fresh cackle of laughter. - -“Suspicions!” he cried. “Is that all? It’s natural to have them, -perhaps. I had mine of you once, you know.” - -“You lie there, of course. By your own confession, you lie.” - -“And now,” he went on, ignoring my interruption, “they are diverted to -another.” - -“Will you answer me a question or two?” - -“If they are put with a proper sense of decorum I will give them my -consideration.” - -“Do you know where my father keeps the treasure, the bulk of which you -have robbed him of?” - -“Most offensively worded. But I will humor you. I never had need”--he -shot out an evil smile--“of obtaining my share of the good things by -other than legitimate means.” - -“Do you know?” - -“No, I don’t, upon the honor of a gentleman.” - -“Did my brother that’s dead know?” - -“Really, you tempt me to romance to satisfy your craving for -information. I was not in your brother’s confidence.” - -“Was there the least doubt that my brother was dead when he was -buried?” - -“Ah! I see. You have been hunting chimeras in George White’s company. -It is the man’s werewolf, my good friend. You may take my professional -certificate that no such thing happened.” - -I looked at him, my soul lowering with doubt and the gloom of baffled -vengeance. - -“Have you anything further to ask?” he said, with mocking politeness. -“Any other insane witness to cite on behalf of this base and baseless -prosecution?” - -“None at present.” - -I turned and walked a step or two, intending to leave him without -another word, but, on a thought, strode back to the waterside. - -“Listen you!” I cried. “For the time you are quit of me. But bear in -mind that I never rest or waver in my purpose till I have found who it -was that killed my brother.” - -With that I went from him. - - - - - CHAPTER XLII. - JASON’S SECOND VISIT. - -It behooves me now to pass over a period of two years during which so -little happened that bore directly upon the fortunes of any concerned -in this lamentable history that to touch upon them would be to specify -merely the matter-of-fact occurrences of ordinary daily life. To me -they were an experience of peace and rest such as I had never yet -known. I think--a long sleep on the broad sands of forgetfulness, -whitherward the storm had cast me, and from which it was to tear me by -and by with redoubled fury and mangle and devour my heart in -gluttonous ferocity. - -As yet, however, the moment had not come, and I lived and went my way -in peace and resignation. - -The first forewarning came one September afternoon of that second year -of rest. - -I had been butterfly-hunting about the meadows that lay to the west of -the city, when a particularly fine specimen of the second brood of -Brimstone tempted me over some railings that hedged in the ridge of a -railway cutting that here bisected the chalky slopes of pasture land. -I was cautiously approaching my settled quarry, net in hand, when I -started with an exclamation that lost me my prize. - -On the metals, some distance below, a man whose attitude seemed -somehow familiar to me was standing. - -I shaded my eyes with my hand and looked down, with bewilderment and a -little fear constricting my heart. - -He stood very still, staring up the line, and a thickness came in my -throat, so that I could not for the moment call to him as I wanted to. -For there was an ominous suggestion in his posture that sent a wave of -sickness through me--a suggestion of rigid expectation, like that one -might fancy a victim of the old reign of terror would have shown as he -waited his turn on the guillotine. - -And as I paused in indecision--at that moment came a surging rumble -and a puff of steam from a dip in the hills a hundred yards away, and -the figure threw itself down, with its neck stretched over the shining -vein of iron that ran in front of it. And I cried “Jason!” in a -nightmare voice, and had hardly strength to turn my head away from the -sight that I knew was coming. Yet through all my sick panic the shadow -of a thought flashed--blame me for it who will--“Let me bear it and -not give way, for he is taking the sure way to end his terror.” - -The thunder of the monster death came with the thought--shook the air -of the hills--broke into a piercing scream of triumph as it rushed -down on its victim--passed and clanged away among the hollows, as if -the crushed mass in its jaws were choking it to silence. Then I -brushed the blind horror from my eyes and looked down. - -He was lying on the chalk of the embankment below me; he was stirring; -he sat up and looked about him with a bewildered stare. The tragedy -had ended in bathos after all. At the last moment courage had failed -the poor wretch and he had leaped from the hurtling doom. - -Shaking all over, I scrambled, slipping and rolling, down the slope, -and landed on my feet before him. - -“Up!” I cried; “up! Don’t wait to speak or explain! They’ll telegraph -from the next stopping-place, and you’ll be laid by the heels for -attempted suicide.” - -He rose staggering and half-fell against me. - -“Renny,” he whimpered in a thick voice and clutched at my shoulders to -steady himself. “My God! I nearly did it--didn’t I?” - -“Come away, I tell you. It’ll be too late in another half-hour.” - -I ran him, shambling and stumbling, down the cutting till we had made -a half-circuit of the town and were able to enter it at a point due -east to that we had left. Then at last, on the slope of that quiet -road we had crossed when escaping from Duke, I paused to gather breath -and regard this returned brother of mine. - -It was a sorry spectacle that met my vision, a personality pitiably -fallen and degraded during those thirty months or so of absence. It -was not only that the mere animal beauty of it was coarsened and -debauched into a parody of itself, but that its informing spirit was -so blunted by indulgence as to have lost forever that pathetic dignity -of despair, with which a hounding persecution had once inspired it. - -As I looked at him, at his dull, bloodshot eyes and loose pendulous -lower lip, my heart hardened despite myself and I had difficulty in -addressing him with any show of civility. - -“Now,” I said, “what next?” - -He stared at me quite expressionless and swayed where he stood. He was -stupid and sodden with drink, it was evident. - -“Let’s go home,” he said. “I’m heavy for sleep as a hedgehog in the -sun.” - -I set my lips and pushed him onward. It was hopeless entirely to think -of questioning him as to the reason of his sudden reappearance, and -under such circumstances, in his present state. The most I could do -was to get him within the mill as quietly as possible and settle him -somewhere to sleep off his debauch. - -In this I was successful beyond my expectations, and not even my -father, who lay resting in his room--as he often did now in the hot -afternoons--knew of his return till late in the evening. - -In the fresh gloom of the evening he stirred and woke. His brain was -still clouded, but he was in, I supposed, such right senses as he ever -enjoyed now. At the sound of his moving I came and stood over him. He -stared at me for a long time in silence, as he lay. - -“Do you know where you are?” I said at last. - -“Renny--by the saints!” He spoke in a dry, parched whisper. “It’s the -mill, isn’t it?” - -“Yes; it’s the mill. I brought you here filthy with drink, after you’d -tried to throw yourself under a train and thought better of it.” - -He struggled wildly into a sitting posture and his eyelids blinked -with horror. - -“I thought of it all the way in the train--coming up--from London,” he -said in a shrill undervoice. “When I got out at the station I had some -more--the last straw, I suppose--for I wandered, and found myself -above the place--and the devil drove me down to do it.” - -“Well, you repented, it seems.” - -“I couldn’t--when I heard it. And the very wind of it seemed to tear -at me as it passed.” - -“What brings you to London? I thought you were still abroad.” - -“What drove me? What always drives me? That cruel, persecuting demon!” - -“He found you out over there, then?” - -“I can’t hide from him. I’ve never had a week of rest and peace after -that first year. It was all right then. I threw upon the green cloth -the miserable surplus of the stuff you lent me and won. For six months -we lived like fighting cocks. We dressed the young ’un in the color -that brought us luck. My soul, she’s a promising chick, Renny. You’re -her uncle, you know; you can’t go back from that.” - -“Where did he come across you?” - -“In a kursaal at Homburg. We were down in the mouth then. Six weeks of -lentils and sour bread. I saw him looking at me across the petits -chevaux table--curse his brute’s face! We never got rid of him after -that. Give me some drink. My heart’s dancing like a pea on a drum.” - -“There’s water on the wash-hand stand.” - -“Don’t talk like that. There’s a fire here no water can reach.” - -“I see there is. You’ve added another strand to the rope that’s -dragging you down.” - -He fell back on the bed, writhing and moaning. - -“What’s the good of moralizing with a poor fool condemned to -perdition? It’s my only means of escaping out of hell for a moment. -Sometimes, with that in me, I’m a man again.” - -“A man!” - -“There--get it for me, like a dear old chap, and don’t talk. It’s so -easy for a saint to point a moral.” - -He was so obviously on the verge of utter collapse that I felt the -lesser responsibility would be to humor him. I fetched what he begged -for and he gulped down a wineglassful of the raw stuff. - -“Now,” I said, “are you better?” - -“A little drop more and I’m a peacock with my tail up.” He tossed off -a second dose of almost like proportion. - -“Now,” he said, dangling his legs over the bedside, and giving a -foolish reckless laugh, “question, mon frère, and I will answer.” - -Though his manner disgusted and repelled me, I must needs get to the -root of things. - -“You fled from him to England again?” - -“To London, of all places. It’s the safest in the world, they say; -where a man may leave his wife and live in the next street for -twenty-five years without her knowing it.” - -“You haven’t left yours?” - -“No--we stick together. Zyp’s trumps, she is, you long-faced -moralizer; not that she holds one by her looks any longer. And that’s -to my credit for sticking to her. You missed something in my being -beforehand with you there, I can tell you.” - -Was this pitiful creature worth one thrill of passion or resentment? I -let him go on. - -“For months that devil followed us,” he said. “At last he forced a -quarrel upon me in some vile drinking-place and brought me a challenge -from the man he was seconding. You should have seen his face as he -handed it to me! It took all the fighting nerve out of me. I swear I -would have stood up to his fellow if he had found another backer.” - -“And you ran away?” - -“What else could I do?” - -“And he pursued you again?” - -“There isn’t any doubt of it--though his dreadful face hasn’t appeared -to me as yet.” - -“You had the nerve, it seems, to travel down here all alone?” - -“I borrowed it. Sometimes now, when the stuff runs warm in me, I feel -almost as if I could turn upon him and defy him. I’m in the mood at -this moment. Why doesn’t he come when I’m ready for him? Oh, the -brute! The miserable, cowardly brute!” - -He jumped to his feet, gnashing his teeth and shaking his fists -convulsively in the air. - -As he stood thus, the door of the room opened, and I turned to see my -father fall forward upon his face, with a bitter cry. - - - - - CHAPTER XLIII. - ANOTHER RESPITE. - -Jason stood looking stupidly down on the prostrate form, while I ran -to it and struggled to turn it over and up into a sitting posture. - -“Father!” I cried, “I’m here--don’t you know me?”--then I turned -fiercely to my brother and bade him shift his position out of the -range of the staring eyes. - -“What’s the matter?” he muttered, sullenly. “I’ve done no harm. Can’t -he see me, even, without going off into a fit?” - -“Get further away; do you hear?” - -He shambled aside, murmuring to himself. A little tremulous sigh -issued from the throat of the poor stricken figure. I leaned over, -seized the bottle of brandy from the bed, and moistened his lips with -a few drops from it. - -“Does that do you good, dad?” - -He nodded. I could make out that he was trying to speak, and bent my -head to the weak whisper. - -“I saw somebody.” - -“I know--I know. Never mind that now. Leave it all to me.” - -“You’re my good son. You won’t let him rob me, Renny?” - -“In an hour or two he shall be packed off. You needn’t even see him -again.” - -“Is he back in England?” - -“In London, yes.” - -“What does he want?” - -“To see us--that’s all.” - -“Not money?” - -“No, no. He isn’t in need of that just now. Can you move back to your -bed, do you think, if I help you?” - -“You won’t let him come near me?” - -“He shall go straight from this room out of the house.” - -“Come,” he said, presently; “I’ll try.” - -I almost lifted him to his feet, and he clung to my arm, stumbling -beside me down the passage to his room. - -When he was lying settled on his bed, and at ease once more, I -returned to my brother. - -He was sitting in a maudlin attitude by the window, and I saw that he -had been at the bottle again. - -“Now,” I said, sternly, “let’s settle the last of this with a final -question: What is it you want?” - -He looked up at me with an idiotic chuckle. - -“Wand? What everybody’s always wanding, and I most of all.” - -“You mean more money, I suppose?” - -“More? Yes, mush more--mush more than you gave me last time, too.” - -“Not so much, probably. But lest Zyp should starve I’ll send you what -I can in the course of a few days.” - -He rose with a feebly menacing look. - -“I’m not going till I get what I wand. I wand my part of the treasure. -I know where it’s hid, you fool, and I’m wound up for a try at it. Ge’ -out of my way! I’ll go and help myself.” - -He made a stumbling rush across the room and when I interposed myself -between the door and him he struck out at me with a blow as aimless -and unharmful as a baby’s. - -“If you don’t knock under at once,” I said, “I swear I’ll tie you up -and keep you here for Duke’s next coming.” - -He stood swaying before me a moment; then suddenly threw himself on -the bed, yelping and sobbing like a hysterical school-girl. - -“It’s too cruel!” he moaned. “You take advantage of your strength to -bully me beyond all bearing. Why shouldn’t I have my share as well as -you?” - -“Never mind all that. Give me your address if you want anything at -all.” - -He lay some time longer yet; then fetched out a pencil and scrap of -paper and sulkily scrawled what I asked for. - -“Now”--I looked at my watch--“there’s a train back to town in half an -hour. You’d best be starting.” - -“Nice hospitality, upon my word. Supposing I stop the night?” - -“You’re not going to stop the night, unless you wish to do so in the -street.” - -“I’ve a good mind to, you beast, and bring a crowd about the place.” - -“And Duke with it, perhaps--eh?” - -His expression changed to one most fulsomely fawning. - -“Renny,” he said, “you can’t mean to treat me, your own brother, like -this? Let’s have confidence in one another and combine.” He gave a -little embarrassed laugh. “I know where the treasure’s hid, I tell -you. S’posing we share it and----” - -He stopped abruptly, with an alarmed look. Something in my face must -have forewarned him, for he walked unsteadily to the door, glancing -fearfully at me. Passing the brandy bottle on his way, he seized it -with sudden defiance. - -“I’ll have this, anyhow,” he murmured. “You won’t object to my taking -that much away.” - -Hugging it to his breast under his coat, he went from the room. I -followed him down the stairs; saw him out of the house; shut the door -on him. Then I listened for his shuffling footstep going up the yard -and away before I would acknowledge to myself that he had been got rid -of at a price small under the circumstances. - -I remained at my post for full assurance of his departure for many -minutes after he had left, and when at last I stole up to my father’s -room I found the old man fallen into a doze. Seen through the wan -twilight how broken and decaying and feeble he seemed! - -I sat by him till he stirred and woke. His eyes opened upon me with a -pleased look at finding me beside him, and he put out a thin rugged -hand and took mine into it. - -“I’ve been asleep,” he said. “I dreamed a bad son of mine came back -and terrified the old man. It was a dream, wasn’t it, Renny?” - -“Only a dream, dad. Jason isn’t here.” - -“I thought it was. It didn’t trouble me much, for all that. I learned -confidence in the presence of this strong good fellow here.” - -“Dad, we’ve £30 left of the fifty I raised two months ago on that -Julian medallion. May I have ten of them?” - -“Ten pounds, Renalt? That’s a mighty gap in the hoard.” - -“I want it for a particular purpose. You can trust me not to ask you -if it were to be avoided.” - -He gave a deep sigh. - -“Take it, then. It isn’t in you to misapply a trust.” - -He turned his face away with a slight groan. Poor old man! My soul -cried out with remorse to so trouble his confidence in me. Yet what I -proposed seemed to me best. - -He would not rise and come down to supper when I suggested it. - -“Let me lie here,” he said. “Sometimes it seems to me, Renalt, I’m -breaking up--that the wheel down there crows and sings for a victim -again.” - -It was the first time I had ever heard him directly refer to this -stormy heart of the old place, that had throbbed out so incessantly -its evil influence over the lives shut within range of it. It was -plunging and murmuring now in the depths below us, so insistent even -at that distance that the soft whining of the stones in our more -immediate neighborhood was scarcely audible. - -“It’s a bewildering discovery,” he went on, “that of finding oneself -approaching the wonderful bourne one has struggled toward so long. I -don’t think I’m afraid, Renalt, lying here in peace and watching my -soul walk on. Yet now, though I know I have done two great and wicked -deeds in my lifetime, I wouldn’t put off the moment of that coming -revelation by an hour.” - -I stroked his hand, listening and wondering, but I made no answer. - -“It’s like being a little child,” he said; “fascinated and compelled -toward a pleasant fright. When you were a toddling baby, if one came -at you menacing and growling in fun, you’d open your eyes in doubt -with fear and laughter; and then, instead of flying the danger, would -run at it half-way and be caught up in daddy’s arms and kissed. That -seems to illustrate death to me now. The heart of that grim, time-worn -playfellow may be very soft, after all. It’s best not to cry out, but -to run to him and be caught up and kissed into forgetfulness.” - -Oh, my father! How in my soul did I echo your words! - -He wandered on by such strange sidewalks till speech itself seemed to -intermingle with the inarticulate language of dream. Is there truth -after all in the senile visions of age that can penetrate the veil of -the supernal, though the worn and ancient eyes are dim with cataracts? - -As I sat alone with my thoughts that night many emotions, significant -or pathetic, wrought changing phantoms of the shadows in the dimly -lighted room. Sometimes, shapeless and full of heavy omen, they -revolved blindly about that dark past life of my father, a little -corner of the curtain over which had that evening been lifted for my -behoof. Sometimes they thrilled with spasms of pain at the prospect of -that utter loneliness that must fall upon me were the old man’s quiet -foretelling of his doom to justify itself. Sometimes they took a red -tinge of gloom in memory of his words of self-denunciation. - -What had been a worser evil in him than that long degrading of his -senses? Yet, of the “wicked deeds” he had referred to, that which -could hardly be called a “deed” was surely not one. Perhaps, after -all, they were nothing but the baseless product of a fancy that had -indulged morbidity until, as with Frankenstein, the monster it had -created mastered it. - -Might this not be the explanation of all? Even of that eerily -expressed fear of his, that had puzzled me in its passing, that the -wheel was calling for a victim again? - - - - - CHAPTER XLIV. - THE SECRET OF THE WHEEL. - -The day that followed the unlooked-for visit of my brother Jason to -the mill my father spent in bed. When, in the morning, I took him up -his breakfast, I could not help noticing that the broad light flooding -the room emphasized a change in him that I had been only partly -conscious of the evening before. It was as if, during the night, the -last gleams of his old restless spirit had died out. I thought all -edges in him blunted--the edges of fear, of memory, of observation, of -general interest in life. - -The immediate cause of this decline was, with little doubt, the shock -caused by my brother’s unexpected return. To this I never again heard -him allude, but none the less had the last of his constitution -succumbed to it, I feel sure. - -The midday post brought me a letter, the sight of which sent a thrill -through me. I knew Zyp’s queer crooked hand, that no dignity of years -could improve from its immature schoolgirl character. She wrote: - - “Dear Renny: Jason told you all, I suppose. We are back again, and - dependant on dad’s bounty, and yours. Oh, Renny, it goes to my heart - to have to wurry you once more. But we are in soar strates, and so - hampered in looking for work from the risk of coming across him again. - At present he hasn’t found us out, I think, but any day he may do so. - If you could send us ever so little it would help us to tide over a - terruble crisus. The little one is wanting dainties, Renny; and we--it - is hard to say it--bread sometimes. But she will only eat of the best, - and chocalats she loves. I wish you could see her. She is my own - fairy. I work the prettiest flowers into samplers, and try to sell - them in the shops; but I am not very clever with my needel; and Jason - laughs at them, though my feet ake with walking over these endless - paving stones. Renny, dear, I must be a beggar, please. Don’t think - hardly of me for it, but my darling that’s so pretty and frale! Oh, - Renny, help us. Your loving sister, - - Zyp.” - - “What you send, if annything, please send it to me. That’s why I write - for the chief part. Jason would give us his last crust; but--you saw - him, Renny, and must know.” - -I bowed my head over the queer, sorrowful little note. That this bold, -reliant child of nature should come to this! There and then I vowed -that, so long as I had a shilling I could call my own, Zyp should -share it with me, at a word from her. - -I wrote to her to this effect. I placed my whole position before her -and bade her command me as she listed; only bearing in mind that my -father, old and broken, had the first claim upon me. Then I went out -and bought the largest and most fascinating box of chocolates I could -secure, and sent it to her as a present to my little unknown niece, -and forwarded also under cover the order for the £10. - -A day or two brought me an acknowledgment and answer to my letter. The -latter shall forever remain sacred from any eyes but mine; and, unless -man can be found ready to brave the curse of the dead, shall lie with -me, who alone have read it, in the grave. - -On the morning preceding that of its arrival, a fearful experience -befell me, that was like to have choked out my soul then and there in -one black grip of horror. - -All that first day after Jason’s visit my father lay abed, and, -whenever I visited him, was cheerfully garrulous, but without any -inclination to rise. The following morning also he elected to have -breakfast as before in his room; and soon after the meal he fell into -a light doze, in which state I left him. - -It was about 11 o’clock that, sitting in the room below, I was -startled by hearing a sudden thud above me that shook the beams of the -ceiling. I rushed upstairs in a panic and found him lying prostrate on -the floor, uninjured apparently, but with no power of getting to his -feet again. - -“What’s this?” I cried. “Dad! Are you hurt?” - -He looked at me a little wondering and confused, but answered no, he -had only slipped and fallen when rising to don his clothes. - -I lifted him up and he couldn’t stand, but sunk down on the bed again -with a blank, amazed look in his face. - -“Renalt,” he said, in a thin, perplexed voice, “what’s happened to the -old man? The will was there, but the power’s gone.” - -Gone it was, forever. From that day he walked no more--did nothing but -lie on his back, calm and unconcerned for the most part, and fading -quietly from life. - -But in the first discovery of his enforced inertness, some peculiar -trouble, unconnected with the certain approach of death, lay on him -like a black jaundice. Sitting by his side after I had got him back -upon the bed, I would not break the long silence that ensued with -shallow words of comfort, for I thought that he was steeling his poor -soul as he lay to face the inevitable prospect. - -Suddenly he turned on the bed--for his face had been darkened from -me--and looked at me with his lips trembling. - -“What is it, dad?” - -“I’m down, Renny. I shall never rise again.” - -“You’ll rest, dad; you’ll rest. Think of the peace and quiet while I -sit and read to you and the sun comes in at the window.” - -“Good lad! It isn’t that, though rest has a beautiful sound to me. -It’s the thought--harkee, Renny! It’s the thought that a task I’ve not -failed in for twenty years and more must come to be another’s.” - -“What task?” - -“There are ears in the walls. Closer, my son. The task of oiling the -wheel below.” - -“Shall I take it up, dad? Is that your wish?” - -I answered stoutly, though my heart sunk within me at the prospect. - -“You or nobody, it must be. Are you afraid?” - -“I wish I could say I wasn’t.” - -He clutched my hand in tremulous eagerness. - -“Master it! You must, my lad! Much depends on it. They whisper the -room is haunted. Not for you, Renalt, if for anybody. Haven’t I been -familiar with it all these years, and yet I lie here unscathed? How -can it spare the evil old man and hurt the just son?” - -He half-rose in his bed and stared with dilated eyes at the wall. - -“You are there!” he cried, in a loud, quavering voice. “Out of the -years of gloom and torture you menace me still! Why, it was just, I -say! How could I have clung to my purpose and defied you, otherwise? -You will never frighten me!” - -He fell back, breathing heavily. In sorrow and alarm I bent over him. -Suddenly conscious of my eyes looking down upon him, he smiled and a -faint flush came to his cheek. - -“Dreams and shadows--dreams and shadows!” he murmured. “You will take -up my task, Renalt?” - -“Must I, dad?” - -“Oh, be a man!” he shrieked, grasping at me. “I have defied it--I, the -sinner! And how can it hurt you?” - -“Is it so necessary?” - -“It’s the key to all--the golden key! Were it to rust and stop, the -secret would be open to any that might look, and the devil have my -soul.” - -“Do you wish me, then, to learn the secret--whatever it is?” - -He looked at me long, with a dark and searching expression. - -“I ask you to oil the wheel,” he said at length--“nothing more.” - -“Very well. I will do what you ask.” - -He gave a deep sigh and lay back with his eyes closed. I saw the faint -color coming and going in his face. Suddenly he uttered a cry and -turned upon me. - -“My son--my son! Bear with me a little longer. It is an old habit and -for long made my only joy in a dark world. I find it hard to part with -my fetish.” - -“I don’t want you to part with it. What does it matter? I will oil the -wheel and you shall rest in peace that your task is being faithfully -performed by another.” - -“Hush! You don’t mean it, but every word is a reproach. I’ve known so -little love; and here I would reject the confidence that is the sign -of more than I deserve. For him, the base and cruel, to guess at it, -and you to remain in ignorance! Renalt, listen; I’m going to tell -you.” - -“No, dad; no!” - -“Renalt, you won’t break my heart? What trust haven’t you put in me? -And this is my return! Feel under my pillow, boy.” - -“Oh, dad; let it rest!” - -Eagerly, impatiently, he thrust in his own hand and brought forth a -shining key. - -“Take it!” he cried. “It opens the box of the wheel. But first lower -the sluice and turn the race into the further channel. You will see a -rope dangling inside in the darkness. Hold on to it and work the wheel -round with your hands till a float projecting a little beyond its -fellows comes opposite you. In this you’ll find a slit cut, ending in -an eye-hole. Pass the rope, as it dangles, into this hole, and keep it -in place by a turn of the iron button that’s fixed underneath the -slit. Now step on to the broad float, never letting go the rope, and -the weight of your body will turn the wheel, carrying you downward -till a knot in the rope stops your descent.” - -“What then, dad?” - -“My son--you’ll see the place that for twenty years has held the -secret of my fortune.” - - - - - CHAPTER XLV. - I MAKE A DESCENT. - -If it had many a time occurred to me, since first I heard of the jar -of coins, that the secret of their concealment was connected somehow -within the room of silence, it must have done so from that old -association of my father with a place that the rest of us so dreaded -and avoided. The scorn of superstitious terror that he showed in his -choice; the certainty that none would dream of looking there; the -encouragement his own mysterious actions gave to the sense of a -haunting atmosphere that seemed ever to hang about the neighborhood of -the room--these were all so many justifications of the wisdom of his -choice. Now I understood the secret of that everlasting lubrication; -for had anything happened, when he might chance to be absent, to choke -or damage the structure of the ancient wheel, the stoppage or ruin -ensuing might have laid bare the hiding-place to any curious eye; for, -as part of his general policy, I conclude, no veto except the natural -one of dread was ever laid on our entering the room itself if we -wished to. - -“Well,” I said, stifling a sigh that in itself would have seemed a -breach of confidence, “when am I to do my first oiling, father?” - -“It wasn’t touched yesterday, Renalt. From the first I have not failed -to do it once, at least, in the twenty-four hours.” - -“You would like me to go now--at once?” - -“Ah! If you will.” - -“Very well.” - -As I was leaving the room he called me back. - -“There’s the oil can in yonder cupboard and a bull’s-eye lantern fixed -in a belt. You will want to light that and strap it round you.” - -I went and fetched them, and, holding them in my hand, asked him if -there was anything more. - -“No,” he said; “be careful not to let go the rope; that’s all.” - -“Why do you want me to go down, dad? Let me just do the oiling and -come away.” - -“No, now--now,” he said, with feverish impatience. “The murder’s out -and my conscience quit of it. You’ll satisfy me with a report of its -safety, Renalt? There’s a brave fellow. It would be a sore thing to -compose myself here to face the end, and not know but that something -had happened to your inheritance.” - -My spirit groaned, but I said to him, very well; I would go. - -He called to me once more, and I noticed an odd repression in his -voice. - -“Assure yourself, and me, of the safety of the jar. Nothing else. If -by chance you notice aught beyond, keep the knowledge of it locked in -your breast--never mention it or refer to it in any way.” - -Full of dull foreboding of some dread discovery, I left him and went -slowly down the stairs. - -I paused outside the ominous door, with a thought that a little -whisper of laughter had reached my ears from its inner side. Then, -muttering abuse on myself, for my cowardice, I pushed resolutely at -the cumbrous oak and swung it open. - -A cold, vault-like breath of air sighed out on me, and the marrow in -my bones was conscious of a little chill and shiver. But I strode -across the floor without further hesitation and fetched from my pocket -the iron key. The hole it fitted into was near the edge of the great -box that inclosed the wheel. Standing there in close proximity to the -latter, I was struck by the subdued character of the flapping and -washing sounds within. Heard at a distance, they seemed to shake the -whole building with their muffled thunder. Here no formidable uproar -greeted me; and so it was, I conclude, from the concentration of noise -monopolizing my every sense. - -I put in the key, swung open the door--and there before me was a -section of a huge disk going round overwhelmingly, and all splashed -and dripping as it revolved, with great jets of weedy-smelling water. - -I say “disk,” for the arms to this side had been boarded in, that -none, I supposed, might gather hint of what lay beyond. - -The eyes into which the shaft ends of the wheel fitted were sunk in -the floor level, flush with the lintel of the cupboard door that lay -furthest from the window; so that only the left upper quarter of the -slowly spinning monster was visible to me. - -It turned in an oblong pit, it seemed, wooden in its upper part, but -going down into a narrow gully of brick, at the bottom of which the -race boomed and roared with a black sound of fury. - -If the hollow thunder of the unseen torrent had been dismal to hear, -the sight of it boiling down there in its restricted channel was awful -indeed. From the forward tunnel through which it escaped into the tail -bay, a thin streak of light tinged the plunging foam of it with green -phosphorescence and made manifest the terror of its depths. - -For all my dread of the place, a strange curiosity had begun to usurp -in me the first instincts of repulsion. Though I had been in the room -some minutes, no malignant influence had crept over me as yet, and a -hope entered me that by thus forcing myself to outface the fear I had -perhaps triumphed over its fateful fascination. - -Leaving the door of the cupboard open, I hurried from the room, and so -to the rear of the building and the platform outside, where the heads -of the sluices were that regulated the water flow. Here, removing the -pin, I dropped the race hatch and so cut off the stream from the -wheel. - -Returning, I left open the door of the room that the wholesome -atmosphere outside should neighbor me, at least, and means of escape, -if necessary, readily offer themselves; and, lighting the lantern in -the belt, strapped the latter round my waist. - -When I came to the cupboard again the boom of water below had subsided -to a mouthing murmur, and the spin of the wheel was lazily relaxed, so -that before it had turned half its own circumference it stood still -and dripping. The sight when I looked down now was not near so -formidable, for only a band of water slid beneath me as I bent over. -Still, my heart was up in my mouth for all that, now the moment had -come for the essaying of my task. - -Oiling such parts of the machine as were within reach, I next grasped -the rope, which I had at the first noticed hanging from the darkness -above down into the pit, just clear of the blades, and set to peering -for the broader float my father had mentioned. Luckily, the last -motion of the wheel had brought this very section opposite me, so that -I had no difficulty in slipping in the rope and securing it by means -of the button underneath. - -Then, with a tingling of the flesh of my thighs and a mental prayer -for early deliverance, I stepped upon the blade, with a foot on either -side of the rope to which I clung grimly, and in a moment felt myself -going down into blackness. - -The wheel turned gently under my weight, giving forth no creak or -scream; and the dark water below seemed to rise at me rather than to -wait my sinking toward it. But though the drip and slime of the pit -shut me in, there was action in all I was doing so matter-of-fact as -to half-cure me for the moment of superstitious terror. - -Suddenly the wheel stopped with a little jerk and thud of the float on -which I stood against a bend in the tackle that passed through it. - -Holding on thus--and, indeed, the tension necessary to the act spoke -volumes for my father’s vigor of endurance--the light from the lantern -flashed and glowed about the interior structure of the wheel before -me. Then, looking between the blades--for the periphery of the great -circle was not boxed in--I saw revealed to me in a moment the secret I -had come to investigate. For, firmly set in a hole dug in the brick -side of the chasm at a point so chosen within the sweep of the wheel -that no spoke traversed it when it lay motionless, and at arm’s reach -only from one standing on the paddle, was a vessel of ancient pottery -about a foot in height, and so smeared and dank with slime as that a -careless grasp on its rim might have sent the whole treasure -clattering and raining through the wheel into the water below. - -Cautiously I put out a hand, grasped and gently shook the jar. A dull -jingle came from it, and so my task was accomplished. - -By this time, however, I was so confident of my position that I got -out the oil can and began to lubricate deliberately the further shaft -end of the wheel. While I was in the very act, a metallic glint, -struck by the lantern light from some object pinned on to the huge hub -that crossed the channel almost directly in front of my line of -vision, caught my eye and drove me to pause. I craned my neck to get a -nearer view, and gave so great a start of wonder as to lose my hold of -the oiler, which fell with clink and splash into the water underfoot. - -Nailed to the great axle was something that looked like the miniature -portrait of a man; but it was so stained and flaked by years of dark -decay that the features were almost obliterated. The face had been -painted in enamel on an oval of fluxed copper; yet even this had not -been able to resist the long corrosion of the atmosphere in which it -was held prisoner. - -I could make out only that the portrait was that of a young man of -fair complexion, thin, light-haired and dressed in the fashion of a -bygone generation. More I had not time to observe; for, as I gazed, -suddenly with a falling sway and a flicker the lantern at my waist -went out. - - - - - CHAPTER XLVI. - CAUGHT. - -In the first horror of blackness I came near to letting go the rope -and falling from my perch on the blade. My brain went with a swing and -turn and a sick wave overwhelmed my heart and flooded all my chest -with nausea. - -Was I trapped after all--and just when confidence seemed established -in me? For some evil moments I remained as I was, not daring to move, -to look up, even; blinded only by the immediate plunge into cabined -night, terrible and profound. - -I had left the matches above. There was no rekindling of the lamp -possible. Up through the darkness I must climb--and how? - -Then for the first time it occurred to me that my father’s directions -had not included the method of the return journey. Perhaps he had -thought it unnecessary. To clearer senses the means would have been -obvious--a scramble, merely, by way of the paddles, while the wheel -was held in position by the rope. - -In the confusion of my senses I thought that my only way was to swarm -up the dangling rope; and, without doubt, such was a means, if an -irksome one, of escape. Only I should have left the tackle anchored as -it was to the wheel. This I did not do, but, moved by a sudden crazy -impulse, stooped and turned the button that held all in place. - -It was good fortune only that saved me then and there from the full -consequences of my act. For, pulled taut as it was, and well out of -the perpendicular, the moment it was released the rope swung through -the slit like a pendulum, carrying me, frantically clinging to it with -one hand, off the paddle. Then, before I had time to put out my free -hand to ward off the danger, clump against the wheel I came in the -return swing, and with such force that I was heavily bruised in a -dozen places and near battered from my hold. - -Clawing and scratching like a drowning cat and rendered half-stupid by -the blow, I yet managed to grasp the rope with my other hand, and so -dangle there with little more than strength just to cling on. Once I -sought to ease the intolerable strain on my arms by toeing for -foothold on the paddle again, but the wheel, swinging free now, -slipped from under me, so that I was nearly jerked from my clutch. -Then there was nothing for it but to gather breath and pray that power -might come to me to swarm up the rope by and by. - -Drooping my head as I hung panting, the blackness I had thought -impenetrable was traversed by the green glint of light below that I -have mentioned. The sight revived me in a moment. It was like a -draught of water to a fainting soldier. Now I felt some connectedness -of thought to be possible. With a bracing of all my muscles, I passed -my legs about the rope and began toilingly to drag myself upward. - -I had covered half the distance, when I felt myself to be going mad. -How this was I cannot explain. The fight against material difficulties -had hitherto, it seemed, left tremors of the supernatural powerless to -move me. Now, in a moment, black horror had me by the heart. That I -should be down there--clambering from the depths of that secret and -monstrous pit, the very neighborhood of which had always filled me -with loathing, seemed a fact incredible in its stupendous unnature. -This may sound exaggerated. It did not seem so to me then. Despite my -manhood and my determination, in an instant I was mastered and insane. - -Still I clung to the rope and crawled upward. Then suddenly I saw why -night had fallen upon me in one palpable curtain when the lantern was -extinguished; for the door of the cupboard was closed. - -Had it only swung to? But what air was there in the close room beyond -to move it? - -Hanging there, like a lost and fated fiend, a bubble of wild, ugly -merriment rose in me and burst in a clap of laughter. I writhed and -shrieked in the convulsion of it; the dead vault rung with my -hysterical cries. - -It ceased suddenly, as it had begun, and, grinding my teeth in a -frenzy of rage over the thought of how I had been trapped and snared, -I swung myself violently against the door, and, letting go my hold at -the same instant, burst it open with the force of my onset and rolled -bleeding and struggling on the floor of the room beyond. - -After a minute or two I rose into a sitting posture, leaning on one -hand, half-stunned and half-blinded. A dense and deadly silence about -me; but this was penetrated presently by a fantastic low whispering -sound at my back, as if there were those there that discussed my fate. -I turned myself sharply about. Dull emptiness only of rotting floor -and striding rafter, and the gathered darkness of wall corners. - -The sense of fanciful murmuring left me, and in its place was born a -sound as of something stealthily crossing the floor away from me. At -the same instant the door of the room, which I had left open, swung -softly to on its hinges, and I was shut in. - -Then, with a fear that I cannot describe, I knew that the question was -to be put to me once more, and that I was destined to die under the -torture of it. - -I had no hope of escape--no thought that the passion that prompted me -to self-effacement might, diverted, carry me to the door in one hard -dash for light and liberty. The single direction in which my mind -moved unfettered was that bearing upon the readiest means to my -purpose--to die, and thereto what offered itself more insistently than -the black pit I had but now risen from? A run--a leap--a shattering -dive--and the murmuring water and oblivion would have me forevermore. - -I turned and faced the dark gulf. I pressed my hands to my bursting -temples to still the throb of the arteries that was blinding me. Then, -spasmodically, my feet moved forward a pace or two; I gave a long, -quivering sigh; my arms dropped inert, and a blessed warmth of -security gushed over all my being. - -Pale; luminous; most dear and pitiful, an angel stood before the -opening and barred my way. A shadow only--but an angel; a spirit come -from the sorrowful past to save me, as I, alas! had never saved her. - -I fell on my knees and held out my arms to her, with the drowning -tears falling over my cheeks. I could not speak, but only moan like a -child for cheer and comfort. And she smiled on me--the angel smiled on -me, as Dolly, sweet and loving, had smiled of old. Oh, God! Oh, God! -Thus to permit her to come from over the desolate waste for solace of -my torment! - -Was all this only figurative of the warring clash of passion and -conscience? The presence was to me actual and divine. It led me, or -seemed to lead, from the mouthing death--across the room--out by the -open door, that none had ever shut; and then it was no longer and I -stood alone in the gusty passage. - -I stood alone and cured forever of the terror of that mad and gloomy -place, whose influence had held me so long enthralled. Henceforth I -was quit of its deadly malice. I knew it as certainly as that I was -forgiven for my share in a most bitter tragedy that had littered the -shore of many lives with wreckage. For me, at least, now, the question -was answered--answered by the dear ghost of one whose little failings -had been washed pure in the bountiful spring of life. - -Presently, moved by the sense of sacred security in my heart, I passed -once more into the room of silence--not with bravado, but strong in -the good armor of self-reliance. I closed and locked the door of the -cupboard and walked forth again, feeling no least tremor of the -nerves--conscious of nothing to cause it. Thence I went out to the -platform, and, levering up the sluice, heard the water discharge -itself afresh into the hollow-booming channel that held the secret of -the wheel. - -And now, indeed, that my thoughts were capable of some order of -progression, that very secret rose and usurped the throne of my mind, -deposing all other claimants. - -What weird mystery attached to the portrait nailed to the axle? That -it was placed there by my father I had little doubt; but for what -reason and of whom was it? - -I recalled his wild command to me to never make reference to aught my -eyes might chance to light upon, other than the treasure I had gone to -seek. In that direction, then, nothing but silence must meet me. - -Of whom was the portrait, and what the mystery? - -On the thought, the attenuated voice of old Peggy came from the -kitchen hard by in a cracked and melancholy stave of her favorite -song: - - “I washed my penknife in the stream-- - Heigho! - I washed my penknife in the stream. - And the more I washed it the blood gushed out-- - All down by the greenwood side, O!” - -Old Peggy! When had she first established her ghoulish reign over us? -Had she been employed here in my mother’s time? I only knew that I -could not dispart her ancient figure and the mill in my memory. - -I pushed open the door and walked into the kitchen. She was sitting -darning by the frouzy little window--a great pair of spectacles on her -bony nose--and looked at me with an eye affectedly vacant, as if she -were a vicious old parrot speculating upon the most opportune moment -for a snap at me. - -“That’s a pretty song, Peggy,” I said. - -“And a pretty old ’ooman to sing it,” she answered. - -“Were you ever young, Peggy?” - -“Not that I remembers. I were barn wi’ a wrinkle in my brow like a -furrow-drain, and two good teeth in my headpiece.” - -“I dare say. How old were you when you first came here?” - -“How old? Old enow and young enow to taste wormwood in the sarce -gleeted fro’ three Winton brats.” - -“That’s no answer, you know. What’s your present age?” - -“One hundred, mebbe.” - -“Was Modred born when you came?” - -“Born? Eighteen bard months, to my sorrow. A rare gross child, to be -sure; wi’ sprawling fat puds like the feet o’ them crocodillies in the -show.” - -If Peggy could be trusted, I had got an answer which barred further -pursuit in that direction. She could never, I calculated, have been -personally acquainted with my mother or the circumstances of the -latter’s death. Indeed, I could not imagine her tolerated in a house -over which any self-respecting woman presided. - -Elsewhere I must look for some solution of the puzzle that had added -its complexity to a life already laboring under a burden of mystery. - -But in the meantime, an older vital question re-reared its head from -the very hearthstone of the mill, whereon it had lain so long in -stupor that I might have fancied it dead. - - - - - CHAPTER XLVII. - SOME ONE COMES AND GOES. - -November had come, with early frosts that flattened the nasturtiums in -the town gardens and stiffened belated bees on the Michaelmas daisies, -that were the very taverns of nature to lure them from their decent -homes. - -This year the complacent dogmatism of an ancient proverb was most -amply justified by results: - - “Be there ice in November that ’ill bear a duck, - There’ll be nothing after but sludge and muck.” - -The bellying winds of December were to drive up such clouds of rain -and storm that every gully in the meadows was to join its neighbor in -one common conspiracy against the land, and every stream to overrun -its banks, swollen with the pride of hearing itself called a flood. - -I had been reading one bright morning to my father until he fell -asleep, and was sitting on pensively with the book in my hand, when I -became aware of a step mounting the stairs below and pausing at the -sitting-room door. I rose softly at once, and, descending, came plump -upon Dr. Crackenthorpe, just as he was crossing the threshold to -enter. - -He was very sprucely dressed, for him, with a spray of ragged geranium -in his button-hole; and this, no less than the mere fact of his -presence in the house, filled me with a momentary surprise so great -that I had not a word to say. Only I bowed him exceedingly politely -into the parlor and civilly asked his business. - -An expression of relief crossed his face, I thought, as though he had -been in two minds as to whether I should take him by the collar and -summarily eject him there and then. - -“I haven’t seen your father about lately,” he jerked out, with some -parody of a smile that, I concluded, was designated to propitiate. “I -called to inquire if the old gentleman was unwell.” - -“He is practically an invalid,” I said; “he keeps entirely to his own -room.” - -“Indeed? I am concerned. Nothing serious, I trust? My services, I need -not say, are at the command of so valued an old friend.” - -“He needs no services but mine. It is the debility of old age, I -fear--nothing more.” - -“Yet he is a comparatively young man. But it’s true that to mortgage -one’s youth too heavily is to risk the premature foreclosing of old -age.” - -“I dare say. Was there any other object in your visit?” - -“One other--frankly.” - -He held out a damp hand to me. It shook rather. - -“I’m tired of this duel of cross-purposes. Will you agree to cry an -armistice--peace, if you like?” - -I took him in from head to foot--a little to his discomfiture, no -doubt. - -“Is this pure philanthropy, Dr. Crackenthorpe?” I said. - -“Most pure and disinterested,” said he. “I claim, without offense, the -grievance as mine, and I am the first to come forward and cry. Let -there be an end to it.” - -“Not so fast. You start on a fundamental error. A grievance, as I take -it, can only separate friends. There can be no question of such a -misunderstanding between us, for we have always been enemies.” - -“That’s your fancy,” cried he; “that’s your mistaken fancy! I’m not -one to wear my heart on my sleeve. If I’ve always repressed show of my -innate regard for you, you’re not to think it didn’t exist.” - -“Why waste so many words? That’s a good form of regard, to act the -bulldog to us, as you always did. It was a chastening sense of duty, I -suppose, that induced you to leave me for years under an ugly stigma -when you knew all the time that I was innocent. Is your valued -friendship for the old man best expressed by blackmailing and robbing -him on the strength of a fragment of circumstantial evidence?” - -“I have made myself particeps criminis. Does that go for nothing? A -little consideration was due to me there. A moiety of the treasure he -was squandering, I took advantage of my influence to secure in trust -for his children. You shall have it all back again some day, and -should show me profound gratitude in place of sinister disbelief.” - -“A fine cheapening of cupidity, and well argued. How long were you -thinking it out?” - -“As to that question of the suspicions you labored under--remember -that any conclusion drawn from circumstances was hypothetical. I may -have had a professional opinion as to the cause of death, and a secret -one as to the means employed. That was conjecture; but if you are -fair, you will confess that, by running away to London, you did much -to incriminate yourself in men’s minds.” - -“I never looked upon it in that light.” - -“I dare say not. Innocence, from its nature, may very often stultify -itself. I think you innocent now. Then I was not so certain. It was -not, perhaps, till your father sought to silence me, that my -suspicions were diverted into a darker channel.” - -“You put a good case,” I said, amazed at the man’s plausibility. “You -might convince one who knew less of you.” - -“You can prove nothing to my discredit. This is all the growth of -early prejudice. Think that at any moment I might have denounced him -and left the proof of innocence on his shoulders.” - -“And killed the goose with the golden eggs? I am not altogether -childish, Dr. Crackenthorpe, or quite ignorant of the first principles -of law. In England the burden of proof lies on the prosecution. How -would you have proceeded?” - -“I should at least have eased my conscience of an intolerable load and -escaped the discomforting reflection that I might be considered an -accessory after the fact.” - -“As indeed you are in the sight of heaven by your own showing, though -I swear my father is as innocent of the crime as I am.” - -He shrugged his shoulders with a deprecating gesture. - -“Anyhow, my position shows my disinterestedness,” he said. - -“And you are growing frightened over it, it seems. Well, take whatever -course pleases you. From our point of view, here, I feel quite easy as -to results.” - -“You misapprehend me. This visit is actuated by no motive but that of -friendliness. I wish to bury the hatchet and resume the pleasant -relations that existed of old.” - -“They were too one-sided. Besides, all the conditions changed upon my -return.” - -“And no one regretted it more than I. I have from the first been your -true friend, as I have attempted to show. You have a valuable -inheritance in my keeping. Indeed”--he gave a sort of high embarrassed -titter--“it would be to your real advantage to hand the residue over -to me before he has any further opportunity of dissipating it.” - -I broke into a cackle of fierce laughter. - -“So,” I cried, “the secret is out! I must compliment you on a most -insatiable appetite. But, believe me, you have more chance of -acquiring the roc’s egg than the handful!” - -He looked at me long and gloomily. I could feel rather than hear him -echo: “The handful.” But he made a great effort to resume his -conciliatory tone when he spoke again. - -“You jump to hot-headed conclusions. It was a simple idea of the -moment, and as you choose to misinterpret it, let it be forgotten. The -main point is, are we to be friends again?” - -“And I repeat that we can’t resume what never existed. This posturing -is stupid farce that had best end. Shall we make the question -conditional? That cameo, that you have come into possession of--we -won’t hazard a supposition by what means--restore it, at least, to its -rightful owner as an earnest of your single-mindedness. I, who am to -inherit it in the end, give you full permission.” - -He started back, and his face went the color of a withered aspen leaf. - -“It’s mine,” he cried, shrilly. “I wouldn’t part with it to the -queen!” - -“See then! What am I to believe?” - -I walked close up to him. His fingers itched to strike me, I could -see. - -“Dr. Crackenthorpe,” I said, “you had best have spared yourself this -errand. Why, what a poor scamp you must be to think to take me in with -such a fusty trick. Make the most of what you’ve got. You’ll not have -another stiver from us. Look elsewhere for a victim. Your evil mission -in life is the hounding of the wretched. Mine, you know. Some clews -are already in my hand, and, if there is one man in the world I should -rejoice to drag down--you are he!” - -He walked to the door, and, turning, stamped his foot furiously down -on the boards. - -“You bitter dolt!” he roared, with a withering sneer. “Understand that -the chance I gave you is withdrawn forever. There are means--there are -means; and I----” - -He stopped; gulped; put his hand to his throat, and walked out of the -house without another word. - -I stood looking after him, all blazing with anger. No least fear of -the evil creature was in me, but only a blank fierce astonishment that -he should thus have dared to brave me on my own ground. What cupidity -was that, indeed, that could not only think to gloss over long years -of merciless torment by a few false suave words, but could actually -hope to find the profit of his condescension in a post-prandial -gorging of the fragments his inordinate gluttony of avarice had passed -over! - -However, putting all thought of him from me, I returned to my father. - - - - - CHAPTER XLVIII. - A FRUITLESS SEARCH. - -One result of Dr. Crackenthorpe’s visit was that I determined to then -and there push my secret inquiries to a head in the direction of my -friend, the sexton of St. John’s. - -I had not seen or heard of this man since the day of his seizure in -the archway of the close, but I thought his attack must surely by now -have yielded and left him sane again. - -That very afternoon, leaving my father comfortably established with -book and paper, I walked over to the old churchyard under the hill and -looked about among the graves for some sign of him who farmed them. -The place was empty and deserted; it showed clearly that the hand of -order was withdrawn and had not been replaced. - -Not knowing whither to go to make inquiries, I loitered idly about -some little time longer, in the hope that chance might throw some one -who could direct me in my way. - -Within my vision two mounds only stood out stark and sterile from the -tangled green of Death’s garden, and one was Modred’s and the other -the grave of the murdered man. - -It was only a strange chance, of course, yet a strange chance it was -that should smite those two out of all the yard with barrenness. - -As I turned I was aware of a bent old man issuing from a side door of -the church with a bunch of keys in his hand. To him I walked and -addressed my inquiries. - -“Ah!” he said, struggling out of a violent fit of coughing. “George -White, sir? The man’s dismissed for drunkenness. To my sorrer, so it -is. I has to do his work till they finds a substitoot. It’ll be the -death of me this chill autumn.” - -“Do you know where he lives?” - -“He ain’t app’inted yet.” - -“George White, I mean?” - -“He lives, if living he is, ower at Fullflood yonder. I misremember -the number, but it’s either 17 or 27, or mebbe 74. They’ll tell you if -you ask. Not but what I’d leave him alone, if I was you, for he’ll do -you no good.” - -“He can’t do me any harm, at least. I think I’ll try.” - -“Go your courses, then. Young men are that bold-blooded. Go your -courses. You can’t miss if you follers my directions.” - -I had my own opinion as to that, but I tramped off to the district -indicated, which lay in the western quarter of the town. Chance put -out a friendly hand to me. - -I had paused in indecision, when a woman standing at an open door -behind me hailed another who was coming down the pavement with a -little basket over her arm. - -“Good-arternoon, Mrs. White,” said the first wife as the other came -up. “And how did ye find your marn?” - -I pricked up my ears. - -“No better and no worse, Mrs. Catty, and tharnk ye kindly.” - -“The horrers has left him, I’m told.” - -“Ye’re told true, but little recommends the going. His face is the -color o’ my apron here--an awesome sight. It’s the music membrim in -his stommick, ’tis said that’s out o’ toon.” - -“Ah, ma dear, I know it. It’s what the doctors call an orgin; and the -pain is grinding.” - -“God bless ye--it’s naught to what it were. ’Tis the colic o’ the mind -he suffers, one may say.” - -“Deary me, deary me! Poor Mr. White!” - -“I left him a-sitting before the infirmary fire in a happythetic -state, they names it, though to my mind he looked wretched.” - -“And so must you be to harve your marn in the house. Well, well--and -dismissed from his post, too, come rain or sunshine.” - -I hurried off, satisfied with what I had heard. If the woman with the -basket was not the sexton’s wife, there was no happy fortuity in fate. -For a moment I had thought I would address myself to her, but the -reflection that no good purpose could be answered thereby, and that by -doing so I might awaken suspicions where none existed, made me think -better of it. - -Expanding her allusions, I writ down in my mind that George White, -taken in hand by the police, had been remanded to the workhouse -infirmary pending his recovery from an attack of delirium tremens, and -such I found to be the case. Now the hope of getting anything in the -nature of conclusive proof from him seemed remote. At least no harm -could be done by me paying him a visit. - -Fortunately I discovered, upon presenting myself at the “house,” that -it was a visitors’ day, and that a margin yet remained of the time -limit imposed upon callers. - -I was referred to the infirmary doctor--a withered stick of a man, -with an unprofessional beard the color and texture of dead grass. This -gentleman’s broadcloth, reversing the order of things, seemed to have -worn out him, instead of he it, so sleek, imposing and many sizes too -large for him were his clothes. - -He listened with his teeth, it seemed, for his lip went up, exposing -them every time he awaited an answer. - -“George White? The man’s in a state of melancholia following alcoholic -excess. He is only a responsible creature at moments, and has -hallucinations. I doubt his recovery.” - -“I might take my chance of one of the moments, sir.” - -“You might, if you could recognize your opportunity. Is it important?” - -“Very. That’s no idle assertion, I assure you. He only knows the truth -of a certain matter, the solution of which affects many people.” - -“Well, you can try. I give you little hope. An attendant must be -within reach. There’s no calculating the next crazy impulse in such -cases.” - -An attendant took me in charge and convoyed me to the infirmary--a -cleanly bare room, with a row of bedsteads headed against a -distempered wall, and nailed to the latter over each patient’s pillow, -a diagnosis of his disease and its treatment, like a descriptive label -in a museum. - -Some of the beds were occupied; a convalescent pallid figure or two -lingered about the sunny windows at the end of the room, and seated -solitary before the fire was the foundering wreck of George White. - -The attendant briefly said, “That’s him,” and, retiring a short -distance away, leaned against a bedstead rail. I fetched a chair from -the wall and sat myself down by the poor shattered ruin. - -A hopeless vacuity reigned in his expression at first, and presently -he began to maunder and dribble forth a liquid patter of words all -unintelligible. - -By and by some connectedness was apparent in his wanderings. I stooped -my head to listen. - -“He’s alone and asleep--the only one. Time to try--sarftly, now--a fut -i’ the toe-hole wi’ caution--and I’m up and out. Curse the crumbling -clay. Ah! a bit’s fell on him! My God, what a grin! One eye’s open! If -I cud sweat to moisten it, now! I’m dry wi’ fire and dust! I’m farlin’ -back--I’m----” - -He half-rose to his feet; I put out a hand to control him, but he sunk -down again and into apathy in a moment. - -A few minutes and the stream of words was flowing once more. - -“Not so deep--not so deep, arter all. The tails o’ the warms wriggles -on the coffin, while their heads be stuck out i’ the blessed air. Two -fut, I make it. I cud putt my harnd through, so be as this cruel lid -would heist up. It’s breaking--the soil’s coming through the cracks. -It’s pouring in and choking me--it’s choking me, I say. Isn’t there -none to hear? Why, I’m sinking! The subsoil’s dropped in! I shall be -ten fut down and no chance if----” - -Again the struggle; again the collapse; and by and by, the monotonous -murmur gathering volume as it proceeded. - -“Sing, says you--and the devil drums i’ the pit if I so much as -whisper. Look’ee ther--at the white square o’ the sky. Thart’s what -keeps me going. If you was to blot thart out, he’d have me by the hip -wi’ a pinch like a bloodhound’s jaw. There’s summut darkens! Who’s -thart a-looking down? Why, you bloody murderer, I knows you! I found -you out, I did, you ugly cutthroat devil. Already dead, says you? Who -kills dead men? There bain’t a thing i’ the warld I’d hold my tongue -for but drink--you gie it me, then. What’s this? The bottle’s swarming -wi’ maggots--arnts, black arnts. You’re a rare villain! Not a doctor, -I say. A doctor don’t cut the weasands o’ dead men and let out the -worms--millions of them--and there’s some wi’ faces and shining rings -and gewgaws. The ungodly shall go down into the pit--help me out o’ -it--they’re burying me alive!” - -He leaped to his feet, with drawn, ashy face. The watchful attendant -was at his side in a moment and had put a restraining hand on him. - -“You’ll get nought out of him, sir,” he said. “It’s my belief he’ll -never utter sane word again.” - -As he spoke the sexton’s eyes lighted on me in their wild roving, -steadied, flickered and took a little glint of reason. Still gazing at -me, he sunk into his chair again. - -“Leave us alone for a minute,” I said to the man. “He seems to -recognize me, I think.” - -“As long as his eyes don’t wander, maybe,” he answered. “Keep ’em -fixed on you”--and he withdrew to his former standpoint. - -“George,” I said, in a low, distinct voice, “do you know me?” - -I held him with an intense gaze. He seemed struggling in an inward -agony to escape it. - -“George,” I said again, “do you know who I am?” - -“The grave yon, where no grass grows,” he muttered. - -“Yes, yes. Why doesn’t it grow there?” - -“Ask the----” - -“Ask whom? I’m listening.” - -“It’s he--oh, my God!” - -I saw the terror creep and flutter behind the surface of his skin. I -saw it leap out and heard a yell, as his eyes escaped their thraldom; -and on the instant the attendant was there and struggling with him. - -In the shock of it I jumped up and turned--and saw Dr. Crackenthorpe -standing in the doorway. - -I ran at him in a sort of frenzy. - -“What do you want?” I cried; “what are you here for?” - -I think I was about to strike him, when the wizened figure of the -doctor who had given me permission to enter thrust itself between us. - -“What’s all this?” he said, in a sharp, grating voice. “How dare you -make this uproar, sir?” - -I fell back, shaking with rage. All down the row of beds pale sick -faces had risen, looking on in wonder. Beside the fire my escort was -still struggling with the madman. - -“What right has he to be here--to come and spy upon me?” I cried. - -“This is simply outrageous! Dr. Crackenthorpe” (he glanced at the -newcomer with no very flattering expression) “is here to superintend -the removal of a patient of his. He must be protected from insult. I -rescind my permit. Johnson, see this man off the premises.” - -A second attendant advanced and took me, police fashion, by the elbow. -I offered no resistance. Impulse had made a fool of me, and I felt it. - -The sound of the scuffle by the fire still continued. As I passed Dr. -Crackenthorpe he made me a mocking bow, hat in hand. Then, waving me -aside as if I were some troublesome supplicant he desired to ignore, -he advanced further into the room. - -Then came a sudden thud and loud exclamation, at which both I and my -attendant turned. - -The madman had bested his enemy and dashed him to the floor. A moment -then he paused, his gasping mouth and pale eyes indicative of his -terror of the man approaching--a moment only, and he turned and fled. -I was conscious of a sudden breaking out of voices--of a fearful -screech ringing above them--of a hurried rush of shapes--of a bound -and crash and shattering snap of glass. It all happened in an instant, -and there was a jagged and gaping fissure in a window at the end of -the room--and George White was gone. - - - - - CHAPTER XLIX. - A QUIET WARNING. - -I fully expected to be summoned as a witness to the inquest held on -George White. However, as it turned out, they left me alone, and for -that I was thankful, though indeed I had little to fear from any -cross-examination; and Dr. Crackenthorpe would hardly have ventured -under the circumstances to use his professional influence to my -discomfiture, seeing that I had shown knowledge of the fact that -between him and the dead man was once, at least, some species of -understanding. So he gave his version of the affair, without any -reference to me, who indeed could hardly in any way be held -responsible for the catastrophe. - -And now he lay dead, the latest victim of the inquisition of the -wheel, I most fully believed; a poor wretch withered under its ban -that would reach, it seemed, to agents but remotely connected with the -dark history of its immediate neighbors. He was dead, and with him, I -could but think, had passed my one chance of probing the direful -mystery in that direction where the core of it festered. - -Thereafter for weeks I walked in a stubborn rebellion against fate, -intensified by the thought that this stultifying of my purpose had -come upon me on the heels of my triumphant mastery of that old weird -influence of the mill--a triumph that had seemed to pronounce me the -very chosen champion of truth to whom all ways to the undoing of the -wicked should be revealed. - -But, now, as the month drew to its close, a new anxiety came to humble -me with the pathos of the world, and to assimilate all restless -emotions into one pale fog of silence, gray and sorrowful. - -On a certain morning, looking in my father’s face when I brought him -his breakfast, I read something there, the import of which I would not -consider or dwell upon until I could escape and commune with myself -alone. - -There was little external change in him and he was bright and -cheerful. It was only a certain sudden sense of withdrawal that struck -a chill into me--a sense as if life, seeking to steal unobserved from -its ancient prison, knew itself noticed and affected to be dallying -simply with the rusted locks and bolts. - -Realizing this presently to the full, I determined then and there to -put everything else to one side and to devote myself single-handed to -the tender ministering to his last days upon earth. And grief and -sadness were mingled in me, for I loved the old man and could not but -rejoice that the inevitable should come to him so peacefully. But -prospect of the utter loneliness that would fall upon me when he was -gone woke a selfish resentment that he should be taken from me and -fought in my heart for mastery over the better emotion. - -Did he know? Not certainly, perhaps, for slowly dying men give little -thought to the way they wander. But something in the prospect opening -out before him must, I think, have struck him with a dawning marvel at -its strangeness; as a sleeper, wakened from a weird romance of -dreaming, finds a wonder of unfamiliarity in the world restored to -him. - -It may have been that some increase of care on my part making itself -apparent was the first warning to him that all was not as it used to -be, for there came a night when he called to me as I was leaving his -room--after seeing him comfortably established--in a voice with a -queer ring of emotion in it. - -“What is it, dad?” I asked, hurrying back to his bedside. - -“I’m wakeful to-night, my lad; well and easy, but wakeful.” - -“Shall I stop with you a bit longer?” - -I saw he wished it and sat myself down upon the foot of the bed. - -“Good lad,” he said. “I don’t deserve all this, Renalt. It should be a -blank and empty thing to review a life spent in idleness and -self-indulgence. I ought to feel that, and yet I’m at peace. Why -wasn’t I of your militant philosophers, who treating love like any -other luxury, find salve for the bitter sting of it in a brave -independence of righteousness!” - -“As well ask, dad, why in battle the bullets spare some and mangle -others.” - -“You mean the faculty of overriding fate is constitutional, not a -courageous theory, Renalt?” - -“Yet I think your philosopher would be the first to acknowledge its -truth.” - -“Of course. He’d have a principle to prove. But I can’t gather -consolation there for having wittingly sunk myself to the beasts.” - -“Dad!” - -“Why should I mince matters? Let me look at you full face. I have -never been a liar, but I’ve chosen to deceive myself into the belief -that mere brute self-indulgence was a fine revolt against the tyranny -of the gods.” - -“It may have been nature’s counter-irritant to unbearable suffering.” - -“Sophistry, my boy. It’s out of the kindness of your heart, but it’s -sophistry. Better to die shrieking under the knife than to live to be -a hopeless, disfigured cripple. Look at me lying here. What heritage -of virtue, what example of endurance, shall I leave to my children?” - -“You have never complained.” - -“No comfort, Renalt--none. I nursed my resentment from base fear only -that by revealing it, it would dissipate. With such a belief I have to -face the Supreme Court up there; and”--he looked at me -earnestly--“before very long, I think.” - -I shook my head in silence. I could find no word to say. - -“Am I afraid?” he went on, still intently regarding me. “I think -not--at present. Yet I have some bitter charges to answer.” - -“This rest will restore you again, dad.” - -He did not seem to hear me. His eyes left my face and he continued in -a murmuring voice: - -“The last dispossession the old suffer is sleep, it seems. Balm in -Gilead--balm in Gilead!” - -“What little breath will keep the spark alive,” I thought as I sat and -watched the worn quiet figure. The face looked as if molded out of wax -and so moved me that presently I must rise and bend over it, thinking -the end had actually come while I watched. - -With my rising, however, a sigh broke from it, and a little stir of -the limbs, so that my heart that had fallen leaped up again with -gladness. Then he looked up at me standing above him, and a smile -passed like a gleam of sunlight over his features. - -“I always loved you, my son Renalt,” he murmured, and, murmuring, fell -into a light trance once more. - -The following day there was no change in his condition. I could have -thought him floating out of life on that tide of dreaming thoughts -that seemed to bear him up so gently and so easily. When, at moments, -he would rise to consciousness of my presence, he would nod to me and -smile; and again sink back on the pillow of gracious somnolence. - -I had been sitting reading to myself in my father’s room and all was -glowing silence about me, when a sudden clap at the window-casement -made me start. I jumped to my feet and looked out. A vast gloomy -curtain of cloud was drawing up from the east; even as I looked, some -shafts of its bitterness drove through the joints of the lattice, -stabbing at me with points of ice, and I shivered, though the sunlight -was still upon me. - -The storm came on with incredible speed; within five minutes of my -rising clouds of hail were flogging the streets, and from a whirling -fog of night jangle of innumerable voices hooting and whistling broke -like a besieging cloud of Goths upon the ancient capital. - - - - - CHAPTER L. - STRICKEN DOWN. - -For ten minutes, during which the city was blind with hail, I could -see nothing but a thicket of white strings dense as the threads in a -loom; hear nothing but the pounding crash of thunder and fierce hiss -and clatter of the driving stones. Then darkness gathered within and -without, and down came the storm with an access of fury that seemed -verily as if it must flatten out the town like a scattered ants’ nest. - -So infernal for the moment was the uproar that I hurried to my -father’s side, fearful that his soul might actually yield itself to -the raging tyranny of its surroundings. - -He lay unmoved in the same quiet stupor of the faculties, unconscious, -apparently, that anything out of nature’s custom was enacting near -him. - -As suddenly as it had begun, the white deluge ceased, as though the -last of its reservoirs above were emptied. The reaction to comparative -silence was so intense that in the first joy of it one scarcely -harkened to the voice of a great wind that had risen and was following -on the heels of the storm, to batten like a camp follower on the -wreckage of the battle that had swept by. For four weary days it flew, -going past like an endless army, and laden clouds were its parks of -artillery and the swords of its bitterness never rested in their -scabbards. - -On that first evening, when the hailstorm had passed and light was -restored, I was standing by the window looking out on the bridge and -the street all freckled with white, when a low moaning sound came to -my ears. I turned sharply round, thinking it was my father, but he lay -peaceful and motionless. I hurried to the door and opened it, and -there in the passage outside was old Peggy, cast down upon her face, -and groaning and muttering in a pitiful manner. - -I gave her a little ungallant peck with my foot. - -“Now!” I cried, “what’s this? What are you doing?” - -Her face was hidden on her arm and she spoke up mumblingly. - -“Oh!” she said; “Lord--Lord! It bain’t worthy o’ you!” - -“What’s the matter, I say?” - -“Take the clean and well-preserved! There’s better fish than a poor -feckless old ’ooman all fly blown like a carkis wi’ ungodliness!” - -I gave her another little stir. - -“I repent!” she shrieked. “I’ll confess everything! Only spare me now. -Gie me a month--two months, to prepare my sore wicked soul for the -felon’s grave.” - -“Peggy,” I said, sternly, “get up and don’t make a fool of yourself.” - -She seemed to listen. - -“Is that you, Renalt?” she said, presently. - -“Get up--do you hear?” - -“Keep the bolt fro’ me. Pray to the Lord for a bad old ’ooman. Wrastle -for me, Renalt.” - -“Are you crazy?” - -She bumped her elbows on the floor as she lay, in fretful terror. - -“Wrastle--wrastle!” she whined. “Don’t waste your breath on axing -things. While you talk He enters.” - -“Who enters?” - -“The Lord of hosts. I saw His face at the window, and the breath o’ -His nostrils was like the sound o’ guns. I arlays meant to repent--I -swear it on the blessed book. It’s a wicked thing to compact wi’ the -prince o’ darkness. Believe me, truth, I arlays meant it, but the pot -must be boiled and the beds made and where were old Peggy’s time? You -wudn’t smite a body, Lord, for caring of her dooties, and I repent -now. It’s never too late over one sinner doing penance. Oh, Lord, take -the young and well-favored and gie crass Rottengoose a month for her -sins!” - -“Peggy, I haven’t a doubt you’ve plenty to do penance for. But have -you really the stupendous assurance to think that all this storm is -got up on your account? Get up, you old idiot! The thunder’s past and -there’s nothing to be afraid of now.” - -Her lean body went in with a great sigh. For some moments she lay as -she was; then cautiously twisted her head and peered up at me. - -“Sakes alive!” she muttered, listening. “Was it all for nowt, then?” - -I saw the craft come back to her withered eyes in the dusk. - -“Heave me up, Renalt,” she said. “The Lord has seen the wisdom o’ let -alone, praise to His mercy.” - -“Don’t presume on that, Peggy. He’ll call to you at His own time, -though it mayn’t be through a thunderstorm.” - -“Look to yourself, Renalt. The young twigs snap easiest. You may be -the first to go, wi’ the load o’ guilt you gathered in London yon for -company.” - -“Very likely. You asked me to pray for you just now, you know. What’s -on your mind, Peggy Rottengoose?” - -I had the old sinner to her feet by this time. Her face was a yellow, -haggard thing to look at--shining like stained brass. Something in it -seemed to convey to me that perhaps after all the angel of the storm -had struck at her in passing. - -She looked at me morosely and fearfully. - -“What but ministering to Satan’s children?” she said. - -“You graceless old villain, I’ve a mind to pitch you into the race.” - -I made a clutch at her as I spoke, but she evaded me with a wriggle -and a shrill screech. - -“I didn’t mean it! Let me go by!” - -“What have you got to repent of in the first place?” - -“I was stealing the pictur’ o’ Modred--there! No peace ha’ I hard -since I done it!” - -I let the old liar pass, and she shuffled away, hugging herself and -glancing round at me once or twice as if she still doubted the meaning -of my threat. I paid no more attention to her, but returned to my -father’s room. - -The old man lay on his back placid and unconcerned, but his eyes were -open and he greeted me with a cheerful little nod. - -Darkness deepened in the room, and the white face on the pillow became -a luminous spot set weirdly in the midst of it. I had not once till -then, I think, admitted a single feeling of disloyalty toward my -father to my heart. Now a little unaccountable stirring of impatience -and resentment awoke in me. I was under some undefinable nervous -influence, and was surely not true to myself in the passing of the -mood. It seemed suddenly a monstrous thing to me that he, the prime -author of all that evil destiny that had haunted our lives, should be -fading peacefully toward the grave, while we must needs live on to -outface and adjust the ugly heritage of responsibilities that were the -fruits of his selfish policy of inaction. - -Such sudden swift reactions from a long routine of endurance are -humanly inevitable. They may flame up at a word, a look, a shying -thought--the spark of divinity glowing with indignation over -intolerable injustice. Then the dull decorum of earth stamps it under -again and we go on as before. - -During that spell of rebellion, my soul passed in review the incidents -of a cruel visitation of a father’s sins upon his children. I saw the -stunted minds meanly nurtured in an atmosphere of picturesque -skepticism. I saw the natural outgrowth of this in a reckless -indifference to individual responsibility. Following thereon came one -by one the impulse to triumph by evil--the unchecked desire--the -shameless deed--the road, the river and the two lonely graves. - -I rose to my feet and paced the room to and fro, casting a resentful -glance now and again at the quiet figure on the bed. Driven to quick -desperation I strode to the door, opened it and descended the stairs. - -In the blaze of my anger I burst into the haunted room, thinking to -stay the monster with the mere breath of my fury. But the cold -blackness drove at me, and, for all my confidence, repelled me on the -very threshold. - -I rushed away to the sluice, let it fall and shut off the race. Then I -returned, breathless and panting, and looked at the open door. - -“You’re a very material devil,” I muttered; “a boy could silence your -voice, for all its boastfulness.” - -As I spoke, again a little ugly secret laugh seemed to issue from it. -Probably it was only an expiring screech of the axle, but it made my -blood run tingling for all that. - -I mounted the stairs, determinedly crushing down the demon of fear -that sought to unman me. - -“I have silenced its hateful voice,” I cried to myself, and whispered -it again as I re-entered my father’s room. - -The old man lay silent and motionless as I seated myself once more by -the window. Now the great blasts of tempest held monopoly of the -ghostly house, unpierced of that other voice that had been like the -grinding of the teeth of the storm. - -Presently I heard him stirring restlessly in his bed, and little -fitful moans came from his lips. His uneasiness increased; he muttered -and threw his arms constantly into fresh positions. Could it be that -my untoward silencing of that voice that for such long years had been -his counselor and familiar was making a vacancy in his soul into which -deadlier demons were stealing? - -I moved to the bed and looked down upon him. As I did so the old -tenderness reasserted itself and the mood of blackness passed away. If -he had bequeathed to us a dark heritage of suffering, it is by -suffering that the soul climbs from the bestial pitfalls of the -senses. - -As I leaned down to cover his chest that his restless tossing had -bared, a second tempest of hail swept furiously upon the town. I ran -to the window and looked out. In the flashing radiance of the lamp -that stood upon the bridge opposite--for night was now settled upon -the city--I saw the tumult of white beat upon the stones and rebound -from them and thrash all the road, as it were, with froth. - -Suddenly a figure started up in the midst of the flickering curtain of -ice. It was there in a moment--waving its wild arms--wringing its -hands--shrieking, I could have fancied, though no sound came to me. -But, in the wonder and instant of its rising, I knew it to be Duke’s. - -Hardly had I mastered the first shock of surprise when there came the -sound of a great cry behind me. I turned, and there was my father -sitting up in bed, and his face was ghastly. - -“The wheel!” he shrieked, in a suffocating voice; “the wheel! I’m -under it!” And fell back upon his pillow. - - - - - CHAPTER LI. - A MEETING ON THE BRIDGE. - -It was not immediate death that had alighted, but death’s forerunner, -paralysis. I realized this in a moment. The mute and stricken figure; -the closed eyes; the darkly flushed face wrenched to the right and the -flapping breath issuing one-sided from the lips--I needed no -experience to read the meaning of these. - -I ran to the head of the stairs and shrieked to old Peggy to come up. -Then I hurried to the dressing-table and lighted a candle that stood -thereon. As I took it in my hand to approach the bed, a pane in the -lattice behind me went with a splintering noise, and something whizzed -past my head like a hornet, and a fragment of plaster spun from the -wall near. At the same instant a little muffled sound, no louder in -the tumult of hail than the smack of an elastic band on paper, came -from the street outside. - -Instinctively I winced and dodged, not knowing for the moment what had -happened, then in the midst of my distraction, fury seized me like a -snake. - -The blind was up; my figure plainly visible from the bridge as I -crossed the room. The madman outside had shot at me, whether from pure -deviltry or because he took me for Jason I neither knew nor cared. -Coming on the head of my trouble, the deed seemed wantonly diabolical. -Had I been master of my actions I think I should then and there have -rushed forth and grappled with the evil creature and crushed the life -out of him. As it was I ran to the window and dashed it open and -leaned forth. - -He was there on the bridge still; standing up in the pelting storm; -bare-headed, fantastic--a thing of nameless expression. - -I shrieked to him and cursed him. I menaced him with my fists. For the -moment I was near as much madman as he. - -Perhaps some words of my outcry reached him through the hurtling of -the storm. Perhaps he recognized me, for I saw him shrink down and -cower behind the stones of the bridge. I rattled to the window, pulled -down the blind and turned myself to the stricken figure on the bed. As -I did so old Peggy came breathing and shambling into the room. - -“What’s to do?” she said, coughing feebly and glaring at me. “What’s -to do, Renalt?” - -“Look there! What’s happened--what’s the matter with him? It is death, -perhaps!” - -She shuffled to the bedside, holding in her groaning chest with one -hand. For a minute she must have stood gazing down. - -“Ay,” she said at last, leering round at me. “The Lord mistook the -room, looking in at winder. Ralph it was were wanted--not old Peggy, -praise to His goodness.” - -“Is he dying?” - -“Maybe--maybe not yet awhile. The dumbstroke have tuk him.” - -“Paralysis?” - -“So they carls it. Better ax the doctor.” - -“Look you to him, then, and look well, while I run out to seek for -one. I leave him in your charge.” - -I took her by the arm and stared in her face as I spoke. My expression -must have been frowning and threatening, but indeed I mistrusted the -old vagabond. She shrunk from me with a twitch of fear. - -“He’ll come round wi’ his face to the judgment,” she said; and I left -her standing by the bedside and hurried from the house. - -Leaving the yard, I turned sharply round upon the bridge. The storm -had yielded, but the ground was yet thickly strewed with white. Not a -soul seemed to be abroad. Only low down against the parapet of the -bridge was a single living thing, and it crouched huddled as if the -storm had claimed a victim before it passed. - -My brain still burned with fury over the foul action that had so -nearly sent me from my father in his utmost need. I could think of -nothing at the moment but revenge, of nothing but that I must sweep -this horror into the river before I could hope to deal collectedly -with the fatality that had befallen me. I only feared that it would -escape me, and leaped on it, mad with rage. - -I tore him up to his feet and held him from me with a savage gaze, and -he looked at me with a dark, amazed stare, but there was no terror in -his eyes. And even as I held him I saw in the dim lamplight how worn -and haggard he had grown, how sunken was his white face, how fearfully -the monomania of revenge had rent him with its jagged teeth. - -“You dog!” I said. “You end in the millrace here--do you understand? -You are a murderer in will and would have been in deed if your aim had -answered true to your devil’s heart! Down with you!” - -I closed with him, but he still struggled to hold me off. - -“I thought it was he--the other. He’s left London. He must be here -somewhere.” - -There was no deprecation in his tone. He spoke in a small dry voice -and with an air as if none could doubt that he was justified in his -pursuit and must stand aside or suffer by it rather than that it -should cease. - -“Where he is I neither know nor care,” I answered, set and stern. -“You’ve raised your hand to me at last, dog that you are, and that’s -my concern. I should have known at first--that it’s useless arguing -mercy with a devil.” - -I had my arms round him like steel bands. Once he might have been my -match, or better, but not now in his state of physical degeneration. - -“Yes, end it,” he whispered. “I always thought to die by water as she -did. The chase here is exhausting me. I can finish my task more -effectively from the other side the grave.” - -I gave a mocking laugh. - -“You shall purge your hate in fire, there,” I said. “Ghostly revenge -on the living is an old wives’ tale.” - -He struggled to force an arm free and pointed down at the foaming -mill-tail. - -“There’s a voice there,” he cried, “that says otherwise. I read it, -and so do you, for all your shaking heroics. Fling me down! I escape -the self-destruction that was to come. Fling me down and end it!” - -I tightened my arms about him. The first desperate fury of my mood was -leading me and with it the impulse to murder. The wan, once-dear -features were appealing to me against their will and mine. - -Suddenly, while I wavered, an appalling screech burst from him; he -wrenched himself free of me with one mad superhuman effort, struck out -at the empty air, and turned and fled across the bridge and up toward -the hill beyond. In a moment he was lost to sight in the darkness. - -In the shock of his escape I twisted about to see what had so moved -him--and, not a yard behind me, was standing Dr. Crackenthorpe. - -For many seconds we stared at one another speechless and motionless. -His face was pale and set very grimly. - -At last he spoke, and “Murder!” was the word he muttered. - -“He runs fast for a murdered man,” I said, with a sneer. - -“Who was it?” he said, gazing with a strange, fixed expression up the -dark blown hill. - -“A ghost,” I answered, with a reckless laugh. “The town is full of -them to-night.” - -He looked at me gloomily. I could have thought he shivered slightly. - -“Do you know him?” - -“He was my friend once. Stand out of my way. I’ve an errand on hand. -My father’s had a seizure.” - -“Had a--come, I’ll go see him.” - -“You won’t. I won’t have you near him. Stand out of my way.” - -“You’re a fool. Promptness is everything in such cases.” - -I hesitated. For what his professional opinion was worth, this man had -always stood to us as adviser in such small ailments as we suffered. I -had no notion where to seek another. My father would be unconscious of -his presence. At least he could pronounce upon the nature of the -stroke. - -“Very well,” I said, ungraciously. “You can see him and judge what’s -the matter.” - -The old man was lying as I had left him when we entered the bedroom. -His eyes were still closed, and his breathing sounded hard and -stertorious. - -“He’s mortal bad, sir,” Peggy said. “He’ll die hard, I do believe.” - -Dr. Crackenthorpe waved her away and bent over the prostrate figure. -As he did so its eyelids seemed to flicker, as if with dread -consciousness of his approach. - -“Be quick!” I said. “What has happened?” - -He felt the dying pulse; bent his yellow face and listened at the -heart. He was some minutes occupied. - -Presently he rose and came to me, all formal and professional. - -“You must prepare for the worst,” he said. “He may speak again by and -by, but I doubt it. In my opinion it is a question of a few days only. -No medical skill can avail.” - -“Is there nothing I can do?” - -“Nothing.” - -He bowed to me stiffly. - -“I am at your service,” he said, in a cold voice. “If I can be of any -further use to you, you will let me know. You are not ignorant of -where to find me, I believe.” - -He was walking to the door, but turned and came toward me again. - -“That one-time friend of yours,” he said. “Is he stopping in the -town?” - -“I really don’t know, Dr. Crackenthorpe. I met him by chance, and you -saw he ran from me. You seem interested in him.” - -“He--yes; he struck me as bearing a likeness to a--to a patient I once -attended. Good-night.” - - - - - CHAPTER LII. - A WRITTEN WORD. - -My escape from that strong net of fatality that had enmeshed so many -years of my still young life, had been, it seemed, only a merciful -respite. Now the toils, regathering about me again, woke a spirit of -hopeless resignation in me that had been foreign to my earlier mood of -resistance. Man has made of himself so plodding an animal as to almost -resent the unreality of his brief vacations. He eats his way, like a -wood-boring larva, through a monotonous tunnel of routine, satisfied -with the thought that some day he may emerge into the light on the -other side, ready-winged for flight to the garden of paradise. Perhaps -Lazarus was humanly far-seeing in refusing the rich man a drop of -water. It would have made the poor wretch’s after lot tenfold more -unendurable. - -Now a feeling came over me that I could struggle no more, but would -lie in the web and suffer unresisting the onsets of fate. My father’s -seizure; Duke’s reappearance and his hint as to the visit I was to -expect from Jason; the sudden flight of the cripple before the vision -of Dr. Crackenthorpe--all these were strands about my soul with which -I would concern myself no longer. I would do my duty, so far as I -could, and set my face in one direction and glance aside no more. - -That night I ordered Peggy to bed--for since Jason’s going she slept -in the house--and myself passed the dreary vigil of the hours by my -father’s side. Indeed, for the three days following I scarcely lay -down at all, but took my food in snatches and slept by fits and starts -in chairs or window-corners as occasion offered. - -During the whole of this time the condition of the patient never -altered. He lay on his back, breathing crookedly from his twisted -mouth; his eyes closed; the whole of the right side of his body -stricken motionless. His left hand he would occasionally move and that -was the single sign of animate life he showed. - -And day and night the wind blew and the hail and rain came down in a -cold and ceaseless deluge. The whole country was flooded, I heard, and -the streams risen, but still the rending storm flew and added -devastation to misery. - -It was on the afternoon of the third day that, chancing to look at the -old man as I sat by his bedside, I saw, with a certain shock of -pleasure, that his eyes were open and fixed upon my face. I jumped to -my feet and leaned over him, and at that some shadow of emotion passed -across his features, as if the angel of death stood between him and -the window. - -Presently his left hand, that lay on the coverlet, began moving. The -fingers twitched with a beckoning motion and he raised his arm several -times and let it fall again listlessly. I fancied I was conscious of -some dumb appeal addressed to me, toward which my own soul yearned in -sympathy. Yet, strive as I would, I could not interpret it. An -inexpressible trouble seemed lost and wandering in the fathomless -depths of the eyes; passionate utterance seemed ever hovering on the -lips, ever escaping the grasp of will and sliding back into blackness. - -“Dad,” I said, “what is it? Try to express by a sign and I will try to -understand.” - -The hand rose again, weakly fluttered in the air and dropped upon the -coverlet. Thrice the effort was made and thrice I failed to interpret -its significance. Then a little quivering sigh came from the mouth and -the eyes closed in exhaustion. - -I racked my brains for the meaning of the sign. Some trouble, it was -evident, sought expression, but what--what--what? My mind was all -dulled and confused by the incidents of the last few days. - -While I was vainly struggling for a solution old Peggy entered the -room with tea and bread and butter for my afternoon meal. She paused -with the tray in her hands, watching the blind groping of the fingers -on the bed. - -“Ay,” she said, “but I doubt me ye cudn’t hold a pen, master.” - -I turned sharply to her. - -“Is that what he wants?” - -“Pen or pencil--’tis arl one. When speech goes, we talk wi’ the -fingers.” - -What a fool I had been! The sign I had struggled in vain for hours to -read, this uncanny old beldame had understood at a glance. - -I hurried out of the room and returned with paper and pencil. I thrust -the latter between the wandering fingers and they closed over it with -a quick, weak snap. But they could not retain it, and it slipped from -them again upon the coverlet. A moan broke from the lips and the arm -beat the clothes feebly. - -“Heave en up,” said the old woman. “He’s axing ye to.” - -I put my arm under my father’s shoulders and with a strong effort got -him into a sitting posture, propped among the pillows. I placed the -pencil in his hand again and held the paper in such a position that he -could write upon it. He succeeded in making a few hieroglyphic -scratches on the white surface and that was all. - -“It’s no manner o’ use, Renalt,” said Peggy. “Better lat en alone and -drink up your tea.” - -“Put it down there and leave us to ourselves.” - -The old creature did as she was bidden and shuffled from the room -grumbling. - -I placed the paper where my father’s hand could rest upon it, and sat -down to my silent meal. - -Presently, watching, as I ate, the weak restless movements of the hand -upon the quilt, a thought occurred to me, which then and there I -resolved to put into practice. It was evident that, unless through an -unexpected renewal of strength, those dying fingers would never -succeed in forming a legible word with the pencil they could barely -hold. But they could make a sign of themselves and that little power I -must seek to direct. - -I hurried down to the kitchen and seized from the wall an ancient bone -tablet that Peggy used for domestic memoranda. Scraping a little soot -from the chimney I mixed it with water into a thick paste and spread a -thin layer of the latter over the surface of the tablet. It dried -almost immediately, and writing on it with the tip of my finger, I -found that the soot came readily away, leaving the mark I had made -stenciled white and clear under the upper coating. - -Returning to my father, with this extemporized first principle and the -saucer of black paste, I held the tablet before his dim, wandering -eyes, and wrote on it with my finger, demonstrating the method. At -first he hardly seemed to comprehend my meaning, but, after a -repetition or two his glance concentrated and his forehead seemed to -ripple into little wrinkles of intelligence. At that I smeared the -surface of the bone afresh, waited a minute for it to dry, and placed -it under his hand upon the bed, leaving him to evolve the method from -his poor crippled inner consciousness. - -But a few moments had elapsed when a small, low sound from the bed -brought me to my father’s side. - -He looked from me to the tablet, where it lay, and there was a -strained imploring line between his eyes. Gently I took up the little -black square and I saw that something was formed on it. With infinite -toil, for it was only his left hand he could use, he had scratched on -it a single, straggling word, and in the fading light I read it: - -“Forgive.” - -“Father!” I cried; “is that what you have been striving to say?” - -He dragged up his unstricken arm slowly into an attitude as if the -hand sought its fellow to join it in a prayer to me. - -“Before God,” I said, “you wrong me to think I could say that word! -What have I to forgive you for? My sins have been my own, and they -have met with their just reward. Am I to forgive you for loving me? -Dad--dad! I have known so little love that I can’t afford to wrong -yours by a thought. Look! I will blot this out, that you may know my -heart has nothing but tenderness in it for you!” - -I snatched up the tablet and smeared out the cruel word and placed the -blank surface under his hand again. He was looking at me all the time -with the same dim anguished expression, and now his head sunk back on -the pillow and a tear rolled down his face. - -Night came upon me sitting there, and presently, overcome by emotion -and weariness, I fell over upon the foot of the bed and sunk into a -profound sleep. For hours I lay unconscious and it was broad day in -the room when I awoke with a sudden start. - -Realizing in a moment how I had betrayed my vigil, I leaped to my feet -with a curse at my selfishness and looked down upon my father. He was -lying back, sunk in a wan exhausted sleep, and under its influence his -features seemed to have somewhat resumed their normal expression. - -But it appeared he had again been scrawling on the tablets, with the -first of the dawn, probably; and these were the broken words thereon -that stared whitely up at me: - -“I murd Mored.” - - - - - CHAPTER LIII. - AN ATTEMPT AND A FAILURE. - -For a minute or more I must have stood gazing down on the damning -words, unmoving, breathless almost. Then I glanced at the quiet face -on the pillow and back again to the tablet I held in my hand. - -I am glad to know--proud, in the little pride I may call mine--that at -that supreme moment I stood stanch; that I cried to myself: “It is a -lie, born of his disease! He never did it!” That I dashed the tablet -back upon the bed and that my one overwhelming thought was: “How may I -defend this poor soul from himself?” - -That he might die in peace with his conscience--that was the end of my -desire. Yet how was I, knowing so little, to convince him? Disproof I -had none, but only assurance of sympathy and a moral certainty that a -nature so constituted could never lend itself to so horrible a deed. - -In the midst of my confusion of thought a sudden idea woke in me and -quickened into a resolve. I went swiftly out of the room, down the -stairs, and walked in upon old Peggy mumbling her bread and milk in -the kitchen. I was going out for awhile, I told her, and bade her -listen for any sound upstairs that might betoken uneasiness on the -part of the patient. - -For the time being there was no rain to greet me as I stepped outside, -but the wind still blew boisterously from the east, and the sky was -all drawn and wrapt in a doleful swaddle of cloud. Sternly and without -hesitation I made my way to the house of Dr. Crackenthorpe. An -anaemic, cross-looking servant girl was polishing what remained of the -handle of the front door with a tattered doeskin glove. - -“Is the doctor inside?” I said to her. - -She left the glove sticking on the handle like a frouzy knocker, and -stood upright looking down upon me. - -“What do you want with him?” she said. - -“I wish to see him on private business.” - -“He’s at his breakfast. He won’t thank you for troubling him now.” - -“I don’t want him to thank me. I wish to see him, that’s all.” - -“Well, then, you can’t--and that’s all.” - -I pushed past her and walked into the hall and she followed me -clamoring. - -The ugly voice I knew well called from a back room I had not yet been -into: “What’s that?” - -I turned the handle and walked in. He was seated before a stained and -dinted urn of copper, and a great slice of toast from which he had -just bitten a jagged semicircle was in his hand. - -“I told him you was at breakfast,” said the cross girl, “but nothing -’ud suit his lordship but to drive his elbow into my chest and walk -in.” - -She emphasized her little lie with a pressure of her hand upon the -presumably wounded part. - -“Assault and battery,” said the doctor, showing his teeth. “Get out of -my house, fellow.” - -“After I’ve had a word with you.” - -“Eh? Edith, go and fetch a constable.” - -“Certainly,” I said. “The very thing I should like. I’ll wait here -till he comes.” - -He called to the girl as she was running out: “Wait a bit! Leave the -fellow with me and shut the door.” - -She obeyed sulkily and we were alone together. - -He went on with his breakfast with an affectation of unconcern and -took no notice of me whatever. - -“I believe you wished me to let you know, Dr. Crackenthorpe, if I -should be in further need of your services?” - -He swallowed huge gulps of tea with an unpleasant noise, protruding -his lips like a gargoyle, but answer made he none. - -“I am in need of your services.” - -He dissected the leg of a fowl with professional relish, but did not -speak. In a gust of childish anger that was farcical I nipped the -joint between finger and thumb and threw it into the fire. - -For an instant he sat dumfounded staring at his empty plate; then he -scrambled to his feet and ran to the mantelshelf all in a scurry of -fury and began diving among the litter there and tossing it right and -left. - -“The pistol--the pistol!” he muttered, in a cracked voice. “Where is -it? What have I done with it?” - -“Never mind. You expect a fee for your services, I suppose?” - -He slackened in his feverish search and I saw he was listening to me. - -“You don’t want to kill the goose with the golden eggs, I presume?” -said I, coolly. - -He twisted round and faced me. - -“You have a rude boorish insistence of your own,” he cried at me -hoarsely. “But I suppose I must value it for what it’s worth. It’s the -custom to ask a fee for professional services.” - -“You volunteered yours, you know.” - -He shrugged his shoulders. - -“Quite so,” he said. “The matter lies with you.” - -“With you, I think. In visiting my father the other night you had no -secret hope, I suppose, that we should pay you in the sort of coin you -have already had too much of?” - -“You insult me, sir.” - -“Unwittingly, I assure you. Will you answer me one question? Is there -the remotest chance of my father recovering from this attack?” - -“Not the remotest--not of his definitely rallying even, I should say.” - -“Is that only an opinion?” - -“Bah! Miracles don’t occur in surgery. He is practically a dead man, I -tell you.” - -“Why do you adopt this attitude to me, then, if you have an eye to a -particular sort of fee?” - -“Perhaps I wanted proof that the old man was past levying toll on.” A -wicked smile wrinkled his mouth. “Perhaps I satisfied myself he was, -and from you I expected no consideration or justice.” - -“You can leave that out of the question. A mere business contract is -another matter, and that is what I come to propose.” - -“Oh, indeed!” - -He said it with a sneer, but moved nevertheless nearer the table, so -that we could talk without raising our voices. - -“May I ask the nature of this stupendous contract?” - -“I will tell you without asking. I make you this offer--to hand over -to you all that remains of the treasure on one condition.” - -“And that is?” - -“That you tell me how my brother Modred came by his death.” - -He gave a little start; then dropped his eyes, frowning, and drummed -with his fingers on the table. I saw he understood; that he was -groping in his mind for some middle course, whereby he could satisfy -all parties and secure the prize for himself. - -“If your father didn’t do it,” he was beginning, but I took him up at -the outset. - -“You know he didn’t! It is a foul lie of such a man. Dr. -Crackenthorpe”--my voice, despite my stubborn resolve, broke a -little--“he is lying there on his deathbed, despairing, haunted with -the thought that it was he who in a fit of drunken madness strangled -the life in his own son. It is all hideous--monstrous--unnatural. You -know more about it, I believe, than any man. You were sitting with him -that night.” - -“But he left me awhile.” - -“You know it wasn’t in his nature to do such a thing!” - -“Pardon me. I have always looked upon your father as a dangerous, -reckless fellow.” - -“I won’t believe it. You know more than you will say--more than you -dare to tell. Oh, if that churchyard fellow had only lived I would -have had the truth by now.” - -“I hope so, though you do me the honor to hold me implicated with him -in some absurd and criminal secret, and on the strength of a little -delirious raving--not an uncommon experience in the profession, trust -me.” - -“I don’t appeal to your charity or your mercy. There’s a rich reward -awaiting you if you tell what you know and ease the old dying man’s -mind. Further than that--if you withhold the truth and let him pass in -his misery, I swear that I’ll never rest till I’ve dragged you down -and destroyed you.” - -He bent his body in a mocking and ungainly bow. - -“I really can’t afford to temporize with my conscience for any one -living or dead. As it is, I have allowed myself to slip into the -position of an accomplice, which is an extreme concession on my part -of friendly patronage toward a family that has certainly never studied -to claim my good offices.” - -I looked at him gloomily. I could not believe even now that he would -dismiss me without some by-effort toward the prize that he saw almost -within his grasp; and I was right. - -“Still,” he went on, “I don’t claim infallibility for my deduction. I -shall be pleased, if you wish it, to return with you and if possible -to question the patient.” - -I was too anguished and distraught to reject even this little thread -of hope. Perhaps it was in me that at the last moment the sight of -that stricken figure at home might move the cold cynicism of the man -before me to some weak warmth of charity. - -He bade me wait in the hall while he finished his breakfast and I had -nothing for it but to go and sit down under the row of smoky prints. - -He kept me a deliberate while, and then came forth leisurely and -donned his brown coat, that was hanging like a decayed pirate beside -me. We walked out together. - -The mill greeted us with no jarring thunder as we entered its door, -for the discord of its phantom grinding I had myself silenced. - -I listened as we climbed the wooden stairs for any sound from the room -above, but only the echo of our footfalls reverberated in the lonely -house. - -No sign of old Peggy had I seen, but, when I pushed open the door of -my father’s room there she was standing by his bed and leaning over. - -At the noise of our entrance she twisted her head, gave a sort of -sudden pee-wit cry and tumbled upon the floor in a collapsed heap, the -tablet from the bed in her hand. - - - - - CHAPTER LIV. - A LAST CONFESSION. - -I thought that the old woman, startled by our entrance, had merely -stepped back, tripped and so come to the ground; but the doctor -uttered an exclamation, ran to the prostrate figure and called me to -bring a spongeful of water from the wash-hand-stand. - -When I had complied I saw that the ancient limbs were rigid; the teeth -set, the lips foaming slightly. Peggy was in an epileptic fit and that -at her age was no light matter. - -I feared that her struggles might presently wake my father, who was to -all appearance sleeping peacefully, and asked the doctor if it would -not be possible to move her to another room. He shook his head, but -gave no answer. Suddenly I was conscious that his eyes were fixed upon -the tablet still held in her crooked fingers, and that in my -distraction I had not erased the damning words that were traced -thereon. The wet sponge was in my hand. With a quick movement I -stooped and swept it across the surface. As I did so the doctor slewed -his head round and smirked up at me with a truly diabolical -expression. Then he snatched the sponge and plumped it with a slap on -the withered forehead. The soot from the tablet ran in wet streaks -over the sinister old face and made a grotesque horror of it. The -wretched creature moaned and jerked under the shock, as though the -water were biting acid. - -Not a word was spoken between us for full twenty minutes--not till the -fit at length subsided and left the racked body to the rest of -exhaustion. The eyes became human, with what humanity was left them; -the pallid face fell into its usual lines--the old woman lay flat with -closed lids in the extreme of debility. - -Then said Dr. Crackenthorpe: “Take you her feet and I her head and -we’ll move her out of this.” - -We carried Peggy into my room and laid her on the bed that had been -Jason’s. Her hours must be numbered, I thought as I looked at the gray -features, already growing spectral in the rising fog of death. - -Turning from that old fallen stump, Dr. Crackenthorpe suddenly faced -me, a smile on his crackled lips. - -“So,” he said, “on the top of that confession, you sought to convince -me against your own judgment?” - -“I haven’t a thought to deny it. I value it at nothing. He has fed on -a baseless chimera, at your instigation--yes, you needn’t lie--till -his mind is sick with disease. What does it matter? I know him and I -stake my soul on his innocence. I asked you to ease his mind--not -mine. I tell you in a word”--I strode up to him and spoke slowly and -fiercely--“my father had no hand in Modred’s death and I believe you -know it.” - -He backed from me a little, breathing hard, when a sound from the bed -stopped him. I started and turned. The old woman’s hand was up to her -neck. Her sick eyes were moving from the one to the other of us in a -lost, questioning way; a murmur was in her lean, pulsing throat. - -“Lie quiet, Peggy,” I said; “you may be able to speak in a minute if -you lie quiet.” - -The words seemed only to increase the panic in her. With a gurgling -burst a fragment of speech came from her mouth: - -“Be I passing?” - -The doctor heard it. “Yes,” he said, brutally. - -She appeared to collapse and shrink inward; but in a moment she was -up, leaning on her elbow, and her face was terrible to look at. - -“’Twas I killed the boy!” she cried, with a sort of breathless wail; -“tell him--tell Ralph,” and so fell back, and I thought the life was -gone from her. - -Was I base and cruel in my triumph? I rose erect, indifferent to the -tortured soul stretched beneath me. - -“Who was right?” I cried. “Believe me now, you dog; and growl and -curse your fill over the wreck of your futile villainy!” - -His mouth was set in an incredulous grinning line. I brushed sternly -past him, making for my father’s room. I could not pause or wait a -moment. The poor soul’s long anguish should be ended there and then. - -As I stooped over his bed I saw that some change had come upon him in -sleep. The twist of his mouth was relaxed. His face had assumed -something of its normal expression. - -I seized up the tablet from where it had tumbled on the floor. I -smeared it with a fresh coating from the saucer. His first waking -eyes, I swore, should look upon the written evidence of his acquittal. -While I was waiting for the stuff to dry, he stirred, murmured and -opened his eyes. - -“Renalt!” he said, in a very low, weak voice. - -Speech had returned to him. I knelt by his side and passed my -tremulous arms underneath him. - -“Father,” I said, “you can speak--you are awake again. I have -something to tell you; something to say. Don’t move or utter a sound. -You have been asleep all this time--only asleep. While you were -unconscious old Peggy has been taken ill--very ill. In the fear of -death she has made a confession. Father, I saw what you wrote on -this--look, on this tablet! It was all untrue; I have wiped it out. It -was Peggy killed Modred--she has confessed it.” - -He lifted his unstricken hand--the other was yet paralyzed--in an -attitude of prayer. Presently his hand dropped and he turned his face -to me, his eyes brimming with tears. - -“Renalt,” he murmured, in the poor shadow of a voice, “I thank my -God--but the greater sin--I can never condone--though you forgive -me--my son.” - -“Forgive? What have I to forgive, dad? My heart is as light as a -feather.” - -He only gazed at me earnestly--pathetically. I went and sat by his -side and smoothed his pillow and took his hand in mine. - -“Now the incubus is gone, dad, and you’ll get well. You must--I can’t -do without you. The black shadow is passed from the mill, and the -coming days are all full of sunshine.” - -“What has she--confessed? How did--she--do it?” - -“I didn’t wait to hear. I wanted you to know, and left her the moment -she had spoken.” - -“Alone?” - -I hesitated and stammered. - -“There,” he said, with a faint smile, “I know--I know he’s in the -house. I don’t fear--I don’t fear--I tell you. I’m--past that. He -won’t want--to come in here?” - -He spoke all this time in a bodiless, low tone, and the effort seemed -to exhaust him. For some time I sat by him, till he fell into a light -slumber. No sound was in the house, and I did not even know if Dr. -Crackenthorpe had left the adjoining room. But when my father was -settled down and breathing quietly, I rose and stepped noiselessly -thither to see. - -He was standing against the window, and turned stealthily round as I -entered, watching me. - -As I walked toward him I glanced aside at the bed. Something about the -pose of the figure thereon brought me to a sudden stop. My heart rose -and fell with a sharp, quick emotion, and in the instant of it I knew -that the old woman was dead. Her head had been propped against the -bolster, so that her chin rested upon her withered breast. That would -never beat again to the impulse of fear or evil or any kinder emotion, -for Peggy had answered to her name. - -For the moment I stood stupefied. I think I had hardly realized that -the end was so near. Sorrow I could not feel, but now regret leaped in -me that I had not waited to hear all that she might tell. Only for an -instant. On the next it flashed through me that it was better to put -my trust in that first wild confession than to invite it by further -questioning to self-condonation--perhaps actual denial. - -“You went too soon,” Dr. Crackenthorpe said, in a cold voice of irony. -“I must tell you that was hardly decent.” - -“I never thought she had spoken her last.” - -“Nor had she--by a good deal.” - -“She said more?” - -“Much more--and to a different purpose.” - -I stared at him, breathing hard. - -“Are you going to lie again?” I muttered. - -“That pleasantry is too often on your lips, sir,” he said, coolly. -“None doubt truth so much as those who have dishonored her. The dead -woman there leaves you this as a legacy.” - -He thrust the thing he was holding into my hand. I recognized it in a -sort of dull wonder. It was that ancient mutilated portrait of Modred -that I had once discovered in Peggy’s possession. - -From the stained and riddled silhouette to the evil face of the man -before me I glanced and could only wait in dumb expectancy. - -“She told me where to find it,” he said, “and I brought it to her.” - -“I never heard you move.” - -“I stepped softly for fear of disturbing your father. Do you see that -outraged relic? The old creature’s self-accusation turned upon -it--upon that and nothing else.” - -“What do you mean?” - -“That you must look elsewhere, I am afraid, for the criminal. Our -pleasant Rottengoose shared the gross superstitions of her kind. All -these years she has secretly hugged the really reprehensible thought -that the boy’s death was due to her.” - -“I don’t understand.” - -“A base superstition, my friend--a very base superstition. She had in -her possession, I understand, a flint shaft of the paleolithic period. -There are plenty such to be picked up in the neighborhood. The -ignorant call them elf arrowheads and cherish a belief that to -mutilate with one of them a body’s portrait or image is to compass -that person’s destruction. This harridan cherished no love for your -brother, and fancied she saw her opportunity of seizing revenge -without risk on a certain night of misfortune. The boy died and -henceforth she knew herself as his murderess. Good-morning to you. May -I remind you that my fee is yet unpaid? I will certify to the present -cause of death, with pleasure.” - - - - - CHAPTER LV. - A SHADOW FROM THE PAST. - -Like one in a dream I heard the doctor’s footstep recede down the -stairs and heard the yard door close dully on him as he left the -house. In my suffering soul I felt one cruel shaft rankling, and for -the rest only a vague sense of loss hung like a cloud over all my -faculties. - -I had no doubt of the truth of the evil creature’s words. Not -otherwise could his knowledge and possession of the tattered portrait -be accounted for. Now, too, Peggy’s unaccountable terror at my -discovery of her chaunting and gloating over her work on a certain -afternoon recurred to me, and was confirmation irrefragable. The -wretched old woman had had all the will and intention; but she was -innocent of the deed. - -I must look elsewhere, as he had said--begin all over again. True--but -now less than ever in my father’s direction. Had I needed in my heart -convincing proof of the old man’s guiltlessness, his manner in -accepting his acquittal would have afforded it. By this he had shown -that with him, as with the hounds that had sought to pull him down, -his guilt was purely conjectural--presumed merely on the -circumstantial evidence of the braces found in his pocket. But I -judged him in my heart and pronounced him acquitted. - -Now it was idle to moan over my impetuous rush to conclusions. I must -only guard against permitting the disillusion to vex the few last days -that remained to him. If I wronged the old dead housewife thereby, it -was in degree only, for morally she was as guilty as if her charm had -borne all the evil force she attributed to it. - -Well, I must see about getting some harpy in to minister to her final -dumb necessities and then-- - -A low cry, coming from the other room, broke upon my ears. With -beating heart I rushed from the death chamber only--merciful -heaven--to enter another! - -At the first glance I saw that the white spirit had entered during my -absence and had written the sign of eternity on my father’s forehead. -He was sitting up in bed and the expression on his face was that of a -dreadful, eager waiting. - -“Renalt!” - -He called to me in a clear, loud voice--the recovered note of an old -stronger personality. - -I hurried to him; fell on my knees; put my arm about his shoulders. - -“Renalt, I am dying--but not yet. The spirit won’t let me pass till I -have spoken.” - -He turned his head with a resolute effort and gazed upon me. - -“What thing have I been--what thing have I been? Send me my enemies -that I may face and defy them! Which of them worse than myself? Oh, -craven--craven!” - -“Father! I only am with you--no enemy, father!” - -He struck his fist down upon the counterpane. - -“By your love for me you shall know the truth! Judge me then--judge me -then as you will. Hear me speak and make no answer till I have -finished. Judge me then, and let me pass to my doom weighted with your -judgment.” - -“Father!” - -“Renalt, I killed your mother!” - -I fell back appalled. An instant--then I leaned forward and again held -him in my arms. - -“Ah!” his voice broke, swerved and recovered itself. “Not with this -hand--my God, no--but surely and pitilessly none the less. Not a month -after Modred was born I found my name and trust dishonored and by her. -Listen! Speak nothing. You must know all! She had been in service in -London before I married her--where, to this day I have never learned. -I shall know soon--I shall know. She was friendless--a weak, -irresponsible, beautiful young woman. I threw aside all for her sake, -and my love grew tenfold in the act of combating the misfortune it -brought me. I could love, Renalt--I could love. There was a passion in -my fervor.” - -He clasped his hands wildly and looked piercingly before him. - -“How the old torment flames up in me at the last! I think I gave my -soul to the wanton and I thought I had hers in exchange. What inspired -fools love makes of us! My castle in Cloudland stood firm till that -month after Modred’s birth. Then all in a day--a minute--it dissolved -and vanished. I came upon her secretly gloating over a portrait--the -miniature of a man. I saw--suspected--wrenched half the truth from -her. Half the truth only, Renalt. When I wedded with her she had a -child living. She whose love I had looked upon as a precious -possession was all base and hollow, behind her beautiful personality. -More--she had borne me three children; yet what affection she was -capable of clung about the memory of her first passion. True, this -spark had wearied of her, had dismissed her from his service--his -service, you understand? And from the face of her child. Yet the long -years of my passionate devotion weighed as nothing in the balance. I -was the means ready to make of her an honest woman--that was all. An -honest woman--my God!” - -His teeth snapped together with a click; his dying eyes shone out, but -their inspiration was demoniacal. - -“In one thing only,” he went on in a low, hard voice, “the poor frail -wretch was stable. That portrait--the miniature--she died refusing to -reveal to me its identity. No threats, no cruelty availed. She kept -her secret to the last.” - -As he now continued his left hand clutched and tightened upon the -bedclothes and a dark shadow seemed to grow out of his face. - -“I shut her close in the room below. There, with only the voice of the -wheel for company, I swore she should remain till she confessed. Each -day I brought her food and water, and each day I said, ‘Give me his -name,’ but she was always silent. She had been weak and ailing from -caring for her baby Modred, and she faded before my eyes. Yet I was -merciless. A little more, I thought, and so worthless, fragile a thing -must needs yield and answer me. It was will against will, and hers -conquered.” - -He paused a moment, and I could see drops of sweat freckling his -forehead. - -“Slowly, hour by hour, the stealth and darkness of her prison wrought -madness in her. Still I persisted and she refused. Once she asked to -see her children--the little baby I was rearing as best I might, with -infinite toil and difficulty--and I laughed and shut her in again. The -next morning, going to her, I was dumfounded to hear no booming voice -greeting me from the basement. The wheel had stopped. I threw back the -door and she was gone. But the cupboard was sprung open and the dammed -water spurted and leaped from the motionless blades. A stump of timber -was lying near. She had burst the lock with it, and--I rushed and -dropped the sluice; hurried back and looked down. I saw her dress -tangled in the floats below, and the water heaping into a little mound -as it ran over something. Then I raced to the room over above, -wrenched up a board, and, fastening a rope to a beam, lowered the -slack of it into the pit. It served me well in after days, as you -know. - -“I can hardly remember how I got her out. I know all my efforts were -futile, till I thought of notching a paddle and fixing the rope in the -hole. When at last I laid her down on the floor of the room I grew -sick with horror. There was that in her staring eyes that made my soul -die within me. - -“I threw the place open to the authorities. I courted every inquiry. -She had been in a delirious state, I said, since the coming of the -child, and had thrown herself down in a fit of madness. Only the -evidence of the burst lock I suppressed. - -“We had been reserved folk, making few friends or none. Our manner of -life was known only to ourselves; not a soul suspected the truth and -many pitied me in my bereavement. I kept my own counsel. They brought -in a verdict of suicide during temporary insanity, and she lies under -an old nameless mound in the cemetery yonder. - -“Then I shut my heart and my door and made out life in the blackness. - -“At first I was whelmed in the horror of the catastrophe, yet my pity -was not touched and I soon came to believe in the justice of her fate. -‘I never put hand on her,’ I thought. ‘’Twas God wrought the -punishment.’ But soon a terrible hatred woke in my heart for the first -author of my misery. One day I descended by the wheel again and nailed -the miniature to its axle. ‘Wait you there!’ I cried, ‘till the -question is answered. So shall he follow in her footsteps.’ Ah, I have -heard talk of the fateful fascination of the wheel! Why has it never -drawn him to come and claim his portrait?” - -The fevered torrent of speech broke suddenly in him, and silence -reigned in the room. The dying heart leaped against my chest as I held -him, and my own seemed to flutter with the contact. What could I think -or say? I was dazed with the passion of my emotions. - -Presently he turned himself quickly and looked at me. - -“Your judgment!” he cried, hoarsely. “Did I well or wickedly?” - -Through my mind there swiftly passed memory of the barren neglect of -our younger lives; of all the evil and misery that had been the -indirect result of so cowardly a nursing of an injury. - -I bowed my head, and said in a low voice: “I forgive you. That is all -you must ask of me.” - -Perhaps, in the light of his later gentleness, he understood me, for -suddenly the tears were running down his cheeks and he cried -falteringly: “Out of the abyss of death a ghost rises and faces me! -All this have I done for the son I love!” - -With the words he fell back from my arm and lay gasping on his pillow. -And, though my father was near spent, and I knew it, I could find in -my heart no word of justification of his conduct, no comfort but the -assurance of my forgiveness. - -Oh, it is an evil thing to arrogate to ourselves God’s prerogative of -judgment; to assume that in any personal wrong we can so disassociate -justice and resentment as ever to be capable of pronouncing an -impartial sentence. To return a blow in kind is a natural and -wholesome impulse; but deliberate cruelty, following however great a -provocation, can never be anything but most base and unmanly. - -And the sin had been sinned before she even knew my father! Yet, -maybe, to a nature like his, that was the reverse of a palliation. To -feel that he had never had her true love or duty, while lavishing his -all of both on her; to feel that in a manner the veins of his own -children ran with contamination--I could conceive these operating more -fiercely in his mind than the discovery that some later caprice of -fancy had lured her from her faith. - -It was all past and over and I would not condemn or even judge him. -Though I had been one victim of his quarrel with life, what was my -grievance in face of the awful prospect so immediately before him? In -a few hours--moments, maybe--the call would come and his soul would -have to submit itself for analysis in the theater of the skies. - - - - - CHAPTER LVI. - ALONE. - -About 4 of the afternoon my father, who had lain for some hours in a -state bordering on stupor, and whose breathing had latterly become -harsh and difficult, rose suddenly in his bed and called to me in a -strong voice. I was by his side in a moment and lifted him up as he -signified I should do. A mortal whiteness was in his face and I saw -the end was approaching. - -“I have no fear,” he said, in a sort of sick ecstasy. “I can be true -to myself at the last, thank God! The soul triumphs over the body.” - -He swayed in my arms, clutched at me and dragged himself erect again. - -“My brain--my brain! Something seems to swerve in it! Quick! Before -it’s too late!” - -He held on to me. At the last moment the latent determination of his -character trod weakness under and proved the soul masterful. With all -his functions withering in the blighting breath of the destroyer, his -spirit stood out fearless and courageous, a conqueror by its mere -individuality. - -It had darkened early, and candles were lighted in the room and the -blind pulled down. Outside the wind tore at the crazy lattice, or, -finding entrance, moaned to and fro in the gusty passages. It -threatened to be a night of storm and sweeping rain. And all its wild -and dismal surroundings were in keeping with the ghastly figure lying -against me. Yet, if there was one in that lonely chamber who shrunk -and feared, it was I, not that other so verging on his judgment, with -so many and such heavy responsibilities to answer for. God forgive -him! - -“I triumph, Renalt,” he said, feeding the effort of speech with quick, -drawn gasps. “This later craven has never been I--I was strong to -carry out a purpose, even if it led me to the gallows. Some -white-livered devil usurped. Out with the worm at last! I triumph and -abide by that I did in the righteousness of wrath. But you--you! Let -me say it--quick--I was fast on the coward grip. Oh, a bitter, bitter -curse on the treacherous beast who unmanned me! Only to you, Renalt, I -pray and ask for pardon. I thought--all the time--I had killed the -boy--the braces--I never knew. He--he, that reptile, -suggested--perhaps Modred had--found and kept the cameo. I went up -blindly--came down blindly--I was drunk--bestial--I could remember -nothing.” - -He moaned and would have clasped his hands to me but for weakness. At -the last the paralysis of his limbs had departed and he could move. -Disease loosened its clutch, it seemed, in the presence of the death -it had invoked. - -“Renalt--I remembered nothing--but I feared--and, fearing, I saw the -odium rest on you and did not speak. It was I gave you to that living -death--I who submitted to that fiend’s dictating, because he struck at -me through the sordid passion that had mastered my better nature. -Renalt----” - -“Father--hear me! Am I speaking distinctly? Listen. I forgive you -all.” - -It seemed as if a flush passed across his face. He pressed my hand -feebly and dropped his head. - -“Now,” he muttered; “come the crash of doom! To all else I am ready to -answer. Call the----” - -Like a glass breaking, his voice snapped and immediate silence befell. -He had not stirred in my arms; but now I felt the whole surface of his -body moving, as it were, of itself with a light ruffling shudder. - -Suddenly he seemed to shrink into himself, rather than away from me, -so that he cowered unsupported on the bed. I fell back and looked at -his face. His head moved softly from side to side, the eyes following -something, unseen of me, hither and thither about the room. In a -moment they contracted and fixed themselves horribly on one point, as -if the things had come to the bed foot and were softly mounting it. In -the same instant on my dull and appalled senses broke the low booming -voice of the wheel circling in its black pit far below, and I knew -that in the phantom sound no material force spoke, but that the heart -of the dying man was transmitting its terrors to me. - -Then I saw my father sink slowly back, drawing, as he did so, the -sheet up and over his face, as if to shut out the sight, and all the -time the convulsive fluttering of my own breath alone stirred the -tense silence that reigned about us. - -I must have remained in this position many minutes, fixed and -motionless in a trance of fear, when the stealthy noise below seemed -to cease suddenly as it had begun. At that I leaped to my feet with a -strangled cry and tore the bedclothes away from the face. The eyes -stared up at me as if I were the secret presence; the jaw was dropped; -the whole body collapsed and sunk into the sheets. He had died without -a sound--there--in a moment; had died of that that was beyond human -speech; of something to which no dreadful human cry could give -expression. - - * * * * * - -Wading near knee deep in the flooded meadows, sense and reason -returned to me by slow degrees. Then a wan streak of sunrise gaped -like a dead man’s wound on the stormy horizon, and a new day was -breaking to wind and deluge that seemed endless. - -Ah, surely I had been tried beyond mortal endurance. So I thought, not -knowing what was yet to come; what tension the soul’s fetters can be -put to without breaking. - -The sodden day broadened and found me still wandering. Once during the -morning I crept back to the house of terror, and, standing without its -door, summoned the old woman, who had come of herself to attend to -dead Peggy’s laying out, and told her of my father’s death and -directed her to a second task. - -Later in the day, I told myself, I would return; by and by when the -dead should be decently composed for rest and their expression should -have resumed something of its normal cast. Then I hurried forth again -and sought forgetfulness in the keen rush of air and wide reality of -the open country. - -Walking, resting on some gate or stile; seeking a wayside tavern for -food and drink--always I kept steadily away from me the slightest -reflection on any of the last words spoken by my father. I could not -bear that my thoughts should so much as approach them. I had greatly -suffered, been greatly wronged, yet let my mind dwell insistently on -the thought that these evils were of the past, never more to vex me -out of reason should I look steadily forward, shutting my ears, like -the prince in the fairy tale, to the spectral voices that would fain -provoke me to an answer. - -It was growing near that dusky period of the short day when if one -lifts one’s eyes from the ground the sky seems closing in upon the -earth! Worn out and footsore, I had rounded toward the city from its -eastern side and was traversing the now lonely stretch of by-path that -leads from the station, when I saw a woman and little child going on -in front of me haltingly. As I came up they drew aside to let me pass, -and I cried out, “Zyp!” and stopped in astonishment and a little fear. - -She faced round upon me, breathing quickly, and put one hand to her -bosom in a startled manner that was quite foreign to her. - -“Renny,” she whispered, with a fading smile on her white face--pitiful -heaven, how white and worn it had become! And burst into tears the -next moment. - -Shocked beyond measure at her appearance, her woeful reception of me, -I stepped back all amazed. She mistook my action and held out an -imploring arm to me. The little weird girl at her side half buried -herself in her mother’s skirts and peered up at me with deep eyes set -in a tangle of hair. - -“Renny!” cried Zyp; “oh, you won’t throw me off? You won’t refuse to -hear me?” - -“Come away,” I said, hoarsely; “to some quiet road, where we can talk -undisturbed. You are not too tired?” - -“Too--oh, I’m wearied to death. Why not the mill? Renny, why not the -mill?” - -“Zyp, not now--not at present. I’ll tell you by and by. See, I’ll take -the little girl on one arm and you can cling to the other.” - -She pushed the child forward with a forlorn sigh. It whimpered a -little as I lifted it, but I held it snug against my shoulder, and its -soft breath on my cheeks seemed to melt the hard core of agony in my -brain. - -Soon I had them in a quiet spot and seated upon a fallen log. There, -holding the child against me, I looked in the eyes of the mother and -could have wept. - -“Zyp, Zyp! What is it?” - -A boisterous clap of wind tumbled her dark hair as I spoke. What was -it? Her lustrous head was strewed with ashy threads, as if the -clipping fate had trimmed some broken skein of life over it; her eyes -were like fathomless pools shrunk with drought; an impenetrable sorrow -was figured in her wasted face. This was the shadow of Zyp--not the -sweet substance--and moving among ghosts and shadows my own life -seemed stumbling toward the grave. - - - - - CHAPTER LVII. - A PROMISE. - -Clasping thin, nervous fingers, Zyp looked up in my face fearfully. - -“Have you seen Jason?” - -“No. Has he come, too?” - -“He’s gone on before to the mill to seek you.” - -“God help him! I’ve been out all day. Is it the old trouble, Zyp?” - -“Oh, Renny, I despair at last! I fought it while I was strong; but -now--now.” - -Her head sunk and she pressed a hand to her bosom again. - -“What ails you, dear? Zyp, are you ill?” - -“I don’t know. Something seems to suck at my veins. I have nothing -definite. The wretchedness of life is sapping my strength, I suppose.” - -“Is it still so wretched? I am always here to give you what help I -can.” - -“Oh, I know! And we must always be cursing your quiet with our -entreaties.” - -“Zyp, you needn’t talk like that. My heart is open to my little -sister. And is this my bonny niece?” - -She was a slender mite of four or thereabouts, with a delicate thin -face, oval like a blushing rose petal, and a quaint, solemn manner of -movement and broken speech. - -“Give me a kiss, mouse. Oh, what a prim little peck!” - -A faint smile came to the mother’s lips. “You’ll learn to love your -uncle, Renna.” - -“Did you name her after me?” - -“Don’t flatter yourself. I call her Renna for short. Her real name’s -Zyp.” - -I laughed over the queer deduction; then sighed. - -“Will you love me?” I said to the little girl, but she was too shy to -answer. - -I stroked her shining head and poke over it to Zyp. - -“Tell me all about it, dear,” said I. - -“It’s nothing, but the old miserable story--pursuit and flight; and -with each new movement some little means of living abandoned.” - -Looking at this pale, injured woman, a fierce deep resentment flared -up in my heart against the inexorable tyranny of the fiend who would -not learn mercy. I had too long stood aside; too long remained neutral -in an unnatural warfare, the most innocent victim of which was she -whose image my soul professed to hold inviolate. Old ties bound me no -longer. Her champion would I be in life and death, meeting stealth -with secrecy, pursuit with ambush. - -I put the child from me and rose hurriedly to my feet. - -“Zyp!” I cried, “this must end! Forgive me that, holding you in my -heart as I have always done, I have not been more active in your -succor. Here all doubt ends. I devote myself body and soul to your -help and welfare!” - -Crying softly, she drew her little one to her and wound her arms about -her. Now the last of her weird nature seemed broken and gone, and she -was woman only, helpless and alone. - -“Renny, Renny,” she sobbed, “why didn’t you sooner? Oh, Renny! Why -didn’t you sooner?” - -Her anguish--her implied reproach--pierced to my soul. - -“Has that been in your mind, Zyp? I never thought--it was always a -habit with me to yield the lead to Jason, and you were so strong and -independent.” - -“Not now for long--a haunted, hunted thing! But I had no right--and -then, your father.” - -“If I thought I had sacrificed your interests to a mistaken sense of -duty to him--ah, Zyp, it would be a very bitter thing.” - -“No, no! You’ve always been strong and good and generous. Don’t mind -what I say. I’m only desperate with trouble. Hush, little rabbit! -Mother cries with joy to have found a friend.” - -“Need you have sought long? Every word you say seems a reproach.” - -“No, no, no; you’ll misread me and fall away from us at the last.” - -“I swear not! Tell me what has happened.” - -“We thought we had escaped him--perhaps that he was dead. There was a -long respite; then one night--four, five days ago--he was there. Some -place where they gamble with cards--and he accused my husband of -cheating. There was a terrible scene. Jason came home all smeared with -blood, but it was the old terror that made us despair. Why are such -things allowed on earth? It seemed all leaf and flowers and sky to me -once. How long ago! He stood outside our lodgings the next morning. -His dreadful face was like a devil’s. Then we knew we must go. When -the bill was paid we had only a few shillings left. In our sickness we -turned to you, and we set off tramping, tramping down to Winton by -easy stages. Jason carried the child; my arms were too weak.” - -“And he--that other?” - -“He’s sure to follow us, but he won’t know we’ve walked.” - -I remembered the figure on the bridge four nights ago, and was silent. - -“Renalt, what can we do?” - -“Jason has gone to me for money, I suppose?” - -“Oh, if you could only let us have a little; we might escape abroad -again and bury ourselves in some faraway spot, where he could never -find us.” - -“Zyp, listen to me. My father died last night.” - -“Died? The old man! Oh, Renny, Renny!” - -“He had been long ailing. I have been wandering all day to try to -restore my shattered nerves. That is why I have not met Jason.” - -“Dead! The old, poor man! And you are alone?” - -“Yes, Zyp.” - -She broke down and wept long and sadly. - -“He was good to me,” she moaned, “and I requited his kindness ill. And -now I come to worry you in your unhappiness.” - -“You came to lighten it with a glimpse of the old sweet nature--you -and your pretty baby here.” - -“Do you think her pretty, Renny? He would have been fond of her, and -he’s gone. What a world of death and misery!” - -“Now the mill is no place for you at present. Old Peggy is dead, too, -and gone to her judgment. In a few days the house will be quit of -mourning. Then you must all three come and live with me there, and -we’ll make out life in company.” - -She sat clasping her little girl and staring at me, her lips parted, -as she listened breathlessly. - -“That would be good,” she whispered. “Do you hear, baby? Mumby and -Renna will lie down at last and go to sleep.” - -The child pressed her cheek to her mother’s and put her short arms -about her neck with a sympathetic sigh. Her lot, I think, had been no -base contrast with that of children better circumstanced. She was -dressed even now as if from the fairy queen’s wardrobe, though Zyp’s -poor clothes were stained and patched in a dozen places. - -Then my love--oh, may I not call her so now?--looked up at me -sorrowfully over the brink of her short ecstasy. - -“Dear Renny,” she said, “how can it ever be as you say? Rest can never -come to us while he lives.” - -“I have sworn, Zyp. I am confident and strong to grapple with this -tragic Furioso. If he persists after one more warning we’ll set the -law on him for a wandering lunatic.” - -“That I believe he is--oh!” she closed her eyes as if in an ineffable -dream of peace and security. - -“The question is, what are you to do in the meantime?” - -“That’s soon settled. We came over Micheldever, only a few miles away. -We’ll go back there and hire a single room in the village--I saw one -to let that would suit us--and wait till you send for us.” - -“Very well. And what do you say to taking little Zyp back by yourself -and leaving Jason here under my wing?” - -“If you think it best.” - -“I must make certain arrangements with him. Yes, I think that will be -best.” I spoke cheerfully and buoyantly, anxious to quicken and -sustain her new-born hope. Uneasy forebodings, nevertheless, drove me -to make the proposition. I could not free my mind of the thought that -Duke yet hung secretly about the place, induced to wait and watch on -that sure instinct that had never yet in the long run failed to -interpret to him the movements of his victims. - -Therefore I felt it safer to keep my brother for the present under -friendly lock and key rather than risk a further exposing of him to -the malignant observation of his enemy. - -“Zyp, take this money. I wish it were more, but it will keep you going -for the present.” - -“No, Renny, I have a little left.” - -“Don’t worry me, changeling.” - -“Ah, the name and the flowers.” She rose to her feet. “Have you -forgotten my asking you never to pick one?” - -“Not once in my life since, Zyp. My conscience is free of that -reproach.” - -She looked at me with a sweet strange expression in her wet eyes. - -“Good-by, dear brother,” she said, suddenly, holding out her hand to -me. - -“Shall I not see you off?” - -“No. We shan’t have long to wait, I dare say, and Jason will be -wishing for you. Kiss--Renny, kiss dad for me--this kiss”--and she -stepped hurriedly forward and put her soft trembling lips to my -forehead. - -My blood leaped. For a moment I was near catching her madly in my -arms. - -“Good-by!” I cried, swerving back. “Good-by, little Zyp!” - -They moved from me a few paces. Out in the road the wind caught the -woman’s skirts and flung her dark hair abroad. Suddenly she turned and -came back to me. - -“Renny,” she said, in low, heartrending tones, “it looks so happy and -golden, but the fierce air talked in my lungs as I went. Oh, -promise--promise--promise!” - -“Anything, Zyp, in the wide world.” - -“To care for my little one--my darling, if I’m called away.” - -“Before God I swear to devote my life to her.” - -She looked at me a long moment, with a piercing gaze, gave a hoarse, -low sob, and catching at her child’s hand hurried away with her down -the road. I watched their going till their shapes grew dim in the -stormy dusk; then twisted about and strode my own way homeward. - -Heaven help me! It was my last vision of her who, through all the -hounding of fate, had made my life “a perfumed altar-flame.” - -Before I reached the mill the rain swept down once more, wrapping the -gabled city in high spectral gloom. Not dust to dust, it seemed, was -our lot to be in common with the sons of men, but rather the -fearfuller ruin of those whose names are “writ in water.” - -So fiercely drove the onset of flying deluge that scarcely might I -force headway against its icy battalions. Dark was falling when at -last I reached the mill, and all conflicting emotions I might have -felt on approaching it were numbed by reason of the mere physical -effort of pressing forward. Therefore it was that hastening down the -yard, my eyes were blind to neighboring impressions, otherwise some -unaccustomed shape crouching in the shelter of its blackness would -have induced me to a pause. - -As it was, I fell, rather than beat, against the door, and then drew -myself back to gather breath. Almost immediately a step sounded coming -down the passage beyond, the door was pulled inward, and I saw the -figure of Jason standing in the opening. - -“Ah!” I gasped, and was about to step in, when he gave a sickly -screech and his hands went up, as if in terror to ward off a blow. - -I felt a breath at my ear and turned quickly round--and there was the -white face of Duke almost looking over my shoulder! - - - - - CHAPTER LVIII. - THE “SPECTER HOUND.” - -That night when the flood waters rose to a head was a terrible one for -Winton--one ghastly in the extreme for all lost souls whose black -destinies guided their footsteps to the mill. - -Perhaps a terror of being trapped--to what hideous fate, who -knows?--somewhere in the tortuous darkness of the building, sent my -brother leaping by a mad impulse into the waste uproar of the night. -Anyhow, before my confused senses could fully grasp the dread nature -of the situation, he had rushed past me, plunged into and up the yard, -and was racing for his life. - -As he sprang by, the cripple made a frantic clutch at him, nipped the -flying skirt of his coat, staggered and rolled over, actually with a -fragment of torn cloth in his hand. He was up on his feet directly, -however, and off in pursuit, though I in my turn vainly grasped at him -as he fled by. - -Then reason returned to me and I followed. - -It all happened in a moment, and there were we three hotly engaged in -such a tragic game of follow-my-leader as surely had never before been -played in the old city. And there was no fear of comment or -interference. We had the streets, the wind and rain, the night to -ourselves, and, before our eyes, if these failed us, the wastes of -eternity. - -Racing in the tracks of the cripple, as he followed in Jason’s, I -managed to keep measured pace with him, and that was all. How he made -such time over the ground with his crooked limbs was matter for -marvel, yet, I think, in that mad brief burst I never lessened the -distance between us by a yard. It was a comparative test of the -fearful, the revengeful and the apprehensive impulses, and sorely I -dreaded in the whirling scurry of the chase that the second would win. - -Across the yard--to the left over the short stone bridge, under whose -arch the choked mill-tail tumbled and snarled--a little further and up -Chis’ll street, with a sharp swerve to the right, the hunted man -rushed with Duke at his heels. Then a hundred yards on, in one -lightning-like moment, Jason, giving out in a breathless impulse of -despair, as it seemed, threw himself against the shadowy buttress of a -wall, crouching with his back to the angle of it; Duke, checking his -flying footsteps some paces short of his victim, came to a sudden -stop; and I, carried forward by my own impetus, almost fell against -the cripple, and, staggering, seized him by the arms from behind, and -so held him fiercely, my lungs pumping like piston rods. Suddenly I -marveled to find my captive offering no resistance. - -Seeking for the reason of this collapse, I raised my eyes and -wondered: “Can this account for it?” - -We stood outside Dr. Crackenthorpe’s house. Light came through a lower -window, immediately opposite us, and set in the luminous square, like -an ugly shadow on a wall, was the profile and upper half of the body -of the doctor himself. He seemed to be bending over some task and the -outline of his face was clearly defined. - -Suddenly the clothed flesh of the arms I grasped seemed to flicker, as -it were, with shuddering convulsion, and from the lips of the man held -against me the breath came sibilant like the breath of one caught in a -horror of nightmare. - -Before I could think how to act the figure of the doctor rose erect, -and I saw him fix his hat on his head. Evidently he was preparing to -leave the house. - -I felt myself drawn irresistibly to one side. Helpless as a child, I -stumbled in the wake of the cripple, tripping over his heels at every -step. He hardly seemed to notice the drag set upon him, but stole into -a patch of deep shadow, without the dim wedge of light cast through -the window, and I had to go, too, if I would keep my hold on him. - -Crouching there, with what secret terror on one side and marvel on the -other it is impossible to describe, we saw the dark street and the -driving rain traversed by a shaft of light as the hall door was pulled -open, and become blackness again with its closing. Then, descending -the shallow flight of steps, his head bent to the storm, and one hand -raised to his hat, the doctor came into view and the whole body of the -cripple seemed to shoot rigid with sudden tension. - -This fourth actor on the scene, turning away from us, walked, -unconscious of Jason hidden in the shadow as he passed him, up the -street, his hand still to his head, his long skirts driven in front of -him by the wind, so that he looked as if his destiny were pulling him -reluctant forward by all-embracing leading strings. - -As he went up the slope and vanished in the darkness, a groan as if of -pent-up agony issued from Duke, and immediately he drew me from the -shadow and round to the foot of the steps. - -A chink of light that divided the blackness above us, showed that the -door had not been closed to. Probably the doctor had gone forth on -some brief errand only, and would return in a moment. - -Suddenly I became conscious that Duke was mounting the steps--that -some strange spirit, in which his first mission of hate was absorbed, -was moving him to enter the house. - -“Where are you going?” I cried, struggling with him. He gave no -answer; took not the least notice of me. What response could I expect -from a madman like this? Staring before him--panting like one at the -end of a race--he slowly ascended, dragging me with him. Then on the -turn of a thought, I quitted my hold of him and he staggered forward. -The next instant he had recovered himself, had pushed open the door -and was in the hall. - -I hurried to where Jason yet stood motionless, his face white as a -patch of plaster set against the darkness of the wall. - -“Keep off!” he cried, in a wavering voice. - -“You fool! It’s I! Didn’t you see him go into that house? Some insane -fancy had drawn him off the scent. Run back to the mill--do you hear? -I won’t leave him--he shan’t follow.” - -He came from his corner and clutched me with shaking hands. - -“Where’s there money? It’s all useless without that, I tell you. Give -it to me or I’ll kill you. I’ve as much right to it as you. My God! -Why didn’t you tell me the old man was dead? It was devilish to let me -go in on him like that. Tell me where to find money and I’ll take it -and be off!” - -“Listen to me. If he comes out again while you talk I won’t answer for -the result. We’ll discuss money matters by and by. Go now--back to the -mill, do you understand? And wait till I come!” - -He was about to retort, but some sound, real or fancied, strangled the -words in his throat. He leaped from me--glanced fearfully at the light -streaming from the open door--crossed the street, his body bent -double, and, keeping this posture, hurried with a rapid shuffling -motion back in the direction of the mill. - -Standing with one foot on the lowest step leading up to the house, I -watched till he was out of sight, then turned and looked into the -dimly lighted hall. What should I do? How act with the surest safety -and promptitude in so immediate a crisis? I could not guess what -unspeakable attraction had so strangely drawn the hunter from his -trembling quarry at the supreme moment; only I saw that he had -vanished and that the hall was empty of him. - -A quick, odd sound coming from the interior of the house decided me. I -sprung up the steps and softly entered the hall. The door leading to -the doctor’s private room, where the murderous busts grinned down, -stood open; and from here issued the noise, that was like the bestial -sputtering growl of some tigerish thing mouthing and mangling its -prey. - -I stepped hastily over the threshold and stopped with a jerk of -terror. - -Something was there, in the dully lighted room--down on the rug before -the fire. Something had rolled and raved and tore at the material -beneath it--an animal’s skin, judged by the whisps of ragged hair that -stuck in the creature’s claws and between his teeth that had rent them -out--something--Duke, who foamed and raged as he lay sprawled on his -hands and knees and snarled like a wild beast in his frenzy of -insanity. - -“He’s mad--mad!” I whispered to myself in an awful voice; and yet he -heard me and paused in the height of his fury, and looked round and up -at me standing white-lipped by the door. - -Then suddenly, while I was striving, amid the wild heat of my brain, -to identify some hooded memory that raised its head in darkness, the -maniac sprung to his feet, gripped me by the wrist and pointed down at -the huddled heap beneath him. - -“Look!” he shrieked, the firelight dancing in his glittering eyes. -“Look! we’ve met at last! The dog that scared and tortured the -wretched sick boy--the dog, the devil! Into the fire with him to blaze -and writhe and scream as a devil should!” - -He plunged again, snarling; and, before I could gather sense to stop -him, had seized and flung the whole mass upon the burning coals. -Flames shot out and around, and the room in a moment was sick with the -stench of flaring pelt. I rushed to tear the heap away; but he met and -struggled with me like a fiend inspired, and helpless I saw the flames -lick higher. - -Straining against me, he laughed and yelled: “He wants water! He -shrieks to Abraham--but not a drop--not one! Look at his red tongue, -shooting out in agony! They fall before me--at last, at last! My time -has come!” - -His voice rose to a scream--there was a responsive shout from the -door. I slewed my head round and saw the white face of the servant -girl peering through the opening behind the figure of Dr. -Crackenthorpe standing there in black, blank amazement. - -“Help!” I cried; “he’s mad!” - -With a deep oath the doctor strode forward, and Duke saw him. In an -instant, with a cry of different tone--a shriek of terror--he spun me -from him, sprung past the other, drove the girl screaming into the -passage, and was gone. - -“Stop! By all----” - -The doctor’s exclamation was for me. I had staggered back, but an -immediate fear drove me, with no time for explanation, to hurried -pursuit. - -“Out of the way!” I cried, violently; “he mustn’t escape!” - -He would have barred my passage. I came against him with a shock that -sent him reeling. As his hands clutched vainly in the air I rushed -from the room and from the house. - -With my first plunge into the street a weltering stream of fire ran -across the sky, and in a moment an explosive crash shook the city like -the bursting open of the gates of torment. - -Amid flood and storm and the numbing slam of thunder the tragedy of -the night was drawing to its close. - - - - - CHAPTER LIX. - INTO THE DEPTHS. - -Momentarily I saw--a black mote in that flickering violet -transparency--the figure of Duke as he ran before me bobbing up and -down like the shadow of the invisible man. Drawn by a sure instinct, -he was heading for the mill, and every nerve must I strain to overtake -him, now goaded by fear and triumph to maniacal frenzy. - -But half the distance was covered when the rain swept down in one -blinding sheet, that lashed the gutters into froth a foot high and -numbed the soul with its terrific uproar. - -On I staggered, knowing only for my comfort that the pursued must -needs labor against no less resistance than the pursuer. Inch by inch -I fought my way, taking advantage of every buttress and coign of -shelter that presented itself; leaping aside with thump-heart from the -crash of falling tiles or dropping swing of branches, as the wind -flung them right and left in its passing; now stumbling and regaining -my feet, shoulder to the storm, now driven back a pace by some gust--a -giant among its fellows--inch by inch I drove on till the mill yard -was reached; and all the way I gained never a foot upon him I strove -to run down. - -Then, rushing along the yard, where comparative shelter was, I found a -thrill of fear, in the midmost confusion of my thoughts, for the -safety of the building itself. For the voice of the mill-tail smote -the roar of the elements and seemed to silence it, and the foam of its -fury sprung and danced above the high-walled channel and flung itself -against the parapet of the bridge in gusts of frosty whiteness. And in -the little lulls came the whistle of sliding tiles from the roof or -snap of them breaking from the walls; so that it seemed before long -nothing but a skeleton of ancient timbers like the ribs and spars of -the phantom death-ship would stand for the blast to scream through. - -Then I came panting to the mill, my soul so whelmed in the roar of all -things that room scarcely was for thought of those two stark sleepers -lying quiet above and deaf forevermore to the hateful tumults of -life--came to the mill, and on the instant abandoned hope. For so it -appeared that in rushing from the door none had thought to shut it, -and the tempest had caught and, near battering it from its hinges, had -dashed it, wrenched and splintered, against the wall of the passage -beyond, and in such way that no immediate human power might close it. -And there lay the way into the building; open to all who listed, and -if Jason had run thither, as I bade him---- - -These thoughts were in passing. I never stayed my progress for them, -but without pause leaped into the inclosed darkness, and only then I -stood still. - -Instantly with my plunge into that pit of blackness the hosts of the -storm without seemed to break and scatter before the wind, shaken with -low spasms of thunder as they fled; but under my feet the racing -waters took up great chords of sound, so that the whole building -trembled and vibrated with their awful music. - -Overstrung to a pitch of madness, I felt my way to the foot of the -stairs, and, stumbling, mounted in the darkness, and reached the first -landing. - -All was still as death. Perhaps it was death come in a new shape, and -stealthily lying somewhere to trip up my feet in a ghastly game of -clowns. I dared not go further; dared hardly to breathe. - -As I stood, a rat began gnawing at the skirting. The jar of his teeth -was like the turning of a rusty lock. The old superstition about -falling houses passed through my mind. What if the close night about -me were to be suddenly rent with the explosive splintering of great -beams--with the raining thunder of roof and chimney-stack pouring -downward in one vast ruin, of which I should be the mangled -palpitating core? - -My body burst into a cold sweat. Perhaps above all the fear in me was -that death should find me with my mission unaccomplished; that I -should have striven and waited in vain. - -Shrinking, I would not push further to the upper rooms, but felt my -way down the stairs once more. It was, at least, hardly probable that -Jason would have rushed for asylum to the very death chambers above. -More likely was I to find him crouching unnerved, if still alive, in -some dark corner of one of the lower rooms. - -As I descended into the passage I fancied I heard a step coming toward -me; and the next moment a dusky shape stood up between me and the dim -oblong of lesser darkness that marked where the front door gaped open. -I ran forward--grasped at it blindly; and long arms were crooked about -me and held me as in a vise. - -“Who’s here?” cried Dr. Crackenthorpe, in a mad voice. “Who is it? -Say, Renalt Trender, and let me choke the cursed life out of him!” - -His passion would hardly allow him to articulate. He dragged me -unresisting to the door, up the yard, and thrust his ugly face down -till it almost touched mine. - -“It is!” he cried, with a scream of fury. “Look--look there! See what -you’ve done!” - -I had marked it already--a dull glow rising over the houses and -chimney pots that lay between us and Chis’ll street--a glow writhed -with twisted skeins of smoke, that rolled heavily upward, coiling -sluggishly in the calm that had fallen. - -“Look!” he screeched; “the priceless treasures of a life--the glories -I bartered my soul for--doomed, in a moment, and by your act! Oh, dog, -for revenge!” - -“You lie!” I cried, outshrieking his rage with a fury that half-shook -him from his hold on me. “I had no part in it! You saw it and you -know! Go! Attend to your own. I’ve deadlier work in hand.” - -I tore myself free of him with a violence that brought him on his -knees, and hurried up the yard once more and into the pitchy house. He -came upon me again while I was fumbling in my pockets for a match, but -he put out no hand to me a second time. - -“Listen, you,” he said, and the words rose and burst from his throat -like bubbles. “You have been a thorn in my foot ever since I trod this -city. If yours wasn’t the act, you were the cause. I would have killed -you both on the spot--you and your accomplice--if the fire, blazing -out on the curtains, had left me time. Now you shall know what it is -to have made me desperate--desperate, do you understand, you fulsome -cur? Better take a viper to bed with you than the thought of my -revenge.” - -“Dr. Crackenthorpe,” I said, very coolly, “you are a ruffian and a -blackguard. Which is the more desperate of us two is an open question. -Anyhow, I fancy myself the stronger. There’s the door. If you remain -this side of it after I have counted twelve you try conclusions with -the mill-tail yonder.” - -I had struck a match while I spoke and kindled an oil lamp standing on -a bracket. This wrestle with an evil soul had braced my nerves like a -tonic. - -He slapped back against the passage wall, staring at me and gasping. -His face, I saw, was grimed with smoke, and his coat scorched in -places. - -I began to count, looking into his eyes, with a grim smile--had got as -far as nine, without awakening movement on his part, when a deathly -yell rung through the house and the words died on my lips. - -I felt the blood leave my face, sinking like water in snow. There was -no mistaking the direction from which the sound had come. It issued -from the haunted room--there from the black end of the passage--from -the core of hideous night, whose silence no storm could penetrate. - -Once I looked at the face before me and saw my own terror reflected in -it; then I sprung for the dreadful place, sick, at whatever cost, to -solve the mystery of the cry. - -Groping for the heavy timbered door, I came suddenly upon a wide -luminous square and almost fell into it. Then I saw, indeed, that the -door itself was open and that a dim glow lighted the interior of the -room. Something else I saw in the same instant--Duke, standing at the -open mouth of the cupboard that inclosed the wheel--Duke, with a -fearful smile on his white face, and his head bent as if he listened. -And his black glowing eyes, set in pools of shadow, alone moved, -fixing their gaze steadily on mine as I came into their vision. - -“Stop!” he said, in a clear, low voice. He need not have bidden me. My -limbs seemed paralyzed--my heart stiffening with deadly foreboding of -some approaching wickedness. - -A lighted lantern stood near him on the floor and threw a gigantic -distorted shadow of him on the wall against the window. - -“Did you hear?” he said, in a whisper that thrilled to me where I -stood. “Is it haunted, this room of yours? It seems so. Listen!” - -He leaned over and looked down into the pit, so that the upper half of -his body was plunged in black shadow. Simultaneously an appalling -scream rose from the depths and echoed away among the rafters above. - -The marrow froze in my bones. I struggled vainly to rush forward, but -my feet would not obey my will. - -“My God!” I muttered from a crackled throat--“my God!” - -He was looking at me again across the glowing space, a grin twitching -up his mouth like a dog’s. - -“If you move to come at me,” he said, “I leap down there and end it. -He won’t thank you, though.” - -“Duke,” I forced myself to mutter, at length, in uncontrollable -horror. “Is it Jason? Oh! be satisfied at last and God will forgive -you.” - -“Why, so I am!” he cried, with a whispering laugh. “But I never sent -him down there. He went of his own accord--a secret, snug -hiding-place. But he should have waited longer; and who would have -thought of looking so deep! It was his leaning over, as he came up, to -put the lantern where it stands that drew me.” - -In the sickness of my terror I saw it all. Jason, flying back to the -mill, mad with fear, mad for the means of escape--Jason, who had -already solved the mystery of the treasure, and had only hitherto -lacked the courage necessary to a descent upon it--Jason, in his -despair, had seized a light, burst into the room of silence; had found -the wheel stopped and the key in the lock, as I had left them; had, -summoning his last of manliness, gone down into the pit and, -returning, had met his fearful enemy face to face. - -I read it all and, utterly hopeless and demoralized as I was--knowing -that a movement on my part would precipitate the tragedy--yet found -voice to break the spell, and delivered my agony in a shriek. - -“Jason!” I screamed; “Jason! Climb up! You are as strong as he! Climb -up and defy him! We are two to one!” - -Even as the volume of my cry seemed to strike a responsive weak echo -from the bowels of the pit, I was conscious that Dr. Crackenthorpe was -breathing behind me over my shoulder. And while the sound of my voice -ran from beam to beam in devilish harmonics, the cripple suddenly -threw up his arms with a quavering screech and leaped upon the -threshold of the cupboard. - -“The man!” he yelled; “the dog, and now the man! I know him at last!” - -Dr. Crackenthorpe broke past me with an answering cry: - -“He fired my house! Stop him! The hound! Stop him!” - -As he sprang forward Duke, with a sudden swoop, seized the lantern -from the floor and flung it at him; and at the same instant--as I saw -by the flaming arc of light it made--clutched the rope and swung -himself into the vault. The lantern crashed and was extinguished. The -doctor uttered a fierce oath. Spellbound I stood, and for half a dozen -seconds the weltering blackness eddied with a ghastly silence. Then I -heard the doctor fling past me, running out of the room with a fearful -exclamation on his lips, and, as he went, scream after scream rise -from the depths, so that my soul seemed to faint with the agony of it. - -Groping, staggering, my brain reeling, I stumbled toward the sound. - -“God forgive me!” I whispered. “Death is better than this.” - -Even with the thought a new uproar broke upon my senses--the -thunderous heaving onrush of a mighty torrent of water underfoot. - -In a flash I knew what had happened. The hideous creature had lifted -the sluice and turned the swollen flood upon the wheel. - -Then the past swept over me in a hurried panorama as my poor brain -paused for rest. - -Who killed Modred--How did he die? - -What is the mystery of Duke Straw? - -What was the sin of my mother? - -Whose portrait was it that my father nailed to the axle of the wheel? - -These and many other of the problems haunting my life came to me in -swift succession, only to be passed in dullness and left unanswered. - - - - - CHAPTER LX. - WHO KILLED MODRED? - -In the instant of realization, as I stood near, death-stricken, where -I had stopped, I felt the whole room shake and tremble as the torrent -leaped upon the wheel with a flinging shock, heard a clanking screech -rise from the monster as it turned, slowly at first, but quickly -gathering speed under the awful pressure; heard one last bubbling -scream waver up from the depths and die within the narrow vault; then -all sense was whelmed and numbed in the single booming crash of water. - -Already, indeed, the choked water, hurled high by the paddles, was -gushing through the opening in cascades upon the floor. How long would -the ancient rafters and beams and walls resist the terrible pressure? - -I had no thought or desire to escape. What had taken me long to -describe, all passed in a few seconds. But Providence, that here -included so many actors in the tragedy in one common ruin, had not -writ my sentence, and my young suffering soul it spared to this dark -world of memories. - -Insatiable yet, however, it claimed a last victim. - -He came running back now, breathing hateful triumph in the lust of his -wickedness--came to gloat over the work of his evil hands. - -I heard him splash into the water that poured from the wheel--dance in -it--laugh and scream out: - -“Tit for tat, and the devil pipes! Caught in his own net! You, there, -in the dark! Do you hear? Where are you? Where?--my arms hunger for -you!” - -The paralysis of my senses left me. - -“Man or fiend?” I shrieked above the thunder of the water. “Down on -your knees! It is the end for both of us! Down, and weep and pray--for -I believe, before God, you have just murdered your son!” - -There was a brief fearful pause; he seemed to be listening--then, -without preface or warning, there came a sudden surging crash, -deafening and appalling and I thought “Is it upon us?” - -Still I stood unscathed, though a cracking volley of sounds, rending -and shattering, succeeded the crash, and one wild, dreadful cry that -pierced through all. Then silence fell, broken only by the smooth, -washing sweep of a great body of water through the channel below. - -Silence fell and lapped me in a merciful unconsciousness; for, with -the relaxing of the mental pressure I went plump down upon the floor -where I stood and lay in a long faint. - - * * * * * * - -When I came to myself a dim wash of daylight soaking through the -blurred window had found my face as I lay prone upon the boards, and -was crawling up to my eyes like a child to open them. An ineffable -soft sense of peace kept still my exhausted limbs in the first waking -moments, and only by degrees occurred to me the horror and tragedy of -the previous night. - -Still I made no attempt to rise, hoping only in forlorn self-pity that -death would come to me gently as I lay and take me by the hand, -saying: “With the vexing problems of life you need nevermore trouble -yourself.” - -All around, save for the deep murmur of water, was deathly quiet, and -I prayed that it might remain so; that nothing might ever recall me to -weariful action again. - -Then a faint groan came to my ears and the misericordious spell was -broken. - -Slowly and feebly I gathered myself together to rise. But a second -moan dissipated the selfish shadow and stung me to some reluctant -action. - -Leaning upon my hand I looked about me and could hardly believe the -evidence of my senses when I saw the walls and rafters of the fateful -room stretching about me unaltered and unscathed. The crash, that had -seemed to involve all in one splintering ruin, had left, seemingly, no -evidence of its nature whatsoever. Only, for a considerable distance -from the mouth of the cupboard, the floor was stained with a sop of -water; and, not a dozen feet from me, huddled in the darkest of it, -lay a heaped and sodden mass that stirred and sent forth another moan -as I looked. - -Painfully, then, I got upon my feet and stole, with no sentiment but a -weak curiosity, to the prostrate thing. It was as if I had died and my -dissatisfied ghost postponed its departure, seeking the last -explanation of things. Thus, while my soul was sensitive to the least -expression of the tragedy that absorbed it, in the human world outside -it seemed no longer to feel an interest. - -And here, under my eyes, was tumbled the latest grim victim of this -house accursed--the engineer of much diabolical machinery mangled by -the demon he had himself evoked. What a pitiful, collapsed ruin, that, -for all its resourcefulness, could only moan and suffer! - -Only a thin thread of crimson ran from the corner of his mouth, and -where it had made during the night a little pool on the floor under -his head it looked like ink. - -Near him lay a great jagged block of wood green with slime. I crept to -the cupboard opening and looked down. - -The wheel was gone! - -Then I knew what had happened. The house had triumphed over the -stubborn monster that had so long proved its curse. At the supreme -moment the vast dam had yielded and saved the building. It had gone, -leaving not a trace of wreckage but this--this, and the single torn -fragment that had struck down the wretch who set it in motion--had -gone, bearing away with it in one boiling ruin the crushed and twisted -bodies of the last two victims of its insensate fury. - -But one further sign was there of its mighty passing--a ragged rent a -foot square driven through the very wall of the house within the -vault. - -And here a thin shaft of light came in and fell, like the focus of an -awful eye, full upon the miniature where it lay nailed, face upward, -upon the axle--fell, also, upon that empty niche in the brickwork -where once had stood the treasure for which Jason had given his life. - -I turned to the shattered man, leaned over him, touched him. He gave a -gasp of agony and opened his eyes. The white stare of horror was in -them and the blood ran faster from his mouth. - -“Water!” he cried, with a dry, clacking sound in his throat. - -I hurried from the room, although he called after me feebly not to -leave him, drew a jugful from the tap in the kitchen and returned. I -heard no sound in the house. A glimmer of flood came in through the -gaping door to the yard. No immediate help was possible in the rising -of that direful morning after the storm. I was alone with my many -dead. - -I put the jug to his lips and he sucked down a long, gluttonous -draught. Then he looked at me with eager inquiry breaking through his -mortal torment. - -“My chest is all broken in,” he said, straining out his voice in -bitter anguish. “When I move the end will come. Quick!--you said -something--at the last moment--what was it?” - -“That I believed it was your son you sent to his death down there.” - -“I have no son. Once--yes--but he died--was poisoned--or drowned.” - -“Oh! God forgive this man!” I cried, lifting my face in terror, and in -that sick moment inspiration, I think, was given me. - -“He never died. He was saved, to grow up a hopeless cripple, and that -was he you murdered last night.” - -He closed his eyes again, and I saw his ashen lips moving. - -“Oh, man,” I cried, “are you praying? Take grace of repentance and -humble your wicked soul at the last. I can’t believe you innocent of a -share in the wretchedness of this wretched house. I am the only one -left of it--broken and lost to hope, but I forgive you--do you -understand?--I forgive you.” - -“I never killed the boy,” he muttered in a low, suffering tone, and -with his eyes still closed. - -“Will you tell me all you know about it? If you are guiltless, be -merciful as you hope for mercy.” - -“Modred found the cameo--picked it up--he told me himself--in this -very room--where--your father must have dropped it.” - -I cried “yes” passionately, and implored him to go on. - -“He--the old man--that night--accused me of stealing it. It was the -first--I’d heard of it. Presently--he fell asleep--in his chair. I -thought I would--seize the opportunity to--look for it over the -house--quietly. Finding myself--outside--the boy’s room--I went in to -see--how--he--was getting on. He was awake--and--there was the very -thing--in his hand. I asked him how--he had come by it. He told me. I -demanded it--of him--said--your father had--promised it me. -Nothing--availed--availed.” - -He was gasping and panting to such a degree that I thought even now he -would die, leaving the words I maddened for unspoken. Brutally, in my -torment, I urged him on. - -“He--wouldn’t give it up. I rushed at him--he put it in his -mouth--and--as I seized him, tried to swallow it--and choked. It had -stuck at--the entrance to his gullet. In a few moments--in his state -he was too--weak to expel it--he was dead. Perhaps--I might have saved -him--but the trinket--the beautiful trinket!” - -My heart seemed scarcely to beat as I listened. At last I knew the -truth--knew it wicked and inhuman; yet--thank God--less atrocious than -I had dreaded. - -“But afterward,” I whispered--“afterward?” - -“There was a plan,” he moaned, and his speech came with difficulty, -“inspired me. I dissuaded--your father--from encouraging--any inquiry. -A post-mortem, I knew--would lay open the secret--and lose me--the -cameo. He was buried--on my certificate. I got--the man--George -White--under my thumb--fed him on fire--lent him money--made him--my -tool. One dark--stormy--night--we opened the grave--the coffin. The -devil--lent a hand. A new grave--had to be dug--a foot away. It was -only--necessary--to--make a hori--horizontal opening--in the -intervening soil. I had--my tools--and sliced open the dead boy’s -throat--and found what I wanted. Only the sexton knew. -Nothing--afterward--would persuade--the mad fool--that the boy--hadn’t -been buried alive--and that--I--hadn’t murdered him. Only his fear--of -me--kept his mouth--shut. This is--the truth.” - -He lay quite still, exhausted with his long, cruel effort. I touched -him gently with my hand. - -“As I hope for rest myself,” I said, “I forgive you, now that you have -spoken, for all this long, hideous misery. The treasure you staked -against your soul is passed in fire and water and lost forever. -Nothing remains to you here; and, for the future--oh, pray, man, pray, -while there is time!” - -My voice broke in a sob. He strove to lift himself, leaning upon his -hand, and immediately his mouth was choked with blood. - -“Where’s he?” he cried, in a stifled voice--“Down there?” - -“That way he went. The waters have him now--him, and my brother Jason, -who was on the wheel also when you raised the hatch. God knows, their -bodies may be miles away by this time.” - -He looked up at me with an awful expression; then, without another -word, dragged himself inch by inch along the floor to the pit mouth -and, reaching it, looked down--and immediately a great sputtering cry -burst from him: - -“Who put that there?--that? the miniature? I gave it to--who did it, I -say? It’s a trick! My soul burns--it burns already! Tear it off! My -own portrait--Minna!” - -Thus and in such manner I heard my mother’s name spoken for the first -time; felt the awful foundering truth burst upon my heart. Uttering -it, the soul of this fearful man tore free with a last dying scream of -agony, and he dropped upon his face over the threshold of the running -vault. - -One moment, fate-stricken, I heard in the silence the heavy drip of -something going pattering down into the pit--the next, darkness -overwhelmed and the world ceased for me. - - * * * * * - -Did I ever see Zyp again? I know that some one came to me, lying -entranced in a long, sick dream, who bore her resemblance, at least, -and who spoke gentle words to me and put cold, sweet drink to my lips. -But, when I woke at last, she was not there--only a kind, soft woman, -a ministering nurse, who moved without noise, and foresaw all my -fretful wants. - -If she came, she went and left no trace; and I know in my heart I am -never to see her more. - -And here, month by month, I sit alone in the old haunted, crazy -place--alone with my memories and my ghosts and my ancient fruitless -regrets. - -Dolly and my father--the doctor, and those other two, found far away, -welded in a dead embrace, and crushed and dinted one into the -other--the fair and the ugly, all, all gone, and I am alone. - -I am not thirty, yet my hair is white and it is time I was gone. - -And to hear death knock at my door this very night would be ecstasy. - - [THE END.] - - - - - TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES. - -The edition published by John Long (London, 1902) was referenced for -most of the changes listed below. - -Minor spelling inconsistencies (_e.g._ finger-tips/finger tips, -footfalls/foot-falls, etc.) and obsolete spellings (_e.g._ clew, -grewsome, etc.) have been preserved. - -Alterations to the text: - -Add TOC. - -Assorted punctuation corrections. - -[Chapter V] - -Change (“It’s awful and _its_ grand, but there are always”) to _it’s_. - -“and she _fell_ at home among the flowers at once” to _felt_. - -“forever and a day, Mr. _Ralf_ Trender” to _Ralph_. - -“_Its_ naught that concerns you,” to _It’s_. - -[Chapter VIII] - -“on the _wash hand stand_ a rush candle” to _wash-hand stand_. - -[Chapter X] - -(glancing at me, “_Dad_ thought there ought to be) to _dad_. - -[Chapter XIV] - -“on which a protruding red _upperlip_ lay like” to _upper lip_. - -“I had been with him getting on a a year” delete one _a_. - -[Chapter XV] - -“eye to find flaws in my _phrasology_” to _phraseology_. - -[Chapter XVII] - -“something the fascinating figure she always was” add _of_ after -_something_. - -[Chapter XVII] - -(“passion of the past” the _poet_ strove to explore) to _poets_. - -[Chapter XXI] - -“another weekly dissipation on _Hampsted_ heath is over” to -_Hampstead_. - -[Chapter XXIII] - -(“Well, _its_ best,” I muttered at last) to _it’s_. - -[Chapter XXX] - -(“I mean it _to_,” I said) to _too_. - -[Chapter XLI] - -“It is the man’s _were wolf_, my good friend” to _werewolf_. - -[Chapter XLII] - -(“question, mon _frere_, and I will answer.”) to _frère_. - -[Chapter XLIII] - -“and sobbing like _an_ hysterical school-girl.” to _a_. - -[Chapter XLV] - -“I was doing so _matter-in-fact_ as to half-cure me” to -_matter-of-fact_. - -[Chapter XLVI] - -“and well out of the _perdendicular_” to _perpendicular_. - -[Chapter LI] - -(to a patient I once attended. _Good night_.”) to _Good-night_. - -[Chapter LII] - -“held the paper in such position that he could write” add _a_ after -_such_. - -[Chapter LIV] - -“_Good morning_ to you. May I remind you that” to _Good-morning_. - -[Chapter LV] - -“the _damned_ water spurted and leaped from” to _dammed_. - -[Chapter LVII] - -“I have not been _mere_ active in your succor” to _more_. - -[Chapter LVIII] - -“Some insane fancy had drawn _his_ off the scent” to _him_. - -[End of Text] - - - - -*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE MILL OF SILENCE *** - -Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will -be renamed. - -Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright -law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, -so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the -United States without permission and without paying copyright -royalties. Special rules, set forth in the General Terms of Use part -of this license, apply to copying and distributing Project -Gutenberg-tm electronic works to protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm -concept and trademark. 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You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms -of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online -at <a href="https://www.gutenberg.org">www.gutenberg.org</a>. If you -are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the -country where you are located before using this eBook. -</div> - -<p style='display:block; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:1em; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Title: The mill of silence</p> -<p style='display:block; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:0; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Author: Bernard Edward Joseph Capes</p> -<p style='display:block; text-indent:0; margin:1em 0'>Release Date: August 5, 2022 [eBook #68688]</p> -<p style='display:block; text-indent:0; margin:1em 0'>Language: English</p> - <p style='display:block; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:0; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em; text-align:left'>Produced by: an anonymous Project Gutenberg volunteer</p> -<div style='margin-top:2em; margin-bottom:4em'>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE MILL OF SILENCE ***</div> - - -<div class="tp"> -<h1> -THE MILL OF SILENCE -</h1> - -<span class="font80">BY</span><br/> -B. E. J. CAPES. - -<br/><br/><br/><br/> -<span class="font80">CHICAGO AND NEW YORK:</span><br/> -RAND, McNALLY & COMPANY,<br/> -<span class="font80">MDCCCXCVII.</span> -</div> - - -<h2 title=""> -<!-- [MISC/COPYRIGHT] --> -</h2> - -<p class="center"> -A PRIZE STORY -</p> - -<p class="center"> -<span class="font80">In <span class="sc">The Chicago Record’s</span> series of “Stories of Mystery.”</span> -</p> - -<p class="center"><br/> -THE MILL OF SILENCE -</p> - -<p class="center"> -<span class="font80">BY</span><br/> -B. E. J. CAPES, -<span class="font80">Author of “The Uttermost Farthing,” “The -Haunted Tower,” etc.</span> -</p> - -<p class="center"><br/> -<span class="font80">(This story—out of 816 competing—was awarded the second prize in <span class="sc">The -Chicago Record’s</span> “$30,000 to Authors” competition.)</span> -</p> - -<p class="center"><br/> -Copyright, 1896, by B. E. J. Capes. -</p> - - -<h2> -CONTENTS. -</h2> - -<p class="toc_1"> -<a href="#ch01">I. THE INMATES OF THE MILL.</a> -</p> - -<p class="toc_1"> -<a href="#ch02">II. A NIXIE.</a> -</p> - -<p class="toc_1"> -<a href="#ch03">III. THE MILL AND THE CHANGELING.</a> -</p> - -<p class="toc_1"> -<a href="#ch04">IV. ZYP BEWITCHES.</a> -</p> - -<p class="toc_1"> -<a href="#ch05">V. A TERRIBLE INTERVIEW.</a> -</p> - -<p class="toc_1"> -<a href="#ch06">VI. THE NIGHT BEFORE.</a> -</p> - -<p class="toc_1"> -<a href="#ch07">VII. THE POOL OF DEATH.</a> -</p> - -<p class="toc_1"> -<a href="#ch08">VIII. THE WAKING.</a> -</p> - -<p class="toc_1"> -<a href="#ch09">IX. THE FACE ON THE PILLOW.</a> -</p> - -<p class="toc_1"> -<a href="#ch10">X. JASON SPEAKS.</a> -</p> - -<p class="toc_1"> -<a href="#ch11">XI. CONVICT, BUT NOT SENTENCED.</a> -</p> - -<p class="toc_1"> -<a href="#ch12">XII. THE DENUNCIATION.</a> -</p> - -<p class="toc_1"> -<a href="#ch13">XIII. MY FRIEND THE CRIPPLE.</a> -</p> - -<p class="toc_1"> -<a href="#ch14">XIV. I OBTAIN EMPLOYMENT.</a> -</p> - -<p class="toc_1"> -<a href="#ch15">XV. SWEET, POOR DOLLY.</a> -</p> - -<p class="toc_1"> -<a href="#ch16">XVI. A FATEFUL ACCIDENT.</a> -</p> - -<p class="toc_1"> -<a href="#ch17">XVII. A TOUCHING REVELATION.</a> -</p> - -<p class="toc_1"> -<a href="#ch18">XVIII. A VOICE FROM THE CROWD.</a> -</p> - -<p class="toc_1"> -<a href="#ch19">XIX. A MENACE.</a> -</p> - -<p class="toc_1"> -<a href="#ch20">XX. DUKE SPEAKS.</a> -</p> - -<p class="toc_1"> -<a href="#ch21">XXI. THE CALM BEFORE.</a> -</p> - -<p class="toc_1"> -<a href="#ch22">XXII. THE SHADOW OF THE STORM.</a> -</p> - -<p class="toc_1"> -<a href="#ch23">XXIII. A LETTER AND AN ANSWER.</a> -</p> - -<p class="toc_1"> -<a href="#ch24">XXIV. LOST.</a> -</p> - -<p class="toc_1"> -<a href="#ch25">XXV. A LAST MESSAGE.</a> -</p> - -<p class="toc_1"> -<a href="#ch26">XXVI. FROM THE DEPTHS.</a> -</p> - -<p class="toc_1"> -<a href="#ch27">XXVII. AN UNEXPECTED MEETING.</a> -</p> - -<p class="toc_1"> -<a href="#ch28">XXVIII. THE TABLES TURNED.</a> -</p> - -<p class="toc_1"> -<a href="#ch29">XXIX. A SUDDEN DETERMINATION.</a> -</p> - -<p class="toc_1"> -<a href="#ch30">XXX. I GO HOME.</a> -</p> - -<p class="toc_1"> -<a href="#ch31">XXXI. ONE MYSTERY EXPLAINED.</a> -</p> - -<p class="toc_1"> -<a href="#ch32">XXXII. OLD PEGGY.</a> -</p> - -<p class="toc_1"> -<a href="#ch33">XXXIII. FACE TO FACE.</a> -</p> - -<p class="toc_1"> -<a href="#ch34">XXXIV. I VISIT A GRAVE.</a> -</p> - -<p class="toc_1"> -<a href="#ch35">XXXV. ONE SAD VISITOR.</a> -</p> - -<p class="toc_1"> -<a href="#ch36">XXXVI. I GO TO LONDON.</a> -</p> - -<p class="toc_1"> -<a href="#ch37">XXXVII. A FACE.</a> -</p> - -<p class="toc_1"> -<a href="#ch38">XXXVIII. A NIGHT PURSUIT.</a> -</p> - -<p class="toc_1"> -<a href="#ch39">XXXIX. A STRANGE VIGIL.</a> -</p> - -<p class="toc_1"> -<a href="#ch40">XL. A STORY AND ITS SEQUEL.</a> -</p> - -<p class="toc_1"> -<a href="#ch41">XLI. ACROSS THE WATER.</a> -</p> - -<p class="toc_1"> -<a href="#ch42">XLII. JASON’S SECOND VISIT.</a> -</p> - -<p class="toc_1"> -<a href="#ch43">XLIII. ANOTHER RESPITE.</a> -</p> - -<p class="toc_1"> -<a href="#ch44">XLIV. THE SECRET OF THE WHEEL.</a> -</p> - -<p class="toc_1"> -<a href="#ch45">XLV. I MAKE A DESCENT.</a> -</p> - -<p class="toc_1"> -<a href="#ch46">XLVI. CAUGHT.</a> -</p> - -<p class="toc_1"> -<a href="#ch47">XLVII. SOME ONE COMES AND GOES.</a> -</p> - -<p class="toc_1"> -<a href="#ch48">XLVIII. A FRUITLESS SEARCH.</a> -</p> - -<p class="toc_1"> -<a href="#ch49">XLIX. A QUIET WARNING.</a> -</p> - -<p class="toc_1"> -<a href="#ch50">L. STRICKEN DOWN.</a> -</p> - -<p class="toc_1"> -<a href="#ch51">LI. A MEETING ON THE BRIDGE.</a> -</p> - -<p class="toc_1"> -<a href="#ch52">LII. A WRITTEN WORD.</a> -</p> - -<p class="toc_1"> -<a href="#ch53">LIII. AN ATTEMPT AND A FAILURE.</a> -</p> - -<p class="toc_1"> -<a href="#ch54">LIV. A LAST CONFESSION.</a> -</p> - -<p class="toc_1"> -<a href="#ch55">LV. A SHADOW FROM THE PAST.</a> -</p> - -<p class="toc_1"> -<a href="#ch56">LVI. ALONE.</a> -</p> - -<p class="toc_1"> -<a href="#ch57">LVII. A PROMISE.</a> -</p> - -<p class="toc_1"> -<a href="#ch58">LVIII. THE “SPECTER HOUND.”</a> -</p> - -<p class="toc_1"> -<a href="#ch59">LIX. INTO THE DEPTHS.</a> -</p> - -<p class="toc_1"> -<a href="#ch60">LX. WHO KILLED MODRED?</a> -</p> - - -<h2> -THE MILL OF SILENCE. -</h2> - -<p> -Yesterday came a knock at the door—a faint, tentative knock as from -childish knuckles—and I went to see who it was. A queer little figure -stood outside in the twilight—a dainty compendium of skirt and cape -and frothy white frills—and a small elfish face looked up into mine -through shimmering of hair, like love in a mist. -</p> - -<p> -“If you please,” she said, “Zyp’s dead and will you take care of poor -Zyp’s child?” -</p> - -<p> -Then at that moment the hard agony of my life broke its walls in a -blessed convulsion of weeping, and I caught the little wanderer to my -heart and carried her within doors. -</p> - -<p> -“And so poor Zyp is dead?” said I. -</p> - -<p> -“Yes,” answered the elfin; “and, please, will you give me back to her -some day?” -</p> - -<p> -“Before God’s throne,” I whispered, “I will deliver up my trust; and -that in such wise that from His mercy some little of the light of love -may, perhaps, shine upon me also.” -</p> - -<p> -That night I put my signature to the last page of the narrative here -unfolded. -</p> - - -<h3 id="ch01"> -CHAPTER I.<br/> -<span class="chap_sub">THE INMATES OF THE MILL.</span> -</h3> - -<p> -My story begins like a fairy tale. Once upon a time there was a miller -who had three sons. Here, however, the resemblance ceases. At this -late date I, the last stricken inmate of the Mill of Silence, set it -down for a warning and a menace; not entirely in despair, perhaps, but -with a fitful flickering of hope that at the last moment my soul may -be rent from me into a light it has never yet foreseen. -</p> - -<p> -We were three brothers, sons of a gray, old man, whose father, and his -father before him, had owned and run a flour mill in the ancient city -of Winton in Hampshire. This mill stood a little back from the north -side of the east and more deserted end of the High street, and faced a -little bridge—wooden in those days, but stone now—through which -raced the first of the mill fall that came thundering out from under -the old timber building, as though it had burst at a push some ancient -dam and were hurrying off to make up for lost ages of restraint. The -house, a broad single red-tiled gable, as seen from the bridge, stood -crushed in between other buildings, and in all my memory of it was a -crazy affair in appearance and ever in two minds about slipping into -the boisterous water below and so flushing all that quarter of the -town with an overflow, as it were, of its own ancient dropsy. It was -built right across the stream, with the mill wheel buried in its -heart; and I can recall a certain childish speculation as to the -results which would follow a possible relaxing of the house pressure -on either side; in which case I hopefully assumed the wheel would slip -out of its socket, and, carrying the frail bridge before it, roll -cheerfully down stream on its own axle to the huge delight of all -adventurous spirits. -</p> - -<p> -Our reputation in Winton was not, I am sorry to say, good. There was a -whispered legend of uncanniness about the mill itself, which might -mean little or nothing, and a notoriety with regard to its inmates -which did mean a good deal. The truth is, not to mince matters, that -my father was a terrible drunkard, and that his three sons—not the -eldest of whom retained more than a shadowy remembrance of a -long-departed mother’s influence—were from early years fostered in an -atmosphere that reeked with that one form of moral depravity. A quite -youthful recollection of mine is the sight of my father, thin, bent, -gray bearded, and with a fierce, not uncomely face, jerking himself to -sudden stoppages at points in the High street to apostrophize with -menacing fury the devils born of his disease. -</p> - -<p> -To the world about us my father was nothing but a worthless inebriate, -who had early abandoned himself to profligate courses, content to live -upon the little fortune left him by his predecessors and to leave his -children to run to seed as they listed in the stagnant atmosphere of -vice. What the world did not know was the secret side of my father’s -character—the wild, fierce imagination of the man; the creative -spirit of his healthier moods and the passionate reverence of beauty -which was as habitual to him as the craze for strong waters. -</p> - -<p> -He exercised a despotic influence over us, and we subscribed -admiringly to his rule with the snarling submissiveness of young tiger -cubs. I think the fragmentary divinity that nests in odd, neglected -corners of each and every frame of life, took some recognition of a -higher type from which it had inherited. Mentally, at his best, my -father was as much above us as, by some cantrip of fate, he was -superior to the sullen, plodding stock of which he was born. -</p> - -<p> -Three days out of the week he was drunk; vision-haunted, almost -unapproachable; and this had been so from time that was immemorial to -us. The period of compulsory education had not yet agitated the -community at large, and our intellects he permitted to run to grass -with our bodies. On our pursuits, pastoral, urban, and always -mischievous if occasion offered, he put no restraint whatever, yet -encouraged a sort of half-savage clannishness among us that held the -mill for fortress and the world for besiegers. -</p> - -<p> -Perhaps it was not until I was rising 18 that any speculation as to -the raison d’être of our manner of life began to stir in my brain. My -eldest brother, Jason, was then a tall, handsome fellow of 19, with a -crisp devil in his corn-colored hair and a silent one in his eyes, -that were shot with changing blue. Modred, the youngest, some eighteen -months my junior, was a contrast to Jason in every way. He was a -heavy, pasty boy, with an aggravating droop in his lids and a large -unspeculative face. He was entirely self-contained, armored against -satire and unmoved of the spirit of tears. A sounding smack on the -cheek, delivered in the one-sided heat of argument, brought his face, -like a stolid phantasm, projected toward the striker’s in a wooden -impassivity that was infinitely more maddening than abuse. It showed -no more resentment than a battered Aunt Sally’s, but rather assumed a -mockery of curiosity as to the bullying methods of the strong against -the weak. Speaking of him, I have no object but to present a portrait, -unprejudiced alike of regard or disfavor. This, I entreat, may be -borne in mind. -</p> - -<p> -One afternoon, in late April weather, Jason and I were loitering and -idling about some meadows within rifle shot of the old city outskirts. -We lay upon our faces in the long grass beside a clear, shallow burn, -intent upon sport less lawful than exciting. The country about Winton -is laced with innumerable streams and freshets and therein without -exception are trout in great quantity, though mostly shy to come at -from the little depth and extreme transparency of the water. That the -fishing is everywhere “preserved” goes without saying, and it follows -in order that poaching is pretty general. -</p> - -<p> -We were poaching, in truth, and extremely enjoying it as usual. Jason -held in his hand a willow wand, fitted with a line, which was baited -with a brandling fat from the manure heap. This it was essential to -swing gently, ourselves crouching hidden as far as possible, into the -liveliest streaks of the current where it ran cleanly over pebbles, -and to let it swim naturally downstream the length of the rod’s -tether. Occasionally, if not so often as one could wish, the plump -bait would lure some youngling, imperfect in guile, from security of -the stones and a sudden jerking of the tough willow would communicate -a galvanic thrill of excitement to our every fiber. The experience did -not stale by a too-frequent repetition, and was scarcely marred in our -eyes by the ever-present necessity of keeping a vigilant lookout for -baleful intruders on our privacy. Our worst foe, in this respect, was -a great bosom of chalk and turf, known as St. Catherine’s hill, which -rose directly in front of us some short distance on the further side -of the stream, and from which it was easy for any casual enemy to -detect our every movement. However, as fortune would have it, the hill -was but comparatively little favored of the townsfolk. -</p> - -<p> -“Ware!” said I, suddenly. -</p> - -<p> -Jason drew his line swiftly and horizontally from the water and -dropped it and the rod deftly under the fringe of the bank. -</p> - -<p> -We turned on our backs, lazily blinking at the sky. -</p> - -<p> -A figure was sauntering along by the side of the little river toward -us. It was that of an ill-dressed man of 45 or so, ball-jointed and -cadaverous, with a wet, wandering blue eye and light brick-colored -hair brushed back into rat-tails. His mouth was one pencil mark -twitched up at the corners, and his ears, large and shapeless, stood -up prominently like a bat’s. He carried his hands behind his back and -rolled his head from side to side as he walked. He espied us a long -way off and stopped presently, looking down upon us. -</p> - -<p> -“Sinews of whipcord,” he said, in a voice thin as his lips, “and -hearts of cats! What tomfoolery now?” -</p> - -<p> -My brother raised his head, yawning lazily. -</p> - -<p> -“Tom Fool hisself,” said he. -</p> - -<p> -“I am not,” said the newcomer, “near such a fool as I look. I can tell -the likeliest place for tickling trouts, now, anywhere.” -</p> - -<p> -Jason grunted. -</p> - -<p> -“And that’s the Itchen,” went on the other with an enjoying chuckle. -</p> - -<p> -We vouchsafed him a patronizing laughter. -</p> - -<p> -“Too good,” he said; “too good for lob worms and sand-hoppers. Where’s -the best place to find trouts, now—the little speckled trouts?” -</p> - -<p> -“Where?” said I. -</p> - -<p> -“Caught!” he cried, and pounced upon Jason. -</p> - -<p> -There was a short, bitter struggle between them, and the man, leaving -the boy sitting panting on the grass, leaped apart with a speckled -trophy held aloft in his hand. -</p> - -<p> -“Give it back!” cried my brother, rising, white and furious, “or I’ll -brain you!” He seized up a great lump of chalk as he spoke and -balanced it in his hand. -</p> - -<p> -“Softly,” said the other, very coolly slipping the trout into the wide -pocket of his coat. Jason watched him with glittering eyes. -</p> - -<p> -“Give it back to him, Dr. Crackenthorpe,” I cried, “or he’ll do you a -hurt!” -</p> - -<p> -In one moment the doctor dropped on his knees at the instant that the -missile spun over him and splashed among the marigolds far in the -meadow beyond; in the next Jason was down on his back again, with the -tall man’s knuckles at his throat and his bony knee planted on his -chest. -</p> - -<p> -“Puppy of Satan!” he hissed in grim fury. “D’ye dare to pursue me with -murderous hate!” -</p> - -<p> -Tooth and nail I fell upon the victor like a wild cat and tore at him. -His strength was marvelous. Holding my brother down with his left -hand, he swung his right behind his back, clutched me over, and rolled -us both together in a struggling heap. -</p> - -<p> -“Now,” said he, jumping to his feet and daring us, “move a muscle to -rise and I’ll hold your mouths under water for the frogs to dive in.” -</p> - -<p> -It was the only sort of argument that appealed to us—the argument of -resourceful strength that could strike and baffle at once. -</p> - -<p> -When he had recovered his breath sufficiently to laugh, Jason -tittered. From the first the fateful charm of my brother was the -pleasant music of his voice and the pliant adaptability of his moods. -</p> - -<p> -“Keep the fish, doctor,” he said; “we give in.” He always answered for -both of us. -</p> - -<p> -“Well,” said Dr. Crackenthorpe, “that’s wise.” He stepped back as he -spoke to signify that we might get on our feet, which we did. -</p> - -<p> -“I keep the trout,” he said, grandly, “in evidence, and shall cast -over in my mind the pros and cons of my duty to the authorities in the -matter.” -</p> - -<p> -At this, despite our discomfiture, we laughed like young hyenas. The -trout, we knew, was destined for the doctor’s own table. He was a -notorious skinflint, to whom sixpence saved from the cooking pot was a -coin redoubled of its face value. -</p> - -<p> -He made as if to continue his way, but paused again, and shot a -question at Jason. -</p> - -<p> -“Dad had any more finds?” -</p> - -<p> -“No,” said Jason, “and if he had you wouldn’t get ’em.” -</p> - -<p> -Dr. Crackenthorpe looked at the boy a minute, shrugged his shoulders -and moved off. -</p> - -<p> -And here, at this point, his question calls for some explanation. -</p> - -<p> -One day, some twelve months or so earlier than the incident just -described, we of the mill being all collected together for dinner and -my father just coming out of one of his drunken fits, a coin tinkled -on the floor and rolled into the empty fireplace, where it lay shining -yellow. My father, who had somehow jerked it out of his pocket from -the trembling of his hand, walked unsteadily across the room and stood -looking down upon it vacantly. There he remained for a minute or two, -we watching him, and from time to time shot a stealthy glance round at -one or other of us. Twice or thrice he made as if to pick it up, but -his heart apparently failed him, for he desisted. Suddenly, however, -he had it in his hand and stood fingering it, still watchful of us. -</p> - -<p> -“Well,” he said at last, “there it is for all the world to see,” and -placed it on the mantelpiece. Then he turned round to us expectant. -</p> - -<p> -“That coin,” he said, slowly, “was given me by a man who dug it up in -his garden hereabouts when he was forking potatoes. It’s ancient and a -curiosity. There it remains for ornament.” -</p> - -<p> -Now whether this was only some caprice of the moment or that he -dreaded that had he then and there pouched it some boyish spirit of -curiosity might tempt one or other of us to turn out his pockets in -search of the treasure when he was in one of his liquorish trances, -and so make further discoveries, we could never know. Anyhow, on the -mantelpiece the coin lay for some weeks; a contemptible little disk to -view, with an odd figure of an ill-formed mannikin stamped on one side -of it, and no one of us offered to touch it, until one day Dr. -Crackenthorpe paid us a visit. -</p> - -<p> -This worthy had only recently come to Winton, tempted hither, I think, -more by lure of antiquities than by any set determination to establish -a practice in the town. Indeed, in the result, as I have heard, his -fees for any given year would never have quarter filled a wineglass -unless paid in pence. He had a small private income and two -weaknesses—one a craze for coin collecting, the other a feverish -palate, which brought him acquainted with my father, in this -wise—that he encountered the old man one night when the latter was -complacently swerving into the Itchen at a point known as “The Weirs,” -where the water is deep, and conducted him graciously home. The next -day he called, and, it becoming apparent that fees were not his -object, a rough, queer acquaintance was struck up between the two men, -which brought the doctor occasionally to our mill at night for a pipe -and a glass. He was the only outsider ever admitted to our slightest -intimacy, with the single exception of a baneful old woman, known as -Peg Rottengoose, who came in every day to do the cooking and housework -and to steal what scraps she could. -</p> - -<p> -Now, on one of these visits, the doctor’s eye was casually caught by -the glint of the coin on the mantelpiece. He clawed it at once, and as -he examined it the man’s long, gaunt face lighted from inward with -enthusiasm. -</p> - -<p> -“Where did you get this?” he cried, his hands shaking with excitement. -</p> - -<p> -“A neighbor dug it up in his garden and gave it me. Let it be, can’t -you?” said my father, roughly. -</p> - -<p> -“Pooh, man! Such things are not given without reason. What was the -reason? Stay—tell me the name of the man.” -</p> - -<p> -I thought my father paled a little and shifted uneasily in his chair. -</p> - -<p> -“I tell you,” he said, hoarsely, “he gave it me.” -</p> - -<p> -“And I don’t believe it,” cried the other. “You found it yourself, and -where this came from more may be.” -</p> - -<p> -My father sprung to his feet. -</p> - -<p> -“Get out of my house!” he shouted, “and take your ‘may be’s’ to the -foul fiend!” -</p> - -<p> -Dr. Crackenthorpe placed his pipe and the coin very gently on the -table and walked stiffly to the door. He had almost reached it when my -father’s voice, quite changed and soft, stopped him. -</p> - -<p> -“Don’t take offense, man. Come and talk it over.” -</p> - -<p> -Dr. Crackenthorpe retraced his steps, resumed his chair, and sat -staring stonily at my father. -</p> - -<p> -“It’s true,” said the latter, dropping his eyes, “every word. It’s -true, sir, I tell you.” -</p> - -<p> -The doctor never spoke, and my father stole an anxious glance up at -him. -</p> - -<p> -“Well,” he said, with an effort; “anyhow, it’s a small matter to -separate cronies. I don’t know the value of these gimcracks, but as -you take pleasure in collecting ’em, I’ll—I’ll—come now, I’ll make -you a present of it.” -</p> - -<p> -The doctor became human once more, and for a second time clutched the -coin radiantly. My father heaved a profound sigh, but he never moved. -</p> - -<p> -“Well,” he said, “now you’ve got it, perhaps you’ll state the -particular value of that old piece of metal.” -</p> - -<p> -“It’s a gold Doric!” cried the doctor; “as rare a——” he checked -himself suddenly and went on with a ludicrous affectation of -indifference—“rare enough just to make it interesting. No intrinsic -value—none whatever.” -</p> - -<p> -A little wicked smile twitched up my father’s bearded cheeks. Each man -sat forward for some minutes pulling at his pipe; but it was evident -the effort of social commonplace was too much for Dr. Crackenthorpe. -Presently he rose and said he must be going. He was obviously on -thorns until he could secure his treasure in a safe place. For a -quarter of an hour after the door had closed behind him, my father sat -on gloomily smoking and muttering to himself. Then suddenly he woke to -consciousness of our presence and ordered us, savagely, almost madly, -off to bed. -</p> - -<p> -This explains the doctor’s question of Jason and is a necessary -digression. Now to the meadows once more and a little experience that -befell there after the intruder’s departure. -</p> - - -<h3 id="ch02"> -CHAPTER II.<br/> -<span class="chap_sub">A NIXIE.</span> -</h3> - -<p> -My brother tired of his fishing for the nonce, and for an hour we lay -on our backs in the grass chatting desultorily. -</p> - -<p> -“Jason,” said I, suddenly, “what do we live on?” -</p> - -<p> -“What we can get,” said my brother, sleepily. -</p> - -<p> -“But I mean—where does it come from; who provides it?” -</p> - -<p> -“Oh, don’t bother, Renny. We have enough to eat and drink and do as we -like. What more do you want?” -</p> - -<p> -“I don’t know. I want to know, that’s all. I can’t tell why. Where -does the money come from?” -</p> - -<p> -“Tom Tiddler. He was our grandfather.” -</p> - -<p> -“Don’t be a fool. Dad never worked the mill that we remember.” -</p> - -<p> -“But Tom Tiddler did before him.” -</p> - -<p> -“Not to the tune that would keep four loafers in idleness for sixteen -years.” -</p> - -<p> -“Well, I don’t care. Perhaps dad’s a highwayman.” -</p> - -<p> -I kicked at the grass impatiently. -</p> - -<p> -“It must end some day, you know.” -</p> - -<p> -Jason tilted his cap from his eyes and blinked at me. -</p> - -<p> -“What d’ye mean, piggy?” -</p> - -<p> -“Suppose dad died or went mad?” -</p> - -<p> -“We’d sell the mill and have a rare time of it.” -</p> - -<p> -“Oh, you great clown! Sell it for what? Driftwood? And how long would -the rare time last?” -</p> - -<p> -“You’re mighty particular to-day. I hate answering questions. Let me -alone.” -</p> - -<p> -“I won’t,” I said, viciously. “I want your opinion.” -</p> - -<p> -“Well, it’s that you’re a precious fool!” -</p> - -<p> -“What for?” -</p> - -<p> -“To bother your head with what you can’t answer, when the sun’s -shining.” -</p> - -<p> -“I can’t help bothering my head,” I said. “I’ve been bothering it, I -think, ever since dad gave old Crackenthorpe that medal last year.” -</p> - -<p> -Jason sat up. -</p> - -<p> -“So you noticed it, too,” he said. “Renny, there’s depths in the old -man that we sha’n’t plumb.” -</p> - -<p> -“Well, I’ve taken to thinking of things a bit,” said I. -</p> - -<p> -Jason—so named, at any period (I never saw a register of the -christening of any one of us) because of his golden fleece, shook it -and set to whistling softly. -</p> - -<p> -His name—Modred’s, too—mine was Renalt, and more local—were -evidence of my father’s superior culture as compared with most of his -class. They were odd, if you like, but having a little knowledge and -fancifulness to back them, gave proof of a certain sum of desultory -reading on his part; the spirit of which was transmitted to his -children. -</p> - -<p> -I was throwing myself back with a dissatisfied grunt, when of a sudden -a shrill screech came toward us from a point apparently on the river -path fifty yards lower down. We jumped to our feet and raced headlong -in the direction of the sound. Nothing was to be seen. It was not -until the cry was repeated, almost from under our very feet, that we -realized the reason of it. -</p> - -<p> -All about Winton the banks of the main streams are pierced at -intervals to admit runlets of clear water into the meadows below. Such -a boring there was of a goodish caliber at the point where we stopped; -and here the water, breaking through in a little fall, tumbled into a -stone basin, some three feet square and five deep, that was sunk to -its rim in a rough trench of the meadow soil. Into this brimming -trough a young girl had slipped and would drown in time, for, though -she clung on to the edge with frantic hands, her efforts to escape had -evidently exhausted her to such an extent that she could now do no -more than look up to us, as we stood on the bank above, with wild, -beseeching eyes. -</p> - -<p> -I was going to jump to her help, when Jason stayed me with his hand. -</p> - -<p> -“Hist, Renny!” he whispered. “I’ve never seen a body drown.” -</p> - -<p> -“Nor shall,” said I, hoping he jested. -</p> - -<p> -“Let me shove her hands off,” he said, in the same wondering tone. One -moment, with a shock, I saw the horrible meaning in his face; the -next, with a quick movement I had flung him down and jumped. He rose -at once with a slight cut on his lips, but before he could recover -himself I had the girl out by the hands and had stretched her limp and -prostrate on the grass. Then I paused, embarrassed, and he stood above -looking down upon us. -</p> - -<p> -“You’ll have to pay for that, Renny,” he said, “sooner or later”—and, -of course, I knew I should. -</p> - -<p> -“Turn the creature on her face, you dolt!” he continued, “and let the -water run out of her pipes.” -</p> - -<p> -I endeavored to comply, but the girl, always keeping her eyes shut, -resisted feebly. I dropped upon my knees and smoothed away the sodden -tresses from her face. Thus revealed it seemed an oddly pretty one; -the skin half transparent, like rice paper; the forehead rounding from -the nose like a kitten’s. But she never opened her eyes, so that I -could not see what was their color, though the lashes were black. -</p> - -<p> -Presently a horror seized me that she was dead, and I shook her pretty -roughly by the shoulder. -</p> - -<p> -“Oh,” she cried, with a whimper, “don’t!” -</p> - -<p> -I was so rejoiced at this evidence of life that I gave a whoop. Then I -bent over her. -</p> - -<p> -“It’s all right, girl,” I said; “you’re safe; I saved you.” -</p> - -<p> -Her lips were moving again and I stopped to listen. “What did he want -to drown me for?” she whispered. -</p> - -<p> -She was thinking of my brother, not of me. For a flash her eyes -opened, violet, like lightning, and glanced up at him standing above; -then they closed again. -</p> - -<p> -“Come,” I said, roughly; “if you can talk, you can get up.” -</p> - -<p> -The girl struggled into a sitting posture and then rose to her feet. -She was tall, almost as tall as I was, and about my age, I should -think. Her dress, so far as one could judge, it being sopped with -water, was a poor patched affair, and rough country shoes were on her -feet. -</p> - -<p> -“Take me somewhere, where I can dry,” she said, imperiously. “Don’t -let him come—he needn’t follow.” -</p> - -<p> -“He’s my brother,” I said. -</p> - -<p> -“I don’t care. He wanted to drown me; he didn’t know I can’t die by -water.” -</p> - -<p> -“Can’t you?” I said. -</p> - -<p> -“Of course not. I’m a changeling!” -</p> - -<p> -She said it with a childish seriousness that confounded me. -</p> - -<p> -“What made you one?” I asked. -</p> - -<p> -“The fairies,” she said, “and that’s why I’m here.” -</p> - -<p> -I was too bewildered to pursue the subject further. -</p> - -<p> -“How did you fall in there?” I asked. -</p> - -<p> -“I saw some little fish, like klinkents of rainbow, and wanted to -catch them; then I slipped and soused.” -</p> - -<p> -“Well,” I said, “where are you going now?” -</p> - -<p> -“With you,” she answered. -</p> - -<p> -I offered no resistance. I gave no thought to results, or to what my -father would say when this grotesque young figure should break into -his presence. Mechanically I started for home and she walked by my -side, chatting. Jason strode in our rear, whistling. -</p> - -<p> -“What a brute he must be!” she said once, jerking her head backward. -</p> - -<p> -“Leave him alone,” I said, “or we shall quarrel. What’s a girl like -you to him?” -</p> - -<p> -I think she hardly heard me, for the whistle had dropped to a very -mellow note. To my surprise I noticed that she was crying. -</p> - -<p> -“I thought changelings couldn’t cry?” I said. -</p> - -<p> -“I tell you water does not affect me,” she answered, sharply. “What a -mean spy you are—for a boy.” -</p> - -<p> -I was very angry at that and strode on with black looks, whereupon she -edged up to me and said, softly: “Don’t be sore with me, don’t.” -</p> - -<p> -I shrugged my shoulders. -</p> - -<p> -“Let’s kiss and be friends,” she whispered. -</p> - -<p> -For the first time in my life I blushed furiously. -</p> - -<p> -“You beast,” I said, “to think that men would kiss!” -</p> - -<p> -She gave me a sounding smack on the shoulder and I turned on her -furiously. -</p> - -<p> -“Oh, yes!” she cried, “hit out at me, do! It’s like you.” -</p> - -<p> -“I won’t touch you!” I said. “But I won’t have anything more to do -with you,” and I strode on, fuming. She followed after me and -presently I heard her crying again. At this my anger evaporated and I -turned round once more. -</p> - -<p> -“Come on,” I said, “if you want to, and keep a civil tongue in your -head.” -</p> - -<p> -Presently we were walking together again. -</p> - -<p> -“What’s your home, Renny?” she asked, by and by. -</p> - -<p> -“A mill,” I answered, “but nothing is ground there now.” -</p> - -<p> -She stopped and so did I, and she looked at me curiously, with her red -lips parted, so that her teeth twinkled. -</p> - -<p> -“What’s the matter?” said I. -</p> - -<p> -“Nothing,” she said, “only I remember an old, old saying that the -woman told me.” -</p> - -<p> -“What woman?” I asked, in wonder, but she took no notice of my -question, only repeated some queer doggerel that ran somewhat as -follows: -</p> - -<div class="quote_o"><div class="quote_i"> -<p class="i0">“Where the mill race is</p> -<p class="i0">Come and go faces.</p> -<p class="i0">Once deeds of violence;</p> -<p class="i0">Now dust and silence.</p> -<p class="i0">Thither thy destiny</p> -<p class="i0">Answer what speaks to thee.”</p> -</div></div> - - -<h3 id="ch03"> -CHAPTER III.<br/> -<span class="chap_sub">THE MILL AND THE CHANGELING.</span> -</h3> - -<p> -The outer appearance of the old mill in which we lived and grew up I -have touched upon; and now I take up my pen to paint in black and -white the old, moldering interior of the shell. -</p> - -<p> -The building stood upon a triple arch of red brick that spanned the -stream, and extended from shore to shore, where, on each side, a house -of later date stood cheek to jowl with it. It looked but an -indifferent affair as viewed from the little bridge aforesaid, which -was dedicated to St. Swithun of watery memory, but in reality extended -further backward than one might have suspected. Moreover, to the east -side a longish wing, with a ridged roof of tiles, ran off at right -angles and added considerably to the general dimensions. To the west -stood a covered yard, where once the mill wagons were packed or -unloaded; but this, in all my memory of it, yawned only a dusty spave, -given over to the echoes and a couple of ancient cart wheels whose -rusty tires and worm-pierced hubs were mute evidence of an inglorious -decay. -</p> - -<p> -These were for all to see—but behind the walls! -</p> - -<p> -Was the old mill uncanny from the first, or is it only the ghosts with -which our generation of passions has peopled it that have made it so? -This I can say: That I never remember a time when Jason or I, or even -Zyp, dared to be in the room of silence alone—and in company never -for more than a few minutes. Modred had not the same awe of it, but -Modred’s imagination was a swaddled infant. For my father I will not -speak. Maybe he was too accustomed to specters to dread them. -</p> - -<p> -This room was one on the floor above the water, and the fact that it -harbored the mill wheel, whose booming, when in motion, shook the -stagnant air with discordant sounds, may have served as some -explanation of its eeriness. It stood against the east wing and away -from the yard, and was a dismal, dull place, like a loft, with black -beams above going off into darkness. Its only light came from a square -little window in front that was bleared with dust and stopped outside -with a lacework of wire. Against its western wall was reared a huge -box or cage of wood, which was made to contain the upper half of the -wheel, with its ratchet and shaft that went up to the great stones on -the floor above; for the mill race thundered below, and when the great -paddles were revolving the water slapped and rent at the woodwork. -</p> - -<p> -Now it behooves me to mention a strange fancy of my father’s—which -was this, that though no grain or husk in our day ever crumbled -between the stones, the wheel was forever kept in motion, as if our -fortunes lay in grinding against impalpable time. The custom was in -itself ghostly, and its regularity was interrupted only at odd -moments, and those generally in the night, when, lying abed upstairs, -we boys would become conscious of a temporary cessation of the -humming, vibrating noise that was so habitual to the place. To this -fancy was added a strange solicitude on the part of my father for the -well-being of the wheel itself. He would disappear into the room of -silence twice or thrice a day to oil and examine it, and if rarely any -tinkering was called for we knew it by the sound of the closing of the -sluice and of the water rush swerving round by another channel. -</p> - -<p> -Now, for the time I have said enough, and with a sigh return to that -May afternoon and little Zyp, the changeling. -</p> - -<p> -She followed me into the mill so quietly that I hardly heard her step -behind me. When I looked back her eyes were full of a strange -speculation and her hands crossed on her breast, as if she prayed. She -motioned me forward and I obeyed, marveling at my own submission. I -had no slightest idea what I was to say to my father or what propose. -We found him seated by the table in the living room upstairs, a bottle -and glass before him. The weekly demon was beginning to work, but had -not yet obtained the mastery. He stared at us as we entered, but said -nothing. -</p> - -<p> -Then, to my wonder, Zyp walked straight up to the old man, pulled his -arms down, sat upon his knee and kissed his rutted cheek. I gave a -gasp that was echoed by Jason, who had followed and was leaning -against the lintel of the open door. Still my father said nothing and -I trembled at the ominous silence. At last in desperation I stammered, -and all the time Zyp was caressing the passive face. -</p> - -<p> -“Dad, the girl fell into the water and I pulled her out, and here she -is.” -</p> - -<p> -Then at length my father said in a harsh, deep voice: -</p> - -<p> -“You pulled her out? What was Jason there doing?” -</p> - -<p> -“Waiting for her to drown,” my brother answered for himself, defiantly -forestalling conviction. -</p> - -<p> -My father put the girl from him, strode furiously across the room, -seized Jason by one arm and gave him several cruel, heavy blows across -his shoulders and the back of his head. The boy was half stunned, but -uttered no cry, and at every stroke Zyp laughed and clapped her hands. -Then, flinging his victim to the floor, from which he immediately rose -again and resumed his former posture by the door, pale but unsubdued, -my father returned to his seat and held the girl at arm’s length -before him. -</p> - -<p> -“Who are you?” he said. -</p> - -<p> -She answered, “A changeling,” in a voice soft as flowers. -</p> - -<p> -“What’s your name?” -</p> - -<p> -“Zyp.” -</p> - -<p> -“Your other name?” -</p> - -<p> -“Never mind; Zyp’s enough.” -</p> - -<p> -“Is it? Where do you come from? What brings you here?” -</p> - -<p> -“Renny brought me here because I love him.” -</p> - -<p> -“Love him? Have you ever met before?” -</p> - -<p> -“No; but he pulled me out of the water.” -</p> - -<p> -“Come—this won’t do. I must know more about you.” -</p> - -<p> -She laughed and put out her hand coaxingly. -</p> - -<p> -“Shall I tell you? A little, perhaps. I am from a big forest out west -there, where wheels drone like hornets among the trees and black men -rise out of the ground. I have no father or mother, for I come of the -fairies. Those who stood for them married late and had a baby and they -delayed to christen it. One day the baby was gone and I was there. -They knew me for a changeling from the first and didn’t love me. But I -lived with them for all that and they got to hate me more and more. -Not a cow died or a gammer was wryed wi’ the rheumatics but I had done -it. Bit by bit the old man lost all his trade and loved me none the -more, I can tell you. He was a Beast Leech, and where was the use of -the forest folk sending for him to mend their sick kine when he kept a -changeling to undo it all? At last they could stand no more of it and -the woman brought me away and lost me.” -</p> - -<p> -“Lost you?” echoed my father. -</p> - -<p> -“Oh,” said Zyp, with a little cluck, “I knew all along how the tramp -was to end. There was an old one, a woman, lived in the forest, and -she told me a deal of things. She knew me better than them all, and I -loved her because she was evil, so they said. She told me some rhymes -and plenty of other things.” -</p> - -<p> -“Well?” said my father. -</p> - -<p> -“We walked east by the sun for days and days. Then we came to the top -of a big, soft hill, where little beetles were hopping among the -grass, and below us was a great town like stones in a green old -quarry, and the woman said: ‘Run down and ask the name of it while I -rest here.’ And I ran with the wind in my face and was joyful, for I -knew that she would escape when I was gone, and I should never see her -again.” -</p> - -<p> -“And then you tumbled into the water?” said my father. -</p> - -<p> -Zyp nodded. -</p> - -<p> -“And now,” she said, “I belong to nobody, and will you have me?” -</p> - -<p> -My father shook his head, and in a moment sobs most piteous were -shaking the girl’s throat. So forlorn and pretty a sight I have never -seen before or since. -</p> - -<p> -“Well,” he said, “if nobody comes to claim you, you may stop.” -</p> - -<p> -And stop Zyp did. Surely was never an odder coming, yet from that day -she was one of us. -</p> - -<p> -What was truthful and what imaginative in her story I have never -known, for from first to last this was the most we heard of it. -</p> - -<p> -One thing was certain. Zyp was by nature a child of the open air and -the sun. Flowers that were wild she loved—not those that were -cultivated, however beautiful, of which she was indifferent—and she -had an unspeakable imagination in reading their fanciful histories and -a strange faculty for fondling them, as it were, into sentient beings. -I can hardly claim belief when I say that I have seen a rough nettle -fade when she scolded it for stinging her finger, or a little yellow -rock rose turn from the sun to her when she talked to it. -</p> - -<p> -Zyp never plucked a flower, or allowed us to do so if she could -prevent it. I well remember the first walk I took with her after her -establishment in the mill, when I was attracted by a rare little -blossom, the water chickweed, which sprouted from a grassy trench, and -pulled it for her behoof. She beat me savagely with her soft hands, -then fell to kissing and weeping over the torn little weed, which -actually appeared to revive a moment under her caresses. I had to -promise with humility never to gather another wild flower so long as I -lived, and I have been faithful to my trust. -</p> - -<p> -The afternoon of her coming old Peg rigged her up some description of -sleeping accommodation in a little room in the attic, and this became -her sanctuary whenever she wished to escape us and be alone. To my -father she was uniformly sweet and coaxing, and he for his part took a -strange fancy to her, and abated somewhat of his demoniacal moodiness -from the date of her arrival. -</p> - -<p> -Yet it must not be imagined, from this description of her softer side, -that Zyp was all tender pliability. On the contrary, in her general -relations with us and others as impure human beings, she was the -veritable soul of impishness, and played a thousand pranks to prove -her title to her parentage. -</p> - -<p> -At first she made a feint of distributing her smiles willfully, by -turn, between Modred and me, so that neither of us might claim -precedence. But Jason was admitted to no pretense of rivalry; though, -to do him justice, he at once took the upper hand by meeting scorn -with indifference. In my heart, however, I claimed her as my especial -property; a demand justified, I felt no doubt, by her manner toward -me, which was marked by a peculiar rebellious tenderness she showed to -no other. -</p> - -<p> -The day after her arrival she asked me to take her over the mill and -show her everything. I complied when the place was empty of all save -us. We explored room by room, with a single exception, the ancient -building. -</p> - -<p> -Of course Zyp said: “There’s a room you haven’t shown me, Renny.” -</p> - -<p> -“Yes,” said I; “the room of silence.” -</p> - -<p> -“Why didn’t we go there?” -</p> - -<p> -“Never mind. There’s something wicked in it.” -</p> - -<p> -“What? Do tell me! Oh, I should love to see!” -</p> - -<p> -“There’s nothing to see. Let it alone, can’t you?” -</p> - -<p> -“You’re a coward. I’ll get the sleepy boy to show me.” -</p> - -<p> -“Come along then,” I said, and, seizing her hand, dragged her roughly -indoors. -</p> - -<p> -We crossed a dark passage, and, pushing back a heavy door of ancient -timber, stood on the threshold of the room of silence. It was not in -nature’s meaning that the name was bestowed, for, entering, the full -voice of the wheel broke upon one with a grinding fury that shook the -moldering boards of the floor. -</p> - -<p> -“Well,” I whispered, “have you seen enough?” -</p> - -<p> -“I see nothing,” she cried, with a shrill, defiant laugh; “I am going -in”—and before I could stop her, she had run into the middle of the -room and was standing still in the bar of sunlight, with her arms -outspread like wings, and her face, the lips apart, lifted with an -expression on it of eager inquiry. -</p> - -<p> -What happened? I can find an image only in the poison bottle of the -entomologist. As some shining, flower-stained butterfly, slipped into -this glass coffin, quivers, droops its wings and fades, as it were, in -a moment before its capturer’s eyes, so Zyp faded before mine. Her -arms dropped to her sides, her figure seemed as if its whole buoyancy -were gone at a touch, her face fell to a waxen color and “Oh, take me -away!” she wailed in a thin, strangled voice. -</p> - -<p> -I conquered my terror, rushed to her, and, dragging her stumbling and -tripping from the room, banged to the door behind us and made for the -little platform once more and the open air. -</p> - -<p> -She revived in a wonderfully short space of time, and, lifting up her -head, looked into my eyes with her own wide with dismay. -</p> - -<p> -“It was hideous,” she whispered; “why didn’t you stop me?” -</p> - -<p> -Zyp, it will be seen, was not all elf. She had something in common -with her sex. -</p> - -<p> -“I warned you,” I said, “and I know what you felt.” -</p> - -<p> -“It was as if a question was being asked of me,” she said, in a low -voice. “And yet no one spoke and there was no question. I don’t know -what it wanted or what were the words, for there were none; but I feel -as if I shall have to go on thinking of the answer and struggling to -find it forever and ever.” -</p> - -<p> -“Yes,” I whispered, in the same tone; “that is what everybody says.” -</p> - -<p> -She begged me not to follow her, and crept away quite humbled and -subdued, and we none of us saw more of her that day. But just as she -left me she turned and whispered in awe-stricken tone, “Answer what -speaks to thee,” and I could not remember when and where I had heard -these words before. -</p> - - -<h3 id="ch04"> -CHAPTER IV.<br/> -<span class="chap_sub">ZYP BEWITCHES.</span> -</h3> - -<p> -In the evening Dr. Crackenthorpe paid us a visit. He found my father -out, but elected to sit with us and smoke his pipe expectant of the -other’s return. -</p> - -<p> -He always treated us boys as if we were so much dirt, and we respected -his strength just sufficiently to try no pranks on him in the absence -of the ruling power. But nevertheless we resented his presumption of -authority, and whenever he sat with us alone made an exaggerated -affectation of being thick in whispered confidences among ourselves. -</p> - -<p> -Zyp was still upstairs and the doctor had not as yet seen her, but he -was conscious, I think, in some telepathic way, of an alien presence -in the house, for he kept shifting his position uneasily and looking -toward the door. A screech from his lips suddenly startled us, and we -turned round to see the long man standing bolt upright, with his face -gone the color of a meal sack, and his bold eyes staring prominent. -</p> - -<p> -“What’s the matter?” said Jason. -</p> - -<p> -Gradually the doctor’s face assumed a dark look of rage. -</p> - -<p> -“Which of you was it?” he cried in a broken voice; “tell me, or I’ll -crack all your fingers up like fire sticks!” -</p> - -<p> -“What’s the matter?” said Jason, again; “you see for yourself we’ve -been sitting by the table all the time you’ve been there.” -</p> - -<p> -“Something spoke—somebody, I tell you, as I sat here in the chimney -corner!” He was beside himself with fury and had great ado to crush -his emotion under. But he succeeded, and sat down again trembling all -over. -</p> - -<p> -“A curse is on the house!” he muttered; then aloud: “I’ve had enough -of your games, you black vermin! I won’t stand it, d’ye hear? Let -there be an end!” -</p> - -<p> -We stared, dropped into our seats and were beginning our confidences -once more, when the doctor started up a second time with a loud oath, -and leaped into the middle of the room. -</p> - -<p> -“Great thunder!” he shouted; “d’ye dare!” -</p> - -<p> -This time we had all heard it—a wailing whisper that seemed to come -from the neighborhood of the chimney and to utter the words: “Beware -the demon that sits in the bottle,” and of the whole company only I -was not confounded. -</p> - -<p> -As to the doctor, he suddenly turned very white again, and muttered -shakingly: “Can it be? I don’t exceed as others do. I swear I have -taken less this month than ever before.” -</p> - -<p> -With the terror in his soul he stumbled toward the door and was moving -out his hand to reach it, when it opened from the other side and Zyp, -as meek and pure looking as a young saint, met him on the threshold. -</p> - -<p> -Now, I had that morning, in the course of conversation with the -changeling, touched upon Dr. Crackenthorpe and his weaknesses, and -that ghostly mention of the bottle convinced me on the moment that -only she could be responsible for the mystery—a revelation of -impishness which, I need not say, delighted me. The method of her -prank I may as well describe here. The embrasure for a fireplace in -her room had never been fitted with a grate, and the hearthstone -itself was cracked and dislocated in a dozen places. By removing some -of these fragments she had actually discovered a broken way into the -chimney of the sitting room below, down which it was easy to slip a -hollow rail of iron which with other lumber lay in the attic. This she -had done, listened for her opportunity, and thereupon spoken the -ominous words. -</p> - -<p> -I think her appearance was the consummation of the doctor’s terror, -for a shuddering “Oh!” shook from his lips, and he seemed about to -drop. And indeed she was somewhat like a spirit, with her wild white -face looking from a tangle of pheasant-brown hair and her solemn eyes -like water glints in little wells of shadow. -</p> - -<p> -She walked past the stricken man all stately, and then Modred and I -jumped up and greeted her. At this the doctor’s jaw dropped, but his -trembling ceased and he watched us with injected eyes. Holding my two -hands, Zyp looked coyly round, leaning backward. -</p> - -<p> -“I love a tall man,” she whispered; “he has more in him than a short -one.” -</p> - -<p> -The doctor pulled himself together and came straggling across to the -table. -</p> - -<p> -“Who the pestilence is this?” he said, in a voice not yet quite under -his command. -</p> - -<p> -Zyp let go my hands and curtsied like a wild flower. -</p> - -<p> -“Zyp, the orphan, good gentleman,” she said; “shall I fill your pipe -for you?” -</p> - -<p> -It had fallen on the floor by the chimney, and she picked it up and -went to him with a winning expression. -</p> - -<p> -“Where is your tobacco, please?” -</p> - -<p> -Mechanically he brought a round tin box from his pocket and handed it -to her. Then it was a study in elfin coquetry to see the way in which -she daintily coaxed the weed into the bowl and afterward sucking at -the pipe stem with her determined little red lips to see if it drew -properly. This done, she presented the mouthpiece to the doctor’s -consideration, as if it were a baby’s “comforter.” -</p> - -<p> -“Now,” she said, “sit down and I’ll bring you your glass.” -</p> - -<p> -But at this the four of us, including Dr. Crackenthorpe, drew back. My -father was no man to allow his pleasures to be encroached upon -unbidden, and we three, at least, knew it as much as our skins were -worth to offer practical hospitality in his absence. -</p> - -<p> -Zyp looked at our faces and stamped her foot lively, with a toss of -disdain. -</p> - -<p> -“Where is the strong drink?” she said. -</p> - -<p> -Modred tittered. “In that cupboard over the mantel shelf, if you must -know,” he said. -</p> - -<p> -Zyp had the bottle out in a twinkling and a glass with it. She poured -out a stiff rummer, added water from a stone bottle on a corner shelf, -and presented the grateful offering to the visitor, who had reseated -himself by the table. -</p> - -<p> -His scruples of conscience and discretion grew faint in the near -neighborhood of the happy cordial. He seized the glass and impulsively -took half the grog at a breath. Zyp clapped her hands joyfully, -whereupon he clumped down the glass on the table with a dismayed look. -</p> - -<p> -“Well,” he said, “you’re an odd little witch, upon my word. What Robin -Goodfellow fathered you, I should like to know?” -</p> - -<p> -“He’s no father,” said Zyp. “He’s too full of tricks for a family man. -I could tell you things of him.” -</p> - -<p> -“Tell us some then,” said the doctor. -</p> - -<p> -What Zyp would have answered I don’t know, for at that moment my -father walked into the room. If he had had what is vulgarly called a -skinful, he was not drunk, for he moved steadily up to the little -group at the table with a scowl contracting his forehead. The -half-emptied tumbler had caught his eye immediately and he pointed to -it. I was conscious that the doctor quaked a little. -</p> - -<p> -“Pray make yourself at home,” said my father, and caught up the glass -and flung its contents in the other’s face. In a moment the two men -were locked in a savage, furious embrace, till, crashing over a chair, -they were flung sprawling on the floor and apart. Before they could -come together again Zyp alone of us had placed herself between them, -fearless and beautiful, and had broken into a quaint little song: -</p> - -<div class="quote_o"><div class="quote_i"> -<p class="i0">“Smooth down her fur,</p> -<p class="i1">Rub sleep over her eyes,</p> -<p class="i0">Sweet, never stir.</p> -<p class="i0">Kiss down the coat of her</p> -<p class="i1">There, where she lies</p> -<p class="i1">On the bluebells.”</p> -</div></div> - -<p> -She sung, and whether it was the music or the strangeness of the -interruption, I shall never know; only the wonderful fact remains -that, with the sound of her voice, the great passion seemed to die out -of the two foes and to give place to a pleasant conceit, comical in -its way, that they had only been rollicking together. -</p> - -<p> -“Well,” said my father, without closer allusion to his brutality, “the -liquor was choice Schiedam, and it’s gone.” -</p> - -<p> -He sat down, called for another glass, helped himself to a noggin and -pushed the bottle roughly across to Dr. Crackenthorpe, who had already -reseated himself opposite. -</p> - -<p> -“Sing again, girl,” said my father, but Zyp shook her head. -</p> - -<p> -“I never do anything to order,” she said, “but the fairies move me to -dance.” -</p> - -<p> -She blew out the lamp as she spoke and glided to a patch of light that -fell from the high May moon through the window on to the rough boards -of the room. Into this light she dipped her hands and then passed them -over her hair and face as though she were washing herself in the -mystic fountain of the night; and all the time her murmuring voice -accompanied the action in little trills of laughter and words not -understandable. Presently she fell to dancing, slowly at first and -dividing her presence between glow and gloom; but gradually the supple -motion of her body increased, step by step, until she was footing it -as wildly as a young hamadryad to her own leaping shadow on the floor. -</p> - -<p> -Suddenly she sprung from the moonlit square, danced over to Dr. -Crackenthorpe and, whispering awfully in his ear, “Beware the demon -that sits in the bottle,” ran from the room. -</p> - -<p> -My father burst into a fit of laughter, but I think from that day the -doctor fully hated her. -</p> - - -<h3 id="ch05"> -CHAPTER V.<br/> -<span class="chap_sub">A TERRIBLE INTERVIEW.</span> -</h3> - -<p> -Zyp had been with us a month, and surely never did changeling happen -into a more congenial household. -</p> - -<p> -Jason she still held at arm’s length, which, despite my admiration of -my brother, I secretly congratulated my heart on, for—let me get over -it at the outset—from first to last, I have never wavered in my -passion of love for this wild, beautiful creature. The unexpectedness -of her coming alone was a romance, the delight of which has never -palled upon me with the deadening years. Therefore it was that I early -made acquaintance with the demon of jealousy, than whom none, in -truth, is more irresistible in his unclean strength and hideousness. -</p> - -<p> -Zyp and I were one day wandering under the shadow of the mighty old -cathedral of Winton. -</p> - -<p> -“I don’t like it, Renny,” she said, pressing up close to me. “It’s -awful and it’s grand, but there are always faces at the windows when I -look up at them.” -</p> - -<p> -“Whose?” I said, with a laugh. -</p> - -<p> -“I don’t know,” she said; “but think of the thousands of old monks and -things whose home it was once and whose ghosts are shut up among the -stones. There!” she cried, pointing. -</p> - -<p> -I looked at the old leaded window she indicated, but could see -nothing. -</p> - -<p> -“His face is like stone and he’s beckoning,” she whispered. “Oh, come -along, Renny”—and she dragged me out of the grassy yard and never -stopped hurrying me on till we reached the meadows. Here her gayety -returned to her, and she felt at home among the flowers at once. -</p> - -<p> -Presently we wandered into a grassy covert against a hedge on the -further side of which a road ran, and threw ourselves among the “sauce -alone” and wild parsley that grew there. Zyp was in one of her softest -moods and my young heart fluttered within me. She leaned over me as I -sat and talked to me in a low voice, with her fair young brow gone -into wrinkles of thoughtfulness. -</p> - -<p> -“Renny, what’s love that they talk about?” -</p> - -<p> -I laughed and no doubt blushed. -</p> - -<p> -“I mean,” she said, “is it blue eyes and golden hair or brown eyes and -brown hair? Don’t be silly, little boy, till you know what I mean.” -</p> - -<p> -“Well, what do you mean, Zyp?” -</p> - -<p> -“I want to know, that’s all. Renny, do you remember my asking to kiss -and be friends that day we first met, and your refusing?” -</p> - -<p> -“Yes, Zyp,” I stammered. -</p> - -<p> -“You may kiss me now, if you like,” and she let herself drop into my -arms, as I sat there, and turned up her pretty cheek to my mouth. -</p> - -<p> -My blood surged in my ears. I was half-frightened, but all with a -delicious guilt upon me. I bent hastily and touched the soft pink -curve with my trembling lips. -</p> - -<p> -She lay quite still a moment, then sat up and gently drew away from -me. -</p> - -<p> -“No,” she said, “that isn’t it. Shall I ever know, I wonder?” -</p> - -<p> -“Know what, Zyp?” -</p> - -<p> -“Never mind, for I shan’t tell you. There, I didn’t mean to be rude,” -and she stroked the sleeve of my jacket caressingly. -</p> - -<p> -By and by she said: “I wonder if you will suffer, Renny, poor boy? I -would save you all if I could, for you’re the best of them, I -believe.” -</p> - -<p> -Her very words were so inexplicable to me that I could only sit and -stare at her. I have construed them since, with a knife through my -heart for every letter. -</p> - -<p> -As we were sitting silent a little space, steps sounded down the road -and voices with them. They were of two men, who stopped suddenly, as -they came over against us, hidden behind the hedge, as if to clinch -some argument, but we had already recognized the contrary tones of my -father and Dr. Crackenthorpe. -</p> - -<p> -“Now, harkee!” the doctor was saying; “that’s well and good, but I’m -not to be baffled forever and a day, Mr. Ralph Trender. What does it -all amount to? You’ve got something hidden up your sleeve and I want -to know what it is.” -</p> - -<p> -“Is that all?” My father spoke in a set, deep manner. -</p> - -<p> -“That’s all, and enough.” -</p> - -<p> -“Then, look up my sleeve, Dr. Crackenthorpe—if you can.” -</p> - -<p> -“I don’t propose to look. I suggest that you just shake it, when no -doubt the you-know-whats will come tumbling out.” -</p> - -<p> -“And if I refuse?” -</p> - -<p> -“There are laws, my friend, laws—iniquitous, if you like; but, for -what they are, they don’t recognize the purse on the highway as the -property of him that picks it up.” -</p> - -<p> -“And how are you going to set these laws in motion?” -</p> - -<p> -“We’ll insert the end of the wedge first—say in some public print, -now. How would this look? We have it on good authority that Mr. -Trender, our esteemed fellow-townsman, is the lucky discoverer of——” -</p> - -<p> -“Be silent, you!” My father spoke fiercely; then added in a low tone: -“D’ye wish all the world to know?” -</p> - -<p> -“Not by any means,” said the other, quietly, “and they shan’t if you -fall in with my mood.” -</p> - -<p> -“If I only once had your head in the mill wheel,” groaned my father, -with a curse. “Now, harken! I don’t put much value on your threat; but -this I’ll allow that I court no interference with my manner of life. -Take the concession for what it is worth. Come to me by and by and you -shall have another.” -</p> - -<p> -“A couple,” said the doctor. -</p> - -<p> -“Very well—no more, though I rot for it—and take my blessing with -them.” -</p> - -<p> -“When shall I come?” said the doctor, ignoring the very equivocal -benediction. -</p> - -<p> -“Come to-night—no, to-morrow,” said my father, and turning on his -heel strode heavily off toward the town. -</p> - -<p> -I heard the doctor chuckling softly with a malignant triumph in his -note. -</p> - -<p> -I clenched my teeth and fists and would have risen had not Zyp -noiselessly prevented me. It was wormwood to me; the revelation that, -for some secret cause, my father, the strong, irresistible and -independent, was under the thumb of an alien. But the doctor walked -off and I fell silent. -</p> - -<p> -On our homeward way we came across Jason lying on his back under a -tree, but he took no notice of us nor answered my call, and Zyp -stamped her foot when I offered to delay and speak to him. -Nevertheless I noticed that more than once she looked back, as long as -he was in view, to see if he was moved to any curiosity as to our -movements, which he never appeared to be in the least. -</p> - -<p> -Great clouds had been gathering all the afternoon, and now the first -swollen drops of an advancing thunderstorm spattered in the dust -outside the yard. Inside it was as dark as pitch, and I had almost to -grope my way along the familiar passages. Zyp ran away to her own den. -</p> - -<p> -Suddenly, with a leap of the blood, I saw that some faintly pallid -object stood against the door of the room of silence as I neared it. -It was only with an effort I could proceed, and then the thing -detached itself and was resolved into the white face of my brother -Modred. -</p> - -<p> -“Is that you, Renny?” he said, in a loud, tremulous voice. -</p> - -<p> -“Yes,” I answered, very shakily myself. “What in the name of mystery -are you doing there?” -</p> - -<p> -“I feel queer,” he said. “Let’s get to the light somewhere.” -</p> - -<p> -We made our way to the back, opened the door leading on to the little -platform and stood looking at the stringed rain. Modred’s face was -ghastly and his eyes were awakened to an expression that I had never -thought them capable of. -</p> - -<p> -“You’ve been in there?” I said. -</p> - -<p> -“Yes,” he whispered. -</p> - -<p> -“More fool you. If you like to tempt the devil you should have the -brass to outface him. Why, you’ve got it!” I cried, for he suddenly -let fall from his trembling hand a little round glittering object, -whose nature I could not determine in the stormy twilight. -</p> - -<p> -He had it in his clutch again in a moment, though I pounced for it, -and then he backed through the open doorway. -</p> - -<p> -“It’s naught that concerns you,” he said; “keep off, you beast!” -</p> - -<p> -“What is it?” I cried. -</p> - -<p> -“Water-parings,” said he, and clapped to the door in my face as I -rushed at him, and I heard him scuttle upstairs. The latch caught me -in the chest and knocked my breath out for a bit, so that I was unable -to follow, and probably he ran and bolted himself into his bedroom. In -any case, I had no mind for pursuit, my heart being busy with other -affairs; and there I remained and thought them out. Presently, being -well braced to the ordeal, I went indoors and upstairs to the living -room, where I was persuaded I should find my father. And there he sat, -pretty hot with drink and with a comfortless, glowering devil in his -eyes. -</p> - -<p> -“Well!” he thundered, “what do you want?” -</p> - -<p> -I managed to get out, with some firmness, “A word with you, dad,” -though his eyes disquieted me. -</p> - -<p> -“Make it one, then, and a quick one!” -</p> - -<p> -“Zyp and I were sitting behind a hedge this afternoon when you and Dr. -Crackenthorpe were at words on the other side.” -</p> - -<p> -His eyes shriveled me, but the motion of his lips seemed to signify to -me that I was to go on. -</p> - -<p> -“Dad, if he has any hold over you, let me share the bother and help if -I can.” -</p> - -<p> -He had sat with his right hand on the neck of the bottle from which he -had been drinking, and he now flung the latter at me, with a snarl -like that of a mad dog. Fortunately for me, in the very act some flash -of impulse unnerved him, so that the bottle spun up to the ceiling and -crashed down again to the floor, from which the scattered liquor sent -up a pungent, sickening odor. Then he leaped to his feet and yelled at -me. I could make nothing of his words, save that they clashed into one -another in a torrent of furious invective. But in the midst his voice -stopped, with a vibrating snap; he put his hand to his forehead, -which, I saw with horror, was suddenly streaked with purple, and down -he sunk to the floor in a heap. -</p> - -<p> -I was terribly frightened, and, running to him, endeavored in a -frantic manner to pull him into a sitting posture. I had half -succeeded, when, lying propped up against the leg of the table, he -gave a groan and bade me in a weak voice to let him be; and presently -to my joy I saw the natural color come back to his face by slow -degrees. By and by he was able to slide into the chair he had left, -where he lay panting and exhausted, but recovering. -</p> - -<p> -“Renalt, my lad,” he said, in a dragging voice, “what was that you -said just now? Let’s have it again.” -</p> - -<p> -I hesitated, but he smiled at me and bade me not to fear. Thus -encouraged, I repeated my statement. -</p> - -<p> -“Ah,” he said; “and the girl—did she hear?” -</p> - -<p> -“She couldn’t help it, dad. But she can’t have noticed much, for she -never even referred to it afterward.” -</p> - -<p> -“Which looks bad, and so much for your profound knowledge of the sex.” -</p> - -<p> -He looked at me keenly for some moments from under his matted -eyebrows; then muttered as if to himself: -</p> - -<p> -“Here’s a growing lad, and loyal, I believe. What if I took him a yard -into my confidence?” -</p> - -<p> -“Oh, yes, dad,” I said, eagerly. “You can trust me, indeed you can. I -only want to be of some use.” -</p> - -<p> -He slightly shook his head, then seemed to wake up all of a sudden. -</p> - -<p> -“There,” he said; “be off, like a good boy, and don’t worry me a -second time. You meant well, and I’m not offended.” -</p> - -<p> -“Yes, dad,” I said a little sadly, and was turning to go, when he -spoke to me again: -</p> - -<p> -“And if the girl should mention this matter—you know what—to you, -say what I tell you now—that Dr. Crackenthorpe thinks your father can -tell him where more coins are to be found like the one I gave him that -night; but that your father can’t and is under no obligation to Dr. -Crackenthorpe—none whatever.” -</p> - -<p> -So I left him, puzzled, a little depressed, but proud to be the -recipient of even this crumb of confidence on the part of so reserved -and terrible a man. -</p> - -<p> -Still I could not but feel that there was something inconsistent in -his words to me and those I had heard him address to the doctor. -Without a doubt his utterances on the road had pointed to a certain -recognition of the necessity of bribing the other to silence. -</p> - - -<h3 id="ch06"> -CHAPTER VI.<br/> -<span class="chap_sub">THE NIGHT BEFORE.</span> -</h3> - -<p> -Full of dissatisfaction I wandered into the shed and loitered -aimlessly about. As I stood there Jason came clattering homeward, his -coat collar turned up and his curly head bowed to the deluge. -</p> - -<p> -“So you got home before me?” he said, shaking himself and squeezing -his cap out as he spoke. -</p> - -<p> -“Yes; we came straight.” -</p> - -<p> -“It was lovely in the meads, wasn’t it?” said he, with an odd glance -at me. -</p> - -<p> -“It’s been lovely all this May,” said I. -</p> - -<p> -“And that means a fat churchyard. Old Rottengoose says: ‘A cold May -and windy makes a full barn and findy.’ A queer one, old Peg is. She’d -die if she cast a woolen before the first of June. I wonder what she’d -think of sitting under a hedge in a northeaster?” -</p> - -<p> -I started a little and shot a look askance at my brother. Could he -have seen us? But his next words reassured me. -</p> - -<p> -“Or of falling asleep in the shade, as I did, till the rain on my face -woke me up.” -</p> - -<p> -“Then you didn’t see us pass——” I began and stopped. -</p> - -<p> -“See what? I saw nothing but my eyelids and the sky through ’em.” -</p> - -<p> -I gave a sigh of relief. My feelings toward Zyp were boyish and -bashful and innocent enough, heaven knows; but in the shadow of my -rough past they were beginning to glimmer out so strange and sweet -that the merest suspicion of their incurring publicity filled me with -a shame-faced terror of ridicule that was agony. -</p> - -<p> -Freed from this dread, I fell into an extreme of garrulity that landed -me in a quagmire of discomfiture. -</p> - -<p> -After I had thus talked for a while, rather disconnectedly, he -interrupted me. -</p> - -<p> -“Renny,” he said, “you’re pretty fond of the girl, aren’t you?” -</p> - -<p> -I heard him with a little shock of surprise. -</p> - -<p> -“Not that I care,” he went on, airily, “except for your sake, old -boy.” -</p> - -<p> -“What do you mean?” I said. -</p> - -<p> -“We’re up to a thing or two, aren’t we?” said he, “but she’s fifty -tricks to our one.” -</p> - -<p> -“She has her good points, Jason.” -</p> - -<p> -“Oh, yes; lots of them. So many that it hardly seems worth while -noticing her setting you up against me.” -</p> - -<p> -“She’s never done anything of the sort!” I cried, hotly. -</p> - -<p> -“Hasn’t she? Well, that’s all right, and we can be chums again. I only -wanted to warn you against putting faith in a chit that can wear a new -face easier than her dress, to you, or Modred, or—or any one.” -</p> - -<p> -“Modred!” I cried, in astonishment. -</p> - -<p> -“Oh, don’t suppose,” he said, “that you’re sole lord of her heart.” -</p> - -<p> -“I never did suppose it,” I answered, thickly. “Why should I? She’s -free to fancy whom she likes”—but my heart sunk within me. -</p> - -<p> -“Yes; that’s the way to look at it,” he said. “You wouldn’t think she -could find much to admire in that fatty, now, would you?” -</p> - -<p> -“How do you know she does?” -</p> - -<p> -“I do know—that’s enough.” -</p> - -<p> -“Well, isn’t he a sort of brother to her?” I said—with a courageous -effort—“as we all are.” -</p> - -<p> -“Of course. That’s it.” -</p> - -<p> -“And I don’t know what you mean by ‘any one’ else.” -</p> - -<p> -“Don’t you?” He laughed and flung away a stone he had been idly -playing with. “Well, I meant Modred, or—or any one else.” -</p> - -<p> -“Who else?” -</p> - -<p> -“Dad, say—or Dr. Crackenthorpe.” -</p> - -<p> -“Oh, you’re an idiot!” I cried; “I won’t talk to you”—and I left him -and ran indoors. -</p> - -<p> -But he had driven the sting home and the poison already worked -furiously in me. How can I explain why? It was true, what he had said, -every word of it. She had set me against him, Jason—not in words, but -by a tacit conviction of him as one who had of his own act bared his -soul momentarily, and revealed a sinister brand across it hitherto -unguessed at. -</p> - -<p> -Well, this was the first waking from the boyish dream, and should I -ever dream it again? I had said we were all in a manner her brothers, -and that she was free to smile on whom she chose. What a pitiful -handful of dust for all eyes but my own! I felt the passion of longing -for her single love surge in me as I spoke. I had never till that -moment dreamed of combating another for possession of it. She had -seemed mine by right of fortune’s gift from the first, nor had she by -her behavior appeared to question the right. We had confidences, -discussions, little secrets together, which none but we might share -in. We walked and talked and leaned toward one another, with a sense -of mutual understanding that was pathetic, I am sure—at least as to -my share in it—in God’s eyes. -</p> - -<p> -And now to find that all the time she was on like secret terms with -Modred—with Jason, too, perhaps, judging by his sidelong innuendoes, -though it made my heart sick to think that she could play so double -faced a game between me and one whom she professed to hate and -despise. -</p> - -<p> -What a drama of dolls it was! And how soon the drama was to turn into -a tragedy! -</p> - -<p> -I went indoors and upstairs to the room which Jason and I shared and -flung myself on the bed. Then I was properly shocked and horrified to -find that my cheeks were suddenly wet with tears—a humiliating -discovery for a tough-sinewed young barbarian to make. What an -admirable sight, indeed! Renalt Trender, sniffing and snuffling for a -girl’s favor! -</p> - -<p> -Pride, however, is everywhere indigenous, and this came to my -assistance. If the minx played sham with me I would meet her with her -own tactics and affect indifference. What a triumphant picture this: -</p> - -<p> -Zyp—“Why have you been different to me of late, Renny? Aren’t you -fond of me now?” -</p> - -<p> -Renny—“My good little Zyp, the fact is I have tired a bit of the -novelty. It has been my first experience of the society of a girl, you -know, and very pleasant while it lasted; but I confess to a little -longing for a resumption of the old independence and freedom. Perhaps -some day again we will walk and converse together as of old.” -</p> - -<p> -Atop of this imaginary question and answer rose a smugly anguishing -picture of Zyp flushed and in tears (my imagination insisted on these -in bucketsful, to out-flood my own temporary weakness); of Zyp hurt -and sorrowing, but always striving by every means in her power to win -back my lost favor. -</p> - -<p> -Alas, poor little clown! I fear it is just those who have the fancy to -conjure up such pictures who suffer most cruelly from the -non-realization of the hopes of youth. Braced to the test, however, -and not knowing myself in weak armor, I came down to supper that -evening prickling all through with resolve. -</p> - -<p> -Jason was in the room alone, as I entered, and was walking feverishly -up and down. -</p> - -<p> -“Hist!” he said, softly, seizing me by the arm; “come here and look -for yourself.” -</p> - -<p> -He dragged me to the little square window, which was open. It looked -out at the back, and beneath was the railed platform before mentioned. -</p> - -<p> -I knew that I was urged to act the spy, and yet—so demoralizing is -jealousy—like a dog I went. Softly we craned our necks through the -opening and looked down. Trees all about here bordered the river -banks, so as to make the rear of our mill quite secret and secluded. -</p> - -<p> -She, Zyp, was standing on the platform with her arm round Modred’s -neck. She seemed trying to coax something from him which he was -reluctant to part with. As he evaded her efforts I saw what it -was—the little round yellow object I had noticed in his hand earlier -in the afternoon. -</p> - -<p> -“Darling,” she said, in a subdued voice, “do let me have it.” -</p> - -<p> -He laughed and looked at her loutishly. -</p> - -<p> -“You know the condition, Zyp.” -</p> - -<p> -“I have let you kiss me over and over again.” -</p> - -<p> -“But you haven’t kissed me yet.” -</p> - -<p> -She stamped her foot. “Nor ever shall!” she cried. -</p> - -<p> -“Then here goes,” he said, and slipped it into his pocket. -</p> - -<p> -At that she rushed at him and wound her arms about him like a young -panther. -</p> - -<p> -“Shall I tear you with my teeth?” she said, but instead she smoothed -his face with one hand disengaged and murmured to him: -</p> - -<p> -“Modred, dear, you got it for me, you know; you said so.” -</p> - -<p> -“And precious frightened I was, Zyp.” -</p> - -<p> -“Well, it is mine, isn’t it?” -</p> - -<p> -“If you give me the kiss.” -</p> - -<p> -My father’s step on the stairs brought our heads in with a clatter. We -heard them scuttle into the house, and a moment later they appeared in -the room. Modred’s face was flushed and bore a heavy, embarrassed -expression, but Zyp looked quite cool and self-possessed. -</p> - -<p> -I took no notice of her during the meal, but talked, daring in my -misery, to my father, who condescended to answer me now and again, and -I could see that she wondered at me. -</p> - -<p> -Supper over, I hurried to my room, and shutting myself in, went and -sat by the window and gave my tormented soul to the night. Had I never -met Zyp, I doubt if I should ever in my manhood have realized what the -grown-up, I think, seldom do, the amount of torture and wrong the -young heart may endure without bursting—with no hope of sympathy, -moreover, except that half-amused tolerant form of it which the old -think it sufficient to extend to youth’s elastic grievances. -</p> - -<p> -By and by Jason stole in. For some little time he sat upon his bed, -silent; then he said in a soft voice: -</p> - -<p> -“Let’s cry quits, Renny. I think I’ve paid you out for that little -accident of the meads.” -</p> - -<p> -“I hate you!” I said, quietly, and indeed it seemed to me that his -cruelty deserved no better a reward. -</p> - -<p> -He laughed, and was silent again, and presently began to undress for -bed, whistling softly all the time. -</p> - -<p> -I took no notice of him; but long after when he was breathing -peacefully asleep, I laid my own aching head, tired with misery, on -the pillow, and tried to follow his example. I was not to succeed -until faint daylight came through the casement and the birds were -twittering outside—was never, indeed, to know sleep in its innocence -again. -</p> - - -<h3 id="ch07"> -CHAPTER VII.<br/> -<span class="chap_sub">THE POOL OF DEATH.</span> -</h3> - -<p> -Morning brought a pitcher of comfort with it on its gossamer wings. -Who, at 17, can wake from restoring sleep to find the June sun on his -face and elect to breakfast on bitter wormwood, with the appetizing -fry of good country bacon caressing his nostrils through every chink -of the boards? Indeed, I was not born to hate, or to any decided vice -or virtue, but was of those who, taking a middle course, are kicked to -the wall or into the gutter as the Fates have a fancy. -</p> - -<p> -I was friendly with myself, with Jason—almost with Zyp, who had so -bedeviled me. After all, I thought, the measure of her regard for me -might be more in a winning friendliness than in embraces such as she -had bestowed upon Modred. -</p> - -<p> -Therefore I dressed in good heart, chatting amiably with Jason, who, I -could not help noticing, was at some pains to study me curiously. -</p> - -<p> -Such reactionary spirits are the heritage of youth. They decline with -the day. My particular relapse happened, maybe, ungenerously early, -for it was at breakfast I noticed the first tremulous vibrations of -Zyp’s war trumpet. Clearly she had guessed the reason of the change in -my manner toward her yesterday evening and was bent upon disabusing my -mind of the presumptuous supposition that I held any monopoly -whatsoever of her better regard. To this end she showered exaggerated -attentions upon Modred and my father—even Jason coming in for his -share. She had little digs at my silence and boorishness that hugely -delighted the others. She slipped a corner of fat bacon into my tea -and spilled salt over my bread and jam, and all the time I had to bear -my suffering with a stoic heart and echo the merriment, which I did in -such sardonic fashion as to call down fresh banter for my confusion. -At our worst, it must be confessed, we were not a circle with a -refined sense of humor. But when we rose, and Zyp brushed rudely by me -with a pert toss of her head, I felt indeed as if life no longer held -anything worth the striving after. -</p> - -<p> -I walked out into the yard to be alone, but Jason followed me. Some -tenderness for old comradeship sake stirred in him momentarily, I -think, for his blue eyes were good as they met mine. -</p> - -<p> -“What an ass you are, Renny,” he said; “to make such a to-do about the -rubbish!” -</p> - -<p> -“I don’t know what you mean,” I said, in miserable resentment. “I’m -making no to-do about anything.” -</p> - -<p> -My chest felt like a stone, and I could have struck him or any one. -</p> - -<p> -“Oh, I can see,” said he. -</p> - -<p> -“See what you like,” I replied, furiously, “but don’t bother me with -it. I’ve nothing to do with your fancies.” -</p> - -<p> -“Oh, very well,” he said, coolly; “I don’t want to interfere, I’m -sure.” -</p> - -<p> -I bounced past him and strode out of the yard. My blood was humming in -my veins; the sunny street looked all glazed with a shining gray. I -walked on and on, scarcely knowing whither I went. Presently I climbed -St. Catherine’s hill and flung myself down on the summit. Below me, a -quarter of a mile away, the old city lay in the hollow cup of its -down. Who, of all its 17,000 souls, could ever stir my pulses as the -little stranger from the distant shadowy forest could? We had no -forests round Winton. Perhaps if we had the spirit of the trees would -have colored my life, too, so that I might have scorned “the blind -bow-god’s butt shaft.” -</p> - -<p> -No doubt I was young to make such capital out of a little boyish -disappointment. Do you think so? Then to you I must not appeal. Oh, my -friend! We are not all jack-o’-lanterns at 17, and the fire of -unrequited affection may burn fiercer in the pure air of youth than in -the vitiated atmosphere of manhood. Anyhow believe me that to me my -misery was very real and dreadful. Think only, you who have plucked -the fruit and found it bitter—you whose disenchantment of life did -not begin till life itself was waning—what it must be to feel -hopeless at that tender age. -</p> - -<p> -All day long I lay on the hill or wandered about the neighboring -downs, and it was not till the shadows of the trees were stretching -that I made up my mind to return and face out the inevitable. -</p> - -<p> -I was parched and feverish, and the prospect of a plunge in the river -on my way home came to me with a little lonely thrill as of solace to -my unhappiness. -</p> - -<p> -There was a deep pool at a bend of the stream, not far from where Zyp -and I had sat yesterday afternoon (was it only yesterday?) which we -three were much in the habit of frequenting on warm evenings; and -thither I bent my steps. This part of the water lay very private and -solitary, and was only to be reached by trespassing from the road -through a pretty thick-set blackthorn hedge—a necessity to its -enjoyment which, I need not say, was an attraction to us. -</p> - -<p> -As I wriggled through our individual “run” in the hedge and, emerging -on the other side, raised my face, I saw that a naked figure was -already seated by the side of the running pool, which I was not long -in identifying as Modred’s. -</p> - -<p> -I hesitated. What reason had I for hobnobbing with mine enemy, as, in -the bitterness of my heart, I called him? I could not as yet speak to -him naturally, I felt, or meet him without resentment. Where was the -object in complicating matters? I turned, on the thought, to go, and -again hesitated. Should he see me before I had made my escape, would -he not attribute it to embarrassment on my part and crow triumphant -over my discomfiture? Ah, why did I not act on my first impulse? Why, -why? The deeps of perdition must resound with that forlorn little -word. -</p> - -<p> -When a second time the good resolve came to me, it was too late. He -rose and saw me and, under his shading hand, even at that distance, I -could mark the silent grin of mockery on his face. I walked -deliberately toward him, my hands in my pockets, my cap shading my -eyes. -</p> - -<p> -“Aren’t you coming to bathe?” he said, when I drew near. “It’ll cool -your temper.” -</p> - -<p> -I could have struck him, but I answered nothing and only began to -undress. -</p> - -<p> -“Where have you been all day? We were wondering, Zyp and I, as we lay -in the meadow out there.” -</p> - -<p> -Still I answered nothing, but I knew that my hands trembled as I -pulled off my coat and waistcoat. -</p> - -<p> -He stood watching me a little while in silence, then said: “You seem -to have lost your tongue, old Renny. Has it followed your heart -because Zyp talks for two?” -</p> - -<p> -I sprung up, but he eluded me and, with a hateful laugh, leaped on the -moment into the deep center of the pool. A horrible tightness came -round my throat. Half-undressed as I was I plunged after him all mad -with passion. He rose near me, and seeing the fury of my face, dived -again, and I followed. It took but an instant, and my life was -wrecked. We met among the weeds at the bottom, and he jumped from me. -As he rose I clutched him by one foot, and swiftly passed a great -sinew of weed three or four times around his ankle. It held like a -grapnel and would hold; for, though he was a fair swimmer, he was -always frighted and nervous in the face of little difficulties. Then -swerving away, I rose again, with laboring lungs, to the surface. -</p> - -<p> -Barely had my drenched eyes found the daylight again, when the hideous -enormity of my crime broke into my brain like the toll of a death -bell. The water near me was heaving slightly and some welling bubbles -swayed to the surface. They were the drowning gasps of my brother—my -own brother, whom I was murdering. -</p> - -<p> -I gave a thin, wretched scream and sunk again into the deep hole -beneath me. He was jerking convulsively, and his hands clutched vainly -at his feet and slipped away in a dying manner. I tore at the weed to -unwind it—only to twist it into new fetters. I pulled frantically at -its roots. I felt that I should go mad if it did not yield. In a -moment it came away in my hands and I shot upward, struggling. But the -other poor body followed me sluggishly, and I seized it by the hair, -with all my heart gone crazy, and towed it ashore. -</p> - -<p> -His face, I thought, looked fallen away already and was no longer -loutish or malicious. It seemed just a white, pathetic thing freed -from suffering—and I would have given my life—ay, and my love—ten -times over to see the same expression come back to it it had worn as -it turned to me before he dived. -</p> - -<p> -I fell on my knees beside him and broke into a passion of tears. I -kissed, with no shame but a murderer’s, the wet forehead, and beat and -pressed, in a futile agony too terrible for words, the limp -unresisting hand against my breast. It seemed that he must wake if I -implored him so frantically. But he lay quiet, with closed eyes, and -the water ran from his white skin in trickling jerks and pauses. -</p> - -<p> -In the midst of my useless anguish some words of Jason’s recurred to -me, and, seizing my coat for a pillow to his forehead, I turned him, -with a shuddering horror of his limpness, upon his face. A great gush -of water came with a rumble from his mouth, but he did not stir; and -there I stood looking down upon him, my hand to my forehead, my mad -eyes staring as Cain’s must have stared when he wrought the deed of -terror. -</p> - -<p> -And I was Cain—I who yesterday was a boy of loving impulses, I think; -whose blackest crime might be some petty rebellion against the lesser -proprieties; who had even hugged himself upon living on a loftier -plane than this poor silenced victim of his brutality. -</p> - -<p> -As the deadly earnest of my deed came home to my stunned mind, I had -no thought of escape. I would face it out, confess and die. My -father’s agony—for he loved us in his way, I believe; Jason’s -condemnation; Zyp’s hatred; my own shame and torture—I put them all -on one side to get full view of that black crossbeam and rope that I -felt to be the only medicine for my sick and haunted soul. -</p> - -<p> -As I stood, the sound of wheels on the road beyond woke me to some -necessity of action. Stumbling, as in a nightmare; not feeling my -feet, but only the mechanical spring of motion, I hurried to the hedge -side and looked over. -</p> - -<p> -A carter with a tilt wagon was urging his tired team homeward. -</p> - -<p> -“Help!” I cried. “Oh, come and help me!” And my voice seemed to me to -issue from under the tilt of the wagon. -</p> - -<p> -He “woa’d” up his horses, raised his hat from his forehead, wrinkled -with hot weariness, and came toward me, his whip over his shoulder. -</p> - -<p> -“What’s toward?” said he. -</p> - -<p> -“My brother!” I gasped. “We were bathing together and he’s drowned.” -</p> - -<p> -The man’s boorish face lighted up like a farthing rushlight. Here was -something horribly sordid enough for all the excitement he was worth. -It would sweeten many a pot of swipes for the week to come. -</p> - -<p> -“Wheer be the body?” said he, eagerly. -</p> - -<p> -“Over yonder, on the grass. Oh, won’t you help me to carry it home?” -</p> - -<p> -He looked at the hedge critically. -</p> - -<p> -“Go, you,” he said, “and drag ’en hither. We’ll gat ’en over hedge -together.” -</p> - -<p> -I ran back to where it lay. It had collapsed a little to one side, and -for an instant my breath caught in a wild thrill of hope that he had -moved of himself. But the waxen hue of the face in the gathering dusk -killed my emotion on its very issuing. -</p> - -<p> -A strange loathing of the thing, lying so unresponsive, had in my race -backward and forward sprung upon me, but before it could gain the -mastery I had seized it under the arm-pits and was half-dragging, -half-carrying it toward the road. -</p> - -<p> -I was at the hedge before I knew it, and the red face of the carter -was peering curiously down at the white heap beneath. -</p> - -<p> -“Harned ’en up,” he said. “My, but it’s cold. Easy, now. Take the toes -of ’en. Thart’s it—woa!” and he had it in his strong arms and -shuffling heavily to the rear of his wagon, jerked back the flap of -the tilt with his elbow and slid the body like a package into the -interior. -</p> - -<p> -“Get your coat, man,” he cried, “and coom away.” -</p> - -<p> -I had forgotten in the terror of it all my own half-dressed state, for -I had stripped only to my underclothes, and my boots were still on my -feet. Mechanically I returned to the riverside, and hastily donning my -coat and trousers, snatched up the other’s tumbled garments and ran -back to the road. -</p> - - -<h3 id="ch08"> -CHAPTER VIII.<br/> -<span class="chap_sub">THE WAKING.</span> -</h3> - -<p> -The carter was holding the curtain back and critically apostrophizing -the thing within. -</p> - -<p> -“Ay, he be sound enough. Reckon nought but the last trump’ll waken -yon. Now, youngster, where may you live?” -</p> - -<p> -I told him. -</p> - -<p> -“Sure,” he said, “the old crazed mill?” Then I thought he muttered: -“Well, ’tis one vermin the less,” but I was not sure and nothing -mattered—nothing. -</p> - -<p> -He asked me if I would like to ride with it inside. The mere -suggestion was terror to me, and I stammered out that I would rather -walk, for I had tried my best already and had given up hope. -</p> - -<p> -So we set off slowly through the dumb, haunted twilight. Thoughts -would not come to me in any definite form. I imagined the cathedral -bells were ringing, till I found it was only a jangling in my brain, -discordant and unearthly. People came toward us who on nearing were -resolved into distorted rags of mist; voices croaked with laughter, -and they were only the swung branches of trees. -</p> - -<p> -Suddenly I heard an exclamation—real enough this time—and saw the -carter run to the head of his team and stop them. -</p> - -<p> -“Woa, then!” he cried, in a frightened voice; and then with terrified -impatience: “Coom hither, marn; I tell ’ee. Don’t ’ee stand theer -gawking at the air. Dang it, the ghost walks!” He stamped his heavy -foot, seeing me motionless; then cried again: “Take thee foul burden -out o’ the wain and dang me for a fool ever to have meddled wi’t!” -</p> - -<p> -A gush of wondrous hope flooded my breast. I tore to the rear of the -wagon, dashed back the curtain—and there was Modred sitting up and -swaying feebly from side to side. -</p> - -<p> -I leaped; I caught him in my arms; my breath came in laughter and -sobs. “Oh, Modred, Modred!” I cried. “I didn’t mean it—it wasn’t -me—I’m not like that!” and then I broke down and wept long and -convulsively, though I would never let him out of my clutch. -</p> - -<p> -“Where am I?” he said, faintly; “oh, it hurts so. Every vein in my -body is bursting with pain.” -</p> - -<p> -At this I beat under my hysterical outburst and set to rubbing him all -over in frantic eagerness. It seemed to ease him a little and I -blessed him that he lay passively against me and did not offer to push -me away. Poor fellow, he was far too weak as yet for any resistance. -</p> - -<p> -Presently I heard the carter bawl in tremulous tones: “Art gone, the -two of ’ee?” -</p> - -<p> -“Come here,” I called back, with a tearful laugh. “He’s better; he’s -recovered!” -</p> - -<p> -The fellow came round gingerly and stood a little distance off. -</p> - -<p> -“Eh?” he said, dubiously. -</p> - -<p> -“See for yourself!” I cried. “He wasn’t drowned after all. He’s come -round!” -</p> - -<p> -The man spat viciously in the road and came sullenly forward. He was -defrauded of an excitement and he felt the injury grievously. -</p> - -<p> -“You young varmint!” he growled. “Them’s your tricks for to get a free -lift.” -</p> - -<p> -“Nonsense!” I said, buoyantly; “you yourself thought him dead. Carry -us on to the mill and I’ll promise you a proper skinful of liquor.” -</p> - -<p> -He was crabbed and undecided, but presently he went forward and -whipped up his horses with a surly oath. As the wagon pitched, Modred -opened his eyes, which he had shut, and looked up at me. -</p> - -<p> -“Are you feeling better, old boy?” I said, tenderly. -</p> - -<p> -“The pain isn’t so bad, but I’m tired to death,” said he. -</p> - -<p> -“Rest, and don’t talk. You’ll be stronger in a bit.” -</p> - -<p> -He closed his eyes again and I tried to shield him as much as I could -from the jolting. I had already wrapped him up warm in some old sacks -that were heaped in a corner of the wagon. So all the way home I held -him, counting his every breath, loving him as I had never done before. -</p> - -<p> -It was dark when we reached the mill and I laid him gently back and -leaped down. -</p> - -<p> -“Dad! Dad!” I shouted, running down the yard and into the house; but -he was already standing at the head of the stairs, with a candle in -his hand. -</p> - -<p> -“Modred’s had an accident!” I cried, in a subdued voice—I could not -keep the lie back. It seemed so dreadful at the outset to confess and -stand aside condemned—while others helped. Jason and Zyp came out on -the landing and my father ran down the stairs hurriedly. -</p> - -<p> -“What’s that?” he said—“Modred!” -</p> - -<p> -“He got caught in the weeds and was nearly drowned, but he’s getting -better.” -</p> - -<p> -“Where is he?” He seized me by the arm as he spoke, and dragged me to -the mill door. I could feel the pulses in his finger tips through my -coat. -</p> - -<p> -“He’s in a wain outside, and I promised the man a long drink for -bringing us home.” -</p> - -<p> -“There’s a full bottle in the cupboard—bring it down,” shouted my -father to Jason. Then he hurried to the wagon and lifted out the -breathing figure and looked into its face. After all, it was his -youngest. -</p> - -<p> -“Not much harm, perhaps,” said he. “Run and tell them to heat some -water and the blankets.” -</p> - -<p> -While I was finding old Peg and explaining and giving the order, they -carried him upstairs. I did not dare follow them, but, the reaction -over, leaned, feeling sick and faint, in the passage outside the -little kitchen. Perhaps even now he was telling them, and I dreaded -more than I can describe the sentence which a first look at any one of -their faces might confirm. -</p> - -<p> -Presently old Peg came out to me with a can of boiling water and flung -an armful of warm blankets over my shoulder. -</p> - -<p> -“There’s for you, Renalt,” she cried in her thin, rusty voice; then -muttered, clawing her hips like a monkey: “’Tis flying in the Lord’s -face o’ Providence, to me a old woman; like as restoring a froze snake -on the hearth.” -</p> - -<p> -I had no heart for retort, but sped from the sinister old witch with -my burden. I saw Zyp and Jason in the living-room as I passed, but, -though they called to me, I ran on and upstairs to the door of -Modred’s room, which was next ours. -</p> - -<p> -My father came out to my knock and took the things from me. -</p> - -<p> -“Now,” said he, “I want nobody here but myself and Dr. Crackenthorpe. -Go you and fetch him, if he’s to be found.” -</p> - -<p> -Happy to be employed in any useful service, I hurried away on my -errand. The door of the sitting-room was shut, at which I was glad. -Very little respite gave me fresh lease of hope. -</p> - -<p> -The doctor’s home was close by, in a straggling street of old -buildings that ran off our end of the High street, and the doctor -himself was, I was told, within. -</p> - -<p> -I found him seated in a musty little parlor, with some ugly casts of -murderers’ heads facing him from the top of a varnished bookcase. -</p> - -<p> -“Ah, my friend!” he screeched, cracking his knuckles; “those interest -you, eh? Well, perhaps I shall have the pleasure of adding your -picture to them some day.” -</p> - -<p> -An irrepressible shudder took me and he laughed, not knowing the -reason of it. -</p> - -<p> -“Now, what’s your business?” said he. -</p> - -<p> -I told him. -</p> - -<p> -“Eh,” he said, and bent forward and looked at me narrowly. “Near -drowned, eh? Why, what were you doing, you young limb?” -</p> - -<p> -“I went after him,” I answered, faintly, “but I couldn’t get the weeds -loose.” -</p> - -<p> -“Dressed, too?” he said, for the sop of my underclothes had come -through the upper, and nothing escaped his hawk’s eye; “why, you’re a -hero, upon my word.” -</p> - -<p> -He bade me begone after that and he would follow immediately. And I -returned to the mill, and, softly climbing the stairs, shut myself -into my room and sat upon the edge of the bed listening—listening for -every breath and sound in the old eerie house. I heard the doctor come -up the stairs and enter the room next door. I heard the low murmur of -voices and strained my ears to gather what was said, but could not -make out a word. And the darkness grew into my soul and shut out all -the old light of happy reason. Should I ever feel innocent again? And -would Modred, satisfied with his knowledge of the dreadful heritage of -remorse I had laid up for myself, forego his right to denounce me and -to forever make me an outcast and alone? I hardly dared to hope it, -yet clung with a strenuous longing to thought of his mercy. -</p> - -<p> -It may have been hours I sat there. I do not know. I had heard -footsteps go up and down the stairs many times. And then a silence -fell. What was the meaning of it? Was it possible that life had only -rallied in him momentarily, like the flame of a dying candle and had -suddenly sunk for good and all into endless darkness? Had he told? Why -did no one come near me? I could stand it no longer. -</p> - -<p> -As I sprung to my feet I heard a footstep again on the stairs and -Jason walked into the room and shut the door. He took no notice of me, -but began to undress. -</p> - -<p> -“Jason!” I cried, and the agony in my voice I could not repress. “How -is he? Has he spoken? Oh, don’t keep me in this torture.” -</p> - -<p> -“What torture?” said my brother, looking at me with a cold, -unresponsive eye. “Why should you be upset more than the rest of us? -He’s asleep all right, and not to be bothered with any questions.” -</p> - -<p> -Thank God! Oh, thank God! I took no notice of his looks or tone, for I -was absorbed in great gratitude to heaven that my worst fears were -idle ones. -</p> - -<p> -“Where’s dad?” I said. -</p> - -<p> -“Drinking downstairs with the doctor. They’ll make high revel of it, I -expect.” -</p> - -<p> -He was already in bed; but I sat on and on in the darkness. I had only -one thought—one longing to wait till Jason was fast in slumber, and -then to creep to Modred’s side and implore his forgiveness. -</p> - -<p> -Presently the deep, regular breathing of my brother announced to me -the termination of my vigil. With my heart beating in a suffocating -manner, I stole to the door, opened it and stood outside that of -Modred’s room. I listened a moment. A humming noise of garrulous -voices below was the only sound that broke the silence of the house. -Softly I turned the handle and softly crept into the room. There was -light in it, for on the wash-hand stand a rush candle burned dimly in -an old lanthorn. -</p> - -<p> -He gave a start, for he was lying awake in his bed, then half-rose on -his elbow and looked at me with frightened eyes. -</p> - -<p> -“Don’t come near,” he whispered. “What do you want? You aren’t going -to try to kill me again?” -</p> - -<p> -I gave a little strangled, agonized cry, and, dropping on my knees -where I stood, stretched out my arms to him imploringly. -</p> - -<p> -“Oh, Modred, don’t! Don’t! You can’t think I meant it! It was only a -horrible impulse. I was mad, and I nearly drowned myself directly -afterward in saving you.” -</p> - -<p> -The fright went from his face and something like its familiar look -returned to it. -</p> - -<p> -“Are you sorry?” he said. -</p> - -<p> -“Sorry? Oh, I will do anything you like if you will only believe me.” -</p> - -<p> -“Come here, Renny,” he said, “and stand by me. I want to see you -better.” -</p> - -<p> -I obeyed humbly—lovingly. -</p> - -<p> -“You want me to forgive you?” -</p> - -<p> -“If you could, Modred—if you only could.” -</p> - -<p> -“And not to peach?” -</p> - -<p> -I hung my head in shame and the tears were in my eyes again. -</p> - -<p> -“Well, I’ll agree, on one condition.” -</p> - -<p> -“Make any you like, Modred. I’ll swear to keep it; I’ll never forget -it.” -</p> - -<p> -“Zyp’s it,” he said, looking away from me. -</p> - -<p> -“Yes,” I said, gently, with a prescience of what was coming. -</p> - -<p> -“You’ll have to give her up for good and all—keep out of her way; let -her know somehow you’re sick of her. And keep Jason out of the way. -You and he were chums enough before she came.” -</p> - -<p> -“I swear for myself, and to do what I can with Jason,” I said, dully. -What did it matter? One way or another the buoyant light of existence -was shut to me for good and all. -</p> - -<p> -“It’s the only way,” said Modred, and he gave me a look that I dare -not call crafty. “After all, it isn’t much,” he said, “considering -what you did to me, and she seems to be getting tired of you—now, -doesn’t she?” -</p> - -<p> -“Yes,” I said in a low voice. -</p> - -<p> -“Then, that’s settled. And now let me be, for I feel as if I can -sleep. Hand me my breeches first, though. There’s something in the -pocket I want.” -</p> - -<p> -“Shall I get it out for you, old boy?” -</p> - -<p> -“No, no!” he answered, hurriedly. “Give them to me, can’t you?” -</p> - -<p> -I did as he wanted and crept from the room. What did it matter? Zyp -had already cast me off, but for the evil deed I was respited. A -moment ago the girl had seemed as nothing, set in the scale against my -brother’s forgiveness. Could it be the true, loving spirit of -forgiveness that could make such a condition? Hush! I must not think -that thought. What did it matter? -</p> - -<p> -I did not go back to my room, but sat on a stair at the head of the -downward flight, with a strange, stunned feeling. Below the voices -went on spasmodically—now a long murmur—now a snatch of song—now an -angry phrase. By and by, I think, I must have fallen into a sort of -stupor, for I seemed to wake all at once to a thunderous uproar. -</p> - -<p> -I started to my feet. Magnified as all sounds are in the moment of -recovered consciousness, there was yet noise enough below to convince -me that a violent quarrel between the two men was toward. I heard my -father’s voice in bitter denunciation. -</p> - -<p> -“You’ve been hawking over my quarry this long while. I’ll tear the -truth out of your long throat! Give me back my cameo—where is it?” -</p> - -<p> -“A fig for your cameo!” cried the other in a shrill voice, “and I tell -you this is the first I’ve heard of it.” -</p> - -<p> -“You’ve been watching me, you fiend, you! Dogging me—haunting me! -I’ll have no more o’t! I’m not to be bribed or threatened or coaxed -any more; least of all thieved from. Where is it?” -</p> - -<p> -“You aren’t, aren’t you?” screeched the doctor. “You leave me here and -I fall asleep. You’re away and you come storming back that I’ve robbed -you. It’s a trap, by thunder, but you won’t catch me in it!” -</p> - -<p> -“I believe you’re lying!” cried my father. His voice seemed strained -with passion. But the other answered him now much more coolly. -</p> - -<p> -“Believe what you like, my friend. It’s beneath my dignity to -contradict you again; but take this for certain—if you slander me in -public, I’ll ruin you!” -</p> - -<p> -Then silence fell and I waited to hear no more. I stole to my room and -crept to bed. I had never changed my drenched clothes and the deadly -chill of my limbs was beginning to overcome the frost in my heart. -</p> - -<p> -It seemed hours before the horrible coldness relaxed, and then -straightway a parching fever scorched me as if I lay against a -furnace. I heard sounds and dull footsteps and the ghostly creaking of -stairs, but did not know if they were real or only incidents in my -half-delirium. -</p> - -<p> -At last as day was breaking I fell into a heavy, exhausted sleep. It -merged into a dream of my younger brother. We walked together as we -had done as little children, my arm around his neck. “Zenny,” he said, -like a baby paraphrasing Zyp’s words, “what’s ’ove dat ’ey talk -about?” I could have told him in the gushing of my heart, but in a -moment he ran from me and faded. -</p> - -<p> -I gave a cry and woke, and Jason was standing over me, with a white, -scared face. -</p> - -<p> -“Get up!” he whispered; “Modred’s dead!” -</p> - - -<h3 id="ch09"> -CHAPTER IX.<br/> -<span class="chap_sub">THE FACE ON THE PILLOW.</span> -</h3> - -<p> -Often the first shock of some unexpected mental blow shakes from the -soul, not its corresponding emotion, but that emotion’s exact -antithesis. Thus, when Jason spoke I laughed. I could not on the -moment believe that such hideous retribution was demanded of my -already writhed and repentant conscience, and it seemed to me that he -must be jesting in very ugly fashion. -</p> - -<p> -Perhaps he looked astonished; anyhow he said: -</p> - -<p> -“You needn’t make a joke of it. Are you awake? Modred’s dead, I tell -you.” -</p> - -<p> -I sprung from the bed; I clutched him and pulled him to and fro. -</p> - -<p> -“Tell me you lie—you lie—you lie!” I cried. -</p> - -<p> -He did not. I could see it in his face. There and then the drought of -Tophet withered and constricted my life. I was branded and doomed -forevermore; a thing to shudder at and avoid. -</p> - -<p> -“I will dress and come!” I said, relaxing from my hold on him, and -turned away and began to hurry on my clothes. I had not felt so set in -quietness since the morning of two days past. I could even think -calmly and balance the pros and cons of my future behavior. -</p> - -<p> -Each man must be his own judge, his own plaintiff, his own -defendant—an atom of self-contained equity. By his own ruling in -matters of right and wrong he must abide, suffer his own punishments, -enjoy his own rewards. He is a lonely organism, in whom only himself -took an interest, and as such he must be content to endure with -calmness the misinterpretations of aliens. -</p> - -<p> -Modred had forgiven me. Whatever was the condition, whatever the deed, -it was too late now to convince me that no justification existed for -my rebellion against fate. -</p> - -<p> -My elder, my only brother now, watched me in silence as I dressed. -</p> - -<p> -“Where is he?” I said, when I had finished. -</p> - -<p> -“In bed as he was left,” said Jason. “I went in this morning, while -you were asleep, and found him—ah, he looks horrible,” he cried, and -broke off with a shudder. -</p> - -<p> -I did not shrink; I felt braced up to any ordeal. -</p> - -<p> -They were all in the room when we entered it. My father, Dr. -Crackenthorpe, Zyp—even old Peggy, who was busying herself, with the -vulture relish of her kind, over the little artificial decencies of -dress and posture that seem such an outrage on the solemn unresistance -of the dead. -</p> - -<p> -Directly we came in Zyp ran to Jason and clung to him sobbing. I -noticed it with a sort of dull resignation, and that was all; for -Peggy, who had drawn a sheet over the lifeless face, pulled it down -that I might look. -</p> - -<p> -Then, for all my stoicism, I gave a cry. -</p> - -<p> -I had left my brother the night before tired, needing rest, but, save -for the extra pallor of his complexion that never boasted a great deal -of color, much like his usual self. Now the dead face lying back on -the pillows was awful to look upon. Spots and bars of livid purple -disfigured its waxen whiteness—on the cheeks, the ears, the throat, -where a deep patch was. It was greatly swollen, too, and the mouth so -rigidly open that it had defied all effort to bind it close. A couple -of pennies, like a hideous pair of glasses, lay, one over each eye, -where they could only be kept in position by means of a filament drawn -tightly round the head. The hands, stiffly crossed, with the fingers -crooked like talons, lay over the breast, fastened into position with -a ligature. -</p> - -<p> -I turned away, feeling sick and faint. I think I reeled, for presently -I found that Dr. Crackenthorpe was supporting me against his arm. -</p> - -<p> -“Oh, why is he like that?” I whispered. -</p> - -<p> -“’Tis a common afterclap in deaths by drowning,” said he, speaking in -a loud, insistent voice, as if not for the first time. “A stoppage—a -relapse. During the weak small hours, when the patient’s strength is -at its lowest, the overwrought lungs refuse to work—collapse, and he -dies of suffocation.” -</p> - -<p> -He looked at my father as he spoke, but elicited no response. It was -palpable that the heavy potations of the night had so deadened the -latter’s faculties as to make him incapable for the moment of -realizing the full enormity of the sight before him. -</p> - -<p> -“Mark me,” said the doctor; “it’s a plain case, I say, nothing out of -the way; no complications. The wretched boy to all intents and -purposes has been drowned.” -</p> - -<p> -“Who drowned him?” said my father. He spoke thickly, stupidly; but I -started, with a dreadful feeling that the locked jaws must relax and -denounce me before them all. -</p> - -<p> -Seeing his hopeless state, the doctor took my father’s arm and led him -from the room. Zyp still clung to my brother. -</p> - -<p> -“Cover it up,” whispered Jason. “He isn’t a pretty sight!” -</p> - -<p> -“He wasn’t a pretty boy,” muttered Peggy, reluctantly hiding the -dreadful face; “To a old woman’s view it speaks of more than his -deserts. Nobody’ll come to look at me, I expect.” -</p> - -<p> -“You heard what the doctor said?” asked Jason, looking across at me. -</p> - -<p> -“Yes.” -</p> - -<p> -“Drowned—you understand? Drowned, Renny?” -</p> - -<p> -“Drowned,” I repeated, mechanically. -</p> - -<p> -“Come, Zyp,” he said; “this isn’t the place for you any longer.” -</p> - -<p> -They passed out of the room, she still clinging to him, so that her -face was hidden. -</p> - -<p> -I did not measure his words at that time. I had no thought for nice -discriminations of tone; what did I care for anything any longer? -</p> - -<p> -Presently I heard old Peg muttering again. She thought the room was -emptied of us and she softly removed the face cloth once more. -</p> - -<p> -“Ay, there ye lies, Modred—safe never to spy on poor old Rottengoose -again! Ye were a bad lot, ye were; but Peg’s been more’n enough for -you, she has, my lad.” -</p> - -<p> -Suddenly she saw me out of the tail of her eye, and turned upon me, -livid with fury. -</p> - -<p> -“What are ye listening to, Renalt? A black curse on spies, Renalt, I -say!” -</p> - -<p> -Then her manner changed and she came fawning at me fulsomely. -</p> - -<p> -“What a good lad to stay wi’ his brother! But Peg’ll do the tending, -Renalt. She be a crass old body and apt to reviling in her speech, but -she don’t mean it, bless you; it’s the tic doldrums in her head.” -</p> - -<p> -I repelled the horrible old creature and fled from the room. What she -meant I neither knew nor cared, for we had always looked upon her as a -feckless body, with a big worm in her brain. -</p> - -<p> -All the long morning I wandered about the house, scarcely knowing what -I did or whither I went. Once I found myself in the room of silence, -not remembering when I had come there or for what reason. The fact, -merely, was impressed upon me by a gradual change in the nature of my -sensations. Something seemed to be asking a question of me which I was -striving and striving to answer. It didn’t distress me at first, for a -nearer misery overwhelmed everything, but by and by its insistence -pierced a passage through all dull obstacles, and the something took -up its abode in me and reigned and grew. I felt myself yielding, -yielding; and strove now to beat off the inevitable horror of the -answer that was rising in me. I did not know what it was, or the -question to which it was a response—only I saw that if I yielded to -it and spoke it, I should die then and there of the black terror of -its revelation. -</p> - -<p> -I sprung to my feet with a cry, and saw, or thought I saw, Modred -standing by the water wheel and beckoning to me. If I had strength to -escape, it was enough for that and no more, for everything seemed to -go from me till I found myself sitting at the foot of the stairs, with -Jason looking oddly down upon me. -</p> - -<p> -“I needn’t get up,” I said. “Modred isn’t dead, after all.” -</p> - -<p> -I think I heard him shout out. Anyhow, I felt myself lifted up and -carried somewhere and put down. If they had thought to restrain me, -however, they should have managed things better; for I was up in a -moment and out at the window. I had often thought one wanted only the -will to forget gravity and float through the air, and here I was doing -it. What a glorious sensation it was! I laughed to think how long I -had remained like a reptile, bound to the plodding miserable earth, -when all the time I had power to escape from myself and float on and -on far away from all those heart-breaking troubles. If I only went -very swiftly at first I should soon be too distant for them to track -me, and then I should be free. I felt a little anxious, for there was -a faint noise behind me. I strove to put on pace; if my limbs had -responded to my efforts no bird could have outstripped me. But I saw -with agony that the harder I fought the less way I made. I struggled -and sobbed and clutched myself blindly onward, and all the time the -noise behind grew deeper. If I pushed myself off with a foot to the -ground I only floated a very little way now. Then I saw a railing and -pulled myself along with it toilsomely, but some great pressure was in -front of me and my feet slipped into holes at every step. Panting, -straining, slipping, as if on blood—why! It was blood! I had to yield -at last. -</p> - -<p> -My passion of hope was done with. I lay in a white set horror, not -daring to move or look. How deadly quiet the room was, but not for -long, for a little stealthy rustle of the sheet beside me prickled -through my whole being with its ghastly stirring. Then I knew it had -secretly risen on its elbow and was leaning over and looking down upon -me. If I could only perspire, I thought, my bonds would loosen and I -could escape from it. But it was cunning and knew that, too, and it -sealed all the surface of my skin with its acrid exhalations. Suddenly -it clutched me in its crooked arms and bore me down, down to the room -of silence. There was a sickening odor there and the covering of the -wheel was open. Then, with a shudder, as of death, I thought I found -the answer; for now it was plain that the great wheel was driven by -blood, not water. As I looked aghast, straining over, it gave me a -stealthy push and, with a shriek, I splashed among the paddles and was -whirled down. For ages I was spun and beaten round and round, mashed, -mangled, gasping for breath and choked with the horrible crimson broth -that fed the insane and furious grinding of the wheel. At the end, -glutted with torture, it flung me forth into a parching desert of -sand, and, spinning from me, became far away a revolving disk of red -that made the low-down sun of that waste corner of the world. -</p> - -<p> -I was alone, now—always alone. No footsteps had ever trod that -trackless level, nor would, I knew, till time was ended. I had no -hope; no green memory for oasis; no power of speech even. Then I knew -I was dead; had been dead so long that my body had crackled and fallen -to decay, leaving my soul only, like the stone of a fruit, quick with -wretched impulse to shoot upward but dreadfully imprisoned from doing -so. -</p> - -<p> -Sometimes in the world the massive columns of the cathedral had -suggested to me a like sensation; a moral impress of weight and -stoniness that had driven me to bow my head and creep, sweating away -from their inexorable stolidity. Now I was built into such a -body—more, was an integral part of it. Yet could my pinioned nerves -never assimilate its passionless obduracy, but jerked and struggled in -agony to be free. Oh, how divine is the instinct that paints heaven -all light and airiness, and innocent forevermore of the sense of -weight! -</p> - -<p> -Suddenly I heard Zyp’s voice, singing outside in the world, and in a -moment tears, most blessed, blessed tears, sprung from my eyes and I -was free. The stone cracked and fell asunder, and I leaped out madly -shrieking at my release. -</p> - -<p> -She was sitting under a tree in a beautiful meadow and her young voice -rose sweetly as she prinked her hat with daisies and yellow king-cups. -She called me to her and gave me tender names and smoothed away the -pain from my forehead with kisses and the cunning of her elfish brown -hand. -</p> - -<p> -“Come, drink,” she said, “and you will be better.” -</p> - -<p> -I woke to life and looked up. She was standing by my bed, holding a -cup toward my lips, and at the foot Jason leaned, looking on. -</p> - -<p> -“Have I been ill?” I said, in a voice so odd to me that I almost -laughed. -</p> - -<p> -“Yes, yes—a little; but you have come out of the black pit now into -the forest.” -</p> - - -<h3 id="ch10"> -CHAPTER X.<br/> -<span class="chap_sub">JASON SPEAKS.</span> -</h3> - -<p> -For some three weeks I had lain racked and shriveled in a nervous, -delirious fever. It left me at last, the ghost of my old self, to face -once more the problems of a ruined life. For many days these gave me -no concern, or only in a fitful, indifferent manner. I was content to -sip the dew of convalescence, to slumber and to cherish my exhaustion, -and the others disturbed me but little. My recovery once assured, they -left me generally to myself, scarce visiting me more often than was -necessary for the administering of food or medicine. Sometimes one or -other of them would come and sit by my bedside awhile and exchange -with me a few desultory remarks; but this was seldom, and grew, with -my strength more so, for the earth was brilliant with summer outside -and naturally fuller of attractions than a sick-room. -</p> - -<p> -Their neglect troubled me little at first; but by and by, when the -first idle ecstasy of convalescence was beginning to deepen into a -sense of responsibilities that I should soon have to gather up and -adjust, it woke day by day an increasing uneasiness in my soul. As -yet, it is true, the immediate past I could only call up before my -mental vision as a blurred picture of certain events the significance -of which was suggestive only. Gradually, however, detail by detail, -the whole composition of it concentrated, on the blank sheet of my -mind, and stood straight before me terribly uncompromising in its -sternness of outline. Had I any reason to suppose, in short, that my -share in Modred’s death was known to or guessed at by my father, Jason -or Zyp? On that pivot turned the whole prospect of my future; for as -to myself, were the secret to remain mine alone, I yet felt that I -could make out life with a tolerable degree of resignation in the -certain knowledge that Modred had forgiven me before he died, for a -momentary mad impulse, the provocation to which had been so -bitter—the reaction from which had been so immediate and so equally -impulsive. -</p> - -<p> -Of my father, I may say at once, I had little fear. His manner toward -me when, as he did occasionally, he came and sat by me for a half-hour -or so, was marked by a gentleness and affection I had never known him -to exhibit before. Pathetic as it was, I could sometimes almost have -wished it replaced by a sterner mood, a more dubious attitude; for my -remorse at having so bereaved him became a barbed sting in presence of -his new condescension to me that dated from the afternoon of my appeal -to him, and was intensified by our common loss. -</p> - -<p> -Of Zyp I hardly dared to think, or dared to do more than tremulously -hover round the thought that Modred’s death had absolved me from my -promise to him to avoid her. Still the thought was there and perhaps I -only played with self-deception when I affected to fly from it out of -a morbid loyalty to him that was gone. I could not live with and not -long for her with all the passion I was capable of. -</p> - -<p> -Therefore it was that I dreaded any possible disclosure of a suspicion -on her part—dreaded it with a fever of the mind so fierce that it -must truly have retarded my recovery indefinitely had not a -counter-irritant occurred to me, in certain moods, in the form of a -thought that perhaps, after all, my deed might not so affright one -who, on her own showing, found a charm in the contemplation of evil. -</p> - -<p> -But it was Jason I feared most. Something—I can hardly give it a -name—had come to me within the last few weeks that seemed to be the -preface to an awakening of the moral right on my part. In the -unfolding of this new faculty I was startled and distressed to observe -deformities in my brother where I had before seen nothing but manly -beauty and a breezy recklessness that I delighted in. Beautiful -bodily, I and all must still think him, though it had worried me -lately to often observe an expression in his blue eyes that was only -new to my new sense. This I can but describe, with despair of the -melodramatic sound of it, as poisonous. The pupils were as full and -purple as berries of the deadly nightshade. -</p> - -<p> -It was not, however, his eyes only that baffled me. I saw that he -coveted any novelty of sensation greedily, and that sooner than forego -enjoyment of it he would ruthlessly stamp down whatever obstacle to -its attainment crossed his path. -</p> - -<p> -Now I knew in my heart that his hitherto indifference to Zyp was an -affectation born only of wounded vanity, and that such as he could -never voluntarily yield so piquant a prize to homelier rivals. I -recalled, with a brooding apprehension, certain words of his on that -fatal morning, that seemed intended to convey, at least, a dark -suspicion as to the manner of Modred’s death. Probably they were bolts -shot at random with a sinister object—for I could conceive no shadow -of direct evidence against me. In that connection they might mean much -or little; in one other I had small doubt that they meant a good -deal—this in fact, that, if I got in his way with Zyp, down I should -go. -</p> - -<p> -Daily probing and analyzing such darkly dismal problems as these, I -slowly crawled through convalescence to recovery. -</p> - -<p> -It was a sweltering morning in early July that I first crept out of -doors, with Zyp for my companion. It was happiness to me to have her -by my side, though as yet my weak and watery veins could prickle to no -ghost of passion. I had thought that life could hold nothing for me -ever again but present pain and agonized retrospects. It was not so. -The very smell of the freshly watered roads woke a shadowy delight in -me as we stepped over the threshold. The buoyant thunder of the river, -as it leaped under the old street bridge seemed to gush over my heart -with a cleansing joyousness that left it white and innocent again. -</p> - -<p> -We crossed the road and wandered by a zig-zag path to the ancient -close, where soft stretches and paddocks of green lawn, “immemorial -elms” and scattered buildings antique and embowered wrought such an -harmonious picture as filled my tired soul with peace. -</p> - -<p> -Here we sat down on an empty bench. I had much to question Zyp -about—much to reflect on and put into words—but my neglected speech -moved as yet on rusty hinges. -</p> - -<p> -“Zyp,” I said presently, in a low voice; “tell me—where is he -buried?” -</p> - -<p> -“In the churchyard—St. John’s, under the hill, Renny.” -</p> - -<p> -Not once until now had I touched upon this subject or mentioned -Modred’s name to any one of them, and a great longing was upon me to -get it over and done with. -</p> - -<p> -“Who went?” -</p> - -<p> -“Dad and Jason and Dr. Crackenthorpe.” -</p> - -<p> -“Zyp, nobody has asked me anything about it. Don’t you all want to -know how—how it happened?” -</p> - -<p> -“He was caught in the weeds—you said so yourself, Renny.” -</p> - -<p> -Vainly I strove to get under her words; intuition was, for the time -being, a sluggish quantity in me. -</p> - -<p> -“Yes; but——” I began, when she took me up softly. -</p> - -<p> -“Dad said it was all clear and that we were never to bother you about -it at all.” -</p> - -<p> -A sigh of gratitude to heaven escaped me. -</p> - -<p> -“And I for one,” said Zyp, “don’t intend to.” -</p> - -<p> -Something in her words jarred unaccountably on my sick nerves. -</p> - -<p> -“At first,” she said, just glancing at me, “dad thought there ought to -be an inquest, but Dr. Crackenthorpe was so set against it that he -gave in.” -</p> - -<p> -“Dr. Crackenthorpe? Why was——” -</p> - -<p> -“He said that juries took such an idiotic view of a father’s -responsibilities; that dad might be censured for letting the boy run -wild; that in any case the family’s habits of life would be raked over -and cause a scandal that might make things very uncomfortable; that it -was a perfectly plain case of drowning, and that he was quite willing -to give a certificate that death was due to a rupture of some blood -vessel in the brain following exhaustion from exposure—or something -of that sort.” -</p> - -<p> -“And he did?” -</p> - -<p> -“Yes, at last, after a deal of talk, and he was buried quietly and -there was an end of it.” -</p> - -<p> -Not quite an end, Zyp—not quite an end! -</p> - -<p> -She was very gentle and patient with me all the morning, and my poor -soul brimmed over with gratitude. My pulses began even to flicker a -little with hope that things might be as they were before the -catastrophe. After all she was a very independent changeling and, if -there existed in her heart any bias in my favor, Jason might find -himself quite baffled in his efforts to control her inclinations. -</p> - -<p> -Presently I turned to the same overclouding subject. -</p> - -<p> -“What happened the day I was taken bad, Zyp?” -</p> - -<p> -“Jason found you on the stairs, talking rubbish. They carried you to -bed and you hardly left off talking rubbish for weeks. Don’t you -remember anything of it?” -</p> - -<p> -“Nothing, after—after I saw him lying there so dreadful.” -</p> - -<p> -“Ah, it was ugly, wasn’t it? Well, you must have wandered off -somewhere—anywhere; and the rest of us to the parlor. There dad and -the doctor fell to words. They had spent all the night over that -stupid drink, sleeping and quarreling by fits and couldn’t remember -much about it. They had not heard any noise upstairs, either of them; -but suddenly the doctor pointed to something hanging out of dad’s -pocket. ‘Why, you must have gone to the boy’s room some time,’ he -said. ‘Look there!’ Dad took it out and it was Modred’s braces, all -twisted up and stuffed into his pocket.” -</p> - -<p> -“Modred’s braces?” -</p> - -<p> -“Yes; they all knew them, for they were blue, you know—the color he -liked. Dad afterward thought he must have put them there to be out of -the way while he was carrying Modred upstairs, but at the time he was -furious. ‘D’ye dare to imply I had a hand in my son’s death?’ he -shrieked. ‘I imply nothing; I mean no offense; they are plain for -every one to see,’ said the doctor, going back a little. I thought he -was frightened and that dad would jump at his throat like a weasel, -and I clapped my hands, waiting for the battle. But it never came, for -dad turned pale and called for brandy, and there was an end of it.” -</p> - -<p> -This story of the doctor’s horrible suggestion wrought only one -comfort in me—it warmed my heart with a great heat of loyalty to one -who, I knew, for all his faults, could never be guilty of so inhuman a -wickedness. -</p> - -<p> -“I should like to kill that doctor,” I said, fiercely and proudly. -</p> - -<p> -“So should I,” said Zyp. “I believe he would bleed soot like a -chimney.” -</p> - -<p> -Zyp was my companion during the greater part of that day and the next. -Her manner toward me was uniformly gentle and attentive. Sometimes -during meals I would become conscious of Jason’s eyes fixed upon one -or other of us in a curious stare that was watchful and introspective -at once, as if he were summing up the voiceless arguments of counsels -invisible, while never losing sight of the fact that we he sat in -judgment on were already convicted in his mind. This, for the time -being, did not much disturb me. I was lulled to a sense of false -security by the gracious championship I thought I now could rely upon. -</p> - -<p> -It was the evening of the second day and we three were in the -living-room together; Jason reading at the window. Zyp had been so -kind to me that my heart was very full indeed, and now she sat by me, -one hand slipped into mine, the other supporting her little pointed -chin, while her sweet, flower-stained eyes communed with other, it -seemed, than affairs of earth. A strange wistful tenderness had marked -her late treatment of me; a pathetic solicitude that was inexpressibly -touching to one so forlorn. Suddenly she rose and I heard Jason’s book -rustle in his hand. -</p> - -<p> -“Now, little boy,” she said, “’tis time you were in bed.” -</p> - -<p> -Then she leaned toward me and whispered: -</p> - -<p> -“Is he so unhappy? What has he done for Zyp’s sake?” -</p> - -<p> -In a moment she bent and kissed me, with a soft kiss, on the forehead, -and shooting a Parthian glance of defiance at Jason, who never spoke -or moved, ran from the room. -</p> - -<p> -All my soul thrilled with a delicious joy. Zyp, who had refused to -kiss him, had kissed me. The ecstasy of her lips’ touch blotted out -all significance her words might carry. -</p> - -<p> -Half-stunned with triumphant happiness, I climbed the stairs and, -getting into bed, fell into a luminous dream of thought in which for -the moment was no place for apprehension. -</p> - -<p> -I did not even hear Jason enter or shut the door, and it was only when -he shook me roughly by the shoulder that I became conscious of his -presence in the room. -</p> - -<p> -He was standing over me, and the windows of his soul were down, and -through them wickedness grinned like a skull. -</p> - -<p> -“I’ve had enough of this,” he said in a terrible low voice. “D’you -want to drive me to telling that I know it was you who killed Modred?” -</p> - - -<h3 id="ch11"> -CHAPTER XI.<br/> -<span class="chap_sub">CONVICT, BUT NOT SENTENCED.</span> -</h3> - -<p> -So the blow had fallen! -</p> - -<p> -Yet a single despairing effort I made to beat off or at least postpone -the inevitable. -</p> - -<p> -I sat up in bed and answered my brother back with, I could feel, ashen -and quivering lips. -</p> - -<p> -“What do you mean?” I said. “How dare you say such a thing?” -</p> - -<p> -“I dare anything,” he said, “where I have a particular object in -view.” He never took his eyes off me, and the cold devil in them froze -my blood that had only now run so hotly. -</p> - -<p> -“For yourself,” he went on, “I don’t care much whether you hang or -live. You can come to terms with your own conscience I dare say, and a -fat brother more or less may be a pure question of fit survival. -That’s as it may be—but the girl here is another matter.” -</p> - -<p> -“I didn’t kill him,” I could only say, dully. -</p> - -<p> -Still keeping his eyes on me he sought for and drew from his jacket -pocket a twist of dry and shrunken water weed. A horrible shudder -seized me as I looked upon it. -</p> - -<p> -“You didn’t think to see that again?” he said. “Do you recognize it? -Of course you do. It was the rope you twisted round his foot, and that -I found round his foot still, after dad had carried him upstairs, -bundled round with those sacks, and I was left alone in the room with -him a minute.” -</p> - -<p> -My heart died within me. I dropped my sick, strained eyes and could -only listen in agonized silence. And he went on quite pitilessly. -</p> - -<p> -“You shouldn’t have left such evidence, you know—least of all for me -to see. I had not forgotten the murder in your eyes when I spoke to -you that morning and the evening before.” -</p> - -<p> -He struck the weed lightly with his right hand. -</p> - -<p> -“This stuff,” he said, “I know it, of course—grows up straight enough -of itself. It wanted something human—or inhuman—to twist it round a -leg in that fashion.” -</p> - -<p> -I broke out with a choking cry. -</p> - -<p> -“I did it,” I said; “but it wasn’t murder—oh, Jason, it wasn’t -murder, as you mean it.” -</p> - -<p> -He gave a little cold laugh. -</p> - -<p> -“No doubt we have different standards of morality,” he said. “We won’t -split hairs. Say it was murder as a judge and jury would view it.” -</p> - -<p> -“It wasn’t! Will you believe me if I tell you the truth?” -</p> - -<p> -“That depends upon the form it takes.” -</p> - -<p> -“I’ll tell you. It is the truth—before God, it is the truth! I won’t -favor myself. I had been mad with him, I own, but had nearly got over -it. I was out all day on the hills and thought I should like a bathe -on my way home. I went through the ‘run’ and saw he was there. At -first I thought I would leave him to himself, but just as I was going -he saw me and a grin came over his face and—Jason, you know that if I -had gone away then, he would have thought me afraid to meet him.” -</p> - -<p> -“You can leave me, Renalt, out of the question, if you please.” -</p> - -<p> -“I meant no harm—indeed I didn’t—but when I got there he taunted and -mocked at me. I didn’t know what I was doing; and when he jumped for -the water I followed him and twisted that round. Then in a single -moment I saw what I had done—and was mad to unfasten it. It would not -come away at first, and when at last I got him free and to the shore -he was insensible. If you could only know what I suffered then, you -would pity me, Jason—you would; you could not help it.” -</p> - -<p> -I stole a despairing look at his face and there was no atom of -softness in it. -</p> - -<p> -“He came to on the way home and I was wild with joy, and at night, -Jason, when you were in bed and asleep, I crept into his room and -begged for his forgiveness and he forgave me.” -</p> - -<p> -“Without any condition? That wasn’t like Modred. What did he ask for -in return?” -</p> - -<p> -I was silent. -</p> - -<p> -“Come,” he persisted, “what did he want? You may as well tell me all. -You don’t fancy that I believe he forgave you without getting -something substantial in exchange?” -</p> - -<p> -“I was to give up all claim to Zyp,” I said in a low, suffering voice. -</p> - -<p> -Jason laughed aloud. -</p> - -<p> -“Oh, Modred,” he cried, “you were a pretty bantling, upon my word! Who -would have thought the dear fatty had such cunning in him?” -</p> - -<p> -His callous merriment struck me with a dumb horror as of sacrilege. -But he subdued it directly and returned to me and my misery in the -same repressed tone as before. -</p> - -<p> -“Well,” he said, “I have heard it all, I suppose. It makes little -difference. You know, of course, you are morally responsible for his -death, just the same as if you had stuck a knife into his heart.” -</p> - -<p> -I could only hide my face in the bedclothes, writhed all through with -agony. There was a little spell of silence; then my brother bespoke my -attention with a gentle push. -</p> - -<p> -“Renny, do you want all this known to the others?” -</p> - -<p> -I raised my head in a sudden gust of passion. -</p> - -<p> -“Do what you like!” I cried. “I know you now, and you can’t make it -much worse!” -</p> - -<p> -“Oh, yes,” he said, coolly; “I can make it a good deal worse. Nobody -but I knows at present, don’t you see?” -</p> - -<p> -I looked at him with a sudden gleam of hope. -</p> - -<p> -“Don’t you intend to tell, Jason?” -</p> - -<p> -He laughed again, lightly. -</p> - -<p> -“That depends. I must borrow my cue from Modred and make conditions.” -</p> - -<p> -I had no need to ask what they were. In whatever direction I looked -now, I saw nothing but a blank and deadly waste. -</p> - -<p> -“I want the girl—you understand? I need not go into particulars. She -interests me and that’s enough.” -</p> - -<p> -“Yes,” I said, quietly. -</p> - -<p> -“There must be no more of that sentimental foolery between you and -her. I bore it as long as you were ill; but, now you’re strong again, -it must stop. If it doesn’t, you know what’ll happen.” -</p> - -<p> -With that he turned abruptly on his heel and began to undress. I -listened for the deep breathing that announced him to be asleep with a -strained fever of impatience. I felt that I could not think cleanly or -collectedly with that monstrous consciousness of his awake in the -room. -</p> - -<p> -Perhaps, in all my wretchedness, the full discovery of his baseness of -soul was as bitter a wound as any I had received. I had so looked up -to him as a superior being, so sunned myself in the pride of -relationship to him; so lovingly submitted to his boyish patronage and -condescension. The grief of my discovery was very real and terrible -and would in itself, I think, have gone far to blight my existence had -no fearfuller blast descended to wither it. -</p> - -<p> -Well, it was all one now. Whatever immunity from disaster I was to -enjoy henceforth must be on sufferance only. -</p> - -<p> -Had I been older and sinfuller I might have grasped in my despair at -the coward’s resource of self-destruction; as it was, I thought of -flight. By and by, perhaps, when vigor should return to me, and with -it resolution, I should be able to face firmly the problem of my -future and take my own destinies in hand. -</p> - -<p> -Little sleep came to me that night, and that only of a haunted kind. I -felt haggard and old as I struggled into my clothes the next morning, -and all unfit to cope with the gigantic possibilities of the day. -Jason had gone early to the fatal pool for a bathe. -</p> - -<p> -At breakfast, in the beginning, Zyp’s manner to me was prettily -sympathetic and a little shy. It was the first of my great misery that -I must repel her on the threshold of our better understanding, and see -her fall away from me for lack of the least expression of that -passionate devotion and gratitude that filled my heart to bursting. I -could see at once that she was startled—hurt, perhaps, and that she -shrunk from me immediately. Jason talked airily to my father all -through the meal, but I knew his senses to be as keenly on the alert -as if he had sat in silence, with his eyes fixed upon my face. -</p> - -<p> -I choked over my bread and bacon; I could not swallow more than a -mouthful of the coffee in my cup, and Zyp sat back in her chair, never -addressing me after that first rebuff, but pondering on me angrily -with her eyes full of a sort of wonder. -</p> - -<p> -She stopped me peremptorily as, breakfast over, I was hastening out -with all the speed I could muster, and asked me if I didn’t want her -company that morning. -</p> - -<p> -“No,” I answered; “I am well enough to get about by myself now.” -</p> - -<p> -“Very well,” she said. “Then you must do without me altogether for the -future.” -</p> - -<p> -She turned on her heel and I could only look after her in dumb agony. -Then I crept down into the yard and confided my grief to the old cart -wheels. -</p> - -<p> -Presently, raising my head, I saw her standing before me, her hands -under her apron, her face grave with an expression, half of concern, -half of defiance. -</p> - -<p> -“Now, if you please,” she said, “I want to know the meaning of this?” -</p> - -<p> -“Of what?” I asked, with wretched evasiveness. -</p> - -<p> -“You know—your manner toward me this morning.” -</p> - -<p> -“I have done nothing,” I muttered. -</p> - -<p> -“You have insulted me, sir. Is it because I kissed you last night?” -</p> - -<p> -“Oh, Zyp!” I cried aloud in great pain. “You know it isn’t—you know -it isn’t!” -</p> - -<p> -I couldn’t help this one cry. It was forced from me. -</p> - -<p> -“Then what’s the reason?” -</p> - -<p> -“I can’t give it—I have none. I want to be alone, that’s all.” -</p> - -<p> -She stood looking at me a moment in silence, and the line of her mouth -hardened. -</p> - -<p> -“Very well,” she said, at last. “Then, understand, I’ve done with you. -I thought at first it was a mistake or that you were ill again. I’ve -been kind to you; you can’t say I haven’t given you a chance. And I -pitied you because you were alone and unhappy. Jason, I will tell you, -hinted an evil thing of you to me, but even if it was true, which I -didn’t believe, I forgave you, thinking, perhaps, it was done for my -sake. Well, if it was, I tell you now it was useless, for you will be -nothing to me ever again.” -</p> - -<p> -And, with these cruel words, she left me. The proud child of the woods -could brook no insult to her condescension, and from my comrade she -had become my enemy. -</p> - -<p> -I suppose I should have been relieved that the inevitable rupture had -occurred so swiftly and effectually. Judge you, you poor outcasts who, -sanctifying a love in your tumultuous breasts, have had to step aside -and yield to another the fruit you so coveted. -</p> - -<p> -Once pledged to antagonism, Zyp, it will be no matter for wonder, -adopted anything but half-measures. Had it only been her vanity that -was hurt she would have made me pay dearly for the blow. As it was, -her ingenuity in devising plans for my torture and discomfiture verged -upon the very bounds of reason. -</p> - -<p> -At first she contented herself with mere verbal pleasantries and -disdainful snubbings. As, however, the days went on and my old -strength and health obstinately returned to me, despite the irony of -the shattered soul within, her animosity grew to be an active agent so -persistent in its methods that I verily thought my brain would give -way under the load. -</p> - -<p> -I cannot, indeed, recall a tithe of the Pucklike devices she resorted -to for my moral undoing, and which, after all, I might have endured to -the end had it not been for one threading torment that accompanied all -her whimsies like a strain of diabolical music. This was an -ostentatious show of affection for Jason, which, I truly believe, from -being more or less put on in exaggerated style for my edification, -became at length such a habit with her as may be considered, in -certain dispositions, one form of love. -</p> - -<p> -The two now were seldom apart. Once, conscious of my presence, she -kissed Jason on the lips, because he had brought her a little -flowering root of some plant she desired. I saw his face fire up -darkly and he looked across at me with a triumph that made me almost -hate him. -</p> - -<p> -And the worst of it was that I knew that my punishment was not more -than commensurate with the offense; that my sin had been grievous and -its retribution not out of proportion. How could full atonement and -Zyp have been mine together? -</p> - -<p> -Still, capable of acknowledging the fitness of things in my sadder -hours of loneliness, my nature, once restored to strength, could not -but strive occasionally to throw off the incubus that it felt it could -not bear much longer without breaking down for good and all. I had -done wrong on the spur of a single wicked impulse, but I was no fiend -to have earned such bitter reprisal. By slow degrees rebellion woke in -my heart against the persistent cruelty of my two torturers. Had I -fled at this juncture, the wild scene that took place might have been -averted, and the exile, which became mine nevertheless, have borne, -perhaps, less evil fruit than in the result it did. -</p> - - -<h3 id="ch12"> -CHAPTER XII.<br/> -<span class="chap_sub">THE DENUNCIATION.</span> -</h3> - -<p> -One November morning—my suffering had endured all these months—my -father and Dr. Crackenthorpe stood before the sitting-room fire, -talking, while I sat with a book at the table, vainly trying to -concentrate my attention on the printed lines. -</p> - -<p> -Since my recovery I had seen the doctor frequently, but he had taken -little apparent notice of me. Now, I had racked my puzzled mind many a -time for recollection of the conversation I had been witness of on the -night preceding my seizure, but still the details of it had eluded me, -though its gist remained in a certain impression of uneasiness that -troubled me when I thought of it. Suddenly, on this morning, a few -words of the doctor’s brought the whole matter vividly before me -again. -</p> - -<p> -“By the bye, Trender,” he said, drawlingly, and sat down and began to -poke the fire—“by the bye, have you ever found that thing you accused -me of losing for you on a certain night—you know when?” -</p> - -<p> -“No,” said my father, curtly. -</p> - -<p> -“Was it of any value, now?” -</p> - -<p> -“Maybe—maybe not,” said my father. -</p> - -<p> -“That don’t seem much of answer. Perhaps, now, it came from the same -place those others did.” -</p> - -<p> -“That’s nothing to you, Dr. Crackenthorpe.” -</p> - -<p> -“Well, you say it’s lost, anyhow. Supposing I found it, would you -agree to my keeping it? Treasure-trove, you know”—and he looked up -with a grin, balancing the poker perpendicularly in his hand. -“Treasure-trove, my friend,” he repeated, with emphasis, and gave the -other a keen look. -</p> - -<p> -Something in the tone of his speech woke light in my brain, and I -remembered at a flash. I stole an anxious glance at my father. His -face was pale and set with anger, but there was an expression in his -eyes that looked like fear. -</p> - -<p> -“You don’t mean to tell me you have found it?” he said in a forced -voice. -</p> - -<p> -“Oh, by no means,” answered the doctor. “We haven’t all your good -luck. Only you are so full of the unexpected in producing valuables -from secret places, like a conjurer, that I thought perhaps you -wouldn’t mind my keeping this particular one if I should chance to -pick it up.” -</p> - -<p> -“Keep it, certainly, if you can find it,” said my father, I could have -thought almost with a faint groan. -</p> - -<p> -“Thanks for the permission, my friend; I’ll make a point of keeping my -eyes open.” -</p> - -<p> -When did he not? They were pretty observant now on Zyp and Jason, who, -as he spoke, walked into the room. -</p> - -<p> -“Hullo!” said my brother. “Good-morning to you, doctor, and a sixpence -to toss for your next threppenny fee.” -</p> - -<p> -“Hold your tongue,” cried my father, angrily. -</p> - -<p> -“I would give a guinea to get half for attending on your inquest,” -said the doctor, sourly. “Keep your wit for your wench, my good lad, -and see then that she don’t go begging.” -</p> - -<p> -“I could give you better,” muttered Jason, cowed by my father’s -presence, “but it shall keep and mature.” Then he turned boisterously -on me. -</p> - -<p> -“Why don’t you go out, Renny, instead of moping at home all day?” -</p> - -<p> -His manner was aggressive, his tone calculated to exasperate. -</p> - -<p> -Moved by discretion I rose from my chair and made for the door; but he -barred my way. -</p> - -<p> -“Can’t you answer me?” he said, with an ugly scowl. -</p> - -<p> -“No—I don’t want to. Let me pass.” -</p> - -<p> -My father had turned his back upon us and was staring gloomily down at -the fire. -</p> - -<p> -I heard Zyp give a little scornful laugh and she breathed the word -“coward” at me. -</p> - -<p> -I stopped as if I had struck against a wall. All my blood surged back -on my heart and seemed to leave my veins filled with a tingling ichor -in its place. -</p> - -<p> -“Perhaps I have been,” I said, in a low voice, “but here’s an end of -it.” -</p> - -<p> -Jason tittered. -</p> - -<p> -“We’re mighty stiltish this morning,” he said, with a sneer. “What a -pity it’s November, so that we can’t have a plunge for the sake of -coolness—except that they say the pool’s haunted now.” -</p> - -<p> -I looked at him with blazing eyes, then made another effort to get -past him, but he repelled me violently. -</p> - -<p> -“You don’t know your place,” he said, and gave an insolent laugh. -“Stand back till I choose to let you go.” -</p> - -<p> -I heard the doctor snigger and Zyp gave a second little cluck. My -father was still absorbed—lost in his own dark reflections. -</p> - -<p> -The loaded reel of endurance was spinning to its end. -</p> - -<p> -“You might have given all your morning to one of your Susans yonder,” -said my brother, mockingly. “Now she’s gone, I expect, with her apron -to her eyes. She’ll enjoy her pease pudding none the less, I dare say, -and perhaps look out for a more accommodating clown. It won’t be the -first time you’ve had to take second place.” -</p> - -<p> -I struck him full between the eyes and he went down like a polled ox. -All the pent-up agony of months was in my blow. As I stepped back in -the recoil, madly straining even then to beat under the more furious -devil that yelled in me for release, I was conscious of a hurried -breath at my ear—a swift whisper: “Kill him! Stamp on his mouth! -Don’t let him get up again!” and knew that it was Zyp who spoke. -</p> - -<p> -I put her back fiercely. Jason had sprung to his feet—half-blinded, -half-stunned. His face was inhuman with passion and was working like a -madman’s. But before he could gather himself for a rush, my father had -him in his powerful arms. It all happened in a moment. -</p> - -<p> -“What’s all this?” roared my father. “Knock under, you whelp, or I’ll -strangle you in your collar!” -</p> - -<p> -“Let me go!” cried my brother. “Look at him—look what he did!” -</p> - -<p> -He was choking and struggling to that degree that he could hardly -articulate. I think foam was on his lips, and in his eyes the ravenous -thirst for blood. -</p> - -<p> -“He struck me!” he panted—“do you hear? Let me go—let me kill him as -he killed Modred!” -</p> - -<p> -There was a moment’s silence. Dr. Crackenthorpe, who had sat passively -back in his chair during the fray, with his lips set in an acrid -smile, made as if to rise, leaning forward with quick attention. Then -my father shook Jason till he reeled and clutched at him. -</p> - -<p> -“Have a mind what you say, you mad cur!” he cried in a terrible voice. -</p> - -<p> -“It’s true! Let me go! He confessed it all to me—to me, I say!” -</p> - -<p> -I stood up among them alone, stricken, and I was not afraid. I was a -better man than my accuser; a better brother, despite my sin. And his -dagger, plunged in to destroy, had only released the long-accumulating -agony of my poor inflamed and swollen heart. -</p> - -<p> -“Father,” I said, “let him alone. It is true, what he says.” -</p> - -<p> -He flung Jason from him with violence. -</p> - -<p> -“Move a step,” he thundered, daring him, “and I’ll send you after -Modred!” -</p> - -<p> -He came to me and took me gently by the shoulder. -</p> - -<p> -“Renalt, my lad,” he said, “I am waiting to hear.” -</p> - -<p> -I did not falter, or condone my offense, or make any appeal to them -whatsoever. The kind touch on my arm moved me so that I could have -broken into tears. But my task was before me and I could afford no -atom of self-indulgence, did I wish to get through it bravely. -</p> - -<p> -As I had told my story to Jason, I told it now; and when I had -finished I waited, in a dead silence, the verdict. I could hear my -brother breathing thickly—expectantly. His fury had passed in the -triumph of his own abasement. -</p> - -<p> -Suddenly my father put the hand he had held on my shoulder before his -face and a great sob coming from him broke down the stone walls of my -pride. -</p> - -<p> -“Dad—dad!” I cried in agony. -</p> - -<p> -He recovered himself in a moment and moved away; then faced round and -addressed me, but his eyes looked down and would not meet mine. -</p> - -<p> -“Before God,” he said, “I think you are forgiven for a single impulse -we all might suffer and not all of us recoil from the instant after, -but I think that this can be no place for you any longer.” -</p> - -<p> -Then he turned upon Dr. Crackenthorpe. -</p> - -<p> -“You!” he cried; “you, man, who have heard it all, thanks to that -dirty reptile yonder! Do you intend to peach?” -</p> - -<p> -The doctor pinched his wiry chin between finger and thumb, with his -cheeks lifted in a contemplative fashion. -</p> - -<p> -“The boy,” he said, “is safe from any one’s malice. No jury would -convict on such evidence. Still, I agree with you, it’s best for him -to go.” -</p> - -<p> -“You hear, Renalt?” said my father. “I’ll not drive you in any way, or -deny you harbor here if you think you can face it out. You shall judge -for yourself.” -</p> - -<p> -“I have judged,” I answered; “I will go.” -</p> - -<p> -I walked past them all, with head erect, and up to my room, where I -sat down for a brief space to collect my thoughts and face the future. -Hardly had I got hold of the first end of the tangle when there came a -knock at the door. I opened it and Zyp was outside. -</p> - -<p> -“You fool!” she whispered; “you should have done as I told you. It’s -too late now. Here, take this. Dad told me to give it you”—and she -thrust a canvas bag of money into my hand, looking up at me with her -unfathomable eyes. -</p> - -<p> -As I took it, suddenly she flung her arms about my neck and kissed me -passionately, once, twice, thrice, on the lips, and so pushed me from -her and was gone. And as I stood there came to my ears a faint wail -from above, and I said to myself doggedly: “It is a gull flying over -the house.” -</p> - -<p> -Taking nothing with me but cap, stick and the simple suit of clothes I -had on, I descended the stairs with a firm tread and passed the open -door of the sitting-room. There was silence there, and in silence I -walked by it without a glance in its direction. It held but bitter -memories for me now and was scarce less haunted in its way than the -other. And so to me would it always be—haunted by the beautiful wild -memory of a changeling, whose coming had wrought the great evil of my -life, to whom I, going, attributed no blame, but loved her then as I -had loved her from the first. -</p> - -<p> -The booming of the wheel shook, like a voice of mockery, at me as I -passed the room of silence. Its paddles, I thought, seemed reeling -with wicked merriment, and its creaking thunder to spin monotonously -the burden of one chant. -</p> - -<p> -“I let you go, but not to escape—I let you go, but not to escape.” -The fancy haunted my mind for weeks to come. -</p> - -<p> -In the darkness of the passage a hand seized mine and wrung it -fiercely. -</p> - -<p> -“You don’t mean to let the grass grow on your resolve, then, Renalt?” -said my father’s voice, rough and subdued. -</p> - -<p> -“No, dad; I can do no good by delaying.” -</p> - -<p> -“I’m sore to let you go, my boy. But it’s for the best—it’s for the -best. Don’t think hardly of me; and be a fine lad and strike out a -path for yourself.” -</p> - -<p> -“God bless you, dad,” I said, and so left him. -</p> - -<p> -As I stepped into the frosty air the cathedral bells rung out like -iron on an anvil. The city roofs and towers sparkled with white; the -sun looked through a shining mist, giving earnest of gracious hours to -come. -</p> - -<p> -It was a happy omen. -</p> - -<p> -I turned my back on the old decaying past and set my face toward -London. -</p> - - -<h3 id="ch13"> -CHAPTER XIII.<br/> -<span class="chap_sub">MY FRIEND THE CRIPPLE.</span> -</h3> - -<p> -In the year 1860, of which I now write, so much of prejudice against -railways still existed among many people of a pious or superstitious -turn of mind, that I can quote much immediate precedent in support of -my resolve to walk to London rather than further tempt a Providence I -had already put to so severe a strain. It must be borne in mind of -course that we Trenders were little more than barbarians of an unusual -order, who had been nourished on a scorn of progress and redeemed only -by a natural leaning toward picturesqueness of a pagan kind. Moreover, -the sense of mystery, which was an integral part of our daily -experience, had ingrained in us all a general antagonism toward -unconstructed agencies. Lastly, not one of us had ever as yet been in -a train. -</p> - -<p> -Still, it was with no feeling of inability to carve a road for myself -through the barriers to existence that I drew, on the evening of my -third day’s tramp, toward the overlapping pall that was the roof of -the “City of Dreadful Night.” -</p> - -<p> -I had slept, on my road, respectively at Farnham and Guildford, where, -in either case, cheap accommodation was easily procurable, and foresaw -a difficulty, only greater in proportion, in finding reasonable -lodging in London during the time I was seeking work. Indifferently I -pictured this city to myself as only an elongated High street, with -ramifications more numerous and extended than those of the old burgh -that was my native town. I was startled, overwhelmed, dazed with the -black, aimless scurrying of those interwoven strings of human ants, -that ran by their thronging brick heaps, eager in search for what they -never seemed to find, or shot and vanished into tunnels and alleys of -darkness, or were attracted to and scorched up by, apparently, the -broad sheets of flame that were the shop windows of their Vanity Fair. -Moving amid the swarm from vision to vision—always an inconsiderable -atom there without meaning or individuality—always stunned and -stupefied by the threatening masses of masonry that hemmed me in, and -accompanied me, and broke upon me in new dark forms through every -vista and gap that the rank growth of ages had failed to block—the -inevitable sense grew upon me, as it grows upon all who pace its -interminable streets friendless, of walking in a world to which I was -by heavenly birthright an alien. -</p> - -<p> -Near midnight, I turned into a gaunt and lonely square, where -comparative quiet reigned. -</p> - -<p> -I had entered London by way of Waterloo bridge, as the wintry dusk was -falling over house and river, and all these hours since had I been -pacing its crashing thoroughfares, alive only to wonder and the cruel -sense of personal insignificance. As to a lodging and bed for my weary -limbs—sooner had Childe Roland dared the dark tower than I the -burrows, that night, of the unknown pandemonium around me. I had slept -in the open of the fields before now. Here, though winter, it hardly -seemed that there was an out-of-doors, but that the buildings were -only so many sleeping closets in a dark hall. -</p> - -<p> -All round the square inside was a great inclosure encompassed by a -frouzy hoarding of wood, and set in the middle of the inclosure was -some dim object that looked like a ruined statue. Such by day, indeed, -I found it to be, and of no less a person than his late majesty, King -George the First. When my waking eyes first lighted on him, I saw him -to be half-sunk into his horse, as if seeking to shield himself -therein from the shafts of his persecutors, who, nothing discomposed, -had daubed what remained of the crippled charger himself with blotches -of red and white paint. -</p> - -<p> -I walked once or twice round the square, seeking vainly, at first, to -still the tumult of my brain. The oppressive night of locked-up -London, laden like a thunder cloud with store of slumbering passions, -was lowering now and settling down like a fog. The theaters were -closed; the streets echoing to the last foot-falls. Seeing a hole in -the hoarding, I squeezed through it and withdrew into the rank grass -and weeds that choked the interior of the inclosure. I had bought and -brought some food with me, and this I fell to munching as I sat on a -hummock of rubbish, and was presently much comforted thereby, so that -nothing but sleep seemed desirable to me in all the world. Therefore I -lay down where I was and buttoning my coat about me, was, despite the -frosty air, soon lost in delicious forgetfulness. At first my slumber -was broken by reason of the fitful rumble of wheels, or pierced by -voices and dim cries that yet resounded phantomly here and there, as -if I lay in some stricken city, where only the dying yet lived and -wailed, but gradually these all passed from me. -</p> - -<p> -I awoke with the gray of dawn on my face and sat up. My limbs were -cramped and stiff with the cold, and a light rime lay upon my clothes. -Otherwise no bitterer result had followed my rather untoward -experiment. -</p> - -<p> -Then I looked about me and saw for the first time that I was not -alone. Certain haggard and unclean creatures were my bed-fellows in -that desolate oasis. They lay huddled here and there, like mere -scarecrows blown over by the wind and lying where they fell. There -were women among them, and more than one pinched and tattered urchin, -with drawn, white face resolved by sleep into nothing but pathos and -starvation. -</p> - -<p> -There they lay at intervals, as if on a battlefield where the crows -had been busy, and each one seemed to lie flattened into the earth as -dead bodies lie. -</p> - -<p> -I could not but be thankful that I had stumbled over no one of them -when I had entered—an accident which would very possibly have lost me -my little store of money, if it had, indeed, led to nothing worse. As -it was, I prepared for a hasty exit, and was about to rise, when I -became conscious that my movements were under observation by one who -lay not twenty feet from me. -</p> - -<p> -He was so hidden by the rank grass that at first I could make out -nothing but a long, large-boned face peering at me above the stems -through eyes as black and glinting as boot buttons. A thatch of dark -hair fell about his ears and forehead, and his eyebrows, also black, -were sleek and pointed like ermine tips. -</p> - -<p> -The face was so full and fine that I was startled when its owner rose, -which he did on the instant, to see that he was a thick-set and -stunted cripple. He shambled toward me with a winning smile on his -lips, and before I could summon resolution to retreat, had come and -sat down beside me. -</p> - -<p> -“We seem the cocks of this company,” he said, in a deep musical voice. -“Among the blind the one-eyed—eh?” -</p> - -<p> -He was warmly and decently clad, and I could only wonder at his choice -of bedroom. He read me in a look. -</p> - -<p> -“I’ve a craving for experiences,” he said. “These aren’t my usual -quarters.” -</p> - -<p> -“No,” I said; “I suppose not.” -</p> - -<p> -“Nor yours?” he went on, with a keen glance at me. -</p> - -<p> -To give my confidence to a stranger was an unwise proceeding, but I -was guileless as to the craft of great cities, and in this case my -innocence was in a manner my good fortune. -</p> - -<p> -I told him that I was only yesterday from the country, after a three -days’ tramp, and how I was benighted. -</p> - -<p> -“Ah,” he said. “Up after work, I suppose?” -</p> - -<p> -“Yes,” I answered. -</p> - -<p> -“Well,” said he, “let’s understand your capacities. Guess my age -first.” -</p> - -<p> -“Forty,” said I, at a venture, for indeed he might have been that or -anything else. -</p> - -<p> -“I’m 21,” he said. “Don’t I look it? We mature early in London here. -What do you think’s my business?” -</p> - -<p> -“Oh, you’re a gentleman, aren’t you?” I asked, with some stir of -shyness. -</p> - -<p> -“I’m a printer’s hand. That means something very different to you, -don’t it? Maybe you’ll develop in time. Where are you from?” -</p> - -<p> -I told him. -</p> - -<p> -“Ah,” he said. “You’ve a proverb down your way: ‘Manners makeyth man.’ -So they may, as they construe it—a fork for the fingers and a pretty -trick of speech; but it’s the manners of the soul make the gentleman. -Do you believe in after-life?” -</p> - -<p> -“Of course I do. Where do the ghosts come from otherwise?” -</p> - -<p> -He laughed pleasantly, rubbing his chin in a perplexed manner, and -then I noticed that his fingers were stunted like a mechanic’s and -stained with printer’s ink. -</p> - -<p> -“Old Ripley would fancy you,” he said. -</p> - -<p> -“Who’s he?” -</p> - -<p> -“My governor—printer, binder and pamphleteer, an opponent of all -governments but his own. He’s an anarchist, who’d like to transfer -himself and his personal belongings to some desert satellite, after -laying a train to blow up the earth with nitro-glycerin and then he’d -want to overturn the heavenly system.” -</p> - -<p> -“He doesn’t sound hopeful.” -</p> - -<p> -“No, he isn’t, but he’s fairly original for a fanatic. I wonder if -he’d give you work?” -</p> - -<p> -“Oh, thanks!” I exclaimed. -</p> - -<p> -“Nonsense; you needn’t mind him. He’s only gas. Unmixed with his -native air he wouldn’t be explosive, you know. I can imagine him a -very unprogressive angel. It’s notoriety he wants. Nothing satisfies -his sort in the end like a scaffold outside of Newgate with 40,000 -eyes looking on and 12 guineas paid for a window in the ‘Magpie and -Stump.’” -</p> - -<p> -“Are you——” I began, when he took me up with: -</p> - -<p> -“His kind? Not a bit of it. I’m an idealist—a dreamer asking the way -to Utopia. I look about for the finger-posts in places like this. One -must learn and suffer to dream properly.” -</p> - -<p> -“You can do that and yet have ugly enough dreams,” I said, with -subdued emphasis. -</p> - -<p> -“That oughtn’t to be so,” he said, looking curiously at me. “Nightmare -comes from self-indulgence. Cosset your grievances and they’ll control -you. You must be an ascetic in the art of sensation.” -</p> - -<p> -“And starve on a pillar like that old saint Mr. Tennyson wrote of,” I -answered. -</p> - -<p> -“Go and hang yourself,” he cried, pushing at me with a laugh. “Hullo! -Who’s here?” -</p> - -<p> -A couple of the scarecrows, evil-looking men both, had risen, and -stood over us to one side, listening. -</p> - -<p> -“Toff kenners,” I heard one of them mutter, “and good for jink, by the -looks.” -</p> - -<p> -“Tap the cady,” the other murmured, and both creatures shuffled round -to the front of us. -</p> - -<p> -“Good for a midjick, matey?” asked the more ruffianly looking of the -two in a menacing tone. -</p> - -<p> -I started, bewildered by their jargon. My companion looked up at them -smiling and drumming out a tune on his knee. -</p> - -<p> -“Stow it,” said the smaller man to the other; “I’ve tried the griffin -and it don’t take.” Then he bent his body and whined in a fulsome -voice: “Overtaken with a drop, good gentlemen? And won’t you pay a -trifle for your lodgings, now?” -</p> - -<p> -I was about to rise, but a gesture on the part of both fellows showed -me that they intended to keep us at our disadvantage. A blowzed and -noisome woman was advancing to join the group. -</p> - -<p> -“Be alert,” whispered my companion. “We must get out of this.” -</p> - -<p> -The words were for me, but the men gathered their import and assumed a -threatening manner. No doubt, seeing but a boy and a cripple, they -valued us beneath our muscular worth. -</p> - -<p> -“Come,” said the big man, “we don’t stand on ceremony; we want the -price of a drink.” -</p> - -<p> -He advanced upon us, as he spoke, with an ugly look and in a moment my -companion had seized him by the ankles and whirled him over against -his friend, so that the two crashed down together. The woman set up a -screech, as we jumped to our feet, and we saw wild heads start up here -and there like snakes from the grass. But before any one could follow -us we had gained the rent in the hoarding and slipped through. -Glancing back, after I had made my exit, I saw one of the men strike -the woman full in the face and fell her to the ground. It was his -gentle corrective to her for not having stopped us, and the sight made -my blood so boil that I was on the point of tearing back, had not my -companion seized and fairly carried me off. As in many cripples, his -strength of arm was prodigious. -</p> - -<p> -“Now,” he said, when he had quieted me, “we’ll go home to breakfast.” -</p> - -<p> -“Where?” said I. -</p> - -<p> -“Home, my friend. Oh, I have one, you know, for all my sleeping out -there. That was a test for experience; my first one of the kind, but -valuable in its way.” -</p> - -<p> -“But——” I began. -</p> - -<p> -“Yes, you will,” he cried. “You’ll be my guest. I’ve taken a bit of a -fancy to you. What’s your name?” -</p> - -<p> -When I had told him, “Duke Straw’s mine,” he said; “though I’m not of -strawberry-leaf descent. But it’s a good name for a dreamer, isn’t it? -Have you ever read ‘Feathertop,’ by Hawthorne?” -</p> - -<p> -“No,” I said. -</p> - -<p> -“Never mind, then. When you do, you’ll recognize my portrait—a poor -creature of straw that moves by smoke.” -</p> - -<p> -“What smoke?” I asked, bewildered. -</p> - -<p> -“Perhaps you’ll find out some day—if Ripley takes a fancy to you.” -</p> - -<p> -“You don’t want me to go to him?” -</p> - -<p> -“Certainly I do. I’m going to take you with me when I tramp to work at -9 o’clock.” -</p> - -<p> -He was so cool and masterful that I could only laugh and walk on with -him. -</p> - - -<h3 id="ch14"> -CHAPTER XIV.<br/> -<span class="chap_sub">I OBTAIN EMPLOYMENT.</span> -</h3> - -<p> -It was broad day when we emerged from the inclosure, and sound was -awakening along the wintry streets. London stood before me rosy and -refreshed, so that she looked no longer formidably unapproachable as -she had in her garb of black and many jewels. I might have entered her -yesterday with the proverbial half-crown, so easily was my lot to fall -in accommodating places. -</p> - -<p> -Duke Straw, whom I was henceforth to call my friend, conducted me by a -township of intricate streets to the shop of a law stationer, in a -petty way of business, which stood close by Clare market and abutted -on Lincoln’s Inn Fields. Here he had a little bedroom, furnished with -a cheap, oil-cooking stove, whereon he heated his coffee and grilled -his bacon. -</p> - -<p> -Simon Cringle, the proprietor of the shop, was taking his shutters -down as we walked up. He was a little, spare man, with a vanity of -insignificance. His iron-gray hair fell in short, well-greased -ringlets and his thin beard in a couple more, that hung loose like -dangled wood shavings; his coiled mustaches reminded one of watch -springs; his very eyebrows, like bees’ legs, were humped in the middle -and twisted up into fine claws at the tips. Duke, in his search for -lodging and experience, had no sooner seen this curiosity than he -closed with him. -</p> - -<p> -He gave my companion a grandiloquent “Good-morning.” -</p> - -<p> -“Up with the lark, Mr. Straw,” said he, “and I hope, sir, with success -in the matter of getting the first worm?” Here he looked hard at me. -</p> - -<p> -“He found me too much of a mouthful,” said I; “so he brought me home -for breakfast.” -</p> - -<p> -Duke laughed. -</p> - -<p> -“Come and be grilled,” said he. “Anyhow they roast malt-worms in a -place spoken of by Falstaff.” -</p> - -<p> -We had a good, merry meal. I should not have thought it possible my -heart could have lightened so. But there was a fascinating -individuality about my companion that, I am afraid, I have but poorly -suggested. He gave me glimmerings of life in a higher plane than that -which had been habitual to me. No doubt his code of morals was -eccentric and here and there faulty. His manner of looking at things -was, however, so healthy, his breezy philosophy so infectious, that I -could not help but catch some of his complaint—which was, like that -of the nightingale, musical. -</p> - -<p> -Perhaps, had I met him by chance six months ago, my undeveloped soul -would have resented his easy familiarity with a cubbish snarl or two. -Now my receptives were awakened; my armor of self-sufficiency eaten to -rags with rust; my heart plaintive for communion with some larger -influence that would recognize and not abhor. -</p> - -<p> -At 8:45 he haled me off to the office, which stood a brief distance -away, in a thoroughfare called Great Queen street. Here he left me -awhile, bidding me walk up and down and observe life until his chief -should arrive, which he was due to do at the half-hour. -</p> - -<p> -I thought it a dull street after some I had seen, but there were many -old book and curiosity shops in it that aroused my interest. While I -was looking into one of them I heard Duke call. -</p> - -<p> -“Here,” he said, when I reached him; “answer out and I think Ripley -will give you work. I’m rather a favorite with him—that’s the truth.” -</p> - -<p> -He led me into a low-browed room, with a counter. Great bales of print -and paper went up to the ceiling at the back, and the floor rumbled -with the clank of subterranean machinery. One or two clerks were about -and wedged into a corner of the room was a sort of glazed and wooden -crate of comfortable proportions, which was, in fact, the chapel of -ease of the minister of the place. -</p> - -<p> -Into this den Duke conducted me with ceremony, and, retreating -himself, left me almost tumbling over a bald-headed man, with a matted -black beard, on which a protruding red upper lip lay like a splash of -blood, who sat at a desk writing. -</p> - -<p> -“Shut the door,” he said, without looking up. -</p> - -<p> -“It is shut, sir.” -</p> - -<p> -He trailed a glance at me, as if in scrutiny, but I soon saw he could -only have been balancing some phrase, for he dived again and went on -writing. -</p> - -<p> -Presently he said, very politely, indeed, and still intent on his -paper: “Are you a cadet of the noble family of Kinsale, sir?” -</p> - -<p> -“No, sir,” I answered, in surprise. -</p> - -<p> -“You haven’t the right to remain covered in the presence of the king?” -</p> - -<p> -“No, sir.” -</p> - -<p> -“Well, I’m king here. What the blazes do you mean by standing in a -private room with your hat on?” -</p> - -<p> -I plucked it off, tingling. -</p> - -<p> -“I’m sorry,” I said. “Mr. Straw brought me in so suddenly, I lost my -head and my cap went with it, I suppose. But I see it’s not the only -thing one may lose here, including tempers!” And with that I turned on -my heel and was about to beat a retreat, fuming. -</p> - -<p> -“Come back!” shouted Mr. Ripley. “If you go now, you go for good!” -</p> - -<p> -I hesitated; the memory of my late comrade restored my equilibrium. -</p> - -<p> -“I didn’t mean to be rude, sir,” I said. “I shall be grateful to you -if you will give me work.” -</p> - -<p> -He had condescended to turn now, and was looking full at me with -frowning eyes, but with no sign of anger on his face. -</p> - -<p> -“Well, you can speak out,” he said. “How do you come to know Straw?” -</p> - -<p> -“I met him by chance and we got talking together.” -</p> - -<p> -“How long have you been in London?” -</p> - -<p> -“Since yesterday evening.” -</p> - -<p> -“Why did you leave Winton?” -</p> - -<p> -“To get work.” -</p> - -<p> -“Have you brought a character with you?” -</p> - -<p> -Here was a question to ask a Trender! But I answered, “No, I never -thought of it,” with perfect truth. -</p> - -<p> -“What can you do?” -</p> - -<p> -“Anything I’m told, sir.” -</p> - -<p> -“That’s a compromising statement, my friend. Can you read and write?” -</p> - -<p> -“Yes, of course.” -</p> - -<p> -“Anything else?” -</p> - -<p> -“Nothing.” -</p> - -<p> -“Nothing? Don’t you know anything now about the habits of birds and -beasts and fishes?” -</p> - -<p> -“Oh, yes! I could tell you a heap about that.” -</p> - -<p> -“Could you? Very well; I’ll give you a trial. I take you on Straw’s -recommendation. His opinion, I tell you, I value more than a score of -written characters in a case like this. You’ve to make yourself useful -in fifty different ways.” -</p> - -<p> -I assented, with a light heart, and he took me at my word and the -further bargain was completed. My wages were small at first, of -course; but, with what I had in hand, they would keep me going no -doubt till I could prove myself worth more to my employer. -</p> - -<p> -In this manner I became one of Ripley’s hands and later on myself a -pamphleteer in a small way. I wrote to my father that evening and -briefly acquainted him of my good fortune. -</p> - -<p> -For some months my work was of a heterogeneous description. Ripley was -legitimately a job printer, on rather a large scale, and a bookbinder. -To these, however, he added a little venturesomeness in publishing on -his own account, as also a considerable itch for scribbling. Becoming -at a hint a virulent partisan in any extremist cause whatsoever, it -will be no matter for wonder that his private room was much the resort -of levelers, progressives and abolitionists of every creed and -complexion. There furious malcontents against systems they were the -first to profit by met to talk and never to listen. There fanatical -propagandists, eager to fly on the rudimentary wing stumps of first -principles, fluttered into print and came flapping to the ground at -the third line. There, I verily believe, plots were laid that would -presently have leveled powers and potentates to the ground at a nod, -had any of the conspirators ever possessed the patience to sit on them -till hatched. This, however, they never did. All their fiery -periphrastics smoked off into the soot of print and in due course -lumbered the office with piles of unmarketable drivel. -</p> - -<p> -Mr. Ripley had, however, other strings to his bow, or he would not -have prospered. He did a good business in bookselling and was even now -and again successful in the more conventional publishing line. In this -connection I chanced to be of some service to him, to which -circumstance I owed a considerable improvement in my position after I -had been with him getting on a year. He had long contemplated, and at -length begun to work upon, a series of handbooks on British birds and -insects, dealt with county by county. In the compilation of these much -research was necessary, wherein I proved myself a useful and -painstaking coadjutor. In addition, however, my own knowledge of the -subject was fairly extensive as regarded Hampshire, which county, and -especially that part of it about Winton, is rich in lepidoptera of a -rare order. I may say I fairly earned the praise he bestowed upon me, -which was tinged, perhaps, with a trifle of jealousy on his part, due -to the fact that the section I touched proved to be undoubtedly the -most popular of the series, as judged subsequently by returns. -</p> - -<p> -Not to push on too fast, however, I must hark back to the day of my -engagement, which was marked by my introduction to one who eventually -exercised a considerable influence over my destinies. -</p> - -<p> -During the course of that first morning Mr. Ripley sent me for some -copies of a pamphlet that were in order of sewing down below. By his -direction I descended a spiral staircase of iron and found myself in -the composing-room. At a heavy iron-sheeted table stood my new-found -friend, who was, despite his youth, the valued foreman of this -department. He hailed me with glee and asked: “What success?” -</p> - -<p> -“All right, thanks to you,” I said; “and where may the bookbinding -place be and Dolly Mellison?” -</p> - -<p> -“Oh, you’re for there, are you?” he said, with I thought a rather -curious look at me, and he pointed to a side door. -</p> - -<p> -Passing through this I found myself in a long room, flanked to the -left with many machines and to the right with a row of girls who were -classifying, folding or sewing the sheets of print recent from the -press. -</p> - -<p> -“I’m to ask for Dolly Mellison,” I said, addressing the girl at my end -of the row. -</p> - -<p> -“Well, you won’t have far to go,” she said. “I’m her.” -</p> - -<p> -She was a pretty, slim lily of a thing, lithe and pale, with large -gray eyes and coiled hair like a rope of sun-burned barleystraw, and -her fingers petted her task as if that were so much hat-trimming. -</p> - -<p> -“I’m sent by Mr. Ripley for copies of a pamphlet on ‘The Supineness of -Theologicians,’” I said. -</p> - -<p> -“I’m at work on it,” she answered. “Wait a bit till I’ve finished the -dozen.” -</p> - -<p> -She glanced at me now and again without pausing in her work. -</p> - -<p> -“You’re from the country, aren’t you?” -</p> - -<p> -“Yes. How do you know?” -</p> - -<p> -“A little bird told me. What gave you those red cheeks?” -</p> - -<p> -“The sight of you,” I said. I was growing up. -</p> - -<p> -“I’m nothing to be ashamed of, am I?” she asked, with a pert laugh. -</p> - -<p> -“You ought to be of yourself,” I said, “for taking my heart by storm -in that fashion.” -</p> - -<p> -“Go along!” she cried, with a jerk of her elbow. “None of your gammon! -I’m not to be caught by chaff.” -</p> - -<p> -“It wasn’t chaff, Dolly, though I may be a man of straw. Is that what -you meant?” -</p> - -<p> -“You’re pretty free, upon my word. Who told you you might call me by -my name?” -</p> - -<p> -“Why, you wouldn’t have me call you by any one else’s? It’s pretty -enough, even for you.” -</p> - -<p> -“Oh, go away with you!” she cried. “I won’t listen.” -</p> - -<p> -At that moment Duke put his head in at the door. -</p> - -<p> -“The governor’s calling for you,” he said. “Hurry up.” -</p> - -<p> -“Well, they’re ready,” said the girl—“here,” and she thrust the -packet into my hands, with a little blushing half-impudent look at me. -</p> - -<p> -I forgot all about her in a few minutes. My heart was too full of one -only other girlish figure to find room in itself for a rival. What was -Zyp doing now?—the wonderful fairy child, whose phantom presence -haunted all my dreams for good and evil. -</p> - -<p> -As I walked from the office with Duke Straw that afternoon—for, as it -was Saturday, we left early—a silence fell between us till we neared -Cringle’s shop. Then, standing outside, he suddenly stayed me and -looked in my face. -</p> - -<p> -“Shall I hate or love you?” he said, with his mouth set grimly. -</p> - -<p> -He made a gesture toward his deformed lower limbs with his hands, and -shrugged his shoulders. -</p> - -<p> -“No,” he said; “what must be, must. I’ll love you!” -</p> - -<p> -There was a curious, defiant sadness in his tone, but it was gone -directly. I could only stare at him in wonder. -</p> - -<p> -“You’re to be my house-fellow and chum,” he said. “No, don’t protest; -I’ve settled it. We’ll arrange the rest with Cringle.” -</p> - -<p> -And so I slept in a bed in London for the first time. -</p> - -<p> -But the noise of a water wheel roared in my ears all night. -</p> - - -<h3 id="ch15"> -CHAPTER XV.<br/> -<span class="chap_sub">SWEET, POOR DOLLY.</span> -</h3> - -<p> -“Trender,” said Duke, unexpectedly after a silence the next morning, -as we loitered over breakfast, “pay attention to one thing. I don’t -ask you for a fragment of your past history and don’t want to hear -anything about it. You’ll say, as yet you haven’t offered me your -confidence, and quite right, too, on the top of our short -acquaintance. But don’t ever offer it to me, you understand? Our -friendship starts from sunrise, morning by morning, and lasts the day. -I don’t mean it shall be the less true for that; I have a theory, -that’s all.” -</p> - -<p> -“What is it, Straw?” -</p> - -<p> -“Sufficient for the day, it’s called. Providence has elected to give -us, not one existence, but so many or few, each linked to the next by -an insensibility and intercalated as a whole between appropriate -limits.” -</p> - -<p> -“I don’t quite understand.” -</p> - -<p> -“Wait a bit. Each of these existences has its birth and death, and -should be judged apart from the others; each is pronounced upon in -succession by one’s familiar spirit and its minutes pigeon-holed and -docketed above there. When the chain of evidence, for or against, is -complete, up these links are gathered in a heap and weighed in both -sides of the balance.” -</p> - -<p> -“It sounds more plausible than it is, I think,” said I, with frank -discourtesy. “The acts of one day may influence those of the next—or -interminably.” -</p> - -<p> -“That’s your lookout; but they needn’t necessarily. With each new -birth comes a new capacity for looking at things in their right -proportions.” -</p> - -<p> -“How far do you push your theory?” -</p> - -<p> -“As far as you like. I’d have, all the world over, a daily revival of -systems.” -</p> - -<p> -“Government—law?” -</p> - -<p> -“Certainly. Of everything.” -</p> - -<p> -“Then justice, injustice, vindictiveness, must all revive, too.” -</p> - -<p> -“No. They’re recalled; they don’t revive.” -</p> - -<p> -“But must a criminal, for instance, be allowed to escape because they -have failed to catch him the day he did the deed?” -</p> - -<p> -“That’s exactly it. It makes no difference. He couldn’t atone here for -an act committed by him during another existence. But that particular -minute goes pretty red into its pigeon-hole, you may be sure.” -</p> - -<p> -“Oh, it’s wild nonsense,” I laughed. “You can’t possibly be -consistent.” -</p> - -<p> -“Can’t I? Look here, you are my friend yesterday, and to-day, and -always, I hope. I judge you daily on your merits, yet, for all I know, -you may have committed murder in one of your past existences?” -</p> - -<p> -The blood went back upon my heart. Then a great longing awoke in me to -tell all to this self-reliant soul and gain comfort of my sorrow. But -where was the good in the broad face of his theory? -</p> - -<p> -“Well,” I said, with a sigh, “I’ve done things at least I bitterly -repent of.” -</p> - -<p> -“That’s the conventional way of looking at it. Repentance in this -won’t avail a former existence. Past days of mine have had their -troubles, no doubt, but this day I have before me unclouded and to do -what I like with.” -</p> - -<p> -“Well, what shall we do with it?” said I. “I hand it over to you to -make it a happiness for me. I dare say we shall find plenty of sorrows -between sunrise and evening to give it a melancholy charm.” -</p> - -<p> -“Rubbish!” cried my friend. “Cant, cant, cant, ever to suppose that -sorrow is necessary to happiness! We mortals, I tell you, have an -infinite capacity for delight; given health, spiritual and bodily, we -could dance in the sunbeams for eternity and never reach a surfeit of -pleasure.” -</p> - -<p> -“Duke,” said I—“may I call you Duke?” -</p> - -<p> -“Of course.” -</p> - -<p> -“It puzzles me where you got—I don’t mean offense—only I can’t help -wondering——” -</p> - -<p> -“How I came to have original thoughts and a grammatical manner of -speech? Look here——” he held up his stained fingers—“aren’t these -the hands of a man of letters?” -</p> - -<p> -“And a man of action,” I said, with a laugh. “But——” -</p> - -<p> -“It’s no use, Renny. I can’t look further back than this morning.” -</p> - -<p> -“You can recall, you know. You don’t deny each existence that -capacity?” -</p> - -<p> -“Perhaps I could; but to what advantage? To shovel up a whole -graveyard of sleeping remembrances to find the seed of one dead nettle -that thrusts its head through? No, thank you. Besides, if it comes to -that, I might put the same question to you.” -</p> - -<p> -“Oh, I can easily answer it. I get all my way of speaking from my -father first, and, secondly, because I love books.” -</p> - -<p> -He looked at me oddly. -</p> - -<p> -“You’re a modest chicken,” he said. “But I should like to meet your -father.” -</p> - -<p> -I could not echo his wish. -</p> - -<p> -“Still,” he went on, “I will tell you, there was a little inexperience -of mankind in your wonder. I think—I don’t refer to myself, of -course—that no man in the world is more interesting to talk with than -the skilled mechanic who has an individuality and a power of -expressing it in words. He is necessarily a man of cultivation, and an -‘h’ more or less in his vocabulary is purely an accident of his -surroundings.” -</p> - -<p> -At this moment Mr. Cringle tapped at the door and walked into the -room. -</p> - -<p> -“I hope I see you ro-bust, gentlemen? And how do you like this village -of ours, Mr. Trender?” -</p> - -<p> -“It’s dirty after Winton,” said I. -</p> - -<p> -“Ah,” he said, condescendingly; “the centers of such enormous forces -must naturally rise some dust. It’s a proud thing, sir, to contribit -one’s peck to the total. I feel it in my little corner here.” -</p> - -<p> -“Why,” said I, “you surprise me, Mr. Cringle. I’m only an ignorant -country lad, of course; but it seems to me you are quite a remarkable -figure.” -</p> - -<p> -He gave an extra twist to his mustache and sniggered comfortably. -“Well,” he said, “it is not for me to contradict you—eh, Mr. Straw?” -</p> - -<p> -“Certainly not,” said Duke; “why, you are famous for your deeds.” -</p> - -<p> -“Very good, Mr. Straw, and perhaps, as you kindly mean it in the -double sense. You mightn’t think it, but it wants some knowledge of -the law’s mazes to turn a rough draft into a hold-fast agreement or -indenture.” -</p> - -<p> -“And you can do that?” -</p> - -<p> -“I flatter myself, Mr. Trender, that it’ll want a microscoptic eye to -find flaws in my phraseology.” -</p> - -<p> -He thrust back his head and expanded his chest. -</p> - -<p> -“But I’m overlooking my errand,” said he. “The young lady, as has -called before, Mr. Straw, rung me down just now for a message to you.” -</p> - -<p> -“Oh, what was it?” -</p> - -<p> -“She wanted to know if you was game for a walk and she’d be waiting -under the market till half after nine.” -</p> - -<p> -“Very well,” and Mr. Cringle took himself off. -</p> - -<p> -“It’s Dolly Mellison,” said Duke to me. “We often go for a Sunday -tramp together.” -</p> - -<p> -“Well, don’t stop for me, if you want to go.” -</p> - -<p> -“We’ll both go—why not?” -</p> - -<p> -“Oh, not for anything. Fancy my intruding myself on her.” -</p> - -<p> -“I’ll answer she’ll not object,” said my companion, and again I was -half conscious of something unusual in his tone. -</p> - -<p> -“But you might,” said I. -</p> - -<p> -“Not a bit of it. Why should I? We’re not betrothed, you know.” -</p> - -<p> -He answered with a laugh, and pointed, or seemed to point at his -twisted lower limbs. “You wouldn’t believe me, would you, if I told -you she expects you?” he added. -</p> - -<p> -“Oh, very well,” said I, “if you put it in that way.” -</p> - -<p> -We found Dolly standing under the piazza of Covent Garden market. She -made no movement toward us until we were close upon her, and then she -greeted us with a shy wriggle and a little blush. She was very -daintily dressed, with a fur tippet about her throat, and looked as -pretty as a young Hebe. -</p> - -<p> -“Oh,” she said, “I didn’t suppose you would come, too, Mr. Trender.” -</p> - -<p> -“There!” I cried to Duke, with perfect good nature. “I told you I -should be in the way.” -</p> - -<p> -“Nonsense!” he said. “Miss Mellison didn’t mean it like that, did you, -Dolly?” -</p> - -<p> -“Didn’t I? You see how he answers for me, Mr. Trender?” And she turned -half from him with a rosy pout. -</p> - -<p> -“Come!” I cried gayly. “I’ll risk it. I do not believe you’ve the -heart to be cruel, Miss Mellison.” -</p> - -<p> -“Thank you for the surname, and also for telling me I’m heartless.” -</p> - -<p> -“You can’t be that as long as mine goes a-begging,” I said, -impudently. -</p> - -<p> -She peeped up at me roguishly from under her long lashes and shook her -head. -</p> - -<p> -“Come,” said Duke, impatiently; “what are we going to do? Don’t let’s -stand chattering here all day.” -</p> - -<p> -“I’ll tell you,” I cried in a sudden reckless flush of extravagance. -“Aren’t there pretty places on the Thames one can get to from here?” -</p> - -<p> -“Oh, plenty,” said Duke, dryly, “if one goes by train.” -</p> - -<p> -“Then let’s go and make a pleasant water party of it.” -</p> - -<p> -He shook his head with a set of the lips. -</p> - -<p> -“Those are rare treats,” he said. “Our sort can’t afford such jinks -except after a deal of saving.” -</p> - -<p> -“I don’t want you to,” said I. “It’s my business and you’re to come as -my guests.” -</p> - -<p> -“Oh, nonsense,” he said, sharply; “we can’t do that.” -</p> - -<p> -“Please speak for yourself, Mr. Straw,” said Dolly. I had noticed her -eyes shine at the mere prospect. “If Mr. Trender is so kind as to -offer, and can afford it, I’m sure, I, for one, don’t intend to -disappoint him.” -</p> - -<p> -“Can he afford it?” said Duke, doggedly. -</p> - -<p> -“I shouldn’t propose it if I couldn’t,” said I, very much on the high -horse. -</p> - -<p> -“Of course you wouldn’t,” said Dolly. “I wonder at you, Mr. Straw, for -being so insulting.” -</p> - -<p> -“Very well,” said Duke, “I meant it for the best; but let’s be off. -I’m for a shallop in Arcady, with Pleasure in a pork-pie hat (it’s -very pretty, Dolly) at the helm.” -</p> - -<p> -We went down to Richmond by train, and Duke—good fellow that he -was—made a merry company of us. If he felt any soreness over his -rebuff he hid it out of sight most effectually. -</p> - -<p> -It was early in November—a beautiful, sparkling morning, and the -river bore a fairish sprinkling of pleasure craft on its silvery -stretches. -</p> - -<p> -We were neither of us great oarsmen and at first made but poor way, -owing to a tendency Duke of the iron sinews showed to pulling me -completely round. But presently we got into a more presentable swing -and fore-reached even upon a skiff or two whose occupants had treated -us to some good-humored chaff upon our starting. -</p> - -<p> -“Woa!” cried Duke. “This pulling is harder than pulling proofs, Renny. -Let’s stop by the bank and rest a bit.” -</p> - -<p> -We ran the boat’s nose aground, fastened her painter to a stump and -settled down for a talk. -</p> - -<p> -“Enjoying yourself, Dolly?” asked Duke, mopping his forehead. -</p> - -<p> -“Yes, of course—thanks to Mr. Trender.” -</p> - -<p> -“This is a fine variety on our walks, isn’t it?” -</p> - -<p> -“Oh, they’re jolly enough when you’re in a good temper.” -</p> - -<p> -“Am I not always?” -</p> - -<p> -“Oh, I don’t know. Sometimes you say things I don’t understand.” -</p> - -<p> -“See there, Renny,” cried Duke. “If I express myself badly she calls -me cross.” -</p> - -<p> -“It isn’t that,” said the girl. “I know I’m ignorant and you’re -clever, but you seem to read me and then say things out of yourself -that have nothing to do with me—just as if I was a book and you -a—what do they call it?—cricket or something.” -</p> - -<p> -We both laughed aloud. -</p> - -<p> -“Oh, Dolly,” said Duke, “what pretty imp taught you satire? Are you a -book to Mr. Trender?” -</p> - -<p> -“Oh, no! He talks what I can understand.” -</p> - -<p> -“Better and better! But take comfort, Renny; you’re downed in sweet -company.” -</p> - -<p> -“Hush,” said Dolly; “it’s Sunday.” -</p> - -<p> -She dabbled her slender hand in the water and drew it out quickly. -</p> - -<p> -“Oh,” she cried, “it’s cold. I hope we shan’t be upset. Can you swim, -Mr. Trender?” -</p> - -<p> -“Yes, like a duck.” -</p> - -<p> -“That’s a comfort, if I fall in. Mr. Straw, here, can’t.” -</p> - -<p> -“I’m built top-heavy,” said Duke, “but I’d try to save you, Dolly.” -</p> - -<p> -The girl’s eyes shone with a momentary remorseful pity. -</p> - -<p> -“I know you would,” she said, softly; “you aren’t one to think about -yourself, Duke. How I wish I could swim! I don’t believe there can be -anything in the world like getting that medal they give you for saving -people from drowning. Have you ever saved any one, Mr. Trender?” -</p> - -<p> -Oh, gentle hand to deal so cruel a stroke! For a moment my smoldering -sense of guilt flamed up blood-red. -</p> - -<p> -“No, no,” I said, with a forced laugh. “I’m not like Duke. I do think -of myself. I’m afraid.” -</p> - -<p> -We lapsed into silence, out of which came Dolly’s voice presently, -murmuring a queer little doggerel song that seemed apt to her childish -nature: -</p> - -<div class="quote_o"><div class="quote_i"> -<p class="i0">“‘Who owns that house on yonder hill?’</p> -<p class="i0">Said the false black knight to the pretty little child on the road.</p> -<p class="i0">‘It’s my father’s and mine,’</p> -<p class="i0">Said the pretty little child scarce seven years old.</p> - -<br/> - -<p class="i0">“‘Will you let me in?’</p> -<p class="i0">Said the false black knight to the pretty little child on the road.</p> -<p class="i0">‘Oh, no; not a step,’</p> -<p class="i0">Said the pretty little child scarce seven years old.</p> - -<br/> - -<p class="i0">“‘Then I wish you deaf and dumb,’</p> -<p class="i0">Said the false black knight to the pretty little child on the road.</p> -<p class="i0">‘And I wish you the same, with a blister on your tongue!’</p> -<p class="i0">Said the pretty little child scarce seven years old.”</p> -</div></div> - -<p> -“Where on earth did you learn that?” said Duke, with a laugh, as Dolly -ceased, her eyes dreaming out upon the shining river. -</p> - -<p> -“I don’t know. Mother used to sing it, I think, when I was a little -girl.” -</p> - -<p> -“We must question her,” said I. -</p> - -<p> -“Mother’s dead,” said Dolly. -</p> - -<p> -I could have bitten out my tongue. -</p> - -<p> -Duke again exerted himself to put matters on a comfortable footing. -</p> - -<p> -“Dolly and I are both orphans,” said he; “babes in old Ripley’s wood.” -</p> - -<p> -“And I am the remorseless ruffian,” I broke in. -</p> - -<p> -“All right. You didn’t know, of course. Look at that girl on the bank, -with the crinoline; she might be riding a hobby-horse.” -</p> - -<p> -“Ain’t she a beauty?” said Dolly, enviously. Her own subscribing to -the outrageous fashion then fortunately in its decay was limited to -her slender means and the necessities of her work. -</p> - -<p> -“You don’t mean to say you admire her?” said I. -</p> - -<p> -“Don’t I, Mr. Trender? Just as she’d admire me if I was dressed like -that.” -</p> - -<p> -“Heaven forbid, Dolly. I won’t call you Dolly if you call me Mr. -Trender.” -</p> - -<p> -“Won’t you, now? Upon my word, you’ve got the impudence of twenty.” -</p> - -<p> -“Look here,” said Duke, “I’m for paddling on. I don’t know your views -as to dinner, Mr. Renalt, but mine are getting pretty vociferous.” -</p> - -<p> -“My idea is to pull on till we sight a likely place, Mr. Duke Straw.” -</p> - -<p> -We rowed up past Kingston, a cockney town we all fought shy of, and on -by grassy reaches as far as Hampton bridge, where we disembarked. Here -was a pleasant water-side inn, with a lawn sloping down to the -embankment, and, sitting in its long coffee-room, we made a hearty -dinner and a merry company. Dolly was flushed and happy as a young -naiad when we returned to our boat, and she rippled with laughter and -sweetness. -</p> - - -<h3 id="ch16"> -CHAPTER XVI.<br/> -<span class="chap_sub">A FATEFUL ACCIDENT.</span> -</h3> - -<p> -We loitered on the river till the short day was threatening dusk, and -then we were still no further on our homeward way than a half-mile -short of Kingston. A little cold wind, moreover, was beginning to -whine and scratch over the surface of the water, and Dolly pulled her -tippet closer about her bosom, feeling chilled and inclined to -silence. -</p> - -<p> -“Come,” said Duke, “we must put our shoulders to it or we shan’t get -into the lock before dark.” -</p> - -<p> -“Oh!” cried the girl, with a half-whimper, “I had forgotten that -horrible lock with its hideous weedy doors. Must we go through it?” -</p> - -<p> -“I’m afraid so,” said Duke; “but,” he added cheerily, “don’t you be -nervous. We’ll run you down and through before you have time to count -a hundred—if you count slowly.” -</p> - -<p> -She sunk back in her seat with a frightened look and grasped the -rudder lines, as if by them only could she hold on to safety. The dusk -dropped about us as we pulled on, strain as we might, and presently we -both started upon hearing a strangled sob break from the girl. -</p> - -<p> -“Oh,” said Duke, pausing for a moment, “this will never do, Dolly. -Why, you can’t be afraid with two such knights to protect you?” -</p> - -<p> -“I can’t help it,” said the poor child, fairly crying now. “You don’t -know anything about the river, either of you; and—and mayn’t I get -out and walk?” -</p> - -<p> -“Very well. One of us will go with you, while the other pulls the boat -down. Only we must get across first. Steady, now, Renny; and cheer up, -Doll, and put her nose to the shore opposite.” -</p> - -<p> -We had drifted some little distance since we first easy’d, and a dull -booming, that was in our ears at the time, had increased to a -considerable roar. -</p> - -<p> -“Give way!” cried Duke; “turn her, Dolly!” -</p> - -<p> -The girl tugged at the right line, gave a gasp, dropped everything, -scrambled to her feet, and screamed in a dreadful voice: “We are going -over the weir!” -</p> - -<p> -“Sit down!” shouted Duke. “Pull, Renny, like a madman!” -</p> - -<p> -He shipped his oar, forced the girl into a sitting posture and -clutched the inner line all in a moment. His promptitude saved us. I -fought at the water with my teeth set; the boat’s nose plunged into -the bank with a shock that sent us two sprawling, and the boat’s stern -swung round dizzily. But before she could cast adrift again I was on -my knees and had seized at a projecting root with a grasp like -Quasimodo’s. -</p> - -<p> -“Hold on!” cried Duke, “till I come to you. It’s all right, Dolly; -you’re quite safe now.” -</p> - -<p> -He crawled to me and grasped the root in his more powerful hands. -</p> - -<p> -“Now,” he said, “you take the painter and get out and drag us higher, -out of the pull of the water. I’ll help you the best I can.” -</p> - -<p> -I complied, and presently the boat was drawn to a point so far above -as to leave a wide margin for safety. -</p> - -<p> -We took our seats to pull across, with a look at one another of -conscious guilt. Dolly sat quite silent and pale, though she shivered -a little. -</p> - -<p> -“We didn’t know the river, and that’s a fact,” whispered Duke to me. -“Of course we ought to have remembered the lock’s the other side.” -</p> - -<p> -We pulled straight across; then Duke said: -</p> - -<p> -“Here’s the shore, Dolly. Now, you and Trender get out, and I’ll take -the boat on.” -</p> - -<p> -“By yourself? No, I won’t. I feel safe with you.” -</p> - -<p> -“Very well,” he answered, gently. “We’ll all go on together. There’s -really no danger now we know what we’re about.” -</p> - -<p> -She cried, “No, Duke,” in a poor little quaking voice. -</p> - -<p> -We pulled into the lock cutting without further mishap, though the -girl shrunk and blenched as we slid past, at a safe distance, the -oblique comb of the weir. -</p> - -<p> -It was some minutes before the lock-keeper answered to our ringing -calls, and then the sluices had to be raised and the lock filled from -our side. The clash and thunder of the hidden water as it fell into -the pit below sounded dismal enough in the darkness, and must, I knew, -be dinning fresh terror into the heart of our already stricken naiad. -But the hollow noise died off in due course, the creaking gate -lumbered open and we floated with a sigh of relief into the weltering -pool beyond. -</p> - -<p> -The sluices rattled down behind us, the keeper walked round to the -further gate, and his figure appeared standing out against the sky, -toiling with bent back at the levers. Suddenly I, who had been pulling -bow, felt myself tilting over in a curious manner. -</p> - -<p> -“Hullo!” I cried. “What’s up with the boat?” -</p> - -<p> -In one moment I heard a loud shout come from the man at the gates, and -saw Dolly, despite her warning, stand hurriedly up and Duke make a -wild clutch at her; the next, the skiff reeled under me and I was -spun, kicking and struggling, into the water. -</p> - -<p> -An accident, common enough and bad enough to those who know little of -Thames craft, had befallen us. We had got the boat’s stern jammed upon -a side beam of the lock, so that her nose only dropped with the -sinking water. -</p> - -<p> -I rose at once in a black swirl. The skiff, jerked free by our -unceremonious exit, floated unharmed in the lock, but she floated -empty. Risen to the surface, however, almost with me, Duke’s dark head -emerged close by her, so that with one frantic leap upward he was able -to reach her thwarts, to which he clung. -</p> - -<p> -“Dolly!” he gasped—“Dolly!” -</p> - -<p> -I had seen her before he could cry out again, had seized and was -struggling with her. -</p> - -<p> -“Don’t hold me!” I cried; “let me go, Dolly, and I’ll save you.” -</p> - -<p> -She was quite beyond reason, deaf to anything but the despairing call -of life. In another instant, I knew, we should both go under and be -dragged into the rush of the sluices. Seeing the uselessness of trying -to unclasp her hands, I fought to throw myself and her toward the side -of the lock nearest. The water was bubbling in my mouth, when I felt a -great iron hook whipped into the collar of my coat and we were both -hauled to the side. -</p> - -<p> -“Hold on there, mate!” cried the lock-keeper, “while I get your boat -under.” -</p> - -<p> -I had caught at a dangling loop of chain; but even so the weight of my -almost senseless burden threatened to drag me down. -</p> - -<p> -“Be quick!” I gasped, “I’m pretty near spent.” -</p> - -<p> -With the same grapnel he caught and towed the boat, Duke still hanging -to it, to where I clung, and leaped down himself into it. -</p> - -<p> -“Now,” he said, “get a leg over and you’re right.” -</p> - -<p> -It was a struggle even then, for Dolly would not let me out of her -agonized clutch—not till we could lay her, white as a storm-beaten -lily, on the bottom boards. Then we turned and seized Duke over the -thwarts and he tumbled in and lay in a heap, quite exhausted. -</p> - -<p> -His mind relieved, our preserver took off his cap, scratched his -forehead and spat into the water. -</p> - -<p> -“I’ve known a many wanting your luck,” he said, gruffly. “What made -you do it, now?” -</p> - -<p> -Judging our ignorance to be by no means common property, I said, “Ah, -what?” in the tone that suggests acquiescence, or wonder, and asked -him if he had a fire handy. -</p> - -<p> -“There’s a bright one burning inside,” he said. “You’re welcome to -it.” -</p> - -<p> -He punted the boat to a shallow flight of steps, oozy with slime, that -led to the bank above, where his cottage was. -</p> - -<p> -“We’ll carry the gal to it,” said he. “See if she can move herself.” -</p> - -<p> -I bent down over the prostrate figure. It looked curiously youthful -and slender in its soaked and clinging garments. -</p> - -<p> -“Dolly,” I whispered, “there’s a fire above. Will you let me carry you -to it?” -</p> - -<p> -I thought my voice might not penetrate to her dulled senses, but to my -wonder she put her arms round my neck immediately. -</p> - -<p> -“Yes,” she moaned, “I’m so cold. Take me to the warmth or I shall -die.” -</p> - -<p> -We lifted her out between us and carried her into the house kitchen. -There a goodly blaze went coiling up the chimney, and the sight was -reviving in itself. -</p> - -<p> -“Shall we leave you here alone a bit?” said I, “to rest and recover? -There’s to be no more of the river for us. We’ll walk the distance -that remains.” -</p> - -<p> -She gave me a quick glance, full of a pathetic gratitude, and -whispered, “Yes; I’d better be alone.” -</p> - -<p> -“And if you take my advice,” said our host, “you’ll strip off them -drownded petticuts and wrap yourself in a blanket I’ll bring you while -they’re a-drying; wait, while I fetch it.” -</p> - -<p> -As he went out Dolly beckoned me quickly to her. -</p> - -<p> -“I heard you tell me to leave go,” she said, hurriedly, in a low -voice; “but I couldn’t—Renny, I couldn’t; and you saved my life.” -</p> - -<p> -Her lips were trembling and her eyes full of tears. She clasped her -hands and held them entreatingly toward me. -</p> - -<p> -A gust of some strange feeling—some yearning sense of protection -toward this pretty, lovable child—flooded my heart. -</p> - -<p> -“You poor little thing,” I whispered, in a pitying voice, and taking -her two hands in one of mine I passed my other arm around her. -</p> - -<p> -Then she lifted her face eagerly and I bent and softly dropped a kiss -on her warm, wet lips. -</p> - -<p> -The moment I had done it I felt the shame of my action. -</p> - -<p> -“There, dear, forgive me,” I said. “Like you, Dolly, I couldn’t let go -at once,” and our friend returning just then with the blanket, we left -the girl to herself and stepped outside. -</p> - -<p> -A queer exultant feeling was on me—a sense as of the lightening of -some overburdening oppression. “A life for a life.” Why should the -words ring stilly, triumphantly in my brain? I might earn for my -breast a cuirass of medals such as Dolly had desired, and what would -their weight be as set in the scale against the one existence I had -terminated? -</p> - -<p> -Perhaps it was not that. Perhaps it was that I felt myself for the -first time in close touch with a yearning human sympathy; that its -tender neighborhood taught me at a breath to respect and stand by what -was noble in myself. The shadow that must, of course, remain with me -always, I would not have away, but would only that it ceased to -dominate my soul’s birthright of independence. -</p> - -<p> -There was in my heart no love for Dolly—no passion of that affinity -that draws atom to atom in the destiny that is human. There was only -the pitying protective sense that came to man through the angels, and, -in its sensual surrender, marked their fall from divinity. For to the -end, without one thought of wavering, Zyp must shine the mirage of my -barren waste of love. -</p> - -<p> -Suddenly I remembered, with a remorseful pang, that all this time I -had forgotten Duke. I hurried down to the steps, calling him. He was -sitting in the boat, his elbows on his knees, his face buried in his -hands. -</p> - -<p> -“Duke!” I cried, “come out and let’s see what we can do for a dry. -You’ll get the frost in your lungs sitting there.” -</p> - -<p> -He rose at once, staggering a little. I had to run down the steps to -help him ashore, where he stood shaken all through with violent -shiverings. -</p> - -<p> -“Whisky,” said our host, laconically, watchful of the poor fellow, -“and enough of it to make your hair curl.” -</p> - -<p> -Between us we got him into the house, where he was made to swallow at -a gulp three finger-breadths in a tumbler of the raw spirit. Then -after a time the color came back to his cheeks, the restored nerves to -his limbs. -</p> - -<p> -At that our kindly host made us strip, and providing us with what -coverings he could produce, set us and our soaked belongings before a -second fire in his little parlor, and only left us when summoned -outside to his business. As the door closed behind him Duke turned to -me. A sort of patient sorrow was on his face—an expression as of -renunciation of some favored child of his fancy—I cannot express it -better. -</p> - -<p> -“You carried her in?” he said, quietly. -</p> - -<p> -“Dolly? Yes.” -</p> - -<p> -“Where is she?” -</p> - -<p> -“Baking before the kitchen fire. She’ll be ready before we are.” -</p> - -<p> -“Well—I had no right. What a chapter of mishaps.” Then he turned upon -me with a sudden clap of fierceness. “Why did you ever propose this -trip? I tried to dissuade you, and you might have known I was an idiot -on the water.” -</p> - -<p> -“My good Duke,” I answered, with a coolness that covered a fine glow -of heat, “that don’t sound very gracious. I meant it for a pleasure -party, of course. Accidents aren’t matters under human control, you -know.” -</p> - -<p> -He struck his knee savagely. -</p> - -<p> -“No,” he muttered, “or I shouldn’t have these.” -</p> - -<p> -Then in a moment the sweetness came back to his face, and he cried -with a smile, half-humorous and all pathetic: -</p> - -<p> -“Here’s the value of my philosophy. I’m no more consistent than a -Ripley pamphlet and not a quarter so amusing. But—oh, if I had only -learned to swim!” -</p> - - -<h3 id="ch17"> -CHAPTER XVII.<br/> -<span class="chap_sub">A TOUCHING REVELATION.</span> -</h3> - -<p> -For nearly four years did I work persistently, striving to redeem my -past, at the offices in Great Queen Street. At this period my position -was greatly improved, my services estimated at a value that was as -honorable to my employer as it was advantageous to me. I had grown to -be fairly at peace with myself and more hopeful for the future than I -had once deemed it possible that I could ever be. -</p> - -<p> -Not all so, however. The phantom light that had danced before my -youthful eyes, danced before them still, no whit subdued in -brilliancy. With the change to wider and manlier sentiments that I was -conscious of in my own development, I fostered secret hope of a -similar growth in Zyp. At 22, I thought, she could hardly remain the -irresponsible, bewitching changeling she had been at 17. Womanliness -must have blossomed in her, and with it a sense of the right -relationship of soul to body. Perhaps even the glamour of mystery that -must surround my manner of life had operated as a growing charm with -her, and had made me, in her eyes, something of the fascinating figure -she always was and would be in mine. -</p> - -<p> -Sometimes now, in thinking of him, I had fear of Jason, but more often -not. Zyp’s parting words to me—that were ever in my ears—seemed -weighted with the meaning, at least, that had I fought my battle well -I should have won. -</p> - -<p> -To think of it—to recall it—always gave me a strange, troubled -comfort. In my best moments it returned upon me, crying—crying the -assurance that no selfish suit pressed by my brother could ever -prevail over the inwarder preference her heart knew for me. In my -worst, it did no more than trouble me with a teasing mock at my human -passion so persistent in its faith to a will-o’-the-wisp. -</p> - -<p> -I think that all this time I never dared to put bravely to myself the -thought—as much part of my being as my eyesight—that not for one -true moment had I yielded my hope of Zyp to circumstances. All my -diligence, all my labor, all my ambition, were directed to this -solitary end—that some day I might lay them at her feet as bribes to -her favor. Therefore, till self-convinced of their finished -worthiness, I toiled on with dogged perseverance, studying, observing, -perfecting, denying myself much rest and pleasure till my heart should -assure me that the moment was come. -</p> - -<p> -And what of them at the old haunted mill? News was rare and scanty, -yet at intervals it came to link me with their destinies. The first -year of my banishment my father wrote to me three times—short, rugged -notes, void of information and negatively satisfactory only in the -sense that, had anything of importance taken place, he would, I -concluded, have acquainted me of it. These little letters were -answered by me in epistles of ample length, wherein I touched upon my -manner of life and the nature of my successes. The second year, -however, the desultory correspondence was taken up by Jason, who -wrote, as he talked, in a spirit of boisterous banter, and, under -cover of familiar gossip, told me less, if possible, than my father -had. Dad, he said in his first, had tired of the effort and had handed -the task over to him. Therefore he acquitted himself of it in long -leaps over gaps that covered months, and it was now more than four or -five since I had received any sort of communication from him. -</p> - -<p> -This did not greatly trouble me. There was that between us, which, it -always seemed to me, he sought to give expression to in his letters—a -hint secretly conveyed that I must never forget I lived and prospered -on sufferance only. Now my own knowledge of the methods of justice, no -less than the words Dr. Crackenthorpe had once applied to my case, had -long been sufficient to assure me that I had little or nothing to fear -from the processes of the law. No less peremptory, however, was the -conviction that Jason had it in his power to socially ruin me at a -word; and the longer that word was delayed—that is to say, so long as -my immunity did not clash with his interests—the better chance I had -of testing and retesting my armor of defense. Yet, for all my care, he -found out a weak place presently. -</p> - -<p> -In the meantime I lived my life, such as it was, and found a certain -manner of pleasure in it. Duke and I, still good friends, changed our -lodgings, toward the last quarter of the fourth year, and moved into -more commodious ones over an iron-monger’s shop in Holborn. Here we -had a sitting-room as well as a bedroom common to both of us, and -tasted the joys of independence with a double zest. -</p> - -<p> -Since our river experience it had become a usual thing for me to join -my friend and Dolly in their frequent Sunday walks together. This, at -first, I deprecated; but Duke would have it so; and finally it lapsed -into an institution. Indeed, upon many occasions I was left to escort -the girl alone, Duke pleading disinclination or the counter-attraction -of some book he professed to be absorbed in. -</p> - -<p> -Was I quite so blind as I appeared to be? I can hardly say myself. -That the other entertained a most affectionate regard for the girl was -patent. He was always to me, however, such a quaint medley of -philosophical resignation and human susceptibility that I truly -believe I was more than half inclined to doubt the existence in him of -any strong bias toward the attractions of the other sex. -</p> - -<p> -His behavior to Dolly was generally much more that of an elder brother -toward a much younger half-sister born into the next generation, than -of a lover who seeks no greater favor from a woman than that she shall -keep the best secrets of her womanhood for him. He petted, indulged, -and playfully analyzed her all in one. Now, thinking of him in the -stern knowledge of years, I often marvel over the bitter incapacity of -the other sex to choose aright the fathers of its children. How could -the frailest, prettiest soul among them turn from such luminous depths -as his to the meretricious foppery of emptier Parises? -</p> - -<p> -But then I was greatly to blame. The winning ways of the girl, no less -than Duke’s persistent deprecation of any affectation of -proprietorship in her, are my one excuse. A poor one, even then, for -how may I cry out on simple-hearted Dolly, when I failed to read the -little history of sorrow that was daily before my eyes. It was after -events only that interpreted to me the pride that would not let the -cripple kneel, a suitor to pity. -</p> - -<p> -As to my own feelings toward the pretty soul I had once so basely -linked to my own with an impulsive kiss—they were a compound of -indulgence and a tenderness that fell altogether short of love. I -desired to be on brotherly terms of intimacy with her, indeed, but -only in such manner as to preclude thought of any closer tie. When she -was shy with me upon our first meeting after that untoward contact in -the lock-house, I laughed her into playfulness and would have no -sentimental glamour attaching to our bond of sympathy. Alas! I was to -learn how reckless a thing it is to seek to extinguish with laughter -the fire of a woman’s heart. -</p> - -<p> -One Sunday afternoon in the early autumn of that fourth year, Dolly -and I were loitering together about the slopes and byways of Epping -forest. There is no season more attuned to the pathetic sympathies of -young hearts than that in which the quiet relaxing of green life from -its hold on existence speaks only to grayer breasts of premature decay -and the vulgar ceremonial of the grave. Youth, however, recognizes -none of this morbid aspect. To it the yellowing leaf, if it speaks of -desolation, speaks from that “passion of the past” the poets strove to -explore. It stands but two-thirds of the way up to the hill of years, -and flowering stretches are beneath it to the rear and above, before -its eyes, the fathomless sky and the great clouds nozzling the -mountain crests like flocks of sheep. -</p> - -<p> -All that afternoon as we wandered we came across lizards sprawling -stupefied—as they will in October—on buskets of gorse, too -exhausted, apparently, to feel the prick of thorn or fear, and -butterflies sitting on blades of grass with folded wings, motionless -as those that are wired to bonnets. The air was full of a damp -refreshing sweetness, and the long grass about every bush and hedge -side began to stir with the movement of secret things, as though -preparations for mystic revel were toward and invitations passing. I -could almost see the fairy rings forming, noiseless, on the turf, when -the lonely moon should hang her lantern out by and by. -</p> - - -<h3 id="ch18"> -CHAPTER XVIII.<br/> -<span class="chap_sub">A VOICE FROM THE CROWD.</span> -</h3> - -<p> -Dolly had been unusually silent during the afternoon, and now, as we -turned to retrace our steps in the direction of the station from which -we were to take train for London, she walked beside me without -uttering a word. -</p> - -<p> -Suddenly, however, she put her hand upon my arm and stayed me. -</p> - -<p> -“Renny,” she said, “will you stop a little while? I want to speak to -you.” -</p> - -<p> -“All right,” I said; “speak away.” -</p> - -<p> -“Not here—not here. Come off the path; there’s a seat out there.” -</p> - -<p> -Seeing with surprise that her face was pale and drawn with -nervousness, and fancying our tramp might have over-tired her, I led -her to the place she indicated—a bench set in the deep shadow of a -chestnut tree—and we both sat down. -</p> - -<p> -“Now, Doll,” I said, gayly, “what’s the tremendous confidence?” -</p> - -<p> -“Renny,” she said, quietly, “William Reid has asked me to marry him.” -</p> - -<p> -“No! William Reid—the young fellow over at Hansard’s? Well, I can -only tell you, Dolly, that I know nothing but what’s good of him for a -steady and promising chap, who’s sure to make as fine a husband as he -is a workman.” -</p> - -<p> -“Do you advise me to take him, then? Do you want me to?” -</p> - -<p> -“You might do much worse—indeed you might, Dolly. Why, to my -knowledge, he’s drawing £3 a week already. Of course I shall be very, -very sorry to lose my little chum and companion, but I always foresaw -that this would have to be the end of our comradeship some day.” -</p> - -<p> -She sat looking at the ground a little while and adjusting a fallen -twig with the point of her parasol. Then she rose and said, in the -same quiet tone, “Very well,” and moved a step away. -</p> - -<p> -I rose also and was about to resume the subject, when in a moment, to -my horror, she threw herself back on the bench and, flinging her hands -up to her face, burst into a passion of tears. -</p> - -<p> -I was so startled and shocked that for the instant I could think of -nothing to do or say. Then I bent down and cried: -</p> - -<p> -“Dolly, what is it? What’s the matter? Have I hurt you in any way?” -</p> - -<p> -She struggled with her sobs, but made a brave effort to command -herself. -</p> - -<p> -“Oh, don’t look, don’t listen! I shall be all right in a minute.” -</p> - -<p> -I moved away a little space and stood anxiously waiting. When I turned -again her face was still buried in her arm, but the keenness of the -outburst was subdued. -</p> - -<p> -I approached and leaned over her tenderly, putting a kind hand on her -shoulder. -</p> - -<p> -“Now, little woman,” I said, “won’t you tell me what it is? I might -comfort and counsel you at least, Dolly, dear.” -</p> - -<p> -She answered so low that I had to stoop further to hear her. -</p> - -<p> -“I only thought, perhaps—perhaps you might care more and not want me -to.” -</p> - -<p> -What a simple little sentence, yet how fierce a vision it sprung upon -my blindness! I rose and stepped back almost with a cry. Then Dolly -sat up and saw my face. -</p> - -<p> -“Renny,” she cried, “I never meant to tell; only—only, I am so -miserable.” -</p> - -<p> -I went to her and took her hand and helped her to her feet. -</p> - -<p> -“Dolly,” I said, in a low, hoarse voice, “I have been a selfish brute. -I never thought what I was doing, when I should have thought. Now, you -must give me time to think.” -</p> - -<p> -“You didn’t know. Renny”—her pretty eyes were struggling with tears -again, and her poor face looked up into mine, entreating me not to -take base advantage of her surrender—“if I kissed you as you kissed -me once do you think it would come?” -</p> - -<p> -“It isn’t right for us to try, dear.” -</p> - -<p> -Thank heaven my manhood stood the test—the inference so pathetic in -its childish simplicity. -</p> - -<p> -“Come,” I said, “we will go back now. I want time to think it all over -by myself. You mustn’t refer to it again, Dolly, in any way—not till -I can see you by and by alone.” -</p> - -<p> -She said, “Yes, Renny,” humbly. Her very manner toward me was marked -by a touching obedience. -</p> - -<p> -We caught our train and sped back to London in a crowded compartment, -so that the present embarrassment of tete-a-tete was spared us. At the -terminus we parted gently and gravely on both sides and went each of -us home. -</p> - -<p> -Duke was in bed when I reached our lodgings, and for that I was -grateful, for I felt far too upset and confused to relish the idea of -a talk with him. Indeed, since the moment Dolly had confessed to me, -he had hung strangely in the background of my thoughts. I felt a -comfortless dawning of apprehension that all along he had been keen -witness of the silent little drama in which unconsciously I was an -actor—had sat in the pit and sorrowfully gauged the purport of the -part I played. -</p> - -<p> -I went to bed, but never to sleep. All night long I tossed, struggling -to unravel the disorder in my brain. I could think out nothing -collectively—warp and woof were inextricably confused. -</p> - -<p> -At length, in despair, I rose, redressed and went outside. The church -clocks clanged six as I stepped onto the pavement; there was a -fresh-blown coolness in the dusky air; the streets stretched emptily -to the dawn. -</p> - -<p> -In the very contact with space, the tumult in my head settled down -into some manner of order, and I was able to face, after a fashion, -the problem before me. -</p> - -<p> -Here, to one side, would I place Zyp; to the other Dolly. Let me plead -to each, counseled by heart and conscience. To Zyp: You have and have -ever had that of mine to which I can give no name, but which men call -“love,” as an expression of what is inexpressible. I know that this -gift, this sixth sense, that, like the soul, embraces all the others, -once acquired, is indestructible. For joy or evil I am doomed to it, -spiritually to profit or be debased by it. You may scorn, but you -cannot kill it, and exiled in material form from you here it will make -to you in the hereafter as surely as a stone flung from a crater -returns to the earth of which it is kin. -</p> - -<p> -Say that the accidents of existence are to keep us here apart; that -your heart desires to mate with another more picturesque than mine. It -may be so. During these long four years you have never once directly, -by word or sign, given proof that my being holds any interest for you. -You banished me, I must remember, for all my efforts to torture hope -out of them, with words designed to be final. What if I accept the -sentence and say: “I yield my material form to one who desires its -affections; who will be made most happy by the bestowal of them upon -her; who yearns to me, perhaps, as I to you.” I may do so and none the -less be sure of you some day. -</p> - -<p> -To Dolly: I have done you a bitter wrong, but one, I think, not -irremediable. Perhaps I never thought but that friendship apart from -love was possible between man and woman. In any case, I have given far -too much consideration to myself and far too little to you. You love -me by your own confession, and, in this world of bitter troubles, it -is very sweet to be loved, and loved by such as you. I am pledged, it -seems, to a hopeless quest. What if I give it up? What if we taste joy -in this world—the joy of a partnership that is graced by strong -affection and cemented by a respect that shall be mutual? I can atone -for my error to you here; my wilder love that is not to be controlled -by moral reasoning I consign to futurity. -</p> - -<p> -Thinking these thoughts, a picture rose before me of a restful haven, -wherein my storm-beaten life might rock at anchor to the end; of Dolly -as my wife, in all the fascination of her pretty, winning -personality—her love, her playfulness, her wistful eyes and rosy -mouth so responsive to laughter or tears. I felt very tender toward -the child, who was glorified into woman by her very succumbing to the -passion she had so long concealed. “Why should I struggle any longer?” -I cried in my heart, “when an earthly paradise opens its gates to me; -when self-sacrifice means peace and content, and to indulge my -imagination means misery?” -</p> - -<p> -It was broad daylight by the time I had touched some clew to the -problem that so bewildered me, and suddenly I became aware that I was -moving in the midst of a great press of people. They were all going in -one direction and were generally of the lowest and most degraded -classes in London. There was a boisterous and unclean mirth rampant -among them. There was a ravenous eagerness of haste, too, that one -seemed to associate instinctively with the hideous form of vampire -that crouches over fields of slain and often completes what the bullet -has but half done. Women were among them in numbers; some carrying -infants in their gaunt, ragged arms; some plumed and decked as if for -a gala sight. -</p> - -<p> -I was weary with thought; weary with the monotony of introspection. -Evidently there was some excitement toward, and to follow it up would -take me out of myself. -</p> - -<p> -Toiling up Ludgate hill we went, an army of tramping feet. Then, like -a sewer diverted, we wheeled and poured into the noisome alley of the -Old Bailey. -</p> - -<p> -In a moment the truth burst upon me with a shock. There was a man to -be hanged that morning! -</p> - -<p> -I twisted hurriedly about and strove to force my way out again. I -might as easily have stayed the Thames with a finger. I was beaten -back with oaths and coarse ribaldry—gathered up and carried -ruthlessly in the rush for place—hemmed in, planted like a maggot in -one great trunk of bestial and frouzy human flesh. Had I striven again -I should have been smashed and pounded underfoot, all semblance of -life stamped from me. -</p> - -<p> -I looked about me in agony. Before and around was one huge sea of -faces, from the level of which rose a jangling patter of talk and -cries, like bubbles bursting on the surface of a seething tank of -corruption. And under the grim shadow of Newgate there stood, in full -view, a hideous machine. Barriers were about it, and a spruce cordon -of officials, who stood out humanly in that garden of squalid refuse. -It was black, with a black crossbeam; and from the beam a loop hung -motionless, like a collar for death to grin through, and the crowd -were already betting on the expression of his face when he should -first see it. -</p> - -<p> -I do not know how long or short a time my anguish lasted. It may have -been half an hour, when the deep tolling of a bell wrought sudden -silence in the fetid air. At its first stroke the roar of voices went -off and lessened, rolling like a peal of thunder; at its third the -quiet of eternity had fallen and consumed the world. -</p> - -<p> -A mist came before my eyes. When it cleared I was aware of a little -group on the platform, and one, with a ghastly white face, the center -of it. -</p> - -<p> -“Who is it?” I whispered, in intolerable agony. -</p> - -<p> -“Curse you!” growled my next neighbor. “Can’t you hold your tongue and -let a cove look?” -</p> - -<p> -A word marred the full relish of his appetite. -</p> - -<p> -I managed to slew my head away from the direct line of vision. A low -babble of voices came from the scaffold. He must be reprieved, I -thought, with a leap of the heart. I could not conceive voices -sounding natural, otherwise, under such fearful circumstances. -</p> - -<p> -Suddenly, as I was on the point of looking once more to ease my -horrible tension of mind, there dropped upon my ears a low rumbling -flap, and immediately a hoarse murmur went up from the multitude. -Then, giving a cry myself, I turned my face. The rope hung down in a -straight line, but loop and man were gone. -</p> - -<p> -From the universal murmur, by claps and starts, the old uproar bubbled -forth from the faces, till the pent-up street resounded with it. An -after-dinner loquacity was on all and the fellow who had cursed me a -minute ago addressed me now with over-brimming geniality of -information. -</p> - -<p> -“Who’s him, says you? Why, where’s your wits gone, matey? Him was -Mul-ler, the greasy furriner as murdered old Briggs.” -</p> - -<p> -The trial had made sensation enough of late, but the date of the poor -wretch’s execution I had had no thought of. -</p> - -<p> -When at last I could force a passage through the press—for they -lingered like ghouls over the crumbs of the banquet—I broke into -Holborn, with my whole soul panting and crying for fresh air and -forgetfulness. It was hideous, it was inhuman, it was debasing, I -cried to myself, to launch that quivering mass of terror into eternity -in a public shambles! To such as came to see, it must be grossly -demoralizing; to those who, like me, were enforced spectators, it was -a sickening experience that must leave an impression of morbidity -almost indelible. -</p> - -<p> -Suddenly I felt a hand grasp my shoulder and a voice exclaim: “Renny, -by all the saints!” -</p> - -<p> -I turned—and it was Jason. -</p> - -<p> -He held me at arm’s length and cried again: “Renny? Really?—and a -true sportsman as of old!” -</p> - -<p> -Then he leaned to me and whispered with a grin: “I say, old fellow, if -it wasn’t for luck you might be any day where he stood just now.” -</p> - - -<h3 id="ch19"> -CHAPTER XIX.<br/> -<span class="chap_sub">A MENACE.</span> -</h3> - -<p> -At first I hardly grasped the import of my brother’s words, or the -fact that here was the old fateful destiny upon me again, so lost were -the few faculties I could command in wonder at his unexpected -appearance in London. -</p> - -<p> -I stared and stared and had not a word to say. -</p> - -<p> -“Where’s your tongue, old chap?” he cried. “This is an affectionate -greeting on your part, upon my word, and after near four years, too.” -</p> - -<p> -I pressed my hand across my forehead and strove to smooth the -confusion therefrom. -</p> - -<p> -“You must forgive me,” I said at length; “this sudden meeting has -driven me all abroad; and then I got stuck down there by mistake, and -the sight has half-turned my brain, I think.” -</p> - -<p> -“By mistake, was it?” he said, with a mocking titter. “Oh, Renny, -don’t I know you?—though your looks are changed, too, for the matter -of that; more than mine are, I expect.” -</p> - -<p> -I could well believe. Soul and manhood must have wrought new -expression in me; but, for Jason, he was the Jason of old—fuller, -more set and powerful; yet the same beautiful personality with the -uninterpretable eyes. -</p> - -<p> -“Well,” he said, “aren’t you surprised to see me?” -</p> - -<p> -“Surprise isn’t the word.” -</p> - -<p> -“Nor pleasure either, I expect.” -</p> - -<p> -“No. I should be a liar to say it was.” -</p> - -<p> -“Well, you used to be that, you know; though I dare say you’ve found -out the better policy now.” -</p> - -<p> -“At any rate, as you’re here, you’ll come home with me, won’t you?” -</p> - -<p> -“Of course. That’s what I intend. I’ve been in London three or four -days, and went over to your old place yesterday, but found you had -left. I got the new address off a queer old chap there. Why didn’t you -tell us you had changed?” -</p> - -<p> -“I did. I wrote to dad about it.” -</p> - -<p> -“Well, anyhow, he never told me.” -</p> - -<p> -“That seems funny. How is he?” -</p> - -<p> -“Oh, the same old besotted curmudgeon as ever.” -</p> - -<p> -“Don’t, Jason. Dad’s dad for all his failings.” -</p> - -<p> -“Yes, and Zyp’s Zyp for all hers.” -</p> - -<p> -It gave me a thrill to hear the old name spoken familiarly, though by -such reckless lips. -</p> - -<p> -“Is—is she all right?” -</p> - -<p> -“She’s Zyp, I tell you, and that means anything that’s sprightly and -unquenchable. Let her alone for a jade; I’m sick of her name.” -</p> - -<p> -Was it evident from this that his suit had not prospered? I looked at -his changing eyes and my heart reeled with a sudden sick intoxication -of hope. Was my reasoning to be all gone through with again? “Come,” -I said, “let’s make for my place. A fellow-hand lives with me there.” -</p> - -<p> -We walked up Holborn together. He had eyes for every incident, a -tongue that seldom ceased wagging. Many a smart and powdered working -girl, tripping to her business, nudged her companion and looked after -him. He accepted it all with a bold indifference—the masterful -condescension that sets tight-laced breasts a-twittering under their -twice-turned jackets. He was much better dressed than I was and -carried himself with some show of fashion. -</p> - -<p> -Duke had left when we reached home, and his absence I hardly -regretted. -</p> - -<p> -“Well,” said my brother, as we entered the sitting-room, “you’ve -decent quarters, Renny, and no doubt deserve them for being a good -boy. You can give me some breakfast, I suppose?” -</p> - -<p> -“If you don’t mind eating alone,” I said. “I’ve got no appetite.” -</p> - -<p> -“All the worse for you. I never lose mine.” The table was already laid -as Duke had left it. I fetched a knuckle of ham from our private store -and placed it before my unwelcome guest, who fell to with a healthy -vigor of hunger. -</p> - -<p> -“It’s as well, perhaps, I didn’t find you last night,” he said, -munching and enjoying himself. “We should have sat up late and then I -might have overslept myself and missed the fun. I say, didn’t he go -down plump? I hoped the rope would break and that we should have it -over again.” -</p> - -<p> -“Jason!” I cried, “drop it, won’t you? I tell you I got caught there -by mistake, and that the whole thing was horrible to me!” -</p> - -<p> -“Oh, all right,” he said, with a laugh. “I shouldn’t have thought -you’d have cared, but I won’t say anything more about it.” -</p> - -<p> -I would not challenge word or tone in him. To what could I possibly -appeal in one so void of the first instincts of humanity? -</p> - -<p> -He pushed his plate away presently and fetched out a little pipe and -began to smoke. I had sat all the time by the window, looking vaguely -upon the crowded street. -</p> - -<p> -“Now,” I said, turning to him, “let’s hear why you are in London?” -</p> - -<p> -He raised his eyebrows with an affectation of perplexity. -</p> - -<p> -“Didn’t I tell you?” he said. “But there’s nothing to explain. I -wanted to come and I came.” -</p> - -<p> -“Four days ago?” -</p> - -<p> -“More or less.” -</p> - -<p> -“But what brought you? Where did you get the money?” -</p> - -<p> -“Never mind. That’s my affair. I did get it, and there’s an end.” -</p> - -<p> -“How long do you intend to stop?” -</p> - -<p> -“It all depends upon circumstances. Maybe I shall get something to do -here.” -</p> - -<p> -“Well, you might. I had nothing more to recommend me than you have -when I first came.” -</p> - -<p> -“Not so much, my good fellow.” -</p> - -<p> -He threw out his chest and a whiff of smoke together. -</p> - -<p> -“I’ve more about me to take the fancy, I believe, and I’m not -handicapped with a depressing secret for the unscrupulous to trade -upon. Besides, you forget that I’ve a friend at court, which you never -had.” -</p> - -<p> -“Meaning me. It’s no good, I can tell you in the very beginning. I’ve -not influence enough with my employer to foist a useless fresh hand -upon him.” -</p> - -<p> -“We’ll see, my friend—we’ll see, perhaps, by and by. I’m not in any -hurry. I haven’t the slightest intention of working till I’m forced -to.” -</p> - -<p> -“I suppose not. But what are you going to do in the meantime?” -</p> - -<p> -“Enjoy life, as I always do.” -</p> - -<p> -“Here, in London?” -</p> - -<p> -“Yes, of course.” -</p> - -<p> -“We can’t put you up at this place. It’s impossible.” -</p> - -<p> -“Wait till you’re asked. I’ve got my own quarters.” -</p> - -<p> -“Where?” -</p> - -<p> -“Find out if you can. I keep my private burrow secret.” -</p> - -<p> -“Well, it’s all very queer, but I suppose you know your own business -best.” -</p> - -<p> -“Naturally,” he said, and sat frowning at me a little while. -</p> - -<p> -Then presently he rose and came and looked down upon me. -</p> - -<p> -“Renny,” he said, quietly, “I’m going now, but I shall look you up -from time to time. I just want to say a thing first, though. You -haven’t received me very well, and I shan’t forget it. There’s a new -manner about you that’s prettier than it’s quite safe. You seem to -have thought matters over and to have come to the conclusion that this -lapse of years has tided you over a little difficulty we remember. I -only want to suggest that you don’t presume upon that too far. Grant -it to be true, as old Crackenthorpe said, that that fellow Muller’s -fate isn’t likely to be yours. I can make things pretty hot for you, -nevertheless.” -</p> - -<p> -He nodded at me once or twice, with his lips set, and so walked from -the room. -</p> - -<p> -For an hour after he had gone, regardless of the calls of business, I -sat on by the window pondering the meaning of this down-swoop and its -likely influence on my fortunes. -</p> - -<p> -The nervous apprehension of boyhood had left me; I had carved out an -independent path for myself and had prospered. Was it likely that, -thus restored, as it were, to manliness, I could weakly succumb to a -sense of fatality? I was stronger by nature and experience than this -blackest of blackmailers. He who takes his moral fiber from humanity -must necessarily surpass the egotist who habitually drains upon -himself. -</p> - -<p> -As to the mere fact of my brother’s journey hither, and his -acquirement of the means which enabled him to do so and to present a -becoming appearance, I cared to speculate but little. London was the -natural goal of his kind, and when the migratory fit came he was bound -by hook or by crook to gather the wherewith for his flight. -</p> - -<p> -It was the immediate presence of his blackrent mood that I had to -combat, and I found myself strong to do so. I would not own his -mastery; I would anticipate him and force the crisis he wished to -postpone for his own gain and my torment. That very evening would I -tell Duke all and abide by his judgment. -</p> - -<p> -And Dolly? Here on the instant I compromised with manliness and so -admitted a weak place in my armor. Viewed through the dizzy mist of my -own past and haunted suffering, this sweet and natural child stood -out, such a tender vision of innocence that I dared not arrogate to -myself the right of informing it with an evil that must be negative -only in the first instance. How can I imperil her soul, I thought, by -shattering at a blow the image, my image, that enlightens it? -Sophistry—sophistry; for what true woman is the worse for learning -that her idol is poor humanity after all—not a thing to worship, but -a soul to help and protect—a soul thirsting for the deep wells of -sympathy? -</p> - -<p> -Had I been wise to forestall my brother with all whose influence was -upon my life a great misery might have been averted. In this instance -I temporized, and the fatal cloud of calamity rose above the horizon. -</p> - -<p> -Why was it that, at the first, Dolly was much more in my mind than -Zyp? That I cannot answer altogether, but so it was. The balance of my -feelings was set no differently; yet, while it seemed quite right and -proper that Zyp should estimate me at my dual personality, I shrunk -with shuddering from the thought of Dolly knowing me as I knew myself. -Perhaps it was that, for all my sense of passionate affinity to the -wild creature once so part of my destinies, I recognized in the other -the purer soul; that it was the love of the first I desired, the good -will of the second. Perhaps, also, the recognition of this drove me on -again to abide by my decision of the morning. It is useless to -speculate now; for the little unhappy tale ended otherwise than as I -had prefigured it. My day had begun with an omen as ghastly as its -sequel was to be. -</p> - - -<h3 id="ch20"> -CHAPTER XX.<br/> -<span class="chap_sub">DUKE SPEAKS.</span> -</h3> - -<p> -That evening, in the luminous dusk of our sitting-room, I sat up and -gave Duke my history. He would have stopped me at the outset, but I -would brook no eccentric philosophy in the imperious fever of -insistence that was my mood. I told him of all that related personally -to me—my deed, my repentance—my brother’s exposure and renewed -menaces; but to Zyp I only referred in such manner as to convey the -impression that whatever influence she had once exerted over me was -dead with boyhood and scarcely to be resurrected. -</p> - -<p> -That here I intentionally told a half-truth only, cowardly in the -suspicion that the whole would be resented by my hearer on Dolly’s -behalf, I cannot deny. I dared not commit myself to a policy of -absolute confidence. -</p> - -<p> -When I had finished there was a silence, which I myself was forced to -at length break. -</p> - -<p> -“Duke,” I said, “haven’t you a remark to make—no word of advice or -rebuke?” -</p> - -<p> -“Not one, Renny. What concern have we with that past existence of -yours?” -</p> - -<p> -“Oh, for heaven’s sake drop that nonsense for once in a way. It’s a -very real trouble to me, whatever it is to you.” -</p> - -<p> -“Old man, you did and you repented in one day. The account up there -must balance.” -</p> - -<p> -“You think it must?” -</p> - -<p> -“We are masters of our acts—not of our impulses. You strike a bell -and it clangs. You strike a man and the devil leaps out at his eyes. -It’s in the rebound that the thought comes that decides the act. In -this case yours was natural to yourself, for you are a good fellow.” -</p> - -<p> -“And so are you, a hundred times over, to take it so. You don’t know -the terror it has been to me—that it must be to me still in a -measure. The account may balance; but still——” -</p> - -<p> -“Well?” -</p> - -<p> -“The boy—my brother—died.” -</p> - -<p> -“Yes—after you had tried to save him.” -</p> - -<p> -“Duke—Duke, you can’t hold me not to blame.” -</p> - -<p> -“I don’t, indeed. You were very much to blame for not retreating when -your better angel gave you the chance. It’s for that you’ll be called -to account some day—not the other.” -</p> - -<p> -“Well, I’ll stand up and cry ‘peccavi!’” I said, sadly. -</p> - -<p> -“Renny,” said Duke, from the shadow of his side of the room, “what’s -this elder brother of yours like?” -</p> - -<p> -I explained Jason’s appearance to the best of my power. -</p> - -<p> -“Ah,” he said, quietly, “I thought so.” -</p> - -<p> -“What do you mean?” -</p> - -<p> -“Nothing. Only I saw him this afternoon taking the bearings of the -office from t’other side the street.” -</p> - -<p> -“Very likely. He mentioned something about using my influence with -Ripley to give him a berth later on. Probably he was debating his -ground.” -</p> - -<p> -“You haven’t given your confidence to any one but me in this matter?” -</p> - -<p> -“No.” -</p> - -<p> -“Do you intend to?” -</p> - -<p> -“If you think it right. Shall I tell Ripley?” -</p> - -<p> -“It’s my opinion you should. Forestall your brother in every -direction.” -</p> - -<p> -“Well, yours and his are the only two that concerns me.” -</p> - -<p> -“One other, Renny.” -</p> - -<p> -“Who?” -</p> - -<p> -“Dolly.” -</p> - -<p> -He leaned forward and looked at me with such intensity of earnestness -that his black eyes seemed to pierce to my very soul. -</p> - -<p> -“Shall I,” he said—and his gaze never left my face—“shall I -acknowledge your confidence with another?” -</p> - -<p> -“It shall be sacred, Duke,” I answered low, “if it refers to past or -present.” -</p> - -<p> -He threw himself back with a sudden wail. -</p> - -<p> -“To both!” he cried; “to both!” -</p> - -<p> -He was himself again directly. -</p> - -<p> -“Bah!” he cried; “what a woman I am! Renny, you shall for once find me -sick of philosophy and human.” -</p> - -<p> -I resumed my seat, fairly dumfounded at this revelation of unwonted -depths in my friend, and stared at him in silence; once more he leaned -forward and seemed to read me through. -</p> - -<p> -“Renny, tell me—do you wish to make Dolly your wife?” -</p> - -<p> -“Duke, upon my soul I don’t know.” -</p> - -<p> -“Do you love her?” -</p> - -<p> -“If I thought I did, as you meant it, I could answer your first -question.” -</p> - -<p> -“And you can’t?” -</p> - -<p> -“No, I can’t.” -</p> - -<p> -“Renny, make her happy. She loves you with all her heart.” -</p> - -<p> -“Would that be fair to her, Duke? Let me know my own mind first.” -</p> - -<p> -“Ah, I am afraid you don’t care to know it; that you are playing with -a pleasurable emotion. Take care—oh, take care, I tell you! The halt -and maimed see further in the dark than the vigorous. Renny, there is -trouble ahead. I know more of women than you do, perhaps, because, cut -off from manly exercises, I can gauge their temptations and their -weaknesses. I see a way of striking at you that you don’t dream of. Be -great with resolve! Save my little book-sewer, I implore you.” -</p> - -<p> -“Duke,” I said, with extreme emotion, for I fancied I could catch the -shine of most unaccustomed tears in his dark eyes, “my good, dear -fellow, what is the meaning of this? I would do anything to make you -or Dolly happy; but where is the sense of half-measures? If you feel -like this, why don’t you—I say it with all love—why don’t——” -</p> - -<p> -He struggled to his feet, and with a wild, pathetic action drew -emptiness about him with enfolding arms. -</p> - -<p> -“I tell you,” he cried, in a broken voice, “that I would give my life -to stand in your shoes, valuing the evil as nothing to the sweet.” -</p> - -<p> -He dropped his head on his breast and I had no word to say. My willful -blindness seemed to me at that moment as vile a thing as any in my -life. -</p> - -<p> -Suddenly he stood erect once more. -</p> - -<p> -“Renny,” he said, with a faint smile, “for all your good friendship -you don’t know me yet, I see. I’m too stiff-jointed to kneel.” -</p> - -<p> -“Don’t curse me for blighting your life like this. But, Duke—I never -guessed. If I had—it didn’t matter to me—I would have walked over a -precipice rather than cross your path.” -</p> - -<p> -“How could you know? Wasn’t I sworn to philosophy?” -</p> - -<p> -“And it can’t be now?” -</p> - -<p> -“It can never be.” -</p> - -<p> -“Think, Duke—think.” -</p> - -<p> -“I never do anything else. Love may exist on pity, but not on charity. -I put myself on one side. It is her happiness that has to be -considered first; and, Renny, you know the way to it.” -</p> - -<p> -“Duke, have you always felt like this toward her?” -</p> - -<p> -“Always? I feel here that I should answer you according to my theory -of life. But I have shown you my weak side. Every negro, they say, -worships white as the complexion of his unknown God. From my first -sight of her I have tried to rub my sooty soul clean—have tried every -means like the ‘Black-Gob’ committee in Hood’s poem.” -</p> - -<p> -“I think you have been successful—if any rubbing was necessary. I -think at least you have proved your affinity to her, and will claim -and be claimed by her in the hereafter.” -</p> - -<p> -“I shall not have the less chance then, for striving to procure her -happiness here.” -</p> - -<p> -“Oh, Duke—no!” -</p> - -<p> -I stood abashed in presence of so much lofty abrogation of self. -</p> - -<p> -“What am I to do?” I said, humbly. “I will be guided by you. Shall I -study to make our interests one and trust to heaven for the right -feeling?” -</p> - -<p> -“First tell her what you have told me. You need have no fear.” -</p> - -<p> -“Very well. I will do so on the first opportunity.” -</p> - -<p> -“That confidence alone will make a bond between you. But, Renny—oh, -don’t delay.” -</p> - -<p> -“I won’t, Duke—I won’t. But I wish you would tell me what danger it -is you fear.” -</p> - -<p> -“If I did you would think it nothing but a phantom of my brain. I have -said I see in the dark. This room is full of fantastic shapes to me. -Perhaps they are only the goblin lights born of warp and disease.” -</p> - -<p> -“I will speak to her next Sunday.” -</p> - -<p> -“Not sooner?” -</p> - -<p> -“I can’t very well. We must be alone together without risk of -interruption.” -</p> - -<p> -I would have told him of our yesterday’s talk, only that it seemed a -cruel thing to take even him into that broken and tender confidence. -</p> - -<p> -“Very well. Let it be then, as you value her happiness.” -</p> - -<p> -All day it had been close and oppressive and now thunder began to moan -and complain up the lower slopes of the night. -</p> - -<p> -Suddenly, in the ominous stirring of the gloom, I became conscious -that my companion was murmuring to himself—that a low current of -speech was issuing from his lips monotonous as the babble of delirium. -</p> - -<p> -“There was a window in the roof, where stars glittered like bubbles in -the glass—and the ceiling came almost down to the floor on one side -and I cried often with terror, for the window and I were alone. -Sometimes the frost gathered there, like white skin over a wound, and -sometimes the monstrous clouds looked in and mocked and nodded at me. -I was very cold or else my face cracked like earth with the heat, and -I could not run away, for he had thrown me down years before and the -marrow dried in my bones. There had been a time when the woman came -with her white face and loved me, always listening, and crept away -looking back. But she went at last and I never saw her again.” -</p> - -<p> -“Duke!” I whispered—“Duke!” but he seemed lost to all sense of my -presence. -</p> - -<p> -“He came often, and there was a great dog with him, whose flesh -writhed with folds of gray, and the edges of his tongue were curled up -like a burning leaf—and the dog made my heart sick, for its eyes were -full of hate like his, and when he made it snarl at me I shivered with -terror lest a movement of mine should bring it upon me. And sometimes -I heard it breathing outside the door and thought if they had -forgotten to lock it and it came in I should die. But they never -forgot, and I was left alone with the window in the roof and nothing -else. But now I feel that if I could meet that dog—now, now I should -scream and tear it with my teeth and torture it inch by inch for what -it made me suffer.” -</p> - -<p> -I cried to him again, but he took no heed. -</p> - -<p> -“There was water, in the end, and great dark buildings went up from it -and the thunder was thick in the sky. Then he said, ‘Drink,’ and held -something to my lips; and I obeyed because I was in terror of him. It -was fire he gave me, and I could not shriek because it took me by the -throat—but I fell against the water and felt it lap toward me and I -woke screaming and I was in a boat—I was in a boat, I tell you.” -</p> - -<p> -There came a booming crash overhead and the room for a moment weltered -with ghastly light. In its passing I saw Duke leap to his feet, and -there was something beside him—a shape—a mist—one of the phantoms -of his brain—no, of mine—Modred, pointing and smiling. It was gone -in an instant—a mere trick of the nerves. But, as I stood shivering -and blinded, I heard Duke cry in a terrible voice: -</p> - -<p> -“Renny—listen! It was on such a night as this that my father poisoned -me!” -</p> - - -<h3 id="ch21"> -CHAPTER XXI.<br/> -<span class="chap_sub">THE CALM BEFORE.</span> -</h3> - -<p> -Long after the storm had broken and rolled away were we still sitting -talking in the dim lamplight. In these hours I learned what dark -confidences my friend had to give me as to his solitary and haunted -past; learned more truly, also, than I had ever done as yet, the value -of a moral courage that had enabled him, dogged by the cruelest hate -of adversity, to emerge from the furnace noble and thrice refined. -</p> - -<p> -He had been picked up, as a mere child drowning in the river, by the -Thames police and had been ultimately consigned to a charity school, -from which, in due course, he had been apprenticed to a printer. Thus -far had his existence, emerging from profoundest gloom, run a straight -and uneventful course—but before? -</p> - -<p> -Into what deadly corner of a great city’s most secret burrows his -young life had been first hemmed and then crushed out of shape who may -say? When I had got him down again, unnerved but quiet now and wistful -with apology over his outburst, he told me all that he knew. -</p> - -<p> -“Thunder always seems to turn my brain a little, Renny, perhaps -because it is associated in the depths of my mind with that strange -young experience. The muttering sound of it brings a picture, as it -were, before my eyes. I seem to see a confusion of wharfs and -monstrous piles of blackness standing out against the sky; deadly -water runs between, in which smudges of light palpitate and are -splintered into arrows and come together again like drops of -quicksilver.” -</p> - -<p> -“And you are given something to drink?” -</p> - -<p> -“It is poison; I know it as certainly as that it is my father who -wishes to be quit of me. I can’t tell you how I know.” -</p> - -<p> -“And before?” -</p> - -<p> -“There is only the room and the window in the roof, and myself, a -sickly cripple lying in bed, always alone and always fearful of -something.” -</p> - -<p> -“Duke, was the gentle woman your mother?” -</p> - -<p> -“I feel that it must have been. But she went after a time. Perhaps he -killed her as he wished to kill me.” -</p> - -<p> -“Can you remember him at all?” -</p> - -<p> -“Only through a dreadful impression of cruelty. I know that I am what -I am by his act; though when made so, or under what provocation, if -any, is all a blank. It is the dog that haunts my memory most. That -seems queer, doesn’t it? I suppose it was the type or symbol of all -the hate I was the victim of, and I often feel as if some day I shall -meet it once more—only once more—and measure conclusions with it on -that little matter of the suffering it caused me.” -</p> - -<p> -We fell silent for awhile. Then said I, softly: “Duke, with such a -past for background, I think I can understand how Dolly must stand out -in the front of your picture.” -</p> - -<p> -“Yes,” he said, with a tender inflection in his voice. “But anyhow I -have no quarrel with her sex. What should I have been without that -other presence in the past? I have known only two women intimately. -For their sake my right arm is at the service of all.” -</p> - -<p> -His eyes shone upon me from the sallow, strong face. He looked like a -crippled knight of errantry, fearless and dangerous to tamper with -where his right of affection was questioned. -</p> - -<p> -The week that followed was barren of active interest. It was a busy -one at Great Queen street, and all personal matters must needs be -relegated to the background. Occasionally I saw Dolly, but only in the -course of official routine, and no opportunity occurred for us to -exchange half a dozen words in private. -</p> - -<p> -Nevertheless, there was in the dusty atmosphere of the place a -sensation of warmth and romance that is scarcely habitual to the -matter-of-fact of the workshop. Compromise with my heart as I might on -the subject of Zyp’s ineffaceable image, I could not but be conscious -that Ripley’s at present held a very pretty and tender sentiment for -me. The sense of a certain proprietorship in it was an experience of -happiness that made my days run rosily, for all the perplexity in my -soul. Yet love, such as I understood it in its spiritual -exclusiveness, was absent; nor did I ever entertain for a moment the -possibility of its awakening to existence in my breast. -</p> - -<p> -So the week wore on and it was Saturday again, and to-morrow, for good -or evil, the question must be put. -</p> - -<p> -That evening, as Duke and I were sitting talking after supper, Jason’s -voice came clamoring up the stairs and a moment after my brother burst -into the room. He was in high spirits—flushed and boisterous as a -young Antinous—and he flung himself into a chair and nodded royally -to Duke. -</p> - -<p> -“Renny’s chum, I suppose?” said he. “And that’s a distinction to be -proud of, for all it’s his brother that says so. Glad to know you, -Straw.” -</p> - -<p> -Duke didn’t answer, but he returned the nod, striving to gloze over -prejudice genially for my sake. -</p> - -<p> -“Renny, old chap!” cried Jason, “I sha’n’t want my friend at court -yet—not yet, by a long chalk, I hope. Look here.” -</p> - -<p> -He seized a purse from his pocket and clapped it down on the table -with a jingling thud. -</p> - -<p> -“There’s solid cash for you, my boy! Forty-three pounds to a penny, -and a new pleasure to the pretty face of each of ’em.” -</p> - -<p> -“Where on earth did you get it, Jason?” -</p> - -<p> -“Won’t you be shocked, Barebones? Come with me some night and see for -yourself.” -</p> - -<p> -“You’ve been gambling, I believe.” -</p> - -<p> -“Horrid, isn’t it?—the wailing baby and the deserted wife and the -pistol in a garret—that’s what you are thinking of, eh? Oh, you dear -thing! But we aren’t built alike, you and I.” -</p> - -<p> -“Be quiet, can’t you?” I cried, angrily. -</p> - -<p> -“Not a bit of it. I’m breezy as a weathercock to-night. I must talk, I -tell you, and you always rouse the laughing imp in me. Where’s the -harm of gambling, if you win? Eh, Jack Straw?” -</p> - -<p> -“It’s no very good qualification for work, if that’s what you want to -get, Mr. Trender.” -</p> - -<p> -“Work? Hang the dirty rubbish! Work’s for the poor in pocket and in -spirit. I want to see life; to feel the sun of enjoyment down to my -very finger-tips. You two may work, if you like, with your codes of -cranky morals. You may go back to your mill every Monday morning with -a guilty sense of relief that another weekly dissipation on Hampstead -heath is over and done with. That don’t do for me. The shops here -aren’t all iron-ware and stationery. There’s color and glitter and -music and rich food and laughter everywhere around, and I want my -share of it. When I’m poor I’ll work; only—I don’t ever intend to be -poor again.” -</p> - -<p> -“Well, we don’t any of us intend to, for the matter of that,” said -Duke. -</p> - -<p> -“Oh, but you go the wrong way about it. You’re hampered in the -beginning with the notion that you were made to work, and that if you -do it in fine manly fashion your wages will be paid you in full some -day. Why, what owls you are not to see that those wages that you think -you are storing up so patiently are all the time being spent by such -as me! Here’s happiness at your elbow, in the person of Jason -Trender—not up in the skies there. But it’s your nature and luckily -that’s my gain. You wouldn’t know how to enjoy ten thousand a year if -you had it.” -</p> - -<p> -“You think not?” -</p> - -<p> -“I know it. You’d never be able to shake off the old humbug of -responsibility.” -</p> - -<p> -“Toward others, you mean?” -</p> - -<p> -“Of course I do, and that’s not the way to make out life.” -</p> - -<p> -“Not your way?” -</p> - -<p> -“Mine? Mine’s to be irresponsible and independent—to act upon every -impulse and always have a cat by me to claw out the chestnuts.” -</p> - -<p> -“A high ideal, isn’t it?” -</p> - -<p> -“Don’t fire that nonsense at me. Ideal, indeed! A cant term, Jack -Straw, for a sort of religious mania. No ideal ever sparkled like a -bottle of champagne. I’ve been drinking it for the first time lately -and learning to play euchre. I’ve not proved such a bad pupil.” -</p> - -<p> -He slapped the pocket to which he had returned his purse, with a -joyous laugh. -</p> - -<p> -“Champagne’s heaven!” he cried. “I never want any better. Come out -with me to-morrow and taste it. Let’s have a jaunt!” -</p> - -<p> -Duke shook his head. -</p> - -<p> -“We shouldn’t agree in our notions of pleasure,” said he. -</p> - -<p> -“Then, come you, Renny, and I’ll swear to show you more fun in a day -than you’ve known in all your four years of London.” -</p> - -<p> -“I can’t, Jason. I’ve got another engagement.” -</p> - -<p> -“Who with?” -</p> - -<p> -“Never mind. But I can’t come.” -</p> - -<p> -“Oh, rubbish! You’ll have to tell me or else we go together.” -</p> - -<p> -“Neither the one nor the other.” -</p> - -<p> -For a moment he looked threatening. “I’m not fond of these mysteries,” -he said. Then his face cleared again. -</p> - -<p> -“Well,” he cried, “it’s a small matter for me, and, after all, you -don’t know what you miss. You don’t keep whisky here, I suppose?” -</p> - -<p> -“No, we don’t drink grog, either of us.” -</p> - -<p> -“So I should have thought. Then I’ll make for livelier quarters”—and -crying good-night to us, he went singing out of the room. -</p> - -<p> -The moment I heard the outer door shut on him, I turned to Duke. -</p> - -<p> -“Don’t hold me responsible for him,” I said. “You see what he is.” -</p> - -<p> -“Renny,” said Duke, gravely, “I see that friendship is impossible to -him, and can understand in a measure what he made you suffer.” -</p> - -<p> -“Yet, I think, it’s true that he’s of the sort whom fortune always -favors.” -</p> - -<p> -“They sign a compact in blood for it, though, as the wicked baron does -in the story books.” -</p> - -<p> -He smiled and we both fell silent. Presently Duke said from the -darkness: -</p> - -<p> -“Where has he put up in London?” -</p> - -<p> -“I don’t know. He wouldn’t say. I’m not particularly anxious to find -out as long as he keeps away from here.” -</p> - -<p> -“Ah, as long as he does,” said my companion, and sunk into a pondering -fit again. -</p> - -<p> -“Get off early to-morrow,” he said, suddenly. “What time have you -arranged to—to meet Dolly?” -</p> - -<p> -“Half-past nine, Duke.” -</p> - -<p> -“Not before? Well, be punctual, there’s a good fellow. She’s worth an -effort.” -</p> - -<p> -I watched him, as he rose with a stifled sigh and busied himself over -lighting our bedroom candle. In the gusty dance of the flame his eyes -seemed to change and glint red like beads of garnet. I had no notion -why, but a thrill ran through me and with it a sudden impulse to seize -him by the hand and exclaim: “Thank God, we’re friends, Duke!” -</p> - -<p> -He startled a little and looked full in my face, and then I knew what -had moved me. -</p> - -<p> -Friends were we; but heaven pity the man who made him his enemy! -</p> - - -<h3 id="ch22"> -CHAPTER XXII.<br/> -<span class="chap_sub">THE SHADOW OF THE STORM.</span> -</h3> - -<p> -Dolly met me the next morning, looking shy and half-frightened as a -child caught fruit-picking. She gave me her hand with no show of -heartiness, and withdrew it at once as if its fingers were the -delicate antennae of her innocent soul and I her natural enemy. -</p> - -<p> -“Where shall we go, Renny?” she asked, glancing timidly up at me. -</p> - -<p> -“To Epping again, Dolly, dear. I’ve set my heart on it.” -</p> - -<p> -She seemed at first as if about to ask me why; then to shrink from a -subject she dreaded appearing to have a leading interest in. -</p> - -<p> -“Very well,” she answered, faintly. “It will be lovely there now.” -</p> - -<p> -“Won’t you help a poor woman to a crust of bread, kind lidy?” said a -voluble whining voice at our ears, and a sturdy mendicant thrust her -hand between us. She was a very frouzy and forbidding-looking -mendicant, indeed, with battered bonnet askew and villainous small -eyes, and her neighborhood was redolent of gin. -</p> - -<p> -“Spare a copper, kind lidy and gentleman,” she entreated, with a -bibulous smirk, “and call down the blessings of ’eving on a widowed -’art as ’an’t tysted bit or sup since yesterday come to-morrer, and -five blessed children wantin’ a ’ome, which it’s the rent overdue and -these ’ands wore to knife powder scrapin’ in the gutters for scraps -which one crust of bread would ease. Kind lidy, oh, just a copper.” -</p> - -<p> -Dolly was for putting a charitable hand into her pocket as the -creature followed us, but I peremptorily stopped her and would not -have her imposed upon. -</p> - -<p> -“Kind lidy,” continued the woman, “I’ve walked the streets all night -since yesterday morning and the soles off my feet, kind lidy; won’t -you spare a copper? And I dursn’t go ’ome for fear of my man, and I -buried the youngest a week come yesterday, and praise ’eving I’m a -lonely widder, without child or ’usband, kind lidy; just a copper for -the funeral—and rot the faces off of you for a couple of bloomin’ -marks in your silks and satings and may you die of the black thirst -with the ale foamin’ in barrils out of reach. You a lidy? Oh, yes, -sich as cocks her nose at a honest woman starvin’ in her rags, and so -will you some day, for all your pink cheeks, when you’ve been thrown -over like this here bloomin’ bonnet!” -</p> - -<p> -She screamed after us and caught the moldy relic from her head and -slapped it upon the pavement in a drunken frenzy, and she reviled us -in worse language than I can venture to record. Poor Dolly was -frightened and urged me tremblingly to hurry on out of reach of that -strident, cursing voice. I was so angry that I would have liked to -give the foul-mouthed harridan into custody, but the nervous tremors -of my companion urged me to the wiser course of leaving bad alone, and -we were soon out of earshot of the degraded creature. -</p> - -<p> -“Renny,” whispered the girl in half-terrified tones, “did you hear -what she said?” -</p> - -<p> -“What does it matter what she said, Dolly?” -</p> - -<p> -“She cursed me. God wouldn’t allow a curse from a woman like that to -mean anything, would He?” -</p> - -<p> -“My dear, you must cure yourself of those fancies. God, you may be -sure, wouldn’t use such a discordant instrument for His divine -thunders. The market value of her curse, you see, she put at a -copper.” -</p> - -<p> -She looked up at me with her lips quivering a little. She was -evidently upset, and it was some time before I could win her back to -her own pretty self. -</p> - -<p> -“I wish the day hadn’t begun like this,” she said in a low voice. -</p> - -<p> -“It shall come in like the lion of March, Dolly, and go out like a -lamb—at least, I hope so.” -</p> - -<p> -“So do I,” she whispered, but with the fright still in her eyes. -</p> - -<p> -“Why, Dolly,” I said, “I could almost think you superstitious—and you -a Ripley hand!” -</p> - -<p> -She laughed faintly. -</p> - -<p> -“I never knew I was, Renny. But everything seemed bright and peaceful -till her horrible voice ground it with dust. I wonder why she said -that?” -</p> - -<p> -“Said what, Dolly?” -</p> - -<p> -“That about being thrown over.” -</p> - -<p> -“Now, Doll, I’ll have no more of it. Leave her to her gin palace and -set your pretty face to the forest. One, two, three and off we go.” -</p> - -<p> -We caught our train by the tail, as one may say, and took our seats -out of breath and merry. The run had brought the bloom to my -companion’s face once more and the breeze had ruffled and swept her -shining hair rebellious. She seemed a very sweet little possession for -a dusty Londoner to enjoy—a charming garden of blossom for the -fancies to rove over. -</p> - -<p> -Ah, me; how can I proceed; how write down what follows? The fruit was -to fall and never for me. The blossoms of the garden were to be -scattered underfoot and trodden upon and their sweet perfume -embittered in death. -</p> - -<p> -As we walked down the platform a voice hailing me made the blood jump -in my heart. -</p> - -<p> -“Renny—Renny! What brings you here? Why, what a coincidence! Well -met, old fellow! And I say, won’t you introduce me?” -</p> - -<p> -“Miss Mellison—this is my brother.” I almost added a curse under my -breath. -</p> - -<p> -I was striving hard for self-command, but my voice would only issue -harsh and mechanical. He had overreached me—had watched, of course, -and followed secretly in pursuit. -</p> - -<p> -“How delighted I am to meet you,” he said. “Here was I—only lately -come to London, Miss Mellison—sick for country air again and looking -to nothing better than a lonely tramp through the forest and fate -throws a whole armful of roses at me. Are you going there, too? Do let -me come with you.” -</p> - -<p> -Dolly looked timidly up at me. We had left the station and were -standing on the road outside. -</p> - -<p> -“Oh, Miss Mellison’s shy in company,” I said. “Let’s each go our way -and we can meet at the station this evening.” -</p> - -<p> -“I’m sure you won’t echo that,” said Jason, looking smilingly at the -girl. “I see heaven before me and he wants to shut me out. There’s an -unnatural brother for you.” -</p> - -<p> -“It seems unkind, don’t it, Renny? We hadn’t thought to give you the -slip, Mr. Trender. Why, really, till now I didn’t even know of your -existence.” -</p> - -<p> -“That’s Renalt’s way, of course. He always wanted to keep the good -things to himself. But I’ve been in London quite a long time now, Miss -Mellison, and he hasn’t even mentioned me to you.” -</p> - -<p> -Dolly gave me a glance half-perplexed, half-reproachful. -</p> - -<p> -“Why didn’t you, Renny?” -</p> - -<p> -I struggled to beat down the answer that was on my lips: “Because I -thought him no fit company for you.” -</p> - -<p> -“I didn’t see why I should,” I said, coolly. “I’m not bound to make my -friends his.” -</p> - -<p> -“How rude you are—and your own brother! Don’t mind him, Mr. Trender. -He can be very unpleasant when he chooses.” -</p> - -<p> -She smiled at him and my heart sunk. Was it possible that his -eyes—his low musical voice—could he be taking her captive already? -</p> - -<p> -“Come,” I said, roughly. “We’re losing the morning chattering here, -Dolly. You’re not wanted, Jason. That’s the blunt truth.” -</p> - -<p> -Dolly gave a little, pained cry of deprecation. -</p> - -<p> -“Don’t, Renny! It’s horrible of you.” -</p> - -<p> -“I can’t help it,” I said, savagely. “He’s as obtuse as a tortoise. He -ought to see he’s in the way.” -</p> - -<p> -“You give me credit for too delicate a discrimination, my good -brother. But I’ll go if I’m not wanted.” -</p> - -<p> -“No, you sha’n’t, Mr. Trender. I won’t be a party to such behavior.” -</p> - -<p> -I turned upon the girl with a white face, I could feel. -</p> - -<p> -“Dolly,” I said, hoarsely. “If he goes with you, I don’t!” -</p> - -<p> -Her face flushed with anger for the first time in my knowledge of her. -</p> - -<p> -“You can do just as you like, Renny, and spoil my day if you want to. -But I haven’t given you the right to order me about as if I was a -child.” -</p> - -<p> -Without another word I turned upon my heel and left them. I was -furious with a conflicting rage of emotions—detestation of my -brother, anger toward Dolly, baffled vanity and mad disappointment. In -a moment the sunshine of the day had been tortured into gloom. The -sting of that was the stab I felt most keenly in the first tumult of -my passion. That this soft caprice of sex I had condescended to so -masterfully in my thoughts should turn upon and defy me! I had not -deemed such a thing possible. Had she only played with me after all, -coquetting and humoring and rending after the manner of her kind? Were -it so, she should hear of the mere pity that had driven me to -patronizing consideration of her claims; should learn of my essential -indifference to her in a very effectual manner. -</p> - -<p> -I am ashamed to recall the first violence with which, in my mind, I -tortured that poor gentle image. As my rage cooled, it wrought, I must -confess, an opposite revenge. Then Dolly became in my eyes a treasure -more desirable than ever, now my chance of gaining her seemed shaken. -I thought of all her tender moods and pretty ways, so that my eyes -filled with tears. I had behaved rudely, had shocked her gentle sense -of decorum. And here, by reason of an exaggerated spleen, had I thrown -her alone into the company of the very man whose influence over her I -most dreaded. -</p> - -<p> -And what would Duke say—Duke, who in noble abrogation of his own -claims had so pathetically committed to my care this child of his deep -unselfish love? -</p> - -<p> -I had been walking rapidly in the opposite direction to that I fancied -the other two would take; and now I stopped and faced about, scared -with a sudden shock of remorse. -</p> - -<p> -What a fool, a coward, a traitor to my trust I had been! I must -retrace my steps at once and seek them up and down the forest alleys. -I started off in panic haste, sweating with the terror of what I had -done. I plunged presently into the woods, and for a couple of hours -hurried hither and thither without meeting them. -</p> - -<p> -By and by, breaking into the open again, I came upon an inn, favored -of tourists, that stood back from a road. I was parched and exhausted, -and thought a glass of beer would revive me to a fresh start. Walking -into the tap I passed by the open door of the coffee-room, and there -inside were they seated at a table together, and a waiter was -uncorking a bottle of champagne behind them. -</p> - -<p> -Why didn’t I go in then and there? I had found my quarry and the game -might yet be mine. Ask the stricken lover who will pursue his lady -hotly through anxious hours and then, when he sees her at last, will -saunter carelessly by as if his heart were cold to her attractions. -Some such motive, in a form infinitely baser, was mine. I may call it -pride, and hear the wheel creak out a sardonic laugh. -</p> - -<p> -“They seem happy enough without me,” my heart said, but my conscience -knew the selfishness that must nurse an injury above any sore need of -the injurer. -</p> - -<p> -Their voices came to me happy and merry. They had not seen me. I drank -my beer and stole outside miserably temporizing with my duty. -</p> - -<p> -“She sha’n’t escape again,” I thought; “I’ll go a little distance off -and watch.” -</p> - -<p> -I waited long, but they never came. At length, stung to desperation, I -strode back to the inn and straight into the coffee-room. It was -empty. Seeing a waiter, I asked him if the lady and gentleman who had -lunched at such a table had left. -</p> - -<p> -“Yes,” he said. He believed the lady and gentleman had gone into the -forest by the garden way. -</p> - -<p> -Then I was baffled again. Surely the curse of the virago of the -morning was operating after all. -</p> - -<p> -Evening drew on, and at last there was no help for it but to make for -the station and catch our usual train back to town. -</p> - -<p> -They were standing on the platform when I reached it. I walked -straight up to them. Dolly flushed crimson when she saw me and then -went pale as a windflower, but she never spoke a word. -</p> - -<p> -“Hullo!” said Jason. “The wanderer returned. We’ve had a rare day of -it; and you have, too, no doubt.” -</p> - -<p> -I spoke steadily, with a set determination to prove master of myself. -</p> - -<p> -“I’ve been looking for you all day. Dolly, I’m sorry I left you in a -temper. Please forgive me, dear.” -</p> - -<p> -“Oh, yes,” she said, indifferently and weariedly. “It doesn’t matter.” -</p> - -<p> -“But it does matter to me, Dolly, very much, to keep your good -opinion.” -</p> - -<p> -She turned and looked at me with a strange expression, as if she were -on the point of bursting into tears, but she only ended with a little -formless laugh and looked away again. -</p> - -<p> -“I don’t think you can value my good opinion much, and I’m sure I -don’t know why you should.” -</p> - -<p> -The train lunging in at this point stopped our further talk; and, once -seated in it, the girl lay back in her corner with closed eyes as if -asleep. -</p> - -<p> -Jason sat silent, with folded arms, the lamplight below the shadow -cast by his hat brim emphasizing the smile on his firmly curved lips; -and I, for my part, sat silent also, for my heart seemed sick unto -death. -</p> - -<p> -At the terminus Dolly would have no further escort home. She was tired -out, she said, and begged only we would see her into an omnibus and go -our ways without her. -</p> - -<p> -As the vehicle lumbered off I turned fiercely upon my brother. -</p> - - -<h3 id="ch23"> -CHAPTER XXIII.<br/> -<span class="chap_sub">A LETTER AND AN ANSWER.</span> -</h3> - -<p> -“You dog!” I said, in a low, stern voice; “tell me the meaning of -this.” -</p> - -<p> -He gave a little, mocking, airy laugh and, thrusting his hands into -his pockets, wheeled round upon me. -</p> - -<p> -“What’s your question?” said he. -</p> - -<p> -“You know. What have you said to the girl to make her treat me like -this?” -</p> - -<p> -He raised his eyebrows in assumed perplexity. -</p> - -<p> -“Really,” he said, “you go a long way to seek. What have I said? How -have you behaved, you mean.” -</p> - -<p> -“You lie—I don’t! I know her, that’s enough. If you have told her my -story——” -</p> - -<p> -“If?” he repeated, coolly. -</p> - -<p> -“I may add a last chapter to it, in which you’ll figure—that’s all.” -</p> - -<p> -He was a little startled, I could see, but retained his sang froid, -with an effort. -</p> - -<p> -“You jump too much to conclusion, my good fellow. I have said nothing -to her about your little affair with Modred as yet.” -</p> - -<p> -“That means you intend to hold it over my head as a menace where she -is concerned. I know you.” -</p> - -<p> -“Then you know a very charming fellow. Why, what a dolt you are! -Here’s a pother because I play cavalier to a girl whom you throw over -in a fit of sulks. I couldn’t do less in common decency.” -</p> - -<p> -“Take care that you do no more. I’m not the only one to reckon with in -this business.” -</p> - -<p> -“A fig for that!” he cried, snapping his fingers. “I’m not to be -coerced into taking second place if I have a fancy for first.” -</p> - -<p> -“I warn you; that’s enough. For the rest, let’s understand one -another. I’ll have no more of this sham for convention’s sake. We’re -enemies, and we’ll be known for enemies. My door’s shut to you. Keep -out of my way and think twice before you make me desperate.” -</p> - -<p> -With that I turned and strode from him. His mocking laugh came after -me again, but I took no notice of it. -</p> - -<p> -Should I tell Duke all? I shrunk from the mere thought. A coward even -then, I dared not confess to him how I had betrayed my trust; what -fearful suspicions of the nature of my failure lay dark on my heart. -No—I must see Dolly first and force my sentence from her lips. -</p> - -<p> -He put down the book he was reading from, as I entered the -sitting-room. -</p> - -<p> -“Well,” he said, cheerily, “what success?” -</p> - -<p> -I sat away from him, beyond the radiance of the lamp, and affected to -be busy unlacing my boots. -</p> - -<p> -“I can’t say as yet, Duke. Do you mind postponing the question for a -day or two?” -</p> - -<p> -“Of course, if you wish it.” I felt the surprise in his tone. “Mayn’t -I ask why?” -</p> - -<p> -“Not now, old fellow. I missed my opportunity, that’s all.” -</p> - -<p> -“Is anything wrong, Renny?” -</p> - -<p> -“Not all right, at least.” -</p> - -<p> -“Renny, why shouldn’t it be? I can’t be mistaken as to the direction -of her feelings—by my soul, I can’t.” -</p> - -<p> -“I’m not so sure,” I said, in a voice of great distress. -</p> - -<p> -He recognized it and stopped questioning me at once. -</p> - -<p> -“You want to be alone, I see,” said he, gently. “Well, I’ll be off.” -</p> - -<p> -As he passed me, he placed his hand for a moment on my shoulder. The -action was tender and sympathetic, but I shrunk under it as if it had -been a blow. -</p> - -<p> -When the door had closed upon him I rose and sat down at the table. I -wrote: -</p> - -<div class="letter"> - -<p> -“Dear Dolly: I made a fool of myself to-day and have repented it ever -since in sackcloth and ashes. I had so wished to be alone with you, -dear, and it made me mad that he should come between us. He isn’t a -good companion for you. I must say it, though he is my brother. Had I -thought him so I should have brought him to see you before. I only say -this to explain my anger at his appearance, and now I will drop the -subject for another, which is the real reason of my writing. I had -hoped, so much, dear, to put it to you personally, there in the old -forest that we have spent so many happy hours in, but I missed my -opportunity and now I am in too much of a fever to wait another week. -Dolly, will you be my wife? I can afford a home of my own now, and I -shall be glad and grateful if you will consent to become mistress of -it. I feel that written words can only sound cold at best; so I will -say nothing more here, but just this—if you will have me, I will -strive in all things to be your loving and devoted husband. -</p> - -<p class="sign2"> -“<span class="sc">Renalt Trender</span>.” -</p> - -</div> - -<p> -All in a glow of confident tenderness, inspired by the words I had -written, I added the address and went out and posted my little -missive. Its mere composition, the fact of its now lying in the -postbox, a link between us, gave me a chastened sense of relief and -satisfaction that was restorative to my injured vanity. The mistake of -the morning was reacted upon in time, and I felt that nothing short of -a disruption of natural affinities could interfere to keep back the -inevitable answer. So assured was I, indeed, that I allowed my -thoughts to wander as if for a last farewell, into regions wherein the -simple heart of my present could find no way to enter. “Good-by, Zyp,” -the voiceless soul of me muttered. -</p> - -<p> -That night, looking at Duke’s dark head at rest on the pillow, I -thought: “It will be put right to-morrow or the next day, and you, -dear friend, need never know what might have followed on my abuse of -your trust.” Then I slept peacefully, but my dreams were all of -Zyp—not of the other. -</p> - -<p> -The next day, at the office, I was careful to keep altogether out of -Dolly’s way. Indeed, my work taking me elsewhere, I never once saw her -and went home in the evening unenlightened by a single glance from her -gray eyes. This, the better policy, I thought, would save us both -embarrassment and the annoyance of any curiosity on the part of her -fellow-workers, who would surely be quick to detect a romantic state -of affairs between us. -</p> - -<p> -Nevertheless, despite my self-confidence, I awaited that evening in -some trepidation the answer that was to decide the direction of my -future. -</p> - -<p> -We were sitting at supper when it came, held by one corner in her -apron by our landlady, and my face went pale as I saw the schoolgirl -superscription. -</p> - -<p> -“From Dolly?” murmured Duke. -</p> - -<p> -I nodded and broke the seal. My hands trembled and a mist was before -my eyes. It ran as follows: -</p> - -<div class="letter"> - -<p> -“Dear Renny: Thank you very, very much for your kind offer, but I -can’t accept it. I thought I had so much to say, and this is all I can -think of. I hope it won’t hurt you. It can’t, I know, for long, -because now I see I was never really the first in your heart; and your -letter don’t sound as if you will find it very difficult to get over. -Please forgive me if I’m wrong, but anyhow it’s too late now. I might -have once, but I can’t now, Renny. I think perhaps I became a woman -all in a moment yesterday. Please don’t write or say a word to me -again about this, for I mean it really and truly. Your affectionate -friend, -</p> - -<p class="sign2"> -<span class="sc">Dolly Mellison</span>.” -</p> - -<p> -“P. S.—It was a little unfair of you, I must say, not to tell me -about that Zyp.” -</p> - -</div> - -<p> -I sat and returned the letter to its folds quite coolly and calmly. If -there was fire in me, I kept it under then. -</p> - -<p> -“Duke,” I said, quietly, “she has refused me.” -</p> - -<p> -He struggled up from his chair. His face was all amazement and his -voice hoarse. -</p> - -<p> -“Refused you? What have you said? What have you done? Something has -happened, I tell you.” -</p> - -<p> -“Why? She was at perfect liberty to make her own choice.” -</p> - -<p> -“You wrote to her last night?” -</p> - -<p> -“Yes.” -</p> - -<p> -“Why did you? Why didn’t you do as I understood you intended to -yesterday?” -</p> - -<p> -“I asked you to leave that question alone for the present.” -</p> - -<p> -“You’ve no right to. I——” his face flamed up for a moment. But with -a mighty effort he fought it under. -</p> - -<p> -“Renny,” he said, in a subdued voice, “I had no business to speak to -you like that. But you don’t know upon what a wheel of torment I have -been these last weeks. The girl—Dolly—is so much to me, and her -happiness——” he broke off almost with a sob. -</p> - -<p> -I sprung to my feet. I could bear it no longer. -</p> - -<p> -“Think what you like of me!” I cried. “I have made a muddle of the -whole business—a wretched, unhappy muddle. But I suffer, too, Duke. I -never knew what Miss—Miss Mellison was to me till now, when I have -lost her.” -</p> - -<p> -“I don’t ask to see her letter. You haven’t misread it by any -possibility?” -</p> - -<p> -“No—it’s perfectly clear. She refuses me and holds out no hope.” -</p> - -<p> -He set his frowning brows and fell into a gloomy silence. He took no -notice of me even when I told him that I must go into the open air for -awhile to walk and try to find surcease of my racking trouble. -</p> - -<p> -“Now,” I thought, when I got outside, “for the villainous truth. To -strike at me like that! It was worthy of him—worthy of him. And I am -to blame for leaving them together—I, who pretended to an affection -for the girl and was ready to swear to love and protect her -forevermore. What a pitiful rag of manliness! What courage that -daren’t even now tell the truth to my friend up there! Friend? He’s -done with me, I expect. But for the other. He didn’t give her my -history—not he. Perhaps he didn’t as I meant it, but I never dreamed -that he would play upon that second stop for his devils of hate to -dance to; I never even thought of it. What a hideous fool I have been! -Oh, Jason, my brother, if it had only been you instead of Modred!” -</p> - -<p> -I jerked to a stop. Some formless thoughts had been in my mind to -hurry on into the presence of the villain who had dealt me such a -coward blow, and to drive his slander in one red crash down his -throat. Now, in an instant, it broke upon me that I had no knowledge -of where he lived—that by my own act I had yesterday cut off all -communication between us. Perhaps, though, in his cobra-like dogging -of me he would be driven before long to seek me out again of his own -accord, that he might gloat over the havoc he had occasioned. I must -bide my time as patiently as I could on the chance. -</p> - -<p> -Late at night I returned and lay down upon the sofa in the -sitting-room. I felt unclean for Duke’s company and would not go up to -him. Let me do myself justice. It was not all dread of his anger that -kept me from him. There was a most lost, sorrowful feeling in me at -having thus requited all his friendship and his generosity. -</p> - -<p> -As I lay and writhed in sickly thought, my eye was attracted by the -glimmering of some white object set prominently on the mantelpiece. I -rose and found it was a letter addressed to me in his handwriting. -Foreseeing its contents I tore it open and read: -</p> - -<div class="letter"> - -<p> -“I think it best that our partnership should cease and I find lodging -elsewhere. You will understand my reasons. Dolly comes first with me, -that’s all. It may have been your error; I can’t think it was your -willful fault; but that she would have refused you without some good -reason I can’t believe. Your manner seems to point to the suspicion -that somehow her happiness is threatened. I may be wrong, but I intend -to set myself to find out; and until some explanation is forthcoming, -I think it best that we should live apart. I shall call here to-morrow -during the dinner hour and arrange about having my things moved and -settle matters as far as I am concerned. Your friend, -</p> - -<p class="sign2"> -<span class="sc">Duke Straw</span>.” -</p> - -</div> - -<p> -I stood long with the letter in my hand. -</p> - -<p> -“Well, it’s best,” I muttered at last, “and I thought he would do it. -He’s my friend still, thank heaven, for he says so. But, oh, Jason, -your debt is accumulating!” -</p> - - -<h3 id="ch24"> -CHAPTER XXIV.<br/> -<span class="chap_sub">LOST.</span> -</h3> - -<p> -The week that followed was a sad and lonely one to me. My romance was -ended—my friend parted from me—my heart ever wincing under the -torture of self-reproach. -</p> - -<p> -As to the first, it would seem that I should have no great reason for -insuperable regret. The situation had been made for, not by me; I was -free to let my thoughts revert unhampered to the object of my first -and only true love. -</p> - -<p> -That was all so; yet I know I brooded over my loss for the time being, -as if it were the greatest that could have befallen me. Such is human -inconsistency. So he who, vainly seeking some large reward, -condescends half-disdainfully to a smaller, is altogether -disproportionately vexed if the latter is unexpectedly denied him. -</p> - -<p> -I went about my work in a hopeless, mechanical manner that only -scarcely concealed the bitter ache my heart endured. Occasionally, at -rare intervals, I came across Dolly, but formally only and never to -exchange a word. Furtively glancing at her when this happened, I -noticed that she looked pale, and, I thought, not happy, but this may -have been nothing but fancy, for my hasty view was generally limited -to half-profile. Of me she took no heed, desiring, apparently, the -absolute close of our old intercourse, and mere pride precluded me -from making any further effort toward an explanation. -</p> - -<p> -Would that even then I had been wise or noble enough to force the -barrier of reserve. God knows but I might have been in time to save -her. Yet maybe my attitude was not altogether unjustified. To put me -on the footing of a formal stranger was heavy punishment for a fault -committed under motives that were anything, at least, but base. -</p> - -<p> -With Duke my intercourse was confined to the office and to matters of -business. He showed no unfriendly spirit toward me there and no desire -for a resumption of our old terms. He never, in public or private, -touched upon the subject that was nearest both our hearts, or alluded -to it in any way. If I was conscious of any melancholy shadow towering -between us it was not because he sought to lend to its features the -gloom that must be enwrapping his own soul. -</p> - -<p> -At last the week ended, and the silence, that had lain black and -ominous as a snake along it, was awakened and reared itself, poisonous -for a spring. Yet its voice spoke up musical at first. -</p> - -<p> -It was Saturday afternoon, and I was walking home toward my lodgings -in a very depressed frame of mind, when a step came behind me and Duke -fell into step alongside. -</p> - -<p> -“Renny,” he said, “I think it right to tell you. I have taken the -privilege of an old friend and spoken to Dolly on a certain subject.” -</p> - -<p> -I nodded. The mere fact was a relief to me. -</p> - -<p> -“We could only exchange a few words, but she has promised to come out -with me to-morrow; and then, I hope, I shall learn more. What time -will you be at home?” -</p> - -<p> -I told him all day, if there was a chance of his turning up. -</p> - -<p> -“Very well,” he said; “then I will call in upon you some time or -other. Good-by.” -</p> - -<p> -He seemed to be on the point of going, but to alter his mind, and he -suddenly took my hand and pressed it hard. -</p> - -<p> -“Are you lonely, old fellow?” -</p> - -<p> -“Very, Duke—and I deserve to be.” -</p> - -<p> -“It’s for the best? You agree with me?” -</p> - -<p> -“Quite.” -</p> - -<p> -He looked sorrowfully in my face, wrung my hand a second time and -walked off rapidly. -</p> - -<p> -It was the expression of his I ever after remembered with most -pathetic heart-sickness and love. I never saw it in his eyes -again—never again. -</p> - -<p> -I rose upon the Sunday morning restless still and unrefreshed. An -undefinable feeling of ominous expectancy would not let me sit quiet -or read or do anything but lend my mind to extravagant speculations -and pace the room up and down in nervous irritability. -</p> - -<p> -At last, thoroughly tired out, I threw myself into an easy-chair and -dozed off from sheer exhaustion. I could not have slept many minutes, -when a clap in my ears awoke me. It might have been an explosive burst -of thunder, so loudly it slammed upon my senses. Yet it was nothing -more than the closing of the room door. -</p> - -<p> -Then I struggled to my feet, for Duke stood before me, and I saw that -his face was white and menacing as death’s own. -</p> - -<p> -“Get up!” he cried, in a harsh, stern voice. “I want to ask you -something.” -</p> - -<p> -I faced him and my heart seemed to suddenly swerve down with a sickly -sensation. -</p> - -<p> -“What is it?” I muttered. -</p> - -<p> -“She’s gone—that’s all!” -</p> - -<p> -“Gone?” -</p> - -<p> -“She never met me this morning as she promised. I waited an -hour—more. Then I grew frightened and went to her lodgings. She had -left the evening before, saying she wasn’t coming back. A man came to -fetch her and she went away with him. Do you understand?—with him!” -</p> - -<p> -“With whom?” I asked, in a confused, reeling manner; yet I knew. -</p> - -<p> -“I want you to tell me.” -</p> - -<p> -“How can I, Duke?” -</p> - -<p> -“I want you to say what you have done with your trust? There has been -something going on of late—some secret kept from me. Where is that -brother of yours?” -</p> - -<p> -“I know no more than you do.” -</p> - -<p> -“I shall find out before long. The cunning doesn’t exist that could -keep him hidden from me if—if he is a party to this. Why are you -silent? I can read it in your eyes. They have met, and it must have -been through you.” -</p> - -<p> -“Before God, it wasn’t!” -</p> - -<p> -“Then they have!” He put his hand to his face and staggered as if he -had been struck there. -</p> - -<p> -“Oh!” he gasped; “the horror of what I dreaded!” -</p> - -<p> -Then he came closer and snarled at me: -</p> - -<p> -“Here’s a friend, out of all the world! So patronizing to accept the -poor little treasure of my life and soul, and so royal to roll it in -the mud! Was this a put-up affair between you?” -</p> - -<p> -“You are hateful and unjust!” I cried, stung beyond endurance. “He -forced himself upon us last Sunday. I was brutal, almost, in my -efforts to get rid of him. But for some reason or other, Dolly—Miss -Mellison—took his side. When I found so, I left them in a huff and -repented almost immediately. But, though I sought far and near, I -never came across them again till evening.” -</p> - -<p> -He listened with a black, gloomy impatience. -</p> - -<p> -“You acted well, by your own confession,” said he. “You played the -part of a true friend and lover by leaving her alone for a moment only -in the company of that paragon.” -</p> - -<p> -“I oughtn’t to, I know.” -</p> - -<p> -He gave a high, grating laugh. -</p> - -<p> -“But, putting me on one side,” I began, when he took me up with the -most intense acrid bitterness. -</p> - -<p> -“Why can’t I, indeed—you and all your precious kith and kin? Why did -I ever save you from being knocked on the head in that thieves’ -garden? I was happy before—God knows I might have been happy in -another way now. You’ve proved the viper on my hearth with a -vengeance. Put you on one side? Ah, I dare say that would suit you -well—to shirk the responsibility of your own act and leave the -suffering to others.” -</p> - -<p> -“I have suffered, Duke, and always shall. I won’t gainsay you—but -this hurts me perhaps only one degree less than it does you. Why put -the worst construction on it?” -</p> - -<p> -He gave another cruel laugh. -</p> - -<p> -“Let’s have your theory of her vanishing without a word to me,” he -said. -</p> - -<p> -“At least you can’t be certain that it—it was my brother.” -</p> - -<p> -“How perspicacious of you! You don’t think so yourself, do you? Or -that I should have meekly accepted that woman’s statement without some -inquiry as to the appearance of the interesting stranger?” -</p> - -<p> -He dropped his cruelly bantering manner for one hard as iron and -ferocious. -</p> - -<p> -“Let’s stop this double-faced foolery. I want his address of you.” -</p> - -<p> -“I haven’t got it, you know.” -</p> - -<p> -“You can’t guess at it?” -</p> - -<p> -“Not possibly. What would you do if you had it?” -</p> - -<p> -“What do you think? Call and offer my congratulations, of course.” -</p> - -<p> -“Don’t be a madman. You know nothing for certain. Wait and see if she -doesn’t turn up at the office as usual to-morrow.” -</p> - -<p> -He seemed to think a moment, and then he threw up his hands with a -loud, wailing moan. -</p> - -<p> -“Lost!” he cried. “In my heart I know it.” -</p> - -<p> -Did I not in mine? It had rung in my ears all night. I took a step -toward him, greatly moved by his despairing, broken tone, but he waved -me back fiercely. -</p> - -<p> -“I curse the day,” he cried in bitter grief, “that ever I came across -you. I would have let you rob me—that was nothing to her happiness; -but now——” -</p> - -<p> -“Let him look to himself,” he went on after a pause, in which he had -mastered his emotion. “After to-morrow—I will wait till then—but -afterward—the world isn’t wide enough to keep us apart. Better for -him to run from an uncubbed tigress than this twisted cripple!” -</p> - -<p> -He tossed one arm aloft with a wild, savage gesture and strode heavily -from the room. -</p> - - -<h3 id="ch25"> -CHAPTER XXV.<br/> -<span class="chap_sub">A LAST MESSAGE.</span> -</h3> - -<p> -Dolly never came to work the next morning, but there arrived a little -letter from her to Mr. Ripley, giving notice, that was all, with no -address or clew to her whereabouts, and an intimation that it was -understood she sacrificed her position—pitiful heaven, for what? -</p> - -<p> -My employer tossed the note to me indifferently, asking me to see -about the engagement of a fresh hand, if necessary. He little guessed -what those few simple words meant to two of his staff, or foresaw the -tragedy to which they were the prelude. -</p> - -<p> -When the dinner hour came I followed Duke out and put the scrap of -paper into his hand without a word. He was not unprepared for it, for -he already knew, of course, that his worst apprehensions were realized -by the non-appearance of the girl at her usual place in the office. -</p> - -<p> -He read it in silence, and in silence handed it back to me. His face -in twenty-four hours seemed to have grown to be the face of an old -man. All its once half-sad, half-humorous thoughtfulness was set into -a single hard expression of some dark resolve. -</p> - -<p> -“Well,” he said, suddenly, stopping in his walk and facing me, for I -still kept pace with him. -</p> - -<p> -“What do you intend doing, Duke?” -</p> - -<p> -“I have one mission in life, Mr. Trender. Good-afternoon to you.” -</p> - -<p> -I fell back and watched him go from me. Maimed as I was myself, how -could I in any way help him to cure his crueler hurt? -</p> - -<p> -But now began a curious somber struggle of cross purposes. To find out -where Jason had sunk his burrow and hidden the spoils of his ugly -false sport—there we worked in harness. It was only when the quarry -should be run down that we must necessarily disagree as to the terms -of its disposition. -</p> - -<p> -For myself: A new despairing trouble had been woven into my life by -the hand that had already wrought me such evil. Its very touch had, -however, made wreck of an impression that had been in a certain sense -an embarrassment, and my movements became in consequence less -trammeled. Let me explain more definitely, if indeed I can do so and -not appear heartless. -</p> - -<p> -Dolly, innocent, bewitching and desirable, had so confused my moral -ideas as to imbue them with a certain sweet sophistry of love that -half-deceived me into a belief in its fundamental soundness. That was -done with. Dolly dethroned, earthly, enamored of a brazen idol could -be no rival to Zyp. My heart might yearn to her with pity and a deep -remorse that it was I who had been the weak, responsible minister of -her perversion, but the old feeling was dead, never to be revived. I -longed to find her; to rescue her from the black gulf into which I -feared she had leaped; to face the villain who had bruised her heart -and wrench atonement from him by the throat, as it were. Not less it -was my duty to warn him; stand between him, worthless as he was, and -the deadly pursuit alert for his destruction. -</p> - -<p> -For Duke: I must judge him as he revealed himself to me, and baffle, -if possible, the terrible spirit of what I dared not name to myself. -Think only that at one wicked blow he was deprived of that whole -structure of gentle romance that had saved his moral life from -starvation! -</p> - -<p> -Therefore it was that during the after hours of work I became for long -a restless, flitting ghost haunted by a ghost. By street and rail and -river, aimless apparently, but with one object through all, we went -wandering through the dark mazes of the night and of the city, always -hoping to light upon that we sought and always baffled. Theaters, -restaurants, music halls, night shows and exhibitions of every -description—any place that was calculated to attract in the least a -nature responsive to the foppery of glitter or an appeal to the -senses—we visited and explored, without result. Gambling dens—such -as we could obtain the entree to—were a persistent lodestone to our -restlessness; and here, especially, was I often conscious of that -shadow of a shade—that dark ghost of my own phantom -footsteps—standing silent at my elbow and watching—watching for him -who never came. -</p> - -<p> -Whithersoever we went the spur of the moment’s qualm goaded us. Any -little experience, any chance allusion, was sufficient to suggest a -possibility in the matter of the tendency of a lost and degenerate -soul. Now we foregathered on the skirt of some fulsome and braying -street preacher’s band; now suffered in a music hall under the -skittish vapidity of a “lion comique”; now, perhaps, humbled our hot -and weary pride in the luminous twilight of some old walled-in church, -where evening service brought a few worshipers together. -</p> - -<p> -I say “we,” yet in all this we acted independently. Only, whether in -company or apart, the spirit of one common motive linked us together, -and that so that I, at least, never felt alone. -</p> - -<p> -So the weeks drew into months and Dolly herself was a phantom to my -memory. By day the mechanism of our lives moved in the accustomed -grooves; by night we were wandering birds of passage flitting dismally -over waste places. More than once on a Sunday had I taken train to -Epping, driven by the thought that some half-forgotten sentiment might -by chance move other than me to the scene of old pleasant experiences. -But she never came. Her “seasick weary bark” was nearing the rocks, -and the breakers of eternity were already sounding in her ears. -</p> - -<p> -Why postpone the inevitable or delay longer over description of that -pointless pursuit that was to end only in catastrophe and death? -</p> - -<p> -Christmas had come and gone with me—a mockery of good will and -cheer—and a bitter January set in. That month the very demon of the -east wind flew uncontrolled, and his steely sting was of a length and -shrewdness to pierce thickest cloth and coverlet, frame and lung and -heart itself. -</p> - -<p> -One evening I had swallowed my supper and was preparing for my nightly -prowl. Duke had remained at the office overtime, and my tramp was like -to be unhaunted of its familiar. I had actually blown out the lamp, -when his rapid footstep—I knew it well—came up the stairs, and in a -moment the door was thrown open with a crash and I heard him breathing -in the room. -</p> - -<p> -“He’s gone!” he ejaculated in a quick, panting voice. -</p> - -<p> -“No; I’m here, Duke!” -</p> - -<p> -“My God! Renny—do you hear? Come—come at once. No—light the lamp; -I’ve something to show you.” -</p> - -<p> -I struck a match, with shaking hand, and put it to the wick. As the -dull flame sputtered and rose I turned and looked at my friend. The -expression of his face I shall never forget till I die. It was -bloodless—spectral—inhuman; the face of one to whom a great dread -had been realized—a last hope denied. -</p> - -<p> -He held out to me a little soiled and crumpled sheet of paper. I took -it, with a spasm of the heart and breath that seemed to suffocate me. -My eyes turned from and were fascinated by it at once. -</p> - -<p> -“You had better read,” he said. “It’s the last chapter of your own -pretty romance. Make haste—I want to get to business.” -</p> - -<p> -It was from her, as I had foreseen—a few sad words to the old good -friend who had so loved and protected her: -</p> - -<div class="letter"> - -<p> -“I must let you know before I go to die. I couldn’t meet you that -morning—what a time ago it seems! He wouldn’t let me, though I cried -and begged him to. I don’t know now what made me do it all; how he -upset my faith in Renny and turned my love to himself in a moment. I -think he has a dreadful influence that made me follow him and obey -him. It doesn’t matter now. I went to him, that’s enough; and he’s -broken my heart. Please ask Renny to forgive me. Perhaps if he had had -a little more patience with me I might have acted different—but I -can’t be certain even of that. I’m going to kill myself, Duke, dear, -and before I do it I just want to say this: I know now you loved poor -Dolly all the time. How I know it I don’t understand, but somehow it’s -quite clear. Oh, what have I thrown away, when I might have been so -happy! You were always good to me, and I thank you with my last -breath. Don’t hurt him, Duke; I don’t think he understands the -difference to me. But he always promised to be a faithful lover—and -yesterday I found that he’s married already. That’s why I’m going to -do it.” -</p> - -</div> - -<p> -The paper dropped from my hand. Duke picked it up with an evil laugh -and thrust it into his breast pocket. -</p> - -<p> -“Married!” I muttered. -</p> - -<p> -“Oh!” he cried; “it’s all one for that! That’s a family matter. The -question here goes beyond—into the heart of this—this death -warrant.” -</p> - -<p> -He struck savagely where the letter lay and stood staring at me with -gloating eyes. -</p> - -<p> -“Duke—are you going to murder him?” -</p> - -<p> -“I’m going to find her. Let that do for the present—and you’ve got to -help me.” -</p> - -<p> -“Where are we to look? Did the letter give an address?” -</p> - -<p> -“No. She kept her secret to the last. It was a noble one, I swear. -There’s a postmark, though, and that’s my clew. Hurry, will you?” -</p> - -<p> -I seized my hat and stick. -</p> - -<p> -“Duke—for the love of heaven, why must it be too late even now?” -</p> - -<p> -“Because I know it is. Doesn’t that satisfy you? I loved her—do you -understand it now for the first time? The fiend tread on your heels. -Aren’t you ever coming?” -</p> - -<p> -I hurried after him into the street. A clap of wind struck and -staggered us as if it had been water. Beating through the night, its -icy fury clutched at us, stinging and buffeting our faces, until it -seemed as though we were fighting through an endless thicket of -brambles. Struggling and panting onward—silent with the silence of -the lost—we made our way by slow degrees to the low ground about -Chelsea, and presently came out into a freer air and the black vision -of the river sliding before us from night into night. -</p> - -<p> -“Duke,” I whispered, awfully—“is this what you fear?” -</p> - -<p> -“Follow!” he cried. “I fear nothing! It’s past that!” -</p> - -<p> -By lowering factory and grimy wall; by squalid streets peeled of -uncleanliness in the teeth of the bitter blast; by low-browed taverns, -that gushed red on us a moment and were gone, he sped with crooked -paces, and I followed. -</p> - -<p> -Then he stopped so suddenly that I almost stumbled against him, and we -were standing at the mouth of a shadowy court, and overhead a -hiccoughing gas jet made a gibbering terror of his white face. -</p> - -<p> -“Where are we?” I said, and he answered: -</p> - -<p> -“Where we naturally take up the clew—outside a police station.” -</p> - - -<h3 id="ch26"> -CHAPTER XXVI.<br/> -<span class="chap_sub">FROM THE DEPTHS.</span> -</h3> - -<p> -Into a dull, gusty room, barren of everything but the necessities of -its office, we walked and stopped. -</p> - -<p> -Distempered walls; a high desk, a railed dock, where creatures were -put to the first question like an experimental torture; black windows -high in the wall and barred with network of wire, as if to break into -fragments the sunshine of hope; a double gas bracket on an arm hanging -from the ceiling, grimly suggestive of a gallows; a fireplace whose -warmth was ruthlessly boxed in—such was the place we found ourselves -in. Its ministers figured in the persons of a half-dozen constables -sitting officially yawning on benches against the walls, and looking -perplexingly human shorn of their helmets; and in the presence of a -high priest, or inspector, and his clerk who sat respectively at the -desk and a table placed alongside of it. -</p> - -<p> -The latter rose upon our entrance and asked our business. -</p> - -<p> -“It’s plain enough,” said Duke. “I have received, by post, an hour -ago, a letter from a young woman threatening suicide. I don’t know her -address, but the postmark is this district.” -</p> - -<p> -The officer motioned us to the higher authority at the desk. -</p> - -<p> -“May I see it?” said the latter. -</p> - -<p> -My companion produced the letter and handed it over. Throughout his -bearing and behavior were completely collected and formal—passionless -altogether in their studied unemotionalism. -</p> - -<p> -The inspector went through the poor little scrawl attentively from -first word to last. No doubt he was a kindly family man in private. -Officially these pitiful warrants of heartbreaks were mere items in -his day’s business. -</p> - -<p> -When he had finished he raised his eyes, but not his head. -</p> - -<p> -“Sweetheart?” he said. -</p> - -<p> -“No,” answered Duke, “but an old friend.” -</p> - -<p> -“Renny?” asked the inspector, pointing a pen at me. -</p> - -<p> -“Yes.” -</p> - -<p> -“She ran away?” -</p> - -<p> -“Yes.” -</p> - -<p> -“Who with?” -</p> - -<p> -“This man’s brother.” -</p> - -<p> -“How long ago?” -</p> - -<p> -“Three months, about.” -</p> - -<p> -“And you have never seen her since?” -</p> - -<p> -“No.” -</p> - -<p> -“Nor him?” -</p> - -<p> -“No.” -</p> - -<p> -“And don’t know where they lived?” -</p> - -<p> -“No—or I shouldn’t be here.” -</p> - -<p> -The inspector caressed his short red beard, looked thoughtfully again -at the letter a moment or two, placed it gently on the desk and leaned -forward. -</p> - -<p> -“You’d better take a man and hunt up the waterside. She hasn’t come -ashore here.” -</p> - -<p> -“You think she means it?” -</p> - -<p> -“I think—yes; you’d better go and look.” -</p> - -<p> -“By water, I mean?” -</p> - -<p> -“Yes—by water. That’s my opinion.” -</p> - -<p> -He called to one of the seated men and gave him certain directions. A -minute later we were all three in the street outside. -</p> - -<p> -What happened or whither we went during that long night remains only -in my memory the ghastly shadow of a dream. I can recall the white -plate of the moon, and still the icy wind and the spectral march -onward. This seemed the fitting outcome of our monotonous weeks of -wandering—this aimless corpse-search on the part of two passionate -fools who had failed in their pursuit of the living woman. To my sick -fancy it seemed the monstrous parody of chase—an objectless struggle -toward a goal that shifted with every step toward any determined -point. -</p> - -<p> -Still we never stopped, but flitted hopelessly from station to -station, only to find ourselves baffled and urged forward afresh. I -became familiar with rooms such as that we had left—rooms varying -slightly in detail, but all furnished to the same pattern. Grewsomer -places knew us, too—hideous cellars for the dead, where clothes were -lifted from stiff yellow faces and from limbs stuck out in distorted -burlesque of the rest that is called everlasting. -</p> - -<p> -Once, I remember, it came upon us with a quivering shock that our -mission was fulfilled; a body had been brought in—I forget where—the -body of a young woman. But when we came to view it it was not that -that we sought. -</p> - -<p> -Pitiful heaven, was our tragedy, then, but a common fashion of the -dreadful waterway we groped our passage along? How was it possible in -all that harvest of death to find the one awn for our particular -gleaning? -</p> - -<p> -But here—though I was little conscious of it at the time—an -impression took life in me that was to bear strange fruit by and by. -</p> - -<p> -Dawn was in the air, menacing, most chill and gloomy, when we came out -once more upon the riverside at a point where an old rotting bridge of -timber sprawled across the stream like a wrecked dam. All its -neighborhood seemed waste ground or lonely deserted tenements standing -black and crookedly against a wan sweep of sky. -</p> - -<p> -In the moment of our issuing, as if it were a smaller splinter -detached from the wreck, a little boat glided out from under the -bridge and made for a flight of dank and spongy steps that led up from -the water not ten yards from where we stood. -</p> - -<p> -Something in the action of the dim figure that pulled, or the other -that hung over the stern sheets of the phantom craft, moved our -unwearying guide to motion us with his arm to watchfulness and an -immediate pause. In the same instant he hollowed his hand to his mouth -and hailed: -</p> - -<p> -“Any luck, mate?” -</p> - -<p> -The man who was rowing slowed down at once and paddled gingerly to -within a few yards of the steps. -</p> - -<p> -“Who be you?” he growled, like a dog. -</p> - -<p> -Our friend gave his authority. -</p> - -<p> -“Oh,” said the fellow. “Yes; we’ve found one.” -</p> - -<p> -“What sex, my man?” -</p> - -<p> -“Gurl!” -</p> - -<p> -I could have cried out. Something found my heart and seized it in a -suffocating grip. -</p> - -<p> -“Where was it?” -</p> - -<p> -“Caught yonder in the timbers.” -</p> - -<p> -I reeled and clutched at Duke, but he shook me off sternly. I knew as -surely as that the night was done with that here our search ended. -</p> - -<p> -That I stood quaking and shivering as nerveless as a haunted drunkard; -that I dared not follow them when they moved to the steps; that Duke’s -face was set like a dying man’s as he walked stiffly from me and stood -looking down upon the boat with a dreadful smile—all this comes to me -from the grim shadows of the past. Then I only knew a huddled group—a -weighted chamber of shapes with something heavy and sodden swung among -them—a pause of hours—of years—of a lifetime—and suddenly a -hideous scream that cleft like a madman’s into the waste silence of -the dawn. -</p> - -<p> -He was down upon his knees by it—groveling, moaning—tearing tufts of -dead wintry grass with his hands in ecstasy of pain—tossing his wild -arms to the sky in impotent agony of search for some least grain of -hope or comfort. -</p> - -<p> -I hurried to him; I called upon his name and hers. I saw the sweet -white face lying like a stone among the grass. -</p> - -<p> -Wiser than I, the accustomed ministers of scenes such as this stood -watchful by and waited for the fit to pass. When its fury was spent, -they quietly took up their burden once more and moved away. -</p> - -<p> -I had no need then to bid my comrade command himself. He rose on the -instant from the ground, where he had lain writhing, and fiercely -rejecting all offer of assistance on my part, followed in the wake of -the ghastly procession. -</p> - -<p> -They bore it to the nearest station and there claimed their reward. -Think of it! We, who would have given our all to save the living -woman, were outbidden by these carrion crows who staked upon the dead! -</p> - -<p> -Again at this point a lapse comes into my memory. Out of it grows a -figure, that of Duke, that stands before me and speaks with the -horrible smile again on its lips. -</p> - -<p> -“You had better go home,” it says. -</p> - -<p> -“Duke—why? What comes next? What are you going to do?” -</p> - -<p> -“What does it matter? You had better go home.” -</p> - -<p> -“I must know. Was there anything upon the—upon the body? Duke—was -there?” -</p> - -<p> -“There was a letter.” -</p> - -<p> -“Who from?” -</p> - -<p> -“Go home, I tell you.” -</p> - -<p> -“I can’t—I won’t—I must save you from yourself! I—Duke——” -</p> - -<p> -He strikes at me—hits me, so that I stagger back—and, with an oath, -he speeds from me and is gone. -</p> - -<p> -I recover myself and am on the point of giving mad chase, when a -thought strikes me and I rush into the building I have been all this -time standing outside the door of. -</p> - - -<h3 id="ch27"> -CHAPTER XXVII.<br/> -<span class="chap_sub">AN UNEXPECTED MEETING.</span> -</h3> - -<p> -Tearing up the steps, I almost fell into the arms of our guide of the -long, hideous night. -</p> - -<p> -“Can I see it?” I cried. -</p> - -<p> -“Steady, sir,” he said, staying and supporting me with a hand. “What’s -up now?” -</p> - -<p> -“I want to see it—there was a letter—I——” -</p> - -<p> -“All property found on the body is took possession of.” -</p> - -<p> -“He saw it, I tell you.” -</p> - -<p> -“Your friend, there? So he did—but he gave it over.” -</p> - -<p> -“I’ll give it over. I don’t want to keep it, man. There was an address -on it—there must have been, I swear; and if you don’t let me know it, -there’ll be murder—do you understand?—murder!” -</p> - -<p> -No doubt he did understand. In such matters a policeman’s mind is -intuitive. -</p> - -<p> -“Come along, then,” he said; “I’ll see what can be done,” and, holding -me along the elbow in the professional manner, he led me through the -building to a sort of outhouse that stood in a gloomy yard to the -rear. -</p> - -<p> -Pushing open a door, he bid me enter and wait while he went and -communicated with the inspector. -</p> - -<p> -The room I found myself in was like nothing so much as a ghastly -species of scullery; built with a formal view to cleanliness and -ventilation. All down its middle ran a long zinc-covered table, -troughed slightly at the side and sloping gently like a fishmonger’s -slab. Its purpose was evident in the drenched form that lay on it -covered with a cloth. -</p> - -<p> -And to this sordid pass had come she, the loving and playful, with -whom I had wandered a few short weeks ago among the green glades of -the old forest. Now more than the solemnity of death pronounced us -apart. -</p> - -<p> -I shivered and drew back, and then was aware of a man washing his -hands at a sink that stood to one end of the room. -</p> - -<p> -He turned his head as he washed and looked at me. -</p> - -<p> -“Now, my man, what is it?” he said. -</p> - -<p> -He was lean, formal-faced and spectacled—a doctor by every uninviting -sign of the profession. -</p> - -<p> -I told him my business and referred shrinkingly to the thing lying -hidden there. -</p> - -<p> -“There isn’t, I suppose, any—any hope whatever?” -</p> - -<p> -“Oh, dear, no; not the least.” -</p> - -<p> -He came toward me pruning and trimming his cold finger-nails. -</p> - -<p> -“She has been in the water, I should say, quite eight hours, or -possibly nine.” -</p> - -<p> -He pulled the cloth down slightly, with a speculative motion of his -hand, so as to expose the white, rigid face. I had no time to stop him -before its sightless eyes were looking up at me. -</p> - -<p> -“Oh, Dolly! Dolly! Such a fearful little woman, and yet with the -courage to bring yourself to this!” -</p> - -<p> -Suddenly, through the heart of my wild pity pierced a thought that had -already once before stirred unrecognized in me. -</p> - -<p> -“Doctor,” I said, staring down on the poor lifeless face, “do the -drowned always look like that?” -</p> - -<p> -“Certainly they do, more or less.” -</p> - -<p> -“But how more? Is it possible, for instance, for a person to -half-drown and then seemingly recover; to be put to bed nearly himself -again, and yet be found dead in the morning?” -</p> - -<p> -“How can I say? In such a case there must be gross carelessness or -quite unexpected complications.” -</p> - -<p> -“But if I tell you I once heard of this happening—was witness, -indeed, of the fact?” -</p> - -<p> -The doctor lifted his shoulder, adjusted his spectacles and shrugged -himself with an awkward posture of skepticism. -</p> - -<p> -“How did he look?” he said. -</p> - -<p> -“Dreadful—swollen, horribly distorted. His face was black—his hands -clenched. He seemed to have died in great pain.” -</p> - -<p> -He gave a little scornful sniff. -</p> - -<p> -“Do you want my opinion on that?” he cried. “Well—here it is: It was -a case for the police. No drowned man ever looked after that fashion.” -</p> - -<p> -“Then you think he must have come to his death by other means, and -after he was put to bed?” -</p> - -<p> -“I haven’t the least doubt about it whatsoever, if it was all as you -say.” -</p> - -<p> -I gave a thin, sudden cry. I couldn’t help it—it was forced from me. -Then, of my own act, I pulled the cloth once more over the dead face. -It had spoken to me in such a manner as its love had never expressed -in life. -</p> - -<p> -“You have vindicated me, my sweetheart of the old days,” I murmured. -“Good-by, Dolly, till I may witness your love that is undying in -another world.” -</p> - -<p> -I think the doctor fancied that the trouble of the night had turned my -brain. What did it matter what he thought—what anybody thought now? I -stood acquitted at the bar of my own conscience. In my first knowledge -of that stupendous relief I could find no place for one other -sentiment but crazy gratitude. -</p> - -<p> -As I stood, half-stunned in the shock of emotion, the officer I -awaited entered the room bearing in his hand a slip of paper. -</p> - -<p> -“The letter’s detained,” he said, “but this here’s the address it’s -wrote from, and you’d better act upon it without delay.” -</p> - -<p> -With a tremendous effort I swept together my scattered faculties and -took it from him. -</p> - -<p> -It was not much information that the paper contained—an address only -from a certain “Nelson terrace” in Battersea—but such as it was I -held it in common with Duke, whose sole advantage was a brief start of -me. -</p> - -<p> -Calling back my thanks to the friendly constable, I hurried into the -street and so off and away in wild pursuit. -</p> - -<p> -Still as I ran a phantom voice went with me, crying: “You did not kill -him—your brother Modred.” -</p> - -<p> -The rapture of it kept time to my hurrying footsteps; it flew over and -with me, like the albatross of hope, and brought the breeze of a -healthfuler promise on its wings; it spoke from the faces of people I -passed, as if they wished me to know as I swept by that I was no -longer in their eyes a man of blood. -</p> - -<p> -“You did not kill him!” it sung in my brain—“you did not kill -him—you did not kill him”—then all in a moment, with a dying shock: -“Who did?” -</p> - -<p> -I stopped, as if I had run against a wall. I swear, till then no -shadowy thought of this side of the question had darkened my heart in -passing. -</p> - -<p> -Still, impelled to an awful haste, I beat the whole horror resolutely -to one side and rushed on my way. “Presently—presently,” I muttered, -“I will sit down and rest and think it over from beginning to end.” -</p> - -<p> -By that time I was in a street of ugly cockney houses stretching -monotonously on either side. I was speeding down it, seeking its name, -and convinced from my inquiries that I could not be far from my -destination, when something standing crouched against a low front -garden wall, where it met the angle of a tall brick gate post, caught -the tail of my eye and stopped me with a jerk. It was Duke, and I had -run him down. -</p> - -<p> -He spat a curse from his drawn, white lips, as I faced him, and bade -me begone as I valued my life. -</p> - -<p> -“Duke,” I panted, watchful of him, “I do value it now—never mind why. -I value it far above his you have come to take. But he is my -brother—and you were once my friend.” -</p> - -<p> -“No longer—I swear it,” he cried, blazing out on me dreadfully. “Will -you go while there’s time?” -</p> - -<p> -Then he assumed a mockery more bitter than his rage. -</p> - -<p> -“Harkee!” he whispered. “This isn’t the place. I came here to be out -of the way and rest. I’ll go home by and by.” -</p> - -<p> -“Will you come with me now?” -</p> - -<p> -“With you? Haven’t I had enough of you Trenders? I put it to you as a -reasonable man.” -</p> - -<p> -As he spoke the wail of a young child came through the window of an -upper room of the house adjoining. At the sound he seized my wrists in -one of his hands with the grip of iron forceps. -</p> - -<p> -“Listen there!” he muttered. “That’s his child, do you hear? He -perpetuates his wicked race without a scruple. Wouldn’t it be a good -thing now to cut down the poisonous weed root and branch?” -</p> - -<p> -I stared at him in horror. Hardly till this moment had the fact of -Jason’s being married recurred to me since I first heard of it the -night before. -</p> - -<p> -“His child?” I echoed. -</p> - -<p> -“What’s the fool gaping at? Would his pretty deception be complete -without a wife and baby in the background to spur his fancy?” -</p> - -<p> -The door of the adjoining house was opened and a light footfall came -down the steps. I saw a devil leap into Duke’s eyes, and on the -instant sprung at him. -</p> - -<p> -He had me down directly, for his strength was fearful, but I clutched -him frantically as I fell, and he couldn’t shake me off. -</p> - -<p> -Struggling—sobbing—warding my head as best I could from his -battering blows—I yet could find voice to cry from the -ground—“Jason, in God’s name, run! He’s going to murder you!” -</p> - -<p> -Up and down on the pavement—bruised, bleeding, wrenched this way and -that, but never letting go my hold, I felt my strength, already -exhausted by the long toiling of the night, ebbing surely from me. -Then in the moment of its final collapse the dreadful incubus was -snatched from me, and I rose half-blinded to my feet to see Duke in -the grasp of a couple of stalwart navvies, who on their way to work -had come to my assistance. -</p> - -<p> -Trapped and overcome, he made no further struggle, but submitted -quietly to his captors, his chest rising and falling convulsively. -</p> - -<p> -“Don’t let him go!” I panted; “he means murder!” -</p> - -<p> -“We’ve got him fast enough,” said one burly fellow. “Any bones broke, -master?” -</p> - -<p> -“No,” said I; “I’m only a bit bruised.” -</p> - -<p> -“Renny,” said the prisoner, in a low, broken voice, “have you ever -known me lie?” -</p> - -<p> -“Never. What then?” -</p> - -<p> -“Tell them to take their hands off and I’ll go.” -</p> - -<p> -“That won’t do. You may come back.” -</p> - -<p> -“Not till the inquest’s over. Is that a fair offer? I can do nothing -here now. I only ask one thing—that I may speak a word, standing at -the gate, to that skulking coward yonder. I swear I won’t touch him or -pass inside the gate.” -</p> - -<p> -I turned to the two men. -</p> - -<p> -“I’ll answer for him now,” I said. “He never says what he doesn’t -mean. You can let him go.” -</p> - -<p> -They did so reluctantly, remonstrating a little and ready to pounce on -him at once did he show sign of breaking his parole. -</p> - -<p> -He picked up his hat and walked straight to the gate. Jason, who had -been standing on the upmost step of the flight that led to the open -door, regarding the strange struggle beneath him with starting eyes, -moved a pace or two nearer shelter, with his head slewed backward in -a hangdog fashion. -</p> - -<p> -“Mr. Trender,” said Duke, in a hideous, mocking voice, “Miss Dolly -Mellison sends her compliments and she drowned herself last night.” -</p> - -<p> -I could see my brother stagger where he stood, and his face grow pale -as a sheet. -</p> - -<p> -“I won’t discuss the matter further just now,” went on the cripple, -“as I am under promise to these gentlemen. After the inquest I may, -perhaps, have something to say to you.” -</p> - -<p> -He swept him a grotesque, ironical bow, another to us, and walked off -down the street. -</p> - -<p> -When he was out of sight, I turned to the men, thanked them warmly for -their assistance, recompensed them to the best of my ability and ran -up the steps to the house. -</p> - -<p> -I found my brother inside, leaning white and shaky against the wall. -</p> - -<p> -I shut the door and addressed myself to him roughly. -</p> - -<p> -“Come,” I said. “There’s a necessity for action here. Where can we -talk together?” -</p> - -<p> -“How did you find me?” he said, faintly. “It isn’t true, is -it?—no—not there”—for I was turning to the door of a back room that -seemed to promise privacy. -</p> - -<p> -“Where, then?” I said, impatiently. “Hurry, man! This is no time for -dallying.” -</p> - -<p> -He tried to pull himself together. For the moment he seemed utterly -unnerved. -</p> - -<p> -“Jason,” cried a voice from the very room I had approached. -</p> - -<p> -I dropped my stick with a crash on the floor. -</p> - -<p> -“Who’s that?” I said, in a loud, wavering voice. -</p> - -<p> -The handle turned. He came weakly from his corner to put himself -before me. It was too late, for the door had opened and a woman, with -a baby in her arms, was standing on the threshold. -</p> - -<p> -And the woman was Zyp. -</p> - - -<h3 id="ch28"> -CHAPTER XXVIII.<br/> -<span class="chap_sub">THE TABLES TURNED.</span> -</h3> - -<p> -In the first shock of the vision I did not realize to its full extent -the profoundness of my brother’s villainy or of my own loss. Indeed, -for the moment I was so numbed with amazement as to find place for no -darker sentiment in my breast. -</p> - -<p> -“Why, it’s Renny!” said Zyp, and my heart actually rose with a brief -exultation to hear my name on her lips once more. -</p> - -<p> -The game once taken out of his hands, Jason, with characteristic sang -froid, withdrew into the background, prepared to let the waters of -destiny thunder over his head. -</p> - -<p> -The very complication of the situation reacted upon him in such -manner, I think, as to brace him up to a single defiance of fate. From -the moment Zyp appeared he was almost his brazen self again. -</p> - -<p> -“Zyp,” I muttered, “what are you doing here?” -</p> - -<p> -“What a wife generally does in her husband’s house, old -fellow—getting in the way.” -</p> - -<p> -It was my brother who spoke, and in a moment the truth burst upon me. -</p> - -<p> -“You are married?” I said. -</p> - -<p> -“Yes,” said Zyp; “this is our baby.” -</p> - -<p> -“You dog!” I cried—— I turned upon him madly. “You hound! You dog!” -</p> - -<p> -Zyp threw herself upon her knees on the threshold of the room. -</p> - -<p> -“Yes,” she cried, “he is, and I never knew it till two nights ago, -when the girl found her way here. She didn’t know he had a wife and it -broke her heart. I can understand that now. But you mustn’t hurt him, -Renny.” -</p> - -<p> -“The girl has drowned herself, Zyp.” -</p> - -<p> -“And not for you, Renny? He said it was you she loved and that he was -the mediator. Was that a lie?” -</p> - -<p> -“It was a lie!” -</p> - -<p> -“I thought then it was. I never believed him as I believed you. But -tell me you won’t hurt him—he’s my husband. Swear on this, Renny.” -</p> - -<p> -With an infinitely pathetic action she held toward me the little -bundle she had clasped all through in her arms. It woke and wailed as -she lifted it up. -</p> - -<p> -“It cries to you, too,” she said; “my little Zyp, that pleads for her -daddy.” -</p> - -<p> -Jason gave a short, ironical laugh. -</p> - -<p> -Sick at heart, I motioned the young mother to rise. -</p> - -<p> -“Not till you swear,” she said. -</p> - -<p> -“I swear, Zyp.” -</p> - -<p> -She got up then and led the way into the little dingy sitting-room -from which she had issued. A cradle stood by the fire and an empty -feeding bottle lay on the table. How strange it seemed that Zyp should -own them! -</p> - -<p> -Jason followed as far as the door, where he stood leaning. -</p> - -<p> -Then in the cold light of morning I saw how wan was the face of the -changeling of old days; how piercing were her eyes; how sadly had the -mere animal beauty shrunk to make way for the soul. -</p> - -<p> -“You are brown, Renny,” she said, with a pitiful attempt at gayety. -“You look old and wise to us poor butterflies of existence.” -</p> - -<p> -“Oh,” said Jason. “I see you are set for confidences and that I’m in -the way. I’ll go out for a walk.” -</p> - -<p> -“Stop!” I cried, turning on him once more. “Go, as far as I am -concerned, and God grant I may never see your face again. But -understand one thing. Keep out of the way of the man I fought with -just now for your sake. He promised, but even the promises of good and -just men may fail under temptation. Keep out of his way, I warn -you—now and always.” -</p> - -<p> -“I’m obliged to you,” he answered, in a high-strung voice; “it seems -to be a choice of evils. I prefer evil anyway in the open air.” -</p> - -<p> -I said not a word more and he left us, and I heard the front door -close on him. Then I turned to Zyp with an agony I could not control, -and she was crooning over her baby. -</p> - -<p> -“Zyp, I oughtn’t to say it, I know. But—oh, Zyp! I thought all these -years you might be waiting for me.” -</p> - -<p> -“Hush, Renny! You wrote so seldom, and—and I was a changeling, you -know, and longed for light and pleasure. And he seemed to promise -them—he was so beautiful, and so loving when he chose.” -</p> - -<p> -“And you married him?” -</p> - -<p> -“Dad wouldn’t hear of it. Sometimes I think, Renny, he was your -champion—dad, I mean—and wanted to keep me for you; and the very -suspicion made me rebellious. And in the end, we were married at a -registrar’s office, there in Winton, unknown to anybody.” -</p> - -<p> -“How long ago was that?” -</p> - -<p> -“It was last February and sometime in August dad found it out and -there was a scene. So Jason brought me to London.” -</p> - -<p> -“Why, what was he doing to keep a wife?” -</p> - -<p> -“I know nothing about that. Such things never enter my head, I think. -He always seemed to have money. Perhaps dad gave it to him. He was -afraid of Jason, I’m sure.” -</p> - -<p> -“Zyp, why didn’t you ever—why did none of you ever write to me about -this?” -</p> - -<p> -“Why, dad wrote, Renny! I know he did, the day we left. He wanted you -to come home again, now he was alone.” -</p> - -<p> -“To come home? I never got the letter.” -</p> - -<p> -“But he wrote, I’m certain, and didn’t Jason tell you?” -</p> - -<p> -“He told me nothing—I didn’t even know he was married till -yesterday.” -</p> - -<p> -I bent over the young wife as she sat rocking her baby. -</p> - -<p> -“Zyp, I must go. My heart is very full of misery and confusion. I must -walk it off or sleep it off, or I think perhaps I shall go mad.” -</p> - -<p> -“Did you love that girl, Renny?” -</p> - -<p> -“No, Zyp. I have never had but one love in my life; and that I must -say no more about. I have to speak to you, however, about one who -did—a fierce, strong man, and utterly reckless when goaded to -revenge. He is a fellow-workman of mine—he used to be my best -friend—and, Zyp, his whole unselfish heart was given to this poor -girl. But it was her happiness he strove after, and when he fancied -that was centered in me—not him—he sacrificed himself and urged me -to win. And I should have tried, for I was very lonely in the world, -but that Jason—you know the truth already, Zyp—Jason came and took -her from me; that was three months ago, and last night she drowned -herself.” -</p> - -<p> -Zyp looked up at me. Her eyes were swimming in tears. -</p> - -<p> -“I suppose a better woman would leave such a husband,” she said, with -a pitiful sigh, “but I think of the little baby, Renny.” -</p> - -<p> -“A true woman, dear, would remain with him, as you will in his dark -hour. That is coming now; that is what I want to warn you about in all -terrible earnestness. Zyp, this fierce man I told you about came here -this morning to kill your husband. I was in time to keep him back, but -that was only once. A promise was forced from him that he would do -nothing more until the inquest is over. That promise, unless he is -dreadfully tempted, he will keep, I am sure. But afterward Jason won’t -be safe for an hour. You must get him to leave here at once, Zyp.” -</p> - -<p> -She had risen and was staring at me with frightened eyes. I could not -help but act upon her terror. -</p> - -<p> -“Don’t delay. Move now—this day, if possible, and go secretly and -hide yourselves where he can’t find you. I don’t think Jason will be -wanted at the inquest. In any case he mustn’t be found. I say this -with all the earnestness I am capable of. I know the man and his -nature, and the hideous wrong he has suffered.” -</p> - -<p> -I wrote down my address and gave it to her. -</p> - -<p> -“Remember,” I said, “if you ever want me to seek me there. But come -quietly and excite the least observation you can.” -</p> - -<p> -Then gently I lifted the flannel from the tiny waxen face lying on her -arm, and, kissing the pink lips for her mother’s sake, walked steadily -from the room and shut the door behind me. -</p> - -<p> -As I gained the hall, Jason, returning, let himself in by the front -door. He looked nervous and flustered. For all his bravado he had -found, I suppose, a very brief ordeal of the streets sufficient. -</p> - -<p> -“I should like a word with you,” I said, “before I go.” -</p> - -<p> -“Well,” he answered, “the atmosphere seems all mystery and -righteousness. Come in here.” -</p> - -<p> -He preceded me into the front room and closed the door upon us. Then I -looked him full in the face. -</p> - -<p> -“Who killed Modred?” I said. -</p> - -<p> -He gave a great start; then a laugh. -</p> - -<p> -“You’re the one to answer that,” he said. -</p> - -<p> -“You lie, as you always do. My eyes have been opened at last—at last, -do you hear? Modred was never drowned. He recovered and was killed by -other means during the night.” -</p> - -<p> -His affectation of merriment stopped, cut through at a blow. A curious -spasm twitched his face. -</p> - -<p> -“Well,” he muttered, looking down, away from me, “that may be true and -you none the less guilty.” -</p> - -<p> -“A hateful answer and quite worthy of you,” I said, quietly. -“Nevertheless, you know it, as well as I do, to be a brutal -falsehood.” -</p> - -<p> -I seized him by the shoulder and forced him to lift his hangdog face. -</p> - -<p> -“My God!” I whispered, awfully, “I believe you killed him yourself.” -</p> - -<p> -It burst upon me with a shock. Why should he not have done it? His -resentment over Zyp’s preference was as much of a motive with him as -with me—ten thousand times more so, taking his nature into account -and the immunity from risk my deed had opened to him. I remembered the -scene by the river, when Zyp was drowning, and my hand shook as I held -him. -</p> - -<p> -He sprung from me. -</p> - -<p> -“I didn’t—I didn’t!” he shrieked. “How dare you say such a thing?” -</p> - -<p> -“Oh,” I groaned, “shall I hand you over to Duke Straw, when the time -comes, and be quit of you forever?” -</p> - -<p> -“Don’t be a cruel brute!” he answered, almost whimpering. “I didn’t do -it, I tell you. But perhaps he didn’t die of drowning, and I may have -had my suspicions.” -</p> - -<p> -“Of me?” -</p> - -<p> -“No, no—not really of you, upon my oath; but some one else.” -</p> - -<p> -“And yet all these years you have held the horror over my head and -have made wicked capital out of it.” -</p> - -<p> -“I wanted the changeling—that was why.” -</p> - -<p> -I threw him from me, so that he staggered against the wall. -</p> - -<p> -“You are such a despicable beast,” I said, “that I’ll pollute my hands -with you no longer. Answer me one thing more. Where’s the letter my -father wrote to me when you were leaving Winton?” -</p> - -<p> -“It went to your old lodgings. The man handed it to me to give to you -when I called there.” -</p> - -<p> -“And you tore it up?” -</p> - -<p> -“Yes. I didn’t want you to know Zyp and I were married.” -</p> - -<p> -“Now, I’ve done with you. For Zyp’s sake I give you the chance of -escaping from the dreadful fate that awaits you if you get in that -other’s way. I warn you—nothing further. For the rest, never come -near me again, or look to me to hold out a finger of help to you. -Beyond that, if you breathe one more note of the hideous slander with -which you have pursued me for years, I go heart and soul with Duke in -destroying you. You may be guilty of Modred’s death, as you are in -God’s sight the murderer of that unhappy child who has gone to His -judgment.” -</p> - -<p> -“I didn’t kill him,” he muttered again; and with that, without another -word or look, I left him. -</p> - - -<h3 id="ch29"> -CHAPTER XXIX.<br/> -<span class="chap_sub">A SUDDEN DETERMINATION.</span> -</h3> - -<p> -The inquest was over; the jury had returned a merciful verdict; the -mortal perishing part of poor, weak and lovable Dolly was put gently -out of sight for the daisies to grow over by and by. -</p> - -<p> -Jason had been called, but, not responding, and his presumed evidence -being judged not necessarily material to the inquiry, had escaped the -responsibility of an examination and, as I knew, for the time being at -least, a deadlier risk. Mention of his name left an ugly stain on the -proceedings, and that was all. -</p> - -<p> -Now, night after night, alone with myself and my despair, I sat -brooding over the wreck and ruin of my life. Zyp, so far as this life -was concerned, could never now be mine; and full realization of this -had burst upon me only at the moment when the moral barrier that had -divided me from her was broken down. That wound must forevermore eat -like a cancer within me. -</p> - -<p> -Then, in the worst writhing moments of my anguish, a new savage lust -of sleuth began to prickle and crawl over me like a leprosy. If all -else were taken from me I still had that interest to cheer me through -life—the hounding of my brother’s murderer. This feeling was -curiously intermingled with a revival in my heart of loyalty to -Modred. He had been my friend—at least inextricably kin to me in a -common cause against the world. When I turned to the vile figure of -the brother who survived, the dead boy’s near-forgotten personality -showed up in a light almost lovably humorous and pathetic. My fevered -soul bathed itself in the memory of his whimsicalities, till very -tenderness begot an oath that I would never rest till I had tracked -down his destroyer. -</p> - -<p> -And was Jason that? If it were so, I could afford to stand aside for -the present and leave him to the mercy of a deadlier Nemesis he had -summoned to his own undoing. -</p> - -<p> -Set coldly, at the same time, on a justice that should be passionless, -I bore in mind my brother’s hint of a suspicion that involved some -other person whom he left nameless. This might be—probably was—a -mere ruse to throw me off the scent. In any case I should refuse to -hold him acquitted in the absence of directer evidence. -</p> - -<p> -Still I could not stay a certain speculative wandering of my thoughts. -If not Jason—who then? There were in the house that night but the -usual family circle and Dr. Crackenthorpe. What possible temptation -could induce any one of them to a deed so horrible? Jason alone of -them had the temptation and the interest, and, above all, the nature -to act upon a hideous impulse. On Jason must lie the suspicion till he -could prove himself innocent. -</p> - -<p> -It was not until about the third night of my gloomy pondering that the -sudden resolution was formed in me to leave everything and return to -my father. The fact of Zyp’s reference to the letter he had sent me -had been so completely absorbed in the tense excitement of the last -few days that when in a moment it recurred to me I leaped to my feet -and began pacing the room like a caged animal that scents freedom. -</p> - -<p> -So the old man in his loneliness desired me back again. Why not go? -The accustomed life here seemed impossible to me any longer. The -notoriety attaching to these pitiful proceedings was already making my -regular attendance at the office a sore trial. Duke had sent in his -resignation the very morning of his attack on me before Jason’s house. -All old ties were rent and done with. I was, in a modest way, -financially independent, for Ripley’s generous acknowledgment of my -services, coupled with my own frugal manner of life, had enabled me to -put into certain investments sufficient to produce an interest that -would keep me, at least, from starvation. -</p> - -<p> -And, in addition, how could I prosecute my secret inquiries better -than on the very scene of the deed? I would go. My decision was sudden -and final. I would go. -</p> - -<p> -Then and there I sat down and wrote a brief letter to my father. -</p> - -<p> -“I have only within the last few days,” I said, “learned of the letter -you wrote me three months ago. Jason destroyed it lest I should find -out he was married to Zyp. I now tell you that I am ready to do as you -wish—to return and live with you, if you still desire it. In any -case, I can endure my present life here no longer. Upon receipt of a -word from you I will come.” -</p> - -<p> -As I wrote, the wind, bringing clouds of rain with it, was booming and -thundering against the window. Soft weather had succeeded to the -ice-breathing blasts of a few days back, and I thought of a lonely -grave out there in the night of London, and of how just now the water -must be gushing in veins and runnels over its clayey barrow. -</p> - -<p> -Dolly—Dolly! May it wash clean your poor wounded heart. “After life’s -fitful fever” you sleep well; while we—oh, shamed and fallen child! -Which of us who walks straightly before our fellows would not forego -passion and revenge, and all the hot raptures of this blood-red world, -to lie down with you deep in the cool, sweet earth and rest and -forget? -</p> - -<p> -I went out and posted my letter. The streets were swept clean of their -human refuse. Only a few belated vehicles trundled it out against the -downpour, setting their polished roofs as shields against the -myriad-pointed darts of the storm. -</p> - -<p> -Feeling nervous and upset, I was approaching my own door, when a -figure started from a dark angle of the wall close by and stood before -me. -</p> - -<p> -“Duke!” I cried. -</p> - -<p> -He was drenched with rain and mud—his dark clothes splashed and -saturated from boot to collar. His face in the drowned lamplight was -white as wax, but his eyes burned in rings of shadow. I was shocked -beyond expression at his dreadful appearance. -</p> - -<p> -“What have you been doing with yourself?” I cried. “Duke! Come in, for -pity’s sake, and rest, and let us talk.” -</p> - -<p> -“With you?” he muttered, in a mad, grating voice. “With any Trender? I -came to ask you where he’s in hiding—that’s all.” -</p> - -<p> -“I know no more than you do.” -</p> - -<p> -“You lie! You’re keeping his secret for him. What were her claims -compared to family ties—devil’s ties—such as yours? You know, but -you won’t give him up to me.” -</p> - -<p> -“I don’t know.” -</p> - -<p> -He raised and ground his hands together in exquisite passion. -</p> - -<p> -“They drive me to madness,” he cried, “but in the end—in the end I -shall have him! To hold him down and torture the life out of him inch -by inch, with the terror in his eyes all the time! Why, I could kill -him by that alone—by only looking at him.” -</p> - -<p> -He gloated over the picture called up in his soul. If ever demon’s -eyes looked from a human face, they looked from his that night. -</p> - -<p> -“Duke,” I whispered in horror, “you have terrible cause for hate, I -know; but oh, think of how one grain of forgiveness on your part would -stand you with—with God, Duke.” -</p> - -<p> -He gave a wretched, sickening laugh. -</p> - -<p> -“By and by,” he cried. “But tell me first where he’s hiding!” -</p> - -<p> -“I don’t know,” I said. “Duke——” and I held out a yearning hand to -him. -</p> - -<p> -At that he struck at me savagely and, running crookedly into the -night, was lost in the rainy darkness. -</p> - - -<h3 id="ch30"> -CHAPTER XXX.<br/> -<span class="chap_sub">I GO HOME.</span> -</h3> - -<p> -So much of strange incident had crowded with action the long years of -my life in London, that, as I walked from the station down into the -old cathedral town, a feeling of wonder was on me that the hand of -time had dealt so gently with the landmarks of my youth. Here were the -same old gates and churches and houses I had known, unaltered unless -for an additional film of the fragrant lichen of age. The very ruins -of the ancient castle and palace were stone by stone such as I -remembered them. -</p> - -<p> -There was frost in the air, too; so that sometimes, as I moved -dreamily onward, a sense as if all that gap of vivid life were a -vanished vision and unreality moved strongly in me. Then it seemed -that presently I should saunter into the old mill to find my father -and Zyp and Jason sitting down as usual to the midday meal. -</p> - -<p> -My appearance was so changed that none of all who would formerly have -somewhat sourly acknowledged my passing with a nod now recognized me. -</p> - -<p> -Suddenly I caught sight of Dr. Crackenthorpe, moving on in front of me -in company with another man. The doctor was no more altered than his -surroundings, judged at least by his back view. This presented the -same long rusty coat of a chocolate color—relic of a bygone -generation, I always thought—cut after a slightly sporting fashion, -which he wore in all my memory of him throughout the winter; -half-Wellington boots, into which the ends of his trousers were -tucked, and a flat-topped, hard felt hat, under the brim of which his -lank tails of brick-colored hair fell in dry, thin tassels. -</p> - -<p> -The man he walked with seemed old and bent, and he moved with a -spiritless, hesitating step that appeared to cause the other some -impatience. -</p> - -<p> -I was so far from claiming knowledge of this second person that, when -he turned his head aside a moment to gaze upon something as I came -near, it was with a most painful shock that I discovered it to be my -father. -</p> - -<p> -I hurried up, calling to him. He gave a great start—they both -did—and turned round to meet me. -</p> - -<p> -Then I was terribly taken aback to see the change that had come over -him. He, whom four years ago I had left hale, self-reliant, powerful -in body and intellect, was to all appearance a halting and decrepit -old man, in whom the worst sign was the senile indecision of his eyes. -</p> - -<p> -He came at me, holding out both his hands in welcome with trembling -eagerness, and I was much moved to see some glint of tears furrowing -his cheeks. -</p> - -<p> -“Renalt, my boy—Renalt, my boy!” he cried in a gladsome, thin voice, -and that was all; for he could find words for no more, but stood -looking up in my face—I topped him now—with a half-searching, -half-deprecating earnestness of perusal. -</p> - -<p> -“Well, dad,” I answered, cheerfully—for I would give no hint of -surprise before the other—“you said ‘come,’ and here I am.” -</p> - -<p> -“A brave fellow—a brown, strong man!” He was feeling me over as he -spoke—running his thumb down the sinews of my hands—pinching the -firm arm in my sleeve. -</p> - -<p> -“A strong man, my boy,” he said. “I bred him—he’s my son—I was the -same myself once.” -</p> - -<p> -“You find your father altered—eh, Mr. Bookbinder?” -</p> - -<p> -“If he is at all, doctor, it’s nothing that won’t improve on a little -management and wholesome company.” -</p> - -<p> -“Well, he’s had plenty of mine.” -</p> - -<p> -“Then his state’s accounted for,” I said. -</p> - -<p> -The long man looked at me with an expression not pleasant. -</p> - -<p> -“Ay,” he said. “There’s the old spirit forward again. We’ve done very -well without it since the last of the fry took themselves off.” -</p> - -<p> -“It’s not company you batten on, doctor,” I said. “But loneliness -breeds other evils than coin-collecting.” -</p> - -<p> -He stared at me a moment, then took off his hat with an ironical -sweep. -</p> - -<p> -“I mustn’t forget my manners to a London rattle,” he said. “No doubt -you pride yourself on a very pretty wit, sir. But while you talk my -lunch grows cold; so I’ll even take the liberty of wishing you -good-morning.” -</p> - -<p> -He walked off, snapping his fingers on either side of him. -</p> - -<p> -When he was gone, I took my father’s arm and passed it through mine. -</p> - -<p> -“Strong boy,” he said, affectionately—then whispered in my ear: -“That’s a terrible man, Renalt! Be careful before you offend him.” -</p> - -<p> -I looked at him in startled wonder. This was not how he was used to -speak. -</p> - -<p> -“I hold him as cheap as any other dog,” said I. -</p> - -<p> -He patted my hand with a little sigh of comfortable admiration. -</p> - -<p> -“I want you at home,” he said, “all to myself. I’m glad that you’ve -come, Renalt. It’s lonely in the old mill nowadays.” -</p> - -<p> -As we walked, my heart was filled with remorseful pondering over the -wrecked figure at my side. Why had I never known of this change in it? -What had caused it, indeed? Gloomy, sinister remembrances of my -one-time suspicion of some nameless hold that the doctor had over my -father stirred in me and woke a deep anger against fate. Were we all -of us, for no fault of our own, to be forever stunted in our lives and -oppressed by the malign influence of the place that had given us -birth? It was hateful and monstrous. What fight could a human being -show against foes who shot their poison from places beyond the limits -of his understanding? -</p> - -<p> -A trifle more aged looking—a trifle more crazy and dark and -weather-stained—the old mill looked to my returning vision, and that -was all. The atmosphere of the place was cold and eerie and haunted as -ever. -</p> - -<p> -But a great feast awaited the returned prodigal. The sitting-room -table fairly sparkled with unwonted dainties of the season, and a red -fire crackled on the hearth. -</p> - -<p> -My father pressed me into a chair; he heaped good things upon my -plate; he could not do enough to prove the warmth of his welcome and -the pathos of loneliness that underlay it. -</p> - -<p> -“Here’s to my strong son!” he cried, pledging me gayly in a glass of -weak wine and water; “my son that I’m feasting for all the doctor—for -all the doctor, I say!” -</p> - -<p> -“The doctor, dad?” -</p> - -<p> -“He wouldn’t have had it, Renalt. He said it was throwing pearls -before swine and most wicked waste. I wouldn’t listen to him this -time—not I.” -</p> - -<p> -“Why, what has he got to do with it?” -</p> - -<p> -“Hush!” he paused in his sipping and looked all about him, with a -fearful air of listening. -</p> - -<p> -“He’s a secret man,” he whispered, “and the mill’s as full of ears as -a king’s palace.” -</p> - -<p> -I made no answer, but went on with my meal, though I had much ado to -swallow it; but to please my father I made a great show of enjoying -what was put before me. -</p> - -<p> -One thing I noticed with satisfaction, and that was that my father -drank sparingly and that only of wine watered to insipidity. Indeed, I -was to find that a complete change in him in this respect was not the -least marvelous sign of the strange alteration in his temperament. -</p> - -<p> -The meal over, we drew our chairs to the fire, and talked the -afternoon away on desultory subjects. By and by some shadowy spirit of -his old intellectual self seemed to flash and flicker fitfully through -his conversation. -</p> - -<p> -The afternoon deepened into dusk; strange phantoms, wrought of the -leaping flame, came out of corners or danced from wall to ceiling and -were gone. He was in the midst of a fine flow of words descriptive of -some metaphysical passages he had lately encountered in a book, when -his voice trailed off and died away. He crept to me and whispered in -my ear: “He’s there, behind the door!” -</p> - -<p> -I jumped to my feet, rushed across the room and—met Dr. Crackenthorpe -on the threshold. -</p> - -<p> -“Can’t you come in like a decent visitor?” I cried, stamping my foot -on the floor. -</p> - -<p> -He looked pale and, I thought, embarrassed, and he backed a little -before my onset. -</p> - -<p> -“Why, what’s all this?” he said. “I walked straight up the stairs, as -a body should.” -</p> - -<p> -“You made no noise,” I said, black and wrathful. “What right have you -to prowl into a private house in that fashion?” -</p> - -<p> -For a moment his face fell menacing. But it cleared—if such may -express the lightening of those muddy features—almost immediately. -</p> - -<p> -“Here’s a fine reception!” he cried, “for one who comes to greet the -returned prodigal in all good comradeship; and to an old friend, too!” -</p> - -<p> -“You were never ours,” I muttered. -</p> - -<p> -He plucked a bottle of gin from under his arm, where he had been -carrying it. -</p> - -<p> -“Your father has given up the pernicious habit,” he said, with a grin, -“but I thought, perhaps, he’d break his rule for once on such a -stupendous occasion as this. Let us pledge you in a full bumper, Mr. -Renalt.” -</p> - -<p> -“Pledge whom you like,” I answered, surlily, “but don’t ask a return -from me. I don’t drink spirit.” -</p> - -<p> -“Then you miss a very exquisite and esthetic pleasure, I may say. Try -it this only time. Glasses, Mr. Trender.” -</p> - -<p> -I saw my father waver, and guessed this unwonted liberality on the -part of the doctor was calculated to some end of his own. In an access -of rage I seized the full bottle and spun it with all my might against -the wooden wall of the room. It crashed into a thousand flying -splinters, and the pungent liquor flooded the floor beneath. -</p> - -<p> -For an instant the doctor stood quite dumfounded, and went all the -colors of the prism. Then he walked very gently to the door and turned -on the threshold. -</p> - -<p> -“You were always an unlicked cub,” he said, softly, “but this -transcends all your past pleasantries.” -</p> - -<p> -“I mean it too,” I said, still in a towering passion. “I intend it as -a hint that you had best keep away from here. I’ve no cause to -remember you with love, and from this time, understand, you’ve no -claim of friendship upon this household.” -</p> - -<p> -“I will remember,” he said. “I always do. Perhaps I’ve another sort of -claim, though. Who knows?” -</p> - -<p> -He nodded at me grimly once or twice, like an evil mandarin, and -walked off, down the stairs. -</p> - -<p> -I looked at my father. He was sitting, his hands clasping the elbows -of his chair, with a wild, lost look upon his face. -</p> - -<p> -“What have you done?” he whispered. “Renalt, what have you done? We -are in that man’s power to ruin us at a word!” -</p> - - -<h3 id="ch31"> -CHAPTER XXXI.<br/> -<span class="chap_sub">ONE MYSTERY EXPLAINED.</span> -</h3> - -<p> -The explanation I had desired for the morrow I determined to bring -about there and then. I went and stood above the old man and looked -down upon him. -</p> - -<p> -“Dad,” I said, softly, “once before, if you remember, I came to you -heart-full of the question that I am now going to put to you again. I -was a boy then, and likely you did right in refusing me your -confidence. Now I am a man, and, dad, a man whose soul has been badly -wounded in its sore struggle with life.” -</p> - -<p> -He had drooped forward as I began, but at this he raised his head and -looked me earnestly in the eyes. -</p> - -<p> -“I know, Renalt. It was I broke the bottle then, as you have now. You -have taken the lead into your own hands. What is it you’d ask?” -</p> - -<p> -“Don’t you know, dad?” -</p> - -<p> -“Yes, I know. Give me a little time and perhaps some day I’ll tell -you.” -</p> - -<p> -“Why not now, dad?” -</p> - -<p> -He seemed to muse a little space, with his brows gone into furrows of -calculation. -</p> - -<p> -“Why not?” he muttered. “Why not?” -</p> - -<p> -Suddenly he leaned forward and said softly: -</p> - -<p> -“Has it ever concerned you to think what might be the source of your -father’s income?” -</p> - -<p> -“I have thought of it, dad, many and many a time. It wasn’t for me to -ask. I have tried to force myself to believe that it came from our -grandfather.” -</p> - -<p> -“He was a just man, Renalt, and a hard. I married against his will and -he never spoke to me afterward.” -</p> - -<p> -“But the mill——” -</p> - -<p> -“The mill he left to me, as it had been left to him. He would not, in -his justice, deprive me of the means of living. ‘What my hands have -wrought of this, his may do,’ he wrote. But all his little personal -estate he willed elsewhere.” -</p> - -<p> -“And you never worked the mill?” -</p> - -<p> -“For a time I worked it, to some profit. We began not all -empty-handed. She brought a little with her.” -</p> - -<p> -“My mother?” -</p> - -<p> -At the word he half-started from his chair and sunk back into it -again. His eyes blazed as I had not seen them do since my return. -</p> - -<p> -“For twenty years and more,” he shrieked, “that name has never been on -your lips—on the lips of any one of you. I would have struck him down -without pity that spoke it!” -</p> - -<p> -I stood looking at him amazed. For a moment he seemed -transformed—translated out of his fallen self—for a moment and no -more. His passion left him quakingly. -</p> - -<p> -“Ah!” he cried, with a gasp, and looked up at me beseeching—“you’re -not offended—you are not offended, Renalt?” -</p> - -<p> -“No, no,” I said, impatiently. “You must tell me why, dad. You will, -won’t you?” -</p> - -<p> -He answered with a sobbing moan. -</p> - -<p> -“You, her son, must not know. Haven’t I been faithful to her? Have I -ever by word or sign dishonored her memory in her children’s ears—my -boy, have I?” -</p> - -<p> -“I have never heard you mention her till now. I have never dreamed of -her but as a nameless shadow, father.” -</p> - -<p> -“Let her be so always. She wrecked my life—in a day she made me the -dark brute you remember well. I was not so always, Renalt. This long, -degraded life of despair and the bestial drowning of it were her -doing—hers, I tell you. Remorse! It has struggled to master me, and I -have laughed it away—all these years I have laughed it away. Yet it -was pitiful when she died. A heart of stone would have wept to see -her. But mine was lead—lead—lead.” -</p> - -<p> -He dropped his head on his breast. I stood darkly pondering in the -quiet room. There seemed a stir and rustling all round within the -house, as if ghostly footfalls were restlessly pacing out their -haunting penance. -</p> - -<p> -“Renalt,” said my father, presently; “never speak of her; never -mention her by that name. She passed and left me what I am. I closed -the mill and shut its door and that of my heart to every genial -influence that might help it to forget. I had no wish to forget. In -silence and solitariness I fed upon myself till I became like to a -madman. Then I roused and went abroad more, for I had a mission of -search to attend to.” -</p> - -<p> -“You never found him?” -</p> - -<p> -The words came to my lips instinctively. How could I fail to interpret -that part, at least, of the miserable secret? -</p> - -<p> -“To this day—never.” -</p> - -<p> -He answered preoccupied—suddenly heedless of my assurance in so -speaking. A new light had come to his face—an unfamiliar one. I could -have called it almost the reflection of cunning—vanity—a -self-complacent smugness of retrospect. -</p> - -<p> -“But I found something else,” he cried, with a twitching smirk. -</p> - -<p> -“What was that?” -</p> - -<p> -He leaned forward in a listening attitude. -</p> - -<p> -“Hush!” he murmured. “Was that a noise in the house?” -</p> - -<p> -“I heard nothing, dad.” -</p> - -<p> -He beckoned me to stand closer—to stoop to him. -</p> - -<p> -“A jar of old Greek and Roman coins.” -</p> - -<p> -He fell back in his chair and stared up at me with frightened eyes. -The mystery was out, and an awful dismay seized him that at length in -one moment of sentiment he had parted with the secret that had been -life to him. -</p> - -<p> -“What have I said?” he whispered, stilly. “Renalt, you won’t give any -heed to the maundering of an old man?” -</p> - -<p> -I looked down on him pityingly. -</p> - -<p> -“Don’t fear me, father,” I said, almost with a groan. “I will never -breathe a word of it to anybody.” -</p> - -<p> -“Good, dear boy,” he answered, smiling. “I can trust you, I know. You -were always my favorite, Renalt, and——” -</p> - -<p> -He broke off with a sudden, sharp cry. -</p> - -<p> -“My favorite,” and he stared up at me. “My favorite? So kings treat -their favorites!” -</p> - -<p> -He passed a nervous hand across his forehead, his wild eyes never -leaving my face. I could make nothing of his changing moods. -</p> - -<p> -“What about the jar of coins?” I said. -</p> - -<p> -“Ah!” he muttered, the odd expression degrading his features once -more. “They were such a treasure it was never one man’s lot to acquire -before or since—heaven’s compensation for the cruelty of the world.” -</p> - -<p> -“Where did you find them?” -</p> - -<p> -“In an ancient barrow of the dead,” he whispered, looking fearfully -around him—“there, on the downs. It had rained heavily, and there had -been a subsidence. I was idly brooding, and idly flung a stone through -a rent in the soil. It tinkled upon something. I put in my hand and -touched and brought away a disk of metal. It was a golden coin. I -covered all up and returned at night, unearthed the jar and brought it -secretly home. It was no great size, but full to the throat of gold. -Then I knew that life had found me a new lease of pleasure. I hid the -jar where no one could discover it and set about to enjoy the gift. It -came in good time. The mill had ceased to yield. My store of money was -near spent. I selected three or four of the likeliest coins and -carried them to a man in London that bought such things—a numismatist -he called himself. If he had any scruples he smothered them then and -afterward, in face of such treasures as it made his eyes shoot green -to look upon. He asked me at first where I had got them. Hunting about -the downs, I said. That was the formula. He never asked for more. He -gave me a good price for them, one by one, and made his heavier -profit, no doubt, on each. They yielded richly and went slowly. They -made an idle, debauched man of me, who forgot even his revenge in the -glut of possession.” -</p> - -<p> -He seemed even then to accuse himself, through an affectation rather -than a conviction of avarice. -</p> - -<p> -“They went slowly,” he repeated; “till—till—Renalt, I would have -loved you as boy was never loved, if you had killed that doctor, as -you killed——” he stopped and gave a thin cry of anguish. -</p> - -<p> -“I didn’t kill Modred, father. I know it now.” -</p> - -<p> -“No, no—you didn’t,” he half-whined in a cowering voice. “Don’t say I -said it. I caught myself up.” -</p> - -<p> -“We’ll talk about that presently. The doctor——” -</p> - -<p> -“That night, you remember,” he cried, passionately, “when I dropped a -coin and he saw it—that was the beginning. Oh, he has a hateful greed -for such things. A wicked, suspicious nature. He soon began cajoling, -threatening, worming my secret out of me. I had to silence him now and -again or he would have exposed me to the world and wrenched my one -devouring happiness from me.” -</p> - -<p> -“You gave him some of the coins?” -</p> - -<p> -“He has had enough to melt into a grill as big as St. Lawrence’s, and -he shall fry on it some day. More than that—more than that!” -</p> - -<p> -He clenched his hands in impotent fury. -</p> - -<p> -“There was one thing in the jar worth a soul’s ransom—a cameo, -Renalt, that I swear was priceless—I, who speak from intuition—not -knowledge. The beauty of the old world was crystallized in it. An -emperor would have pawned his crown to buy it.” -</p> - -<p> -His words brought before me with a shock the night of Modred’s death, -when I had stood listening on the stairs. -</p> - -<p> -“One evening—a terrible evening, Renalt—when I went to fetch a new -bribe for him from the hiding-place (he demanded it before he would -move a finger to help that poor boy upstairs), I found this cameo -gone. He swore he hadn’t set eyes on it, and to this day I believe he -lied. How can I tell—how can I tell? Twenty times a week, perhaps, my -vice brought the secret almost within touch of discovery. Sometimes -for days together I would carry this gem in my pocket, and take it out -when alone and gaze on it with exquisite rapture. Then for months it -would lie safely hidden again. If I had dropped and lost it in one of -my fits—as he suggested—should I have never heard of it again? -Renalt”—he held out two trembling hands to me—“it was the darling of -my heart! Find it for me and I will bless you forever.” -</p> - -<p> -He ended almost with a sob. I could have wept myself over the pitiful -degeneration of a noble intellect. -</p> - -<p> -“Father, you said he cajoled—threatened. Didn’t you ever reveal to -him——” -</p> - -<p> -“Where the jar was hid? No; a million times, no! He would have sucked -me dry of the last coin. He knew that I had made a rich find—no -more.” -</p> - -<p> -“And on the strength of that vague surmise you have allowed him to -blackmail you all these years?” -</p> - -<p> -He hung his head, as if cruelly abashed. -</p> - -<p> -“You don’t know the man as I do,” he cried, in a low voice. “He is a -devil—not a man.” -</p> - -<p> -I was utterly shocked and astounded. -</p> - -<p> -“Well,” I said at length. “I won’t ask you for your secret. To share -it with any one would kill the zest, no doubt.” -</p> - -<p> -He lifted his head with a thin wail. -</p> - -<p> -I put my hand gently on his shoulder. -</p> - -<p> -“Dad,” I said, “I must never leave you again.” -</p> - -<p> -He seized my hand and kissed it. -</p> - -<p> -“Harkee, Renalt,” he whispered. “Many are gone, but there are some -left. Could I find out where the cameo is, we would take it, and what -remains, and leave this hateful place—you and I—and bury ourselves -in some beautiful city under the world, where none could find us, and -live in peace and comfort to the end.” -</p> - -<p> -“Peace can never be mine again, father. Would you like to know why? -Would you like to know what has made a sorrowful, haunted man of me, -while you were living on at the old mill here these five years past?” -</p> - -<p> -“Tell me,” he said. “Confide in this old, broken, selfish man, who has -that love in his heart to seek comfort for you where he can find none -himself.” -</p> - -<p> -Then, standing up in the red dusk of the room, I gave him my history. -“Nothing extenuate, nor set down aught in malice.” And he sat with -face darkened from me, and quivered only when he heard of Jason’s -villainy. -</p> - -<p> -And at the end he lifted up his voice and cried: -</p> - -<p> -“Oh, Absolom, my son—my son, Absolom!” -</p> - - -<h3 id="ch32"> -CHAPTER XXXII.<br/> -<span class="chap_sub">OLD PEGGY.</span> -</h3> - -<p> -The months that immediately followed my home-coming were passed by me -in an aimless, desultory temporizing with the vexed problems that, -unanswered, were consuming my heart. -</p> - -<p> -I roamed the country as of old and renewed my acquaintance with bird, -fish and insect. Starting to gather a collection of butterflies and -moths—many of which were local and rare—with the mere object of -filling in the lapses of a restless ennui and in some dull gratitude -to a pursuit that had helped me to a little degree of late success, I -rapidly rose to an interest in its formation that became, I may say, -the then chief happiness of my life. To my father, also, it brought, -in the arrangement and classification of specimens, a certain innocent -pleasure that helped to restore him to some healthier show of -manliness moral and physical. -</p> - -<p> -Poor, broken old man! I would not now have stultified his pathetic -confidence in me for the biggest bribe the world could hold out. -</p> - -<p> -Yet it must not be supposed I ever really for a moment lost sight of -the main issues of a mystery that was bitten into my heart with an -acid that no time could take the strength from. Sometime, sooner or -later, I knew it would be revealed to me who it was that killed -Modred. -</p> - -<p> -As to that lesser secret of the coins—it troubled me but little. Free -of that dread of possible ruin that appeared to cling hauntingly to my -father, I was not disinclined to the belief that the complete -dissipation of his bugbear estate might prove after all his moral -salvation. Remove its source of irritation, and would not the sore -heal? -</p> - -<p> -Sometimes in the full pressure of this thought I found it almost in my -mind to hunt and hunt until I found his hiding-place and to commit its -remaining treasures to the earth or the waters. Then it would seem a -base thing to do—a mean advantage to take of his confidence—and I -would put the thought from me. -</p> - -<p> -Still, however I might decide ultimately, this determination dwelt -firmly and constantly in me—to oppose by every means in my power any -further levying of blackmail on the part of the doctor. -</p> - -<p> -This unworthy eccentricity had not, to my knowledge, been near the -mill since that night of my return. That he presently found means, -nevertheless, of communicating with his victim, I was to find out by a -simple chance. -</p> - -<p> -June had come upon us leading this placidly monotonous life, when, -returning one afternoon from a ramble after specimens, I found my -father sitting upstairs in a mood so preoccupied that he did not -notice my entrance. His head was bowed, his left arm drooping over one -end of the table. Suddenly hearing my footsteps in the room, he -started and a gold coin fell from his hand and spun and tinkled on the -boards. -</p> - -<p> -“What’s that?” I said. -</p> - -<p> -He stooped and clutched it, and hugging it to his breast looked up in -my face with startled eyes. But he gave no answer. -</p> - -<p> -“Is it necessary to change another, dad?” -</p> - -<p> -“No,” he muttered. -</p> - -<p> -A thought stung me like a wasp. -</p> - -<p> -“Is it for a bribe?” I demanded. Still he kept silence. -</p> - -<p> -“Father,” I said, “give it to me.” -</p> - -<p> -“Renalt—I can’t; I mustn’t.” -</p> - -<p> -“Give it to me. If you refuse—I threaten nothing—but—give it to -me!” -</p> - -<p> -He held it forth in a shaking hand. I took it and slipped it into my -pocket. -</p> - -<p> -“Now,” I said, sternly, “I am going to see Dr. Crackenthorpe.” -</p> - -<p> -He rose from his chair with a cry. -</p> - -<p> -“You are mad, I tell you! You can do nothing—nothing.” -</p> - -<p> -“It is time this ceased for good and all, father. I stand between you -now—remember that. You have to choose between me and that villain. -Which is it to be?” -</p> - -<p> -“Renalt—my son. It is for your sake!” -</p> - -<p> -“I can look after my own interests. Which is it to be?” -</p> - -<p> -He dropped back into his chair with a groan. -</p> - -<p> -“Go, then,” he muttered, “and God help you!” -</p> - -<p> -I turned and left him. My heart was blazing with a fierce resentment. -But I would not leave the house till my veins ran cooler, for no -advantage of temper should be on the side of that frosty bloodsucker. -</p> - -<p> -I wandered downstairs, past the door of the room of silence, but the -rough jeering of the wheel within drove me away to where I could be -out of immediate earshot of it. -</p> - -<p> -From the kitchen at the back came the broken, whining voice of old -Peggy Rottengoose, who yet survived and waited upon the meager -household with a ghoulish faithfulness that no time could impair. -</p> - -<p> -The words of some sardonic song came sterilely from her withered lips. -She was apt at such grewsome ditties: -</p> - -<div class="quote_o"><div class="quote_i"> -<p class="i0">“I saw three ravens up a tree—</p> -<p class="i5">Heigho!</p> -<p class="i0">I saw three ravens up a tree;</p> -<p class="i0">And they were black as black could be—</p> -<p class="i0">All down by the greenwood side, O!</p> - -<br/> - -<p class="i0">“I stuck my penknife in their hearts—</p> -<p class="i5">Heigho!</p> -<p class="i0">I stuck my penknife in their hearts;</p> -<p class="i0">And the more I stuck it the blood gushed out;</p> -<p class="i0">All down by the greenwood side, O!”</p> -</div></div> - -<p> -I softly pushed open the door, that stood ajar, and looked in. The old -creature was sitting crooning in a chair, a picture or print of some -kind, at which she was gazing in a sort of hungry ecstasy, held out -and down before her at arm’s length. I stole on tiptoe behind her and -sought to get a glimpse at that she devoured with her rheumy eyes. -</p> - -<p> -“Why, what are you doing with that, Peg?” I said, with a start of -surprise. -</p> - -<p> -Cunning even under the spur of sudden discomfiture, she whipped the -thing beneath her apron before she struggled to her feet and faced -round upon me. -</p> - -<p> -“What ails ye, Renalt?” she wheezed, in a voice like that of one -winded by a blow—“to fright a body, sich like?” -</p> - -<p> -“You needn’t be frightened, unless you were doing something you -shouldn’t, you know.” -</p> - -<p> -“Shud and shudn’t,” she said, her yellow under jaw, scratched all over -with fine wrinkles, moving like a barbel’s. “I doesn’t take my morals -fro’ a Trender.” -</p> - -<p> -“You take all you can get, Peggy. Why not a picture with the rest?” -</p> - -<p> -“My own nevvy!” she cried, with an attenuated scream—“blessed son to -Amelia as were George’s first wife and died o’ cramps o’ the cold dew -from a shift hung out on St. Bartlemey’s day.” -</p> - -<p> -“Now, Peggy,” I said sternly, “I saw that picture and it wasn’t of -your nephew or of any other relation of yours. It was a silhouette, as -they call it, of my brother, Modred, made when he was a little fellow, -by some one in a show that came here, and it used to hang in Modred’s -room.” -</p> - -<p> -“Ye lie, Renalt!” she cried, panting at me. “It’s Amelia’s boy—and -mayn’t I enjoy the fruits o’ my own heritage?” -</p> - -<p> -“Let me look at it, then; and if I’m wrong I’ll ask your pardon.” -</p> - -<p> -“Keep arf!” she cried, backing from me. “Keep arf, or I’ll tear your -weasand wi’ my claws!” -</p> - -<p> -I made a little rush and clutched her. She could not keep her promise -without loosening her hold of the picture, but she butted at me, with -her cap bobbing, and dinted my shin with her vicious old toes. Then, -seeing it was all useless, she crumpled the paper up into a ball and, -tossing it from her, fell back in her chair and threw her apron over -her head. -</p> - -<p> -I dived for the picture and smoothed out its creases. -</p> - -<p> -“Peggy!” I said. -</p> - -<p> -“I tuk it—I tuk it!” wailed the old woman. “I tuk it fro’ the wall -when I come up wi’ the blarnkets and nubbody were there to see!” -</p> - -<p> -“Why did you take it and why have you riddled it with holes like -this?” -</p> - -<p> -She slipped down on her trembling knees. -</p> - -<p> -“Don’tee be hard on me, Renalt—don’tee! I swear, I were frighted -myself at what I done. I didn’t hardly guess it would act so. Don’tee -have me burnt or drownded, Renalt. It were a wicked thing to a body -old enough to be your grandam, and I’ve but a little glint o’ time -left.” -</p> - -<p> -“I don’t know what you mean, Peggy. You’d no business to take the -picture, of course, and still less to treat it like this. But your -nature’s a thieving one, and I suppose you can’t help it. Get off your -knees. It’s done, and there’s an end of it.” -</p> - -<p> -She stopped her driveling moan and looked up at me queerly, I thought. -</p> - -<p> -“Ay, I’d no call to do it, of course,” she said. “Just a body’s -absence o’ mind, Renalt, ye see—same as pricking pastry in time to a -toone like. I thought maybe if ye saw it ye’d want to tell the old man -upstairs, and he’s got the strong arm yet, for all the worm in his -brain.” -</p> - -<p> -“I sha’n’t tell him this time, but don’t let me catch you handling any -of our property again”; and I left the room. -</p> - -<p> -A little flustered by my late tussle and hardly yet in a mood for the -interview I clearly foresaw would be no amicable one, I wandered out, -turning my footsteps, not at present in the direction of the doctor’s -house, but toward that part of the river called the “weirs,” which ran -straight away from the mill front. This was a pleasant, picturesque -stretch down which the water, shaded by many stooping trees and -bushes, washed and gurgled brightly. A railed pathway ran by it and, -to the same side, cottages at intervals and little plats of flowering -parterres. -</p> - -<p> -It was a reach which, unpreserved, was much favored of the townsfolk -for fishing. -</p> - -<p> -A man was whipping the stream now in its broadest part, and I stopped -to watch him. He was a rosy, well-knit fellow of 35 or so, with a -good-humored, bibulous eye and a foolish underjaw. -</p> - -<p> -“Any sport?” I asked. -</p> - -<p> -“Plenty o’ sport,” said he, “but no fish.” -</p> - -<p> -“You’re a philosopher, it seems.” -</p> - -<p> -“Mebbe I arm, for what it may mean. A pint of ale ’ud cure it.” -</p> - -<p> -“Why not a pint of water? It’s there and to spare.” -</p> - -<p> -“The beggar’s tap, master. I arns my living.” -</p> - -<p> -“Well, buy your pot of ale out of it.” -</p> - -<p> -“I’d rather you tuk the responsibility off me.” -</p> - -<p> -“Well,” said I, with a grin, “let’s see you catch a fish and I’ll -stand treat.” -</p> - -<p> -He threw for some time in silence. -</p> - -<p> -“I must be off,” said I. -</p> - -<p> -“Fair play, master! I harsn’t got my fish yet.” -</p> - -<p> -“I can’t wait all day for that.” -</p> - -<p> -“Then, pay up. You put no limit to the time.” -</p> - -<p> -I laughed and gave him the money, and he spat upon it for luck. -</p> - -<p> -“You come fro’ yon old mill, don’tee?” said he. -</p> - -<p> -“Yes, I do. You know me, it appears. Who may you be?” -</p> - -<p> -“They carls me saxton ower at St. John’s yonder.” -</p> - -<p> -I received his answer with a little start. Were these the hands that -had dug the grave for my dead brother? -</p> - -<p> -“They call you? What do you call yourself?” I said. -</p> - -<p> -“High priest to the worms, wi’ your honor’s leave.” -</p> - -<p> -He stuck his tongue in his cheek and whipped out his fly again. This -time it disappeared with a fat blob and his hand came smartly up. I -watched him while he wheeled in his floundering prize. -</p> - -<p> -“Ay,” he went on, as he stooped to unhook the trout, “the worms and I -works on the mutual-profit system. I feeds them and they feeds me. -Sometimes”—he looked round and up at me slyly—“they shows a power o’ -gratitoode ower an uncommon rich meal and makes me a particlar -acknowledgment o’ my services.” -</p> - - -<h3 id="ch33"> -CHAPTER XXXIII.<br/> -<span class="chap_sub">FACE TO FACE.</span> -</h3> - -<p> -In the cool of the evening I knocked at Dr. Crackenthorpe’s front -door. No one answering—his one servant was gadding, probably—I tried -the handle, found it to be on the latch only, and walked in. The house -was quiet as a desert, save that from the doctor’s private -consulting-room, as he called it, issued a little, weak, snoring -sound. -</p> - -<p> -I paused in the dusky passage before tapping at the closed door of -this room. The whole place was faintly stringent with the atmosphere -that comes from a poor habit of ventilation—an atmosphere like that -emitted from crumbling old leather-bound folios. A ragged strip of -carpet, so trodden up its middle to the very string as to give the -impression of a cinder-path running between dully flowering borders, -climbed the flight of stairs before me, and stretched itself upon the -landing above in an exhausted condition. -</p> - -<p> -In a shallow alcove to one side of me stood a gaunt and voiceless old -grandfather clock. A gas-browned bust of Pitt, rendered ridiculous by -a perfect skull-cap of dust, stood on a bracket over a door opposite -and a few anatomical prints of a dark and melancholy cast broke the -monotony of the yellow walls. -</p> - -<p> -Rendered none the less depressed in my errand by these dismal -surroundings, I pulled myself together and tapped roundly on the -doctor’s door. No response followed. I knocked again and again, -without result. At length I turned the handle and stepped of my own -accord into the room. -</p> - -<p> -He was sitting at the table, half his body sprawled over it and an -empty tumbler rolled from one of his hands. Overhead, the row of -murderers’ busts looked down upon him with every variety of unclean -expression, and seemed to prick their ears with sightless rapture over -that bestial music of his soul. -</p> - -<p> -The doors of a high cabinet, that in other brief visits I had never -seen but closely locked, now stood open behind him, revealing row upon -row of shelves, whereon hundreds of coins of many metals lay nicely -arranged upon cotton wool. A few of these, also, lay about him on the -table, and it was evident that a drunken slumber had overcome him -while reviewing his mighty collection. -</p> - -<p> -So deep was he in stupor that it was not until I hammered and shook -the very table that he so much as stirred, and it was only after I had -slipped round and jogged him roughly on the shoulder that he came to -himself. -</p> - -<p> -Then he dragged his long body up, swaying a little at first, and -turning a stupid glazed eye on me two or three times and from me to -the scattered coins and back again. -</p> - -<p> -Suddenly he scrambled to his feet and backed from me. -</p> - -<p> -“Thieves!” he yelled. “Thieves!” -</p> - -<p> -“That’ll do,” I said, coolly. “I’m not the thief in this house, Dr. -Crackenthorpe.” -</p> - -<p> -“What are you doing here?” he cried in a furious voice. “How did you -get in? What do you want?” -</p> - -<p> -“I want a word with you—I’ll tell you what when you’re quieter. As to -getting in? I knocked half a dozen times and could get no answer. So I -walked in.” -</p> - -<p> -“Curse the baggage!” he muttered. “Can’t I rely upon one of them? I’ll -twist her pretty neck for this.” -</p> - -<p> -“You need twist nothing on my account. If I had failed to catch you -now I would have dogged you for the opportunity.” -</p> - -<p> -“Oh, that’s it, is it?” he said, with a laugh and a savage sneer. -“Well, state your business and be off.” -</p> - -<p> -He spoke ferociously, but on the instant, seeing my eye caught by -something lying on that part of the table his body had covered, dived -for it and had it in his grasp. Then with a backward sweep of his hand -he closed the cabinet doors and stood facing me. -</p> - -<p> -“Now, sir,” he said. -</p> - -<p> -“Dr. Crackenthorpe,” I answered, “you won’t bully me away from my -purpose. I’m a better man than you, and a stronger, I believe; but I -won’t begin by threatening.” -</p> - -<p> -“And that’s very kind,” he put in mockingly. “Still we’d better come -to business, don’t you think?” -</p> - -<p> -“I’m coming to it and straight. What’s that you’ve got in your hand?” -</p> - -<p> -“What I intend to keep there. Is that all?” -</p> - -<p> -“It’s a cameo you stole from my father. Don’t take the trouble to deny -it.” -</p> - -<p> -“I don’t take any trouble on your account, my good fellow. It’s a -cameo, as you very properly observe, but it happens to belong to me.” -</p> - -<p> -“By thieving, I’ll swear. Now, Dr. Crackenthorpe, I intend to make you -disgorge that cameo, together with one or two other trifles you’ve -coerced my father into handing over to you.” -</p> - -<p> -“No?” he said, in the same jeering tone. -</p> - -<p> -“Further than that, I intend to put a stop here and at once to that -blackmailing process you’ve carried on for a number of years.” -</p> - -<p> -“Blackmailing’s a very good word. It implies a reciprocity of -interests. And how are you going to do all this?” -</p> - -<p> -“You shall hear at the assizes, maybe.” -</p> - -<p> -He gave a laugh—quite rich for him; walked to the table, picked up -deliberately the coins lying strewn there; stepped to the cabinet, -deposited all therein; shut and locked it, and put the key in his -pocket. -</p> - -<p> -“Now, Mr. Bookbinder,” he said, facing me again, “you’ve a very pretty -intelligence; but you’ve not acquired in London that knowledge of the -nine points of the law without which the tenth is empty talk. Here’s -a truism, also, that’s escaped your matured observation, and it’s -called ‘be sure of your facts before you speak.’” -</p> - -<p> -“Am I not?” I cried, contemptuously. -</p> - -<p> -“We’ll see. Even a Crichton may suffer trifling lapses of memory. Let -me lead yours back to that melancholy morning of your departure from -the parent nest. Let me recall to you the gist of a few sentences that -passed between your father and myself prior to the advent of your -amiable brother, who was so hard on you. Some mention of a lost trifle -was made then, I believe, and permission given me to keep it if I -happened to alight upon it. Wasn’t that so?” -</p> - -<p> -“I can remember something of the sort,” I muttered, gloomily. -</p> - -<p> -“Ah, so far so good. Now, supposing that lost trifle were the very -trinket your most observant eyes just now caught sight of?—I don’t -say it was; but we will presume so, for the sake of -argument—supposing it were, should I not be entitled to consider it -my own?” -</p> - -<p> -“You may be lying,” I said, angrily. “Probably you are. Where did you -find it?” -</p> - -<p> -“That is as much outside the question as your very offensive manner.” -</p> - -<p> -“You’ve always been the bane of our house. What do I care what you -think of my manner? The sharper it cuts, the better pleased am I. -You’ve worked upon moods and weaknesses of the old man with your -infernal cunning and got him under your thumb, as you think. Don’t be -too sure. You’ll find an enemy of very different caliber in me. -There’s a law for blackmailers, though you mayn’t think it.” -</p> - -<p> -He cocked his head on one side a moment, like a vile carrion crow; -then came softly and pushed a lean finger at my breast. -</p> - -<p> -“And a law for fratricides,” he said, quietly. -</p> - -<p> -I laughed so disdainfully that he forgot himself on the instant in a -wild burst of fury. -</p> - -<p> -“Toad! Filthy, poisonous viper!” he yelled. “You think to combat me -with your pitiful little sword of brass! Have I overlooked your -insolence, d’ye think? Speak a word further—one word, you pestilent -dog, and I’ll smash you, body and soul, as I smash this glass!” -</p> - -<p> -In his rabid frenzy he actually seized and threw upon the floor the -tumbler from which he had lately been drinking, and, putting his heavy -heel on it, crushed it into a thousand fragments. -</p> - -<p> -“Oh!” he moaned, his breath chattering like a dry leaf in the wind, -“I’ll be even with you, my friend—I’ll be even with you! You -dare—you dare—you dare! You, the poor dependent on my bounty, whom I -could wither with a word. The law you call upon so glibly has a long -arm for murderers. You think a little lapse of years has made you -safe”—he laughed wildly—“safe? Holy saints in heaven! I’ve only to -step over to the police station—five minutes—and you’re laid by the -heels and a pretty collar weaving for your neck.” -</p> - -<p> -He checked himself in the torrent of his rage and lifted his hand -menacingly. -</p> - -<p> -“Harkee!” he cried. “I can do that and at a word I would! Now, d’ye -set your little tin plate against my bludgeon?” -</p> - -<p> -“Yes,” I said. -</p> - -<p> -He seemed to doubt my answer, as if his ears had misinterpreted it, -for he went on: -</p> - -<p> -“If you value your life keep out of my way. Take the lesson from your -father. He knew what I could do if I chose; and he took the best means -in his power to buy my silence.” -</p> - -<p> -I gave a cry of fierce triumph. -</p> - -<p> -“So—the secret is out! It was to save me, as he thought, that my -father parted with his treasure!” -</p> - -<p> -The blackmailer gave no answer. -</p> - -<p> -I went and stood close up against him, daring him with the manliness -he lacked. -</p> - -<p> -“You are a contemptible, dastardly poltroon,” I said, with all the -coldest scorn I could muster. -</p> - -<p> -He started back a little. -</p> - -<p> -“If I had killed my brother in good reality, I would go to my hanging -with joy if the only alternative were buying my safety from such a -slimy, crawling reptile as you!” -</p> - -<p> -“If?” he echoed, with a pale effort at another laugh. -</p> - -<p> -“‘If’ was what I said. Pretty doctor you, not to know, as I have since -found out, that the boy died by other means than drowning!” -</p> - -<p> -In an ungovernable burst of fury I took him by the throat and drove -him back against the table—and he offered no resistance. -</p> - -<p> -“You dog!” I cried. “Oh, you dog, you dog! You did know it, of course, -and you had the devil’s heart to lie to my father and beat him down in -the dust for your own filthy ends! Had I a hand in my brother’s death? -You know I had not any more than you—perhaps not so much!” -</p> - -<p> -On the snap of the thought I spurned him from me and staggered back. -</p> - -<p> -“Why,” I cried, staring at him standing cowering and sullen before me. -“Had you, if the truth were known? You were in the house that night!” -</p> - -<p> -He choked once or twice and, smoothing down the apple in his throat -with a nervous hand, came out of his corner a pace or two. -</p> - -<p> -“You can put two and two together,” he said in a shrill voice, defiant -still, but with a whining ring in it. “What interest could I possibly -have in murdering your brother? For the rest—you may be right.” -</p> - -<p> -“And you can say it and plume yourself upon having successfully traded -on the lie?” -</p> - -<p> -“Yes,” he said, with a recovering grin, “I think I can.” -</p> - -<p> -I turned from him, sick at his mere presence. -</p> - -<p> -“And now,” said he, “I intend to trade upon the truth.” -</p> - -<p> -I forced myself to face round upon him again. “The boy,” he said, -looking down hatefully and shifting some papers on the table with his -finger-tips, “it was obvious to any but the merest ignoramus, never -died of drowning.” -</p> - -<p> -“How then?” -</p> - -<p> -“From the appearances—of strangulation, I should say.” -</p> - -<p> -“Strangulation? Who——” -</p> - -<p> -“Do you want these trifles back? Ask your father first why he had -Modred’s braces in his pocket the morning after? He was very drunk -that night—furiously drunk; and he left me alone in the parlor for -awhile.” -</p> - - -<h3 id="ch34"> -CHAPTER XXXIV.<br/> -<span class="chap_sub">I VISIT A GRAVE.</span> -</h3> - -<p> -All that night I tossed and tossed, in vain effort to court the sleep -that should quench the fever in my racked and bewildered brain. My -errand had been a failure. In every sense but the purely personal, it -had been a failure. And now, indeed, that personal side was the one -that least concerned me. As to every other soul in whom I was -interested, it seemed that a single false step on my part might lead -to the destruction of any one of them. Where could I look for the -least comfort or assistance? -</p> - -<p> -My father had glanced anxiously at me when I returned the evening -before. -</p> - -<p> -“It has been as you prophesied,” I said. “The man is a devil.” -</p> - -<p> -He gave a heavy sigh and drooped his head. -</p> - -<p> -“What did he tell you?” he muttered. -</p> - -<p> -“He told me lies, father, I feel sure. But he is too cunning a villain -to play without a second card up his sleeve.” -</p> - -<p> -The old man raised imploring eyes to my face. -</p> - -<p> -“Dad!” I cried, “is it true you have bought his silence all these -years for my sake?” -</p> - -<p> -At that he rose to his feet suddenly. -</p> - -<p> -“No word of that!” he shrieked; “not a word! I can’t bear it!” -</p> - -<p> -I looked at him with my throat swelling. -</p> - -<p> -“I’ll not refer to it, if you wish it,” I said, gently. -</p> - -<p> -“I do wish it. What does it amount to? How could I do less?” -</p> - -<p> -“Very well, dad. I’ll keep my gratitude in my heart.” -</p> - -<p> -“Gratitude!” He seemed greatly excited. His voice was broken with -emotion. “Gratitude to me? For what? For driving you from home? For -dealing out your inheritance piecemeal to that hungry vulture yonder? -You kill me with your cruelty.” -</p> - -<p> -“Father!” I cried, amazed. -</p> - -<p> -“No, no, Renalt! You don’t mean to be! But you mustn’t talk of it—you -mustn’t! It’s a long knife in my soul—every word! The one thing I -might have done for you—I failed in. The wild girl, Renalt; that you -loved—oh! A little more watchfulness on my part, a little less -selfishness, might have saved her for you!” -</p> - -<p> -He broke down a moment; then went on with a rough sob: “You think I -love you, and I want you to think it; but—if you only knew all.” -</p> - -<p> -“I know enough. I hold you nothing to blame in all you have referred -to.” -</p> - -<p> -He waved me from him, entreating me to leave him alone awhile, and he -was so unstrung that I thought it best to comply. -</p> - -<p> -But now a new ghost shook my very soul in its walking, and it was the -specter of the blackmailer’s raising. -</p> - -<p> -Was it possible—was it possible that my father that night—in some -fit of drunken savagery—— -</p> - -<p> -I put the thought from me, with loathing, but it returned again and -again. -</p> - -<p> -One fair morning it occurred to me to go and look upon the grave I had -never yet visited. Perhaps, I thought, I should find inspiration -there. This vengeful, bewildered pursuit—I did not know how long I -should be able to endure it. Sometimes, reviewing the latter, I felt -as if it would be best to abandon the chase right then; to yield the -chimera to fate to resolve as she might judge fit or never to resolve -at all, perhaps. Then the thought that only by running to earth the -guilty could I vindicate the innocent, would steel me more rigidly -than ever in the old determination. -</p> - -<p> -The ancient church, in the yard of which Modred was buried, stands no -great distance away upon a slope of the steep hill that shuts in the -east quarter of Winton. -</p> - -<p> -As I passed from the road through the little gate in the yard -boundaries a garden of green was about me—an acre of tree and shrub -and grass set thickly with flowering barrows and tombstones wrapped in -lichen, like velvet for the royal dead. The old church stood in the -midst, as quiet and staid and peaceful there in its bower as if no -restless life of a loud city hummed and echoed all about it. -</p> - -<p> -I paused in indecision. For the first time it occurred to me that I -had made no inquiry as to the position of my brother’s grave; that I -did not even know if the site of his resting-place was marked by stone -or other humbler monument. While I stood the sound of a voice cheerily -singing came to me from the further side of a laurel bush that stood -up from the grass a rood away. I walked round it and came plump upon -my philosophical friend of the “weirs,” knee-deep in a grave that he -was lustily excavating. -</p> - -<p> -“Hullo,” I said, and “Hullo,” he answered. -</p> - -<p> -“You seem to find your task a pleasant one?” said I. -</p> - -<p> -“Ah!” he said. “What makes ’ee think thart, now?” -</p> - -<p> -He leaned upon his spade and criticised me. -</p> - -<p> -“You sing at it, don’t you?” -</p> - -<p> -“Mebbe I do. Men sing sometimes, I’ve heard, when they’ve got the -horrors on ’em.” -</p> - -<p> -“Have you got the horrors, then?” -</p> - -<p> -“Not in the sense o’ drink, though mayhap I’ve had them, too, in my -time.” -</p> - -<p> -He lifted his cap to scratch his forehead and resumed his former -position. -</p> - -<p> -“Look’ee here,” he said. “I stand in a grave, I do. I’ve dug two fut -down. He could wake to a whisper so be as you laid him there. Did he -lift his arm, his fingers ’ud claw in the air like a forked rardish. I -go a fut deeper—and he’d struggle to bust himself out, and, not -succeeding, there’d be a little swelling in the soil above there -cracked like the top of a loaf. I go another fut, and he’s safe to -lie, but he’d hear arnything louder than a bart’s whistle yet. At two -yard he’ll rot as straight and dumb as a dead arder.” -</p> - -<p> -“What then?” I said. -</p> - -<p> -“What then? Why, this: Digging here, week in, week out, I thinks to -myself, what if they buried me six feet deep some day before the life -was out o’ me.” -</p> - -<p> -“Why should they?” -</p> - -<p> -“Why shouldn’t they? Men have been buried quick before now, and why -not me?” -</p> - -<p> -I laughed, but looking at him, I noticed that his forehead was wet -with beads of perspiration not called forth by his labor. -</p> - -<p> -“How long have you been digging graves?” I asked in a matter of way to -help him recover his self-possession. -</p> - -<p> -“Six year come Martlemas.” -</p> - -<p> -He resumed his work for awhile and I stood watching him and pondering. -Presently I said: “You buried my brother, then?” -</p> - -<p> -“Ay,” he answered, heaving out a big clod of earth with an effort, so -strained that it seemed to twist his face into a sort of leering grin. -</p> - -<p> -“I was ill when my brother died,” I said, “and have lived since in -London. I don’t know where he lies. Show me and I’ll give you the -price of a drink.” -</p> - -<p> -He jumped out of the pit with alacrity and flung his coat over his -shoulders, tying the dangling arms across his breast. -</p> - -<p> -“Thart’s easy arned,” he cried, hilariously. “Come along,” and he -clumped off across the grass. -</p> - -<p> -“See there!” he said, suddenly, stopping me and pointed to a mangy and -neglected mound that lay under a corner of the yard wall. -</p> - -<p> -“Is that it?” -</p> - -<p> -He looked at me a moment before he answered. Through all his -heartiness there was a queer suggestion of craft in the fellow’s face -that puzzled me. -</p> - -<p> -“It might be for its state,” he said, “but it isn’t. You may as soon -grow beans in snow as grass on a murdered marn’s grave.” -</p> - -<p> -“Does a murdered man lie there?” -</p> - -<p> -“Ay. A matter of ten year ago, it may be. He wur found one summer morn -in a ditch by the battery yon, and his skull split wi’ a billhook. -Nubbody to this day knows his name or him as did it.” -</p> - -<p> -A grim tragedy to end in this quiet garden of death. We moved on -again, not so far, and my guide pointed down. -</p> - -<p> -“There he lies,” he said. -</p> - -<p> -A poor shallow little heap of rough soil grown compact with years. A -few blades of rank grass standing up from it, starved and stiff like -the bristles on a hog’s back. All around the barrows stretched green -and kindly. Only here and on that other were sordid desolation. No -stone, no boards, no long-lifeless flower even to emphasize the irony -of an epitaph. Nothing but entire indifference and the withering -footmark of time. -</p> - -<p> -“I mind the day,” said the sexton. “Looking ower the hedge yon I see -Vokes’ pig running, wi’ a straw in’s mouth. ‘We shall have rain,’ says -I, and rain it did wi’ a will. Three o’ them came wi’ the coffin—the -old marn and a young ’un—him ’ud be your brother now—and the long -doctor fro’ Chis’ll. In the arternoon, as I was garthering up my -tools, the old marn come back by hisself and chucked a sprig o’ verv’n -on the mound. ‘Oho,’ thinks I. ‘That’ll be to keep the devil fro’ -walking.’ The storm druv up while he wur starnding there and sent him -scuttling. I tuk shelter i’ the church, and when I come out by and by, -there wur the witch-weed gone—washed fro’ the grave, you’ll say, and -I’ll not contradict ye; but the devil knows his own.” -</p> - -<p> -“What do you mean?” -</p> - -<p> -He turned and spat behind him before answering. -</p> - -<p> -“He died o’ cold i’ the inside, eh?” -</p> - -<p> -“Something of that sort. The doctor’s certificate said so.” -</p> - -<p> -“Ah!” He took off his cap again and rubbed his hot head all over with -a whisp of handkerchief. “Supposing he’d been laid two fut and no -more—it wur a smarl matter arter the rain to bust the lid and stick -his fingers through.” -</p> - -<p> -“A small matter, perhaps, for a living man.” -</p> - -<p> -He glanced sidelong at me, then gingerly pecked at the mound with his -foot. -</p> - -<p> -“No grass’ll ever grow there,” said he. -</p> - -<p> -“That remains to be seen.” -</p> - -<p> -I took a sixpence from my pocket and held it out to him. -</p> - -<p> -“Look here,” I said. “Take this, and I’ll give you one every week if -you’ll do your best to make and keep it like—like the other graves.” -</p> - -<p> -He put out his hand instinctively, but withdrew it empty. -</p> - -<p> -“No, no,” he said; “it’s no marner o’ good.” -</p> - -<p> -“Try.” -</p> - -<p> -“I’d rather not. Good-marning to ye,” and he turned his back on me and -walked straight off, with his shoulders hunched up to his ears. -</p> - -<p> -I watched his going moodily, but with no great surprise. It was small -matter for wonder that Modred’s death should have roused uncanny -suspicions among the ignorant and superstitious who knew of us. The -mystery that overhung our whole manner of life was sufficient to -account for that. -</p> - -<p> -For long after the sexton had resumed his work—so long, indeed, that -when I rose to go, only his head and shoulders bobbed up and down -above the rim of the pit he was digging—I sat on the grass beside -that poor sterile mound and sought inspiration of it. -</p> - -<p> -But no voice spoke to me from its depths. -</p> - - -<h3 id="ch35"> -CHAPTER XXXV.<br/> -<span class="chap_sub">ONE SAD VISITOR.</span> -</h3> - -<p> -The autumn of that year broke upon us with sobbing winds and wild, wet -gusts of tempest laden with flying leaves. In the choked trenches, -drowned grasses swayed and swung like torn skirt fringes of the -meadows; in the woods, drenched leaves clung together and talked, -through the lulls, of the devastation that was wrecking their -aftermath of glory. -</p> - -<p> -It had been blowing in soft, irresistible onrushes all one dank -October day, and all day had I spent in the high woods that crown the -gentle hills three or four miles to the southwest of the city. The air -in the long, quiet glades was mystic with the smell of decay; the -heels of vanishing forms seemed to twinkle from tangled bends of -undergrowth as I approached them. Then often, in going by a spot I -could have thought lately tenanted, a sense would tingle through me as -of something listening behind some aged trunk that stood back from my -path. -</p> - -<p> -Gradually dark shut in, and I must needs thread my way among the -trees, while some little show of light remained, if I did not wish to -be belated in the dense thickets. It would not have troubled me -greatly had this actually happened. To yield my tired limbs and -wearier soul to some bed of moss set in the heart of an antique wood -seemed a blessed and most restful thing to do. But the old man awaited -me at home, and thither my duty must carry me. -</p> - -<p> -I had traversed a darkling alley of leafage, treading noiseless on the -spongy floor of it, and was coming out into a little lap of -tree-inclosed lawn that it led to when I stopped in a moment and drew -myself back with a start. -</p> - -<p> -Something was there before me—a fantastic moving shape, that footed -the grass in a weird, sinuous dance of intricate paces, and waving -arms, and feet that hardly rustled on the dead leaves. It was all -wild, elfin; ineffably strange and unearthly. I felt as if the dead -past were revealed to me, and that here I might lay down my burden and -yield the poor residue of life to one last ecstasy. -</p> - -<p> -Dipping, swaying; now here, now there, about the dusky plat of lawn; -sometimes motionless for an instant, so that its drooping skirts and -long, loosened hair made but one tree-like figure of it; again -whirling into motion, with its dark tresses flung abroad—the figure -circled round to within a yard of where I was standing. -</p> - -<p> -Then in a loud, tremulous tone I cried “Zyp!” and sprung into the -open. -</p> - -<p> -She gave a shriek, craned her neck forward to gaze at me, and, falling -upon her knees at my feet, clasped her arms about me. -</p> - -<p> -For a full minute we must have remained thus; and I heard nothing but -the breathless panting of the girl. -</p> - -<p> -“Zyp,” I whispered at last, “what are you doing here, in the name of -heaven?” -</p> - -<p> -“I wanted to see you, Renny. I have walked all the way from -Southampton. Night came upon me as I was passing through the -wood—and—and I couldn’t help it—I couldn’t help it.” -</p> - -<p> -“This mad dancing?” -</p> - -<p> -“I’m so unhappy. Renny, poor Zyp is so unhappy!” -</p> - -<p> -“Does this look like it?” -</p> - -<p> -“The elves caught me. It was so lovely to shake off all the weight and -the misery and the womanliness.” -</p> - -<p> -“Are you tired of being a woman, Zyp?” -</p> - -<p> -“Tired? My heart aches so that I could die. Oh, I hate it all! No, no, -Renny, don’t believe me! My little child! My little, little child! How -can I have her and not be a woman!” -</p> - -<p> -“Get up, Zyp, and let’s find our way out of this.” -</p> - -<p> -“Not till you’ve promised me. Where can we talk better? The foolish -people never dare to walk here at night. You love the woods, too, -Renny. Oh, why didn’t I wait for you? Why, why didn’t I wait for you?” -</p> - -<p> -“Come, we must go.” -</p> - -<p> -“Not till you’ve promised to help me.” -</p> - -<p> -“I promise.” -</p> - -<p> -She caught my hand and kissed it as she knelt; then rose to her feet -and her dark eyes burned upon me in the gloom. -</p> - -<p> -“You didn’t expect to see me?” -</p> - -<p> -“How could I? Least of all here.” -</p> - -<p> -“It’s on the road from Southampton. At least, if it isn’t, the woods -drew me and I couldn’t help but go.” -</p> - -<p> -“Why have you come from Southampton?” -</p> - -<p> -“We fled there to escape him.” -</p> - -<p> -“Him? Who?” Yet I had no need to ask. -</p> - -<p> -“That horrible man. Oh, his white face and the eyes in it! Renny, I -think Jason will die of that face.” -</p> - -<p> -I remembered Duke’s words and was silent. -</p> - -<p> -“It comes upon us in all places and at all hours. Wherever we go he -finds means to track us and to follow—in the streets; in churches, -where we sometimes sit now; at windows, staring in and never moving. -Renny,” she came close up against me to whisper in my ear, and put her -arm round my neck like the Zyp of old. Perhaps she was half-changeling -again in that atmosphere of woodland leafiness. “Renny—once he tried -to poison Jason!” -</p> - -<p> -“Oh, Zyp, don’t say that!” -</p> - -<p> -“He did—he did. Jason was sitting by an open window in the dark, and -a tumbler of spirit and water was on the table by him. He was leaning -back in his chair, as if asleep, but he was really looking all the -time from under his eyelids. A hand came very gently through the -window, pinched something into the glass, and went away again quite -softly.” -</p> - -<p> -“Why didn’t Jason seize it—call out—do anything that wasn’t abject -and contemptible?” -</p> - -<p> -“You don’t know how the long strain has told upon him. Sometimes in -the beginning he thought he must face it out, for life or death, and -end the struggle. But he isn’t really brave, I think.” -</p> - -<p> -“No, Zyp, he isn’t.” -</p> - -<p> -“And now it has gone too far. All his spirit is broken. He clings to -me like a child. He sits with his hand in mine, staring and listening -and dreadfully waiting. And that other doesn’t mean to kill him now, I -think—not murder him, I mean. He sees he can do it more hideously by -following—by only following and looking, Renny.” -</p> - -<p> -In a moment she bowed her head upon my arm and burst into a convulsive -flood of crying. I waited for the first of it to subside before I -spoke again. These, almost the only tears I had ever known fall from -her, were eloquent of her change, indeed. -</p> - -<p> -“Oh!” she cried, presently, in a broken voice. “He didn’t treat me -well at first—my husband—but this piteous clinging to me -now—something chokes——” she flung her head back from me and -wrenched with her hands at the bosom of her dress, as if the heart -underneath were swollen to breaking. Then she tossed up her arms and, -drooping her head, once more fell to a passion of weeping. -</p> - -<p> -“Zyp,” I said, quietly, when she could hear me, “what is it you want -me to do?” -</p> - -<p> -“We want money, Renny——” she gasped, still with fluttering sobs, -drying her eyes half-fiercely as if in resentment of that brief -self-abandonment. “He has no spirit to make it now as he used. We have -escaped to Southampton, intending to go abroad somewhere, and lose -ourselves and be lost. We fled in a fright, unthinking, and now we can -get no further. You’ll help us, Renny, won’t you?” -</p> - -<p> -“I’ll help you, Zyp, now and always, if you need it—always, as far as -it is possible for me to.” -</p> - -<p> -“We don’t want much—enough to get away, that’s all. If he could only -be free a little while, I think perhaps he might recover partly and be -strong to seek for work.” -</p> - -<p> -“It will take me a day or two.” -</p> - -<p> -“So long? Oh, Renny!” -</p> - -<p> -“I must go to London to raise it. I can’t possibly manage it -otherwise.” -</p> - -<p> -She gave a heavy forlorn sigh. -</p> - -<p> -“I hope it won’t come too late?” -</p> - -<p> -“You can trust me, dear, not to delay a minute longer over it than is -absolutely necessary.” -</p> - -<p> -“You are the only one I can always trust,” she said, with a little, -wan, melancholy smile. -</p> - -<p> -A sleek shine of moonlight was spreading so that I could see her face -turned up to me. -</p> - -<p> -“You will come on to the mill, Zyp?” -</p> - -<p> -“Not now; it is useless. I hear my baby calling, Renny.” -</p> - -<p> -“But—what will you do?” -</p> - -<p> -“Walk back to Southampton.” -</p> - -<p> -“To-night?” -</p> - -<p> -“Part of the way, at least. When I get tired I shall sleep.” -</p> - -<p> -“Sleep? Where?” -</p> - -<p> -“Under some tree or bush. Where could I better?” -</p> - -<p> -“Zyp! You mustn’t. Anything might happen to you.” -</p> - -<p> -Her face took a flash of scorn. -</p> - -<p> -“To me—in the woods or the open fields? You forget who I am, Renny.” -</p> - -<p> -No insistence or argument on my part could alter her determination. -Return she would, then and there. -</p> - -<p> -“Well,” I said at last, hopeless of shaking her, “how shall I convey -the money to you?” -</p> - -<p> -“Jason shall come and fetch it.” -</p> - -<p> -“Jason?” -</p> - -<p> -“Yes. I can’t leave the child again. Besides, it will be better for -him to move and act than sit still always watching and waiting.” -</p> - -<p> -“Very well, then. Let him come when he likes. To-morrow I will get the -money.” -</p> - -<p> -She came and took my hand and looked up in my face. “Good-by, you good -man,” she said. “Give me one kiss, Renny.” -</p> - -<p> -I stooped and touched her cheek with my lips. -</p> - -<p> -“That is for the baby,” I said, “and God bless Zyp and the little -one.” -</p> - -<p> -She backed from me a pace or two, with her dark eyes dreaming. -</p> - -<p> -“Did you think I could ever be like this, Renny? I wonder if they will -turn to me as they used?” -</p> - -<p> -She dropped upon her knees before a little plant of yellow woundwort -that grew beside a tree. She caressed it, she murmured to it, she gave -it a dozen fond names in the strangest of elfin language. It did not -stir. It remained just a quiet, drowsy woodland thing. -</p> - -<p> -“Ah!” she cried, leaping to her feet, “it’s jealous of the baby. What -do I care?” She gave it a little slap with her hand. “Wake up, you -sulky thing!” she cried—“I’m going to tell you something. There’s no -flower like my baby in all the world!” -</p> - - -<h3 id="ch36"> -CHAPTER XXXVI.<br/> -<span class="chap_sub">I GO TO LONDON.</span> -</h3> - -<p> -I walked home that night in a dream. The white road lay a long, -luminous ribbon before me; the wet hedges were fragrant with scented -mist; there was only the sound in my ears of my own quick breathing, -but in my heart the echo of the sweet wild voice that had but now so -thrilled and tortured me. -</p> - -<p> -I thought of her swerving presently from her dreary road southward, to -sleep under some bush or briar, fearless in her beauty—fearless in -her confidence of the rich nature about her that was so much her own. -She seemed a thing apart from the world’s evil; a queenliest queen of -fancy, that had but to summon her good fellows if threatened. -</p> - -<p> -“Sweet safety go with you, my fairy!” I cried, and, crying, stumbled -over a poor doe rabbit sitting in the road, with glazing eyes and the -stab of the ferret tooth behind her ear. -</p> - -<p> -“Zyp! Zyp!” I muttered, gazing sorrowfully on the dying bunny, “are -you as much earth, after all, as this poor hunted brute? Ah, never, -never let your kinsfolk strike you through your motherhood.” -</p> - -<p> -I found my father sitting up for me amid the gusty lights and shadows -of the old mill sitting-room. He welcomed me with a joy that filled my -heart with remorse at having left him so long alone. -</p> - -<p> -“Dad,” I said, “I have seen Zyp!” -</p> - -<p> -He only looked at me in wonder. -</p> - -<p> -“She was coming to implore my help to enable her and—and her husband -to escape—to get away abroad somewhere.” -</p> - -<p> -“Escape? From what?” -</p> - -<p> -“That man—my one-time friend—that I told you about. He has pursued -them all the year with deadly hatred. Jason is half-mad with terror of -him, it seems.” -</p> - -<p> -My father’s face darkened. -</p> - -<p> -“He summoned his own Nemesis,” he said. “What do they want—money?” -</p> - -<p> -“Yes. I promised her what I could afford. To-morrow I must run up to -London to raise it.” -</p> - -<p> -“On what security?” -</p> - -<p> -“A mortgage, I suppose. I have some small investments in house -property.” -</p> - -<p> -He mused a little while. -</p> - -<p> -“It is better,” he said, by and by, “to leave all that intact. We must -part with another coin or so, Renalt.” -</p> - -<p> -“If you think it best, father. I wouldn’t for my soul go back from my -promise.” -</p> - -<p> -“Will you take them up and negotiate the business? I grow feeble for -these journeys.” -</p> - -<p> -“Of course I will, if you’ll give me the necessary instructions.” -</p> - -<p> -He nodded. -</p> - -<p> -“I’ll have them ready for you to-morrow,” he said. -</p> - -<p> -Then for a long time he sat gazing gloomily on the floor. -</p> - -<p> -“Where are they?” he said, suddenly. -</p> - -<p> -“Zyp and Jason? At Southampton. She walked from there, and I met her -in the woods, she would come no further, but started on her way back -again.” -</p> - -<p> -“How are you going to get the stuff to them, then?” -</p> - -<p> -“Jason is coming here to fetch it.” -</p> - -<p> -He rose from his chair, with startled eyes. -</p> - -<p> -“Here? Coming here?” he cried. “Renalt! Don’t bring him—don’t let -him!” -</p> - -<p> -“Father!” -</p> - -<p> -“He’s a bad fellow—a wicked son! He’ll drain us of all! What the -doctor’s left he’ll take! Don’t let him come!” -</p> - -<p> -He spoke wildly—imploringly. He held out his hands, kneading the -fingers together in an agony of emotion. -</p> - -<p> -“Dad!” I said. “Don’t go on so! You’re overwrought with fancies. How -can he possibly help himself to more than we decide to give him? Try -to pull yourself together—to be your old strong self.” -</p> - -<p> -“Oh!” he moaned, “I do try, but you know so little. He’s a brazen, -heartless wretch! We shall die paupers.” -</p> - -<p> -His voice rose into a sort of shriek. -</p> - -<p> -“Come!” I said, firmly, “you must command yourself. This is weak to a -degree. Remember, I am with you, to look after your interests—your -peace—to defend you if necessary.” -</p> - -<p> -He only moaned again: “You don’t know.” -</p> - -<p> -“I know this,” I said, “that by Zyp’s showing my brother is a broken -man—helpless, demoralized—in a pitiable state altogether.” -</p> - -<p> -He seemed to prick his ears somewhat at that. -</p> - -<p> -“If he must come,” he said, “if he must come, watch him—grind him -under—never let him think for an instant that he keeps the mastery.” -</p> - -<p> -“He shall never have cause to claim that, father.” -</p> - -<p> -He spoke no more, but crept to his room presently and left me -pondering his words far into the night. -</p> - -<p> -Later on, as I lay awake in bed, I heard his room door open softly and -the sound of his footsteps on the stairs. This, however, being no -unfamiliar experience with us, disturbed me not at all. -</p> - -<p> -In the morning at breakfast he handed me a couple of ancient gold -coins. -</p> - -<p> -“Take these,” he said; “they should bring £5 apiece.” -</p> - -<p> -His instructions as to the disposal of the relics I need not dwell -upon. Their consignee, a highly respectable tradesman in his line, -would no doubt consider any mention of his name a considerable breach -of confidence. I had my own opinion as to the laws of treasure-trove, -and he may have had his as to my father. When, armed with my father’s -warranty, I visited this amiable “receiver,” I found him to be an -austere-looking but pleasant gentleman, with an evident enthusiasm for -the scholarly side of his business. He gave me the price my father had -mentioned, and bowed me to the door, with a faint blush. -</p> - -<p> -It was so early in the day by the time I had finished my business -that, deeming it not possible that Jason could reach the mill before -the evening at earliest, I determined upon returning by an afternoon -train, that I might make a visit that had been in my mind since I -first knew I was to revisit London. It was to a dull and lonely -cemetery out Battersea way, where a poor working girl lay at rest. -</p> - -<p> -It was late in the afternoon when I came to the lodge gate of the -burial-place and inquired there as to the position of the grave. -</p> - -<p> -Indeed, in the quarter where I found her the graves lay so close that -it seemed almost as if the coffins must touch underground. -</p> - -<p> -My eyes filled with humble tears as I stood looking down on the thin -green mound. A little cross of stone stood at the head and on it “D. -M.” and the date of her death. The grave had been carefully -tended—lovingly trimmed and weeded and coaxed to the greenest growth -in those nine short months. A little bush rose stood at the foot, and -on the breast of the hillock, a bunch of rich, fading flowers lay. -They must have been placed there within the last two or three days -only—by the same hands that had gardened the sprouting turf—that had -raised the simple cross and written thereon the date of a great -heart’s breaking. -</p> - -<p> -I placed my own sad token of autumn flowers nearer the foot of the -mound, and, going to the cross, bent and kissed it. My eyes were so -blinded, my throat so strangled, that for the moment I felt as if, as -I did so, it put its arms about my neck and that Dolly’s soft cheek -was laid against mine. I know that I rose peaceful with the assurance -of pardon; and that, by and by, that gentle, unresting spirit was to -extend to me once more, in the passing of a dreadful peril, the saving -beneficence of its presence. -</p> - - -<h3 id="ch37"> -CHAPTER XXXVII.<br/> -<span class="chap_sub">A FACE.</span> -</h3> - -<p> -Dark was falling as on my return I came within sound of the mill race. -I thought I could make out a little group of people leaning over the -stone balustrade of the bridge as I approached. Such I found to be the -case, and among them Dr. Crackenthorpe standing up gaunt in his long -brown coat. -</p> - -<p> -I was turning in at the yard, when this individual hailed me, and by -doing so brought all the faces round in my direction. I walked up to -him. -</p> - -<p> -“Well?” I said. -</p> - -<p> -“These good folk are curious. It’s no affair of mine, but half a -minute ago there came a yell out of the old cabin yonder fit to wake -the dead.” -</p> - -<p> -“Well?” I said, again, with a mighty assumption of coolness I hardly -felt. -</p> - -<p> -“Oh, don’t suppose I care. It only seemed to me that some day, -perhaps, you’ll have the place stoned about your ears, if you don’t -let a little more light in.” -</p> - -<p> -A murmur went up from the half-dozen rustics and brainless idlers. -</p> - -<p> -“We don’t warnt no drownding ghosteses in Winton,” said a voice. -</p> - -<p> -I went straight up to them. -</p> - -<p> -“Don’t you?” I said. “Then you’d best keep out of reach of them that -can make you that and something worse. I suppose some of you have -cried out with the lumbago before now?” -</p> - -<p> -“That warn’t no lumbago cry, master.” -</p> - -<p> -“Wasn’t it, now? Have you ever had it?” -</p> - -<p> -“No—I harsn’t.” -</p> - -<p> -“I’ll give you a good imitation”—and I made a rush at the fellow who -spoke. The crowd scattered, and the man, suddenly backing, toppled -over with a crack that brought a yell out of him. -</p> - -<p> -“See there!” I cried. “You scream before you are touched even. A -pretty fool you, to gauge the meaning of any noise but your own -gobbling over a slice of bread and bacon.” -</p> - -<p> -This was to the humor of the others, who cackled hoarsely with -laughter. -</p> - -<p> -“If you want to ask questions,” I said, turning upon them, “put them -to this doctor here, who sits every day in a room with a row of -murderers’ heads looking down upon him.” -</p> - -<p> -With that I walked off in a heat, and was going toward the house, when -Dr. Crackenthorpe came after me with a stride and a furious menace. -</p> - -<p> -“You’ll turn the tables, will you?” he said, in a suffocating voice. -“Some day, my friend—some day!” -</p> - -<p> -I didn’t answer him or even look his way, but strode into the mill and -banged the door in his face. -</p> - -<p> -As I entered our sitting-room, I found Jason standing motionless in -the shadow a few feet from my father’s chair. -</p> - -<p> -The old man welcomed me with an agonized cry of rapture, and -endeavored to struggle to his feet, but dropped back again as if -exhausted. I went and stood over him, and he clung to one of my hands, -as a drowning man might. -</p> - -<p> -“Who cried out just now?” I asked, fiercely, of Jason. -</p> - -<p> -He gulped and cleared his throat, but could only point nervelessly at -the cowering figure before him. -</p> - -<p> -“Father! What is the matter?” -</p> - -<p> -“You wouldn’t come, Renalt—you wouldn’t come! I prayed for you to -come.” -</p> - -<p> -“What has he been doing?” -</p> - -<p> -“It was all the old horror over again. Send him away! Don’t let him -come near me!” -</p> - -<p> -I was falling distracted. I turned to Jason once more. -</p> - -<p> -“Come! Out with it!” I said. “What have you been doing?” -</p> - -<p> -He strove to smile. His face was ghastly—pinched and lined. -</p> - -<p> -“Nothing,” he said at last, with a choking cluck in his throat. “I -have done nothing.” -</p> - -<p> -“Don’t believe him,” moaned my father. “He wanted all; he wanted to -sink me to ruin.” -</p> - -<p> -“I wanted to ruin nobody!” cried my brother, finding his voice in a -wail of despair. “I’m desperate, that’s all—desperate to escape—and -he offers me little more than he’d give to a beggar.” -</p> - -<p> -“I tell him I’m not far from one myself! He won’t believe it. He -threatened me, Renalt. He brought the hideous time back again.” -</p> - -<p> -A light broke upon me, as from a furnace door snapped open. -</p> - -<p> -“Dad,” I said, gently, “will you go to your room and leave the rest to -me?” -</p> - -<p> -I helped him to his feet—across the room. His eyes watched the other -all the time. It was pitiful to see his terror of him. -</p> - -<p> -Jason stood where he had planted himself, waiting my return with -hanging head and fingers laced in front of him. -</p> - -<p> -I led the old man to the foot of the stairs. Then I returned to the -room and stood before my brother. -</p> - -<p> -“I understand it all now,” I said, in a straight, quiet voice. “The -‘some one else’ you suspected, or pretended to, was our father!” -</p> - -<p> -No answer. -</p> - -<p> -“While I was in London you traded upon this pretended knowledge to -force money out of the old man.” -</p> - -<p> -No answer. -</p> - -<p> -“Your silence will do. What can I say but that it was like you? To -traffic upon a helpless man’s miserable apprehensions for your own -sordid ends—and that man your father! To do this while holding a like -threat over another’s head—your brother’s—still for your own pitiful -ends. And all the time who knows but you may be the murderer?” -</p> - -<p> -“I am not the murderer. You persist, and—and it’s too cruel.” -</p> - -<p> -“Cruel! To you? Who killed Modred?” -</p> - -<p> -“I believe it was dad.” -</p> - -<p> -“I believe upon my soul it’s a lie!” -</p> - -<p> -“He thinks it himself, anyhow.” -</p> - -<p> -“Is it any good saying to you that a man of his habits, as he was -then, might be driven to believe anything of himself?” -</p> - -<p> -“Why did he have the braces in his pocket, then?” -</p> - -<p> -“He had carried the boy up-stairs—you know that. He had been bathing -and his things were scattered.” -</p> - -<p> -“It isn’t all. Modred had discovered his secret.” -</p> - -<p> -In spite of myself I started. -</p> - -<p> -“What secret?” I said. -</p> - -<p> -“Where the coins were hidden.” -</p> - -<p> -“What coins?” -</p> - -<p> -For the first time he looked at me with a faint leer of cunning. -</p> - -<p> -“I won’t condescend to prevaricate for any purpose,” I said. “I do -know about the treasure, because he told me himself, but I swear I -know to this day nothing about its hiding-place.” -</p> - -<p> -He looked at me curiously. -</p> - -<p> -“Well,” he said, “Modred had found it out, anyway.” -</p> - -<p> -“How do you know?” -</p> - -<p> -“Didn’t he offer to give Zyp something in exchange for a kiss that -night we watched them out of the window?” -</p> - -<p> -“Go on.” -</p> - -<p> -“It was gold. I saw it. He must have found his way to the store and -stolen it. Mayn’t it be, now, that dad discovered he had been robbed, -and took the surest way to prevent it happening again?” -</p> - -<p> -“No—a thousand times!” I spoke stanchly, but my heart felt sick -within me. -</p> - -<p> -He was silent. -</p> - -<p> -“So,” I said, in a high-strung voice, “this was your manner of -business during my absence; that the way to the means that helped you -up to London? A miserable discovery for you—for I gather from your -words you, too, found out about the hiding-place. You had better have -left it alone—a million times you had better.” -</p> - -<p> -Still he was silent. -</p> - -<p> -“Did Zyp know, too?” -</p> - -<p> -“No—not from my telling. I can’t answer for what she may have found -out for herself. She sees in the dark.” -</p> - -<p> -“How much did you have, from first to last? But I suppose you helped -yourself whenever you needed it?” -</p> - -<p> -“I didn’t—I swear I didn’t! I never put finger on the stuff till dad -handed it over to me. What right had he to keep us without a penny all -those years, when riches were there for the taking?” -</p> - -<p> -“He could do what he liked with his own, I conclude. At any rate, the -end justified the means. A pretty use you made of your vile -extortion—a bloody vengeance is the price you pay for it!” -</p> - -<p> -At that he gave a sudden cry. -</p> - -<p> -“I’m lost—I know it! Help me to escape. Renny, help me to escape.” -</p> - -<p> -“Do you think you deserve that of me, Jason?” -</p> - -<p> -He dropped upon his knees, an abject, wailing figure. -</p> - -<p> -“I don’t—I don’t! But you’re generous—Renalt, I always thought you -good and generous, when I laughed at you most. Save me from that -terror! He strikes at me in the dark—I never know where his hideous -face will show next. He follows me—haunts me—tries to poison me, to -torture me to death! Oh, Renny, help me!” -</p> - -<p> -“Answer me truly first. For how long were you robbing the old man?” -</p> - -<p> -“I may have had small sums of him for a year—nothing much. When Zyp -and I made up our minds to go, I bid for a larger, and he gave it me.” -</p> - -<p> -“He didn’t know you were married?” -</p> - -<p> -“He wouldn’t hear of it—it’s the truth. He meant her for you, I -think, and the worst threats I could use never shook him from his -refusal to countenance us.” -</p> - -<p> -“Brave old man!” -</p> - -<p> -“Renny—help me!” -</p> - -<p> -“For Zyp’s sake,” I said, sternly—“yes. Were it not for her appeal, I -tell you plainly you might perish for me.” -</p> - -<p> -He looked so base kneeling there in his craven degradation that I -could not forbear the stroke. -</p> - -<p> -“My father provides the means,” I said. “I went to London to-day to -realize it. Here it is, and make the most of it.” -</p> - -<p> -He took it from me with trembling hands. -</p> - -<p> -“Ten pounds,” he said, blankly. “No more?” -</p> - -<p> -“Isn’t it enough?” -</p> - -<p> -“Enough to get away with, not enough to find a living on across the -water.” -</p> - -<p> -“It’s all you’ll get—that’s final. Remember now that I stand here by -my father. Always remember that when your fingers itch for hush -money—and remember who it was that was once my friend.” -</p> - -<p> -He rose and crept to the door with bowed head. Some old vein of -tenderer feeling gushed warm in me. -</p> - -<p> -“Jason,” I cried, “I forgive you for all you have done to me.” -</p> - -<p> -He turned and came back to me, seized me by the wrist—and his eyes -were moist with tears. -</p> - -<p> -“For pity’s sake come a little way with me, Renny. You don’t know what -I suffer.” -</p> - -<p> -“A little way on your road, do you mean?” -</p> - -<p> -“Yes. I daren’t go by train. He might be there. I must walk; and I -dread—Renny, supposing I should meet him on the way?” -</p> - -<p> -“Why, that’s nonsense. Haven’t you just come alone?” -</p> - -<p> -“I was driven by the thought of what I was seeking, then. It was bad -enough. But, now I’ve got it, all nerve seems shaken out of me. I’m -afraid of the dark.” -</p> - -<p> -Was this the stuff that villains are made of? Almost I could find it -in me to soothe and comfort the poor, terrified creature. -</p> - -<p> -“Very well,” I said. “I will walk part of the way with you.” -</p> - -<p> -His wan cheek flushed with gratitude. I got my hat and stick, and ran -up to my father to tell him whither I was off. -</p> - -<p> -As I came downstairs again Jason was disappearing into the loft, where -the stones were, that stood opposite the sitting-room. The wheel -underneath was booming as usual and the great disks revolved softly -with a rubbing noise. I saw him go to the dim window, that stood out -as if hung up in the black atmosphere of the room, a square of -latticed gray. It was evidently his intention to reconnoiter before -starting, for the window looked upon the bridge and the now lonely -tail of the High street. -</p> - -<p> -Suddenly a sort of stifled rushing noise issued from his lips, and he -stole back on tiptoe to the passage without the room. There, in the -weak lamplight, he fell against the wall, and his face was the color -of straw paper and his lips were ashen. -</p> - -<p> -“He’s there,” he said, in a dreadful whisper. “He’s standing on the -bridge waiting for me.” -</p> - - -<h3 id="ch38"> -CHAPTER XXXVIII.<br/> -<span class="chap_sub">A NIGHT PURSUIT.</span> -</h3> - -<p> -I rushed across the room and looked out through the dim glass. At -first I could make out nothing until a faint form resolved itself -suddenly into a face, gray and set as the block of stone it looked -over. -</p> - -<p> -It never moved, but remained thus as if it were a sculptured death -designed to take stock forever with a petrified stare of the crumbling -mill. -</p> - -<p> -Then, as my eyes grew accustomed to the outlines, I saw that it leaned -down in reality, with its chin resting on its hands that were crossed -over the top of the parapet. Even at that distance I should have known -the mouth, though the whole pose of the figure were not visible to -convince me. -</p> - -<p> -Jason looked at me like a dying man when I returned to him. The full -horror of a mortal fright, than which nothing is more painful to -witness, spoke from his lungs, that heaved as if the sweet air had -become a palpable thing to enter within and imprison his soul from all -hope of escape. He tried to question me, but only sunk back with a -moan. -</p> - -<p> -“Now,” I said, “you must summon all your resolution. Act promptly and -in half an hour you will be beyond reach of him.” -</p> - -<p> -My own nerves were strung to devouring action. A kind of exultation -fired me to master this tyranny of pursuit. Whatever might be its -justification, the tactics of aggressive force should at least be open -and human, I thought. -</p> - -<p> -“You don’t want to pass the night here?” -</p> - -<p> -He made a negative motion with his head. -</p> - -<p> -“I think you’re right. It might only be postponing the end. Will you -place yourself in my hands?” -</p> - -<p> -He held out his arms to me imploringly. -</p> - -<p> -“Very well. Now, listen to me. There he will remain in all likelihood -for some time, not knowing he is discovered. We must give him the -slip—escape quietly at the back, while he is intent on the front.” -</p> - -<p> -I could only make out that his white lips whispered: “You won’t leave -me?” -</p> - -<p> -“Not till all danger is past. I promise you.” -</p> - -<p> -I went over the house and quietly tested that every bolt and catch was -secure. Then I fetched a dram of spirit, and made the poor, -demoralized wretch swallow it. It brought a glint of color to his -cheek—a little firmness to his limbs. -</p> - -<p> -“Another,” he whispered. -</p> - -<p> -“No,” I answered. “You want the nerve to act; not the overconfidence -that leads to a false step. Come.” -</p> - -<p> -Together we stole to the rear of the building where the little -platform hung above the race. I locked the door behind us and pocketed -the key. -</p> - -<p> -“Now,” I said, “quietly and no hesitating. Follow me.” -</p> - -<p> -The stream here sought passage between the inclosed mill-head, with -its tumbling bay and waste weir—the sluice of which I never remember -to have seen shut—on the one side, and on the other the wall of an -adjoining garden. This last was not lofty, but was too high to scale -without fear of noise and the risk of attracting observation. -Underneath the heavy pull of the water would have spun us like straws -off our feet had we dropped into it there. -</p> - -<p> -There was only one way, and that I had calculated upon. To the left -some branches of a great sycamore tree overhung the wall, the nearest -of them some five feet out of reach. Climbing the rail of the -platform, I stood upon the outer edge and balanced myself for a -spring. It was no difficult task to an active man, and in a moment I -was bobbing and dipping above the black onrush of the water. Pointing -out my feet with a vigorous oscillating action, I next swung myself to -a further branch, which I clutched, letting go the other. Here I -dangled above a little silt of weed and gravel that stood forth the -margin of the stream, and onto it I dropped, finding firm foothold, -and motioned to Jason to follow. -</p> - -<p> -He was like to have come to grief at the outset, for from his nerves -being shaky, I suppose, he sprung short of the first branch, hitting -at it frantically with his fingers only, so that he fell with a -bounding splash into the water’s edge. The pull had him in an instant, -and it would have been all up with him had I not foreseen the result -while he was yet in midair and plunged for him. Luckily I still held -on to the end of the second branch, to which I clung with one hand, -while I seized his coat collar with the other. For half a minute even -then it was a struggle for life or death, the stout wood I held to -deciding the balance, but at last he gained his feet, and I was able -to pull him, wallowing and stumbling, toward me. It was not the depth -of the water that so nearly overcame us, for it ran hardly above his -knees. It was the mighty strength of it rushing onward to the wheel. -</p> - -<p> -He would have paused to regain his breath, but I allowed him no -respite. -</p> - -<p> -“Hurry!” I whispered. “Who knows but he may have heard the splash?” -</p> - -<p> -He needed no further stimulus, but pushed at me to proceed, in a -flurried agony of fear. I tested the water on the further side of the -little mound. It was possible to struggle up against it along its -edge, and of that possibility we must make the best. Clutching at the -wall with crooked fingers for any hope of support, we moved up, step -by step, until gradually the wicked hold slackened and we could make -our way without bitter struggle. -</p> - -<p> -Presently, to the right, the wall opened to a slope of desert garden -ground that ran up to an empty cottage standing on the fall of the -hill above. Over to this we cautiously waded, and climbed once more to -dry land, drenched and exhausted. -</p> - -<p> -No pause might be ours yet, however. Stooping almost to the earth, we -scurried up the slope, passed the cottage, and never stopped until we -stood upon the road that skirts the base of the hill. -</p> - -<p> -A moment’s breathing space now and a moment’s reflection. Downward the -winding road led straight to the bridge and the very figure we were -flying. Yet it was necessary to cross the head of this road somehow, -to reach the meadows that stretched over the lap of the low valley we -must traverse before we could hit the Southampton highway. -</p> - -<p> -Fortunately no moon was up to play traitor to our need. I took my -brother by the coat sleeve and led him onward. He was trembling and -shivering as if with an ague. Over the grass, by way of the watery -tracks, we sped—passing at a stone’s throw the pool where Modred had -nearly met his death, breaking out at last, with a panting burst of -relief, into the solitary stretch of road running southward. Before -us, in the glimmering dark, it went silent and lonely between its -moth-haunted hedges, and we took it with long strides. -</p> - -<p> -My brother hurried by my side without a word, subduing his breathing -even as much as possible and walking with a light, springing motion on -his toes; but now and again I saw him look back over his shoulder, -with an awful expression of listening. -</p> - -<p> -It was after one of his turns that Jason suddenly whipped a hand upon -my arm and drew me to a stop. -</p> - -<p> -“Listen!” he whispered, and slewed his head round, with a dry chirp in -his throat. -</p> - -<p> -Faintly—very faintly, a step on the road behind us came to my ears. -</p> - -<p> -“He’s following!” murmured my brother, with a sort of despairing -calmness. -</p> - -<p> -“Nonsense,” I said; “how do you know it’s he? It’s a public highway.” -</p> - -<p> -“I do know. Hark to the step!” -</p> - -<p> -It was a little nearer. There was a queer dragging sound in it. Was it -possible that some demon inspired this terrible man to an awful -species of clairvoyance? How otherwise could he be on our tracks? -Unless, indeed, the splash had informed him! -</p> - -<p> -There was a gap in the hedge close by where we stood, and not far from -it, in the field beyond, a haystack looming gigantic in the dark. With -a rapid motion I dived, pulling Jason after me—and stooping low, we -scurried for the shelter, and threw ourselves into the loose stuff -lying on the further side of it. There, lying crushed into the litter, -with what horror of emotion to one of us God alone may know, we heard -the shuffling footsteps come rapidly up the road. As it neared the -gap, my brother’s hand fell upon mine, with a convulsive clutch. It -was stone cold and all clammy with the ooze of terror. As the footstep -passed he relaxed his hold and seemed to collapse. I thought he had -fainted, but mercifully I was mistaken. -</p> - -<p> -The step behind the hedge seemed to go a little further, then die out -all at once. I thought he had passed beyond our hearing, and lay still -some moments longer listening—listening, through the faint rustling -sounds of the night, for assurance of our safety. -</p> - -<p> -At length I was on the point of rising, when a strained hideous -screech broke from the figure beside me and I saw him sway up, -kneeling, and totter sideways against the wall of hay. With the sound -of his voice I sprung to my feet—and there was the pursuer, come -silently round the corner of the stack, and gazing with gloating eyes -upon his victim. -</p> - - -<h3 id="ch39"> -CHAPTER XXXIX.<br/> -<span class="chap_sub">A STRANGE VIGIL.</span> -</h3> - -<p> -Had Jason fainted, as I thought he had, his enemy would have been upon -him before I was aware of his presence even. As it was, in an instant -I had interposed my body between them. -</p> - -<p> -For a full minute, perhaps, we remained thus, like figures of stone, -before I found my voice. -</p> - -<p> -“You can go back,” I said, never taking my eyes off him. “It’s too -late.” -</p> - -<p> -He gave no answer, nor did he change his position. -</p> - -<p> -“I won’t appeal to you,” I said, “by any claim of old friendship, to -leave this poor wretch in peace. If common humanity can make no way -with you, how shall any words of mine?” -</p> - -<p> -He made a little sidling movement, to which I corresponded with a -like. -</p> - -<p> -“You’re welcome to measure your strength with mine,” I said. “You’ll -have to do it before you can think to get at him.” -</p> - -<p> -He looked at me with glittering eyes, as if debating my power to stop -him. -</p> - -<p> -“Duke!” I cried, “be merciful! If his crime was great, he has -repented.” -</p> - -<p> -He spoke at last, screwing out an ugly high little chuckle, with a -straining of his whole body, like a cock crowing. -</p> - -<p> -“Why, so have I!” he said. “There’s a place waiting for the two of us -among the blessed saints, while she’s frying down below.” -</p> - -<p> -“It was hers to forgive, and she has forgiven, I know. Be merciful and -worthy of her you are to meet some day.” -</p> - -<p> -“What can I do more disinterested, then, than send him repentant to -sit with her. There’s a noble revenge to take! If he’d stopped in -London I’d have allowed him a little longer, perhaps; but, as he wants -to escape, I must make sure, or the devil might have me by the leg, -you see.” -</p> - -<p> -All the time we spoke, Jason was cowering among the hay, his breath -sounding in quick gasps. Now he gave out a pitiful moan, and Duke bent -his head waiting for a repetition, as if it were music to him. -</p> - -<p> -“For the last time, be merciful, Duke.” -</p> - -<p> -“Well, so I will.” -</p> - -<p> -He spoke looking up at me, with his head still bent sideways, and, in -that position, felt in one of his pockets. -</p> - -<p> -“If the gentleman will condescend to take this,” he said, standing -suddenly erect and holding out a little white paper packet in his -hand, “I will go and welcome. But I must see him swallow it first.” -</p> - -<p> -“Poison?” -</p> - -<p> -“Not at all. A love potion—nothing more.” -</p> - -<p> -Duke stole toward me insidiously, holding out the paper. The moment he -was within reach I struck it out of his hand. While my arm was yet in -the air, he came with a rush at me—caught his foot in a projecting -root—staggered and fell with a sliding thump upon the grass. -</p> - -<p> -“Keep behind!” I shouted to Jason, who was uttering incoherent cries -and running to and fro like a thing smitten with a sunstroke. He -stopped at sound of my voice; then came and clung to me, feeling me to -be his last hope. -</p> - -<p> -For a moment Duke lay as if stunned; then slowly gathered himself -together and rose to his feet—rose only to collapse again, with a -snarling curse of agony. He glowered up at us, moaning and muttering, -and nursing his injured limb; for so it seemed that, in falling, he -had cruelly twisted and sprained one of his ankles. -</p> - -<p> -When the truth broke upon me I turned round upon my brother with a -great breath of gratitude and relief. -</p> - -<p> -“Run!” I cried. “You can be miles away before he will be able to move, -even.” -</p> - -<p> -Jason leaped from me, his eyes staring maniacally. -</p> - -<p> -“You fool!” I cried; “go! Leave him to me! You can be at Southampton -before he is out of the field here. Even if he is able to walk by -morning, which I doubt, he has me to reckon with!” -</p> - -<p> -Some little nerve came to him, once standing outside the baneful -influence of the eyes. He dashed his hand across his forehead, gave me -one rapid, wild glance of gratitude and renewed hope, and, turning, -ran for his life into the darkness. -</p> - -<p> -As his footsteps clattered faintly down the road I returned to grapple -with his enemy. -</p> - -<p> -I almost stumbled over him as I turned the corner. He had rolled and -struggled so far in his rabid frenzy; and now, seeing me come back -alone, he set up a yell of rage, reviling and cursing me and hurling -impotent lightnings of hate after his escaped victim. -</p> - -<p> -Gradually the storm of his passion mouthed itself away and he lay -silent on the ground like a dead thing. Then I moved to him; knelt and -softly pulled him by the sleeve. -</p> - -<p> -“Duke, shall I bind it up for you?” -</p> - -<p> -“What? My heart?” He spoke with his face in the grass. “Bind it in a -sling, you fool—it’s a heavy stone—and smite the accursed Philistine -on the forehead with it.” -</p> - -<p> -“Has this bitter trouble dehumanized you altogether? Do you blame me -in this? He was my brother.” -</p> - -<p> -“And you were my friend. What is the value of it all? I would have -crushed you like a beetle if you stood in my way to him. Deviltry is -the only happiness. I think he was beforehand with me in that. What a -poor idiot to let him be! I might have enjoyed a minute’s bliss for -the price of my soul, and now my only hope of it is by killing him.” -</p> - -<p> -“That you shall never do if I can prevent it.” -</p> - -<p> -He rolled over on his back, thrust his arms beneath his head and lay -staring at me with deeply melancholy eyes. -</p> - -<p> -“Let’s cry an armistice for the night,” he said, in a low, gentle -voice. -</p> - -<p> -“Forever, Duke!” -</p> - -<p> -“Between us two? Why not—on all questions but the one?” -</p> - -<p> -“Find some pity in your heart, even for him.” -</p> - -<p> -“Never!” He jerked out an arm and shook it savagely at the sky. -“Never!” -</p> - -<p> -I gave a heavy sigh. -</p> - -<p> -“Well,” I said, “let’s look to your foot, at least.” -</p> - -<p> -“Is he beyond my reach?” -</p> - -<p> -“Quite. You can put it out of your head. Even if your limb were sound -you’d never catch him now. With the morning they go abroad.” -</p> - -<p> -“Where to?” -</p> - -<p> -“Honestly, I don’t know.” -</p> - -<p> -“You found him the funds?” -</p> - -<p> -“Yes.” -</p> - -<p> -He groaned and turned his face away for a moment. I busied myself over -his bruised ankle. Presently he said: -</p> - -<p> -“How long am I to lie here?” -</p> - -<p> -“Till I can see to cut you a stick from the hedge. You wouldn’t be -able to limp a step without one.” -</p> - -<p> -“Very well. Will you sit by me?” -</p> - -<p> -“As long as you like.” -</p> - -<p> -“I have no likes or dislikes now, Renny, and only one hate.” -</p> - -<p> -“We won’t talk of that.” -</p> - -<p> -“Not now. This field is the neutral ground. Once outside it, the -armistice ends.” -</p> - -<p> -“Duke!” -</p> - -<p> -“How can it be otherwise, Renny, my old friend? Are you going to back -me in the chase? Unless you do, you must see that it is impossible for -us to come together.” -</p> - -<p> -“I see nothing—feel nothing, but a vast, interminable sorrow, Duke.” -</p> - -<p> -“And I—you have a gentle hand, Renny. So had she. She bound up my -wrist for me once, when I had crushed it in the galley-puller. Shall -we recall those days?” -</p> - -<p> -My heart swelled to hear him in this softened mood, as I thought. -Alas! It was only a brief interval of lucidity in his madness. -</p> - -<p> -“Ah, if we could look beyond!” I finally answered, with a deep sigh. -</p> - -<p> -“We can—we do. Imagination isn’t guided by rule of thumb. Even here -the promise dawns slowly. Scabs are thickest on the body when it’s -healing of its fever. They will fall off by and by, for all the dismal -shrieks that degeneration has seized us.” -</p> - -<p> -He closed his eyes and lay back upon his hands once more. -</p> - -<p> -“Imagination? Was this ever my world? There is a wide green forest, -and the murmur of its running brooks is all of faces sweet as flowers -and voices that I know, for I heard them long ago in a time before I -existed here. And I walk on, free forever of the aching past; the -eternity of most beautiful possibilities and discoveries before me; -joyous all through but for one sad little longing that encumbers me. -Not for long—no, not for long. On a lawn fragrant with loving flowers -and gathered here and there to deep silence by the stooping shadows, I -come upon her—my love; my dear, dear love. And she kisses the sorrow -from my eyes, and holds me to her and whispers, ‘You have come at -last.’” -</p> - -<p> -His voice broke with a sob. Glancing at him, I saw the tears running -down his cheeks. This grief was sacred from word of mine. I rose -softly and set to pacing the meadow at a little distance. By and by, -when I returned, I saw him sitting up. The mood had passed, but he was -still gentle and human. -</p> - -<p> -Till dawn was faint in the sky we sat and talked the dark hours away. -The sun had risen and Duke was watching something in the grass, when -suddenly he shook himself and turned to me. -</p> - -<p> -“Cut me my stick, Renny,” he said. “The pilgrim must be journeying.” -</p> - -<p> -“Come home with me, Duke.” -</p> - -<p> -He shook his head. -</p> - -<p> -“Look!” he said, “I have tried to read a lesson of a spider as Bruce -did. I broke and tangled the little fellow’s web like a wanton and -what did he do but roll the rubbish up into a ball and swallow it. I -can’t get rid of my web in that way, Renny.” -</p> - -<p> -I did my utmost to hold him to his softer mind. He would not listen, -but drove me from him. -</p> - -<p> -“Cut me my stick,” he said, “or I shall have to crawl down the road on -all fours.” -</p> - -<p> -I did his bidding sadly. Propped up by me on one side, he was able -with the help of his staff to limp painfully from the field. Outside -it, he sat himself down on the hedge bank. -</p> - -<p> -“Good-morning, Mr. Trender,” he said. -</p> - -<p> -“Duke, let me at least help you to the town.” -</p> - -<p> -“Not a step, I’m obliged to you. I shall get on very well by and by. -Good-morning.” -</p> - -<p> -I seized and shook his hand—it dropped listlessly from -mine—hesitated; looked in his face, and, turning from him, strode -sorrowfully off homeward. -</p> - - -<h3 id="ch40"> -CHAPTER XL.<br/> -<span class="chap_sub">A STORY AND ITS SEQUEL.</span> -</h3> - -<p> -Nine months had passed since my parting with Duke on the hillside, and -my life in the interval had flowed on with an easy uneventful monotony -that was at least restorative to my turbulent soul. We had not once -heard during this stretch of time from Jason or Zyp, and could only -conclude that, finding asylum in some remote corner of the world, they -would not risk discovery in it by word or sign. Letters, like homing -pigeons, sometimes go astray. -</p> - -<p> -Duke had put in no second appearance. Dr. Crackenthorpe kept entirely -aloof. All the tragedy of that dark period, crushed within a single -year of existence, seemed swept by and scattered like so much road -dust. Only my father and I remained of the strutting and fretting -actors to brood over the parts we had played; and one of us was gray -at heart forevermore, and the other waxing halt and old and feeble. -</p> - -<p> -Now, often I tried to put the vexing problem of my brother’s death -behind me; and yet, if I thought for a moment I had succeeded, it was -only to be conscious of a grinning skeleton at my back. -</p> - -<p> -And in this year a strange and tragic thing happened in Winton that -was indirectly the cause in me of a fresh fungus growth of doubt and -dark suspicion; and it fell out in this wise: -</p> - -<p> -Some twenty years before, when I was a mere child (the story came to -me later), a great quarrel had taken place between two citizens of the -old burg. They were partners, before the dispute, in a flourishing -business, and the one of them who was ultimately worsted in the -argument had been the benefactor of the man that triumphed. The -quarrel rose on some question as to the terms of their mutual -agreement, the partner who had been taken into the firm out of -kindness claiming the right to oust the other by a certain date. The -technicalities of the matter were involved in a mass of obscurity, but -anyhow they went to law about it and the beneficiary won the case. The -other was forced to retire, to all intents and purposes a ruined man, -but he bore with him a possession that no judge could deprive him -of—a deep, deadly hatred against the reptile whose fortunes he had -made and who had so poisonously bitten him in return. He was heard to -declare that alive or dead he would have his enemy by the heel some -day, and no one doubted but that he meant it. -</p> - -<p> -Some months later, as the successful partner was returning home from -his office one winter night, a pistol shot cracked behind him and he -was constrained to measure his portly figure in the slush of the -street. There his late partner came and looked upon him and gave a -weltering grunt, like a satisfied hog, and kicked the body and went -his way. But his victim was scarcely finished with in the manner he -fancied. The ball, glancing from a lamp-post, had smashed the bones of -his right heel only, and he was merely feigning death. When his enemy -was retired he crawled home on his hands and knees, leaving a sluggish -trail of crimson behind him, and, once safe in the fortress of his -household, sent for the doctor and an inspector of police. -</p> - -<p> -The would-be murderer was of course captured, tried and sentenced to a -twenty-year term of penal servitude. He made no protest and took it -all in the nature of things. But, before leaving the dock, he -repeated—looking with a quiet smile on his becrutched and bandaged -oppressor sitting pallidly in the court—his remarkable formula about -“alive or dead” having him by the heel some day. -</p> - -<p> -Then he disappeared from Winton’s ken and for sixteen years the town -knew him no more, and his victim prospered exceedingly and walked far -into the regions of wealth and honor, for all a painful limp that -seemed as if it should have impeded his advance. -</p> - -<p> -At the end of this time a little local excitement was stirred by the -return of the criminal, out on ticket-of-leave, and presenting all the -appearance of a degraded, battered and senile old man. His one-time -partner—a town councilor by then—resented his intrusion exceedingly; -but finding him to be impervious, apparently, to the sting of memory, -and presumably harmless to sting any more on his own account, he -bestirred himself to quarter the driveling wreck on an almshouse—a -proceeding which gained him much approval on the part of all but those -who retained recollection of the origin of the quarrel. -</p> - -<p> -In this happy asylum the poor ruin breathed his last within a month of -its admission, and the rubbish of it was buried—not in the pauper -corner of some city cemetery, as one might suppose, but in the very -yard of the cathedral itself. For, curiously enough, the fading -creature before his death had claimed lying-room in a family vault -sunk in that august inclosure, and his claim was found to be a -legitimate one. -</p> - -<p> -I knew the place where he lay, well; for an end of the old vault they -had opened for his accommodation tunneled under a pathway that cut the -yard obliquely, and, passing along it one’s feet hit out the spot in a -low reverberating thud of two steps that spoke of hollowness beneath -the gravel. -</p> - -<p> -The July of the present year I write of being the fourth from that -poor thing’s death and burial, was marked by one of the most terrific -thunderstorms that have ever in my memory visited Winton. -</p> - -<p> -If there was one man abroad in those bitter hours, there was one only, -I should say, and he paid a grewsome price for his temerity. He was -returning home from a birthday party, was that fated councilor, and, -fired with a Dutch courage, must have taken that very path across the -yard under which his once partner lay, and which he generally for some -good reason rather avoided. What followed he might never describe -himself, for that was the last of him. But a strange and eerie scene -met the sight of an early riser abroad in the yard the next morning. -</p> - -<p> -It appeared that a bolt had struck and wrenched a huge limb from one -of the great lime trees skirting the path; that the heavy butt of -this, clapping down upon that spot of the gravel under which the end -of the vault lay, had splintered the massive lid stone into half a -dozen pieces, so that they collapsed and fell inward, crashing upon -and breaking open in their fall the pauper’s coffin underneath. -</p> - -<p> -“Whom God seeks to destroy, He first maddens.” Into this awful trap, -in the rain and storm and darkness, Mr. Councilor walked plump, and -there he was found in the morning, dead and ghastly, his already -once-wounded leg caught in a crevice made by the broken stone and -wood—his heel actually resting in the bony hand of his enemy who had -waited for him so long. -</p> - -<p> -All that by the way. It was a grim enough story by itself, no doubt, -but I mention it only here as bearing indirectly upon a little matter -of my own. -</p> - -<p> -Old Peggy had retailed it to me, with much grisly decoration, on the -afternoon following the night of the tempest. The thorns of her mind -were stored with a wriggling half-hundred of such tales. -</p> - -<p> -By and by I walked out to visit the scene of the tragedy. It was dark -and gloomy and still threatening storm. There was little left of the -ruin of the night. The fallen branch had been sawed to lengths and -carted away, and only its litter remained; the vault had been covered -in again with a great slab lifted and brought from one of the precinct -pathways that were paved with ancient gravestones; a solitary man was -raking and trimming the gravel over the restored surface. The crowds -who no doubt had visited the spot during the day were dwindled to a -half-dozen morbid idlers, and a sweeping flaw of tempest breaking -suddenly from the clouds even as I approached drove the last of these -to shelter. -</p> - -<p> -I myself scuttled for a long low tunnel that pierced a south wing of -the cathedral and promised the best cover available. This was to be -reached by way of a double-arched portal which enjoyed the distinction -of conveying ill-luck to any who should have the temerity to walk -through a certain one of its two openings. -</p> - -<p> -Turning when I reached the archway, I saw that the solitary -grave-trimmer was running for the same shelter as myself. With head -bent to the storm, he bolted through the gate of ill-omen; stopped, -recognized his error, hurriedly retraced his steps; spat out the evil -and came through the customary opening at slower pace. As he -approached me I saw, what I had not noticed before, that he was my -friend the sexton of St. John’s. -</p> - -<p> -“Good-afternoon,” said I, as he walked under the tunnel, seized off -his cap and jerked the rain drops from it. -</p> - -<p> -I fancied there was a queer wild look on his face, and at first he -hardly seemed to be able to make me out. -</p> - -<p> -“Ah!” he said, suddenly. “Good-arternoon to you.” -</p> - -<p> -Even then he didn’t look at but beyond me, following with his -bloodshot eyes, as it were, the movements of something on the stone -wall at my back. -</p> - -<p> -“So you’re translated, it appears?” -</p> - -<p> -“Eh?” he said, vaguely. -</p> - -<p> -“You’re promoted to the yard here, aren’t you?” -</p> - -<p> -“I come to oblige Jem Sweet, ars be down wi’ the arsmer,” he said. -</p> - -<p> -“That was friendly, anyhow. It was an unchancy task you took upon -yourself.” -</p> - -<p> -“What isn’t?” he shouted, quite fiercely, all in a moment. “Give me -another marn as’ll walk all day wi’ the devil arm in arm, as I does.” -</p> - -<p> -“You found him down there, eh?” -</p> - -<p> -He took off his cap and flung it with quick violence at the wall -behind me, then pounced upon it lying on the ground, as if something -were caught underneath it. -</p> - -<p> -“My!” he muttered, rising with the air of a schoolboy who has captured -a butterfly, and, seeking to investigate his prize, made a frantic -clutch in the air, as if it had escaped him. -</p> - -<p> -“What’s that?” said I, “a wasp?” -</p> - -<p> -“A warsp!” he cried in a sort of furious fright. “Who ever see a pink -warsp wi’ a mouth like a purse and blue inside?” -</p> - -<p> -He stood by me, shaking and perspiring, and suddenly seized me with a -tremulous hand. -</p> - -<p> -“They shudn’t a’ sent me down there,” he whispered; “it give me the -horrors, it did, to see that they’d burried him quick, and that for -fower year he’d been struggling and wrenching to get out.” -</p> - -<p> -“I’m afraid that the devil’s got you indeed, my friend.” -</p> - -<p> -“It’s all along o’ thart. He come and he looked down upon me there in -the pit.” -</p> - -<p> -“Who did? The devil?” -</p> - -<p> -“Him or thart Chis’ll doctor. It’s all one. I swat cold, I tell ye. I -see his face make a ugly fiddle-pattern on the sky. My mate, he’d gone -to dinner and the yard was nigh empty. ‘Look’ee here,’ I whispered up -to him. ‘He were burried quick, as they burried that boy over in St. -John’s, yonder, that you murdered.’” -</p> - - -<h3 id="ch41"> -CHAPTER XLI.<br/> -<span class="chap_sub">ACROSS THE WATER.</span> -</h3> - -<p> -For an instant the blood in my arteries seemed to stop, so that I -gasped when I tried to speak. -</p> - -<p> -“What boy was that?” I said, in a forced voice, when I could command -myself. -</p> - -<p> -“What boy?—eh?—what boy?” His eyes were wandering up and down the -wall again. “Him, I say, as they burried quick—young Trender o’ the -mill.” -</p> - -<p> -“How do you know he was buried alive? How could he have been if he was -murdered?” -</p> - -<p> -“How do I know? He were murdered, I say. I’m George White, the -sexton—and what I knows, I knows.” -</p> - -<p> -“And the doctor murdered him?” -</p> - -<p> -“Don’t I say so?” -</p> - -<p> -He had hardly spoken, when he put his hand to his head, moved a step -back and stood staring at me with horror-stricken, injected eyes. -</p> - -<p> -“My God!” he muttered. “He whispered there into the pit that if I said -to another what I said to him I were as good as a dead man.” -</p> - -<p> -The panic increased in him. I could see the tortured soul moving, as -it were, behind the flesh of his face. When the nerve of endurance -snapped he staggered and fell forward in a fit. -</p> - -<p> -Helpless to minister to a convulsion that must find its treatment in -the delirium ward of a hospital, I ran to the police station, which -was but a short distance away, and gave information of the seizure I -had witnessed. A stretcher was sent for the poor, racked wretch; he -was carried away spluttering and writhing, and so for the time being -my chance of questioning him further was ended. -</p> - -<p> -Now, plainly and solemnly: Had I been face to face with an awful -fragment of the truth, or had I been but the chance hearer of certain -delirious ravings on the part of a drink-sodden wretch—ravings as -baseless as the unsubstantial horror at which he had flung his cap? -</p> - -<p> -That the latter seemed the more probable was due to an obvious -inconsistency on the part of the half-insane creature. If the boy had -been murdered, how could he have been buried alive? Moreover, it was -evident that the sexton was near a monomaniac on the subject of living -interments. Moreover, secondly, it was altogether improbable and not -to be accounted for that the keen-witted doctor should intrust a -secret so perilous to such a confederate. And what object had he to -gain by the destruction of Modred, beyond the satisfying of a little -private malice perhaps? An object quite incompatible with the fearful -danger of the deed. -</p> - -<p> -On the other hand, I could not but recall darkly that the sexton, on -the morning when, apparently sane and sensible, he had conducted me to -my brother’s grave, had thrown out certain vague hints and -implications, which, hardly noticed by me at the time, assumed a -lurider aspect in the light of his more definite charge; that, by -Zyp’s statement to me after my illness, it would seem that Dr. -Crackenthorpe had shown some eagerness and made voluntary offer of his -services, in the matter of hushing up the whole question of Modred’s -death; that it was not impossible that he also had discovered the -boy’s knowledge of the secret of the hiding-place and had jumped at a -ready opportunity for silencing forever an unwelcome confederate. -</p> - -<p> -Stung to sudden anxious fervor by this last thought, I broke into a -hurried walk, striving by vigorous motion to coax into consistent -order of progression the dread hypothesis that so tore and worried my -mind. Suddenly I found that, striding on preoccupied, I was entering -that part of the meadowland wherein lay the pool of uncanny memories. -It shone there before me, like a silver rent in the grass, the shadow -of a solitary willow smudged upon its surface, and against the trunk -of the tree that stood on the further side of the water a long, dusky -figure was leaning motionless. It was that of the man who was most in -my thoughts; and, looking at him, even at that distance, something -repellant in his aspect seemed to connect him fittingly with the -stormy twilight around him that was imaged in my soul. -</p> - -<p> -Straight I walked down to the water’s edge and hailed him, and, though -he made no response, I saw consciousness of my presence stir in him. -</p> - -<p> -“I want a word with you!” I called. “Shall I shout it across the -river?” -</p> - -<p> -He slowly detached himself from his position and sauntered down to the -margin over against me. -</p> - -<p> -“Proclaim all from the housetops, where I am concerned,” he answered -in a loud voice. “Who is it wants me, and what has he to say?” -</p> - -<p> -“You know me, I suppose?” -</p> - -<p> -“I have not that pleasure, I believe.” -</p> - -<p> -“Never mind. I have just come from talk with a confederate of -yours—the sexton of St. John’s.” -</p> - -<p> -“I know the man certainly. Is he in need of my services?” -</p> - -<p> -“He would say ‘God forbid’ to that, I fancy. He’s had enough of you, -maybe.” -</p> - -<p> -“Oh, in what way?” -</p> - -<p> -“In the way of silencing awkward witnesses.” -</p> - -<p> -“Pray be a trifle less obscure.” -</p> - -<p> -“I have this moment left him. He was seized with a fit of some sort. -He’d rather have the devil himself to wait upon him than you, I -expect.” -</p> - -<p> -“Why so?” -</p> - -<p> -“I had some talk with him before he went off his head. Do you wish to -know what he charged you with?” -</p> - -<p> -“Certainly I do.” -</p> - -<p> -“Murder!” -</p> - -<p> -Dr. Crackenthorpe looked at me across the water a long minute; then, -never taking his eyes off my face, lifted up the skirts of his coat -and began to shamble and jerk out the most ludicrous parody of a dance -I have ever seen. Then, all of a sudden, he stopped and was doubled up -in a suffocating cackle of laughter. -</p> - -<p> -Presently recovering himself, he walked off down the bank to a point -where the stream narrowed, and motioned me to come opposite him. -</p> - -<p> -“It’s not from fear of you and your sexton,” he explained, still -gasping out the dry dust of his humor. “Your exquisite pleasantry has -weakened my vocal chords—that’s all.” -</p> - -<p> -I treated him to a long stare of most sovereign contempt. For all his -assumed enjoyment, I fancied he was pretty observant of my mood and -that he was calculating the nature of the charge I had fired at him. -</p> - -<p> -“And whom did I murder?” he said, making a great show of mopping his -face with his handkerchief. -</p> - -<p> -“Say it was my brother Modred.” -</p> - -<p> -“I’m glad, for your sake, to hear you qualify it. You should be, that -there is no witness to this gross slander. I presume you to be, then, -one of that pleasant family of Trender, who have a local reputation -none of the sweetest.” -</p> - -<p> -He came down close to the water’s edge—we were but a little distance -apart there—and shook a long finger at me. -</p> - -<p> -“My friend, my friend,” he said, sternly, “your excuse must be the -hot-headedness of youth. For the sake of your father, who once enjoyed -my patronage, I will forbear answering a fool according to his folly. -For his sake I will be gentle and convincing, where it is my plain -duty, I am afraid, to chastise. This man you speak of is a heavy -drinker, and is now, by your own showing, on the verge of delirium -tremens. Do you take the gross imaginings of such a person for -gospel?” -</p> - -<p> -“Dr. Crackenthorpe,” I said, quietly, “your threats fall on stony -ground. I admit the man is hardly responsible for his statements at -the present moment; only, as it happens, I have met and spoken with -him before.” -</p> - -<p> -I thought I could see in the gathering darkness his lips suck inward -as if with a twitch of pain. -</p> - -<p> -“And did he charge me then with murdering your brother?” -</p> - -<p> -“He said what, viewed in the light of his after outburst, has awakened -grave suspicions in me.” -</p> - -<p> -He threw back his head with a fresh cackle of laughter. -</p> - -<p> -“Suspicions!” he cried. “Is that all? It’s natural to have them, -perhaps. I had mine of you once, you know.” -</p> - -<p> -“You lie there, of course. By your own confession, you lie.” -</p> - -<p> -“And now,” he went on, ignoring my interruption, “they are diverted to -another.” -</p> - -<p> -“Will you answer me a question or two?” -</p> - -<p> -“If they are put with a proper sense of decorum I will give them my -consideration.” -</p> - -<p> -“Do you know where my father keeps the treasure, the bulk of which you -have robbed him of?” -</p> - -<p> -“Most offensively worded. But I will humor you. I never had need”—he -shot out an evil smile—“of obtaining my share of the good things by -other than legitimate means.” -</p> - -<p> -“Do you know?” -</p> - -<p> -“No, I don’t, upon the honor of a gentleman.” -</p> - -<p> -“Did my brother that’s dead know?” -</p> - -<p> -“Really, you tempt me to romance to satisfy your craving for -information. I was not in your brother’s confidence.” -</p> - -<p> -“Was there the least doubt that my brother was dead when he was -buried?” -</p> - -<p> -“Ah! I see. You have been hunting chimeras in George White’s company. -It is the man’s werewolf, my good friend. You may take my professional -certificate that no such thing happened.” -</p> - -<p> -I looked at him, my soul lowering with doubt and the gloom of baffled -vengeance. -</p> - -<p> -“Have you anything further to ask?” he said, with mocking politeness. -“Any other insane witness to cite on behalf of this base and baseless -prosecution?” -</p> - -<p> -“None at present.” -</p> - -<p> -I turned and walked a step or two, intending to leave him without -another word, but, on a thought, strode back to the waterside. -</p> - -<p> -“Listen you!” I cried. “For the time you are quit of me. But bear in -mind that I never rest or waver in my purpose till I have found who it -was that killed my brother.” -</p> - -<p> -With that I went from him. -</p> - - -<h3 id="ch42"> -CHAPTER XLII.<br/> -<span class="chap_sub">JASON’S SECOND VISIT.</span> -</h3> - -<p> -It behooves me now to pass over a period of two years during which so -little happened that bore directly upon the fortunes of any concerned -in this lamentable history that to touch upon them would be to specify -merely the matter-of-fact occurrences of ordinary daily life. To me -they were an experience of peace and rest such as I had never yet -known. I think—a long sleep on the broad sands of forgetfulness, -whitherward the storm had cast me, and from which it was to tear me by -and by with redoubled fury and mangle and devour my heart in -gluttonous ferocity. -</p> - -<p> -As yet, however, the moment had not come, and I lived and went my way -in peace and resignation. -</p> - -<p> -The first forewarning came one September afternoon of that second year -of rest. -</p> - -<p> -I had been butterfly-hunting about the meadows that lay to the west of -the city, when a particularly fine specimen of the second brood of -Brimstone tempted me over some railings that hedged in the ridge of a -railway cutting that here bisected the chalky slopes of pasture land. -I was cautiously approaching my settled quarry, net in hand, when I -started with an exclamation that lost me my prize. -</p> - -<p> -On the metals, some distance below, a man whose attitude seemed -somehow familiar to me was standing. -</p> - -<p> -I shaded my eyes with my hand and looked down, with bewilderment and a -little fear constricting my heart. -</p> - -<p> -He stood very still, staring up the line, and a thickness came in my -throat, so that I could not for the moment call to him as I wanted to. -For there was an ominous suggestion in his posture that sent a wave of -sickness through me—a suggestion of rigid expectation, like that one -might fancy a victim of the old reign of terror would have shown as he -waited his turn on the guillotine. -</p> - -<p> -And as I paused in indecision—at that moment came a surging rumble -and a puff of steam from a dip in the hills a hundred yards away, and -the figure threw itself down, with its neck stretched over the shining -vein of iron that ran in front of it. And I cried “Jason!” in a -nightmare voice, and had hardly strength to turn my head away from the -sight that I knew was coming. Yet through all my sick panic the shadow -of a thought flashed—blame me for it who will—“Let me bear it and -not give way, for he is taking the sure way to end his terror.” -</p> - -<p> -The thunder of the monster death came with the thought—shook the air -of the hills—broke into a piercing scream of triumph as it rushed -down on its victim—passed and clanged away among the hollows, as if -the crushed mass in its jaws were choking it to silence. Then I -brushed the blind horror from my eyes and looked down. -</p> - -<p> -He was lying on the chalk of the embankment below me; he was stirring; -he sat up and looked about him with a bewildered stare. The tragedy -had ended in bathos after all. At the last moment courage had failed -the poor wretch and he had leaped from the hurtling doom. -</p> - -<p> -Shaking all over, I scrambled, slipping and rolling, down the slope, -and landed on my feet before him. -</p> - -<p> -“Up!” I cried; “up! Don’t wait to speak or explain! They’ll telegraph -from the next stopping-place, and you’ll be laid by the heels for -attempted suicide.” -</p> - -<p> -He rose staggering and half-fell against me. -</p> - -<p> -“Renny,” he whimpered in a thick voice and clutched at my shoulders to -steady himself. “My God! I nearly did it—didn’t I?” -</p> - -<p> -“Come away, I tell you. It’ll be too late in another half-hour.” -</p> - -<p> -I ran him, shambling and stumbling, down the cutting till we had made -a half-circuit of the town and were able to enter it at a point due -east to that we had left. Then at last, on the slope of that quiet -road we had crossed when escaping from Duke, I paused to gather breath -and regard this returned brother of mine. -</p> - -<p> -It was a sorry spectacle that met my vision, a personality pitiably -fallen and degraded during those thirty months or so of absence. It -was not only that the mere animal beauty of it was coarsened and -debauched into a parody of itself, but that its informing spirit was -so blunted by indulgence as to have lost forever that pathetic dignity -of despair, with which a hounding persecution had once inspired it. -</p> - -<p> -As I looked at him, at his dull, bloodshot eyes and loose pendulous -lower lip, my heart hardened despite myself and I had difficulty in -addressing him with any show of civility. -</p> - -<p> -“Now,” I said, “what next?” -</p> - -<p> -He stared at me quite expressionless and swayed where he stood. He was -stupid and sodden with drink, it was evident. -</p> - -<p> -“Let’s go home,” he said. “I’m heavy for sleep as a hedgehog in the -sun.” -</p> - -<p> -I set my lips and pushed him onward. It was hopeless entirely to think -of questioning him as to the reason of his sudden reappearance, and -under such circumstances, in his present state. The most I could do -was to get him within the mill as quietly as possible and settle him -somewhere to sleep off his debauch. -</p> - -<p> -In this I was successful beyond my expectations, and not even my -father, who lay resting in his room—as he often did now in the hot -afternoons—knew of his return till late in the evening. -</p> - -<p> -In the fresh gloom of the evening he stirred and woke. His brain was -still clouded, but he was in, I supposed, such right senses as he ever -enjoyed now. At the sound of his moving I came and stood over him. He -stared at me for a long time in silence, as he lay. -</p> - -<p> -“Do you know where you are?” I said at last. -</p> - -<p> -“Renny—by the saints!” He spoke in a dry, parched whisper. “It’s the -mill, isn’t it?” -</p> - -<p> -“Yes; it’s the mill. I brought you here filthy with drink, after you’d -tried to throw yourself under a train and thought better of it.” -</p> - -<p> -He struggled wildly into a sitting posture and his eyelids blinked -with horror. -</p> - -<p> -“I thought of it all the way in the train—coming up—from London,” he -said in a shrill undervoice. “When I got out at the station I had some -more—the last straw, I suppose—for I wandered, and found myself -above the place—and the devil drove me down to do it.” -</p> - -<p> -“Well, you repented, it seems.” -</p> - -<p> -“I couldn’t—when I heard it. And the very wind of it seemed to tear -at me as it passed.” -</p> - -<p> -“What brings you to London? I thought you were still abroad.” -</p> - -<p> -“What drove me? What always drives me? That cruel, persecuting demon!” -</p> - -<p> -“He found you out over there, then?” -</p> - -<p> -“I can’t hide from him. I’ve never had a week of rest and peace after -that first year. It was all right then. I threw upon the green cloth -the miserable surplus of the stuff you lent me and won. For six months -we lived like fighting cocks. We dressed the young ’un in the color -that brought us luck. My soul, she’s a promising chick, Renny. You’re -her uncle, you know; you can’t go back from that.” -</p> - -<p> -“Where did he come across you?” -</p> - -<p> -“In a kursaal at Homburg. We were down in the mouth then. Six weeks of -lentils and sour bread. I saw him looking at me across the petits -chevaux table—curse his brute’s face! We never got rid of him after -that. Give me some drink. My heart’s dancing like a pea on a drum.” -</p> - -<p> -“There’s water on the wash-hand stand.” -</p> - -<p> -“Don’t talk like that. There’s a fire here no water can reach.” -</p> - -<p> -“I see there is. You’ve added another strand to the rope that’s -dragging you down.” -</p> - -<p> -He fell back on the bed, writhing and moaning. -</p> - -<p> -“What’s the good of moralizing with a poor fool condemned to -perdition? It’s my only means of escaping out of hell for a moment. -Sometimes, with that in me, I’m a man again.” -</p> - -<p> -“A man!” -</p> - -<p> -“There—get it for me, like a dear old chap, and don’t talk. It’s so -easy for a saint to point a moral.” -</p> - -<p> -He was so obviously on the verge of utter collapse that I felt the -lesser responsibility would be to humor him. I fetched what he begged -for and he gulped down a wineglassful of the raw stuff. -</p> - -<p> -“Now,” I said, “are you better?” -</p> - -<p> -“A little drop more and I’m a peacock with my tail up.” He tossed off -a second dose of almost like proportion. -</p> - -<p> -“Now,” he said, dangling his legs over the bedside, and giving a -foolish reckless laugh, “question, mon frère, and I will answer.” -</p> - -<p> -Though his manner disgusted and repelled me, I must needs get to the -root of things. -</p> - -<p> -“You fled from him to England again?” -</p> - -<p> -“To London, of all places. It’s the safest in the world, they say; -where a man may leave his wife and live in the next street for -twenty-five years without her knowing it.” -</p> - -<p> -“You haven’t left yours?” -</p> - -<p> -“No—we stick together. Zyp’s trumps, she is, you long-faced -moralizer; not that she holds one by her looks any longer. And that’s -to my credit for sticking to her. You missed something in my being -beforehand with you there, I can tell you.” -</p> - -<p> -Was this pitiful creature worth one thrill of passion or resentment? I -let him go on. -</p> - -<p> -“For months that devil followed us,” he said. “At last he forced a -quarrel upon me in some vile drinking-place and brought me a challenge -from the man he was seconding. You should have seen his face as he -handed it to me! It took all the fighting nerve out of me. I swear I -would have stood up to his fellow if he had found another backer.” -</p> - -<p> -“And you ran away?” -</p> - -<p> -“What else could I do?” -</p> - -<p> -“And he pursued you again?” -</p> - -<p> -“There isn’t any doubt of it—though his dreadful face hasn’t appeared -to me as yet.” -</p> - -<p> -“You had the nerve, it seems, to travel down here all alone?” -</p> - -<p> -“I borrowed it. Sometimes now, when the stuff runs warm in me, I feel -almost as if I could turn upon him and defy him. I’m in the mood at -this moment. Why doesn’t he come when I’m ready for him? Oh, the -brute! The miserable, cowardly brute!” -</p> - -<p> -He jumped to his feet, gnashing his teeth and shaking his fists -convulsively in the air. -</p> - -<p> -As he stood thus, the door of the room opened, and I turned to see my -father fall forward upon his face, with a bitter cry. -</p> - - -<h3 id="ch43"> -CHAPTER XLIII.<br/> -<span class="chap_sub">ANOTHER RESPITE.</span> -</h3> - -<p> -Jason stood looking stupidly down on the prostrate form, while I ran -to it and struggled to turn it over and up into a sitting posture. -</p> - -<p> -“Father!” I cried, “I’m here—don’t you know me?”—then I turned -fiercely to my brother and bade him shift his position out of the -range of the staring eyes. -</p> - -<p> -“What’s the matter?” he muttered, sullenly. “I’ve done no harm. Can’t -he see me, even, without going off into a fit?” -</p> - -<p> -“Get further away; do you hear?” -</p> - -<p> -He shambled aside, murmuring to himself. A little tremulous sigh -issued from the throat of the poor stricken figure. I leaned over, -seized the bottle of brandy from the bed, and moistened his lips with -a few drops from it. -</p> - -<p> -“Does that do you good, dad?” -</p> - -<p> -He nodded. I could make out that he was trying to speak, and bent my -head to the weak whisper. -</p> - -<p> -“I saw somebody.” -</p> - -<p> -“I know—I know. Never mind that now. Leave it all to me.” -</p> - -<p> -“You’re my good son. You won’t let him rob me, Renny?” -</p> - -<p> -“In an hour or two he shall be packed off. You needn’t even see him -again.” -</p> - -<p> -“Is he back in England?” -</p> - -<p> -“In London, yes.” -</p> - -<p> -“What does he want?” -</p> - -<p> -“To see us—that’s all.” -</p> - -<p> -“Not money?” -</p> - -<p> -“No, no. He isn’t in need of that just now. Can you move back to your -bed, do you think, if I help you?” -</p> - -<p> -“You won’t let him come near me?” -</p> - -<p> -“He shall go straight from this room out of the house.” -</p> - -<p> -“Come,” he said, presently; “I’ll try.” -</p> - -<p> -I almost lifted him to his feet, and he clung to my arm, stumbling -beside me down the passage to his room. -</p> - -<p> -When he was lying settled on his bed, and at ease once more, I -returned to my brother. -</p> - -<p> -He was sitting in a maudlin attitude by the window, and I saw that he -had been at the bottle again. -</p> - -<p> -“Now,” I said, sternly, “let’s settle the last of this with a final -question: What is it you want?” -</p> - -<p> -He looked up at me with an idiotic chuckle. -</p> - -<p> -“Wand? What everybody’s always wanding, and I most of all.” -</p> - -<p> -“You mean more money, I suppose?” -</p> - -<p> -“More? Yes, mush more—mush more than you gave me last time, too.” -</p> - -<p> -“Not so much, probably. But lest Zyp should starve I’ll send you what -I can in the course of a few days.” -</p> - -<p> -He rose with a feebly menacing look. -</p> - -<p> -“I’m not going till I get what I wand. I wand my part of the treasure. -I know where it’s hid, you fool, and I’m wound up for a try at it. Ge’ -out of my way! I’ll go and help myself.” -</p> - -<p> -He made a stumbling rush across the room and when I interposed myself -between the door and him he struck out at me with a blow as aimless -and unharmful as a baby’s. -</p> - -<p> -“If you don’t knock under at once,” I said, “I swear I’ll tie you up -and keep you here for Duke’s next coming.” -</p> - -<p> -He stood swaying before me a moment; then suddenly threw himself on -the bed, yelping and sobbing like a hysterical school-girl. -</p> - -<p> -“It’s too cruel!” he moaned. “You take advantage of your strength to -bully me beyond all bearing. Why shouldn’t I have my share as well as -you?” -</p> - -<p> -“Never mind all that. Give me your address if you want anything at -all.” -</p> - -<p> -He lay some time longer yet; then fetched out a pencil and scrap of -paper and sulkily scrawled what I asked for. -</p> - -<p> -“Now”—I looked at my watch—“there’s a train back to town in half an -hour. You’d best be starting.” -</p> - -<p> -“Nice hospitality, upon my word. Supposing I stop the night?” -</p> - -<p> -“You’re not going to stop the night, unless you wish to do so in the -street.” -</p> - -<p> -“I’ve a good mind to, you beast, and bring a crowd about the place.” -</p> - -<p> -“And Duke with it, perhaps—eh?” -</p> - -<p> -His expression changed to one most fulsomely fawning. -</p> - -<p> -“Renny,” he said, “you can’t mean to treat me, your own brother, like -this? Let’s have confidence in one another and combine.” He gave a -little embarrassed laugh. “I know where the treasure’s hid, I tell -you. S’posing we share it and——” -</p> - -<p> -He stopped abruptly, with an alarmed look. Something in my face must -have forewarned him, for he walked unsteadily to the door, glancing -fearfully at me. Passing the brandy bottle on his way, he seized it -with sudden defiance. -</p> - -<p> -“I’ll have this, anyhow,” he murmured. “You won’t object to my taking -that much away.” -</p> - -<p> -Hugging it to his breast under his coat, he went from the room. I -followed him down the stairs; saw him out of the house; shut the door -on him. Then I listened for his shuffling footstep going up the yard -and away before I would acknowledge to myself that he had been got rid -of at a price small under the circumstances. -</p> - -<p> -I remained at my post for full assurance of his departure for many -minutes after he had left, and when at last I stole up to my father’s -room I found the old man fallen into a doze. Seen through the wan -twilight how broken and decaying and feeble he seemed! -</p> - -<p> -I sat by him till he stirred and woke. His eyes opened upon me with a -pleased look at finding me beside him, and he put out a thin rugged -hand and took mine into it. -</p> - -<p> -“I’ve been asleep,” he said. “I dreamed a bad son of mine came back -and terrified the old man. It was a dream, wasn’t it, Renny?” -</p> - -<p> -“Only a dream, dad. Jason isn’t here.” -</p> - -<p> -“I thought it was. It didn’t trouble me much, for all that. I learned -confidence in the presence of this strong good fellow here.” -</p> - -<p> -“Dad, we’ve £30 left of the fifty I raised two months ago on that -Julian medallion. May I have ten of them?” -</p> - -<p> -“Ten pounds, Renalt? That’s a mighty gap in the hoard.” -</p> - -<p> -“I want it for a particular purpose. You can trust me not to ask you -if it were to be avoided.” -</p> - -<p> -He gave a deep sigh. -</p> - -<p> -“Take it, then. It isn’t in you to misapply a trust.” -</p> - -<p> -He turned his face away with a slight groan. Poor old man! My soul -cried out with remorse to so trouble his confidence in me. Yet what I -proposed seemed to me best. -</p> - -<p> -He would not rise and come down to supper when I suggested it. -</p> - -<p> -“Let me lie here,” he said. “Sometimes it seems to me, Renalt, I’m -breaking up—that the wheel down there crows and sings for a victim -again.” -</p> - -<p> -It was the first time I had ever heard him directly refer to this -stormy heart of the old place, that had throbbed out so incessantly -its evil influence over the lives shut within range of it. It was -plunging and murmuring now in the depths below us, so insistent even -at that distance that the soft whining of the stones in our more -immediate neighborhood was scarcely audible. -</p> - -<p> -“It’s a bewildering discovery,” he went on, “that of finding oneself -approaching the wonderful bourne one has struggled toward so long. I -don’t think I’m afraid, Renalt, lying here in peace and watching my -soul walk on. Yet now, though I know I have done two great and wicked -deeds in my lifetime, I wouldn’t put off the moment of that coming -revelation by an hour.” -</p> - -<p> -I stroked his hand, listening and wondering, but I made no answer. -</p> - -<p> -“It’s like being a little child,” he said; “fascinated and compelled -toward a pleasant fright. When you were a toddling baby, if one came -at you menacing and growling in fun, you’d open your eyes in doubt -with fear and laughter; and then, instead of flying the danger, would -run at it half-way and be caught up in daddy’s arms and kissed. That -seems to illustrate death to me now. The heart of that grim, time-worn -playfellow may be very soft, after all. It’s best not to cry out, but -to run to him and be caught up and kissed into forgetfulness.” -</p> - -<p> -Oh, my father! How in my soul did I echo your words! -</p> - -<p> -He wandered on by such strange sidewalks till speech itself seemed to -intermingle with the inarticulate language of dream. Is there truth -after all in the senile visions of age that can penetrate the veil of -the supernal, though the worn and ancient eyes are dim with cataracts? -</p> - -<p> -As I sat alone with my thoughts that night many emotions, significant -or pathetic, wrought changing phantoms of the shadows in the dimly -lighted room. Sometimes, shapeless and full of heavy omen, they -revolved blindly about that dark past life of my father, a little -corner of the curtain over which had that evening been lifted for my -behoof. Sometimes they thrilled with spasms of pain at the prospect of -that utter loneliness that must fall upon me were the old man’s quiet -foretelling of his doom to justify itself. Sometimes they took a red -tinge of gloom in memory of his words of self-denunciation. -</p> - -<p> -What had been a worser evil in him than that long degrading of his -senses? Yet, of the “wicked deeds” he had referred to, that which -could hardly be called a “deed” was surely not one. Perhaps, after -all, they were nothing but the baseless product of a fancy that had -indulged morbidity until, as with Frankenstein, the monster it had -created mastered it. -</p> - -<p> -Might this not be the explanation of all? Even of that eerily -expressed fear of his, that had puzzled me in its passing, that the -wheel was calling for a victim again? -</p> - - -<h3 id="ch44"> -CHAPTER XLIV.<br/> -<span class="chap_sub">THE SECRET OF THE WHEEL.</span> -</h3> - -<p> -The day that followed the unlooked-for visit of my brother Jason to -the mill my father spent in bed. When, in the morning, I took him up -his breakfast, I could not help noticing that the broad light flooding -the room emphasized a change in him that I had been only partly -conscious of the evening before. It was as if, during the night, the -last gleams of his old restless spirit had died out. I thought all -edges in him blunted—the edges of fear, of memory, of observation, of -general interest in life. -</p> - -<p> -The immediate cause of this decline was, with little doubt, the shock -caused by my brother’s unexpected return. To this I never again heard -him allude, but none the less had the last of his constitution -succumbed to it, I feel sure. -</p> - -<p> -The midday post brought me a letter, the sight of which sent a thrill -through me. I knew Zyp’s queer crooked hand, that no dignity of years -could improve from its immature schoolgirl character. She wrote: -</p> - -<div class="letter"> - -<p> -“Dear Renny: Jason told you all, I suppose. We are back again, and -dependant on dad’s bounty, and yours. Oh, Renny, it goes to my heart -to have to wurry you once more. But we are in soar strates, and so -hampered in looking for work from the risk of coming across him again. -At present he hasn’t found us out, I think, but any day he may do so. -If you could send us ever so little it would help us to tide over a -terruble crisus. The little one is wanting dainties, Renny; and we—it -is hard to say it—bread sometimes. But she will only eat of the best, -and chocalats she loves. I wish you could see her. She is my own -fairy. I work the prettiest flowers into samplers, and try to sell -them in the shops; but I am not very clever with my needel; and Jason -laughs at them, though my feet ake with walking over these endless -paving stones. Renny, dear, I must be a beggar, please. Don’t think -hardly of me for it, but my darling that’s so pretty and frale! Oh, -Renny, help us. Your loving sister, -</p> - -<p class="sign2"> -<span class="sc">Zyp</span>.” -</p> - -<p> -“What you send, if annything, please send it to me. That’s why I write -for the chief part. Jason would give us his last crust; but—you saw -him, Renny, and must know.” -</p> - -</div> - -<p> -I bowed my head over the queer, sorrowful little note. That this bold, -reliant child of nature should come to this! There and then I vowed -that, so long as I had a shilling I could call my own, Zyp should -share it with me, at a word from her. -</p> - -<p> -I wrote to her to this effect. I placed my whole position before her -and bade her command me as she listed; only bearing in mind that my -father, old and broken, had the first claim upon me. Then I went out -and bought the largest and most fascinating box of chocolates I could -secure, and sent it to her as a present to my little unknown niece, -and forwarded also under cover the order for the £10. -</p> - -<p> -A day or two brought me an acknowledgment and answer to my letter. The -latter shall forever remain sacred from any eyes but mine; and, unless -man can be found ready to brave the curse of the dead, shall lie with -me, who alone have read it, in the grave. -</p> - -<p> -On the morning preceding that of its arrival, a fearful experience -befell me, that was like to have choked out my soul then and there in -one black grip of horror. -</p> - -<p> -All that first day after Jason’s visit my father lay abed, and, -whenever I visited him, was cheerfully garrulous, but without any -inclination to rise. The following morning also he elected to have -breakfast as before in his room; and soon after the meal he fell into -a light doze, in which state I left him. -</p> - -<p> -It was about 11 o’clock that, sitting in the room below, I was -startled by hearing a sudden thud above me that shook the beams of the -ceiling. I rushed upstairs in a panic and found him lying prostrate on -the floor, uninjured apparently, but with no power of getting to his -feet again. -</p> - -<p> -“What’s this?” I cried. “Dad! Are you hurt?” -</p> - -<p> -He looked at me a little wondering and confused, but answered no, he -had only slipped and fallen when rising to don his clothes. -</p> - -<p> -I lifted him up and he couldn’t stand, but sunk down on the bed again -with a blank, amazed look in his face. -</p> - -<p> -“Renalt,” he said, in a thin, perplexed voice, “what’s happened to the -old man? The will was there, but the power’s gone.” -</p> - -<p> -Gone it was, forever. From that day he walked no more—did nothing but -lie on his back, calm and unconcerned for the most part, and fading -quietly from life. -</p> - -<p> -But in the first discovery of his enforced inertness, some peculiar -trouble, unconnected with the certain approach of death, lay on him -like a black jaundice. Sitting by his side after I had got him back -upon the bed, I would not break the long silence that ensued with -shallow words of comfort, for I thought that he was steeling his poor -soul as he lay to face the inevitable prospect. -</p> - -<p> -Suddenly he turned on the bed—for his face had been darkened from -me—and looked at me with his lips trembling. -</p> - -<p> -“What is it, dad?” -</p> - -<p> -“I’m down, Renny. I shall never rise again.” -</p> - -<p> -“You’ll rest, dad; you’ll rest. Think of the peace and quiet while I -sit and read to you and the sun comes in at the window.” -</p> - -<p> -“Good lad! It isn’t that, though rest has a beautiful sound to me. -It’s the thought—harkee, Renny! It’s the thought that a task I’ve not -failed in for twenty years and more must come to be another’s.” -</p> - -<p> -“What task?” -</p> - -<p> -“There are ears in the walls. Closer, my son. The task of oiling the -wheel below.” -</p> - -<p> -“Shall I take it up, dad? Is that your wish?” -</p> - -<p> -I answered stoutly, though my heart sunk within me at the prospect. -</p> - -<p> -“You or nobody, it must be. Are you afraid?” -</p> - -<p> -“I wish I could say I wasn’t.” -</p> - -<p> -He clutched my hand in tremulous eagerness. -</p> - -<p> -“Master it! You must, my lad! Much depends on it. They whisper the -room is haunted. Not for you, Renalt, if for anybody. Haven’t I been -familiar with it all these years, and yet I lie here unscathed? How -can it spare the evil old man and hurt the just son?” -</p> - -<p> -He half-rose in his bed and stared with dilated eyes at the wall. -</p> - -<p> -“You are there!” he cried, in a loud, quavering voice. “Out of the -years of gloom and torture you menace me still! Why, it was just, I -say! How could I have clung to my purpose and defied you, otherwise? -You will never frighten me!” -</p> - -<p> -He fell back, breathing heavily. In sorrow and alarm I bent over him. -Suddenly conscious of my eyes looking down upon him, he smiled and a -faint flush came to his cheek. -</p> - -<p> -“Dreams and shadows—dreams and shadows!” he murmured. “You will take -up my task, Renalt?” -</p> - -<p> -“Must I, dad?” -</p> - -<p> -“Oh, be a man!” he shrieked, grasping at me. “I have defied it—I, the -sinner! And how can it hurt you?” -</p> - -<p> -“Is it so necessary?” -</p> - -<p> -“It’s the key to all—the golden key! Were it to rust and stop, the -secret would be open to any that might look, and the devil have my -soul.” -</p> - -<p> -“Do you wish me, then, to learn the secret—whatever it is?” -</p> - -<p> -He looked at me long, with a dark and searching expression. -</p> - -<p> -“I ask you to oil the wheel,” he said at length—“nothing more.” -</p> - -<p> -“Very well. I will do what you ask.” -</p> - -<p> -He gave a deep sigh and lay back with his eyes closed. I saw the faint -color coming and going in his face. Suddenly he uttered a cry and -turned upon me. -</p> - -<p> -“My son—my son! Bear with me a little longer. It is an old habit and -for long made my only joy in a dark world. I find it hard to part with -my fetish.” -</p> - -<p> -“I don’t want you to part with it. What does it matter? I will oil the -wheel and you shall rest in peace that your task is being faithfully -performed by another.” -</p> - -<p> -“Hush! You don’t mean it, but every word is a reproach. I’ve known so -little love; and here I would reject the confidence that is the sign -of more than I deserve. For him, the base and cruel, to guess at it, -and you to remain in ignorance! Renalt, listen; I’m going to tell -you.” -</p> - -<p> -“No, dad; no!” -</p> - -<p> -“Renalt, you won’t break my heart? What trust haven’t you put in me? -And this is my return! Feel under my pillow, boy.” -</p> - -<p> -“Oh, dad; let it rest!” -</p> - -<p> -Eagerly, impatiently, he thrust in his own hand and brought forth a -shining key. -</p> - -<p> -“Take it!” he cried. “It opens the box of the wheel. But first lower -the sluice and turn the race into the further channel. You will see a -rope dangling inside in the darkness. Hold on to it and work the wheel -round with your hands till a float projecting a little beyond its -fellows comes opposite you. In this you’ll find a slit cut, ending in -an eye-hole. Pass the rope, as it dangles, into this hole, and keep it -in place by a turn of the iron button that’s fixed underneath the -slit. Now step on to the broad float, never letting go the rope, and -the weight of your body will turn the wheel, carrying you downward -till a knot in the rope stops your descent.” -</p> - -<p> -“What then, dad?” -</p> - -<p> -“My son—you’ll see the place that for twenty years has held the -secret of my fortune.” -</p> - - -<h3 id="ch45"> -CHAPTER XLV.<br/> -<span class="chap_sub">I MAKE A DESCENT.</span> -</h3> - -<p> -If it had many a time occurred to me, since first I heard of the jar -of coins, that the secret of their concealment was connected somehow -within the room of silence, it must have done so from that old -association of my father with a place that the rest of us so dreaded -and avoided. The scorn of superstitious terror that he showed in his -choice; the certainty that none would dream of looking there; the -encouragement his own mysterious actions gave to the sense of a -haunting atmosphere that seemed ever to hang about the neighborhood of -the room—these were all so many justifications of the wisdom of his -choice. Now I understood the secret of that everlasting lubrication; -for had anything happened, when he might chance to be absent, to choke -or damage the structure of the ancient wheel, the stoppage or ruin -ensuing might have laid bare the hiding-place to any curious eye; for, -as part of his general policy, I conclude, no veto except the natural -one of dread was ever laid on our entering the room itself if we -wished to. -</p> - -<p> -“Well,” I said, stifling a sigh that in itself would have seemed a -breach of confidence, “when am I to do my first oiling, father?” -</p> - -<p> -“It wasn’t touched yesterday, Renalt. From the first I have not failed -to do it once, at least, in the twenty-four hours.” -</p> - -<p> -“You would like me to go now—at once?” -</p> - -<p> -“Ah! If you will.” -</p> - -<p> -“Very well.” -</p> - -<p> -As I was leaving the room he called me back. -</p> - -<p> -“There’s the oil can in yonder cupboard and a bull’s-eye lantern fixed -in a belt. You will want to light that and strap it round you.” -</p> - -<p> -I went and fetched them, and, holding them in my hand, asked him if -there was anything more. -</p> - -<p> -“No,” he said; “be careful not to let go the rope; that’s all.” -</p> - -<p> -“Why do you want me to go down, dad? Let me just do the oiling and -come away.” -</p> - -<p> -“No, now—now,” he said, with feverish impatience. “The murder’s out -and my conscience quit of it. You’ll satisfy me with a report of its -safety, Renalt? There’s a brave fellow. It would be a sore thing to -compose myself here to face the end, and not know but that something -had happened to your inheritance.” -</p> - -<p> -My spirit groaned, but I said to him, very well; I would go. -</p> - -<p> -He called to me once more, and I noticed an odd repression in his -voice. -</p> - -<p> -“Assure yourself, and me, of the safety of the jar. Nothing else. If -by chance you notice aught beyond, keep the knowledge of it locked in -your breast—never mention it or refer to it in any way.” -</p> - -<p> -Full of dull foreboding of some dread discovery, I left him and went -slowly down the stairs. -</p> - -<p> -I paused outside the ominous door, with a thought that a little -whisper of laughter had reached my ears from its inner side. Then, -muttering abuse on myself, for my cowardice, I pushed resolutely at -the cumbrous oak and swung it open. -</p> - -<p> -A cold, vault-like breath of air sighed out on me, and the marrow in -my bones was conscious of a little chill and shiver. But I strode -across the floor without further hesitation and fetched from my pocket -the iron key. The hole it fitted into was near the edge of the great -box that inclosed the wheel. Standing there in close proximity to the -latter, I was struck by the subdued character of the flapping and -washing sounds within. Heard at a distance, they seemed to shake the -whole building with their muffled thunder. Here no formidable uproar -greeted me; and so it was, I conclude, from the concentration of noise -monopolizing my every sense. -</p> - -<p> -I put in the key, swung open the door—and there before me was a -section of a huge disk going round overwhelmingly, and all splashed -and dripping as it revolved, with great jets of weedy-smelling water. -</p> - -<p> -I say “disk,” for the arms to this side had been boarded in, that -none, I supposed, might gather hint of what lay beyond. -</p> - -<p> -The eyes into which the shaft ends of the wheel fitted were sunk in -the floor level, flush with the lintel of the cupboard door that lay -furthest from the window; so that only the left upper quarter of the -slowly spinning monster was visible to me. -</p> - -<p> -It turned in an oblong pit, it seemed, wooden in its upper part, but -going down into a narrow gully of brick, at the bottom of which the -race boomed and roared with a black sound of fury. -</p> - -<p> -If the hollow thunder of the unseen torrent had been dismal to hear, -the sight of it boiling down there in its restricted channel was awful -indeed. From the forward tunnel through which it escaped into the tail -bay, a thin streak of light tinged the plunging foam of it with green -phosphorescence and made manifest the terror of its depths. -</p> - -<p> -For all my dread of the place, a strange curiosity had begun to usurp -in me the first instincts of repulsion. Though I had been in the room -some minutes, no malignant influence had crept over me as yet, and a -hope entered me that by thus forcing myself to outface the fear I had -perhaps triumphed over its fateful fascination. -</p> - -<p> -Leaving the door of the cupboard open, I hurried from the room, and so -to the rear of the building and the platform outside, where the heads -of the sluices were that regulated the water flow. Here, removing the -pin, I dropped the race hatch and so cut off the stream from the -wheel. -</p> - -<p> -Returning, I left open the door of the room that the wholesome -atmosphere outside should neighbor me, at least, and means of escape, -if necessary, readily offer themselves; and, lighting the lantern in -the belt, strapped the latter round my waist. -</p> - -<p> -When I came to the cupboard again the boom of water below had subsided -to a mouthing murmur, and the spin of the wheel was lazily relaxed, so -that before it had turned half its own circumference it stood still -and dripping. The sight when I looked down now was not near so -formidable, for only a band of water slid beneath me as I bent over. -Still, my heart was up in my mouth for all that, now the moment had -come for the essaying of my task. -</p> - -<p> -Oiling such parts of the machine as were within reach, I next grasped -the rope, which I had at the first noticed hanging from the darkness -above down into the pit, just clear of the blades, and set to peering -for the broader float my father had mentioned. Luckily, the last -motion of the wheel had brought this very section opposite me, so that -I had no difficulty in slipping in the rope and securing it by means -of the button underneath. -</p> - -<p> -Then, with a tingling of the flesh of my thighs and a mental prayer -for early deliverance, I stepped upon the blade, with a foot on either -side of the rope to which I clung grimly, and in a moment felt myself -going down into blackness. -</p> - -<p> -The wheel turned gently under my weight, giving forth no creak or -scream; and the dark water below seemed to rise at me rather than to -wait my sinking toward it. But though the drip and slime of the pit -shut me in, there was action in all I was doing so matter-of-fact as -to half-cure me for the moment of superstitious terror. -</p> - -<p> -Suddenly the wheel stopped with a little jerk and thud of the float on -which I stood against a bend in the tackle that passed through it. -</p> - -<p> -Holding on thus—and, indeed, the tension necessary to the act spoke -volumes for my father’s vigor of endurance—the light from the lantern -flashed and glowed about the interior structure of the wheel before -me. Then, looking between the blades—for the periphery of the great -circle was not boxed in—I saw revealed to me in a moment the secret I -had come to investigate. For, firmly set in a hole dug in the brick -side of the chasm at a point so chosen within the sweep of the wheel -that no spoke traversed it when it lay motionless, and at arm’s reach -only from one standing on the paddle, was a vessel of ancient pottery -about a foot in height, and so smeared and dank with slime as that a -careless grasp on its rim might have sent the whole treasure -clattering and raining through the wheel into the water below. -</p> - -<p> -Cautiously I put out a hand, grasped and gently shook the jar. A dull -jingle came from it, and so my task was accomplished. -</p> - -<p> -By this time, however, I was so confident of my position that I got -out the oil can and began to lubricate deliberately the further shaft -end of the wheel. While I was in the very act, a metallic glint, -struck by the lantern light from some object pinned on to the huge hub -that crossed the channel almost directly in front of my line of -vision, caught my eye and drove me to pause. I craned my neck to get a -nearer view, and gave so great a start of wonder as to lose my hold of -the oiler, which fell with clink and splash into the water underfoot. -</p> - -<p> -Nailed to the great axle was something that looked like the miniature -portrait of a man; but it was so stained and flaked by years of dark -decay that the features were almost obliterated. The face had been -painted in enamel on an oval of fluxed copper; yet even this had not -been able to resist the long corrosion of the atmosphere in which it -was held prisoner. -</p> - -<p> -I could make out only that the portrait was that of a young man of -fair complexion, thin, light-haired and dressed in the fashion of a -bygone generation. More I had not time to observe; for, as I gazed, -suddenly with a falling sway and a flicker the lantern at my waist -went out. -</p> - - -<h3 id="ch46"> -CHAPTER XLVI.<br/> -<span class="chap_sub">CAUGHT.</span> -</h3> - -<p> -In the first horror of blackness I came near to letting go the rope -and falling from my perch on the blade. My brain went with a swing and -turn and a sick wave overwhelmed my heart and flooded all my chest -with nausea. -</p> - -<p> -Was I trapped after all—and just when confidence seemed established -in me? For some evil moments I remained as I was, not daring to move, -to look up, even; blinded only by the immediate plunge into cabined -night, terrible and profound. -</p> - -<p> -I had left the matches above. There was no rekindling of the lamp -possible. Up through the darkness I must climb—and how? -</p> - -<p> -Then for the first time it occurred to me that my father’s directions -had not included the method of the return journey. Perhaps he had -thought it unnecessary. To clearer senses the means would have been -obvious—a scramble, merely, by way of the paddles, while the wheel -was held in position by the rope. -</p> - -<p> -In the confusion of my senses I thought that my only way was to swarm -up the dangling rope; and, without doubt, such was a means, if an -irksome one, of escape. Only I should have left the tackle anchored as -it was to the wheel. This I did not do, but, moved by a sudden crazy -impulse, stooped and turned the button that held all in place. -</p> - -<p> -It was good fortune only that saved me then and there from the full -consequences of my act. For, pulled taut as it was, and well out of -the perpendicular, the moment it was released the rope swung through -the slit like a pendulum, carrying me, frantically clinging to it with -one hand, off the paddle. Then, before I had time to put out my free -hand to ward off the danger, clump against the wheel I came in the -return swing, and with such force that I was heavily bruised in a -dozen places and near battered from my hold. -</p> - -<p> -Clawing and scratching like a drowning cat and rendered half-stupid by -the blow, I yet managed to grasp the rope with my other hand, and so -dangle there with little more than strength just to cling on. Once I -sought to ease the intolerable strain on my arms by toeing for -foothold on the paddle again, but the wheel, swinging free now, -slipped from under me, so that I was nearly jerked from my clutch. -Then there was nothing for it but to gather breath and pray that power -might come to me to swarm up the rope by and by. -</p> - -<p> -Drooping my head as I hung panting, the blackness I had thought -impenetrable was traversed by the green glint of light below that I -have mentioned. The sight revived me in a moment. It was like a -draught of water to a fainting soldier. Now I felt some connectedness -of thought to be possible. With a bracing of all my muscles, I passed -my legs about the rope and began toilingly to drag myself upward. -</p> - -<p> -I had covered half the distance, when I felt myself to be going mad. -How this was I cannot explain. The fight against material difficulties -had hitherto, it seemed, left tremors of the supernatural powerless to -move me. Now, in a moment, black horror had me by the heart. That I -should be down there—clambering from the depths of that secret and -monstrous pit, the very neighborhood of which had always filled me -with loathing, seemed a fact incredible in its stupendous unnature. -This may sound exaggerated. It did not seem so to me then. Despite my -manhood and my determination, in an instant I was mastered and insane. -</p> - -<p> -Still I clung to the rope and crawled upward. Then suddenly I saw why -night had fallen upon me in one palpable curtain when the lantern was -extinguished; for the door of the cupboard was closed. -</p> - -<p> -Had it only swung to? But what air was there in the close room beyond -to move it? -</p> - -<p> -Hanging there, like a lost and fated fiend, a bubble of wild, ugly -merriment rose in me and burst in a clap of laughter. I writhed and -shrieked in the convulsion of it; the dead vault rung with my -hysterical cries. -</p> - -<p> -It ceased suddenly, as it had begun, and, grinding my teeth in a -frenzy of rage over the thought of how I had been trapped and snared, -I swung myself violently against the door, and, letting go my hold at -the same instant, burst it open with the force of my onset and rolled -bleeding and struggling on the floor of the room beyond. -</p> - -<p> -After a minute or two I rose into a sitting posture, leaning on one -hand, half-stunned and half-blinded. A dense and deadly silence about -me; but this was penetrated presently by a fantastic low whispering -sound at my back, as if there were those there that discussed my fate. -I turned myself sharply about. Dull emptiness only of rotting floor -and striding rafter, and the gathered darkness of wall corners. -</p> - -<p> -The sense of fanciful murmuring left me, and in its place was born a -sound as of something stealthily crossing the floor away from me. At -the same instant the door of the room, which I had left open, swung -softly to on its hinges, and I was shut in. -</p> - -<p> -Then, with a fear that I cannot describe, I knew that the question was -to be put to me once more, and that I was destined to die under the -torture of it. -</p> - -<p> -I had no hope of escape—no thought that the passion that prompted me -to self-effacement might, diverted, carry me to the door in one hard -dash for light and liberty. The single direction in which my mind -moved unfettered was that bearing upon the readiest means to my -purpose—to die, and thereto what offered itself more insistently than -the black pit I had but now risen from? A run—a leap—a shattering -dive—and the murmuring water and oblivion would have me forevermore. -</p> - -<p> -I turned and faced the dark gulf. I pressed my hands to my bursting -temples to still the throb of the arteries that was blinding me. Then, -spasmodically, my feet moved forward a pace or two; I gave a long, -quivering sigh; my arms dropped inert, and a blessed warmth of -security gushed over all my being. -</p> - -<p> -Pale; luminous; most dear and pitiful, an angel stood before the -opening and barred my way. A shadow only—but an angel; a spirit come -from the sorrowful past to save me, as I, alas! had never saved her. -</p> - -<p> -I fell on my knees and held out my arms to her, with the drowning -tears falling over my cheeks. I could not speak, but only moan like a -child for cheer and comfort. And she smiled on me—the angel smiled on -me, as Dolly, sweet and loving, had smiled of old. Oh, God! Oh, God! -Thus to permit her to come from over the desolate waste for solace of -my torment! -</p> - -<p> -Was all this only figurative of the warring clash of passion and -conscience? The presence was to me actual and divine. It led me, or -seemed to lead, from the mouthing death—across the room—out by the -open door, that none had ever shut; and then it was no longer and I -stood alone in the gusty passage. -</p> - -<p> -I stood alone and cured forever of the terror of that mad and gloomy -place, whose influence had held me so long enthralled. Henceforth I -was quit of its deadly malice. I knew it as certainly as that I was -forgiven for my share in a most bitter tragedy that had littered the -shore of many lives with wreckage. For me, at least, now, the question -was answered—answered by the dear ghost of one whose little failings -had been washed pure in the bountiful spring of life. -</p> - -<p> -Presently, moved by the sense of sacred security in my heart, I passed -once more into the room of silence—not with bravado, but strong in -the good armor of self-reliance. I closed and locked the door of the -cupboard and walked forth again, feeling no least tremor of the -nerves—conscious of nothing to cause it. Thence I went out to the -platform, and, levering up the sluice, heard the water discharge -itself afresh into the hollow-booming channel that held the secret of -the wheel. -</p> - -<p> -And now, indeed, that my thoughts were capable of some order of -progression, that very secret rose and usurped the throne of my mind, -deposing all other claimants. -</p> - -<p> -What weird mystery attached to the portrait nailed to the axle? That -it was placed there by my father I had little doubt; but for what -reason and of whom was it? -</p> - -<p> -I recalled his wild command to me to never make reference to aught my -eyes might chance to light upon, other than the treasure I had gone to -seek. In that direction, then, nothing but silence must meet me. -</p> - -<p> -Of whom was the portrait, and what the mystery? -</p> - -<p> -On the thought, the attenuated voice of old Peggy came from the -kitchen hard by in a cracked and melancholy stave of her favorite -song: -</p> - -<div class="quote_o"><div class="quote_i"> -<p class="i0">“I washed my penknife in the stream—</p> -<p class="i5">Heigho!</p> -<p class="i0">I washed my penknife in the stream.</p> -<p class="i0">And the more I washed it the blood gushed out—</p> -<p class="i0">All down by the greenwood side, O!”</p> -</div></div> - -<p> -Old Peggy! When had she first established her ghoulish reign over us? -Had she been employed here in my mother’s time? I only knew that I -could not dispart her ancient figure and the mill in my memory. -</p> - -<p> -I pushed open the door and walked into the kitchen. She was sitting -darning by the frouzy little window—a great pair of spectacles on her -bony nose—and looked at me with an eye affectedly vacant, as if she -were a vicious old parrot speculating upon the most opportune moment -for a snap at me. -</p> - -<p> -“That’s a pretty song, Peggy,” I said. -</p> - -<p> -“And a pretty old ’ooman to sing it,” she answered. -</p> - -<p> -“Were you ever young, Peggy?” -</p> - -<p> -“Not that I remembers. I were barn wi’ a wrinkle in my brow like a -furrow-drain, and two good teeth in my headpiece.” -</p> - -<p> -“I dare say. How old were you when you first came here?” -</p> - -<p> -“How old? Old enow and young enow to taste wormwood in the sarce -gleeted fro’ three Winton brats.” -</p> - -<p> -“That’s no answer, you know. What’s your present age?” -</p> - -<p> -“One hundred, mebbe.” -</p> - -<p> -“Was Modred born when you came?” -</p> - -<p> -“Born? Eighteen bard months, to my sorrow. A rare gross child, to be -sure; wi’ sprawling fat puds like the feet o’ them crocodillies in the -show.” -</p> - -<p> -If Peggy could be trusted, I had got an answer which barred further -pursuit in that direction. She could never, I calculated, have been -personally acquainted with my mother or the circumstances of the -latter’s death. Indeed, I could not imagine her tolerated in a house -over which any self-respecting woman presided. -</p> - -<p> -Elsewhere I must look for some solution of the puzzle that had added -its complexity to a life already laboring under a burden of mystery. -</p> - -<p> -But in the meantime, an older vital question re-reared its head from -the very hearthstone of the mill, whereon it had lain so long in -stupor that I might have fancied it dead. -</p> - - -<h3 id="ch47"> -CHAPTER XLVII.<br/> -<span class="chap_sub">SOME ONE COMES AND GOES.</span> -</h3> - -<p> -November had come, with early frosts that flattened the nasturtiums in -the town gardens and stiffened belated bees on the Michaelmas daisies, -that were the very taverns of nature to lure them from their decent -homes. -</p> - -<p> -This year the complacent dogmatism of an ancient proverb was most -amply justified by results: -</p> - -<div class="quote_o"><div class="quote_i"> -<p class="i0">“Be there ice in November that ’ill bear a duck,</p> -<p class="i0">There’ll be nothing after but sludge and muck.”</p> -</div></div> - -<p> -The bellying winds of December were to drive up such clouds of rain -and storm that every gully in the meadows was to join its neighbor in -one common conspiracy against the land, and every stream to overrun -its banks, swollen with the pride of hearing itself called a flood. -</p> - -<p> -I had been reading one bright morning to my father until he fell -asleep, and was sitting on pensively with the book in my hand, when I -became aware of a step mounting the stairs below and pausing at the -sitting-room door. I rose softly at once, and, descending, came plump -upon Dr. Crackenthorpe, just as he was crossing the threshold to -enter. -</p> - -<p> -He was very sprucely dressed, for him, with a spray of ragged geranium -in his button-hole; and this, no less than the mere fact of his -presence in the house, filled me with a momentary surprise so great -that I had not a word to say. Only I bowed him exceedingly politely -into the parlor and civilly asked his business. -</p> - -<p> -An expression of relief crossed his face, I thought, as though he had -been in two minds as to whether I should take him by the collar and -summarily eject him there and then. -</p> - -<p> -“I haven’t seen your father about lately,” he jerked out, with some -parody of a smile that, I concluded, was designated to propitiate. “I -called to inquire if the old gentleman was unwell.” -</p> - -<p> -“He is practically an invalid,” I said; “he keeps entirely to his own -room.” -</p> - -<p> -“Indeed? I am concerned. Nothing serious, I trust? My services, I need -not say, are at the command of so valued an old friend.” -</p> - -<p> -“He needs no services but mine. It is the debility of old age, I -fear—nothing more.” -</p> - -<p> -“Yet he is a comparatively young man. But it’s true that to mortgage -one’s youth too heavily is to risk the premature foreclosing of old -age.” -</p> - -<p> -“I dare say. Was there any other object in your visit?” -</p> - -<p> -“One other—frankly.” -</p> - -<p> -He held out a damp hand to me. It shook rather. -</p> - -<p> -“I’m tired of this duel of cross-purposes. Will you agree to cry an -armistice—peace, if you like?” -</p> - -<p> -I took him in from head to foot—a little to his discomfiture, no -doubt. -</p> - -<p> -“Is this pure philanthropy, Dr. Crackenthorpe?” I said. -</p> - -<p> -“Most pure and disinterested,” said he. “I claim, without offense, the -grievance as mine, and I am the first to come forward and cry. Let -there be an end to it.” -</p> - -<p> -“Not so fast. You start on a fundamental error. A grievance, as I take -it, can only separate friends. There can be no question of such a -misunderstanding between us, for we have always been enemies.” -</p> - -<p> -“That’s your fancy,” cried he; “that’s your mistaken fancy! I’m not -one to wear my heart on my sleeve. If I’ve always repressed show of my -innate regard for you, you’re not to think it didn’t exist.” -</p> - -<p> -“Why waste so many words? That’s a good form of regard, to act the -bulldog to us, as you always did. It was a chastening sense of duty, I -suppose, that induced you to leave me for years under an ugly stigma -when you knew all the time that I was innocent. Is your valued -friendship for the old man best expressed by blackmailing and robbing -him on the strength of a fragment of circumstantial evidence?” -</p> - -<p> -“I have made myself particeps criminis. Does that go for nothing? A -little consideration was due to me there. A moiety of the treasure he -was squandering, I took advantage of my influence to secure in trust -for his children. You shall have it all back again some day, and -should show me profound gratitude in place of sinister disbelief.” -</p> - -<p> -“A fine cheapening of cupidity, and well argued. How long were you -thinking it out?” -</p> - -<p> -“As to that question of the suspicions you labored under—remember -that any conclusion drawn from circumstances was hypothetical. I may -have had a professional opinion as to the cause of death, and a secret -one as to the means employed. That was conjecture; but if you are -fair, you will confess that, by running away to London, you did much -to incriminate yourself in men’s minds.” -</p> - -<p> -“I never looked upon it in that light.” -</p> - -<p> -“I dare say not. Innocence, from its nature, may very often stultify -itself. I think you innocent now. Then I was not so certain. It was -not, perhaps, till your father sought to silence me, that my -suspicions were diverted into a darker channel.” -</p> - -<p> -“You put a good case,” I said, amazed at the man’s plausibility. “You -might convince one who knew less of you.” -</p> - -<p> -“You can prove nothing to my discredit. This is all the growth of -early prejudice. Think that at any moment I might have denounced him -and left the proof of innocence on his shoulders.” -</p> - -<p> -“And killed the goose with the golden eggs? I am not altogether -childish, Dr. Crackenthorpe, or quite ignorant of the first principles -of law. In England the burden of proof lies on the prosecution. How -would you have proceeded?” -</p> - -<p> -“I should at least have eased my conscience of an intolerable load and -escaped the discomforting reflection that I might be considered an -accessory after the fact.” -</p> - -<p> -“As indeed you are in the sight of heaven by your own showing, though -I swear my father is as innocent of the crime as I am.” -</p> - -<p> -He shrugged his shoulders with a deprecating gesture. -</p> - -<p> -“Anyhow, my position shows my disinterestedness,” he said. -</p> - -<p> -“And you are growing frightened over it, it seems. Well, take whatever -course pleases you. From our point of view, here, I feel quite easy as -to results.” -</p> - -<p> -“You misapprehend me. This visit is actuated by no motive but that of -friendliness. I wish to bury the hatchet and resume the pleasant -relations that existed of old.” -</p> - -<p> -“They were too one-sided. Besides, all the conditions changed upon my -return.” -</p> - -<p> -“And no one regretted it more than I. I have from the first been your -true friend, as I have attempted to show. You have a valuable -inheritance in my keeping. Indeed”—he gave a sort of high embarrassed -titter—“it would be to your real advantage to hand the residue over -to me before he has any further opportunity of dissipating it.” -</p> - -<p> -I broke into a cackle of fierce laughter. -</p> - -<p> -“So,” I cried, “the secret is out! I must compliment you on a most -insatiable appetite. But, believe me, you have more chance of -acquiring the roc’s egg than the handful!” -</p> - -<p> -He looked at me long and gloomily. I could feel rather than hear him -echo: “The handful.” But he made a great effort to resume his -conciliatory tone when he spoke again. -</p> - -<p> -“You jump to hot-headed conclusions. It was a simple idea of the -moment, and as you choose to misinterpret it, let it be forgotten. The -main point is, are we to be friends again?” -</p> - -<p> -“And I repeat that we can’t resume what never existed. This posturing -is stupid farce that had best end. Shall we make the question -conditional? That cameo, that you have come into possession of—we -won’t hazard a supposition by what means—restore it, at least, to its -rightful owner as an earnest of your single-mindedness. I, who am to -inherit it in the end, give you full permission.” -</p> - -<p> -He started back, and his face went the color of a withered aspen leaf. -</p> - -<p> -“It’s mine,” he cried, shrilly. “I wouldn’t part with it to the -queen!” -</p> - -<p> -“See then! What am I to believe?” -</p> - -<p> -I walked close up to him. His fingers itched to strike me, I could -see. -</p> - -<p> -“Dr. Crackenthorpe,” I said, “you had best have spared yourself this -errand. Why, what a poor scamp you must be to think to take me in with -such a fusty trick. Make the most of what you’ve got. You’ll not have -another stiver from us. Look elsewhere for a victim. Your evil mission -in life is the hounding of the wretched. Mine, you know. Some clews -are already in my hand, and, if there is one man in the world I should -rejoice to drag down—you are he!” -</p> - -<p> -He walked to the door, and, turning, stamped his foot furiously down -on the boards. -</p> - -<p> -“You bitter dolt!” he roared, with a withering sneer. “Understand that -the chance I gave you is withdrawn forever. There are means—there are -means; and I——” -</p> - -<p> -He stopped; gulped; put his hand to his throat, and walked out of the -house without another word. -</p> - -<p> -I stood looking after him, all blazing with anger. No least fear of -the evil creature was in me, but only a blank fierce astonishment that -he should thus have dared to brave me on my own ground. What cupidity -was that, indeed, that could not only think to gloss over long years -of merciless torment by a few false suave words, but could actually -hope to find the profit of his condescension in a post-prandial -gorging of the fragments his inordinate gluttony of avarice had passed -over! -</p> - -<p> -However, putting all thought of him from me, I returned to my father. -</p> - - -<h3 id="ch48"> -CHAPTER XLVIII.<br/> -<span class="chap_sub">A FRUITLESS SEARCH.</span> -</h3> - -<p> -One result of Dr. Crackenthorpe’s visit was that I determined to then -and there push my secret inquiries to a head in the direction of my -friend, the sexton of St. John’s. -</p> - -<p> -I had not seen or heard of this man since the day of his seizure in -the archway of the close, but I thought his attack must surely by now -have yielded and left him sane again. -</p> - -<p> -That very afternoon, leaving my father comfortably established with -book and paper, I walked over to the old churchyard under the hill and -looked about among the graves for some sign of him who farmed them. -The place was empty and deserted; it showed clearly that the hand of -order was withdrawn and had not been replaced. -</p> - -<p> -Not knowing whither to go to make inquiries, I loitered idly about -some little time longer, in the hope that chance might throw some one -who could direct me in my way. -</p> - -<p> -Within my vision two mounds only stood out stark and sterile from the -tangled green of Death’s garden, and one was Modred’s and the other -the grave of the murdered man. -</p> - -<p> -It was only a strange chance, of course, yet a strange chance it was -that should smite those two out of all the yard with barrenness. -</p> - -<p> -As I turned I was aware of a bent old man issuing from a side door of -the church with a bunch of keys in his hand. To him I walked and -addressed my inquiries. -</p> - -<p> -“Ah!” he said, struggling out of a violent fit of coughing. “George -White, sir? The man’s dismissed for drunkenness. To my sorrer, so it -is. I has to do his work till they finds a substitoot. It’ll be the -death of me this chill autumn.” -</p> - -<p> -“Do you know where he lives?” -</p> - -<p> -“He ain’t app’inted yet.” -</p> - -<p> -“George White, I mean?” -</p> - -<p> -“He lives, if living he is, ower at Fullflood yonder. I misremember -the number, but it’s either 17 or 27, or mebbe 74. They’ll tell you if -you ask. Not but what I’d leave him alone, if I was you, for he’ll do -you no good.” -</p> - -<p> -“He can’t do me any harm, at least. I think I’ll try.” -</p> - -<p> -“Go your courses, then. Young men are that bold-blooded. Go your -courses. You can’t miss if you follers my directions.” -</p> - -<p> -I had my own opinion as to that, but I tramped off to the district -indicated, which lay in the western quarter of the town. Chance put -out a friendly hand to me. -</p> - -<p> -I had paused in indecision, when a woman standing at an open door -behind me hailed another who was coming down the pavement with a -little basket over her arm. -</p> - -<p> -“Good-arternoon, Mrs. White,” said the first wife as the other came -up. “And how did ye find your marn?” -</p> - -<p> -I pricked up my ears. -</p> - -<p> -“No better and no worse, Mrs. Catty, and tharnk ye kindly.” -</p> - -<p> -“The horrers has left him, I’m told.” -</p> - -<p> -“Ye’re told true, but little recommends the going. His face is the -color o’ my apron here—an awesome sight. It’s the music membrim in -his stommick, ’tis said that’s out o’ toon.” -</p> - -<p> -“Ah, ma dear, I know it. It’s what the doctors call an orgin; and the -pain is grinding.” -</p> - -<p> -“God bless ye—it’s naught to what it were. ’Tis the colic o’ the mind -he suffers, one may say.” -</p> - -<p> -“Deary me, deary me! Poor Mr. White!” -</p> - -<p> -“I left him a-sitting before the infirmary fire in a happythetic -state, they names it, though to my mind he looked wretched.” -</p> - -<p> -“And so must you be to harve your marn in the house. Well, well—and -dismissed from his post, too, come rain or sunshine.” -</p> - -<p> -I hurried off, satisfied with what I had heard. If the woman with the -basket was not the sexton’s wife, there was no happy fortuity in fate. -For a moment I had thought I would address myself to her, but the -reflection that no good purpose could be answered thereby, and that by -doing so I might awaken suspicions where none existed, made me think -better of it. -</p> - -<p> -Expanding her allusions, I writ down in my mind that George White, -taken in hand by the police, had been remanded to the workhouse -infirmary pending his recovery from an attack of delirium tremens, and -such I found to be the case. Now the hope of getting anything in the -nature of conclusive proof from him seemed remote. At least no harm -could be done by me paying him a visit. -</p> - -<p> -Fortunately I discovered, upon presenting myself at the “house,” that -it was a visitors’ day, and that a margin yet remained of the time -limit imposed upon callers. -</p> - -<p> -I was referred to the infirmary doctor—a withered stick of a man, -with an unprofessional beard the color and texture of dead grass. This -gentleman’s broadcloth, reversing the order of things, seemed to have -worn out him, instead of he it, so sleek, imposing and many sizes too -large for him were his clothes. -</p> - -<p> -He listened with his teeth, it seemed, for his lip went up, exposing -them every time he awaited an answer. -</p> - -<p> -“George White? The man’s in a state of melancholia following alcoholic -excess. He is only a responsible creature at moments, and has -hallucinations. I doubt his recovery.” -</p> - -<p> -“I might take my chance of one of the moments, sir.” -</p> - -<p> -“You might, if you could recognize your opportunity. Is it important?” -</p> - -<p> -“Very. That’s no idle assertion, I assure you. He only knows the truth -of a certain matter, the solution of which affects many people.” -</p> - -<p> -“Well, you can try. I give you little hope. An attendant must be -within reach. There’s no calculating the next crazy impulse in such -cases.” -</p> - -<p> -An attendant took me in charge and convoyed me to the infirmary—a -cleanly bare room, with a row of bedsteads headed against a -distempered wall, and nailed to the latter over each patient’s pillow, -a diagnosis of his disease and its treatment, like a descriptive label -in a museum. -</p> - -<p> -Some of the beds were occupied; a convalescent pallid figure or two -lingered about the sunny windows at the end of the room, and seated -solitary before the fire was the foundering wreck of George White. -</p> - -<p> -The attendant briefly said, “That’s him,” and, retiring a short -distance away, leaned against a bedstead rail. I fetched a chair from -the wall and sat myself down by the poor shattered ruin. -</p> - -<p> -A hopeless vacuity reigned in his expression at first, and presently -he began to maunder and dribble forth a liquid patter of words all -unintelligible. -</p> - -<p> -By and by some connectedness was apparent in his wanderings. I stooped -my head to listen. -</p> - -<p> -“He’s alone and asleep—the only one. Time to try—sarftly, now—a fut -i’ the toe-hole wi’ caution—and I’m up and out. Curse the crumbling -clay. Ah! a bit’s fell on him! My God, what a grin! One eye’s open! If -I cud sweat to moisten it, now! I’m dry wi’ fire and dust! I’m farlin’ -back—I’m——” -</p> - -<p> -He half-rose to his feet; I put out a hand to control him, but he sunk -down again and into apathy in a moment. -</p> - -<p> -A few minutes and the stream of words was flowing once more. -</p> - -<p> -“Not so deep—not so deep, arter all. The tails o’ the warms wriggles -on the coffin, while their heads be stuck out i’ the blessed air. Two -fut, I make it. I cud putt my harnd through, so be as this cruel lid -would heist up. It’s breaking—the soil’s coming through the cracks. -It’s pouring in and choking me—it’s choking me, I say. Isn’t there -none to hear? Why, I’m sinking! The subsoil’s dropped in! I shall be -ten fut down and no chance if——” -</p> - -<p> -Again the struggle; again the collapse; and by and by, the monotonous -murmur gathering volume as it proceeded. -</p> - -<p> -“Sing, says you—and the devil drums i’ the pit if I so much as -whisper. Look’ee ther—at the white square o’ the sky. Thart’s what -keeps me going. If you was to blot thart out, he’d have me by the hip -wi’ a pinch like a bloodhound’s jaw. There’s summut darkens! Who’s -thart a-looking down? Why, you bloody murderer, I knows you! I found -you out, I did, you ugly cutthroat devil. Already dead, says you? Who -kills dead men? There bain’t a thing i’ the warld I’d hold my tongue -for but drink—you gie it me, then. What’s this? The bottle’s swarming -wi’ maggots—arnts, black arnts. You’re a rare villain! Not a doctor, -I say. A doctor don’t cut the weasands o’ dead men and let out the -worms—millions of them—and there’s some wi’ faces and shining rings -and gewgaws. The ungodly shall go down into the pit—help me out o’ -it—they’re burying me alive!” -</p> - -<p> -He leaped to his feet, with drawn, ashy face. The watchful attendant -was at his side in a moment and had put a restraining hand on him. -</p> - -<p> -“You’ll get nought out of him, sir,” he said. “It’s my belief he’ll -never utter sane word again.” -</p> - -<p> -As he spoke the sexton’s eyes lighted on me in their wild roving, -steadied, flickered and took a little glint of reason. Still gazing at -me, he sunk into his chair again. -</p> - -<p> -“Leave us alone for a minute,” I said to the man. “He seems to -recognize me, I think.” -</p> - -<p> -“As long as his eyes don’t wander, maybe,” he answered. “Keep ’em -fixed on you”—and he withdrew to his former standpoint. -</p> - -<p> -“George,” I said, in a low, distinct voice, “do you know me?” -</p> - -<p> -I held him with an intense gaze. He seemed struggling in an inward -agony to escape it. -</p> - -<p> -“George,” I said again, “do you know who I am?” -</p> - -<p> -“The grave yon, where no grass grows,” he muttered. -</p> - -<p> -“Yes, yes. Why doesn’t it grow there?” -</p> - -<p> -“Ask the——” -</p> - -<p> -“Ask whom? I’m listening.” -</p> - -<p> -“It’s he—oh, my God!” -</p> - -<p> -I saw the terror creep and flutter behind the surface of his skin. I -saw it leap out and heard a yell, as his eyes escaped their thraldom; -and on the instant the attendant was there and struggling with him. -</p> - -<p> -In the shock of it I jumped up and turned—and saw Dr. Crackenthorpe -standing in the doorway. -</p> - -<p> -I ran at him in a sort of frenzy. -</p> - -<p> -“What do you want?” I cried; “what are you here for?” -</p> - -<p> -I think I was about to strike him, when the wizened figure of the -doctor who had given me permission to enter thrust itself between us. -</p> - -<p> -“What’s all this?” he said, in a sharp, grating voice. “How dare you -make this uproar, sir?” -</p> - -<p> -I fell back, shaking with rage. All down the row of beds pale sick -faces had risen, looking on in wonder. Beside the fire my escort was -still struggling with the madman. -</p> - -<p> -“What right has he to be here—to come and spy upon me?” I cried. -</p> - -<p> -“This is simply outrageous! Dr. Crackenthorpe” (he glanced at the -newcomer with no very flattering expression) “is here to superintend -the removal of a patient of his. He must be protected from insult. I -rescind my permit. Johnson, see this man off the premises.” -</p> - -<p> -A second attendant advanced and took me, police fashion, by the elbow. -I offered no resistance. Impulse had made a fool of me, and I felt it. -</p> - -<p> -The sound of the scuffle by the fire still continued. As I passed Dr. -Crackenthorpe he made me a mocking bow, hat in hand. Then, waving me -aside as if I were some troublesome supplicant he desired to ignore, -he advanced further into the room. -</p> - -<p> -Then came a sudden thud and loud exclamation, at which both I and my -attendant turned. -</p> - -<p> -The madman had bested his enemy and dashed him to the floor. A moment -then he paused, his gasping mouth and pale eyes indicative of his -terror of the man approaching—a moment only, and he turned and fled. -I was conscious of a sudden breaking out of voices—of a fearful -screech ringing above them—of a hurried rush of shapes—of a bound -and crash and shattering snap of glass. It all happened in an instant, -and there was a jagged and gaping fissure in a window at the end of -the room—and George White was gone. -</p> - - -<h3 id="ch49"> -CHAPTER XLIX.<br/> -<span class="chap_sub">A QUIET WARNING.</span> -</h3> - -<p> -I fully expected to be summoned as a witness to the inquest held on -George White. However, as it turned out, they left me alone, and for -that I was thankful, though indeed I had little to fear from any -cross-examination; and Dr. Crackenthorpe would hardly have ventured -under the circumstances to use his professional influence to my -discomfiture, seeing that I had shown knowledge of the fact that -between him and the dead man was once, at least, some species of -understanding. So he gave his version of the affair, without any -reference to me, who indeed could hardly in any way be held -responsible for the catastrophe. -</p> - -<p> -And now he lay dead, the latest victim of the inquisition of the -wheel, I most fully believed; a poor wretch withered under its ban -that would reach, it seemed, to agents but remotely connected with the -dark history of its immediate neighbors. He was dead, and with him, I -could but think, had passed my one chance of probing the direful -mystery in that direction where the core of it festered. -</p> - -<p> -Thereafter for weeks I walked in a stubborn rebellion against fate, -intensified by the thought that this stultifying of my purpose had -come upon me on the heels of my triumphant mastery of that old weird -influence of the mill—a triumph that had seemed to pronounce me the -very chosen champion of truth to whom all ways to the undoing of the -wicked should be revealed. -</p> - -<p> -But, now, as the month drew to its close, a new anxiety came to humble -me with the pathos of the world, and to assimilate all restless -emotions into one pale fog of silence, gray and sorrowful. -</p> - -<p> -On a certain morning, looking in my father’s face when I brought him -his breakfast, I read something there, the import of which I would not -consider or dwell upon until I could escape and commune with myself -alone. -</p> - -<p> -There was little external change in him and he was bright and -cheerful. It was only a certain sudden sense of withdrawal that struck -a chill into me—a sense as if life, seeking to steal unobserved from -its ancient prison, knew itself noticed and affected to be dallying -simply with the rusted locks and bolts. -</p> - -<p> -Realizing this presently to the full, I determined then and there to -put everything else to one side and to devote myself single-handed to -the tender ministering to his last days upon earth. And grief and -sadness were mingled in me, for I loved the old man and could not but -rejoice that the inevitable should come to him so peacefully. But -prospect of the utter loneliness that would fall upon me when he was -gone woke a selfish resentment that he should be taken from me and -fought in my heart for mastery over the better emotion. -</p> - -<p> -Did he know? Not certainly, perhaps, for slowly dying men give little -thought to the way they wander. But something in the prospect opening -out before him must, I think, have struck him with a dawning marvel at -its strangeness; as a sleeper, wakened from a weird romance of -dreaming, finds a wonder of unfamiliarity in the world restored to -him. -</p> - -<p> -It may have been that some increase of care on my part making itself -apparent was the first warning to him that all was not as it used to -be, for there came a night when he called to me as I was leaving his -room—after seeing him comfortably established—in a voice with a -queer ring of emotion in it. -</p> - -<p> -“What is it, dad?” I asked, hurrying back to his bedside. -</p> - -<p> -“I’m wakeful to-night, my lad; well and easy, but wakeful.” -</p> - -<p> -“Shall I stop with you a bit longer?” -</p> - -<p> -I saw he wished it and sat myself down upon the foot of the bed. -</p> - -<p> -“Good lad,” he said. “I don’t deserve all this, Renalt. It should be a -blank and empty thing to review a life spent in idleness and -self-indulgence. I ought to feel that, and yet I’m at peace. Why -wasn’t I of your militant philosophers, who treating love like any -other luxury, find salve for the bitter sting of it in a brave -independence of righteousness!” -</p> - -<p> -“As well ask, dad, why in battle the bullets spare some and mangle -others.” -</p> - -<p> -“You mean the faculty of overriding fate is constitutional, not a -courageous theory, Renalt?” -</p> - -<p> -“Yet I think your philosopher would be the first to acknowledge its -truth.” -</p> - -<p> -“Of course. He’d have a principle to prove. But I can’t gather -consolation there for having wittingly sunk myself to the beasts.” -</p> - -<p> -“Dad!” -</p> - -<p> -“Why should I mince matters? Let me look at you full face. I have -never been a liar, but I’ve chosen to deceive myself into the belief -that mere brute self-indulgence was a fine revolt against the tyranny -of the gods.” -</p> - -<p> -“It may have been nature’s counter-irritant to unbearable suffering.” -</p> - -<p> -“Sophistry, my boy. It’s out of the kindness of your heart, but it’s -sophistry. Better to die shrieking under the knife than to live to be -a hopeless, disfigured cripple. Look at me lying here. What heritage -of virtue, what example of endurance, shall I leave to my children?” -</p> - -<p> -“You have never complained.” -</p> - -<p> -“No comfort, Renalt—none. I nursed my resentment from base fear only -that by revealing it, it would dissipate. With such a belief I have to -face the Supreme Court up there; and”—he looked at me -earnestly—“before very long, I think.” -</p> - -<p> -I shook my head in silence. I could find no word to say. -</p> - -<p> -“Am I afraid?” he went on, still intently regarding me. “I think -not—at present. Yet I have some bitter charges to answer.” -</p> - -<p> -“This rest will restore you again, dad.” -</p> - -<p> -He did not seem to hear me. His eyes left my face and he continued in -a murmuring voice: -</p> - -<p> -“The last dispossession the old suffer is sleep, it seems. Balm in -Gilead—balm in Gilead!” -</p> - -<p> -“What little breath will keep the spark alive,” I thought as I sat and -watched the worn quiet figure. The face looked as if molded out of wax -and so moved me that presently I must rise and bend over it, thinking -the end had actually come while I watched. -</p> - -<p> -With my rising, however, a sigh broke from it, and a little stir of -the limbs, so that my heart that had fallen leaped up again with -gladness. Then he looked up at me standing above him, and a smile -passed like a gleam of sunlight over his features. -</p> - -<p> -“I always loved you, my son Renalt,” he murmured, and, murmuring, fell -into a light trance once more. -</p> - -<p> -The following day there was no change in his condition. I could have -thought him floating out of life on that tide of dreaming thoughts -that seemed to bear him up so gently and so easily. When, at moments, -he would rise to consciousness of my presence, he would nod to me and -smile; and again sink back on the pillow of gracious somnolence. -</p> - -<p> -I had been sitting reading to myself in my father’s room and all was -glowing silence about me, when a sudden clap at the window-casement -made me start. I jumped to my feet and looked out. A vast gloomy -curtain of cloud was drawing up from the east; even as I looked, some -shafts of its bitterness drove through the joints of the lattice, -stabbing at me with points of ice, and I shivered, though the sunlight -was still upon me. -</p> - -<p> -The storm came on with incredible speed; within five minutes of my -rising clouds of hail were flogging the streets, and from a whirling -fog of night jangle of innumerable voices hooting and whistling broke -like a besieging cloud of Goths upon the ancient capital. -</p> - - -<h3 id="ch50"> -CHAPTER L.<br/> -<span class="chap_sub">STRICKEN DOWN.</span> -</h3> - -<p> -For ten minutes, during which the city was blind with hail, I could -see nothing but a thicket of white strings dense as the threads in a -loom; hear nothing but the pounding crash of thunder and fierce hiss -and clatter of the driving stones. Then darkness gathered within and -without, and down came the storm with an access of fury that seemed -verily as if it must flatten out the town like a scattered ants’ nest. -</p> - -<p> -So infernal for the moment was the uproar that I hurried to my -father’s side, fearful that his soul might actually yield itself to -the raging tyranny of its surroundings. -</p> - -<p> -He lay unmoved in the same quiet stupor of the faculties, unconscious, -apparently, that anything out of nature’s custom was enacting near -him. -</p> - -<p> -As suddenly as it had begun, the white deluge ceased, as though the -last of its reservoirs above were emptied. The reaction to comparative -silence was so intense that in the first joy of it one scarcely -harkened to the voice of a great wind that had risen and was following -on the heels of the storm, to batten like a camp follower on the -wreckage of the battle that had swept by. For four weary days it flew, -going past like an endless army, and laden clouds were its parks of -artillery and the swords of its bitterness never rested in their -scabbards. -</p> - -<p> -On that first evening, when the hailstorm had passed and light was -restored, I was standing by the window looking out on the bridge and -the street all freckled with white, when a low moaning sound came to -my ears. I turned sharply round, thinking it was my father, but he lay -peaceful and motionless. I hurried to the door and opened it, and -there in the passage outside was old Peggy, cast down upon her face, -and groaning and muttering in a pitiful manner. -</p> - -<p> -I gave her a little ungallant peck with my foot. -</p> - -<p> -“Now!” I cried, “what’s this? What are you doing?” -</p> - -<p> -Her face was hidden on her arm and she spoke up mumblingly. -</p> - -<p> -“Oh!” she said; “Lord—Lord! It bain’t worthy o’ you!” -</p> - -<p> -“What’s the matter, I say?” -</p> - -<p> -“Take the clean and well-preserved! There’s better fish than a poor -feckless old ’ooman all fly blown like a carkis wi’ ungodliness!” -</p> - -<p> -I gave her another little stir. -</p> - -<p> -“I repent!” she shrieked. “I’ll confess everything! Only spare me now. -Gie me a month—two months, to prepare my sore wicked soul for the -felon’s grave.” -</p> - -<p> -“Peggy,” I said, sternly, “get up and don’t make a fool of yourself.” -</p> - -<p> -She seemed to listen. -</p> - -<p> -“Is that you, Renalt?” she said, presently. -</p> - -<p> -“Get up—do you hear?” -</p> - -<p> -“Keep the bolt fro’ me. Pray to the Lord for a bad old ’ooman. Wrastle -for me, Renalt.” -</p> - -<p> -“Are you crazy?” -</p> - -<p> -She bumped her elbows on the floor as she lay, in fretful terror. -</p> - -<p> -“Wrastle—wrastle!” she whined. “Don’t waste your breath on axing -things. While you talk He enters.” -</p> - -<p> -“Who enters?” -</p> - -<p> -“The Lord of hosts. I saw His face at the window, and the breath o’ -His nostrils was like the sound o’ guns. I arlays meant to repent—I -swear it on the blessed book. It’s a wicked thing to compact wi’ the -prince o’ darkness. Believe me, truth, I arlays meant it, but the pot -must be boiled and the beds made and where were old Peggy’s time? You -wudn’t smite a body, Lord, for caring of her dooties, and I repent -now. It’s never too late over one sinner doing penance. Oh, Lord, take -the young and well-favored and gie crass Rottengoose a month for her -sins!” -</p> - -<p> -“Peggy, I haven’t a doubt you’ve plenty to do penance for. But have -you really the stupendous assurance to think that all this storm is -got up on your account? Get up, you old idiot! The thunder’s past and -there’s nothing to be afraid of now.” -</p> - -<p> -Her lean body went in with a great sigh. For some moments she lay as -she was; then cautiously twisted her head and peered up at me. -</p> - -<p> -“Sakes alive!” she muttered, listening. “Was it all for nowt, then?” -</p> - -<p> -I saw the craft come back to her withered eyes in the dusk. -</p> - -<p> -“Heave me up, Renalt,” she said. “The Lord has seen the wisdom o’ let -alone, praise to His mercy.” -</p> - -<p> -“Don’t presume on that, Peggy. He’ll call to you at His own time, -though it mayn’t be through a thunderstorm.” -</p> - -<p> -“Look to yourself, Renalt. The young twigs snap easiest. You may be -the first to go, wi’ the load o’ guilt you gathered in London yon for -company.” -</p> - -<p> -“Very likely. You asked me to pray for you just now, you know. What’s -on your mind, Peggy Rottengoose?” -</p> - -<p> -I had the old sinner to her feet by this time. Her face was a yellow, -haggard thing to look at—shining like stained brass. Something in it -seemed to convey to me that perhaps after all the angel of the storm -had struck at her in passing. -</p> - -<p> -She looked at me morosely and fearfully. -</p> - -<p> -“What but ministering to Satan’s children?” she said. -</p> - -<p> -“You graceless old villain, I’ve a mind to pitch you into the race.” -</p> - -<p> -I made a clutch at her as I spoke, but she evaded me with a wriggle -and a shrill screech. -</p> - -<p> -“I didn’t mean it! Let me go by!” -</p> - -<p> -“What have you got to repent of in the first place?” -</p> - -<p> -“I was stealing the pictur’ o’ Modred—there! No peace ha’ I hard -since I done it!” -</p> - -<p> -I let the old liar pass, and she shuffled away, hugging herself and -glancing round at me once or twice as if she still doubted the meaning -of my threat. I paid no more attention to her, but returned to my -father’s room. -</p> - -<p> -The old man lay on his back placid and unconcerned, but his eyes were -open and he greeted me with a cheerful little nod. -</p> - -<p> -Darkness deepened in the room, and the white face on the pillow became -a luminous spot set weirdly in the midst of it. I had not once till -then, I think, admitted a single feeling of disloyalty toward my -father to my heart. Now a little unaccountable stirring of impatience -and resentment awoke in me. I was under some undefinable nervous -influence, and was surely not true to myself in the passing of the -mood. It seemed suddenly a monstrous thing to me that he, the prime -author of all that evil destiny that had haunted our lives, should be -fading peacefully toward the grave, while we must needs live on to -outface and adjust the ugly heritage of responsibilities that were the -fruits of his selfish policy of inaction. -</p> - -<p> -Such sudden swift reactions from a long routine of endurance are -humanly inevitable. They may flame up at a word, a look, a shying -thought—the spark of divinity glowing with indignation over -intolerable injustice. Then the dull decorum of earth stamps it under -again and we go on as before. -</p> - -<p> -During that spell of rebellion, my soul passed in review the incidents -of a cruel visitation of a father’s sins upon his children. I saw the -stunted minds meanly nurtured in an atmosphere of picturesque -skepticism. I saw the natural outgrowth of this in a reckless -indifference to individual responsibility. Following thereon came one -by one the impulse to triumph by evil—the unchecked desire—the -shameless deed—the road, the river and the two lonely graves. -</p> - -<p> -I rose to my feet and paced the room to and fro, casting a resentful -glance now and again at the quiet figure on the bed. Driven to quick -desperation I strode to the door, opened it and descended the stairs. -</p> - -<p> -In the blaze of my anger I burst into the haunted room, thinking to -stay the monster with the mere breath of my fury. But the cold -blackness drove at me, and, for all my confidence, repelled me on the -very threshold. -</p> - -<p> -I rushed away to the sluice, let it fall and shut off the race. Then I -returned, breathless and panting, and looked at the open door. -</p> - -<p> -“You’re a very material devil,” I muttered; “a boy could silence your -voice, for all its boastfulness.” -</p> - -<p> -As I spoke, again a little ugly secret laugh seemed to issue from it. -Probably it was only an expiring screech of the axle, but it made my -blood run tingling for all that. -</p> - -<p> -I mounted the stairs, determinedly crushing down the demon of fear -that sought to unman me. -</p> - -<p> -“I have silenced its hateful voice,” I cried to myself, and whispered -it again as I re-entered my father’s room. -</p> - -<p> -The old man lay silent and motionless as I seated myself once more by -the window. Now the great blasts of tempest held monopoly of the -ghostly house, unpierced of that other voice that had been like the -grinding of the teeth of the storm. -</p> - -<p> -Presently I heard him stirring restlessly in his bed, and little -fitful moans came from his lips. His uneasiness increased; he muttered -and threw his arms constantly into fresh positions. Could it be that -my untoward silencing of that voice that for such long years had been -his counselor and familiar was making a vacancy in his soul into which -deadlier demons were stealing? -</p> - -<p> -I moved to the bed and looked down upon him. As I did so the old -tenderness reasserted itself and the mood of blackness passed away. If -he had bequeathed to us a dark heritage of suffering, it is by -suffering that the soul climbs from the bestial pitfalls of the -senses. -</p> - -<p> -As I leaned down to cover his chest that his restless tossing had -bared, a second tempest of hail swept furiously upon the town. I ran -to the window and looked out. In the flashing radiance of the lamp -that stood upon the bridge opposite—for night was now settled upon -the city—I saw the tumult of white beat upon the stones and rebound -from them and thrash all the road, as it were, with froth. -</p> - -<p> -Suddenly a figure started up in the midst of the flickering curtain of -ice. It was there in a moment—waving its wild arms—wringing its -hands—shrieking, I could have fancied, though no sound came to me. -But, in the wonder and instant of its rising, I knew it to be Duke’s. -</p> - -<p> -Hardly had I mastered the first shock of surprise when there came the -sound of a great cry behind me. I turned, and there was my father -sitting up in bed, and his face was ghastly. -</p> - -<p> -“The wheel!” he shrieked, in a suffocating voice; “the wheel! I’m -under it!” And fell back upon his pillow. -</p> - - -<h3 id="ch51"> -CHAPTER LI.<br/> -<span class="chap_sub">A MEETING ON THE BRIDGE.</span> -</h3> - -<p> -It was not immediate death that had alighted, but death’s forerunner, -paralysis. I realized this in a moment. The mute and stricken figure; -the closed eyes; the darkly flushed face wrenched to the right and the -flapping breath issuing one-sided from the lips—I needed no -experience to read the meaning of these. -</p> - -<p> -I ran to the head of the stairs and shrieked to old Peggy to come up. -Then I hurried to the dressing-table and lighted a candle that stood -thereon. As I took it in my hand to approach the bed, a pane in the -lattice behind me went with a splintering noise, and something whizzed -past my head like a hornet, and a fragment of plaster spun from the -wall near. At the same instant a little muffled sound, no louder in -the tumult of hail than the smack of an elastic band on paper, came -from the street outside. -</p> - -<p> -Instinctively I winced and dodged, not knowing for the moment what had -happened, then in the midst of my distraction, fury seized me like a -snake. -</p> - -<p> -The blind was up; my figure plainly visible from the bridge as I -crossed the room. The madman outside had shot at me, whether from pure -deviltry or because he took me for Jason I neither knew nor cared. -Coming on the head of my trouble, the deed seemed wantonly diabolical. -Had I been master of my actions I think I should then and there have -rushed forth and grappled with the evil creature and crushed the life -out of him. As it was I ran to the window and dashed it open and -leaned forth. -</p> - -<p> -He was there on the bridge still; standing up in the pelting storm; -bare-headed, fantastic—a thing of nameless expression. -</p> - -<p> -I shrieked to him and cursed him. I menaced him with my fists. For the -moment I was near as much madman as he. -</p> - -<p> -Perhaps some words of my outcry reached him through the hurtling of -the storm. Perhaps he recognized me, for I saw him shrink down and -cower behind the stones of the bridge. I rattled to the window, pulled -down the blind and turned myself to the stricken figure on the bed. As -I did so old Peggy came breathing and shambling into the room. -</p> - -<p> -“What’s to do?” she said, coughing feebly and glaring at me. “What’s -to do, Renalt?” -</p> - -<p> -“Look there! What’s happened—what’s the matter with him? It is death, -perhaps!” -</p> - -<p> -She shuffled to the bedside, holding in her groaning chest with one -hand. For a minute she must have stood gazing down. -</p> - -<p> -“Ay,” she said at last, leering round at me. “The Lord mistook the -room, looking in at winder. Ralph it was were wanted—not old Peggy, -praise to His goodness.” -</p> - -<p> -“Is he dying?” -</p> - -<p> -“Maybe—maybe not yet awhile. The dumbstroke have tuk him.” -</p> - -<p> -“Paralysis?” -</p> - -<p> -“So they carls it. Better ax the doctor.” -</p> - -<p> -“Look you to him, then, and look well, while I run out to seek for -one. I leave him in your charge.” -</p> - -<p> -I took her by the arm and stared in her face as I spoke. My expression -must have been frowning and threatening, but indeed I mistrusted the -old vagabond. She shrunk from me with a twitch of fear. -</p> - -<p> -“He’ll come round wi’ his face to the judgment,” she said; and I left -her standing by the bedside and hurried from the house. -</p> - -<p> -Leaving the yard, I turned sharply round upon the bridge. The storm -had yielded, but the ground was yet thickly strewed with white. Not a -soul seemed to be abroad. Only low down against the parapet of the -bridge was a single living thing, and it crouched huddled as if the -storm had claimed a victim before it passed. -</p> - -<p> -My brain still burned with fury over the foul action that had so -nearly sent me from my father in his utmost need. I could think of -nothing at the moment but revenge, of nothing but that I must sweep -this horror into the river before I could hope to deal collectedly -with the fatality that had befallen me. I only feared that it would -escape me, and leaped on it, mad with rage. -</p> - -<p> -I tore him up to his feet and held him from me with a savage gaze, and -he looked at me with a dark, amazed stare, but there was no terror in -his eyes. And even as I held him I saw in the dim lamplight how worn -and haggard he had grown, how sunken was his white face, how fearfully -the monomania of revenge had rent him with its jagged teeth. -</p> - -<p> -“You dog!” I said. “You end in the millrace here—do you understand? -You are a murderer in will and would have been in deed if your aim had -answered true to your devil’s heart! Down with you!” -</p> - -<p> -I closed with him, but he still struggled to hold me off. -</p> - -<p> -“I thought it was he—the other. He’s left London. He must be here -somewhere.” -</p> - -<p> -There was no deprecation in his tone. He spoke in a small dry voice -and with an air as if none could doubt that he was justified in his -pursuit and must stand aside or suffer by it rather than that it -should cease. -</p> - -<p> -“Where he is I neither know nor care,” I answered, set and stern. -“You’ve raised your hand to me at last, dog that you are, and that’s -my concern. I should have known at first—that it’s useless arguing -mercy with a devil.” -</p> - -<p> -I had my arms round him like steel bands. Once he might have been my -match, or better, but not now in his state of physical degeneration. -</p> - -<p> -“Yes, end it,” he whispered. “I always thought to die by water as she -did. The chase here is exhausting me. I can finish my task more -effectively from the other side the grave.” -</p> - -<p> -I gave a mocking laugh. -</p> - -<p> -“You shall purge your hate in fire, there,” I said. “Ghostly revenge -on the living is an old wives’ tale.” -</p> - -<p> -He struggled to force an arm free and pointed down at the foaming -mill-tail. -</p> - -<p> -“There’s a voice there,” he cried, “that says otherwise. I read it, -and so do you, for all your shaking heroics. Fling me down! I escape -the self-destruction that was to come. Fling me down and end it!” -</p> - -<p> -I tightened my arms about him. The first desperate fury of my mood was -leading me and with it the impulse to murder. The wan, once-dear -features were appealing to me against their will and mine. -</p> - -<p> -Suddenly, while I wavered, an appalling screech burst from him; he -wrenched himself free of me with one mad superhuman effort, struck out -at the empty air, and turned and fled across the bridge and up toward -the hill beyond. In a moment he was lost to sight in the darkness. -</p> - -<p> -In the shock of his escape I twisted about to see what had so moved -him—and, not a yard behind me, was standing Dr. Crackenthorpe. -</p> - -<p> -For many seconds we stared at one another speechless and motionless. -His face was pale and set very grimly. -</p> - -<p> -At last he spoke, and “Murder!” was the word he muttered. -</p> - -<p> -“He runs fast for a murdered man,” I said, with a sneer. -</p> - -<p> -“Who was it?” he said, gazing with a strange, fixed expression up the -dark blown hill. -</p> - -<p> -“A ghost,” I answered, with a reckless laugh. “The town is full of -them to-night.” -</p> - -<p> -He looked at me gloomily. I could have thought he shivered slightly. -</p> - -<p> -“Do you know him?” -</p> - -<p> -“He was my friend once. Stand out of my way. I’ve an errand on hand. -My father’s had a seizure.” -</p> - -<p> -“Had a—come, I’ll go see him.” -</p> - -<p> -“You won’t. I won’t have you near him. Stand out of my way.” -</p> - -<p> -“You’re a fool. Promptness is everything in such cases.” -</p> - -<p> -I hesitated. For what his professional opinion was worth, this man had -always stood to us as adviser in such small ailments as we suffered. I -had no notion where to seek another. My father would be unconscious of -his presence. At least he could pronounce upon the nature of the -stroke. -</p> - -<p> -“Very well,” I said, ungraciously. “You can see him and judge what’s -the matter.” -</p> - -<p> -The old man was lying as I had left him when we entered the bedroom. -His eyes were still closed, and his breathing sounded hard and -stertorious. -</p> - -<p> -“He’s mortal bad, sir,” Peggy said. “He’ll die hard, I do believe.” -</p> - -<p> -Dr. Crackenthorpe waved her away and bent over the prostrate figure. -As he did so its eyelids seemed to flicker, as if with dread -consciousness of his approach. -</p> - -<p> -“Be quick!” I said. “What has happened?” -</p> - -<p> -He felt the dying pulse; bent his yellow face and listened at the -heart. He was some minutes occupied. -</p> - -<p> -Presently he rose and came to me, all formal and professional. -</p> - -<p> -“You must prepare for the worst,” he said. “He may speak again by and -by, but I doubt it. In my opinion it is a question of a few days only. -No medical skill can avail.” -</p> - -<p> -“Is there nothing I can do?” -</p> - -<p> -“Nothing.” -</p> - -<p> -He bowed to me stiffly. -</p> - -<p> -“I am at your service,” he said, in a cold voice. “If I can be of any -further use to you, you will let me know. You are not ignorant of -where to find me, I believe.” -</p> - -<p> -He was walking to the door, but turned and came toward me again. -</p> - -<p> -“That one-time friend of yours,” he said. “Is he stopping in the -town?” -</p> - -<p> -“I really don’t know, Dr. Crackenthorpe. I met him by chance, and you -saw he ran from me. You seem interested in him.” -</p> - -<p> -“He—yes; he struck me as bearing a likeness to a—to a patient I once -attended. Good-night.” -</p> - - -<h3 id="ch52"> -CHAPTER LII.<br/> -<span class="chap_sub">A WRITTEN WORD.</span> -</h3> - -<p> -My escape from that strong net of fatality that had enmeshed so many -years of my still young life, had been, it seemed, only a merciful -respite. Now the toils, regathering about me again, woke a spirit of -hopeless resignation in me that had been foreign to my earlier mood of -resistance. Man has made of himself so plodding an animal as to almost -resent the unreality of his brief vacations. He eats his way, like a -wood-boring larva, through a monotonous tunnel of routine, satisfied -with the thought that some day he may emerge into the light on the -other side, ready-winged for flight to the garden of paradise. Perhaps -Lazarus was humanly far-seeing in refusing the rich man a drop of -water. It would have made the poor wretch’s after lot tenfold more -unendurable. -</p> - -<p> -Now a feeling came over me that I could struggle no more, but would -lie in the web and suffer unresisting the onsets of fate. My father’s -seizure; Duke’s reappearance and his hint as to the visit I was to -expect from Jason; the sudden flight of the cripple before the vision -of Dr. Crackenthorpe—all these were strands about my soul with which -I would concern myself no longer. I would do my duty, so far as I -could, and set my face in one direction and glance aside no more. -</p> - -<p> -That night I ordered Peggy to bed—for since Jason’s going she slept -in the house—and myself passed the dreary vigil of the hours by my -father’s side. Indeed, for the three days following I scarcely lay -down at all, but took my food in snatches and slept by fits and starts -in chairs or window-corners as occasion offered. -</p> - -<p> -During the whole of this time the condition of the patient never -altered. He lay on his back, breathing crookedly from his twisted -mouth; his eyes closed; the whole of the right side of his body -stricken motionless. His left hand he would occasionally move and that -was the single sign of animate life he showed. -</p> - -<p> -And day and night the wind blew and the hail and rain came down in a -cold and ceaseless deluge. The whole country was flooded, I heard, and -the streams risen, but still the rending storm flew and added -devastation to misery. -</p> - -<p> -It was on the afternoon of the third day that, chancing to look at the -old man as I sat by his bedside, I saw, with a certain shock of -pleasure, that his eyes were open and fixed upon my face. I jumped to -my feet and leaned over him, and at that some shadow of emotion passed -across his features, as if the angel of death stood between him and -the window. -</p> - -<p> -Presently his left hand, that lay on the coverlet, began moving. The -fingers twitched with a beckoning motion and he raised his arm several -times and let it fall again listlessly. I fancied I was conscious of -some dumb appeal addressed to me, toward which my own soul yearned in -sympathy. Yet, strive as I would, I could not interpret it. An -inexpressible trouble seemed lost and wandering in the fathomless -depths of the eyes; passionate utterance seemed ever hovering on the -lips, ever escaping the grasp of will and sliding back into blackness. -</p> - -<p> -“Dad,” I said, “what is it? Try to express by a sign and I will try to -understand.” -</p> - -<p> -The hand rose again, weakly fluttered in the air and dropped upon the -coverlet. Thrice the effort was made and thrice I failed to interpret -its significance. Then a little quivering sigh came from the mouth and -the eyes closed in exhaustion. -</p> - -<p> -I racked my brains for the meaning of the sign. Some trouble, it was -evident, sought expression, but what—what—what? My mind was all -dulled and confused by the incidents of the last few days. -</p> - -<p> -While I was vainly struggling for a solution old Peggy entered the -room with tea and bread and butter for my afternoon meal. She paused -with the tray in her hands, watching the blind groping of the fingers -on the bed. -</p> - -<p> -“Ay,” she said, “but I doubt me ye cudn’t hold a pen, master.” -</p> - -<p> -I turned sharply to her. -</p> - -<p> -“Is that what he wants?” -</p> - -<p> -“Pen or pencil—’tis arl one. When speech goes, we talk wi’ the -fingers.” -</p> - -<p> -What a fool I had been! The sign I had struggled in vain for hours to -read, this uncanny old beldame had understood at a glance. -</p> - -<p> -I hurried out of the room and returned with paper and pencil. I thrust -the latter between the wandering fingers and they closed over it with -a quick, weak snap. But they could not retain it, and it slipped from -them again upon the coverlet. A moan broke from the lips and the arm -beat the clothes feebly. -</p> - -<p> -“Heave en up,” said the old woman. “He’s axing ye to.” -</p> - -<p> -I put my arm under my father’s shoulders and with a strong effort got -him into a sitting posture, propped among the pillows. I placed the -pencil in his hand again and held the paper in such a position that he -could write upon it. He succeeded in making a few hieroglyphic -scratches on the white surface and that was all. -</p> - -<p> -“It’s no manner o’ use, Renalt,” said Peggy. “Better lat en alone and -drink up your tea.” -</p> - -<p> -“Put it down there and leave us to ourselves.” -</p> - -<p> -The old creature did as she was bidden and shuffled from the room -grumbling. -</p> - -<p> -I placed the paper where my father’s hand could rest upon it, and sat -down to my silent meal. -</p> - -<p> -Presently, watching, as I ate, the weak restless movements of the hand -upon the quilt, a thought occurred to me, which then and there I -resolved to put into practice. It was evident that, unless through an -unexpected renewal of strength, those dying fingers would never -succeed in forming a legible word with the pencil they could barely -hold. But they could make a sign of themselves and that little power I -must seek to direct. -</p> - -<p> -I hurried down to the kitchen and seized from the wall an ancient bone -tablet that Peggy used for domestic memoranda. Scraping a little soot -from the chimney I mixed it with water into a thick paste and spread a -thin layer of the latter over the surface of the tablet. It dried -almost immediately, and writing on it with the tip of my finger, I -found that the soot came readily away, leaving the mark I had made -stenciled white and clear under the upper coating. -</p> - -<p> -Returning to my father, with this extemporized first principle and the -saucer of black paste, I held the tablet before his dim, wandering -eyes, and wrote on it with my finger, demonstrating the method. At -first he hardly seemed to comprehend my meaning, but, after a -repetition or two his glance concentrated and his forehead seemed to -ripple into little wrinkles of intelligence. At that I smeared the -surface of the bone afresh, waited a minute for it to dry, and placed -it under his hand upon the bed, leaving him to evolve the method from -his poor crippled inner consciousness. -</p> - -<p> -But a few moments had elapsed when a small, low sound from the bed -brought me to my father’s side. -</p> - -<p> -He looked from me to the tablet, where it lay, and there was a -strained imploring line between his eyes. Gently I took up the little -black square and I saw that something was formed on it. With infinite -toil, for it was only his left hand he could use, he had scratched on -it a single, straggling word, and in the fading light I read it: -</p> - -<p> -“Forgive.” -</p> - -<p> -“Father!” I cried; “is that what you have been striving to say?” -</p> - -<p> -He dragged up his unstricken arm slowly into an attitude as if the -hand sought its fellow to join it in a prayer to me. -</p> - -<p> -“Before God,” I said, “you wrong me to think I could say that word! -What have I to forgive you for? My sins have been my own, and they -have met with their just reward. Am I to forgive you for loving me? -Dad—dad! I have known so little love that I can’t afford to wrong -yours by a thought. Look! I will blot this out, that you may know my -heart has nothing but tenderness in it for you!” -</p> - -<p> -I snatched up the tablet and smeared out the cruel word and placed the -blank surface under his hand again. He was looking at me all the time -with the same dim anguished expression, and now his head sunk back on -the pillow and a tear rolled down his face. -</p> - -<p> -Night came upon me sitting there, and presently, overcome by emotion -and weariness, I fell over upon the foot of the bed and sunk into a -profound sleep. For hours I lay unconscious and it was broad day in -the room when I awoke with a sudden start. -</p> - -<p> -Realizing in a moment how I had betrayed my vigil, I leaped to my feet -with a curse at my selfishness and looked down upon my father. He was -lying back, sunk in a wan exhausted sleep, and under its influence his -features seemed to have somewhat resumed their normal expression. -</p> - -<p> -But it appeared he had again been scrawling on the tablets, with the -first of the dawn, probably; and these were the broken words thereon -that stared whitely up at me: -</p> - -<p> -“I murd Mored.” -</p> - - -<h3 id="ch53"> -CHAPTER LIII.<br/> -<span class="chap_sub">AN ATTEMPT AND A FAILURE.</span> -</h3> - -<p> -For a minute or more I must have stood gazing down on the damning -words, unmoving, breathless almost. Then I glanced at the quiet face -on the pillow and back again to the tablet I held in my hand. -</p> - -<p> -I am glad to know—proud, in the little pride I may call mine—that at -that supreme moment I stood stanch; that I cried to myself: “It is a -lie, born of his disease! He never did it!” That I dashed the tablet -back upon the bed and that my one overwhelming thought was: “How may I -defend this poor soul from himself?” -</p> - -<p> -That he might die in peace with his conscience—that was the end of my -desire. Yet how was I, knowing so little, to convince him? Disproof I -had none, but only assurance of sympathy and a moral certainty that a -nature so constituted could never lend itself to so horrible a deed. -</p> - -<p> -In the midst of my confusion of thought a sudden idea woke in me and -quickened into a resolve. I went swiftly out of the room, down the -stairs, and walked in upon old Peggy mumbling her bread and milk in -the kitchen. I was going out for awhile, I told her, and bade her -listen for any sound upstairs that might betoken uneasiness on the -part of the patient. -</p> - -<p> -For the time being there was no rain to greet me as I stepped outside, -but the wind still blew boisterously from the east, and the sky was -all drawn and wrapt in a doleful swaddle of cloud. Sternly and without -hesitation I made my way to the house of Dr. Crackenthorpe. An -anaemic, cross-looking servant girl was polishing what remained of the -handle of the front door with a tattered doeskin glove. -</p> - -<p> -“Is the doctor inside?” I said to her. -</p> - -<p> -She left the glove sticking on the handle like a frouzy knocker, and -stood upright looking down upon me. -</p> - -<p> -“What do you want with him?” she said. -</p> - -<p> -“I wish to see him on private business.” -</p> - -<p> -“He’s at his breakfast. He won’t thank you for troubling him now.” -</p> - -<p> -“I don’t want him to thank me. I wish to see him, that’s all.” -</p> - -<p> -“Well, then, you can’t—and that’s all.” -</p> - -<p> -I pushed past her and walked into the hall and she followed me -clamoring. -</p> - -<p> -The ugly voice I knew well called from a back room I had not yet been -into: “What’s that?” -</p> - -<p> -I turned the handle and walked in. He was seated before a stained and -dinted urn of copper, and a great slice of toast from which he had -just bitten a jagged semicircle was in his hand. -</p> - -<p> -“I told him you was at breakfast,” said the cross girl, “but nothing -’ud suit his lordship but to drive his elbow into my chest and walk -in.” -</p> - -<p> -She emphasized her little lie with a pressure of her hand upon the -presumably wounded part. -</p> - -<p> -“Assault and battery,” said the doctor, showing his teeth. “Get out of -my house, fellow.” -</p> - -<p> -“After I’ve had a word with you.” -</p> - -<p> -“Eh? Edith, go and fetch a constable.” -</p> - -<p> -“Certainly,” I said. “The very thing I should like. I’ll wait here -till he comes.” -</p> - -<p> -He called to the girl as she was running out: “Wait a bit! Leave the -fellow with me and shut the door.” -</p> - -<p> -She obeyed sulkily and we were alone together. -</p> - -<p> -He went on with his breakfast with an affectation of unconcern and -took no notice of me whatever. -</p> - -<p> -“I believe you wished me to let you know, Dr. Crackenthorpe, if I -should be in further need of your services?” -</p> - -<p> -He swallowed huge gulps of tea with an unpleasant noise, protruding -his lips like a gargoyle, but answer made he none. -</p> - -<p> -“I am in need of your services.” -</p> - -<p> -He dissected the leg of a fowl with professional relish, but did not -speak. In a gust of childish anger that was farcical I nipped the -joint between finger and thumb and threw it into the fire. -</p> - -<p> -For an instant he sat dumfounded staring at his empty plate; then he -scrambled to his feet and ran to the mantelshelf all in a scurry of -fury and began diving among the litter there and tossing it right and -left. -</p> - -<p> -“The pistol—the pistol!” he muttered, in a cracked voice. “Where is -it? What have I done with it?” -</p> - -<p> -“Never mind. You expect a fee for your services, I suppose?” -</p> - -<p> -He slackened in his feverish search and I saw he was listening to me. -</p> - -<p> -“You don’t want to kill the goose with the golden eggs, I presume?” -said I, coolly. -</p> - -<p> -He twisted round and faced me. -</p> - -<p> -“You have a rude boorish insistence of your own,” he cried at me -hoarsely. “But I suppose I must value it for what it’s worth. It’s the -custom to ask a fee for professional services.” -</p> - -<p> -“You volunteered yours, you know.” -</p> - -<p> -He shrugged his shoulders. -</p> - -<p> -“Quite so,” he said. “The matter lies with you.” -</p> - -<p> -“With you, I think. In visiting my father the other night you had no -secret hope, I suppose, that we should pay you in the sort of coin you -have already had too much of?” -</p> - -<p> -“You insult me, sir.” -</p> - -<p> -“Unwittingly, I assure you. Will you answer me one question? Is there -the remotest chance of my father recovering from this attack?” -</p> - -<p> -“Not the remotest—not of his definitely rallying even, I should say.” -</p> - -<p> -“Is that only an opinion?” -</p> - -<p> -“Bah! Miracles don’t occur in surgery. He is practically a dead man, I -tell you.” -</p> - -<p> -“Why do you adopt this attitude to me, then, if you have an eye to a -particular sort of fee?” -</p> - -<p> -“Perhaps I wanted proof that the old man was past levying toll on.” A -wicked smile wrinkled his mouth. “Perhaps I satisfied myself he was, -and from you I expected no consideration or justice.” -</p> - -<p> -“You can leave that out of the question. A mere business contract is -another matter, and that is what I come to propose.” -</p> - -<p> -“Oh, indeed!” -</p> - -<p> -He said it with a sneer, but moved nevertheless nearer the table, so -that we could talk without raising our voices. -</p> - -<p> -“May I ask the nature of this stupendous contract?” -</p> - -<p> -“I will tell you without asking. I make you this offer—to hand over -to you all that remains of the treasure on one condition.” -</p> - -<p> -“And that is?” -</p> - -<p> -“That you tell me how my brother Modred came by his death.” -</p> - -<p> -He gave a little start; then dropped his eyes, frowning, and drummed -with his fingers on the table. I saw he understood; that he was -groping in his mind for some middle course, whereby he could satisfy -all parties and secure the prize for himself. -</p> - -<p> -“If your father didn’t do it,” he was beginning, but I took him up at -the outset. -</p> - -<p> -“You know he didn’t! It is a foul lie of such a man. Dr. -Crackenthorpe”—my voice, despite my stubborn resolve, broke a -little—“he is lying there on his deathbed, despairing, haunted with -the thought that it was he who in a fit of drunken madness strangled -the life in his own son. It is all hideous—monstrous—unnatural. You -know more about it, I believe, than any man. You were sitting with him -that night.” -</p> - -<p> -“But he left me awhile.” -</p> - -<p> -“You know it wasn’t in his nature to do such a thing!” -</p> - -<p> -“Pardon me. I have always looked upon your father as a dangerous, -reckless fellow.” -</p> - -<p> -“I won’t believe it. You know more than you will say—more than you -dare to tell. Oh, if that churchyard fellow had only lived I would -have had the truth by now.” -</p> - -<p> -“I hope so, though you do me the honor to hold me implicated with him -in some absurd and criminal secret, and on the strength of a little -delirious raving—not an uncommon experience in the profession, trust -me.” -</p> - -<p> -“I don’t appeal to your charity or your mercy. There’s a rich reward -awaiting you if you tell what you know and ease the old dying man’s -mind. Further than that—if you withhold the truth and let him pass in -his misery, I swear that I’ll never rest till I’ve dragged you down -and destroyed you.” -</p> - -<p> -He bent his body in a mocking and ungainly bow. -</p> - -<p> -“I really can’t afford to temporize with my conscience for any one -living or dead. As it is, I have allowed myself to slip into the -position of an accomplice, which is an extreme concession on my part -of friendly patronage toward a family that has certainly never studied -to claim my good offices.” -</p> - -<p> -I looked at him gloomily. I could not believe even now that he would -dismiss me without some by-effort toward the prize that he saw almost -within his grasp; and I was right. -</p> - -<p> -“Still,” he went on, “I don’t claim infallibility for my deduction. I -shall be pleased, if you wish it, to return with you and if possible -to question the patient.” -</p> - -<p> -I was too anguished and distraught to reject even this little thread -of hope. Perhaps it was in me that at the last moment the sight of -that stricken figure at home might move the cold cynicism of the man -before me to some weak warmth of charity. -</p> - -<p> -He bade me wait in the hall while he finished his breakfast and I had -nothing for it but to go and sit down under the row of smoky prints. -</p> - -<p> -He kept me a deliberate while, and then came forth leisurely and -donned his brown coat, that was hanging like a decayed pirate beside -me. We walked out together. -</p> - -<p> -The mill greeted us with no jarring thunder as we entered its door, -for the discord of its phantom grinding I had myself silenced. -</p> - -<p> -I listened as we climbed the wooden stairs for any sound from the room -above, but only the echo of our footfalls reverberated in the lonely -house. -</p> - -<p> -No sign of old Peggy had I seen, but, when I pushed open the door of -my father’s room there she was standing by his bed and leaning over. -</p> - -<p> -At the noise of our entrance she twisted her head, gave a sort of -sudden pee-wit cry and tumbled upon the floor in a collapsed heap, the -tablet from the bed in her hand. -</p> - - -<h3 id="ch54"> -CHAPTER LIV.<br/> -<span class="chap_sub">A LAST CONFESSION.</span> -</h3> - -<p> -I thought that the old woman, startled by our entrance, had merely -stepped back, tripped and so come to the ground; but the doctor -uttered an exclamation, ran to the prostrate figure and called me to -bring a spongeful of water from the wash-hand-stand. -</p> - -<p> -When I had complied I saw that the ancient limbs were rigid; the teeth -set, the lips foaming slightly. Peggy was in an epileptic fit and that -at her age was no light matter. -</p> - -<p> -I feared that her struggles might presently wake my father, who was to -all appearance sleeping peacefully, and asked the doctor if it would -not be possible to move her to another room. He shook his head, but -gave no answer. Suddenly I was conscious that his eyes were fixed upon -the tablet still held in her crooked fingers, and that in my -distraction I had not erased the damning words that were traced -thereon. The wet sponge was in my hand. With a quick movement I -stooped and swept it across the surface. As I did so the doctor slewed -his head round and smirked up at me with a truly diabolical -expression. Then he snatched the sponge and plumped it with a slap on -the withered forehead. The soot from the tablet ran in wet streaks -over the sinister old face and made a grotesque horror of it. The -wretched creature moaned and jerked under the shock, as though the -water were biting acid. -</p> - -<p> -Not a word was spoken between us for full twenty minutes—not till the -fit at length subsided and left the racked body to the rest of -exhaustion. The eyes became human, with what humanity was left them; -the pallid face fell into its usual lines—the old woman lay flat with -closed lids in the extreme of debility. -</p> - -<p> -Then said Dr. Crackenthorpe: “Take you her feet and I her head and -we’ll move her out of this.” -</p> - -<p> -We carried Peggy into my room and laid her on the bed that had been -Jason’s. Her hours must be numbered, I thought as I looked at the gray -features, already growing spectral in the rising fog of death. -</p> - -<p> -Turning from that old fallen stump, Dr. Crackenthorpe suddenly faced -me, a smile on his crackled lips. -</p> - -<p> -“So,” he said, “on the top of that confession, you sought to convince -me against your own judgment?” -</p> - -<p> -“I haven’t a thought to deny it. I value it at nothing. He has fed on -a baseless chimera, at your instigation—yes, you needn’t lie—till -his mind is sick with disease. What does it matter? I know him and I -stake my soul on his innocence. I asked you to ease his mind—not -mine. I tell you in a word”—I strode up to him and spoke slowly and -fiercely—“my father had no hand in Modred’s death and I believe you -know it.” -</p> - -<p> -He backed from me a little, breathing hard, when a sound from the bed -stopped him. I started and turned. The old woman’s hand was up to her -neck. Her sick eyes were moving from the one to the other of us in a -lost, questioning way; a murmur was in her lean, pulsing throat. -</p> - -<p> -“Lie quiet, Peggy,” I said; “you may be able to speak in a minute if -you lie quiet.” -</p> - -<p> -The words seemed only to increase the panic in her. With a gurgling -burst a fragment of speech came from her mouth: -</p> - -<p> -“Be I passing?” -</p> - -<p> -The doctor heard it. “Yes,” he said, brutally. -</p> - -<p> -She appeared to collapse and shrink inward; but in a moment she was -up, leaning on her elbow, and her face was terrible to look at. -</p> - -<p> -“’Twas I killed the boy!” she cried, with a sort of breathless wail; -“tell him—tell Ralph,” and so fell back, and I thought the life was -gone from her. -</p> - -<p> -Was I base and cruel in my triumph? I rose erect, indifferent to the -tortured soul stretched beneath me. -</p> - -<p> -“Who was right?” I cried. “Believe me now, you dog; and growl and -curse your fill over the wreck of your futile villainy!” -</p> - -<p> -His mouth was set in an incredulous grinning line. I brushed sternly -past him, making for my father’s room. I could not pause or wait a -moment. The poor soul’s long anguish should be ended there and then. -</p> - -<p> -As I stooped over his bed I saw that some change had come upon him in -sleep. The twist of his mouth was relaxed. His face had assumed -something of its normal expression. -</p> - -<p> -I seized up the tablet from where it had tumbled on the floor. I -smeared it with a fresh coating from the saucer. His first waking -eyes, I swore, should look upon the written evidence of his acquittal. -While I was waiting for the stuff to dry, he stirred, murmured and -opened his eyes. -</p> - -<p> -“Renalt!” he said, in a very low, weak voice. -</p> - -<p> -Speech had returned to him. I knelt by his side and passed my -tremulous arms underneath him. -</p> - -<p> -“Father,” I said, “you can speak—you are awake again. I have -something to tell you; something to say. Don’t move or utter a sound. -You have been asleep all this time—only asleep. While you were -unconscious old Peggy has been taken ill—very ill. In the fear of -death she has made a confession. Father, I saw what you wrote on -this—look, on this tablet! It was all untrue; I have wiped it out. It -was Peggy killed Modred—she has confessed it.” -</p> - -<p> -He lifted his unstricken hand—the other was yet paralyzed—in an -attitude of prayer. Presently his hand dropped and he turned his face -to me, his eyes brimming with tears. -</p> - -<p> -“Renalt,” he murmured, in the poor shadow of a voice, “I thank my -God—but the greater sin—I can never condone—though you forgive -me—my son.” -</p> - -<p> -“Forgive? What have I to forgive, dad? My heart is as light as a -feather.” -</p> - -<p> -He only gazed at me earnestly—pathetically. I went and sat by his -side and smoothed his pillow and took his hand in mine. -</p> - -<p> -“Now the incubus is gone, dad, and you’ll get well. You must—I can’t -do without you. The black shadow is passed from the mill, and the -coming days are all full of sunshine.” -</p> - -<p> -“What has she—confessed? How did—she—do it?” -</p> - -<p> -“I didn’t wait to hear. I wanted you to know, and left her the moment -she had spoken.” -</p> - -<p> -“Alone?” -</p> - -<p> -I hesitated and stammered. -</p> - -<p> -“There,” he said, with a faint smile, “I know—I know he’s in the -house. I don’t fear—I don’t fear—I tell you. I’m—past that. He -won’t want—to come in here?” -</p> - -<p> -He spoke all this time in a bodiless, low tone, and the effort seemed -to exhaust him. For some time I sat by him, till he fell into a light -slumber. No sound was in the house, and I did not even know if Dr. -Crackenthorpe had left the adjoining room. But when my father was -settled down and breathing quietly, I rose and stepped noiselessly -thither to see. -</p> - -<p> -He was standing against the window, and turned stealthily round as I -entered, watching me. -</p> - -<p> -As I walked toward him I glanced aside at the bed. Something about the -pose of the figure thereon brought me to a sudden stop. My heart rose -and fell with a sharp, quick emotion, and in the instant of it I knew -that the old woman was dead. Her head had been propped against the -bolster, so that her chin rested upon her withered breast. That would -never beat again to the impulse of fear or evil or any kinder emotion, -for Peggy had answered to her name. -</p> - -<p> -For the moment I stood stupefied. I think I had hardly realized that -the end was so near. Sorrow I could not feel, but now regret leaped in -me that I had not waited to hear all that she might tell. Only for an -instant. On the next it flashed through me that it was better to put -my trust in that first wild confession than to invite it by further -questioning to self-condonation—perhaps actual denial. -</p> - -<p> -“You went too soon,” Dr. Crackenthorpe said, in a cold voice of irony. -“I must tell you that was hardly decent.” -</p> - -<p> -“I never thought she had spoken her last.” -</p> - -<p> -“Nor had she—by a good deal.” -</p> - -<p> -“She said more?” -</p> - -<p> -“Much more—and to a different purpose.” -</p> - -<p> -I stared at him, breathing hard. -</p> - -<p> -“Are you going to lie again?” I muttered. -</p> - -<p> -“That pleasantry is too often on your lips, sir,” he said, coolly. -“None doubt truth so much as those who have dishonored her. The dead -woman there leaves you this as a legacy.” -</p> - -<p> -He thrust the thing he was holding into my hand. I recognized it in a -sort of dull wonder. It was that ancient mutilated portrait of Modred -that I had once discovered in Peggy’s possession. -</p> - -<p> -From the stained and riddled silhouette to the evil face of the man -before me I glanced and could only wait in dumb expectancy. -</p> - -<p> -“She told me where to find it,” he said, “and I brought it to her.” -</p> - -<p> -“I never heard you move.” -</p> - -<p> -“I stepped softly for fear of disturbing your father. Do you see that -outraged relic? The old creature’s self-accusation turned upon -it—upon that and nothing else.” -</p> - -<p> -“What do you mean?” -</p> - -<p> -“That you must look elsewhere, I am afraid, for the criminal. Our -pleasant Rottengoose shared the gross superstitions of her kind. All -these years she has secretly hugged the really reprehensible thought -that the boy’s death was due to her.” -</p> - -<p> -“I don’t understand.” -</p> - -<p> -“A base superstition, my friend—a very base superstition. She had in -her possession, I understand, a flint shaft of the paleolithic period. -There are plenty such to be picked up in the neighborhood. The -ignorant call them elf arrowheads and cherish a belief that to -mutilate with one of them a body’s portrait or image is to compass -that person’s destruction. This harridan cherished no love for your -brother, and fancied she saw her opportunity of seizing revenge -without risk on a certain night of misfortune. The boy died and -henceforth she knew herself as his murderess. Good-morning to you. May -I remind you that my fee is yet unpaid? I will certify to the present -cause of death, with pleasure.” -</p> - - -<h3 id="ch55"> -CHAPTER LV.<br/> -<span class="chap_sub">A SHADOW FROM THE PAST.</span> -</h3> - -<p> -Like one in a dream I heard the doctor’s footstep recede down the -stairs and heard the yard door close dully on him as he left the -house. In my suffering soul I felt one cruel shaft rankling, and for -the rest only a vague sense of loss hung like a cloud over all my -faculties. -</p> - -<p> -I had no doubt of the truth of the evil creature’s words. Not -otherwise could his knowledge and possession of the tattered portrait -be accounted for. Now, too, Peggy’s unaccountable terror at my -discovery of her chaunting and gloating over her work on a certain -afternoon recurred to me, and was confirmation irrefragable. The -wretched old woman had had all the will and intention; but she was -innocent of the deed. -</p> - -<p> -I must look elsewhere, as he had said—begin all over again. True—but -now less than ever in my father’s direction. Had I needed in my heart -convincing proof of the old man’s guiltlessness, his manner in -accepting his acquittal would have afforded it. By this he had shown -that with him, as with the hounds that had sought to pull him down, -his guilt was purely conjectural—presumed merely on the -circumstantial evidence of the braces found in his pocket. But I -judged him in my heart and pronounced him acquitted. -</p> - -<p> -Now it was idle to moan over my impetuous rush to conclusions. I must -only guard against permitting the disillusion to vex the few last days -that remained to him. If I wronged the old dead housewife thereby, it -was in degree only, for morally she was as guilty as if her charm had -borne all the evil force she attributed to it. -</p> - -<p> -Well, I must see about getting some harpy in to minister to her final -dumb necessities and then— -</p> - -<p> -A low cry, coming from the other room, broke upon my ears. With -beating heart I rushed from the death chamber only—merciful -heaven—to enter another! -</p> - -<p> -At the first glance I saw that the white spirit had entered during my -absence and had written the sign of eternity on my father’s forehead. -He was sitting up in bed and the expression on his face was that of a -dreadful, eager waiting. -</p> - -<p> -“Renalt!” -</p> - -<p> -He called to me in a clear, loud voice—the recovered note of an old -stronger personality. -</p> - -<p> -I hurried to him; fell on my knees; put my arm about his shoulders. -</p> - -<p> -“Renalt, I am dying—but not yet. The spirit won’t let me pass till I -have spoken.” -</p> - -<p> -He turned his head with a resolute effort and gazed upon me. -</p> - -<p> -“What thing have I been—what thing have I been? Send me my enemies -that I may face and defy them! Which of them worse than myself? Oh, -craven—craven!” -</p> - -<p> -“Father! I only am with you—no enemy, father!” -</p> - -<p> -He struck his fist down upon the counterpane. -</p> - -<p> -“By your love for me you shall know the truth! Judge me then—judge me -then as you will. Hear me speak and make no answer till I have -finished. Judge me then, and let me pass to my doom weighted with your -judgment.” -</p> - -<p> -“Father!” -</p> - -<p> -“Renalt, I killed your mother!” -</p> - -<p> -I fell back appalled. An instant—then I leaned forward and again held -him in my arms. -</p> - -<p> -“Ah!” his voice broke, swerved and recovered itself. “Not with this -hand—my God, no—but surely and pitilessly none the less. Not a month -after Modred was born I found my name and trust dishonored and by her. -Listen! Speak nothing. You must know all! She had been in service in -London before I married her—where, to this day I have never learned. -I shall know soon—I shall know. She was friendless—a weak, -irresponsible, beautiful young woman. I threw aside all for her sake, -and my love grew tenfold in the act of combating the misfortune it -brought me. I could love, Renalt—I could love. There was a passion in -my fervor.” -</p> - -<p> -He clasped his hands wildly and looked piercingly before him. -</p> - -<p> -“How the old torment flames up in me at the last! I think I gave my -soul to the wanton and I thought I had hers in exchange. What inspired -fools love makes of us! My castle in Cloudland stood firm till that -month after Modred’s birth. Then all in a day—a minute—it dissolved -and vanished. I came upon her secretly gloating over a portrait—the -miniature of a man. I saw—suspected—wrenched half the truth from -her. Half the truth only, Renalt. When I wedded with her she had a -child living. She whose love I had looked upon as a precious -possession was all base and hollow, behind her beautiful personality. -More—she had borne me three children; yet what affection she was -capable of clung about the memory of her first passion. True, this -spark had wearied of her, had dismissed her from his service—his -service, you understand? And from the face of her child. Yet the long -years of my passionate devotion weighed as nothing in the balance. I -was the means ready to make of her an honest woman—that was all. An -honest woman—my God!” -</p> - -<p> -His teeth snapped together with a click; his dying eyes shone out, but -their inspiration was demoniacal. -</p> - -<p> -“In one thing only,” he went on in a low, hard voice, “the poor frail -wretch was stable. That portrait—the miniature—she died refusing to -reveal to me its identity. No threats, no cruelty availed. She kept -her secret to the last.” -</p> - -<p> -As he now continued his left hand clutched and tightened upon the -bedclothes and a dark shadow seemed to grow out of his face. -</p> - -<p> -“I shut her close in the room below. There, with only the voice of the -wheel for company, I swore she should remain till she confessed. Each -day I brought her food and water, and each day I said, ‘Give me his -name,’ but she was always silent. She had been weak and ailing from -caring for her baby Modred, and she faded before my eyes. Yet I was -merciless. A little more, I thought, and so worthless, fragile a thing -must needs yield and answer me. It was will against will, and hers -conquered.” -</p> - -<p> -He paused a moment, and I could see drops of sweat freckling his -forehead. -</p> - -<p> -“Slowly, hour by hour, the stealth and darkness of her prison wrought -madness in her. Still I persisted and she refused. Once she asked to -see her children—the little baby I was rearing as best I might, with -infinite toil and difficulty—and I laughed and shut her in again. The -next morning, going to her, I was dumfounded to hear no booming voice -greeting me from the basement. The wheel had stopped. I threw back the -door and she was gone. But the cupboard was sprung open and the dammed -water spurted and leaped from the motionless blades. A stump of timber -was lying near. She had burst the lock with it, and—I rushed and -dropped the sluice; hurried back and looked down. I saw her dress -tangled in the floats below, and the water heaping into a little mound -as it ran over something. Then I raced to the room over above, -wrenched up a board, and, fastening a rope to a beam, lowered the -slack of it into the pit. It served me well in after days, as you -know. -</p> - -<p> -“I can hardly remember how I got her out. I know all my efforts were -futile, till I thought of notching a paddle and fixing the rope in the -hole. When at last I laid her down on the floor of the room I grew -sick with horror. There was that in her staring eyes that made my soul -die within me. -</p> - -<p> -“I threw the place open to the authorities. I courted every inquiry. -She had been in a delirious state, I said, since the coming of the -child, and had thrown herself down in a fit of madness. Only the -evidence of the burst lock I suppressed. -</p> - -<p> -“We had been reserved folk, making few friends or none. Our manner of -life was known only to ourselves; not a soul suspected the truth and -many pitied me in my bereavement. I kept my own counsel. They brought -in a verdict of suicide during temporary insanity, and she lies under -an old nameless mound in the cemetery yonder. -</p> - -<p> -“Then I shut my heart and my door and made out life in the blackness. -</p> - -<p> -“At first I was whelmed in the horror of the catastrophe, yet my pity -was not touched and I soon came to believe in the justice of her fate. -‘I never put hand on her,’ I thought. ‘’Twas God wrought the -punishment.’ But soon a terrible hatred woke in my heart for the first -author of my misery. One day I descended by the wheel again and nailed -the miniature to its axle. ‘Wait you there!’ I cried, ‘till the -question is answered. So shall he follow in her footsteps.’ Ah, I have -heard talk of the fateful fascination of the wheel! Why has it never -drawn him to come and claim his portrait?” -</p> - -<p> -The fevered torrent of speech broke suddenly in him, and silence -reigned in the room. The dying heart leaped against my chest as I held -him, and my own seemed to flutter with the contact. What could I think -or say? I was dazed with the passion of my emotions. -</p> - -<p> -Presently he turned himself quickly and looked at me. -</p> - -<p> -“Your judgment!” he cried, hoarsely. “Did I well or wickedly?” -</p> - -<p> -Through my mind there swiftly passed memory of the barren neglect of -our younger lives; of all the evil and misery that had been the -indirect result of so cowardly a nursing of an injury. -</p> - -<p> -I bowed my head, and said in a low voice: “I forgive you. That is all -you must ask of me.” -</p> - -<p> -Perhaps, in the light of his later gentleness, he understood me, for -suddenly the tears were running down his cheeks and he cried -falteringly: “Out of the abyss of death a ghost rises and faces me! -All this have I done for the son I love!” -</p> - -<p> -With the words he fell back from my arm and lay gasping on his pillow. -And, though my father was near spent, and I knew it, I could find in -my heart no word of justification of his conduct, no comfort but the -assurance of my forgiveness. -</p> - -<p> -Oh, it is an evil thing to arrogate to ourselves God’s prerogative of -judgment; to assume that in any personal wrong we can so disassociate -justice and resentment as ever to be capable of pronouncing an -impartial sentence. To return a blow in kind is a natural and -wholesome impulse; but deliberate cruelty, following however great a -provocation, can never be anything but most base and unmanly. -</p> - -<p> -And the sin had been sinned before she even knew my father! Yet, -maybe, to a nature like his, that was the reverse of a palliation. To -feel that he had never had her true love or duty, while lavishing his -all of both on her; to feel that in a manner the veins of his own -children ran with contamination—I could conceive these operating more -fiercely in his mind than the discovery that some later caprice of -fancy had lured her from her faith. -</p> - -<p> -It was all past and over and I would not condemn or even judge him. -Though I had been one victim of his quarrel with life, what was my -grievance in face of the awful prospect so immediately before him? In -a few hours—moments, maybe—the call would come and his soul would -have to submit itself for analysis in the theater of the skies. -</p> - - -<h3 id="ch56"> -CHAPTER LVI.<br/> -<span class="chap_sub">ALONE.</span> -</h3> - -<p> -About 4 of the afternoon my father, who had lain for some hours in a -state bordering on stupor, and whose breathing had latterly become -harsh and difficult, rose suddenly in his bed and called to me in a -strong voice. I was by his side in a moment and lifted him up as he -signified I should do. A mortal whiteness was in his face and I saw -the end was approaching. -</p> - -<p> -“I have no fear,” he said, in a sort of sick ecstasy. “I can be true -to myself at the last, thank God! The soul triumphs over the body.” -</p> - -<p> -He swayed in my arms, clutched at me and dragged himself erect again. -</p> - -<p> -“My brain—my brain! Something seems to swerve in it! Quick! Before -it’s too late!” -</p> - -<p> -He held on to me. At the last moment the latent determination of his -character trod weakness under and proved the soul masterful. With all -his functions withering in the blighting breath of the destroyer, his -spirit stood out fearless and courageous, a conqueror by its mere -individuality. -</p> - -<p> -It had darkened early, and candles were lighted in the room and the -blind pulled down. Outside the wind tore at the crazy lattice, or, -finding entrance, moaned to and fro in the gusty passages. It -threatened to be a night of storm and sweeping rain. And all its wild -and dismal surroundings were in keeping with the ghastly figure lying -against me. Yet, if there was one in that lonely chamber who shrunk -and feared, it was I, not that other so verging on his judgment, with -so many and such heavy responsibilities to answer for. God forgive -him! -</p> - -<p> -“I triumph, Renalt,” he said, feeding the effort of speech with quick, -drawn gasps. “This later craven has never been I—I was strong to -carry out a purpose, even if it led me to the gallows. Some -white-livered devil usurped. Out with the worm at last! I triumph and -abide by that I did in the righteousness of wrath. But you—you! Let -me say it—quick—I was fast on the coward grip. Oh, a bitter, bitter -curse on the treacherous beast who unmanned me! Only to you, Renalt, I -pray and ask for pardon. I thought—all the time—I had killed the -boy—the braces—I never knew. He—he, that reptile, -suggested—perhaps Modred had—found and kept the cameo. I went up -blindly—came down blindly—I was drunk—bestial—I could remember -nothing.” -</p> - -<p> -He moaned and would have clasped his hands to me but for weakness. At -the last the paralysis of his limbs had departed and he could move. -Disease loosened its clutch, it seemed, in the presence of the death -it had invoked. -</p> - -<p> -“Renalt—I remembered nothing—but I feared—and, fearing, I saw the -odium rest on you and did not speak. It was I gave you to that living -death—I who submitted to that fiend’s dictating, because he struck at -me through the sordid passion that had mastered my better nature. -Renalt——” -</p> - -<p> -“Father—hear me! Am I speaking distinctly? Listen. I forgive you -all.” -</p> - -<p> -It seemed as if a flush passed across his face. He pressed my hand -feebly and dropped his head. -</p> - -<p> -“Now,” he muttered; “come the crash of doom! To all else I am ready to -answer. Call the——” -</p> - -<p> -Like a glass breaking, his voice snapped and immediate silence befell. -He had not stirred in my arms; but now I felt the whole surface of his -body moving, as it were, of itself with a light ruffling shudder. -</p> - -<p> -Suddenly he seemed to shrink into himself, rather than away from me, -so that he cowered unsupported on the bed. I fell back and looked at -his face. His head moved softly from side to side, the eyes following -something, unseen of me, hither and thither about the room. In a -moment they contracted and fixed themselves horribly on one point, as -if the things had come to the bed foot and were softly mounting it. In -the same instant on my dull and appalled senses broke the low booming -voice of the wheel circling in its black pit far below, and I knew -that in the phantom sound no material force spoke, but that the heart -of the dying man was transmitting its terrors to me. -</p> - -<p> -Then I saw my father sink slowly back, drawing, as he did so, the -sheet up and over his face, as if to shut out the sight, and all the -time the convulsive fluttering of my own breath alone stirred the -tense silence that reigned about us. -</p> - -<p> -I must have remained in this position many minutes, fixed and -motionless in a trance of fear, when the stealthy noise below seemed -to cease suddenly as it had begun. At that I leaped to my feet with a -strangled cry and tore the bedclothes away from the face. The eyes -stared up at me as if I were the secret presence; the jaw was dropped; -the whole body collapsed and sunk into the sheets. He had died without -a sound—there—in a moment; had died of that that was beyond human -speech; of something to which no dreadful human cry could give -expression. -</p> - -<p class="spacer"> -* * * * * -</p> - -<p> -Wading near knee deep in the flooded meadows, sense and reason -returned to me by slow degrees. Then a wan streak of sunrise gaped -like a dead man’s wound on the stormy horizon, and a new day was -breaking to wind and deluge that seemed endless. -</p> - -<p> -Ah, surely I had been tried beyond mortal endurance. So I thought, not -knowing what was yet to come; what tension the soul’s fetters can be -put to without breaking. -</p> - -<p> -The sodden day broadened and found me still wandering. Once during the -morning I crept back to the house of terror, and, standing without its -door, summoned the old woman, who had come of herself to attend to -dead Peggy’s laying out, and told her of my father’s death and -directed her to a second task. -</p> - -<p> -Later in the day, I told myself, I would return; by and by when the -dead should be decently composed for rest and their expression should -have resumed something of its normal cast. Then I hurried forth again -and sought forgetfulness in the keen rush of air and wide reality of -the open country. -</p> - -<p> -Walking, resting on some gate or stile; seeking a wayside tavern for -food and drink—always I kept steadily away from me the slightest -reflection on any of the last words spoken by my father. I could not -bear that my thoughts should so much as approach them. I had greatly -suffered, been greatly wronged, yet let my mind dwell insistently on -the thought that these evils were of the past, never more to vex me -out of reason should I look steadily forward, shutting my ears, like -the prince in the fairy tale, to the spectral voices that would fain -provoke me to an answer. -</p> - -<p> -It was growing near that dusky period of the short day when if one -lifts one’s eyes from the ground the sky seems closing in upon the -earth! Worn out and footsore, I had rounded toward the city from its -eastern side and was traversing the now lonely stretch of by-path that -leads from the station, when I saw a woman and little child going on -in front of me haltingly. As I came up they drew aside to let me pass, -and I cried out, “Zyp!” and stopped in astonishment and a little fear. -</p> - -<p> -She faced round upon me, breathing quickly, and put one hand to her -bosom in a startled manner that was quite foreign to her. -</p> - -<p> -“Renny,” she whispered, with a fading smile on her white face—pitiful -heaven, how white and worn it had become! And burst into tears the -next moment. -</p> - -<p> -Shocked beyond measure at her appearance, her woeful reception of me, -I stepped back all amazed. She mistook my action and held out an -imploring arm to me. The little weird girl at her side half buried -herself in her mother’s skirts and peered up at me with deep eyes set -in a tangle of hair. -</p> - -<p> -“Renny!” cried Zyp; “oh, you won’t throw me off? You won’t refuse to -hear me?” -</p> - -<p> -“Come away,” I said, hoarsely; “to some quiet road, where we can talk -undisturbed. You are not too tired?” -</p> - -<p> -“Too—oh, I’m wearied to death. Why not the mill? Renny, why not the -mill?” -</p> - -<p> -“Zyp, not now—not at present. I’ll tell you by and by. See, I’ll take -the little girl on one arm and you can cling to the other.” -</p> - -<p> -She pushed the child forward with a forlorn sigh. It whimpered a -little as I lifted it, but I held it snug against my shoulder, and its -soft breath on my cheeks seemed to melt the hard core of agony in my -brain. -</p> - -<p> -Soon I had them in a quiet spot and seated upon a fallen log. There, -holding the child against me, I looked in the eyes of the mother and -could have wept. -</p> - -<p> -“Zyp, Zyp! What is it?” -</p> - -<p> -A boisterous clap of wind tumbled her dark hair as I spoke. What was -it? Her lustrous head was strewed with ashy threads, as if the -clipping fate had trimmed some broken skein of life over it; her eyes -were like fathomless pools shrunk with drought; an impenetrable sorrow -was figured in her wasted face. This was the shadow of Zyp—not the -sweet substance—and moving among ghosts and shadows my own life -seemed stumbling toward the grave. -</p> - - -<h3 id="ch57"> -CHAPTER LVII.<br/> -<span class="chap_sub">A PROMISE.</span> -</h3> - -<p> -Clasping thin, nervous fingers, Zyp looked up in my face fearfully. -</p> - -<p> -“Have you seen Jason?” -</p> - -<p> -“No. Has he come, too?” -</p> - -<p> -“He’s gone on before to the mill to seek you.” -</p> - -<p> -“God help him! I’ve been out all day. Is it the old trouble, Zyp?” -</p> - -<p> -“Oh, Renny, I despair at last! I fought it while I was strong; but -now—now.” -</p> - -<p> -Her head sunk and she pressed a hand to her bosom again. -</p> - -<p> -“What ails you, dear? Zyp, are you ill?” -</p> - -<p> -“I don’t know. Something seems to suck at my veins. I have nothing -definite. The wretchedness of life is sapping my strength, I suppose.” -</p> - -<p> -“Is it still so wretched? I am always here to give you what help I -can.” -</p> - -<p> -“Oh, I know! And we must always be cursing your quiet with our -entreaties.” -</p> - -<p> -“Zyp, you needn’t talk like that. My heart is open to my little -sister. And is this my bonny niece?” -</p> - -<p> -She was a slender mite of four or thereabouts, with a delicate thin -face, oval like a blushing rose petal, and a quaint, solemn manner of -movement and broken speech. -</p> - -<p> -“Give me a kiss, mouse. Oh, what a prim little peck!” -</p> - -<p> -A faint smile came to the mother’s lips. “You’ll learn to love your -uncle, Renna.” -</p> - -<p> -“Did you name her after me?” -</p> - -<p> -“Don’t flatter yourself. I call her Renna for short. Her real name’s -Zyp.” -</p> - -<p> -I laughed over the queer deduction; then sighed. -</p> - -<p> -“Will you love me?” I said to the little girl, but she was too shy to -answer. -</p> - -<p> -I stroked her shining head and poke over it to Zyp. -</p> - -<p> -“Tell me all about it, dear,” said I. -</p> - -<p> -“It’s nothing, but the old miserable story—pursuit and flight; and -with each new movement some little means of living abandoned.” -</p> - -<p> -Looking at this pale, injured woman, a fierce deep resentment flared -up in my heart against the inexorable tyranny of the fiend who would -not learn mercy. I had too long stood aside; too long remained neutral -in an unnatural warfare, the most innocent victim of which was she -whose image my soul professed to hold inviolate. Old ties bound me no -longer. Her champion would I be in life and death, meeting stealth -with secrecy, pursuit with ambush. -</p> - -<p> -I put the child from me and rose hurriedly to my feet. -</p> - -<p> -“Zyp!” I cried, “this must end! Forgive me that, holding you in my -heart as I have always done, I have not been more active in your -succor. Here all doubt ends. I devote myself body and soul to your -help and welfare!” -</p> - -<p> -Crying softly, she drew her little one to her and wound her arms about -her. Now the last of her weird nature seemed broken and gone, and she -was woman only, helpless and alone. -</p> - -<p> -“Renny, Renny,” she sobbed, “why didn’t you sooner? Oh, Renny! Why -didn’t you sooner?” -</p> - -<p> -Her anguish—her implied reproach—pierced to my soul. -</p> - -<p> -“Has that been in your mind, Zyp? I never thought—it was always a -habit with me to yield the lead to Jason, and you were so strong and -independent.” -</p> - -<p> -“Not now for long—a haunted, hunted thing! But I had no right—and -then, your father.” -</p> - -<p> -“If I thought I had sacrificed your interests to a mistaken sense of -duty to him—ah, Zyp, it would be a very bitter thing.” -</p> - -<p> -“No, no! You’ve always been strong and good and generous. Don’t mind -what I say. I’m only desperate with trouble. Hush, little rabbit! -Mother cries with joy to have found a friend.” -</p> - -<p> -“Need you have sought long? Every word you say seems a reproach.” -</p> - -<p> -“No, no, no; you’ll misread me and fall away from us at the last.” -</p> - -<p> -“I swear not! Tell me what has happened.” -</p> - -<p> -“We thought we had escaped him—perhaps that he was dead. There was a -long respite; then one night—four, five days ago—he was there. Some -place where they gamble with cards—and he accused my husband of -cheating. There was a terrible scene. Jason came home all smeared with -blood, but it was the old terror that made us despair. Why are such -things allowed on earth? It seemed all leaf and flowers and sky to me -once. How long ago! He stood outside our lodgings the next morning. -His dreadful face was like a devil’s. Then we knew we must go. When -the bill was paid we had only a few shillings left. In our sickness we -turned to you, and we set off tramping, tramping down to Winton by -easy stages. Jason carried the child; my arms were too weak.” -</p> - -<p> -“And he—that other?” -</p> - -<p> -“He’s sure to follow us, but he won’t know we’ve walked.” -</p> - -<p> -I remembered the figure on the bridge four nights ago, and was silent. -</p> - -<p> -“Renalt, what can we do?” -</p> - -<p> -“Jason has gone to me for money, I suppose?” -</p> - -<p> -“Oh, if you could only let us have a little; we might escape abroad -again and bury ourselves in some faraway spot, where he could never -find us.” -</p> - -<p> -“Zyp, listen to me. My father died last night.” -</p> - -<p> -“Died? The old man! Oh, Renny, Renny!” -</p> - -<p> -“He had been long ailing. I have been wandering all day to try to -restore my shattered nerves. That is why I have not met Jason.” -</p> - -<p> -“Dead! The old, poor man! And you are alone?” -</p> - -<p> -“Yes, Zyp.” -</p> - -<p> -She broke down and wept long and sadly. -</p> - -<p> -“He was good to me,” she moaned, “and I requited his kindness ill. And -now I come to worry you in your unhappiness.” -</p> - -<p> -“You came to lighten it with a glimpse of the old sweet nature—you -and your pretty baby here.” -</p> - -<p> -“Do you think her pretty, Renny? He would have been fond of her, and -he’s gone. What a world of death and misery!” -</p> - -<p> -“Now the mill is no place for you at present. Old Peggy is dead, too, -and gone to her judgment. In a few days the house will be quit of -mourning. Then you must all three come and live with me there, and -we’ll make out life in company.” -</p> - -<p> -She sat clasping her little girl and staring at me, her lips parted, -as she listened breathlessly. -</p> - -<p> -“That would be good,” she whispered. “Do you hear, baby? Mumby and -Renna will lie down at last and go to sleep.” -</p> - -<p> -The child pressed her cheek to her mother’s and put her short arms -about her neck with a sympathetic sigh. Her lot, I think, had been no -base contrast with that of children better circumstanced. She was -dressed even now as if from the fairy queen’s wardrobe, though Zyp’s -poor clothes were stained and patched in a dozen places. -</p> - -<p> -Then my love—oh, may I not call her so now?—looked up at me -sorrowfully over the brink of her short ecstasy. -</p> - -<p> -“Dear Renny,” she said, “how can it ever be as you say? Rest can never -come to us while he lives.” -</p> - -<p> -“I have sworn, Zyp. I am confident and strong to grapple with this -tragic Furioso. If he persists after one more warning we’ll set the -law on him for a wandering lunatic.” -</p> - -<p> -“That I believe he is—oh!” she closed her eyes as if in an ineffable -dream of peace and security. -</p> - -<p> -“The question is, what are you to do in the meantime?” -</p> - -<p> -“That’s soon settled. We came over Micheldever, only a few miles away. -We’ll go back there and hire a single room in the village—I saw one -to let that would suit us—and wait till you send for us.” -</p> - -<p> -“Very well. And what do you say to taking little Zyp back by yourself -and leaving Jason here under my wing?” -</p> - -<p> -“If you think it best.” -</p> - -<p> -“I must make certain arrangements with him. Yes, I think that will be -best.” I spoke cheerfully and buoyantly, anxious to quicken and -sustain her new-born hope. Uneasy forebodings, nevertheless, drove me -to make the proposition. I could not free my mind of the thought that -Duke yet hung secretly about the place, induced to wait and watch on -that sure instinct that had never yet in the long run failed to -interpret to him the movements of his victims. -</p> - -<p> -Therefore I felt it safer to keep my brother for the present under -friendly lock and key rather than risk a further exposing of him to -the malignant observation of his enemy. -</p> - -<p> -“Zyp, take this money. I wish it were more, but it will keep you going -for the present.” -</p> - -<p> -“No, Renny, I have a little left.” -</p> - -<p> -“Don’t worry me, changeling.” -</p> - -<p> -“Ah, the name and the flowers.” She rose to her feet. “Have you -forgotten my asking you never to pick one?” -</p> - -<p> -“Not once in my life since, Zyp. My conscience is free of that -reproach.” -</p> - -<p> -She looked at me with a sweet strange expression in her wet eyes. -</p> - -<p> -“Good-by, dear brother,” she said, suddenly, holding out her hand to -me. -</p> - -<p> -“Shall I not see you off?” -</p> - -<p> -“No. We shan’t have long to wait, I dare say, and Jason will be -wishing for you. Kiss—Renny, kiss dad for me—this kiss”—and she -stepped hurriedly forward and put her soft trembling lips to my -forehead. -</p> - -<p> -My blood leaped. For a moment I was near catching her madly in my -arms. -</p> - -<p> -“Good-by!” I cried, swerving back. “Good-by, little Zyp!” -</p> - -<p> -They moved from me a few paces. Out in the road the wind caught the -woman’s skirts and flung her dark hair abroad. Suddenly she turned and -came back to me. -</p> - -<p> -“Renny,” she said, in low, heartrending tones, “it looks so happy and -golden, but the fierce air talked in my lungs as I went. Oh, -promise—promise—promise!” -</p> - -<p> -“Anything, Zyp, in the wide world.” -</p> - -<p> -“To care for my little one—my darling, if I’m called away.” -</p> - -<p> -“Before God I swear to devote my life to her.” -</p> - -<p> -She looked at me a long moment, with a piercing gaze, gave a hoarse, -low sob, and catching at her child’s hand hurried away with her down -the road. I watched their going till their shapes grew dim in the -stormy dusk; then twisted about and strode my own way homeward. -</p> - -<p> -Heaven help me! It was my last vision of her who, through all the -hounding of fate, had made my life “a perfumed altar-flame.” -</p> - -<p> -Before I reached the mill the rain swept down once more, wrapping the -gabled city in high spectral gloom. Not dust to dust, it seemed, was -our lot to be in common with the sons of men, but rather the -fearfuller ruin of those whose names are “writ in water.” -</p> - -<p> -So fiercely drove the onset of flying deluge that scarcely might I -force headway against its icy battalions. Dark was falling when at -last I reached the mill, and all conflicting emotions I might have -felt on approaching it were numbed by reason of the mere physical -effort of pressing forward. Therefore it was that hastening down the -yard, my eyes were blind to neighboring impressions, otherwise some -unaccustomed shape crouching in the shelter of its blackness would -have induced me to a pause. -</p> - -<p> -As it was, I fell, rather than beat, against the door, and then drew -myself back to gather breath. Almost immediately a step sounded coming -down the passage beyond, the door was pulled inward, and I saw the -figure of Jason standing in the opening. -</p> - -<p> -“Ah!” I gasped, and was about to step in, when he gave a sickly -screech and his hands went up, as if in terror to ward off a blow. -</p> - -<p> -I felt a breath at my ear and turned quickly round—and there was the -white face of Duke almost looking over my shoulder! -</p> - - -<h3 id="ch58"> -CHAPTER LVIII.<br/> -<span class="chap_sub">THE “SPECTER HOUND.”</span> -</h3> - -<p> -That night when the flood waters rose to a head was a terrible one for -Winton—one ghastly in the extreme for all lost souls whose black -destinies guided their footsteps to the mill. -</p> - -<p> -Perhaps a terror of being trapped—to what hideous fate, who -knows?—somewhere in the tortuous darkness of the building, sent my -brother leaping by a mad impulse into the waste uproar of the night. -Anyhow, before my confused senses could fully grasp the dread nature -of the situation, he had rushed past me, plunged into and up the yard, -and was racing for his life. -</p> - -<p> -As he sprang by, the cripple made a frantic clutch at him, nipped the -flying skirt of his coat, staggered and rolled over, actually with a -fragment of torn cloth in his hand. He was up on his feet directly, -however, and off in pursuit, though I in my turn vainly grasped at him -as he fled by. -</p> - -<p> -Then reason returned to me and I followed. -</p> - -<p> -It all happened in a moment, and there were we three hotly engaged in -such a tragic game of follow-my-leader as surely had never before been -played in the old city. And there was no fear of comment or -interference. We had the streets, the wind and rain, the night to -ourselves, and, before our eyes, if these failed us, the wastes of -eternity. -</p> - -<p> -Racing in the tracks of the cripple, as he followed in Jason’s, I -managed to keep measured pace with him, and that was all. How he made -such time over the ground with his crooked limbs was matter for -marvel, yet, I think, in that mad brief burst I never lessened the -distance between us by a yard. It was a comparative test of the -fearful, the revengeful and the apprehensive impulses, and sorely I -dreaded in the whirling scurry of the chase that the second would win. -</p> - -<p> -Across the yard—to the left over the short stone bridge, under whose -arch the choked mill-tail tumbled and snarled—a little further and up -Chis’ll street, with a sharp swerve to the right, the hunted man -rushed with Duke at his heels. Then a hundred yards on, in one -lightning-like moment, Jason, giving out in a breathless impulse of -despair, as it seemed, threw himself against the shadowy buttress of a -wall, crouching with his back to the angle of it; Duke, checking his -flying footsteps some paces short of his victim, came to a sudden -stop; and I, carried forward by my own impetus, almost fell against -the cripple, and, staggering, seized him by the arms from behind, and -so held him fiercely, my lungs pumping like piston rods. Suddenly I -marveled to find my captive offering no resistance. -</p> - -<p> -Seeking for the reason of this collapse, I raised my eyes and -wondered: “Can this account for it?” -</p> - -<p> -We stood outside Dr. Crackenthorpe’s house. Light came through a lower -window, immediately opposite us, and set in the luminous square, like -an ugly shadow on a wall, was the profile and upper half of the body -of the doctor himself. He seemed to be bending over some task and the -outline of his face was clearly defined. -</p> - -<p> -Suddenly the clothed flesh of the arms I grasped seemed to flicker, as -it were, with shuddering convulsion, and from the lips of the man held -against me the breath came sibilant like the breath of one caught in a -horror of nightmare. -</p> - -<p> -Before I could think how to act the figure of the doctor rose erect, -and I saw him fix his hat on his head. Evidently he was preparing to -leave the house. -</p> - -<p> -I felt myself drawn irresistibly to one side. Helpless as a child, I -stumbled in the wake of the cripple, tripping over his heels at every -step. He hardly seemed to notice the drag set upon him, but stole into -a patch of deep shadow, without the dim wedge of light cast through -the window, and I had to go, too, if I would keep my hold on him. -</p> - -<p> -Crouching there, with what secret terror on one side and marvel on the -other it is impossible to describe, we saw the dark street and the -driving rain traversed by a shaft of light as the hall door was pulled -open, and become blackness again with its closing. Then, descending -the shallow flight of steps, his head bent to the storm, and one hand -raised to his hat, the doctor came into view and the whole body of the -cripple seemed to shoot rigid with sudden tension. -</p> - -<p> -This fourth actor on the scene, turning away from us, walked, -unconscious of Jason hidden in the shadow as he passed him, up the -street, his hand still to his head, his long skirts driven in front of -him by the wind, so that he looked as if his destiny were pulling him -reluctant forward by all-embracing leading strings. -</p> - -<p> -As he went up the slope and vanished in the darkness, a groan as if of -pent-up agony issued from Duke, and immediately he drew me from the -shadow and round to the foot of the steps. -</p> - -<p> -A chink of light that divided the blackness above us, showed that the -door had not been closed to. Probably the doctor had gone forth on -some brief errand only, and would return in a moment. -</p> - -<p> -Suddenly I became conscious that Duke was mounting the steps—that -some strange spirit, in which his first mission of hate was absorbed, -was moving him to enter the house. -</p> - -<p> -“Where are you going?” I cried, struggling with him. He gave no -answer; took not the least notice of me. What response could I expect -from a madman like this? Staring before him—panting like one at the -end of a race—he slowly ascended, dragging me with him. Then on the -turn of a thought, I quitted my hold of him and he staggered forward. -The next instant he had recovered himself, had pushed open the door -and was in the hall. -</p> - -<p> -I hurried to where Jason yet stood motionless, his face white as a -patch of plaster set against the darkness of the wall. -</p> - -<p> -“Keep off!” he cried, in a wavering voice. -</p> - -<p> -“You fool! It’s I! Didn’t you see him go into that house? Some insane -fancy had drawn him off the scent. Run back to the mill—do you hear? -I won’t leave him—he shan’t follow.” -</p> - -<p> -He came from his corner and clutched me with shaking hands. -</p> - -<p> -“Where’s there money? It’s all useless without that, I tell you. Give -it to me or I’ll kill you. I’ve as much right to it as you. My God! -Why didn’t you tell me the old man was dead? It was devilish to let me -go in on him like that. Tell me where to find money and I’ll take it -and be off!” -</p> - -<p> -“Listen to me. If he comes out again while you talk I won’t answer for -the result. We’ll discuss money matters by and by. Go now—back to the -mill, do you understand? And wait till I come!” -</p> - -<p> -He was about to retort, but some sound, real or fancied, strangled the -words in his throat. He leaped from me—glanced fearfully at the light -streaming from the open door—crossed the street, his body bent -double, and, keeping this posture, hurried with a rapid shuffling -motion back in the direction of the mill. -</p> - -<p> -Standing with one foot on the lowest step leading up to the house, I -watched till he was out of sight, then turned and looked into the -dimly lighted hall. What should I do? How act with the surest safety -and promptitude in so immediate a crisis? I could not guess what -unspeakable attraction had so strangely drawn the hunter from his -trembling quarry at the supreme moment; only I saw that he had -vanished and that the hall was empty of him. -</p> - -<p> -A quick, odd sound coming from the interior of the house decided me. I -sprung up the steps and softly entered the hall. The door leading to -the doctor’s private room, where the murderous busts grinned down, -stood open; and from here issued the noise, that was like the bestial -sputtering growl of some tigerish thing mouthing and mangling its -prey. -</p> - -<p> -I stepped hastily over the threshold and stopped with a jerk of -terror. -</p> - -<p> -Something was there, in the dully lighted room—down on the rug before -the fire. Something had rolled and raved and tore at the material -beneath it—an animal’s skin, judged by the whisps of ragged hair that -stuck in the creature’s claws and between his teeth that had rent them -out—something—Duke, who foamed and raged as he lay sprawled on his -hands and knees and snarled like a wild beast in his frenzy of -insanity. -</p> - -<p> -“He’s mad—mad!” I whispered to myself in an awful voice; and yet he -heard me and paused in the height of his fury, and looked round and up -at me standing white-lipped by the door. -</p> - -<p> -Then suddenly, while I was striving, amid the wild heat of my brain, -to identify some hooded memory that raised its head in darkness, the -maniac sprung to his feet, gripped me by the wrist and pointed down at -the huddled heap beneath him. -</p> - -<p> -“Look!” he shrieked, the firelight dancing in his glittering eyes. -“Look! we’ve met at last! The dog that scared and tortured the -wretched sick boy—the dog, the devil! Into the fire with him to blaze -and writhe and scream as a devil should!” -</p> - -<p> -He plunged again, snarling; and, before I could gather sense to stop -him, had seized and flung the whole mass upon the burning coals. -Flames shot out and around, and the room in a moment was sick with the -stench of flaring pelt. I rushed to tear the heap away; but he met and -struggled with me like a fiend inspired, and helpless I saw the flames -lick higher. -</p> - -<p> -Straining against me, he laughed and yelled: “He wants water! He -shrieks to Abraham—but not a drop—not one! Look at his red tongue, -shooting out in agony! They fall before me—at last, at last! My time -has come!” -</p> - -<p> -His voice rose to a scream—there was a responsive shout from the -door. I slewed my head round and saw the white face of the servant -girl peering through the opening behind the figure of Dr. -Crackenthorpe standing there in black, blank amazement. -</p> - -<p> -“Help!” I cried; “he’s mad!” -</p> - -<p> -With a deep oath the doctor strode forward, and Duke saw him. In an -instant, with a cry of different tone—a shriek of terror—he spun me -from him, sprung past the other, drove the girl screaming into the -passage, and was gone. -</p> - -<p> -“Stop! By all——” -</p> - -<p> -The doctor’s exclamation was for me. I had staggered back, but an -immediate fear drove me, with no time for explanation, to hurried -pursuit. -</p> - -<p> -“Out of the way!” I cried, violently; “he mustn’t escape!” -</p> - -<p> -He would have barred my passage. I came against him with a shock that -sent him reeling. As his hands clutched vainly in the air I rushed -from the room and from the house. -</p> - -<p> -With my first plunge into the street a weltering stream of fire ran -across the sky, and in a moment an explosive crash shook the city like -the bursting open of the gates of torment. -</p> - -<p> -Amid flood and storm and the numbing slam of thunder the tragedy of -the night was drawing to its close. -</p> - - -<h3 id="ch59"> -CHAPTER LIX.<br/> -<span class="chap_sub">INTO THE DEPTHS.</span> -</h3> - -<p> -Momentarily I saw—a black mote in that flickering violet -transparency—the figure of Duke as he ran before me bobbing up and -down like the shadow of the invisible man. Drawn by a sure instinct, -he was heading for the mill, and every nerve must I strain to overtake -him, now goaded by fear and triumph to maniacal frenzy. -</p> - -<p> -But half the distance was covered when the rain swept down in one -blinding sheet, that lashed the gutters into froth a foot high and -numbed the soul with its terrific uproar. -</p> - -<p> -On I staggered, knowing only for my comfort that the pursued must -needs labor against no less resistance than the pursuer. Inch by inch -I fought my way, taking advantage of every buttress and coign of -shelter that presented itself; leaping aside with thump-heart from the -crash of falling tiles or dropping swing of branches, as the wind -flung them right and left in its passing; now stumbling and regaining -my feet, shoulder to the storm, now driven back a pace by some gust—a -giant among its fellows—inch by inch I drove on till the mill yard -was reached; and all the way I gained never a foot upon him I strove -to run down. -</p> - -<p> -Then, rushing along the yard, where comparative shelter was, I found a -thrill of fear, in the midmost confusion of my thoughts, for the -safety of the building itself. For the voice of the mill-tail smote -the roar of the elements and seemed to silence it, and the foam of its -fury sprung and danced above the high-walled channel and flung itself -against the parapet of the bridge in gusts of frosty whiteness. And in -the little lulls came the whistle of sliding tiles from the roof or -snap of them breaking from the walls; so that it seemed before long -nothing but a skeleton of ancient timbers like the ribs and spars of -the phantom death-ship would stand for the blast to scream through. -</p> - -<p> -Then I came panting to the mill, my soul so whelmed in the roar of all -things that room scarcely was for thought of those two stark sleepers -lying quiet above and deaf forevermore to the hateful tumults of -life—came to the mill, and on the instant abandoned hope. For so it -appeared that in rushing from the door none had thought to shut it, -and the tempest had caught and, near battering it from its hinges, had -dashed it, wrenched and splintered, against the wall of the passage -beyond, and in such way that no immediate human power might close it. -And there lay the way into the building; open to all who listed, and -if Jason had run thither, as I bade him—— -</p> - -<p> -These thoughts were in passing. I never stayed my progress for them, -but without pause leaped into the inclosed darkness, and only then I -stood still. -</p> - -<p> -Instantly with my plunge into that pit of blackness the hosts of the -storm without seemed to break and scatter before the wind, shaken with -low spasms of thunder as they fled; but under my feet the racing -waters took up great chords of sound, so that the whole building -trembled and vibrated with their awful music. -</p> - -<p> -Overstrung to a pitch of madness, I felt my way to the foot of the -stairs, and, stumbling, mounted in the darkness, and reached the first -landing. -</p> - -<p> -All was still as death. Perhaps it was death come in a new shape, and -stealthily lying somewhere to trip up my feet in a ghastly game of -clowns. I dared not go further; dared hardly to breathe. -</p> - -<p> -As I stood, a rat began gnawing at the skirting. The jar of his teeth -was like the turning of a rusty lock. The old superstition about -falling houses passed through my mind. What if the close night about -me were to be suddenly rent with the explosive splintering of great -beams—with the raining thunder of roof and chimney-stack pouring -downward in one vast ruin, of which I should be the mangled -palpitating core? -</p> - -<p> -My body burst into a cold sweat. Perhaps above all the fear in me was -that death should find me with my mission unaccomplished; that I -should have striven and waited in vain. -</p> - -<p> -Shrinking, I would not push further to the upper rooms, but felt my -way down the stairs once more. It was, at least, hardly probable that -Jason would have rushed for asylum to the very death chambers above. -More likely was I to find him crouching unnerved, if still alive, in -some dark corner of one of the lower rooms. -</p> - -<p> -As I descended into the passage I fancied I heard a step coming toward -me; and the next moment a dusky shape stood up between me and the dim -oblong of lesser darkness that marked where the front door gaped open. -I ran forward—grasped at it blindly; and long arms were crooked about -me and held me as in a vise. -</p> - -<p> -“Who’s here?” cried Dr. Crackenthorpe, in a mad voice. “Who is it? -Say, Renalt Trender, and let me choke the cursed life out of him!” -</p> - -<p> -His passion would hardly allow him to articulate. He dragged me -unresisting to the door, up the yard, and thrust his ugly face down -till it almost touched mine. -</p> - -<p> -“It is!” he cried, with a scream of fury. “Look—look there! See what -you’ve done!” -</p> - -<p> -I had marked it already—a dull glow rising over the houses and -chimney pots that lay between us and Chis’ll street—a glow writhed -with twisted skeins of smoke, that rolled heavily upward, coiling -sluggishly in the calm that had fallen. -</p> - -<p> -“Look!” he screeched; “the priceless treasures of a life—the glories -I bartered my soul for—doomed, in a moment, and by your act! Oh, dog, -for revenge!” -</p> - -<p> -“You lie!” I cried, outshrieking his rage with a fury that half-shook -him from his hold on me. “I had no part in it! You saw it and you -know! Go! Attend to your own. I’ve deadlier work in hand.” -</p> - -<p> -I tore myself free of him with a violence that brought him on his -knees, and hurried up the yard once more and into the pitchy house. He -came upon me again while I was fumbling in my pockets for a match, but -he put out no hand to me a second time. -</p> - -<p> -“Listen, you,” he said, and the words rose and burst from his throat -like bubbles. “You have been a thorn in my foot ever since I trod this -city. If yours wasn’t the act, you were the cause. I would have killed -you both on the spot—you and your accomplice—if the fire, blazing -out on the curtains, had left me time. Now you shall know what it is -to have made me desperate—desperate, do you understand, you fulsome -cur? Better take a viper to bed with you than the thought of my -revenge.” -</p> - -<p> -“Dr. Crackenthorpe,” I said, very coolly, “you are a ruffian and a -blackguard. Which is the more desperate of us two is an open question. -Anyhow, I fancy myself the stronger. There’s the door. If you remain -this side of it after I have counted twelve you try conclusions with -the mill-tail yonder.” -</p> - -<p> -I had struck a match while I spoke and kindled an oil lamp standing on -a bracket. This wrestle with an evil soul had braced my nerves like a -tonic. -</p> - -<p> -He slapped back against the passage wall, staring at me and gasping. -His face, I saw, was grimed with smoke, and his coat scorched in -places. -</p> - -<p> -I began to count, looking into his eyes, with a grim smile—had got as -far as nine, without awakening movement on his part, when a deathly -yell rung through the house and the words died on my lips. -</p> - -<p> -I felt the blood leave my face, sinking like water in snow. There was -no mistaking the direction from which the sound had come. It issued -from the haunted room—there from the black end of the passage—from -the core of hideous night, whose silence no storm could penetrate. -</p> - -<p> -Once I looked at the face before me and saw my own terror reflected in -it; then I sprung for the dreadful place, sick, at whatever cost, to -solve the mystery of the cry. -</p> - -<p> -Groping for the heavy timbered door, I came suddenly upon a wide -luminous square and almost fell into it. Then I saw, indeed, that the -door itself was open and that a dim glow lighted the interior of the -room. Something else I saw in the same instant—Duke, standing at the -open mouth of the cupboard that inclosed the wheel—Duke, with a -fearful smile on his white face, and his head bent as if he listened. -And his black glowing eyes, set in pools of shadow, alone moved, -fixing their gaze steadily on mine as I came into their vision. -</p> - -<p> -“Stop!” he said, in a clear, low voice. He need not have bidden me. My -limbs seemed paralyzed—my heart stiffening with deadly foreboding of -some approaching wickedness. -</p> - -<p> -A lighted lantern stood near him on the floor and threw a gigantic -distorted shadow of him on the wall against the window. -</p> - -<p> -“Did you hear?” he said, in a whisper that thrilled to me where I -stood. “Is it haunted, this room of yours? It seems so. Listen!” -</p> - -<p> -He leaned over and looked down into the pit, so that the upper half of -his body was plunged in black shadow. Simultaneously an appalling -scream rose from the depths and echoed away among the rafters above. -</p> - -<p> -The marrow froze in my bones. I struggled vainly to rush forward, but -my feet would not obey my will. -</p> - -<p> -“My God!” I muttered from a crackled throat—“my God!” -</p> - -<p> -He was looking at me again across the glowing space, a grin twitching -up his mouth like a dog’s. -</p> - -<p> -“If you move to come at me,” he said, “I leap down there and end it. -He won’t thank you, though.” -</p> - -<p> -“Duke,” I forced myself to mutter, at length, in uncontrollable -horror. “Is it Jason? Oh! be satisfied at last and God will forgive -you.” -</p> - -<p> -“Why, so I am!” he cried, with a whispering laugh. “But I never sent -him down there. He went of his own accord—a secret, snug -hiding-place. But he should have waited longer; and who would have -thought of looking so deep! It was his leaning over, as he came up, to -put the lantern where it stands that drew me.” -</p> - -<p> -In the sickness of my terror I saw it all. Jason, flying back to the -mill, mad with fear, mad for the means of escape—Jason, who had -already solved the mystery of the treasure, and had only hitherto -lacked the courage necessary to a descent upon it—Jason, in his -despair, had seized a light, burst into the room of silence; had found -the wheel stopped and the key in the lock, as I had left them; had, -summoning his last of manliness, gone down into the pit and, -returning, had met his fearful enemy face to face. -</p> - -<p> -I read it all and, utterly hopeless and demoralized as I was—knowing -that a movement on my part would precipitate the tragedy—yet found -voice to break the spell, and delivered my agony in a shriek. -</p> - -<p> -“Jason!” I screamed; “Jason! Climb up! You are as strong as he! Climb -up and defy him! We are two to one!” -</p> - -<p> -Even as the volume of my cry seemed to strike a responsive weak echo -from the bowels of the pit, I was conscious that Dr. Crackenthorpe was -breathing behind me over my shoulder. And while the sound of my voice -ran from beam to beam in devilish harmonics, the cripple suddenly -threw up his arms with a quavering screech and leaped upon the -threshold of the cupboard. -</p> - -<p> -“The man!” he yelled; “the dog, and now the man! I know him at last!” -</p> - -<p> -Dr. Crackenthorpe broke past me with an answering cry: -</p> - -<p> -“He fired my house! Stop him! The hound! Stop him!” -</p> - -<p> -As he sprang forward Duke, with a sudden swoop, seized the lantern -from the floor and flung it at him; and at the same instant—as I saw -by the flaming arc of light it made—clutched the rope and swung -himself into the vault. The lantern crashed and was extinguished. The -doctor uttered a fierce oath. Spellbound I stood, and for half a dozen -seconds the weltering blackness eddied with a ghastly silence. Then I -heard the doctor fling past me, running out of the room with a fearful -exclamation on his lips, and, as he went, scream after scream rise -from the depths, so that my soul seemed to faint with the agony of it. -</p> - -<p> -Groping, staggering, my brain reeling, I stumbled toward the sound. -</p> - -<p> -“God forgive me!” I whispered. “Death is better than this.” -</p> - -<p> -Even with the thought a new uproar broke upon my senses—the -thunderous heaving onrush of a mighty torrent of water underfoot. -</p> - -<p> -In a flash I knew what had happened. The hideous creature had lifted -the sluice and turned the swollen flood upon the wheel. -</p> - -<p> -Then the past swept over me in a hurried panorama as my poor brain -paused for rest. -</p> - -<p> -Who killed Modred—How did he die? -</p> - -<p> -What is the mystery of Duke Straw? -</p> - -<p> -What was the sin of my mother? -</p> - -<p> -Whose portrait was it that my father nailed to the axle of the wheel? -</p> - -<p> -These and many other of the problems haunting my life came to me in -swift succession, only to be passed in dullness and left unanswered. -</p> - - -<h3 id="ch60"> -CHAPTER LX.<br/> -<span class="chap_sub">WHO KILLED MODRED?</span> -</h3> - -<p> -In the instant of realization, as I stood near, death-stricken, where -I had stopped, I felt the whole room shake and tremble as the torrent -leaped upon the wheel with a flinging shock, heard a clanking screech -rise from the monster as it turned, slowly at first, but quickly -gathering speed under the awful pressure; heard one last bubbling -scream waver up from the depths and die within the narrow vault; then -all sense was whelmed and numbed in the single booming crash of water. -</p> - -<p> -Already, indeed, the choked water, hurled high by the paddles, was -gushing through the opening in cascades upon the floor. How long would -the ancient rafters and beams and walls resist the terrible pressure? -</p> - -<p> -I had no thought or desire to escape. What had taken me long to -describe, all passed in a few seconds. But Providence, that here -included so many actors in the tragedy in one common ruin, had not -writ my sentence, and my young suffering soul it spared to this dark -world of memories. -</p> - -<p> -Insatiable yet, however, it claimed a last victim. -</p> - -<p> -He came running back now, breathing hateful triumph in the lust of his -wickedness—came to gloat over the work of his evil hands. -</p> - -<p> -I heard him splash into the water that poured from the wheel—dance in -it—laugh and scream out: -</p> - -<p> -“Tit for tat, and the devil pipes! Caught in his own net! You, there, -in the dark! Do you hear? Where are you? Where?—my arms hunger for -you!” -</p> - -<p> -The paralysis of my senses left me. -</p> - -<p> -“Man or fiend?” I shrieked above the thunder of the water. “Down on -your knees! It is the end for both of us! Down, and weep and pray—for -I believe, before God, you have just murdered your son!” -</p> - -<p> -There was a brief fearful pause; he seemed to be listening—then, -without preface or warning, there came a sudden surging crash, -deafening and appalling and I thought “Is it upon us?” -</p> - -<p> -Still I stood unscathed, though a cracking volley of sounds, rending -and shattering, succeeded the crash, and one wild, dreadful cry that -pierced through all. Then silence fell, broken only by the smooth, -washing sweep of a great body of water through the channel below. -</p> - -<p> -Silence fell and lapped me in a merciful unconsciousness; for, with -the relaxing of the mental pressure I went plump down upon the floor -where I stood and lay in a long faint. -</p> - -<p class="spacer"> -* * * * * * -</p> - -<p> -When I came to myself a dim wash of daylight soaking through the -blurred window had found my face as I lay prone upon the boards, and -was crawling up to my eyes like a child to open them. An ineffable -soft sense of peace kept still my exhausted limbs in the first waking -moments, and only by degrees occurred to me the horror and tragedy of -the previous night. -</p> - -<p> -Still I made no attempt to rise, hoping only in forlorn self-pity that -death would come to me gently as I lay and take me by the hand, -saying: “With the vexing problems of life you need nevermore trouble -yourself.” -</p> - -<p> -All around, save for the deep murmur of water, was deathly quiet, and -I prayed that it might remain so; that nothing might ever recall me to -weariful action again. -</p> - -<p> -Then a faint groan came to my ears and the misericordious spell was -broken. -</p> - -<p> -Slowly and feebly I gathered myself together to rise. But a second -moan dissipated the selfish shadow and stung me to some reluctant -action. -</p> - -<p> -Leaning upon my hand I looked about me and could hardly believe the -evidence of my senses when I saw the walls and rafters of the fateful -room stretching about me unaltered and unscathed. The crash, that had -seemed to involve all in one splintering ruin, had left, seemingly, no -evidence of its nature whatsoever. Only, for a considerable distance -from the mouth of the cupboard, the floor was stained with a sop of -water; and, not a dozen feet from me, huddled in the darkest of it, -lay a heaped and sodden mass that stirred and sent forth another moan -as I looked. -</p> - -<p> -Painfully, then, I got upon my feet and stole, with no sentiment but a -weak curiosity, to the prostrate thing. It was as if I had died and my -dissatisfied ghost postponed its departure, seeking the last -explanation of things. Thus, while my soul was sensitive to the least -expression of the tragedy that absorbed it, in the human world outside -it seemed no longer to feel an interest. -</p> - -<p> -And here, under my eyes, was tumbled the latest grim victim of this -house accursed—the engineer of much diabolical machinery mangled by -the demon he had himself evoked. What a pitiful, collapsed ruin, that, -for all its resourcefulness, could only moan and suffer! -</p> - -<p> -Only a thin thread of crimson ran from the corner of his mouth, and -where it had made during the night a little pool on the floor under -his head it looked like ink. -</p> - -<p> -Near him lay a great jagged block of wood green with slime. I crept to -the cupboard opening and looked down. -</p> - -<p> -The wheel was gone! -</p> - -<p> -Then I knew what had happened. The house had triumphed over the -stubborn monster that had so long proved its curse. At the supreme -moment the vast dam had yielded and saved the building. It had gone, -leaving not a trace of wreckage but this—this, and the single torn -fragment that had struck down the wretch who set it in motion—had -gone, bearing away with it in one boiling ruin the crushed and twisted -bodies of the last two victims of its insensate fury. -</p> - -<p> -But one further sign was there of its mighty passing—a ragged rent a -foot square driven through the very wall of the house within the -vault. -</p> - -<p> -And here a thin shaft of light came in and fell, like the focus of an -awful eye, full upon the miniature where it lay nailed, face upward, -upon the axle—fell, also, upon that empty niche in the brickwork -where once had stood the treasure for which Jason had given his life. -</p> - -<p> -I turned to the shattered man, leaned over him, touched him. He gave a -gasp of agony and opened his eyes. The white stare of horror was in -them and the blood ran faster from his mouth. -</p> - -<p> -“Water!” he cried, with a dry, clacking sound in his throat. -</p> - -<p> -I hurried from the room, although he called after me feebly not to -leave him, drew a jugful from the tap in the kitchen and returned. I -heard no sound in the house. A glimmer of flood came in through the -gaping door to the yard. No immediate help was possible in the rising -of that direful morning after the storm. I was alone with my many -dead. -</p> - -<p> -I put the jug to his lips and he sucked down a long, gluttonous -draught. Then he looked at me with eager inquiry breaking through his -mortal torment. -</p> - -<p> -“My chest is all broken in,” he said, straining out his voice in -bitter anguish. “When I move the end will come. Quick!—you said -something—at the last moment—what was it?” -</p> - -<p> -“That I believed it was your son you sent to his death down there.” -</p> - -<p> -“I have no son. Once—yes—but he died—was poisoned—or drowned.” -</p> - -<p> -“Oh! God forgive this man!” I cried, lifting my face in terror, and in -that sick moment inspiration, I think, was given me. -</p> - -<p> -“He never died. He was saved, to grow up a hopeless cripple, and that -was he you murdered last night.” -</p> - -<p> -He closed his eyes again, and I saw his ashen lips moving. -</p> - -<p> -“Oh, man,” I cried, “are you praying? Take grace of repentance and -humble your wicked soul at the last. I can’t believe you innocent of a -share in the wretchedness of this wretched house. I am the only one -left of it—broken and lost to hope, but I forgive you—do you -understand?—I forgive you.” -</p> - -<p> -“I never killed the boy,” he muttered in a low, suffering tone, and -with his eyes still closed. -</p> - -<p> -“Will you tell me all you know about it? If you are guiltless, be -merciful as you hope for mercy.” -</p> - -<p> -“Modred found the cameo—picked it up—he told me himself—in this -very room—where—your father must have dropped it.” -</p> - -<p> -I cried “yes” passionately, and implored him to go on. -</p> - -<p> -“He—the old man—that night—accused me of stealing it. It was the -first—I’d heard of it. Presently—he fell asleep—in his chair. I -thought I would—seize the opportunity to—look for it over the -house—quietly. Finding myself—outside—the boy’s room—I went in to -see—how—he—was getting on. He was awake—and—there was the very -thing—in his hand. I asked him how—he had come by it. He told me. I -demanded it—of him—said—your father had—promised it me. -Nothing—availed—availed.” -</p> - -<p> -He was gasping and panting to such a degree that I thought even now he -would die, leaving the words I maddened for unspoken. Brutally, in my -torment, I urged him on. -</p> - -<p> -“He—wouldn’t give it up. I rushed at him—he put it in his -mouth—and—as I seized him, tried to swallow it—and choked. It had -stuck at—the entrance to his gullet. In a few moments—in his state -he was too—weak to expel it—he was dead. Perhaps—I might have saved -him—but the trinket—the beautiful trinket!” -</p> - -<p> -My heart seemed scarcely to beat as I listened. At last I knew the -truth—knew it wicked and inhuman; yet—thank God—less atrocious than -I had dreaded. -</p> - -<p> -“But afterward,” I whispered—“afterward?” -</p> - -<p> -“There was a plan,” he moaned, and his speech came with difficulty, -“inspired me. I dissuaded—your father—from encouraging—any inquiry. -A post-mortem, I knew—would lay open the secret—and lose me—the -cameo. He was buried—on my certificate. I got—the man—George -White—under my thumb—fed him on fire—lent him money—made him—my -tool. One dark—stormy—night—we opened the grave—the coffin. The -devil—lent a hand. A new grave—had to be dug—a foot away. It was -only—necessary—to—make a hori—horizontal opening—in the -intervening soil. I had—my tools—and sliced open the dead boy’s -throat—and found what I wanted. Only the sexton knew. -Nothing—afterward—would persuade—the mad fool—that the boy—hadn’t -been buried alive—and that—I—hadn’t murdered him. Only his fear—of -me—kept his mouth—shut. This is—the truth.” -</p> - -<p> -He lay quite still, exhausted with his long, cruel effort. I touched -him gently with my hand. -</p> - -<p> -“As I hope for rest myself,” I said, “I forgive you, now that you have -spoken, for all this long, hideous misery. The treasure you staked -against your soul is passed in fire and water and lost forever. -Nothing remains to you here; and, for the future—oh, pray, man, pray, -while there is time!” -</p> - -<p> -My voice broke in a sob. He strove to lift himself, leaning upon his -hand, and immediately his mouth was choked with blood. -</p> - -<p> -“Where’s he?” he cried, in a stifled voice—“Down there?” -</p> - -<p> -“That way he went. The waters have him now—him, and my brother Jason, -who was on the wheel also when you raised the hatch. God knows, their -bodies may be miles away by this time.” -</p> - -<p> -He looked up at me with an awful expression; then, without another -word, dragged himself inch by inch along the floor to the pit mouth -and, reaching it, looked down—and immediately a great sputtering cry -burst from him: -</p> - -<p> -“Who put that there?—that? the miniature? I gave it to—who did it, I -say? It’s a trick! My soul burns—it burns already! Tear it off! My -own portrait—Minna!” -</p> - -<p> -Thus and in such manner I heard my mother’s name spoken for the first -time; felt the awful foundering truth burst upon my heart. Uttering -it, the soul of this fearful man tore free with a last dying scream of -agony, and he dropped upon his face over the threshold of the running -vault. -</p> - -<p> -One moment, fate-stricken, I heard in the silence the heavy drip of -something going pattering down into the pit—the next, darkness -overwhelmed and the world ceased for me. -</p> - -<p class="spacer"> -* * * * * -</p> - -<p> -Did I ever see Zyp again? I know that some one came to me, lying -entranced in a long, sick dream, who bore her resemblance, at least, -and who spoke gentle words to me and put cold, sweet drink to my lips. -But, when I woke at last, she was not there—only a kind, soft woman, -a ministering nurse, who moved without noise, and foresaw all my -fretful wants. -</p> - -<p> -If she came, she went and left no trace; and I know in my heart I am -never to see her more. -</p> - -<p> -And here, month by month, I sit alone in the old haunted, crazy -place—alone with my memories and my ghosts and my ancient fruitless -regrets. -</p> - -<p> -Dolly and my father—the doctor, and those other two, found far away, -welded in a dead embrace, and crushed and dinted one into the -other—the fair and the ugly, all, all gone, and I am alone. -</p> - -<p> -I am not thirty, yet my hair is white and it is time I was gone. -</p> - -<p> -And to hear death knock at my door this very night would be ecstasy. -</p> - -<p class="end"> -[THE END.] -</p> - - -<h2> -TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES. -</h2> - -<p> -The edition published by John Long (London, 1902) was referenced for -most of the changes listed below. -</p> - -<p> -Minor spelling inconsistencies (<i>e.g.</i> finger-tips/finger tips, -footfalls/foot-falls, etc.) and obsolete spellings (<i>e.g.</i> clew, -grewsome, etc.) have been preserved. -</p> - -<p class="noindent"> -<b>Alterations to the text</b>: -</p> - -<p> -Add TOC. -</p> - -<p> -Assorted punctuation corrections. -</p> - -<p class="noindent"> -[Chapter V] -</p> - -<p> -Change (“It’s awful and <i>its</i> grand, but there are always”) to <i>it’s</i>. -</p> - -<p> -“and she <i>fell</i> at home among the flowers at once” to <i>felt</i>. -</p> - -<p> -“forever and a day, Mr. <i>Ralf</i> Trender” to <i>Ralph</i>. -</p> - -<p> -“<i>Its</i> naught that concerns you,” to <i>It’s</i>. -</p> - -<p class="noindent"> -[Chapter VIII] -</p> - -<p> -“on the <i>wash hand stand</i> a rush candle” to <i>wash-hand stand</i>. -</p> - -<p class="noindent"> -[Chapter X] -</p> - -<p> -(glancing at me, “<i>Dad</i> thought there ought to be) to <i>dad</i>. -</p> - -<p class="noindent"> -[Chapter XIV] -</p> - -<p> -“on which a protruding red <i>upperlip</i> lay like” to <i>upper lip</i>. -</p> - -<p> -“I had been with him getting on a a year” delete one <i>a</i>. -</p> - -<p class="noindent"> -[Chapter XV] -</p> - -<p> -“eye to find flaws in my <i>phrasology</i>” to <i>phraseology</i>. -</p> - -<p class="noindent"> -[Chapter XVII] -</p> - -<p> -“something the fascinating figure she always was” add <i>of</i> after -<i>something</i>. -</p> - -<p class="noindent"> -[Chapter XVII] -</p> - -<p> -(“passion of the past” the <i>poet</i> strove to explore) to <i>poets</i>. -</p> - -<p class="noindent"> -[Chapter XXI] -</p> - -<p> -“another weekly dissipation on <i>Hampsted</i> heath is over” to -<i>Hampstead</i>. -</p> - -<p class="noindent"> -[Chapter XXIII] -</p> - -<p> -(“Well, <i>its</i> best,” I muttered at last) to <i>it’s</i>. -</p> - -<p class="noindent"> -[Chapter XXX] -</p> - -<p> -(“I mean it <i>to</i>,” I said) to <i>too</i>. -</p> - -<p class="noindent"> -[Chapter XLI] -</p> - -<p> -“It is the man’s <i>were wolf</i>, my good friend” to <i>werewolf</i>. -</p> - -<p class="noindent"> -[Chapter XLII] -</p> - -<p> -(“question, mon <i>frere</i>, and I will answer.”) to <i>frère</i>. -</p> - -<p class="noindent"> -[Chapter XLIII] -</p> - -<p> -“and sobbing like <i>an</i> hysterical school-girl.” to <i>a</i>. -</p> - -<p class="noindent"> -[Chapter XLV] -</p> - -<p> -“I was doing so <i>matter-in-fact</i> as to half-cure me” to -<i>matter-of-fact</i>. -</p> - -<p class="noindent"> -[Chapter XLVI] -</p> - -<p> -“and well out of the <i>perdendicular</i>” to <i>perpendicular</i>. -</p> - -<p class="noindent"> -[Chapter LI] -</p> - -<p> -(to a patient I once attended. <i>Good night</i>.”) to <i>Good-night</i>. -</p> - -<p class="noindent"> -[Chapter LII] -</p> - -<p> -“held the paper in such position that he could write” add <i>a</i> after -<i>such</i>. -</p> - -<p class="noindent"> -[Chapter LIV] -</p> - -<p> -“<i>Good morning</i> to you. May I remind you that” to <i>Good-morning</i>. -</p> - -<p class="noindent"> -[Chapter LV] -</p> - -<p> -“the <i>damned</i> water spurted and leaped from” to <i>dammed</i>. -</p> - -<p class="noindent"> -[Chapter LVII] -</p> - -<p> -“I have not been <i>mere</i> active in your succor” to <i>more</i>. -</p> - -<p class="noindent"> -[Chapter LVIII] -</p> - -<p> -“Some insane fancy had drawn <i>his</i> off the scent” to <i>him</i>. -</p> - -<p class="end"> -[End of Text] -</p> - -<div style='display:block; margin-top:4em'>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE MILL OF SILENCE ***</div> -<div style='text-align:left'> - -<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> -Updated editions will replace the previous one—the old editions will -be renamed. -</div> - -<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> -Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright -law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, -so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United -States without permission and without paying copyright -royalties. 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