 CHAPTER XII The fields and hedgerows round Osthorpe were white with wintry rime, and all the trees were fairy trees wreathed with hoarfrost. In a pleasant contrast to this all-pervading whiteness, the lighted casements of cottages and homesteads shone out cheerily with ruddy fire-glow or yellow candle-light, brightening the arctic landscape and comforting the wayfarer with the assurance of home and shelter near. The old, ugly church with its bare brick tower and blank, rayless windows alone looked bleak and grim. Everywhere else there was a twinkle of light, the gleam of a fire, blue smoke curling up through the clear night sky, the sense of a homely, inhabited world. The brighter spot in the village, the very focus of comfort and good cheer and homeliness and pleasant society, was the three sugar loaves in, a long, low, substantial building, standing bravely out where two roads went off at right angles from the end of the broad village street. The proprietor of the sugar loaves, farmed a few acres of fertile pasture, speculated in his small way in store-cattle, was an amateur of pigs, fattened turkeys for the Christmas market, and sold butter all the year round. Hence had arisen a spaciousness and air of plenty about the inn and its surroundings, which the mere traffic in neat wines, beer, and spirits could scarcely have produced. The very look of the house, inside and out, the warm, cosy rooms and sanded passages, the glowing kitchen and cool dairy, the barns, poultry houses and pigsty's adjacent, suggested good cheer and an almost gargantuan plenty. Behind the bar was the parlour, a low room with a heavily timbered ceiling, a wide fireplace, deeply recessed casement windows looking into a garden, where flowers and vegetables grew in homely propinquity. Parsley and pinks, kale and cabbage roses, stocks and radishes jostling one another in boxed-edge beds, screened and intersected by espaliers, which were supposed to grow the biggest coddling apples in the county. Tonight the closely-drawn red-mourine curtains shut out the view of the whiteened beds, where only an occasional kale sprout perked its green crest above the rhymy ground. All within was comfort and warmth, shining brown walls and shining brown chairs and tables, reflecting the crimson gleam of the fire and the yellow flame of the tall candles in old brass candlesticks. Gas had never invaded Osthorpe, and the landlord of the Sugar Loaves set his face against paraffin and the whole family of oils. Candles were one of the outward and visible signs of those good old Tory principles which John Rhind of the Sugar Loaves had inherited from his father and grandfather, together with the brass candlesticks and the freehold of the inn, and he meant to burn candles to his dying day. John Rhind, as the possessor of his homestead and farm, looked upon himself as one of the landowners of the place. He was inwardly pleased when working men or small boys addressed him as squire. He felt himself a bulwark of church and state. He patronised Mr. Mork, the curate, and he looked down upon the schoolmaster. His wife was the best dressed woman in Osthorpe, after Miss Courtney, and his daughter played the piano and worked in cruels all day long, like the finest lady in the land. This parlour at the Three Sugar Loaves was the village club, and the chosen resort of all the best people in the parish of Osthorpe, and even some other parishes can terminus therewith, for there was no other inn within ten miles which afforded such solid comforts or enjoyed so wide a popularity. Here, on this December night, were assembled Shaftow, Jeb, the village doctor, Mr. Gomersall, farmer, and church warden of Petrie Farm, a cosy old homestead a mile and a half from Osthorpe, Mr. Uppam, a better known as Jack Uppam, the solicitor, who had his office at Highclear, but who lived in a rustic bow-windowed cottage in Osthorpe Lane, and lastly William Wadd, Morton Blake's bailiff, gamekeeper, and factotum. The trial of Humphry Vargas was but a week old, and it was still the staple of conversation at the Three Sugar Loaves. It had been discussed in all its bearings, yet no one had wearied of the subject. There was a strong human interest in it which made the theme agreeable to every mind. There was a difference of opinion too among the nightly guests of the parlour which heightened the interest. There was a door of communication between the parlour and the bar, a door which was generally left open or ajar, for the convenience of prompt attendance on the part of the landlord, who waited in person on his parlour-customers, deeming those convivial gentlemen the mainstay of his trade, and who very often joined in the conviviality, while his wife, a plump, comely personage, plied her needle by the neat little fireplace in the bar, and was pleased to hear her husband get the best of an argument, or put down a political opponent with the high-handed authority of a fine old pig-headed conservatism. Tonight, just as the conversation in the parlour was loudest, Morton Blake, who but rarely was known to cross the threshold of the Sugar Loaves, opened the front door and came to the little half-door of the bar. Why, Mr.—began John Rhind, surprised at the apparition, but Morton put his finger on his lips. He pointed significantly to the half-open door of communication, whereupon the landlord quietly closed it. May I come in and sit in your bar for a little while, Rhind? said Morton. Why, of course you can, sir, and welcome you are, too. Your father was never the stranger here that you are. Many a time he's sat in that chair, while he had his hunters mouthwashed out, after a hard day, and has taken his glass of beer as friendly as if he'd been one of the Smockfrock farmers here about. Not a bit of pride, sir, the genuine metal, and as fine a looking gentleman as ever wore shoe-leather. I'm glad you liked him, Rhind. I'm always glad to hear him praised. You've never heard anybody speak against him, our warrant. No, thank God. He seems never to have made an enemy, in spite of that fellow's insinuations, pursued Morton thoughtfully, and with a darkening brow. Meaning the prisoner's counsel, sir. Oh, Lord, don't you take no heed of what he said? They must insinuate, Summit. They're paid to do it. I don't want anyone to know I'm here, Rhind. All right, sir. I can keep that their door fast, and you can sit there snug till we shuts up, if you like. Oh, but I want the door a little way open. I hear from Wad that there's been a good deal of talk about the trial, and I want to hear what people say about it. They wouldn't talk freely before me, you see. And I can't trust to Wad's report of their conversation. He muddles everything so. I want to hear with my own ears. Oh, that's easy enough, sir, answered Rhind. They were all full of it five minutes ago when I took in fresh glasses. I'll just set the door ajar, and you may hear every syllable, and none of them chaps need be any the wiser. Guilty! replied Jack Uppam, pursuing the argument of the evening, after a replenishing of glasses all round, and a general filling of pipes. The farmer and the bailiff smoked clay church wardens. The doctor carried a short, black-muscled meershaw in the breast-pockets of his cutaway coat. The lawyer alone indulged in cigars. Guilty! repeated Mr. Uppam, glaring defiance at Shaftow, Jeb. Why, of course, a fellow's guilty. Would any man put himself in such a fix who wasn't? A man doesn't put his neck into a noose without reason. Did you never hear of a man losing temper with fortune and hanging himself, because life didn't sit easy upon him? argued the surgeon. Did you never hear of suicides? I thought they were common enough. You can hardly take up a newspaper without reading of three or four cases, which would have been called fellow de se fifty years ago. Nowadays we're more charitable and call them temporary insanity. Now what I say is that this vagus gave himself up in a fit of temporary insanity. A poor wretch like that, with a heart no bigger than a shrimps, hasn't pluck enough to go and buy three penitha rope and put it round his own neck. He'd rather give himself up to a policeman and get the job done for him. It isn't the first time a man has confessed to a crime he never committed, and I don't suppose it'll be the last. But as sure as I'm sitting here in this armchair, smoking this pipe, it wasn't Humphrey Vargas who murdered Walter Blake. The listener, sitting between the half-open door and the snug little fireplace in the bar, waited with contracted brows and set lips for what was coming next. Oh, but look here now, Shaftow, remonstrated Joe Gommasall, the church warden, who was one of Mr. Jeb's best customers, and therefore had a claim to speak with authority. There is no use in launching out with such statements, unless you're prepared to tell us what grounds you go upon. That's easily done. First and foremost, the confession made by Humphrey Vargas is a cock-and-bull story. Any fool can see that. If I'd had to defend him, I should have made a much stronger point of that than his counsel did. Oh, if he'd had Jeb for his counsel, of course, he'd have got off—said up him with a sneer. Shaftow Jeb was one of those clever men whose self-conscious cleverness offends more than their good nature pleases. Secondly, continued Jeb, ignoring the interruption, and this the prisoner's counsel ought to have found out, for it was known to the police at the times, the man who killed Walter Blake was on horseback. How do you know that? asked Gommasall. By the evidence of the hoof-prints on the road and bank. There was a frost the night after the murder—a light frost, but enough to harden every footmark on the road. I was out with the constable and another man next morning, examining the scene of the murder. Well, gentlemen, Mr. Blake's horse had gone home. There was no doubt as to him. He had rushed off like a mad thing in his fright, and made a dash right across blatch-marden-cops. There were traces of his flight through the brushwood and across the stream, and a bit of his bridle hanging on a low branch, plenty to show the way he took, and that he didn't lose much time about it, was proved at the inquest. For a boy found him feeding on Tangly Common at half-past six, ever so long before anybody knew about the murder. But just where Blake was found, there were traces of another horse's hoofs, as if one horseman had followed the other. Both stopped at the same point. There was nothing to show that the second horseman had gone on to Osthorpe. But on the clay bank, within a few yards of the spot where the murdered man was found, there were traces to show that a horse had been jumped from the road to the bank, and across the hedge into the meadow beyond. It was a blind hedge with a good deal of greenery about it, and the horse had gone crashing through a thick growth of blackberry bushes and oak saplings. In the field we lost all trace of him, for there were a couple of mares and folds grazing, and the marks on the grass were not distinct enough to show where the print had been made by an iron shoe, or where by the unshod hoof. There was a gate leading out of the field into an accommodation road. The kind of lane that an Irishman calls a Boreen, but here the mud was so thick and the ground so broken we could trace nothing. How the horseman doubled and wound, or where he went I can't say, but it's perfectly clear to me, and it was clear at the time to old Tom Purdy the Constable, but I suppose he's in his dotage now and has forgotten all about it, that there was a horseman with Walter Blake when he was murdered. The company were evidently impressed. Mr. Jeb had said a good deal upon previous evenings, but he had never stated his case plainly until now. Why didn't you come forward and state this at the trial? asked Upham. Shafto Jeb shrugged his shoulders. The man had counseled to defend him, he said. I suppose that his counsel would have heard all that I could tell him. You ought to make it known even now, said Gomezll. Oh, I have thought of penning a letter to the Times, replied Jeb, but I think it's hardly worthwhile. I have signed a memorial to the Home Secretary, and I don't think the poor devil will be hanged. Morton Blake started at this, and half rose from his seat. Oh, there's a memorial is there, inquired the farmer. Yes, the big wigs have started it. Sir Nathaniel Ritherdon, Lord Blatch-Martin, and Sir Everard Courtney and the rest of them. There'll be a commutation of the sentence depend upon it, Penal Servitude for Life, and as the fellow no doubt appropriated the dead man's watch and purse, he will get no more than he deserves if he finishes his career at Portland. I don't think Mr. Tomplin would have made much out of your hoof, Prince Jeb, if he had been ever so well posted, said up him, the attorney, with a critical air. On a day when thirty or forty men were out hunting, a jump more or less would count for very little. But the hounds didn't run that way. Oh, no, but some fellow trying a shortcut, you know. Nonsense, man! The hunt was never within three miles of the spot. It wasn't the jump that was extraordinary, but the fact that the two horsemen rode to that spot together, that Blake was murdered on that spot, and that the second horseman, whoever he was, rode off across country from that spot. How can anyone tell that the two horsemen were together, persisted the lawyer? Their footprints may have been made at separate times, and the fact of the horseman jumping the bank at that point may have been a simple coincidence, some farmer making a shortcut home after the hunt. I asked all the fellows who live out that way, and could hear of no one who had ridden across that field, answered Jeb. Jack Uppam made very light of Mr. Jeb's piece of evidence. The two men always disagreed with each other upon principle. Each had a great idea of his own cleverness, and each thought the other wanted putting down. They were both members of Osthorpe Vestrie, a narrow-minded village oligarchy, which believed itself to hold as distinct a place in history as the Council of Ten. And that's your only ground for believing Vargas innocent, said Uppam sneeringly. I don't say it's my only reason, it's one of my reasons. Well, let's hear a few of the others. Not tonight. I have no brief to defend Mr. Vargas, and I don't feel myself called upon to make any further statement of my reasons for believing him innocent. If a man of that stamp chooses to put a rope round his neck, it isn't my business to take it off. I vote we'd change the conversation, suggested Gommasol, who foresaw the danger of a wordy war between the lawyer and the doctor. We've talked a precious deal too much about this, Vargas. He's not an interesting character, and he isn't worth it. How are you off for pheasants this year, Ward? Demanded the farmer, turning to Mr. Blake's factotum, a stolid personage who enjoyed society, but rarely spoke unless he was spoken to. Oh, pretty well, thank you, farmer. But we should be just as well off if we hadn't any except for Mrs. Cook. Mr. Blake don't take the interest in the covers as his father did. He don't care about breeding, and he ain't hot up on shooting. He just takes up his gun in what I call an amateurish sort of way, dilly taunting like, and he's a fairish shot I'll allow. But when none of the spirit as his father had, when he got in a warm corner, peppering away at the birds like mad, then he don't have the right sort of people at his place, neither. None of them wild blades that used to keep us all on the move, and never went to bed at night till it was time to get up in the morning. Oh, times have changed, Ward, said the lawyer. Oh, so they have, Mr. Oppum, but they ain't changed for the better. Arvest is bad, and beasts is dear, and a good bit of horse flesh ain't to be had, and this ear country is crisscrossed with railways to that degree that you can't go for a quiet ride without finding your horses shying away from a locomotive, or start a fox so that you mayn't have to chop him up in a tunnel. There's no improvement in anything except guns, and I like the old-fashioned sort best. Well, gentlemen, the best of friends must part, said Jeb, as he refilled his pipe for the homeward walk. My Mrs. will be wanting her a bit of supper, and she never sits down till I get home. Are you ready, Joe? We may as well walk together. Mr. Gommasaw rose at his friend's bidding, and this was a signal for a general break-up. The dark-faced, dark-whiskered Oppum, renowned for his cleverness as a lawyer, but rather respected than liked, departed alone. Ward rolled off towards Tangly, whistling as he went, while Gommasaw and the doctor strode along the broad highway, with its frozen pond and darkened school-house, and low-roofed cottages wrapped in night and silence. Well, sir, you heard them plain enough, didn't you? asked the landlord cheerily, when the guests had made their departure with loud leave-takings. Yes, I heard them. Oh, but there ain't much in it when all's heard. Be there, Mr. Blake. A power-a-tort, but it don't come to a pint. I've heard enough to make me feel uncomfortable, said Morton. Oh Lord, now, Mr. Blake, don't say that! You didn't ought to give heed to a long-tongued fellow like Jeb, a man that must be talking. What business had he, prying and spying about with a constable in the morning after the murder? It weren't a medical case, it weren't his trade. But there's never a pie baked in us thought that he mustn't have a finger in it. Don't you worry, your mind, sir. The case is as plain as the nose on your face. The man who gave himself up for the murder is the man who did it, and anybody that says he ain't must be a rank fool. Morton did not stop to argue the point. He took up his hat, thanked the landlord for his civility, wished Mr. Rhine good night, and went away without another word. A fine, handsome-looking young man, and civil-spoken, said John Rhine. But not a pat on his father. CHAPTER XIII Morton Blake sat alone in his study, on the day after his evening visit to the Three Sugarloves, trying to bring his mind to bear on the pages of a parliamentary report, but finding his thoughts inclined to wander to last night's conversation in the inn parlor, and to vain speculations upon what he had heard. What, the bailiff, had been right in his assertion that Morton was altogether different from his father. Walter Blake had been of an easier temper, pleasure-loving, fond of society, an ardent sportsman, with no aspiration beyond the enjoyment of the present hour. A man of warm feelings, quick impulses, winning manners, a man who could make himself popular in every society, and who had been admired and beloved in his own particular set. Beyond pleasing himself, and giving such pleasure as he could to other people, without over much trouble to himself, by open-handed, careless benevolence, and a sympathetic nature, Morton's father had never aspired. He had taken life and all its responsibilities lightly, and had considered this world a place in which his chief mission was to be happy. Before he was twenty-one, he had plighted himself in his usual impulsive manner, to Horatia Martin, the handsomest girl in the district, and before he was twenty-two and had been six months married, he found that he had made one of those mistakes with which some men give an uncomfortable twist to a whole lifetime. But Walter Blake, having found out his mistake, made the best of it. He was an admirable husband, but he was very seldom at home between breakfast and dinner. During dinner he made pretty speeches to his wife, who looked superb in evening dress, and did the honours of his house admirably. After dinner, the master of the house was generally to be found with his masculine guests in the billiard room and the smoking room. It will be seen, therefore, that Mrs. Blake did not get much of her husband's society. Bondage, thus lightly worn, hardly galled even Walter Blake's self-indulgent nature, and not even his most intimate friend discovered how little he cared for his wife. Morton was of a different temper, and for him life had another and more serious meaning. He inherited from his grandfather Geoffrey Blake something of that dogged and persevering spirit which had helped the penniless boy to fortune, something of the temper of those good old, puritan ancestors whose spotless repute in a lowly walk of life had been Geoffrey's proudest boast. Morton was ambitious. He was a strong politician. He hoped to sit in Parliament before long. He had thought deeply upon the most stirring questions of the time. He was as strong a liberal as his grandfather had been, and he had an intense sympathy with the lower classes, and a fiery indignation against all oppressive legislation. He had read much and thought much, and was thoroughly posted in all those subjects which enabled a man to converse on equal terms with the best men of his age. All his plans had been unsettled and thrown into abeyance by the events of the last six weeks. Every faculty of his mind had been concentrated upon one work and one subject. And even now, though he tried to persuade himself that all was over, that his father's cruel death was soon to be bloodily avenged, and that there was no further duty left for the son to perform, still his mind was unsatisfied. There were lingering doubts unsolved, and he sought in vain for rest, and the power to resume his old studies was something of the old interest that had hitherto made them pleasant to him. He closed the bulky volume in which he had been reading a long debate upon the poor laws with an impatient sigh. It's no use, he said to himself, getting up and beginning to pace the room, as he always did when his mind was troubled. I sit staring at the page while my thoughts are far away. What did that man mean by his hints, and half expressed suggestions in his cross-examination of Sir Everard? A social mystery? What mystery? And how could it concern Sir Everard? Why did the council suggest that there might have been a break in the friendship of Sir Everard on my father? Why did he ask if there had been any trouble about Lady Courtney? No one ever hinted at such a trouble or any estrangement. What can have suggested such an idea to this scoundrel's advocate? I should like to see this Mr. Tomplin and have the matter out with him. The man has no right to drop hints of this kind if he has no ground for them. After walking slowly up and down the room for some time, he came to a standstill before the large square window, looking across the lawn and shrubbery to Tangley Common, and stood there, watching the gardener sweeping the whiteened paths and shoveling the fallen leaves into his barrow, in an absent-minded way, like a man who has given himself up to absolute idleness of mind and body. But his thoughts were busy all the while, brooding upon points in the evidence at the trial or upon the story he had heard last night. Who, among all the men who were out hunting that day, could have had a quarrel with my father or any motive for murdering him, he asked himself. I must try back. I must question those who knew his life at that time. Andora, for instance. She lived with him for the last three years of his life and they were devoted to each other. She must know everything. It isn't possible that he could have made an enemy without her knowledge. People who knew him have told me that he was the most open-hearted of men. He looked across the lawn at a figure that had just entered the gate, a figure that was strange to him. It was a youngish woman, neatly clad, with the air of a respectable servant or small tradesman's wife. She was dressed in black, and as she passed in front of the study-window on her way to the hall door, Morton saw that her pale face had a distressed and anxious expression. Presently he heard voices in the hall, a woman's voice pleading, and the authoritative tones of the butler answering. He opened his door and looked out. I can only state my business to Mr. Blake himself, said the woman, looking piteously in at the door which the butler guarded with his bulky person, and he wouldn't know my name, but please say that a person in great trouble begs to see him. Let her in, Andrew, said Morton, and then turning to the woman who entered eagerly he said, come into my study, please, and tell me your business as briefly as you can. But if it is a case of distress, would it not be better for you to see my aunt, Miss Blake? She is relieving officer to all the parish, and will be more ready to sympathise with you than I can be. Oh, no, sir, I'd rather talk to you, please. This is a matter that concerns you. Indeed, said Morton surprised. She was a nice-looking woman, of about two or three and thirty, with an intelligent face, bright grey eyes, and a resolute mouth, a woman who looked as if she could make her way through the world unaided, and who would trouble no one with her needs or her sorrows. She had an honest outspoken air which Morton liked. My name is Jane Barnard, sir, she said. I am the eldest daughter of the miserable man who is to be hanged to-morrow weak at Highcler. Morton's face grew black as thunder. Then I can have nothing to say to you, he exclaimed harshly, and I wonder at your audacity in coming here. Oh, sir, don't say that, pleaded the woman. Don't harden your heart against me at the first, sir. If I didn't know that my father is innocent of that fearful crime, I would never have crossed your threshold. The crime was brought home to him, said Morton. Oh, the robbery, sir, but not the murder. Oh, my father has done many evil things, but he was never a shedder of blood. Oh, sir, I saw him yesterday for the first time since I was eleven years old, a poor, feeble, broken-down creature, yet with something in his poor, pinched-old face that brought back the time when I was a child and used a clamour on his knee. He swore to me that he never did that dreadful deed. He took the money from the poor dead corpse, but he never harmed your father. It is worse than folly to come to me with such a story as this. The man is condemned out of his own mouth. Why should he take upon himself a crime he had not committed? If he wanted the shelter of a jail, he would have confessed to the robbery only, supposing he were guiltless of the murder. He was desperate, sir, miserable and downtrodden, a mere worm for everyone to kick out of their path. He was old and weak, and he hadn't the pluck to take a rope and hang himself, and he knew if he gave himself over to the law an end would be made of him somehow. He didn't feel that he cared whether he was hanged or not. His life was a burden to him, and he wanted to get rid of it. That is what he tried to make me understand yesterday. Well, he has got his wish, said Morton Gloomily. He will be hanged next week. Oh, please, God not, sir! Surely people will lift up their voices to save such a feeble, wretched creature from a ghastly death. His heart fails him, now that he sees himself face to face with death, and he prays that the poor remnant of his life may be spared, although he may have to spend his last days in prison. And he bad me tell you, sir, that he begs your pardon humbly for having made a false statement about the murder. He thinks the devil must have driven him to tell those wicked lies which he told us at Everett Courtney, and he prays you to help him if you can. Oh, sir, I entreat you to sign the memorial to the Home Secretary, and to do all you can to get the sentence commuted. What! I am doing to cede for the life of my father's murderer. When after an interval of twenty years justice is about to be done, I am to thrust myself in the way to prevent the carrying out of the sentence. I tell you, sir, my father is innocent of that crime. You tell me that he tells you so, and I answer that I don't believe him. Every murderer makes the same assertion boldly, doggedly asservates his innocence, till he is at the foot of the scaffold and the game is lost, and then he coolly admits his guilt. Your father, after playing the braggadocio and giving himself up in a heroic fashion, turns coward at the last and recants. He is not the lesser murderer because he is afraid of the gallows. I will not sign the memorial, and I shall consider any person who does sign it as something less than my friend. Sir Everard Courtney has signed it, sir. Indeed, I believe Sir Everard and Sir Nathaniel Ritherdon, the sheriff, were the gentlemen who started it. I am deeply offended with Sir Everard for his part in the matter. And now I must beg you to conclude this interview. It is painful to me, and it must be painful to you. I am not to be put aside, sir, because of a little pain. I have come all the way from America to help my father, and God helping me, I will not leave a stone unturned in my effort to save him. You have come from America on purpose, have you? Why, the man by his own account is a worthless vagabond who deserted his children and left them to rot in the work-house. He is our father, sir, our own flesh and blood, and when we were little children and lived on this estate, he was good and kind to us. I know that he was the worst for drink sometimes, even then, and that poor mother used to be sorrowful and downhearted about him, but he was fond of us all, and kind to us. It was only after your father turned us out of our home, and my mother died, that he went wrong altogether, and left us to be taken care of by the parish. He is my father, sir, with all his faults, and I mean to do my duty to him, and there's more than that for me to consider, sir. I have a good husband and four dear children in America, and I want to clear my father of this dreadful crime for their sakes. I don't want any one to be able to say that my father was hanged for murder, that my children have a murderer's blood in their veins. That would break my heart. My husband is a good, hard-working man, who has toiled to win a respectable place in the world, and he has won it, sir. He has a dry good store in Boston, and is looked up to as an honest tradesman, and we have as good a home, sir, as any woman need wish for, though I was only a servant-girl when I went out to America, and though after poor mother's death I was brought up in high-clear union till I was fourteen years old, when they got me a nursemaid's place at a small shopkeeper's in the town. And my brothers were apprenticed, and we've all done pretty well, some at home, some abroad, thanks be to God. How did you come to know of your father's situation? One of my brothers sent me a newspaper, sir. I made up my mind to come home at once, and see my unhappy father. I didn't believe he did it, even though he was his own accuser. My husband could not come with me without injuring his business, for he's not in a large way, and he has to work hard in the store himself, and he's liked and looked up to. But he gave me all the money I wanted, and he'll send me more as I want it. I hope to have been here before the trial, but the steamer only reached Liverpool the day before yesterday. There was a pause before Morton made any reply. He was standing by the window, looking out towards the common, as he looked before, but seeing nothing. His brows were bent with a resolute expression, which gave little hope of any softening in his feelings towards the prisoner in Highclare jail. The woman stood a few paces from him with clasped hands, watching his face piteously. I am very sorry for you, and I respect your purpose, he said. But you cannot expect me to help you. Not until you can bring before me evidence to prove that another man was my father's murderer, can I bring myself to believe in your father's innocence. He has accused himself, and he must take the consequences of his own act. Oh, sir, you are pitiless! How can I produce new evidence within a week? I—a friendless woman in a country that is almost strange to me, after eighteen years' absence. Where and how am I to find the real murderer? But I know my father is innocent. He never did a cruel act in his life. He was never cruel to poor dumb things that came in his way. He loved his dog as it had been his child. He might be weak and easily led away, but never hard or cruel. He could not have beaten a man's brains out on the highway for the sake of a few pounds. I came to you, Mr. Blake, thinking that you would help me. That you, who suffered the loss of your father years ago by a violent end, would feel for my grief to-day. I did not think it would be any satisfaction to you to have an innocent man hanged. Prove his innocence if you can, said Morton. I'll try, she answered, and so left him, with a look that was almost sublime. The Yellow Ribbon Tears were streaming down Jane Barnard's cheeks as she shut the door of Morton Blake's study and turned to leave the house in which she had found so little comfort. Just at that moment Dora Blake came out of a room on the opposite side of the hall, and seeing the stranger's tearful face went over to her and laid a gentle hand upon her shoulder. You are in trouble, she said softly. Can I do anything to help you? The sweet, low voice, the grave, dark eyes, so full of pity, melted Jane Barnard's heart. Oh, madam, she said, I'm sure you're good and kind. If you're the Miss Blake I knew when I was a little girl, I know you're full of pity for poor folks. Yes, I am in great trouble, and I came to this house to find help, but I have found none. Come to my room, said Aunt Dora, opening a door at the back of the hall, and taking the stranger into her snug retreat, where she gave her a chair by the fire, and took the opposite chair for herself. You say I knew you when you were a child? You're a native of this parish, then, I conclude. Yes, madam, I was born close by, and we lived on your brother's estate when I was a child. You used to come in to see my poor mother sometimes, and sit beside our fire, and chat with her just as if you were friends and equals. Not like some of the district ladies that go into poor folks' cottages at mealtime, and grumble at what they see on the table, and sit down, and read the Bible to a working man at his dinner, without asking by your leave or with your leave. I've heard mother say your visits were like sunshine, Miss Blake. What was your mother's name? Vargas. The name of the man who murdered my brother? The man who is in jail and who is to die for that crime, if nobody interferes to save him? But not the man who did it. No, dear lady, if I did not know and feel, as surely as I know and feel, that there is a sun in the sky, that my father is innocent of that cruel murder, I would never have crossed this threshold today. I would not dare to look you in the face. I would crawl out of your presence like a beaten dog. But how can we believe a man innocent of a crime which he has confessed, which the strongest evidence has brought home to him? Jane Barnard pleaded her father's cause with Miss Blake, as she had pleaded with Morton, and Aunt Dora listened with grave attention to every word the woman said. She was asked to believe a thing which seemed on the face of it incredible. She was asked to reopen a question which she thought at rest for ever. It had been an infinite relief to her to see the mystery of her brother's death finally solved, as she thought, although her tender heart pitted the full-on wretch who was to suffer for the crime. How can I help you? she asked at last. Oh, you can help me in two ways, dear Miss Blake, first by signing the memorial which St Nathaniel Ritherdon and Sir Everett Courtney have put in hand. Sir Everett Courtney exclaimed Aura Blake? What, he is trying to save your father? He has signed the memorial. If you will sign it and induce your friends to sign it, the sentence may be commuted, my father's life may be spared. You can help me still further and still better by aiding me with your memory of years gone by to the discovery of the real murderer. Miss Blake started. You are mad to think of such a thing, she said. If your father is not the murderer, who is to find the real criminal? Who is to unravel a mystery which baffled the police when the crime was newly done and evidence could more easily be heard? A resolute mind and an earnest purpose may do much, Miss Blake. I want to clear my father's name for the sake of my husband and my children. James Barnard was better placed in the world than I was when he married me. He was the son of respectable parents, well educated, in business for himself, and I was only a domestic servant. He stooped low enough when he chose me for his wife, but I don't want him to be told that he married a woman whose father was hanged for murder. I have come across the sea to save my father's life and to clear his name, if it is to be done by a woman's work, and I think I'd rather die than go back to Boston without having done it. I will sign the memorial and induce others to sign it if I can, said Miss Blake, after a silence of some moments. So far I am willing to help you, for it would be no comfort to me in my life long regret for my dear brother to know that the man who killed him had died a shameful death. As for helping you to any discovery that could prove your father's innocence of the murder, there I can do nothing. Oh, are you sure of that, Miss Blake? Yet you must know many circumstances connected with your brother's death which are dark to me. If my father's story is true, and I firmly believe it, the man who killed Mr Blake had but one motive, and that was to take his life. Surely you must know if your brother had an enemy vindictive enough to make such a crime possible? He had no such enemy, said Dora Blake quickly, and then her eye grew troubled, and she glanced involuntarily towards the espritoir from which she had taken the packet of old letters on the night of Vargas's confession. He had no enemies, she repeated, he was the kindest and most generous of men. He was not faultless. We are none of us free from the taint of sin, and we all need pardon. But he was kind and frank and open-handed. Miss Blake, you are a good woman, but I know you're keeping something from me, said Mrs Barnard, with an outspoken bluntness which savored of her adopted country. You have no right to say such a thing, faulted Dora. Have I not a right to say what I mean? We always do in America. I don't want to offend you, Miss Blake, for I have a grateful remembrance of your goodness to my poor mother, even though your brother's harshness was the cause of her death. My brother acted as any other landowner would have done under the circumstances. He turned your father off his estate for an offence that had been repeated so often, that even his indulgent temper was provoked to punish it. He could have no foreknowledge of the fatal effect upon your mother's health that was to follow her leaving the cottage. If she had come to me in her trouble, I might have been able to help her. But you won't help me in my trouble by speaking your mind freely, said Mrs Barnard, with her shrewd grey eyes fixed on Dora Blake's pained face. I have said all that can be said. I will do all that can be done about the memorial. You must be content with the only aid I can give you. So be it, Miss Blake. I'm grateful for your kindness, even though you might have done more, answered Jane Barnard, rising and taking a card from the little leather bag that hung on her arm. This is my husband's business card, and my address in England is on the back. I have taken a lodging at Highclair, just one bedroom on a second floor over a tobacconist shop, for I want to save all my money for the work I have to do. If you should have anything to tell me, please write to me at that address. I will be sure to do so. Believe me, I am deeply sorry for you. I am sure of that, Miss Blake. Good day. Mrs. Barnard curtsied and left the room as Aunt Dora rang the bell for the servant to see her out. When she was gone, Dora Blake sat by the fire for some time, lost in thought. Then she took a knitting out of her hanging pocket by the fireplace, a dainty thing of satin and point lace made by Elizabeth's deft fingers, and began to knit. The needles flash swiftly for a little while, and then Aunt Dora threw the work aside with an impatient sigh. If this man should be innocent, she said to herself, and there should be any meaning in my old fear. God forbid, God forbid, the thought has haunted me through all these years. And now, just when I believed it was laid at rest forever, this woman's persistence calls out the old phantom, revives the old doubt. She unlocked the esgritoire, opened the secret drawer, and took out the packet of letters tied with yellow ribbon. Again she sat with the letters loose in her lap, looking them over as she had done that October night. She looked at the date of each letter, till she came to the particular one she wanted, and then unfolded the paper with tremulous hands, and red lines that were already familiar. It was the shortest of all the letters, written in a hand that indicated haste and agitation in the writer. The date was October the 19th. No year, no address. He knows everything. Your letter of last night fell into his hands. I will tell you how when we meet, though that matters very little, Walter, his anger was too terrible for words to describe. He was not loud or violent, but his passion withered and blighted me. He knows now what he has long suspected, that I never loved him, that I loved you first, last, always, and shall love you to my dying day. He left me to scorn when I told him that we were not the guilty creatures he might think us. You are guilty of having lied to me from first to last, he said. False wife, false friend, would the measure of your guilt be fuller if you were— and then came words I cannot write, and I think I must have fainted, for I remember nothing more, till I found Lucy hanging over me with smelling salts and hearts horn, and the rain and wind blowing in across my face from the open window. You had better hunt to-morrow, as you intended. Perhaps he will write to you, perhaps he may try to see you. O my dearest, be patient, be full-bearing for my sake. Tell him that our only sin against him is that we loved each other before ever I saw his face, and have gone on loving each other ever since. Even in the midst of his anger, when his words were most cruel, I was sorry for him. O Walter, can there be a greater crime than such a marriage as mine? What folly, what weakness, what wickedness is worse than that of a woman who lets herself be sold into loveless bondage? Yet my father and mother think themselves good and virtuous, and that they have done their duty to me. My broken heart cries out against such duty today. I dare not write more. My only chance of getting this letter conveyed to you is to send it by Lucy this instant. She is very good to me, and I think she is true. Yours in life and death. There was no signature. Dora Blake was still sitting with this letter in her hand, her eyes filling with tears as she read, when she started at the sound of a gay, light-hearted voice in the hall, a girlish voice talking bright, girlish talk. She replaced the letters in the escritoir with hurried, nervous hands, not stopping to tie the ribbon round them or to put them back in the secret drawer, but throwing them in anyhow and hastily locking the escritoir. She had but just turned the key when the door of her room was thrown open, and her niece Clementine came in, followed by Dulcy in her fur jacket and hat. Dear Aunt Dora, I thought I was never going to see you again, said Dulcy, kissing Miss Blake on both cheeks. So I ordered the pony carriage an hour after breakfast, and came over to ask what had become of you all. We've been so agitated and so anxious, faulted Dora Blake, about this dreadful trial. Oh, yes, naturally poor darlings. But now that it's all over and that the miserable wretch is going to be hanged, though I can't help hoping he won't be, surely we're all going to be happy again? I hope so, Dulcy. As to Morton, I've hardly known him since this terrible business began. I don't think he has given me a thought. If I had been his wife, he could scarcely have shown me less attention. And it isn't fair that he should anticipate the indifference of matrimony, is it, Auntie? Dulcy had adopted Miss Blake as an aunt at the very beginning of her engagement, and made a strong point of her claims as a niece. No, my pet, it is not fair, and so Dora, smiling at the bright face and pouting lips, yet with a pained feeling at her heart all the time, and grave doubts as to whether happiness were as near and as certain as Dulcy fancied. Morton has made himself intensely disagreeable for the last six weeks, and now the trial is over he doesn't seem much better, protested tiny. He was hideously grumpy all breakfast time. He hasn't a word to throw at a dog. Oh, what a pretty ribbon! cried Dulcy, suddenly discrying something on the floor. What a funny old-fashioned colour! It was a yellow ribbon that had been tied round the packet of letters, which Miss Blake had dropped in her confusion just now. Dulcy was on her knees upon the Persian rug, with the ribbon in her hand. Where did it come from? she asked. It looked half a century old. It reminds me of Miss Austin's novels and the days when Bath was the centre of fashion, and when girls danced at the assembly-rooms in white muslin frocks and coral necklaces. Oh, it's an old ribbon that I found years ago, answered Miss Blake. I used it to tie up some papers. Such a ribbon ought never to have tied up anything less romantic than love letters, aren't it? said Dulcy, twisting the yellow satin round her fingers, and admiring its smooth texture. People don't manufacture such satin as this nowadays. They're not honest enough. Dear old relic of a departed age, when girls played the harpsichord and danced country dances, I hope you did not use it to tie up Butcher's bills. You're so terribly business-like sometimes. Oh, tell us about the dinner at Mother Aspinol's, as tiny, who was appallingly disrespectful to her pastors and masters, and all people to whom she was called upon to do homage. Was it good fun? Tiny, how can you speak of her like that? remonstrated Aunt Dora. Oh, you don't approve of my calling her mother. But why not? Surely it's a venerable title, generally considered almost a sacred name. If she were the superior of a convent, she would be called Reverend Mother. Oh, do tell us about the dinner. She's always asking Morton, and hardly ever asks us, which I call insulting. But no doubt she considers three women, out of one family, too great a trial. So she fobs us off with her annual garden party, and allows us to struggle in a crowd of nobodies for cold tea and warm ices. Was it fun, Dulcy? It was rather nice, answered Dulcy, dimpling with sudden smiles. Morton was there, you know, and Lord Bevel, and I'm afraid he was rather more attentive to me than Morton quite liked. He would talk, don't you know, and he didn't seem to understand that Morton and I had any right to shut him out of our conversation. As for Mrs Aspinall, she was intensely kind, so very effusive to me that she really put the oddest ideas into my mind. Well, what do you call odd ideas? I couldn't help thinking that she was rather anxious to fascinate Papa, and that she would not at all object to be my stepmother. Tiny burst into a ringing laugh. Not object, indeed, why she would give her eyes, or at any rate her eyebrows, she could easily buy another pair, for such a chance. Artful old party! But you're not afraid of your pater being caught by her elderly wiles, are you, Dulcy? After having been twenty years a widower, he's not very likely to marry again. Oh, no! answered Dulcy with a happy smile. I've no fear of that. I sent the ponies round to the stable, Auntie, for I thought perhaps you wouldn't mind having me to lunch. Mind having you? echoed Miss Blake, taking the girl in her arms and kissing her tenderly. My darling, your presence is like sunshine in the house. Mind having you, my pet? God grant that many of our future days may be spent together. This was said with deep feeling, with an unusual earnestness which impressed Dulcy. It was almost as if there was some foreboding of evil in Dora Blake's mind as she breathed this prayer. What does that horrid brother of mine mean by shutting himself up in his study all the morning? exclaimed Tiny. He must have heard Dulcy's voice in the hall just now, unless love is deaf as well as blind. I'll go and unearth him. Oh, please don't! cried Dulcy. I came to see Aunt Dora and you. I see Morton at home, you know. Oh, that's all very well, but he mustn't be inattentive. There goes the gong for luncheon. Auntie, dear, you're looking ever so pale and fagged this morning. Have you and Tibbs been worrying over the house accounts? No, dear. I never worry about accounts. I know you're a model housekeeper, you sweet old Auntie, liberal without wastefulness, indulgent but never lax, said Tiny. I'm afraid when I have a house, everything in it will run to seed in a dreadful way for want of being looked after. I so detest the details of domesticity. The three ladies found Morton in the hall, ready to escort Dulcy to the pretty bright-looking dining room, where the luncheon table was all a bloom with white and purple chrysanthemums, and where Horatia and Lizzie Hardman joined them at the social unceremonious meal. Among so many there was plenty of conversation, but neither Dora Blake nor her nephew took an active part in it. The young ladies discussed their favourite subjects, novels, cruel work, conservatories, dress, and the floating gossip of the neighbourhood. There was a general light-heartedness which made up for Morton's silence and his aunt's abstracted manner. Now, dearest Auntie, I want you to take me round the gardens and show me the hot houses, said Dulcy coaxingly, putting her arm through Miss Blake's as they rose from the table. I have made up my mind for an afternoon's talk with you, and I shall only go home in time to give Papa his tea. Oh, there is nothing I should like better, my pet," answered Dora, but this afternoon it is impossible. I have to drive to High Clear upon a matter of business. I must leave you to the three girls and Morton, who will be delighted to show you the houses, not that they contain anything very grand just now. Business at High Clear, aren't he? said Tiny. What can that be? I hope you're not going to visit that horrid man in the jail to hear him his catechism or teach him to sing a hymn. You're quite capable of it. No, dear, I am not going to the jail. For these and all thy mercies, murmured Tiny, as if she were saying grace, and then she reathed her arm about Delcey's waist and appropriated her for the rest of the afternoon, allying Morton to dance attendance upon them in and out of hot houses and greenhouses and all over the spacious gardens. In Delcey's company he managed to forget his perplexities, which had been increased by that unpleasant visit from Vargas's daughter. End of Chapter 14 Chapter 15 of Just As I Am This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Just As I Am by Mary Elizabeth Braddon Chapter 15 Dora Blake asks a question Miss Blake drove into Highclare and stopped just outside that quaint old town at a handsome red brick house, with a lawn and a shrubbery in front of it. This was the house of St Nathaniel Ritherdon, a gentleman of good old family who had married the only daughter and heiress of a wealthy Blackford manufacturer, and had fortified his position by an alliance which his relations affected to despise. He was an elderly man, pompous but kindly and very popular in the district. He had been one of Walter Blake's most intimate friends and it seemed a natural thing for Dora to come to him in her trouble. For the first time in her life she asked for the master of the house instead of the mistress. I want to see St Nathaniel on a matter of business, she said. I shall be glad to see Lady Ritherdon afterwards. She was ushered at once into St Nathaniel's library, a room as portly, rubicund and pompous as its owner. Tall mahogany bookcases filled with formidable folios and fat octavos in Crimson Russia, Crimson Morocco armchairs, red and green turkey carpet, Crimson velvet curtains, Crimson velvet mantelpiece, bronze clock ticking loud enough for a county jail, ruddy fire in shining steel grate. St Nathaniel's dispatch box, big enough for a prime minister, opened before him. St Nathaniel's presentation silver ink stand at his side. St Nathaniel himself indulging in a surreptitious nap. He started up at the entrance of Miss Blake, and looked about him for a moment or two with a scared glance like a guilty creature. Oh, my dear Miss Blake, this is a pleasant surprise. I was so deeply absorbed in local cases that your name came upon me with, um, like a reminiscence of bygone days. Sit down nearer the fire and pray now. My dear St Nathaniel, forgive me for saying so, but your room is like a tropical house. I'd rather sit as far from the fire as I can. Do you really find the room warm? I was absolutely feeling chilly. Oh, but at my age the blood circulates feebly. Have you seen Lady Ritherdon? If not, let me send for her. She will be delighted at this visit. I am going to see her presently, but I want first to have a little quiet talk with you. Oh, if I can be of service to you in any way. I believe you can, and to the cause of humanity. I hear that you have started a memorial to the Home Secretary in favour of Humphrey Vargas. Well, really now, Miss Blake, I like to be conscientious, even in small matters, and to speak by the card I must tell you, that it was not I who set this memorial on foot, though my signature heads the list. It was Sir Everett Courtney's idea. He was urgent about the matter on the night after the trial, stayed behind when my other guests had gone on purpose to talk to me about it. He takes a very merciful view of the case, bearing in mind such extenuating circumstances as the man's age, his self-surrender, and so forth. Very good of him, isn't it? And yet Sir Everett has been thought rather a hard man. Self-contained, wrapped up in his own sorrows and his own immediate interests. Yes, it is good in him, Miss Blake said slowly, looking down at the crimson heart-rug with a thoughtful face. And I know that you are good, Saint Nathaniel. So I have come to plead the cause of a poor woman who was with me to-day, Vargas's daughter. Oh, the woman who has come over from America, interrogated Saint Nathaniel. Yes. She's been with me this afternoon, an extraordinary woman, a little queer in her head, I'm afraid. She vehemently protests her father's innocence of the murder, and seems to believe it herself. Oh, then you know all I can tell you. It is on that poor woman's account I'm here. I promised her that I would sign the memorial, and that I would do all in my power to promote its success. But my influence is so little. Now if you would take the matter in hand, Saint Nathaniel, success would be certain. Miss Blake knew that the High Sheriff delighted in having something to be fussy about, some philanthropic or political excuse for making prosy speeches and writing still prosier letters. My dear lady, he responded with a gratified air. For your sake I would adopt even a worse cause. The woman impressed me as a lunatic, but if you have taken her under your wing, she shall have the shelter of mine. And whatever I can do to secure a favourable answer to the memorial shall be done. We're not over fond of hanging nowadays, thank heaven. We accept capital punishment as a terrible necessity, but we are very glad to slip out of inflicting it when we can find a reasonable excuse for mercy. There was a silence of a minute or so, while Saint Nathaniel shut his dispatch box, with the air of having done a hard day's work, and threw himself back in his red Morocco chair, the hue of which exactly matched the port whiny tints in his own complexion. He saw that his visitor was deep in thought, and solidised himself with a pinch of snuff out of his massive gold box, while he politely awaited her next observation. I think you were out hunting the day my brother was killed, she said at last. Saint Nathaniel was a little startled by the abruptness of the remark. Yes, poor fellow, I was with him. We rode together for some time. Did he seem in his usual spirits? Well, well no, Miss Blake. That is a curious circumstance, which my memory dwelt on afterwards. Poor Blake was not in his accustomed good spirits. You know what a jolly fellow he was, what a glorious fellow. Of course you do. Nobody can know it better. Well, on that fatal day he seemed depressed, absent, out of sorts. He rode wild too, and didn't seem to care where he went. Superstitious people have a notion that a man about to die a sudden or violent death has a presentiment of his fate, even in the heyday of health and strength. And my recollection of poor Blake's manner on that day would go far to justify the notion. You do not know of his having had a dispute of any kind, a quarrel even, with anyone who was out on that day? A quarrel, Blake? The best natured of men, a man whom everybody liked. Why, my dear Miss Blake, what could put such an idea into your head? Oh, one can never be sure. A man may be kind and open-hearted, and yet may make enemies. Sir Everett Courtney said at the trial, that my brother was in his usual spirits. Do you know if those two were riding together much during the day? Sanathanule looked thoughtful. He was called upon to remember the details of a day's sport twenty years old. True, that the day had been fatal to one of his friends, and that events otherwise insignificant had been made remarkable by the tragic sequel of the sport. Well, now you force me to carry back my memory to that particular occasion. It occurs to me that Blake and Sir Everett did not ride side by side once during the day's work. There was a good deal of waiting about, and it struck me, I remember, that Sir Everett and your brother were not quite so friendly as usual. They seemed to avoid each other, as if they didn't care about meeting. Mind you, the thing may have been only my imagination, but it certainly did occur to me at the time. Good God! Could that have been in the council's mind, when he put such curious questions to Sir Everett? Could he know anything? The Mr Blake announced the butler at this moment. He had opened the door with well-bred noiselessness half a minute before he made this announcement, and Morton Blake had heard the latter part of Sanathanule's speech. CHAPTER XVI I must be behind the age. Oh, you here, Morton! exclaimed Miss Blake, rising with an agitated air at her nephew's entrance. Yes, my dear aunt, how do you do, Sir Nathanule? I heard my aunt was driving into High Clear, and I fancied she might be coming to see Lady Ritherdon. I thought you would spend the rest of the afternoon with Delcy, said his aunt. Delcy had had enough of the Hothouses by four o'clock, so I put her into her pony carriage and rode over here. I want a little quiet talk with Sir Nathanule when you've quite done with him. Why should you not talk before me, Morton? I think I know what you want to talk about. It is a subject that concerns me as nearly as it does you. Cannot you trust me, Morton? I don't know. I feel sometimes as if I could trust no one, as if I were surrounded by smooth-faced traitors. What is the meaning of this memorial, Sir Nathanule, and why have you signed it? Surely if that man is guilty he deserves to die. There was never a more brutal murder. There was never a fitter subject for the gallows. Oh, woe he is old and broken down! faulted Sir Nathanule. Is that any reason he should be spared? What is his wretched remnant of existence when weighed against my father's prime of life, full of hope and gladness and benevolent thoughts and deeds? Blood for blood, a life for a life. That's the divine law which Christ came to fulfil and not to destroy. Oh, Christ forgave the penitent thief, and this man is penitent, pleaded Dora Blake. The only pardon his penitents can deserve is a pardon beyond the grave. Sir Nathanule, I want to know whether this memorial was your idea. Oh, it was not. Sir Everett Courtney was the man who started it. I thought as much. Sir Everett has taken a philanthropic view of this business from the outset. He has shown a scrupulous desire to avoid the shedding of blood. My dear Blake, it is natural for you to feel strongly upon this subject, but you must consider that there is a growing prejudice against capital punishment. I wish there was a growing prejudice against murder, said Morton Gloomily. What was it you feared might be in the council's mind when he asked Sir Everett those extraordinary questions about his wife? Sir Nathanule hesitated and looked nervously at Miss Blake. Come, Sir Nathanule, be frank with me. You were my father's friend. Oh, everybody who knew your father was his friend. Yet the council suggested that he might have had a secret enemy, and the drift of his examination tended to show that Sir Everett Courtney might have been that enemy. Sir Nathanule and Dora, for God's sake, do not try to keep me in the dark upon this subject if your knowledge can enlighten me. My father had been Lady Courtney's suitor before her marriage, so much, Sir Everett admitted. Do you know if there was any jealousy in Sir Everett's mind after his marriage? Do you know if he had any reason for resentment? I never heard such an idea hinted, said Sir Nathanule decidedly. So far as I know Lady Courtney's character was spotless. What was it then that you feared might be in the council's mind when he questioned Sir Everett? Well, it occurred to me during the hunt on the day before poor Blake's death, that he and Sir Everett were not quite so friendly in their manner to each other as they had usually been. There was something that looked like a tacit avoidance on both sides. Remember, Blake, that this may have been only a fancy on my part. Possibly. Yet it is a circumstance to be remembered. Morton! cried Miss Blake, turning her pale, perturbed face to her nephew with a look of tender entreaty. Oh, for Dulcy's sake, for your own, shut your mind against these vague suspicions. You cannot suppose that Sir Everett Courtney, the man you have long known and respected, your father's old college friend, was in any manner implicated in that cruel murder? Why does he try to save the murderer's life? That is an act of common humanity. I must be behind the age, said Morton Bitterly. I am sadly wanting in Christian-like compassion for my father's murderer. Come on, Dora, so Nathaniel has frankly stated his opinion about Lady Courtney. You were silent just now. Are you of the same opinion? Did you know anything in my father's lifetime of relations between him and Lady Courtney which would have been likely to disturb Sir Everett's peace? Nothing. Then I am justified in believing that Mr. Tomplin's suggestions had no better foundation than a prurient imagination. Assuredly, Mr. Tomplin could know nothing. Thank God! Oh, for Dulcy's sake! Yes, for Dulcy's sake! Do you suppose I would willingly give my mind to any suspicion that involved her father? Doubts have forced themselves upon me. Doubts that have made me miserable. Last night I heard it suggested that the man who murdered my father was on horseback, a horseman who followed him after the hunt, and now today this woman comes to me with her assertion of her father's innocence, and with an air of truth about her that has impressed me in spite of myself. Oh, such a belief! It's only natural in a daughter, said Miss Blake. True, and Shaft O'Jab's idea about the horseman may be mere folly. He is the kind of man who likes to originate some startling theory. I've been so worried about this matter that I'm afraid I left Dulcy rather hurriedly. I'll ride over to Fairview. Goodbye, son Nathaniel, and don't wait, dinner for me, auntie. He left without waiting for another word, mounted his horse, and started at a sharp drop for Ozthorpe, full of tender thoughts about Dulcy. He fancied that he had been careless, neglectful of her during her visit to the Manor House, and he was eager to make amends. My sweet Dulcy, and to think that my father once loved her mother. There seems a fatality in it, but I will not believe that my father could act dishonorably, that having tried his chance and lost it, he would give his rival cause for jealousy. No! Everybody tells me that he was frank and open-hearted, true as steel. Such a man could never have stooped to treachery. Just as I am, by Mary Elizabeth Braddon. Come to Grief. It was the nineteenth of December, two days before the Monday appointed for Humphry Vargas's execution, and there had been as yet no commutation of the sentence. Very few people were thinking of the condemned criminal on this clear winter morning, for there were pleasanter subjects for thought among the crowd on Tangly Common, where the south Staleshire Hunt met for the first time this season. There had been a Hunt breakfast at the Manor House, and Andrew and his subordinates were now going about with tankards and decanters for the refreshment of those horsemen who had not availed themselves of the opportunities indoors. Between thirty and forty horsemen were gathered on the smooth stretch of sword in front of the Manor House railings, and the road before the house was crowded with carriages. The hounds were clustered on a grassy knoll apart, with huntsmen and whipper-in keeping guard over their movements, while the master trotted here and there on his powerful chestnut, big with the business of the day. There were half a dozen ladies among the red and dark coats, a brace of farmers' daughters, rosy-cheeked and buxom, Mrs. Upham, the lawyer's wife, who, according to popular opinion, ought to have been at home minding her children, instead of scouring the country on her husband's gaunt grey gig-horse. Miss Morrison, a small squire's daughter out with her father, a plethoric, sandy-whiskered man in a well-worn scarlet coat and mahogany tops. Mrs. Tilson Tudley from Highclair, a half-pay mage's wife, and lastly, on a perfect hunter, in a habit of perfect cut, with the neatest little chimney-pot hat and the newest thing in white ties, Lady Frances Grange, the finest horsewoman in that part of Daleshire. How is it that the black-madden people can try to ride such good horses, as Mrs. Tilson Tudley of Mrs. Upham, with an envious glance at Lady Frances's thoroughbred brown? I thought they were as poor as church mice! So they are, answered Jack Upham, replying for his wife, who had as much as she could do to keep her ungainly grey from getting his hind legs into a concatenation with the hind legs of other horses, all shifting and wheeling and fidgeting in their eagerness for the fray. They precious little money for people in their position, but as Lord Blatch-Martin never spends anything except upon his stables, he can try to cut a tidy figure there. He lets everything else at the castle run to seed. I believe Lady Frances has hardly a second gown to her back, said Mrs. Tudley. Lady Ritherdon told me that she was tired of seeing her in black net and yellow roses. Yet she always looks well, said Upham. She was out and away the best dancer at the hospital ball, among the girls, added the lawyer, reminded by her vindictive glance, that the lady to whom he was talking prided herself particularly upon her waltzing. Oh, it's a pity she can't get married, drooled Mrs. Tudley, languidly compassionate. Can't, exclaimed Mrs. Upham. She's not much more than twenty, and she may never have seen anybody she cares about. Oh, but don't you know girls in that rank are expected to marry young? A girl of that kind is brought up to make a good marriage, and if she doesn't do it in her second or third season, she is stamped with failure. Now Lady Fanny has had two seasons in London with her aunt Lady Luffington, and nothing has come of it. I should put her down as a decided failure, though she really has very nice ways and is rather good style. Oh, don't you think her pretty? Oh, no, said Mrs. Tudley decisively, too thin, too brown, too angular. Oh, but surely she has fine eyes. I didn't say she was hideous, retorted Mrs. Tudley with acidity. She had met Lady Frances at the hospital ball, and at Lady Ritherdon's annual garden party, which was an omnium gatheram for half the county, and on the strength of these two public encounters affected in her conversation with people of Mrs. Upham's class to be in the Blach Marden set, but the consciousness that she was out of it gave a subdued sourness to her tone whenever Lady Frances was talked about. That young lady and her brother Lord Bevel had ridden into the Manor House shrubbery to talk to Dora Blake and her nieces. Lady Frances was bending from her saddle to say something confidential to Tiny, who was her particular favourite in the family. Morton was on the common with Sir Everett and his daughter, who had driven to the meet in a male pheaton. I wonder why Miss Courtney doesn't hunt, speculated Frances, glancing across the laurels at the group on the common. Her father keeps plenty of horses? She might as well enjoy her life. Oh, I don't know that she would care about it, said Tiny, and I know Morton wouldn't like it. Oh, he doesn't like women to hunt, I suppose, said Lady Frances, reddening a little. Oh, can't bear hunting women. If it wasn't for that, I should hunt. Butterfly jumps beautifully, and she's considered my particular property, don't you know? But when I gently suggested riding her to Hounds, Morton looked black as thunder, and protested that no sister of his should ever unsex herself by scampering over hedges and ditches and canoning at gates, among a herd of rough farmers and impertinent cockneys. Rather narrow-minded of him, isn't it? Well, it's hardly what I should have expected from an advanced liberal, but I believe men who take a wide view in politics think themselves privileged to have narrow ideas about everything else. I wish you were coming with us, Tiny, all the same. I am sure you would enjoy it. Enjoy it! I should fancy myself in heaven. If ever I marry a nice biddable man, I shall hunt four times a week. Lord Bevel rode in to say that they were moving, and Lady Frances trotted Gaely off by his side. But the Gaity was rather in the movement of her lively young horse than in her own face, which was grave, and even troubled. They stopped to speak to Sir Everett and Dulcy, and to Morton, whose horse was drawn up beside the Phaeton, and who seemed indifferent to the prospects of the day in his delight at being with Dulcy. She was looking her fairest and brightest, as if something had happened to put her in particular good spirits. Hmm, we're going to draw Yarfield Gauss, said Morton. You might drive a good way with us, Sir Everett. Oh, do papa, said Dulcy, so the fate and followed among the horsemen, together with various pony-shares and family vehicles of the wagonet or inside car species, which provoked some muttered animadversion from the hunting men. It was a lovely morning, clear and barmy, with a warm south-west wind gently stirring the last leaves upon the young trees, and bearing in its breath the perfume of distant pine-woods, and the fresh, cool odour of newly plowed uplands. The sunshine lit up the ragged hedges, where the blackberry leaves still hung, beautiful in their decay with every variety of tint, from green to bronze, from crimson to darkest purple, and where the hawthorn berries glittered like jewels against their russet background. The narrow, winding river yonder in the valley reflected the blue of a sky that was almost without a cloud. Every vestige of last week's frost had disappeared. Morton felt the influence of this genial atmosphere, the beauty of earth and sky. He was well-mounted and moderately fond of hunting, not an enthusiast like his father, but able to enjoy a good run in a pleasant country with all nature smiling at him. A long day in a scotch mist over ground in which his horse sank to the shoulder was not his idea of bliss, even though the scent lay well, and the run was popularly supposed to be the best of the season. Today he was in excellent spirits. He had spent a good deal of his life with Delcy during the last week, and he had made up his mind to be happy. Yet even today the sight of Shafdo Jeb pounding along on a mealy chestnut unpleasantly recalled that conversation which he had overheard at the sugar loaves, and gave him an uncomfortable feeling. He was riding on a strip of turf beside the road, Lady Francis Grange and Lord Bevel by his side. Morton and Francis were old friends. He and Bevel had been together at Rugby, Chums at school and at home, and Morton had been on the pleasantest terms at Blatch-Martin ever since those old Rugby days. He was as much at his ease with Francis Grange as with his own sisters. Before his engagement to Delcy, he had been in the habit of spending a good deal of his leisure at Blatch-Martin, playing billiards with Lord Bevel, taking lessons in farming from the old Earl, dawdling about the neglected gardens and shrubberies with Francis. At home he was always full of work, but at Blatch-Martin, where nobody had any turn for industry, he was contented to waste his time. Blatch-Martin was his place of rest and recreation. Then came his engagement to Sir Everett Cortney's daughter, and it seemed as if all those idle hours in the library, to which nobody had added a book for the last forty years, in the billiard room and in the picturesque old garden, were over and done with forever. He called at the castle now and then, just often enough to escape the charge of neglecting old friends. But he dawdled away life there no longer. All his leisure was devoted to Delcy. Neither Francis nor her brother resented this defection. They accepted it as an inevitable consequence of new ties, a new and absorbing affection. Morton is terribly earnest, said Bevel. He never does anything by halves. I'm glad neither you nor I take life as seriously as he does, fan. Francis answered with a faint sigh. Oh, perhaps we're wrong, and he is right. Life may be a much more solemn business than we think, and its seriousness may be brought home to our frivolous minds one day in some unpleasant manner. Bevel could not bring himself to the consideration of a question so metaphysical. Hmm, don't know about that, he said. I hope we shall always manage to rub on, somehow. Francis missed her old companion sorely at first. Missed him always, indeed, for her friends at Blatchmarden were not many. The Earl did not encourage society of any kind. We can just afford to keep ourselves, he said, but we can't afford to be eaten out of house and home by other people. So there were no visitors coming to stay at the castle. No roster of guests, one set departing as another set arrived. No clubbable men came from afar to shoot Lord Blatchmarden's pheasants, or to smoke in the big stone hall which served for lounge and billiard room. Two or three times in the season the Earl would ask a neighbour to join him in his day's sport, but for the rest of the time he and Bevel and the gamekeeper shocked the birds, and enjoyed their picnic luncheons of bread and cheese and bass with a relish which not every man can experience whose midday appetite is coaxed by perigord pies and choiceless cures. Sometimes Francis was allowed to accompany her father and brother on their long tramps through boggy plantations, over deep beds of fallen leaves, and showed herself as good a shot as either of them. Bevel had taught her to handle a gun before she was twelve years old, just as he had taught her to ride, and to fence, and to play cricket, making her his companion in all things. It had happened, therefore, that Morton, being Bevel's chosen chum, had become in the common course of things Lady Francis Grange's chief male friend, indeed her only one, a little given to lecturing, but if a girl likes a man she likes to be lectured by him, not at all given to flattery, but Lady Francis detested compliments. He had been kind and attentive to her always, bringing her such books as she cared to read, such songs as she cared to sing, all of the lightest and airiest character. He had taken care that she was supplied with flowers and fruit from the extensive hot houses at Tangley. He had made it a point with his women kind that they should visit her, and invite her to their house and make much of her. And then, just as the family at the manor had made up their minds that Lady Francis Grange was to be Lady Francis Blake, Morton had fallen head over ears in love with Sir Everud Courtney's daughter. His Aunt Dorothea went so far as to tell him that she had always supposed Francis would be his wife. My dearest aunt, what could put such an idea into your head, he exclaimed, with a look of wonder which proclaimed his perfect innocence. I like fan immensely. I am just as fond of her as I am of my sisters. But the notion of marrying her never came into my head. Well, all I hope is that it has never come into hers, replied Miss Blake gravely. I used to wonder certainly that you should choose a girl brought up as she has been, with such exclusively masculine surroundings. A girl whose tastes are all masculine, but she is graceful and attractive, and I thought, You thought quite wrong, dear auntie, as you far-seeing women often do, when you speculate about other people's affairs, Morton answered lightly, and no more had ever been said upon the subject. Miss Blake and her nieces still called upon Lady Francis Grange and invited her to the manor house, and the friendship, without being absolutely enthusiastic, went on pleasantly enough. Nothing in Francis's manor from first to last indicated that she felt she had any right to be offended at Morton's choice, or that she was so offended. She talked freely of Dulcy and praised her warmly. Your brother could not have made a better choice, she said to Clementine and Horatia. You know that in a general way I detest girls, or your sweet cells, of course, excepted, but I consider Dulcy simply perfect. And now carriages and horses had arrived at Yarfield Gorse, a wild bit of land on the slope of a hill crested with fir trees, and here the serious business of the day began. There was a good deal of cantering about and about in a seemingly purpose manner, which the people in the carriages were able to see. A good deal of dismounting and tightening of girths, and a general getting ready for the fray. And then all in a moment there came the shrill cry, gone away! The hounds went leaping and tumbling over the hilly-key ground like a flash of living light, and the field rushed helter-skelter after them in a hand gallop, with Lady Francis and Morton in the first flight. There was a narrow bit of plough, a hedge, and then a splendid stretch of pasture, where the quiet store-cattles stood at gaze, wondering at the hoop and riot of the chase, as it sped by them and was gone. Perhaps as they settled down placidly to their grazing, they were half-disposed to believe that the whole thing had been a vision, a phenomenal appearance in the air. "'Steak by me,' cried Francis, looking round at Morton as she took the hedge, I know every inch of the country. Isn't this glorious!' she asked, as they were galloping smoothly across the grass, neck and neck, with only the huntsmen and a chosen fuse skimming along in front of them. Morton could not deny that it was so, though he had made up his mind long ago, that hunting women were detestable, and had told tiny so when she wished to ride Butterfly to Hounds. The fresh clear air, the open country, the sense of being born along by an animal powerful enough to carry him to the end of the earth, or at least to the edge of the horizon yonder, where the distant woods made a line of purple against the clear blue sky, all these filled him with delight. He forgot that this girl by whose side he rode was not Dulcy, that it was in some measure a treason against Dulcy that he should be utterly happy in her company. He forgot everything except the keen rapture of being carried across that level pasture to the gap yonder through which the hounds were just scrambling. And though he had stigmatized hunting as an unfeminine pursuit, he could but own to himself that Francis Grange had never looked more exquisitely girlish than at this moment, as her slight figure moved in sympathy with every movement of her horse, and the delicate oval of her cheek warmed with a flush of tenderest Carmine, while her dark eyes sparkled with delight. He's making for the water, she cried, and the bank's horribly risky. No matter, we can't lose them. You'd better go round, remonstrated Morton. There's a shallow ford lower down. Go round, she cried contemptuously. We might as well go to London. I shall risk the dip yonder. You needn't come, unless you like. And what's become of Bevel? There was no one in front of them but the officials and the master, with about half a dozen of the hardest riders amongst whom Francis could not distinguish her brother's figure. Behind them the field had scattered wide, some having found a gate in the corner of the pasture, while the rest had taken the hedge at different points. Bevel, who was always well to the fore, could hardly be among these. But there was no time to wonder about him. Fox and hounds were on the other side of the narrow river, and a few of the horsemen were scrambling down the bank, while the prudent ones galloped off to find an easier passage. There are a lot refusing, cried Morton. You'd better come round. Oh, goodbye! we thought it Francis, waving her hunting-crop. Morton was not to be dismissed so cavalierly. He put his trust in Providence and a clever hunter, and followed Lady Francis. The stream about four feet deep ran at the bottom of a hollow. The steep bank made dangerous by brushwood and mountain ashes and alders. There was hardly room for a horse to squeeze himself between the trees, and the clay bank was so rugged and treacherous that it needed a clever animal to keep his footing in the scramble down to the water. One man had had his ducking already and was chasing his horse across the next field, but Francis did not accept this gentleman's disaster as a warning kindly intended by Providence, for she thought herself better than any member of the South Dalesha. Some wretched stockbroker from London, I daresay, she said to herself, as she steered her horse cautiously through the trees. He got down the bank cleverly enough, but for some inexplicable reason chose to take objection to the water, and made a frantic rush for the opposite side. Here again there were trees and brushwood, and caution was needful, but caution is unavailing with a horse gone suddenly mad. He made a wild bound out of the stream, dashed up the slippery bank, knocked his rider's head against a tree, and then rolled back into the water. Oh, please! somebody see that my horse isn't hurt, cried Francis, as Morton pulled her out of the saddle, a dripping Diana, and then, stunned by the blow against the tree, she fainted in Mr. Blake's arms. Happily his horse was strong enough to carry them both up the bank, while Lady Francis's thoroughbred struggled up on the other side, very little the worse for his bad behaviour, and was caught by Bevel's groom, who had just come quietly up on his master's second horse. The hounds were half over the next field by this time, and Morton was alone with Lady Francis, the groom looking at them with an air of respectful imperturbability from the opposite bank, as who should say, if she's dead I can't help it, and if she's alive I'm ready to obey orders. A hunting field is no place for the display of emotion. I think we're out of it, Morton said to himself, as he pulled up his horse, and stood with Francis in his arms, waiting for her to come to herself. He remembered in the next moment that he had some brandy in his hunting flask, but before he could put the bottle to her lips, Lady Francis revived a little, opened her eyes, and looked dreamily about her. Where are the hounds? she asked, not immediately aware of her somewhat singular position upon somebody else's horse. I'm afraid they're in the next county. Would you mind taking a little brandy? I'm sure you must be giddy and ill. I feel as if I were in a merry-go-round, answered Lady Francis. No, thank you, I couldn't possibly do it, as he offered his brandy flask. Good gracious, where's my horse? On the other side of the river, don't be frightened, your groom has got him. The brute isn't hurt. Oh, I'm glad of that. I don't mind being smashed a little myself, but I wouldn't have Primus hurt for all the world, or at least as much of it as I'm entitled to. Primus, is that his name? Oh, Facile Primus, bevel christened him. I believe it's about all the Latin he knows. She slipped out of Morton's arms and dropped lightly to the ground, looking as bright as if nothing had happened, though she was very pale, and her habit was streaming with water and plastered with clay. Are you sure Primus is all right, Brooks? she called to the groom. Yes, my lady, he's right enough. More shame for him. Do you think we could catch them? she asked Morton. You're a better judge than I am, but I'm sure you ought not to ride any further today. Perhaps you are right. My head is a little painful, she said, putting her hand to her forehead. I suppose it's the effect of the tree. There's a farmhouse on the Blackford Road, not half a mile off, said Morton, who had dismounted before this. If you will let me put you on my horse and lead him there, your groom could go back to Blatchmarden and send a carriage for you. Oh, that seems an awfully spoony thing to do, said Francis, and it's rather too bad that I should keep you out of all the fun. I don't care a straw about the fun. I only want to take care of you. She was feeling faint and sick, and inclined rather to lie down on the grass and let the world go by her than to make any kind of effort. So she allowed Morton to settle the matter for her, whereupon he tied up one stirrup, shortened the other, and mounted the lady on his own horse. We're going to Dawley's farm, he called to the groom. You can go back to Blatchmarden and send a carriage to fetch your mistress. What am I to do about Lord Bevel's horse? asked the groom. Do the best you can. The man went away, dispirited. He had been going across country in his best style, though he was supposed to have been nursing his master's second horse in such a manner as to deliver up an unexhausted animal when the day's work was half over, and now he had to trot quietly back to Blatchmarden, leading the guilty primus. End of Chapter 17