Castalia refused by a gesture, and stood still opposite to him with one hand on the table, apparently in some embarrassment how to begin. Then it flashed on old Max that this "Honourable Missis," as he called her, had probably come to thank him, and found it not altogether easy to do so. But what could Castalia have to thank him for? This; Rhoda had so implored her father to relieve Algernon from his anxiety about the bills, that at length the old man had said with a chuckle, "Tell you what, Rhoda, I'll hand 'em over to Mr. Diamond, and maybe he will give them to you as a wedding present if he gets the school. And then you can do what you like with 'em. My gentleman won't be above taking a present from you or your husband. I've seen what meanness she can do and what dirt he can swallow, and not even make a wry face over it! Aye, dirt as would turn many a poor labouring man's stomach."
Rhoda, upon this, had consulted Matthew Diamond, and had not found it difficult to make him agree with her wish to give up the bills to Algernon. Indeed, although he had almost come to old Max's opinion of his former pupil, he would not for the world have behaved so as to make Rhoda suppose that he bore him a grudge. Rhoda's errand to the post-office that afternoon had been to bring Algernon this comforting news. She had taken care not to tell her father of Mrs. Algernon's behaviour, but had come home and cried a little quietly in her own room, and kept her tears and the cause of them to herself. Therefore it was that Jonathan Maxfield supposed the fine lady to have come to thank him for his magnanimity on behalf of her absent husband, and he was already preparing to give her "a dose," as he phrased it, and to spare her no item of Rhoda's prosperity, and wealth, and good prospects in the world.
Castalia remained leaning with one hand on the table, and did not continue her speech during the second or two in which these thoughts and intentions were passing through old Maxfield's brain. But it was by no means that she hesitated from embarrassment or lack of words: rather the words crowded to her lips too quickly and fiercely for utterance.
"I've come to speak to you about your daughter," she said at length.
"Aye, aye. Miss Maxfield's a bit of a friend o' yours. Miss Maxfield's allus been very kind to all the fam'ly ever since we've known 'em. But you'd best be seated."
"They say you are an honest, decent man," Castalia went on, neither seating herself nor noticing the invitation to do so. "It may be so. I am willing to believe it. But, if so, you are grossly deceived, cheated, and played upon by that vile girl."
Maxfield brought his two clenched fists heavily down on the table, and half raised himself in his chair. "Stop!" said he. "Who are you talking of?"
"You may believe me. I tell you I have watched—I have seen. She was in love with my husband years ago. She used every art to catch him. And now—now that he is married, she receives secret visits from him. Do you know that he came at night—ten o'clock at night—to your house when you were away? She goes to the post-office slily to see him. I caught her there this morning leaving a private message for him with the clerk! Is that decent? Is it what you wish? Do you sanction it? She writes to him. She has turned his heart against me. He schemes to keep me out of the office. I know why now. Oh yes; I am not the blind dupe they think for. She has made him more cruel, more wicked to me than I could have imagined any mancouldbe. My heart is broken. But as true as there is a God in Heaven I'll have amends made to me. She shall beg my pardon on her knees. And you had better look to it, if you don't want her character to be torn to pieces by every foul tongue in this town. I have borne enough. Keep her at home. Keep her from decoying other women's husbands, I warn you——"
Maxfield, who had been struggling to reach the bell, pulled it so violently that the wire was broken. At the peal Betty Grimshaw came running in, terrified. "Mercy, brother-in-law!" she cried. "What is it?"
"Get the police," gasped old Max, as if he were choking. "Send some one for a policeman, to turn that mad quean out of my house. She's not fit for a decent house. She's—she's——Oh, but you shall repent this! I'll sell you up, every stick of trumpery in the place. You audacious Jezebel! Turn her out of doors, I say! Do you hear me?"
Betty and the servant stood white and quivering, looking from the old man unable to rise from his chair without help, and the lady who stood opposite to him, glaring with a Medusa face. Neither of the two frightened women stirred hand or foot to fulfil the master's behest. But Castalia relieved them from any perplexity on that score, at least, by voluntarily turning to leave the room. In the doorway she met Rhoda, who had run downstairs in alarm at the violent pealing of the bell. Castalia drew herself suddenly aside, as though something unspeakably loathsome stood in her path, held her dress away from any passing contact with the amazed girl, and rushed out of the house.
Algernon's state of mind during his return journey to Whitford was very much pleasanter than it had been on his way up to town. To be sure, he had committed himself distinctly to a very grave statement. That was always disagreeable. But then he had made an immense impression on Lord Seely by his statement. He had crushed and overwhelmed that "pompous little ass." He had humiliated that "absurd little upstart." And—best of all; for these others were meredilettantepleasures, which no man of intelligence would indulge in at the cost of his solid interests—he had terrified him so completely with the spectre of a public scandal and disgrace, that my lord was ready to do anything to help him and Castalia out of England. Of that there could be no doubt.
It must be owned that Algernon had so far justified the quick suspicions of his Whitford creditors and acquaintances as to have conceived for a moment the idea of never more returning to that uninteresting town. It was extremely exhilarating to be in the position of a bachelor at large; to find himself free, for a time, of the dead weight of debt, which seemed to make breathing difficult in Whitford; for, although by plodding characters the relief might not have been felt until the debts were paid, Algernon Errington's spirit was of a sort that rose buoyant as ever, directly the external pressure was removed. It was delightful to be reinstated in the enjoyment of his reputation as a charming fellow—much fallen into oblivion at Whitford. And perhaps it was pleasantest of all to feel strengthened in the assurance that he stillwasa charming fellow, with capacities for winning admiration and making a brilliant figure, quite uninjured (although they had been temporarily eclipsed) by all the cloud of troubles which had gathered around him.
So hehad, for a moment, thought of fairly running away from wife, and duns, and dangers of official severities. But it was but a brief unsubstantial vision that flashed for an instant and was gone. Algernon was too clear-sighted not to perceive that the course was inconvenient—nay, to one of his temperament, impracticable. People who started off to live on their wits in a foreign country ought to be armed with a coarser indifference to material comforts than he was gifted with. Alternations of ortolans and champagne, with bread and onions, would be—even supposing one could be sure of the ortolans, which Algernon knew he could not—entirely repugnant to his temperament. He had no such strain of adventurousness as would have given a pleasant glow of excitement to the endurance of privation under any circumstances whatever. Professed Bohemians might talk as they pleased about kicking over traces, and getting rid of trammels, and so forth; but, for his part, he had never felt his spirit in the least oppressed by velvet hangings, gilded furniture, or French cookery! Whereas to be obliged to wear shabby gloves would have been a kind of "trammel" he would strongly have objected to. In a word, he desired to be luxuriously comfortable always. And he consistently (albeit, perhaps, mistakenly, for the cleverest of us are liable to error) endeavoured to be so.
Therefore he did not ship himself aboard an emigrant vessel for the United States; nor did he even cross the Channel to Calais; but found himself in a corner of the mail-coach on the night after Jack Price's supper party, bowling along, not altogether unpleasantly, towards Whitford. He had not seen Lord Seely again. He had inquired for him at his house, and had been told that his lordship was worse; was confined to bed entirely; and that Dr. Nokes had called in two other physicians in consultation. "Deuce of a job if he dies before I get a berth!" thought Algernon. But before he had gone many yards down the street, he was in a great measure reassured as to that danger, by seeing Lady Seely in her big yellow coach, with Fido on the seat beside her, and her favourite nephew lounging on the cushions opposite. The nephew had been apparently entertaining Lady Seely by some amusing story, for she was laughing (rather to the ear than the eye, as was her custom; for my lady made a great noise, sending out "Ha-ha-ha's!" with a kind of defiant distinctness, whilst all the while eyes and mouth plainly professed themselves disdainful of too cordial a hilarity, and ready to stop short in a second), and stroking Fido very unconcernedly with one fat tightly-gloved hand. Now although Algernon did not give my lady credit for much depth of sentiment, he felt sure that she would, for various reasons, have been greatly disquieted had any danger threatened her husband's life, and would certainly not have left his side to drive in the Park with young Reginald. So he drew the inference that my lord was not so desperately ill as he had been told, and that the servants had had orders to give him that account in order to keep him away—which was pretty nearly the fact.
"The old woman would be in a fury with me when my lord told her he had promised me that post without consulting her," thought Algernon; "and would tell any lie to keep me out of the house. But we shall beat her this time." As he so thought he pulled off his hat and made so distinguished and condescending a bow to my lady, that her nephew, who was near-sighted and did not recognise Errington, pulled off his own hat in a hurry, very awkwardly, and acknowledged the salute with some confused idea that the graceful gentleman was a foreigner of distinction; whilst my lady, turning purple, shook her head at him in anger at the whole incident. All which Algernon saw, understood, and was immensely diverted by.
In summing up the results of his journey to town, he was satisfied. Things were certainly not so pleasant as they might be. But were they not better, on the whole, than when he had left Whitford? He decidedly thought they were; which did not, of course, diminish his sense of being a victim to circumstances and the Seely family. Anyway he had broken with Whitford. My lordmustget him out of thatbaraque! The very thought of leaving the place raised his spirits. And, as he had the coach to himself during nearly all the journey, he was able to stretch his legs and make himself comfortable; and he awoke from a sound and refreshing sleep as the mail-coach rattled into the High Street and rumbled under the archway of the "Blue Bell."
The hour was early, and the morning was raw, and Algernon resolved to refresh himself with a hot bath and breakfast before proceeding to Ivy Lodge. "No use disturbing Mrs. Errington so early," he said to the landlord, who appeared just as Algernon was sipping his tea before a blazing fire. "Very good devilled kidneys, Mr. Rumbold," he added condescendingly. Mr. Rumbold rubbed his hands and stood looking half-sulkily, half-deferentially at his guest. His wife had said to him, "Don't you go chatting with that young Errington, Rumbold; not if you want to get your money. I know what he is, and I know what you are, Rumbold; and he'll talk you over in no time."
But Mr. Rumbold had allowed his own valour to override his wife's discretion, and had declared that he would make the young man understand before he left the "Blue Bell" that it was absolutely necessary to settle his account there without delay. And the result justified Mrs. Rumbold's apprehension; for Algernon Errington drove away from the inn without having paid even for the breakfast he had eaten there that morning, and having added the vehicle which carried him home to the long list beginning "Flys: A. Errington, Esq.," in which he figured as debtor to the landlord of the "Blue Bell." He had flourished Lord Seely in Mr. Rumbold's face with excellent effect, and was feeling quite cheerful when he alighted at the gate of Ivy Lodge.
It was still early according to Castalia's reckoning—little more than ten o'clock. So he was not surprised at not finding her in the drawing-room or the dining-room. Lydia, of whom he inquired at length as to where her mistress was, having first bade her light a fire for him to have a cigar by, before going to the office—Lydia said with a queer, half-scared, half-saucy look, "Laws, sir, missus has been out this hour and a half."
"Out!"
"Yes, sir. She said as how she couldn't rest in her bed, nor yet in the house, sir. Polly made her take a cup of tea, and then she went off to Whit Meadow."
"To Whit Meadow! In this damp raw weather at nine o'clock in the morning!"
"Please, sir, me and Polly thought it wasn't safe for missus, and her so delicate. But she would go."
Algernon shrugged his shoulders and said no more. Before the girl left the room, she said, "Oh, and please, sir, here's some letters as came for you," pointing to a little heap of papers on Castalia's desk.
Left alone, Algernon drew his chair up to the fire and lit a cigar. He did not hasten himself to examine the letters. Bills, of course! What else could they be? He began to smoke and ruminate. He would have liked to see Castalia before going to the office. He would have liked to make his own representation to her of the story he had told Lord Seely. She must be got to corroborate it unknowingly if possible. He reflected with some bitterness that she had lately shown so much power of opposing him, that it might be she would insist on taking a course of conduct which would upset all the combination he—with the help of chance circumstances—had so neatly pieced together. And then he reflected further, knitting his brows a little, that at any cost she must be prevented from spoiling his plans; and that her conduct lately had been so strange that it wouldn't be very difficult to convince the world of her insanity. "'Gad, I'm almost convinced of it myself," said Algernon, half aloud. But it was not true.
The fire was warm, the room was quiet, the cigar was good, the chair was easy. Algernon felt tempted to sit still and put off the moment when he must re-enter the Whitford Post-office. He shuddered as he thought of the place with a kind of physical repulsion. Nevertheless, it must be faced once or twice more. Not much more often, he hoped. He rose up, put on a great-coat, and said to himself lazily as he ran his fingers through his hair in front of the looking-glass, "Where the devil can Castalia have gone mooning to?" Then he turned to leave the room. As he turned his eyes fell on the little heap of letters. He took them up and turned them over with a grimace.
"H'm! Ravell—respectful compliments. Ah! no; your mouth ought to have been stopped, I think! But that's the way. More they get, more they want. Never pay an instalment. Fatal precedent! What's this—a lawyer's letter! Gladwish. Oh! Very well, Mr. Gladwish.Nous verrons.Chemist! What on earth—? Oh, rose-water! Better than his boluses, I daresay, but not very good, and quite humorously dear. Extortionate rascal! And who are you, my illiterate-looking friend?"
He took a square blue envelope between his finger and thumb, and examined the cramped handwriting on it, running in a slanting line from one corner to the other. It was addressed to "Mr. Algernon Errington." "Someveryangry creditor, who won't even indulge me with the customary 'Esquire,'" thought Algernon with a contemptuous smile and some genuine amusement. Then he opened it. It was from Jonathan Maxfield!
In about a quarter of an hour after reading that letter, Algernon called to the servants to know if their mistress had come back. He did not ring as usual, but went to the door of the kitchen and spoke to both the women, saying that he was uneasy at Mrs. Errington's absence, and did not like to go to the office without seeing her. He said two or three times, how strange it was that his wife should have wandered out in that way; and plainly showed considerable anxiety about her. Both the women remarked how pale and upset their master looked. "Oh, it's enough to wear out anybody the way she goes on," said Lydia. "Poor young man! A nice way to welcome him home!"
"Ah," returned Polly, the cook, shaking her head, "I'm afraid there's going to be awful trouble with missus, poor thing.Ibelieve she's half out of her mind with jealousy. Just think how she's been going on about Miss Maxfield. Why 'tis all over the place. And they say old Max is going to law against her, or something. But I can't but pity her, poor thing."
"Oh! they say worse of her than being out of her mind with jealousy," returned Lydia. "Don't you know what Mrs. Ravell's housemaid told her young man at the grocer's?" Et cetera, et cetera.
The discussion was checked in full career by their master returning to say that he should not go to the office until he had seen Mrs. Errington, and that he was then going to Whit Meadow to look for her. He went out past the kitchen and through the garden at the back of the house.
He looked about him when he got to the garden gate. Nothing to be seen but damp green meadow, leaden sky, and leaden river. Where was Castalia? A thought shot into his mind, swift and keen as an arrow—had she thrown herself into the Whit? And, if she had, what a load of his cares would be drowned with her! He walked a few paces towards the town, then turned and looked in the opposite direction. For as far as he could see, there was not a human being on the meadow-path. His eyes were very good and he used them eagerly, scanning all the space of Whit Meadow within their range of vision. At length he caught sight of something moving among a clump of low bushes—blackberry bushes and dog-roses, a tangle of leafless spikes now, although in the summer they would be fresh and fragrant, and the holiday haunt of little merry children—which grew on a sloping part of the bank between him and the Whit. He walked straight towards it, and as he drew nearer, became satisfied that the moving figure was that of his wife. He recognised a dark tartan shawl which she wore. It was not bright enough to be visible at a long distance; but as he advanced he became sure that he knew it. In a few minutes the husband and wife stood face to face.
"This is a nice reception to give me," said Algernon, in a hard, cold voice, after they had looked at each other for a second, and Castalia had remained silent and still. In truth, she was physically unable to speak to him in that first moment of meeting. Her heart throbbed so that every beat of it seemed like an angry blow threatening her life.
"Why do you wander out alone in this way? Why do you conduct yourself like a mad woman? Though, indeed, perhaps you are not so wrong there; madness might excuse your conduct. Nothing else can."
"I couldn't stay in that house. I should have died there. Everything in every room reminded me of you."
She answered so faintly that he had to strain his ear to hear her, and her colourless lips trembled as the lips tremble of a person trying to keep back tears. But her eyes were quite dry.
Algernon was pale, with the peculiar ghastly pallor of a fresh ruddy complexion. His blue eyes had a glitter in them like ice, not fire; and there was a set, sarcastic, bitter smile on his mouth.
"Look here, Castalia; we had better understand one another at once. I shall begin by telling you what I have resolved upon, and what I have done, and you will then have to obey meimplicitly. There must be no sort of discussion or hesitation. Come back to the house with me at once."
She shook her head quickly. "No! no! Tell me here—out here by ourselves, where no one can hear us. I cannot bear to go into that house yet."
"Pshaw! What intolerable fooling! Well, here be it. I have no time to waste. I have seen your uncle. Don't interrupt me! He has promised to get us out of this cursed place, and to find a post for me abroad as consul. I had to exercise a good deal of persistence and ability to bring him to that point, but to that point I have brought him. We must keep him to it, and be active. My lady will move heaven and earth—or t'other place and earth, which is more in her line—to thwart us. Now, when it is necessary to keep things here as smooth as possible, to arouse no suspicion that we may be off at a moment's notice, to hold out hopes of everything being settled by Lord Seely's help, what do I find? I find that you have gone to a man who is a creditor of mine, who is not over fond of me to begin with, and have grossly and outrageously insulted him and his daughter! Just as if you had ingeniously cast about for the most effectual means of doing me a mischief. I found this letter on the table. He threatens to ruin me, and he can do it. If my name is posted, my bills protested, and a public hullabaloo made about them and other matters, your uncle's influence will hardly suffice to get me the berth I want in the face of the opposition newspapers' bellowing on the subject. Your uncle is but small beer in London at best. But that much he might have managed, if you hadn't behaved in this maniacal way."
"And how haveyoubehaved? Oh, Ancram, Ancram, I would not have believed—Icouldnot——" She burst into tears, and sank down on the damp grass, covering her face with her hands, and shaking with sobs.
"Listen! Castalia! Do you hear me?" said her husband, shaking her lightly by the arm.
She did not answer, but continued to cry convulsively, rocking herself to and fro.
Algernon stood looking down upon her with folded arms. "Upon my soul!" he said, after a minute, and with a contemptuous little nod of the head, which expressed an unbounded sense of the hopeless imbecility of the woman at his feet, and of his own long-suffering tolerance towards her, "Upon my life and soul, Castalia, I have never even heard of anyone so outrageously unreasonable as you are. Your jealousy—we may as well speak plainly—your jealousy has passed the bounds of sanity. But, as I told you, I am not going to argue with you. I am going to give directions for your guidance, since it is quite clear you are unable to guide yourself. In the first place——for God's sake stop that noise!" he cried, a sudden fierce irritation piercing through his self-restraint. "In the first place, you must make a full, free, and humble apology to Rhoda Maxfield!"
Castalia started to her feet and confronted him. "Never!" she said. "I will never do it!"
"I told you I was not going to argue with you. I am giving you your orders. A full, free, and humble—very humble—apology to Rhoda Maxfield is our one chance of softening her father. And if you have any sense or conscience left, you must know that Rhoda richly deserves every apology you can make her."
"You think so, do you?"
"Yes; I think so. She is a thoroughly good and charming girl. The only crime she has ever committed against you is being young and pretty. And if you quarrel with every woman who is so, you will find the battle a rather unequal one." He could not resist the sneer. He detested Castalia at that moment. Her whole nature, her violence, her passionate jealousy, her no less passionate love, her piteous grief, her demands on some sentiment in himself, which he knew to be non-existent; every turn of her body, every tone of her voice, were at that moment intensely repulsive to him.
The poor thing was stung into such pain by his taunt that she scarcely knew what she said or what she did.
"Oh, I know," she cried, "that you care more for her than for me! A pink-and-white face, that's all you value! More than wife, or—or—anything in the world. More than the honour of a gentleman. She's a devil; a sly, sleek little devil! She has got your love away from me. She has made you tell lies, and be cruel to me. But I'll expose her to all the world."
"What, in the name of all that's incomprehensible, has put this craze into your head against Rhoda Maxfield? It's the wildest thing!"
"Oh, Ancram! you can't deceive me any longer. I know—I have seen. She came on the sly to see you at the office. You used to go to her when you told me you had to be busy at the office. I watched you, I followed you all down Whitford High Street one night, and found out that you were cheating me."
"Ha! And you also opened my desk at the office, and took out letters and papers! Do you know what people are called who do such things?" said Algernon, now in a white heat of anger.
She drew back and looked at him. "Yes," she said, "I know."
"Have you no shame, then? No common sense? You attack a young lady—yes, a lady! A far better lady than you are!—of whom you take it into your head to be jealous, merely because she is pretty and admired by everybody. By me amongst the everybodies. Why not? I didn't lose my eyesight when I married you. You talk about my not loving you——! Do you think you go the way to make me do anything but detest the sight of you? You disgrace me in the town. You disgrace me before my clerk in the office. You and your relations persecuted me into marrying you, and now you haven't even the decency to behave like a rational being, but make yourself a laughing-stock, and me a butt for contemptuous pity in having tied myself to such a woman. One would have thought you would try to make some amends for the troubles I have been plunged into by my marriage."
She put her hands up one to each side of her head, and held them there tightly pressed. "Ancram," she said, "doyou detest the sight of me?"
"You've tried your best to make me."
"Have you no spark of kindness or affection for me in your heart—not one?"
"Come, Castalia, let us have done with this! I thoroughly dislike and object to 'scenes' of any kind. You have a taste for them, unfortunately. What you have to do now is to do as I bid you, and try to make your peace by begging Rhoda's pardon, and so trying to undo a little of the mischief your insane temper has caused."
"Ancram, say one kind word to me!"
"Good God, Castalia! How can you be so exasperatingly childish?"
"One word! Say you love me a little still! Say you did love me when you married me! Don't let me believe that I have been a miserable dupe all along."
She no longer refused point-blank to obey him. She was bending into her old attitude of submission to his wishes. His ascendancy over her was paramount still. But she had made herself thoroughly obnoxious to him, and must be punished. Algernon's resentments were neither quick nor numerous, but they were lasting. His distaste for certain temperaments was profound. Castalia's intensity of emotion, and her ungoverned way of showing it, roused a sense of antagonism in him, which came nearer to passion than anything he had ever felt. With the sure instinct of cruelty, he confronted her wild, eager, supplicating face with a hard, cold, sarcastic smile, and a slight shrug. A blow from his hand would have been tender by comparison. Then he pulled out his watch and said, "How long do you intend this performance to last?" in the quietest voice in the world. And all the while he was in a white heat of anger, as I have said.
"Oh, Ancram! Oh, Ancram!" she cried. Then with a sudden change of tone, she said, "Will you promise me one thing? Will you swear never to see Rhoda Maxfield again? If you will do that, I will—I will—try to forgive you."
"Toforgiveme! Then you reallyhavelost your senses?"
"No; I wish I had! I would rather be mad than know what I know. But think, Ancram, think well before you refuse me! This one thing is all I ask. Never see or speak to her, or write to her again—not even when I am dead! Swear it. I think if you swore it you would keep to it, wouldn't you? This one poor thing for all I have borne, for all I am willing to bear. I'll take that as a proof that you don't love her best. I'll be content with that. I'll give up everything else in the whole world. Only do this one thing for me, Ancram; I beg it on my knees!"
She did, indeed, fall on her knees as she spoke, and stretched out her clasped hands towards him. For one second their eyes met, then he turned his way and said, as quietly as ever, "I am going to Mr. and Miss Maxfield at once, with the most effectual apology which could be offered to them—namely, that you are a maniac, and in any case not responsible for your actions, nor to be treated like a rational being."
She staggered up to her feet. "Very well," she gasped out, "then I shall not spare you—nor her. I have had a letter from my uncle. He has told me what you accused me of. I went to the office. That man there told me the same. The notes that I paid away to Ravell—you 'wondered'—youwere 'uneasy!' Why, you gave me them yourself. Oh, Ancram, howcouldyou have the heart? I wish I was dead!"
"I wish to God you were!"
She was standing close to the edge of the steep, slippery bank; and when he said these words she staggered and, with a little heart-broken moan, put out her hand to clutch at him, groping like a blind person. He shook off her grasp with a sudden rough movement, and the next instant she was deep in the dark ice-cold water.
It was past mid-day when a loud peal at the bell of Ivy Lodge startled the women in the kitchen. Polly ran to the front door to open it. There stood her master, who pushed quickly into the house past her. "Is your mistress come back?" he asked almost breathlessly.
"No, sir! Oh, mercy me, what's the matter? What has happened?" she cried, for his face showed undisguised terror and agitation. He sat down in the dining-room and asked for a glass of wine. Having drunk it at a gulp, he said, "I cannot understand it. I have been nearly to Whitford along the meadow-path; I didn't try the other way, but then she would not have wandered towards Duckwell, surely! Then I crossed the fields and came back by the road, looking everywhere, and asking every one I met. Nothing to be seen of her. Your mistress's manner has been so strange of late. You must have noticed it. I—I—am afraid—I cannot help being afraid that some terrible thing has happened to her. I have had a dreadful weight and presentiment on my mind all the morning. Where can she be?"
"Oh no, no, sir. Never fear! She'll be all safe somewheres or other. She'll just have gone wandering on into the town. Shehavebeen strange in her ways, poor thing! and we couldn't but see it, sir. But she can't have come to no harm. There's nothing to hurt her here-about."
Thus honest Polly, consolingly. But she was infected, too, by the terror in her master's white face.
"You don't know," said he tremulously, "what reason I have for uneasiness." He drew out from his pocket-book a torn scrap of paper with some writing on it. "I found this on the floor by her desk this morning. This is what alarmed me so before I went out, but I wouldn't say anything about it then."
Polly stared at the paper with eager curiosity, but the sharp, slanting writing puzzled her eyes, never quite at their ease with the alphabet in any shape. "Is it missus's writing?" she asked.
"Yes; see, she talks of being so wretched. Why, God knows! Her mind has been quite unhinged. That is the only explanation. And, you see, she says, 'It will not be long before this misery is at an end. I cannot live on as I am living.I will not.'"
"Lord, ha' mercy upon us!" ejaculated the woman, on whom the full force of her master's anxiety and alarm suddenly broke. Her round ruddy cheeks grew almost as white as his, and Lydia, who had been peeping and listening at the door, burst out crying, and began uttering a series of incoherent phrases.
"Hold your noise!" said Polly roughly. "There's troubles enough without you. Now look ye here, sir. I'll put on my bonnet and go right down into Whitford. You take a look along Whit Meadow up Duckwell way. I bet ten pounds she's there somewhere's about. She has taken to going about through the fields, hasn't she, Lydia? Oh, hold your noise, and try and do something to help, you whimpering fool!"
Polly's violent excitement and trepidation took a practical form, whilst the other woman was utterly helpless. She was bidden to stay at home and "receive missus," and tell her that master was come back, and beg her "to bide still in the house, until he should return."
"But I'm afraid she'll never come back!" sobbed Lydia. "I'm so frightened to stop here by myself."
"Ugh, you great silly! Haven't you got no feeling for the poor husband? He looks scared well-nigh to death, poor lad. And as for you, it ain't muchyoucare what's become of missus. You never had a good word for her. You're only crying because you're a coward."
Meanwhile Algernon sat in the little dining-room, with a strange sensation, as if every muscle in his body had been turned into lead. Hemustget up, and go out as the woman had said. Hemust! But there he sat with that sensation of marvellousweightholding him down in his chair. The house was absolutely still. Lydia, unable to remain alone in the kitchen, had gone to stand at the front door and stare up and down the road. Thus she heard nothing of footsteps approaching the house at the back, coming hurriedly through the garden, and pausing at the threshold of the door, which was open.
Presently, after some muttered conversation, in which two or three voices took part, a man entered the house and came along the passage, looking, as he went, into the kitchen and finding no one. Just as he reached the door of the dining-room, Algernon came out and confronted him.
"There's been an accident, sir, I'm sorry to say," said the man. "The alarm was given up our way about an hour and a half ago. Somebody's fallen into the Whit. I'm very sorry, sir, but I'm afraid you must prepare for bad news."
Whilst he was still speaking, the house had filled with an ever-gathering crowd. People stood in the passage, peeping over each other's shoulders, and pushing to get a glimpse of Algernon. There were even faces pressed to the windows outside, and the garden was blocked up. Polly had come hurrying back from the town, and now elbowed her way through the crowd to her master. She soon cleared the passage of the throng of idlers who blocked it up, and shut them outside the door by main force. They still swarmed about the house and garden, both on the side of the road and that of Whit Meadow. And their numbers increased every minute. Polly pulled the man who had been spokesman into the dining-room, and bade him say what he had to say without further preamble. "It's no use 'preparing' him," she said, pointing to Algernon, who had sunk into a chair, and was holding his forehead with his hands; "you'll only make it worse. I'm afraid you can't tell him anything dreadfuller than he's got into his head already. Speak out!"
Thus requested, the man, a carpenter of Pudcombe village, told his tale. Some men, working in the fields about a mile above Whitford—half a mile, perhaps, from Ivy Lodge, had heard cries for help from the meadows near the river. He, the carpenter, happened to be passing along a field path from a farmhouse where he had been at work, and ran with the labourers down to the water's edge. There they saw David Powell, the Methodist preacher, wildly shouting for help, and with clothes dripping wet. He had waded waist-deep into the Whit to try to save some one who was drowning there, but in vain. He could not swim, and the current had carried the drowning person out of his reach. "You know," said the carpenter, "there are some ugly swirls and currents in the Whit, for all it looks so sluggish." A boat had been got out and manned, and had made all speed in the direction Powell pointed out. He insisted on accompanying them in his wet clothes. They searched the river for some time in vain. They had got as far as Duckwell Reach when they caught sight of a dark object close in shore. It was the form of a woman. Her clothes had caught in the broken stump of an old willow that grew half in the water; and she was thus held there, swinging to and fro with the current. She was taken out and carried to Duckwell Farm, where every effort had been made to restore her to consciousness. Powell understood the best methods to employ. The Seth Maxfields had done everything in their power, but it was no use. She had never moved, nor breathed, nor quivered an eyelash.
That was the substance of the carpenter's story.
"Is she dead?" asked Algernon with his face hidden. They were the first words he had spoken. And when the man answered with a mournful but positive "Yes; quite, quite dead," he said not a syllable further, but turned away from them, and buried his head in the cushions of the chair.
"He hasn't even asked who the woman was!" whispered the carpenter to Polly. The tears were streaming down the woman's cheeks. Castalia had not made herself beloved in her own house, but Polly had felt the sort of regard for her which grows by acts of kindness, and forbearance and compassion, performed. She shook her head, and answered in an equally low tone, "No need for him to ask, poor young fellow. We've all been fearing something dreadful about missus all morning. And he had his reasons for being afraid as she had gone and done something desperate."
"What—you don't mean that she made away with herself?" said the carpenter, raising his hands.
"Oh, that's more than you and I know. Best say nothing. How can we judge? Poor soul! Well, I always did feel sorry for her, and that I'll say. Though, mind you, I'm sorry for him too. But there's some folks as can't stroke the dog without kicking the cat."
The news spread rapidly through Whitford, and caused the utmost excitement there. Mrs. Algernon Errington had been found drowned in the Whit. How—whether by accident or design—no one knew. But that did not prevent people from hazarding a thousand conjectures. She had wandered out alone, had ventured too near the edge of the slippery bank, and had lost her footing. She had been robbed and thrown into the river. She had committed suicide from ungovernable jealousy. She had committed suicide in a fit of insanity. She had become a hypochondriac. She had gone raving mad. She had committed various frauds at the post-office, and had killed herself in terror at the prospect of their coming to light. This latter hypothesis found much credence. So many circumstances—trifling, perhaps, in themselves, but important when massed together—seemed to corroborate it. And then, if that did not seem an adequate motive for the desperate deed, Castalia's notorious and passionate jealousy was thrown in as a make-weight. There would be a coroner's inquest, of course. And the chief witness at it would probably be David Powell. It appeared he was the last person who had seen the unfortunate woman alive.
Mrs. Thimbleby was in terrible affliction. Mr. Powell was very ill. He had plunged into the ice-cold river, and had then remained for hours in his wet clothes. He had not been able to walk back from Duckwell Farm, and Farmer Maxfield had brought him home himself in his spring-cart, and had bidden widow Thimbleby look after him a little, for he (Maxfield) thought the preacher in a very bad way. He was seized with violent fits of shivering, and the doctor whom Mrs. Thimbleby sent for to see him, on her own responsibility, told them to get him into bed at once, to keep him warm, and to administer certain remedies which he ordered. But no word would Powell speak about his ailments to the doctor, or to anyone else. He waved off all questions with a determined though gentle resolution. He allowed himself to be helped into bed, being absolutely unable to stand or walk without assistance. And he did not refuse the warm clothing which the widow heaped upon him. He lay still and passive, but he would say no word of his symptoms and sensations to the doctor. "The man can in no wise help me," he said to Mrs. Thimbleby. "All the wisdom of this world is foolishness to one whom the Lord has laid his hands on. I am bowed as a reed; yea, I am broken."
His voice was hoarse and feeble, and his eyes blazed with a feverish light. The widow found it vain to importune him to swallow the medicines that had been sent. In her heart she had some misgivings that it might be wrong to interfere in the dealings of Providence with so holy a man, by administering drugs to him. But the misgivings never reached a point of conviction that might have comforted her.
"I'll leave you quiet awhile, Mr. Powell," she said. "Maybe you'll sleep, and that would do you more good than anything. Sleep is God's own cure for a many troubles, isn't it?"
He looked at her with a wild unrecognising stare. "When I say my bed shall comfort me, my couch shall ease my complaint, then thou scarest me with dreams, and terrifiest me through visions," he murmured.
The good woman softly went away, wiping the tears from her eyes. "One thing is a mercy," said the poor soul to herself, "and that is, that Mr. Diamond is so kind and thoughtful. He gives no trouble, and is a help on the contrary. And I'm sure I don't know how we should have managed without his arm to help Mr. Powell upstairs. And another thing is a mercy—I hope it isn't wrong to feel it so!—that Mrs. Errington is out of the house. I do not know how I should have been strengthened to keep up and attend upon her, and she in such a way, poor thing! The Lord has had pity on us for Mr. Powell's sake."
Minnie Bodkin had driven to Mrs. Thimbleby's house early in the afternoon, and taken Mrs. Errington away with her. Mrs. Errington had rushed to Ivy Lodge under the first shock of the terrible news which Mr. Smith, the surgeon, communicated to her. She had seen her son for a few minutes. Her intention had been to remain with him, but this he would not allow. He had insisted on his mother's returning to her own lodgings after a very brief interview with him.
"No wonder he can't bear to have her about, though sheishis mother. Tiresome old thing!" exclaimed Lydia, peevishly.
But if Algernon got rid of his mother as quickly as possible, he refused to admit any one else at all, and remained shut up in the dining-room, whither he had had a sofa carried, meaning to sleep there. He had been obliged to receive Seth Maxfield, who came to ask when and how he would wish his wife's body conveyed from Duckwell Farm to Whitford. "Can't she stay there?" he had asked in a dazed sort of manner. Then added quickly, turning away his head, "I'll leave it all to you. You've been very good. You've done everything for the best, I am sure." And he put out his hand to the farmer with his face still turned away. And later on he had had to see some officials about the inquest. But after that was over, he locked his door, and refused to open it except to Polly, when she brought him food. He ate almost ravenously, drank a great deal of wine, and then lay down and dozed away the hours until dawn next day.
The inquest was to be held at the "Blue Bell" inn. And after the inquest, the dust of the Honourable Castalia Errington was to be laid beneath the turf of the humble village churchyard, amidst less noble dust, with the daisies growing impartially above all, and spreading their pink-edged petals over the just and the unjust alike.
It was now currently reported that the thefts at the post-office had been Castalia's doing. Mrs. Smith and Mrs. Dockett had been "sure of it all along"—so they said, and so they really imagined now. The story of the mysterious notes paid to Ravell, the draper, was in every mouth. Roger Heath went about saying that Mr. Errington ought to makehisloss good out of his own pocket, if he had any feelings of honour. But all the people who had not lost any money in the post-office were disgusted at Roger Heath's hardness and avarice, and asked indignantly if that was the moment to speak of such things? For the tragedy of Castalia's death had produced a strong effect in Whitford. Perhaps there was not one human being in the town who grieved that she was gone; but many were oppressed by the manner of her going. People had an uneasy feeling in remembering how much they had disliked her; almost as if their dislike made them guilty of her death in some vague, far-off, inexplicable way. They told themselves and each other that though "her manners had been repellent, poor thing," yet for their part they had always felt sorry for her, and had long perceived that her mind was astray, and that she was falling into a low melancholy state, that was likely to lead to some terrible catastrophe. By this time scarcely any one in Whitford entertained a doubt as to Castalia's having destroyed herself. And the social verdict, "Temporary insanity," was pronounced in assured anticipation that the legal verdict would be to that effect also.
There were two men who did not mystify themselves by conjuring up any factitious tenderness about Castalia's memory, and who gave way to no superstitious uneasiness of conscience as to their dislike of her when she was alive. One of these men was Jonathan Maxfield; the other was the dead woman's husband.
Maxfield had no retrospective softness on the subject. He, indeed, being accustomed to take certain passages of the Old Testament very seriously and literally, and having fed his mind almost exclusively upon those passages, was of opinion that Castalia's tragic fate had been brought about by a direct interposition of Providence as a judgment on her for her bad behaviour to himself and his daughter. And if this opinion on Maxfield's part should appear incredibly monstrous, let it be remembered that in his own mind "the godly" were typified by the Maxfield family, and "the ungodly" by the enemies of that family.
As to Algernon—harassed, anxious, and doubtful of the future as he might be, he was glad that his wife was dead, and he knew that he was glad. Her death made a way out—apparently the only possible way out—of a labyrinth of troubles, and relieved Algernon from the apprehension of an exposure which it made him sick to think of. He had not meant to kill her, he said to himself. He had certainly laid no deliberate plan to do so. Had he, in truth, been the cause of her death? In the state of mind she was in, would she not have thrown herself into the river, or otherwise put an end to herself, without that touch from him which he had given, he knew not how?
It all seemed unreal to him when he thought of it—the leaden water, the grey sky and meadows, and the slippery bank with its tufts of blackberry bushes. He went over and over again in his mind the words that had passed between himself and Castalia; her violence, and her wild jealousy and suspicions, and her allusion to her uncle's letter, and to what Gibbs had told her, and then her fierce threat that she would not spare him! She had become utterly unmanageable—mad, in fact. She had resolved to die. She had a suicidal mania. That scrap of writing would suffice to prove it. To be sure he had found it and put it in his pocket-book weeks ago, although he told the servant that he had picked it up off the floor that morning of his return from London. But that only indicated that the idea had long been rooted in her mind. And besides, the paper bore no date. There was nothing to show how long it had been written.
No, it was not he who had killed Castalia. She had gone down willingly to death. She had uttered no sound, no cry. He should have heard a cry all across the silent meadows. He had not looked back. He had fled away from the river at his topmost speed after he saw her slip, and stagger, and fall heavily into the black water under the shadow of the bank. Had she risen again to the surface? It was said that drowning persons always rose three times. But she had made no sound. Surely she would have cried out if she had longed for life. Ugh! It was horrible to imagine her white face and staring eyes rising above the strong dragging current and looking for help. That was all very ghastly, very hideous. He would not think of it. It was over. Castalia was dead. And although he would have given much that she should have died in any other way, yet he was glad that she was dead, and he knew that he was glad.
He made no pretence to himself of a factitious tenderness about her. She had been thoroughly antagonistic and distasteful to him of late. She had been the bitter drop flavouring every action, every hope, every minute of his life. He had been the victim of a hard fate, and of the false promises (implied, if not expressed) of Lord Seely. Those paltry sums—those notes that he had taken—he had been driven into committing that action altogether by stress of circumstances. It was strange to himself to think of the light that action would appear in to other people. To his own mind, knowing how it had come to pass in an instant, by the tug of a sudden impulse, it seemed so clear that there was no real ground for blaming him in the matter! He had felt the difficulty of getting money with a severity which the rest of the world probably could not conceive. He was absolutely indifferent to the question of abstract right or wrong, justice or injustice, in the case. But the concrete hardship to himself of being poor he had keenly felt to be undeserved.
And now, if it were not for one thing, he should begin to breathe more freely. The one thing that weighed on him with a gloomy, though formless foreboding, was the inquest. He had been obliged to go to Duckwell Farm. He had been asked to look at Castalia's dead body. He had not dared to refuse to do so; but he had requested to be shown into the room where she lay, alone and without witnesses. The room was that sunny parlour where Rhoda Maxfield had sat on many a summer evening, and where the neighbours had discussed the news of his own marriage less than a year ago. But Algernon's imagination did not wander very far from the present. He walked to the window and looked out through the black trellis-work of leafless vine branches. Then he stared at the prints on the walls, and the gay china vases filled with winter nosegays of trembling grass and chrysanthemums. And then his eyes, which had wandered in every other direction, were compelled to turn towards the broad, old-fashioned sofa covered with fair white linen, under which the outlines of a human shape revealed themselves.
Was that stiff, white, silent thing Castalia? He could not realise it. He would scarcely have started if the door had opened and his wife had walked into the room in her ordinary dress, and with her ordinary gait. He had seen her last full of passionate excitement. That stiff, white, silent thing could not be she. He would not lift the coverlet, though, nor look on that which lay beneath. But he stood and gazed at it until the heap beneath the linen sheet seemed to stir and change its outlines. Then he turned away shuddering to the window, and looked at his watch to see whether he might venture to leave the room yet. Would the people think he had been there too short a time? He came out at length, looking pale and depressed enough to excite a good deal of sympathy in the breast of Mrs. Seth Maxfield. And with his usual quick susceptibility to the impression he produced on others, he was fully aware of this, and gratified by it, despite the chill vision of the still white heap under the coverlet which persistently haunted his memory. He saw looks of pity; he heard whispered exclamations of admiration, and they did more than gratify, they reassured him. It had entered into nobody's mind to conceive that he had been the cause of his wife's death. Into whose head, indeed, should it enter? or how? He remembered the last lightning-quick glance he had cast over the wide meadows, and how it had shown them to him empty and bare of any living thing for as far as his eye could reach. No; he was safe from suspicion. Of course he was safe from suspicion! And yet—he would have given a year of his life to have the inquest over, and the dead woman safely put away beneath the daisies in Duckwell churchyard.
Meanwhile the mortal frame that had so throbbed and suffered for his sake, lay there lonely and neglected. Strangers' hands had composed it decently; a stranger's roof sheltered it. It was to lie in a stranger's grave. Only one woman came and stood beside the couch in the sunny parlour, and looked on the dead shape with eyes full of compassionate tears; and, before going away, laid some sprays of fern and delicate hothouse blossoms on the quiet breast, and fastened there a curl of light hair. The hair had been cut jestingly from Algernon Errington's head when he was a school-boy, and then put away and forgotten for years. It now lay above his dead wife's heart. "She was so fond of him, poor soul!" said the compassionate woman. It was Minnie Bodkin.
The big room at the "Blue Bell" was full. It was a room associated in the minds of most of the people present with occasions of festivity or entertainment. The Archery Club balls were held in it. It was used for the exhibitions of any travelling conjurer, lecturer, or musician, whose evil fate brought him to Whitford. Once a strolling company of players had performed there before some fifteen persons and several dozen cane-bottomed chairs. There were the tarnished candelabra stuck in the walls, the little gallery up aloft where the fiddlers sat on ball nights, and the big looking-glass at one end of the room, muffled with yellow muslin, and surmounted by a dusty garland of paper flowers. Now the wintry daylight coming through the uncurtained windows, made all these things look chill, ghastly, and forlorn. People who had thought the "Blue Bell" Assembly Room a cheerful place enough under the bright illumination of wax candles, now shivered, and whispered to each other how dreary it was.
The coroner's jury had been out to Duckwell Farm to view the body, and to look at the exact spot on the bank where it had been landed from the boat, and to stare at the willow stump to which it had been found fastened by the clothes. And they had returned to the "Blue Bell" inn to complete the inquiry into the causes of the death of Castalia Errington. A great many witnesses had already been examined. Their testimony went to show that the deceased lady's behaviour of late had been very strange, capricious, and unreasonable. Almost every one of the witnesses, including the servants at Ivy Lodge, confessed that they had heard rumours of young Mrs. Errington being "not right in her mind." They had observed an increasing depression of spirits in her of late. Obadiah Gibbs's evidence was the strongest of all, and his revelations created a great sensation. He described his last interview with Castalia at the post-office, and left the impression on all his hearers which was honestly his own; namely, that on Castalia, and on her alone, rested the onus of the irregularities and robberies of money-letters at Whitford. He did his best to spare her memory. He sincerely thought her irresponsible for her actions. But the facts, as he saw and represented them, admitted of but one conclusion being come to.
Algernon Errington's appearance in the room elicited a low murmur of sympathy from the spectators. His manner of giving his evidence was perfect, and nothing could have been better in keeping with the circumstances of his painful position, than the subdued, yet quiet tones of his voice, and the white, strained look of his face, which revealed rather the effect of a great shock to the nerves than a deep wound to the heart. Of course he could not be expected to grieve as a husband would grieve who had lost a dearly-loved and loving wife; but their having been on somewhat bad terms, and Castalia's notorious jealousy and bad temper, made the manner of her death all the more terrible. Poor young man! He was dreadfully cut up, one could see that. But he made no pretences, put on no affectations of woe. He was so simple and quiet! In a word, he was credited with feeling precisely what he ought to have felt.
His statement added scarcely any new fact to those already known. He had not seen his wife alive since he parted from her when he started for London to visit Lord Seely, who was ill. He corroborated his servants' testimony to the facts that Castalia had wandered out on to Whit Meadow about nine o'clock in the morning; that he had been made uneasy by her strange absence, and that he had gone himself to seek her, but without success. In reply to some questions by a juryman, as to whether he had gone to London solely because of Lord Seely's illness, he answered, with a look of quiet sadness, that that had not been his sole reason. There were private matters to be spoken of between himself and his wife's uncle—matters which admitted of no delay. Could he not have written them? No; he did not feel at liberty to write them. They concerned his wife. He had mentioned to Lord Seely his fears that her mind was giving way, as Lord Seely would be able to affirm. A letter found in the pocket of the deceased woman's gown was produced and read. It had become partly illegible from immersion in the water, but the greater portion of it could be made out. It was from Lord Seely, and referred to a painful conversation he had had with his niece's husband about herself. It was a kind letter, but written evidently in much agitation and pain of mind. The writer exhorted and even implored his niece to confide fully in him, for her own sake, as well as that of her family; and promised that he would help and support her under all circumstances, if she would but tell him the truth unreservedly.
Nothing could have been better for Algernon's case than that letter. Instead of being the cause of his disgrace and exposure, it was obviously the means of confirming every one of his statements, implied as well as expressed. It showed clearly enough—first, that Algernon had given Lord Seely to understand that his wife laboured under grave suspicions of having stolen money-letters from the Whitford Post-office; secondly, that he (Algernon) believed those suspicions to be well founded; thirdly, that symptoms of mental aberration, which had recently manifested themselves in Castalia, were at once the explanation of, and the excuse for, her conduct. This letter, which, if Castalia were alive to speak for herself, would have been like a brand on her husband's forehead for life, was now a most valuable testimony in his favour.
Algernon's hard and unrelenting mood towards his dead wife grew still harder and more unrelenting as he listened to this letter, and remembered that Castalia had threatened him with exposure, and had resolved not to spare him. Nothing in the world but her death could have saved him from ruin. Even supposing that she could have been cajoled into promising to comply with his directions, she would not have been able to do so. She was so stupidly literal in her statements. A direct lie would have embarrassed her. And then, at the first jealous fit which might have seized her, he would have been at her mercy. Lord Seely's letter showed a strong feeling of irritation—almost of hostility—against Algernon. It might not be recognisable by the audience at the inquest, but Algernon recognised it completely, and felt a distinct sense of triumph in the impotence of Lord Seely to harm him, or to wriggle away from under his heel. Algernon was master of the position. He appeared before the world in the light of a victim to his alliance with the Seelys. There could be no further talk on their part of condescension, or honour conferred. He and his mother had lived their lives as persons of gentle blood and unblemished reputation until the Honourable Castalia Kilfinane brought disgrace and misery into their home. In making these reflections Algernon was not, of course, considering the inward truth of facts, but their outward semblances. It made no difference to his indignation against the "pompous little ass" who had treated him with hauteur, nor to his satisfaction in humbling the "pompous little ass," that if all the secret circumstances hidden and silenced for ever under the cold white shroud that covered his dead wife could be revealed before the eyes of all men, Lord Seely would have the right to detest and despise him. Lord Seely had not treated him as he ought. He was firmly persuaded of that. And as he measured Lord Seely's duty towards him accurately by the extent of all he desired and expected of Lord Seely, it will be seen how far short the latter had fallen of Algernon's standard.
The Seth Maxfields gave their testimony as to how the deceased body had been carried into their house; how they had tried all means to revive her; and how every effort had been in vain, and she had never moved nor breathed again. The two men who had rescued the body from the water, and the carpenter who had brought the news to Ivy Lodge, repeated their story, and corroborated all that the Maxfields had said. There only remained to be heard the important testimony of David Powell. He had been so ill that it was feared at one time that the inquest must be adjourned until he should be able to give his evidence. But he declared that he would come and speak before the jury; that he should be strengthened to do so when the moment arrived; and had opposed a fixed silence to all the representations and remonstrances of the doctor. On the morning of the inquest he arose and dressed himself before Mrs. Thimbleby was up, albeit she was no sluggard in the morning. He had gone out, while it was still dark, into the raw foggy atmosphere of Whit Meadow, and had wandered there for a long time. On returning to the widow Thimbleby's house, he had seated himself opposite to the blazing fire in the kitchen, staring at it, and muttering to himself like a man in a feverish dream.
Nevertheless, when the due time arrived, he entered the room at the "Blue Bell" to give his evidence with a quiet steady gait. His appearance there produced a profound impression.
A stranger contrast than he presented to the Whitford burghers by whom he was surrounded could scarcely be imagined. Not only were his bodily shape and colouring different from theirs, but the expression of his face was almost unearthly. There was some subtle contradiction between the expression of David Powell's sorrow-laden eyes and brow, and that of the mouth, with its tightly-closed lips drawn back at the corners with what on ordinary faces would have been a smile. But on his face, being coupled with a singular pinched look of the nostrils and a strained tightness of the upper lip, it became something which troubled the beholder with a sense of inexplicable pain—almost terror.
As he advanced along the room, there was a hush of attentive expectation, during which Dr. Evans, the coroner, curiously examined the Methodist preacher with grave professional eyes. After a few preliminary questions, to which Powell gave brief, clear answers, he said, "I have been brought hither to testify in this matter. I am an instrument in the hands of the great and terrible God. He works not as men work. In His hand all tools are alike."
"What can you tell us of the death of this unfortunate lady, Mr. Powell?" asked the coroner, quietly. "You were the first to see her struggling in the water, were you not? And you made a gallant effort to save her."
"She struggled but little. She went to her death as a lamb to the slaughter; nay, as a victim who desires to die."
Powell spoke in a low but distinct voice; broken and harsh, indeed, compared with what it once was, but still with a soft tremulous note in it now and then, that seemed to stir deep fibres of feeling in the hearts of those who heard him. In such a tone it was that he uttered the words, "as a victim who desires to die." And tears sprang into the eyes of many from sheer emotional sympathy with the sound of his voice.
"You are of opinion, then, Mr. Powell," said the coroner, "that the deceased wilfully put an end to her own life."
"No."
"You think that she was not in a state of mind to be responsible for her actions?"
"She was murdered," said Powell, in a distinct, grating tone, which was audible in every corner of the crowded room.