When George Dallas knew that his meeting with Clare Carruthers was imminent, he told his uncle one of the two circumstances of his life which he had hitherto concealed from him. As George expected, Mr. Felton received the communication with some seriousness. "A little while ago, George," he said, "this might have upset the new and good understanding happily established between Mr. Carruthers and yourself, but I am in hopes it will not do so now. I think the old gentleman's nature is fine and forgiving, when one gets beneath the crust, and I am not afraid now. The chance of seeing the young lady, not in his presence, for the first time--that would have been awkward and dangerous indeed--is most fortunate. You must make your peace with her in the first instance."
Enough of the old habit of trick and expedient still adhered to George, in his improved moral condition, to induce him to entertain a passing thought that perhaps the necessity for Mr. Carruthers knowing he had had any previous acquaintance with Clare, might never arise; if she did not see that he must be told, George need not feel himself bound to tell him. But he rejected the impulse after a very little while, and was ashamed of it. When, therefore, Mr. Felton had left George alone at Sir Thomas Boldero's house, he had done so with intention, and without any purpose of returning.
"Meet me at my rooms afterwards," he had said to George. "And tell Miss Carruthers I will take leave to call on her at Mrs. Stanhope's this afternoon." George agreed, premising that he must look in at theMercuryoffice first, but would then be at his uncle's service. Left alone, he had applied himself, in a condition of extreme mental discomposure, to thinking of what he should say to Clare, and how he should say it. He had almost arranged a satisfactory programme before she came; after--well, after, he did not speak or look in the least like what he had intended, and if any one had asked him for an account of their interview (which no one did, it was destined to be utterly forgotten and overwhelmed in the tide of events), he would have been quite incapable of satisfying the demand.
The interview lasted long, and when, at its close, George Dallas put Clare Carruthers into her cousin's carriage, her face was closely veiled, and the little hand which lingered in his had not yet done trembling. As he stood on the door-step and watched the carriage out of sight, the young man's face was pale and agitated, but full of deep and sacred happiness too. An expression of resolve and hope, of courage and power, was upon his features, such as they had never before worn. Had he recalled the resolution he had taken for the time when Clare Carruthers should know Paul Ward as George Dallas, and had he renewed it, with fresh heart and energy, not unaided now by circumstances, not frowned upon by fate, no longer friendless? However that may have been, he carried a humbled and grateful heart with him, and felt himself a widely different man as he entered the dingy precincts of theMercuryoffice, from what he had been the last time he had crossed that threshold.
Mr. Cunningham was "in," and not only could see George, but was particularly anxious to see him.
"I was just writing to you, old fellow," he said, leaving off shaking hands with George, and beginning to tear up a brief and scrawly manuscript on flimsy which lay before him. "You have come in time to save me trouble and fourpence sterling."
"Anything about the business I wrote to you about?" asked George.
"Just that, sir. Of course I attended to it at once, and put Tatlow on to it on your account. They're said to be cautious chaps, the detectives, and of course it wouldn't pay for them to be said to be anything else; but I'm hanged if I ever believed it before. You may talk of depth, but Tatlow's unfathomable. Has the job from yon, sir, per medium of your humble servant, and flatly declines to report progress to me; goes in for doing business only with the principal, and when he comes to me not a word can I get out of him, except that he must know the address of a certain individual named Paul Ward."
"Paul Ward?" exclaimed George.
"Yes, Paul Ward! Great, fun, isn't it, George? And I really could not resist the joke of quizzing the detective a little bit. I was immensely tickled at the idea of your employing the man, and his looking after you. So I told him I knew Mr. Dallas was acquainted with a gentleman of that name, and could give him all the information he required."
George could not laugh, but he tried to smile. Nothing could lend the subject of his uncle's suspense and anxiety even a collaterally amusing effect for him, and this statement puzzled him.
"What on earth can I have to do with the matter?" he said. "The man must be travelling very far indeed out of the right tracks. No one in the world, as it is pretty plain, can be more ignorant of Felton's affairs than I am. He must be on a totally wrong scent; and if he has blundered in this way, it is only waste of time and money to employ him."
"Well," said Cunningham, a little disappointed that George did not enjoy the keenness of the capital joke as much as he did, "you must settle all that with him yourself, and find out from him, if you can--and, by Jove, I doubt it--how Paul Ward has got mixed up in your cousin's affairs (if he has got mixed up in them--and, mind, I don't feel sure even of that--he certainly did not say so) without your being a party to the transaction. I just gave Tatlow your address in Piccadilly, and told him you'd be there in a day or two."
"What did he say?" asked George, whose sense of mystification was increasing.
"Said he should call every day until you arrived,--no doubt he has been there to-day, or you'll find him there when you get home,--and disappeared, having got all the information I chose to give him, but not what he wanted; which is, I take it, the correct thing to do to a detective who observes the laws of discretion too absolutely."
Cunningham was laughing his jolly laugh, and George was wondering what Tatlow meant, when the entrance of a third individual on office business interrupted the friends' talk. George took leave, and went down-stairs. Arrived at the door, he stopped, ran up the first flight of dirty stairs again, and turned into a small room, dimly lighted by a dirty skylight, to the right of the first landing. In this sanctuary, strong smelling of dust, size, and printer's ink, lay files, bound and unbound, of theMercury. A heavy volume was open on the clumsy thick-legged table which filled up the centre of the room. It contained the files of the newspaper for the first half of the current year.
"Let me see," said George, "she was not quite sure about the 22nd; but it must have been about that date."
Then he turned the leaves, and scanned the columns of advertisements, until he found in one the warning which Clare Carruthers had sent to Paul Ward. His eyes filled with tears as he read it. He called up one of the office people, and had a copy of the paper of that date looked for, out of which he carefully cut the advertisement, and consigned it to the keeping of the pocketbook which he always carried about him. He placed the little slip of printed paper in the same compartment in which Clare Carruthers's unconscious gift had so long lain hidden. As George threw open the doors of the hansom in which he had been driven from theMercuryoffice to Piccadilly, Jim Swain came to the wheel, and, touching his tousled head, asked if he might speak to him.
"Certainly," said George, getting out; "any message from Mr. Routh?"
"No, sir," said Jim, "it's not; it's somethin' very partic'lar, as I as 'ad to say to you this long time. It ain't rightly about myself--and--"
"Never mind, Jim; you can tell me all about it in the house," said George cheerily. "Come along." He opened the door with his key, and let himself and Jim into the hall. But there Mr. Felton met him, his face grave and care-worn, and, as George saw in a minute, with some additional lines of trouble in it.
"I'm so glad you have come, George. I found letters here when I got back."
"Letters from New York?"
"Yes."
George left Jim standing on the mat, going with his uncle into the room he had just left.
Mr. James Swain, who was accustomed to pass a good deal of his life in waiting about on steps, in passages, at horses' heads, and occasionally in kitchens, and to whom the comfortable hall of the house in Piccadilly presented itself as an agreeable temporary abode, considered it advisable to sit down and attend the leisure of Mr. Dallas. He had been for some minutes engaged partly in thinking what he should say to Mr. Dallas, partly in counting the squares in the tiles which floored the hall, hearing all the while a subdued sound of voices from the adjoining room, when a strange sort of cry reached his ears. He started up, and listened intently. The cry was not repeated; but in a few moments Mr. Felton came into the hall, looking frightened, and called loudly down the lower staircase for assistance. Two servants, a man and a woman, came quickly, and in the mean time Jim looked in at the open door. In another minute they were all in the dining-room in a confused group, gathered round an arm-chair, in which was lying the insensible death-like figure of George Dallas, his collar and necktie torn off, his waistcoat open, several letters on the table before him, and a card on the floor at his feet.
It was a very complete and dead swoon, and there was no explanation of it; none to be given to the servants, at least. Jim Swain did not touch George--he only looked on; and as, at the suggestion of the woman, they opened the window, and pushed the chair on which George was lying within the current of air, he picked up the card, over which one of the castors had passed. It was a small photographic portrait. The boy looked at it, and recognized, with surprise, that it was the likeness of Mr. Deane--that it was a fac-simile of a portrait he had looked at and handled a very little while ago. He put it down upon the table, and made to Mr. Felton the business-like suggestion that a doctor had better be sent for, and he had better be sent to fetch him, which was immediately acceded to.
When Jim returned, bringing with him a general practitioner, he was told that Mr. Dallas had "come to," but was "uncommon weak and confused, and crying like a child when he wasn't shivering," so that Jim felt his chances of an interview were small indeed.
"I can't see him, of course, and I wanted to, most partic'lar. He brought me in, hisself."
"Yes, yes, I know," said the male domestic, with importance; "but you can't see him, and there's no good in your waiting about here. Look round at eleven to-morrow, and I'll see what can be done for you."
Jim had nothing for it but to go disconsolately away. So he went.
While George Dallas and Clare Carruthers were talking together at Sir Thomas Boldero's house in Chesham-place, while the hours--never to be forgotten by either--were passing over them, the same hours were witnessing an interview not less-momentous for Harriet Routh and her beautiful foe.
Mrs. Ireton P. Bembridge was ready to receive her visitor; and as her coquetry and vanity were omnivorous, much as she despised women, and sincerely as she enjoyed the knowledge of her power to make most of them envious and miserable, she had dressed herself very carefully. She was just a little bored by her present mode of existence. Routh could not be much with her; and though she had brought herself to believe that she really did feel an absorbing passion for him, somehow or other it left a good deal of her thoughts and her time unabsorbed, and she did not exactly know how to dispose of either. The romance of this kind of incognito life was all very well in its way, which was a pleasant way, and as far as it went, which certainly was very far, but not quite far enough. And she did get horribly bored, there was no denying it. When Routh's daily letter had been read--for she exacted that of him, of him who hated letter-writing, and whose hard actuality of nature needed all the incitement of her beauty, her coquetry, and her artfulness to rouse him to sentiment and give his language the eloquence of love--she had nothing but novels to fall back upon, and the vague prospect of a supplementary note or two, or trying on a new dress, or thinking what theatre she would go to, or what direction her afternoon drive should take. She was glad of the chance of seeing a new face, though it was only a woman's; and then the reason for receiving her was so sound, it was impossible Routh could object. Indeed, she could not see the force of his objections to her going out more, and seeing people in general; it could not matter now, and would sound better hereafter than this hidden residence in London; however, it could not last long, and it was very romantic, very. She had not had much chance in all her previous prosperous life of playing at romance, and she liked it; she would not like it, if it continued to mean boredom, much longer, but there was no danger of that.
No. 4 Hollington-square was one of those London houses which every one knows, furnished for people who take houses for the season, prettily, flimsily, sparingly; a house which tenants with money and taste could make very striking and attractive, which tenants without money and without taste would find very tolerable in its original condition. Mrs. Ireton P. Bembridge possessed both; and as she made it a rule to have every advantage procurable by the use of either, the drawing-room in which she awaited the coming of her visitor was as pretty and coquettish a room as could easily have been seen. She had chosen a becoming costume, and an equally becoming attitude; and she looked beautiful indeed, in her rich morning dress of black silk, faced with rose-coloured satin and costly lace. The masses of her dark hair were coiled smoothly round her head, her white arms were without a jewel to turn the eye from their shapely beauty. She glanced at one of the many mirrors in the room as the page announced "a lady," and felt perfectly satisfied.
The room was long and narrow, though not large; and as Harriet walked from the door to the hearth-rug on which Mrs. Ireton P. Bembridge stood, having gracefully risen in an attitude especially intended for her visitor's admiration, that lady had time to observe her appearance, and to experience a certain vague sense of discomfort not altogether unlike alarm. She saw a face which she remembered, but with which she could not connect any distinct recollection; a pale, fair, determined face with smooth light-brown hair framing a broad low brow, with keen piercing blue eyes, which looked steadily at her, and never dropped their fine-fringed lids, blue eyes in which power, will, and knowledge dwelt, as the shallow-souled woman they looked at, and through, felt, but did not understand. A face, so fixed in its expression of irremediable woe, a face so lost with all its self-possession, so full of despair with all its might of will, that a duller intellect than that of a meagre-brained woman must have recognized a story in it such as happily few human beings have to tell or to conceal. Harriet did not speak, or make any sign of salutation; but when she had quite reached her, Mrs. Ireton P. Bembridge recovered herself, and said, with all her accustomed grace:
"I am so much obliged to you for calling. Pray take a seat. I think I know to what I am indebted for the pleasure of your visit;" and then she sank gracefully back into her low chair, and smiled her very best smile. The very best of those suited to the feminine capacity, of course. Mrs. Ireton P. Bembridge had quite a different set of smiles for men.
"I am quite sure you do not," said Harriet, in a low firm voice, and without availing herself of the invitation to be seated. "I am quite sure you have no notion of my business here. You shall know it; it is important, but brief."
"Madam," said the other, sitting upright, and turning slightly pale.
Harriet extended her hand with a gesture habitual to her, and said:
"Stay. You must hear me for your own sake. You will do well to hear me quietly, and to give me your very best attention. If I do not make the impression on you which I desire and intend to make, there is one other person beside myself who will suffer by my failure, and that person is you."
She dropped her hand and drew her breath. Mrs. Ireton P. Bembridge looked at her with frightened distended eyes, speechless.
"You think I have come on a false pretext, and I have done so, to a certain extent. You lost an article of ornament or dress at Homburg?"
"I did--a locket," said Mrs. Ireton P. Bembridge, a little relieved, and glancing unconsciously towards her silver purse, which was at hand, and through whose meshes gold shone.
"I know, but I have not brought you your locket. You lost something else at Homburg, and I have brought it, to prove that you had better hear me, and that you must." And then Harriet laid upon the table, near by the side of the silver purse, a crushed and faded flower, whose rich luscious blossom had been of the deepest crimson in the time of its bloom, when it had nestled against a woman's silken hair.
"What is it? What do you mean? Good God, who are you?" said Mrs. Ireton P. Bembridge, shrinking back as Harriet made the one step necessary to enable her to reach the table.
"I am Stewart Routh's wife," she replied, slowly, and without changing her tone, or releasing the other woman from her steady gaze.
This time Mrs. Ireton P. Bembridge sprang to her feet, with a face as white as death.
"Don't be frightened," said Harriet, with the faintest glimmer of a contemptuous smile, which was the last expression having relation to Mrs. Ireton P. Bembridge personally, that showed itself in her face, until the end. "I did not come here to inspire you with any fear of me; I did not come here on your account at all, or on mine; but for another motive."
"What, what is it?" said her hearer, nervously reseating herself.
"My husband's safety," said Harriet; and as she spoke the words, Mrs. Ireton P. Bembridge felt that an illusion was rolled away from her for ever. He belonged to this pale stern woman, whose unsparing eyes were fixed upon her, whose unfaltering voice had not a tone of doubt or weakness in it. In every line of her countenance was the assertion of her right, against which the other felt powerless, and in whose presence her self-confidence was utterly subdued.
Calm and still, Harriet Routh stood before her, her head bent forward, her hands clasped and pressed steadily against her waist.
"I have no time to lose," she said, "and the briefest explanation will, in this case, be the best. When that flower fell from your hair over the balcony at the Kursaal at Homburg, it fell at my feet. I was on the terrace beneath. If once, during the time you and he stood there, my husband had looked away from you and over the rail, he would have seen me. But he did not. I had come to that particular spot accidentally, though I was there that night because I suspected, because I knew, that he was there with you, and I would not condemn him unseen, unconvicted."
Cowering before her, her pale face in her shaking hands, the other woman listened.
"I heard all he said to you. Don't start; it was very pretty. I know it all, by heart; every intonation, every hesitation--all the lying gamut from end to end. I heard all the story he told you of his marriage: every incident, every declaration, every sentiment, was a lie! He told you he had married a poor, passionate, silly girl, who had compromised herself through her undisciplined and unreturned love for him, for pity--for a man's pity for a woman! A lie. He told you his wife was an oddity, a nervous recluse, oblivious of all but her health and her valetudinarian fancies; that she had no love for him, or any one; no mind, no tastes, no individuality; that his life was a dreary one, and the oscillation of a heart which had never been hers towards so irresistible a woman as you (and he was right, so far; you are very, very beautiful--I saw that, and granted it to myself, at once) was no sin, no dishonesty, against her. All a lie. Look at me, if you have the little courage needed for looking at me, and tell me if it could be true!"
Mrs. Ireton P. Bembridge looked at her, but only to drop her head into her hands, and moan in the presence of the white face and the steady sparkling blue eyes.
"This was the lie he told you concerning me. The lie he told you about himself was more important in its results; and as it flattered you, of course you gave it ready credence. No doubt you believe it still, though you must know him better now. He told you a story of his misunderstood, undervalued life; of family pride, and grandeur, and wealth--of family ties severed in consequence of the charitable, chivalrous, self-sacrificing marriage he had made; of obscurity nobly borne and toil willingly encountered, of talents unremittingly exercised without fame or reward, of high aspirations and future possibilities, if only the agency of wealth and the incentive oflovemight be his. And this flimsy tale caught your fancy and your faith. It was so charming to fill the vacant place in the misunderstood man's life, so delightful to be at once queen and 'consoler, to supply all the deficiencies of this deplorable wife. It was just the programme to catch the fancy of a woman like you, beautiful, vain, and empty."
There was neither scorn nor anger in Harriet's voice; there was merely a dash of reflection, as if she had strayed for a moment from the track of her discourse.
"But it was all a lie," she went on. "His story of me, and his story of himself, were both equally false. Into the truth, as regards myself, I do not choose to enter. It is needless, and you are as incapable of understanding as you are indifferent to it. The truth about him I mean to tell you for his sake."
"Why?" stammered the listener.
"Because he is in danger, and I want to save him, because I love him---him, mind you, not the man you have fancied him, not the persuasive bland lover you have found him, no doubt; for I conclude he has not changed the character he assumed that night upon the balcony; but the hard, the cruel, the desperate man heis. I tell you"--she drew a little nearer, and again Mrs. Ireton P. Bembridge shrank from her--"he is a swindler, a liar, and a thief; he has lived by such means for years, was living by them when he married me. They are failing him now, and he feels the game is up here. What his exact plan is, of course I do not know; but that it includes getting you and your fortune into his power I have no doubt."
Mrs. Ireton P. Bembridge shivered now under the unsparing gaze. If only this woman would turn her eyes away from her, she thought, in the midst of her fear and amazement--the eyes that pierced her, that suffocated her, like the gripe of a fierce hand upon her throat. She did not know his plan. No; but who could look at her and doubt that, if she chose to know it, she could force the information from her hearer? Who could listen to her cold even tones, and dream of resisting their implacable power?
"Whatever his plan may be," Harriet continued, "he is entirely absorbed in it, and he is indifferent to all beside. Mind, I don't say you count for nothing in this: you are too vain to believe, I am too wise to say, anything of the kind. But your beauty, which he likes, would never have tempted him to an insane disregard of his safety, would never have kept him here when the merest prudence should have driven him far away. He wants you, but he wants your money more urgently and desperately. He needs time to win you and it, no matter how he means to do it, and time is what he has not to give, time is the one stake it is ruin to him to risk in this game. Do you hear me? Do you understand me?"
The blank white face feebly looked a negative.
"No. Then I will put it more plainly. My husband, your lover, the man who is trying to ruin you in reputation, that he may have the power to ruin you in fortune, is in imminent danger. Flight, and flight alone, could save him; but he refuses to fly, because he will not leaveyou."
"What--what has he done?"
"He has been concerned in a robbery," said Harriet with perfect composure, "and I know the police are on the right track, and will soon come up with him. But he is desperate, and refuses to go. I did not know why until yesterday, when I found you had followed him from Homburg--by arrangement, of course. Tush, woman! don't try to deny it. What does it matter to me? A lie more or less, a villany more or less, makes no difference in him for me; but I knew then why he was obstinately bent on waiting for his fate."
"I--I don't believe you," said Mrs. Ireton P. Bembridge; and she half rose from her chair, and stretched her hand towards the bell. But Harriet stopped her by the lifting of a finger.
"O yes, you do," she said; "you believe me implicitly. You have been afraid of this man--even when he has flattered you, and won upon you most; you have never felt sure of him, and you know I am telling you the truth. But you are weak, and you would like to think you had not been quite so egregiously deceived. I cannot, for his sake, leave you this comfort. You lost a locket at Homburg--a golden egg-shaped toy--with two portraits in it, one of yourself, the other of a young man, a countryman of yours, an admirer. You prized the thing, you showed it to my husband, you talked of its value--is this true?"
"Yes, yes, it is true--what then?"
"This then: he stole that locket from you, as he sat by you, in your carriage, and talked sentiment and compliment to you. He stole the locket--it does not sound nice or heroic; he stole it, I tell you."
"Impossible--impossible."
"Am I in the confidence of your mind? Do I know the contents of your jewel-case? But this is folly, this is pretence; you know in your soul that I am telling you the truth. And now for the reason of my telling it. If you think I am a jealous woman, come here to expose my husband to my rival, and take him from her by even such desperate means, you make my task harder, by giving me blind folly to deal with. I came with no thought of myself or you: though I do, indeed, save you by coming, I have no care, no wish to do so; you are nothing to me, but a danger in his path. That his safety will be yours too, is your fortune, not my doing. I care not; it might be your destruction, and it would be all one to me. I am not jealousof you; you are nothing to me, and he has long been lost to me. But he must not be lost to himself too, and for that I am here. I can do nothing with or for him more, but you can: he loves you, after his fashion, and you can save him."
"I--I save him--from what? how? what do you mean? If you have told me the truth, why should I, if I could?"
Calmly and contemplatively Harriet looked at her; calmly she said, as if to herself:
"And I am sure he thinks you love him! Wonderful, very wonderful; but," she went on with quicker utterance, "that does not matter. You can save him. I will answer your last question first: to convince you that thismustbe done, for your own sake, will save time. You did not know his character until now, but I think you know something of his temper; I think you understand that he is a desperate man. Suppose you break with him now--and your mind has been made up to do that for several minutes--suppose you determine to save yourself from this swindler, this liar, this thief, to keep your character, and your money, and your beauty for a different fate, do you think he will let you go? How do you propose to escape him? You don't know. You are terribly frightened at the idea. I have come to tell you."
"You are a dreadful woman--you are a wicked, dreadful woman," said Mrs. Ireton P. Bembridge with a moan.
"Yes," said Harriet, "I am a wicked, dreadful woman, but you need not fear me, though you have done me some wrong too, even according to your code, I think. Rouse yourself, and listen to me while I tell you what you must do."
Mrs. Ireton P. Bembridge tried to obey her; she shook back the hair which had fallen over her face, and looked up with eyes less scared, and more intelligent.
"If my husband has not left England by to-morrow," said Harriet with clear, distinct emphasis, "it will be too late to save him from the clutches of the law. Nothing will induce him to leave England while you remain here. What!" she said, with a sudden rush of burning red into her face and an indescribable fierce change of tone and manner. "What! You were going, were you--and together? Tell me instantly--instantly, I say--what is this I see in your face?"
Mrs. Ireton P. Bembridge caught at Harriet's gown, and stammered:
"Don't, don't; I'll tell you!"
"Do you think I am going to strike you or kill you; do you think I would touch you with one finger?" said Harriet, in her former tone, and drawing her dress from the woman's grasp with a quiet determined movement. "Tell me instantly, and don't fear. You were going away--and together? Where were you going, and when?"
"To New York--on Saturday."
Harriet Routh turned abruptly from her, and for one minute's duration of awful silence her face was hidden. Then, with a sound like a sigh and a sob, but such a sound as the listener had never heard before, she resumed her former position. The other dared not look at her for many minutes. When she did, Harriet's face fixed itself for ever on her memory as the ideal of the face of one who had died of sheer pain.
"Thank you. The acknowledgment at least is brave and true, and makes the rest easy. Am I to conclude you do not wish now to carry out this arrangement?"
"Oh no, no. For God's sake, save me!"
"In saving him. Yes. You must leave England to-night, and he must follow you to-morrow. Don't be frightened; I said follow, not meet you. You must really go. No pretence will avail. He could not be deceived in this. You must cross the Channel to-night, and telegraph to him to-morrow from some French town, which you can leave upon the instant, if you choose. That is your own affair. You may return to England to-morrow night, if you please, and reach Liverpool in time to sail for New York on Saturday. Thus you will escape him, and be free. He will not follow you against your will to New York, where you are protected by your friends and your position. You have but to write and forbid his doing so."
"I think--I think I understand," said Mrs. Ireton P. Bembridge, in a voice full of submission and entreaty; "but how am I to account for going away?"
"At what hour do you expect him here to-day?" asked Harriet, in a business-like tone, without noticing the question.
"At nine in the evening."
"It is now nearly three. The tidal train for Folkestone starts at six. Your arrangements for next Saturday are all made, of course?"
"They are." Wonder and fear and a strange sense of dependence on this dreadful woman were growing on Mrs. Ireton P. Bembridge with every moment.
"Then all is easy--if you can trust your maid."
"I can, implicitly; but what must she do?"
"Settle everything here, and take your luggage to Liverpool. You will not be able to make an hour's delay on your return; you must go straight through. You must travel without a servant for once--no--take your page; he is better out of the way--"
"I will do as you tell me; but you have not said how I am to account for going."
"No," said Harriet, absently; "but that will be easy. He will think you a fool, and easily frightened, but your vanity must bear that--it's not a heavy price to pay for safety."
There was a pretty writing-table in the room, covered with elegant trifles. Harriet approached it, and opened a blotting-book. Some sheets of thick perfumed paper, with dainty monogram and motto, lay within it. On one of them she wrote as follows:
"All is discovered. Your wife has been here, and has terrified me by her threats. Our scheme must be abandoned. I cannot stay an hour here, not even to consult you; I am in fear of my life. Come to me at once, to Amiens. I leave to-night, and will telegraph from thence. If you do not join me on Saturday morning, I shall conclude you have given me up."
She rose, and desired Mrs. Ireton P. Bembridge to take her place.
"Copy that," she said, briefly; but before the other took up the pen, she read the lines and exclaimed:
"I dare not--I dare not; he will kill you."
"That ismybusiness," said Harriet fiercely. "Write!"
She copied the letter slowly, and trembling as she wrote, folded, sealed, and directed it.
"When is it to be sent?"
"When I have seen you off. I will take care he receives it," said Harriet, as she put it in her pocket. "Now go and give your directions, and make your preparations."
They looked at each other for a moment, and Mrs. Ireton P. Bembridge left the room without another word. When she was alone, Harriet sat down by the table wearily, and covered her face with her hands. Time went on, but she did not move. Servants came in and went out of the room, but she took no notice. At length Mrs. Ireton P. Bembridge entered in travelling dress, and with a paler face than any mirror she had ever looked into had ever reflected. At the same moment a carriage came to the door.
"You are quite ready?"
"I am."
"It is time to go."
"Let us go. One minute. Mrs. Routh, I--I don't think I quite knew what I was doing. Can you forgive me?" She half extended her hand, then drew it back, as she looked into Harriet's marble face.
"Forgive you! What do you mean? You are nothing to me, woman; or, if anything, only the executioner of a sentence independent of you."
Mrs. Ireton P. Bembridge did not attempt to speak again. As they went out of the door, a telegram was handed to her. It was from Routh. "Impossible to see you to-night. Letter by post."
She handed the paper silently to Harriet, who read it, and said nothing until they were seated in the carriage.
"Does that make any difference?" then asked Mrs. Ireton P. Bembridge timidly.
"Toyou, none. Possibly it may to me; he need not know so soon."
Not another word was spoken between them. Harriet stood on the platform at the railway station until the train moved off, and as Mrs. Ireton P. Bembridge caught the last glimpse of her stern white face, she threw herself back in the carriage, in which she was fortunately alone, in an hysterical agony of tears.
Routh did not come home that night; he sent a message that business detained him in the City, and that he wished his letters and some clothes sent to him in the morning.
"This is well," said Harriet; "he is making his preparations, and he does not wish to see me before he must. The night can hardly pass without my hearing or seeing George."
Late that evening Harriet posted the letter which Mrs. Ireton P. Bembridge had written. But the evening and the night passed, and George Dallas did not come or send. The hours were full of the agony of suspense for Harriet. They brought another kind of suffering to Mr. Felton and his nephew.
At eight o'clock that evening George Dallas, alias Paul Ward, as the police phrase had it, was arrested at Mr. Felton's lodgings, charged with the murder of Mr. Felton's son. George's agent had done his work well, and the notes changed at Amsterdam, which the old bookseller's death had released from their hiding-place and put in circulation, had furnished the clue to Mr. Tatlow's dexterous fingers. The notes bore Arthur Felton's initials; they had been paid to him by the Liverpool Bank; they were indorsed in full, with date too, by Paul Ward.
"And a case," said Mr. Tatlow, who had a turn for quotation, "neater, completer, in every feater, I don't think I ever was in."
"There's a job for you to-day, Jim," said the irreproachable Harris to Mr. James Swain, when he presented himself at half-past eight at Routh's house, according to his frequent custom.
"I didn't come after no jobs this mornin'," said Jim; "I come to see the missis."
"Ah, but you can't see her, she ain't up, and the job is particular wanted to be done."
Jim looked moody and discontent, but cheered up when Harris represented that he might see Mrs. Routh on his return. The "job" was the delivery of Routh's clothes and letters, as directed, at his chambers in Tokenhouse-yard. The boy was troubled in his mind, irresolute. George Dallas's sudden illness, the photograph he had seen, these things added to the perplexity he was in already. Perhaps he had better speak to Mrs. Routh first; he did not know; at all events, he might tell her what had occurred yesterday, without mentioning the portrait, and see what effect it had upon her. He had thought about it all, until, between his imperfect knowledge of facts, his untaught intelligence, and his genuine but puzzled good-will, he was quite bewildered. He had brought with him that morning, with a vague notion that it might perhaps be advisable to show it to Mrs. Routh, but a settled resolution to show it to Mr. Dallas, the object which he kept carefully secreted in the hole in the wall at home, and as he trudged away Citywards, carrying a small leather bag containing the required clothes and letters, he turned it over and over in his grimy pocket and grew more and more thoughtful and depressed.
Arrived at Tokenhouse-yard, the clerk took the bag from him, and suggested that he had better wait, in case Mr. Routh should require his further services. So Jim waited, and presently Routh came out into the passage. Jim's private opinion of Stewart Routh's character and disposition has been already stated; of his personal appearance he entertained an equally low one, and much opposed to the general sentiment. "An ill-looking, down-looking dog I call him," Jim had said to himself more than once; "more like the Pirate of the Persian Gulf, or the Bandit of Bokarer, I think, than anybody as I knows out of the pictures."
More ill-looking, more down-looking than ever Jim Swain thought Stewart Routh when he spoke to him that morning. His face was colourless, his eyes bloodshot, the glance troubled and wandering, his voice harsh and uneven. He gave Jim a brief order to meet him at the London-bridge railway-station the same evening at a quarter to six. "I shall have a message for you," said Routh. "Be punctual, remember." And then he turned away abruptly and went into his room, shutting the door roughly.
"He ain't in the best of humours, even of his own, and they're none on 'em good," thought Jim, as he turned out of Tokenhouse-yard and took his way westward again, keeping his hand permanently in his pocket this time. A fresh disappointment awaited him at Routh's house. Mrs. Routh had gone out immediately after she had breakfasted. Did she know he wanted to see her? Jim asked. Harris was rather tickled by the question.
"I say," he remarked, "you're getting on, Jim; you'll be as impident as a cock sparrow presently. I didn't happen to tell her; but if I 'ad, do you think she'd a stayed in to give you the chance?"
"Yes, I do; wot's more, I'm sure she would," said Jim, and walked moodily away, leaving Mr. Harris in a fine attitude of surprise upon the threshold. When that functionary finally left off looking after the boy, and shut the door, he did so to the accompaniment of a prolonged whistle.
It was only ten o'clock, and Jim had been told to go to Mr. Dallas's at eleven. The interval troubled him; he could not settle his mind to the pursuit of odd jobs. He did not mind "hanging about;" he would hang about Piccadilly till the time came. But when Jim reached the house in which Mr. Felton and Mr. Dallas lodged, he was surprised to find it an object of lively curiosity to a number of persons who were crowding the pavement, notwithstanding the active interference of a policeman, endeavouring to clear a passage for two ladies whose carriage was before the door, and one of whom was evidently in the deepest distress. Jim plunged at once into the heart of the concourse, and asked a number of eager questions, to which he received simultaneous but contradictory replies.
"He's dead!" "No, he isn't." "He's his brother, I tell you; I heard the cook a-tellin' the milk-boy." "He ain't his brother; the old 'un's his uncle; and he's been and murdered his cousin." Such were a few of the sentences Jim caught as his curiosity and anxiety rose to frenzy.
"Wotis it? wot is it? Do tell me. Is anything wrong with Mr. Dallas?" he asked imploringly of the servant who had opened the door to the two ladies (who had at last succeeded in entering the house), and was just about to shut it in the faces of a few scores of anxious inquirers endeavouring to pierce the depths of the hall, and to see through the dining-room doors. "Don't you know me? I was here yesterday. I have been here before. I was to see Mr. Dallas at eleven. Can't I see him? Is he worse?"
The woman did know the boy, and she at once admitted him.
"Come in," she said; "I'll tell you inside. It's a deal worse than his death that's the matter." So Jim vanished into the house, a distinction which, being unattainable by themselves, was regarded with much indignation by the crowd. Temporarily dispersed by the active policeman, they gathered again, hoping the boy would come out, when they might pounce upon and extract information from him. But they waited in vain; the boy did not come out. The carriage still remained at the door, and in about an hour a gentleman of grave and busy aspect issued from the maddeningly mysterious mansion, stepped into the vehicle, and was driven rapidly away. The crowd was not in luck; no one heard the order given to the coachman. Then such silence and desolation as can ever fall on Piccadilly fell upon the scene, and the gay-looking, brightly-decorated house obstinately hid its secret.
The woman who recognized Jim told him the story of the events which had occurred in the hall, speaking in a hurried whisper and with much genuine womanly compassion. Jim heard her with a beating heart and shaking limbs. As the boy leaned against the wall, regardless of the damaging properties of his tousled head resting on the spotless paint, he wondered if this was like fainting, and whether he should be able to keep from "going off" like Mr. Dallas.
"We're strangers to Mr. Felton, of course," said the woman; "and it's natural everybody as can should like to keep their troubles to themselves, for it don't do no good tellin' of 'em, and people don't think no more of you; but there's things as can and things as can't be hid, and them as can't has been a takin' place here."
"Yes," said Jim, faintly; for the words he had heard in the crowd were ringing in his ears; "yes, yes; but tell me--"
"I'll tell you, as plain as I can make it out. Mr. Felton had some letters yesterday--letters as come from America--and there were a carte of his son in 'em; he hasn't seen nor yet heard of him for ever so long; and when Mr. Dallas see the carte he knew as the man was the same as was murdered, and never found out, in the spring."
"Well?" said Jim. "Yes? Go on." The faint feeling was subsiding; he was beginning to understand.
"It were an awful shock for Mr. Dallas to find out as his cousin had been murdered, and to have to break it to the father; and no wonder he fainted over it. Nobody knows how he did it, but there must have been a dreadful scene; for I shouldn't ha' known Mr. Felton from the dead when I went to ask, through their not answering James's knock, whether they was a goin' to have any dinner. He was sittin' in his chair, white and quiet; and Mr. Dallas--he as had been took so bad himself in the beginnin'--he was kneeling on the ground beside him, and I think his arm was round his neck; but I couldn't see his face, for he only put out his hand, and says he, 'No, thank you, Mary; go away for a little, please.' I waited in the passage, but I never heard a word pass between them; and we didn't know whatever could be the matter, for we only knew about the letters after Mr. Dallas had been took up."
"Mr. Dallas took up? They said that outside, but I thought it must be their larks. Wotever do you mean? Go on--go on; tell me, quick!"
"It's quite true; no larks at all. It might be about eight or nine, and we was all sittin' downstairs, a talkin' about the parlours, and a very quick ring comes to the 'all-door. James opens it, and in comes two men, very short and business-like, which they must see Mr. Dallas, and can't take no denial. So James goes to the door to ask if Mr. Dallas will see them, but they're too quick for James, and walk in; and in two minutes there's a great to do and explanation, and Mr. Dallas is took up."
"But wot for?--what had he done?" asked Jim.
"Murdered his cousin, don't I tell you!" said the woman a little snappishly. "Ain't I a-tellin' of you as plain as I can speak. He'd been and murdered this other gentleman wot nobody knew, in the spring, and then he sets the police a lookin' after his cousin, and just tells them enough to make them know as the other gentleman was him, which they'd never had a notion of before, so they come and took him on suspicion of the murder, and Mr. Felton went away with him. We was all there, when they put the handcuffs on him, and his uncle he stopped him in the 'all, as they was goin' to the cab, and says he, 'George, my boy, I do this, that no one may think I'm deceived;' and he put his hands on his shoulders and kisses him, as if he was a woman, before us all."
Jim listened, pale and breathless, but quite silent.
"Mr. Felton were out pretty near all night; and when he come 'ome, the gentleman as is here now were with him. He hasn't been to bed at all, and I haven't seen him, but just when I let the lady in, which she's a sweet-lookin' creature, and has been cryin' dreadful."
"Let me see Mr. Felton," said Jim, catching the woman by her dress, and speaking with the utmost eagerness and passion, "let me see him. I came to see Mr. Dallas about this business, let me see Mr. Felton."
"Youcame! why what have you got to do with it?" said the woman; her curiosity vehemently aroused.
"I will tell you all about it," said Jim, adroitly; "you shall hear it all afterwards--a cur'ous story as any one ever had to tell. Mr. Dallas never did it--not he,Iknow better than that. I can tell Mr. Felton a great deal."
"I must ask if he will see you," said the woman; "if he won't, perhaps the lawyer--"
"No, no, it must be Mr. Felton himself. Let me into the room."
She offered no resistance, and in another minute Jim was in the presence of a group composed of Mr. Felton, a grave gentleman, who looked like a lawyer, a beautiful girl, who was Clare Carruthers, and a plain, clever-looking young woman, who was Clare's cousin, Mrs. Stanhope. The lawyer and Mrs. Stanhope were seated by a table in close conversation, which they carried on in lower tones. Clare Carruthers and Mr. Felton stood upon the hearth-rug, the girl's golden head was resting on her companion's shoulder, and she was crying silently but unrestrained.
"Is he very, very ill?" she had said, a little before Jim entered the room.
"Not seriously so, my dear, and indeed nothing could be more fortunate than that his strength failed him so completely. It gives us time, and I need it, I am so bewildered even yet."
"Did Mr. Lowther say--say that he was not--not brought before the magistrates, not brought into that dreadful place, to-day?" said Clare, her voice hardly audible for her sobs.
"Yes, my dear. Think a little, I could not be here if he had not so much respite. Clare, I am a chief witness; I must be there, you know, to tell them about--about my son--" He paused, and closed his eyes for a few minutes.
"The case was calledpro formâthis morning, but Mr. Lowther's partner, his brother, easily procured a delay. George was too ill to appear, but he sent me word that there was nothing seriously wrong."
"Can no one see him?" asked Clare imploringly. "Oh, Mr. Felton, can no one go to him? Can no one give him any comfort--help him to bear it? Are they so cruel as that, are they so cruel?"
"Hush, dear, it is not cruel; it is right. No one can see him for the present but Mr. Lowther--Mr. James Lowther, who is with him now, I dare say, who will be here this afternoon."
"How can you bear it? how are you ever to bear it?" she said.
"My dear, I must bear it; and I have time before me in which to suffer: this is the time for action. You must help me, Clare, my dear, brave girl. I sent for you for this; I sent for you, at his desire, my child. His last words were, 'My mother, my mother, she is coming home to-morrow.' I told him to be satisfied she should be kept from the knowledge of all this." He shuddered from head to foot. "Clare, are you strong enough to redeem my promise? Can you hide all that has happened from her? Can you be with her, watching her, keeping a calm face before her? My dear, have you strength for this?"
She lifted her golden head, and looked at him with her innocent fearless eyes.
"I have strength to do anything that he--that George desires, and you think is right."
"Then that is your share of our dreadful task, my dear. God knows it is no light or easy share."
Clare's tears streamed forth again. She nestled closer to him, and whispered:
"Is there no--no hope?"
"None," he replied. "If it had been possible for George to be mistaken, I have had the sight of my own eyes. Clare, they brought me my son's coat! Ay, like Jacob, they brought my son's coat. My own last gift to him, Clare." His eyes were dry and bright, but their sockets had deepened since the day before, and his voice had the febrile accent of intense grief and passion restrained by a powerful will.
"What George must have suffered!" she said, still in a broken whisper, her tear-stained face upon his breast.
"Ah, yes, it is all dim to me still. Mr. Lowther and I have been searching out the truth all night, but we are still in confusion. Tatlow is coming presently, and you must go away, my dear, you must go home. You have your share to do, and need strength to do it. You shall know all I learn from hour to hour. Mrs. Stanhope, will you--who is this? What brings you here, boy?"
"Sir," stammered Jim, who, though he had the wizened mannish look peculiar to his tribe, was only a boy, and was desperately frightened--"sir, I came to tell you that I know the man as didn't do it, and I know the man as did."
Mr. Felton loosed his hold of Clare and came forward. Mr. Lowther rose hurriedly from his seat; he did not share the blank, incredulous surprise of Mr. Felton. The two ladies drew near each other.
"Who are you?" asked Mr. Lowther.
Jim told him.
"What are you come for? What--" began Mr. Felton; but Mr. Lowther made a sign to him to be silent, and addressing Jim in a quiet, friendly voice, took him by the arm and led him to a chair.
"Sit down there, my boy," he said, "and don't be afraid. You must have come here of your own free will, and we do not doubt you have come for a good purpose. You have something important to tell Mr. Felton. You know Mr. Dallas, I think, and I gather from what you said just now that you know what he is accused of." Jim assented by a downcast nod. "There, tell us all about it. Take your time, and don't get frightened." So saying, and giving the boy a reassuring pat upon the shoulder, the lawyer sat down upon a chair opposite to Jim, and spread his hands upon his knees in an attitude of serious, but not stern, attention. The two women looked on in silent suspense, and Mr. Felton, guided by a glance from Mr. Lowther, moved a little to the back of the chair on which Jim was seated.
"Come," said Mr. Lowther, giving him another pat, "we are all anxious to hear what you have got to say. Speak up, my boy."
"Sir," began Jim, "I should like to ask you something first. Is it true, as the gentleman 'at was murdered was Mr. Dallas's own cousin?"
"Only too true. He was Mr. Felton's son," and the lawyer eyed the unhappy father, as if measuring the strength he could command to bear this new trial. Mr. Felton came to Jim's side, and touched him kindly on the arm.
"Don't be afraid to speak before me," he said. "You may; and don't keep us waiting any longer, my good boy."
Then Jim made a desperate effort, and told his story; told it in his ignorant blundering fashion; told it with circumlocution and hesitation, but never interrupted. Mr. Lowther heard him without a word, and held Mr. Felton and the two women silent by the unspoken counsel of his glance.
"I had done many an odd job at the house in South Molton-street," said the boy, when he had told them a good deal about himself, in a rambling way, "and I knowed Mr. Routh well, but I don't suppose he knowed me; and when I saw him a-lingerin' about the tavern, and a-lookin' in at the winder, he wosn't no stranger to me. Well, he giv' me the letter, and I giv' it to the gentleman. He had a beard as came down in a point, and was sharp with me, but not so sharp as the waiter, as I giv'himhis own sauce, and the gentleman laughed, and seemed as if he didn't object to me holdin' of my own; but Mr. Dallas, which I didn't know his name then, he didn't laugh, and he asks the gentleman if there weren't no answer, and the gentleman says no, there weren't none, and somehow I seemed to know as he wanted to spite Mr. Routh. So I felt cur'ous about it, partickler when I see as Mr. Routh looked savage when I came out of the coffee-room and told him there weren't no answer. You must understand," said Jim, who had regained his composure now, and was in the full tide of his discourse, which he addressed exclusively to Mr. Lowther, with the instinctive delicacy which Harriet Routh had once observed in the neglected boy, "as I was not to say he was there, I were merely to give the note. He giv' me sixpence, and he went away down the Strand. I got a horse-holdin' job just then, and it were a long 'un; and there I was when the two gents came to the door, a-smokin' their cigars, and then the gent as I held his horse took him from me, and I hadn't nothing better to do than follow them, which I did; for who should I see but Mr. Routh a-skulkin' along the other side of the Strand, as if he wanted to keep 'em in sight without their seein' of him. I follered them, sir, and follered them feelin' as if I was one of them 'ere wild Ingins in the'Alfpenny'Alf-hourson a trail, until I follered them to Boyle's billiard-rooms, as I knows it well, and had swep' it often on a Sunday mornin'. They went in, and I was tired of hanging about, and was goin' away, when I see Mr. Routh again; there weren't nobody in the street but him and me. I skulked into a lane, and watched him. I don't know why I watched him, and I don't know how long we was there--I a little way down the lane, and he a-saunterin' up and down, and lookin' at the doors and the windows, but never goin' nigh the house. It must ha' been very late when the two gents came out, and I was very tired; but the old woman--that's my aunt, sir--and me had had a row in the mornin', and I thought I'd like to giv' her a fright, and stay out all night, which I haven't often slep' in the streets, considerin'."
Jim had ceased to wriggle about on his chair, to twist his cap between his hands, and to shuffle his feet upon the floor. He was nearly as motionless as the listeners, who heard him in breathless silence. By degrees Clare had drawn nearer to Mr. Felton, and she was now standing, her hand in his, her head in its former place upon his shoulder, behind Jim's chair. But the character of the group formed by the two was no longer what it had been; the girl was supporting the man now; the girl was silently nerving him to courage and resolution.
"They came out, sir," the boy continued, "very friendly-like and good-humoured, and Mr. Dallas he were a-laughin', and he shook hands with the other gent, which he called hisself Mr. Deane--it were on the note; and he went away whistlin' down the very lane as I was in, passed me close, and never saw me. I saw him, though, quite plain, and I thought, 'You've been winnin', and you likes it;' but still I had my eye on Mr. Routh, and presently I sees him speakin' to the other gent, as was puttin' on his big fur coat, which it had a 'ood to it as I never see one like it afore. I thought they wouldn't be pleasant together, and they wasn't, not to judge by their voices, and I heerd the other gent give a sneerin' kind of a laugh, which were aggravatin'; and soon they walked away together, through the Bar and up Fleet-street, and I follered 'em, for I thought I'd sleep under the dry arch of the bridge, and get a chance of odd jobs at the early trains in the mornin', which they're profitable if you ain't too tired. They was talkin' and talkin', and the oddest thing was that I knew they was quarrellin', though I couldn't hear a word they said, and I knew the other gent was a-sneerin' and a-aggeravatin' of Mr. Routh, and yet they was arm-in-arm all the time like brothers. They went on, and there wasn't a livin' bein' in the street but them and me and an odd p'liceman or so, wot took no notice, only beat their 'ands together and passed by. All on a sudden, when they was near the bridge, and close to all the little narrow streets down there, I gets tired, and don't seem to care about follerin' of 'em; and then, while I'm thinkin' of makin' for the dry arch, I misses of 'em, and they're gone."
The boy stood up now, and his cap fell unheeded on the floor. The embarrassment, the confusion, the vulgarity of his manner were gone; he met the lawyer's piercing gaze unabashed; he lifted his hand and moved it with an expressive gesture.
"It was gettin' light overhead, and I was tired, and my head begin to turn. I sat down in a doorway; there wasn't no one to move me on, and I must ha' fell asleep, for I don't remember any more until I heard something pass by me very quick,--quite near me, as near as Mr. Dallas passed me in the lane. I looked up pretty smart, and, sir, it were a man."
"Mr. Routh?" asked the lawyer.
"Yes, sir, it were Mr. Routh. His head were down, and he was goin' as quick as any man could walk, short of running, but he did not run. I roused up, and wondered where the other gent was, and then I see a narrow passage a little way off the doorway where I was a settin', leadin' straight to the river. I thought they must ha' turned down there to have their talk out, when I missed them so sudden. I went down the passage, and at the end of it was stones and mud and the river; and there was no one there. But O, sir,"--and here Jim began to tremble and to look nervously round towards Mr. Felton,--"there were blood on the edge of the stones, and footsteps in the mud where the water was a-creepin' up, and there was no one there."
A convulsive sob burst from Clare's lips; but Mr. "Felton clasped her closer to him, and kept her quiet.
"A dreadful sight--a dreadful discovery," said Mr. Lowther; "but, my boy," and again he touched Jim gently on the arm, "why did you conceal it? Did you not understand the crime that had been committed? Did you not know all that happened afterwards?"
"Sir," said Jim, boldly, but not without an effort, "I was not sure; I thought it might have been a fight, and that ain't murder anyways. I didn't know as how it had been stabbin' until I see it inLloyd's Weekly, for I kep' away on purpose."
Here Jim put his hand into his pocket, and drew it out again closed round some object which he had still a lingering reluctance to show.
"I'll tell you all the truth, sir, though I daresay I must get into trouble. If it hadn't been as I was afraid of getting into it, I should ha' spoke before when I see Mrs. Routh, as is a good lady, a-frettin' herself to death, and him a-deceivin' of her. When I was a-looking close at the stones and the mud, and the blood upon 'em, which the tide was very nigh upon it afore I came away, I see something nearly stamped into the mud as looked like gold, and I fished it out, and I knew it were something as I had seen hangin' on the other gent's chain, which he was a-twiddlin' on it with his fingers when I giv' him the note in the coffee-room. I fished it out, sir, and I kep' it, and I was afraid to take it to the pawnshop when I heerd as the body was found; and as it were a murder, I was afraid to sell it neither, and I hid it in the wall, and--and," said Jim, speaking with great rapidity and earnestness, "I am glad I've told the truth, for Mr. Dallas's sake, and I'm ready to suffer for it, if I must. Here it is, sir." Then the boy unclosed his hand, and placed in that of Mr. Lowther a locket in the form of a golden egg.
"It opens in the middle," said Jim, "and there's pictures in it: one is Mr. Deane's, and the other is a lady's. I know where she lives, and I saw Mr. Routh with her on Monday night. Mr. Routh has another, just the same as this,--on the outside anyways."
"Do you recognize this trinket?" asked Mr. Lowther of Mr. Felton, who replied:
"I do. It was my son's."
A few minutes of close and anxious consultation between the gentlemen followed, and then Mr. Lowther, telling Jim that he must remain with Mr. Felton until his return, went out, and was driven away in Mrs. Stanhope's carriage. Mr. Felton and the two women treated the boy with kind consideration. In the frightful position in which they were all placed, there was now a prospect of relief, not, indeed, from the tremendous calamity, but from the dreadful danger, and Jim, as the medium through which the hope shone, was very valuable to them. Food was given him, of a quality rare to the street-boy, and he ate it with sufficient appetite. Thus the time passed, until Mr. Lowther returned, accompanied by a small smart man in a gray suit, who was no other than Mr. Tatlow, and whose first words to Mr. Felton were:
"It's all right, sir. We've got the other warrant."
Then Mr. Felton sent Clare and her cousin away, and Jim, having been cheered and consoled by many a reassuring word and promise from Mr. Felton, whose strength and self-control proved themselves to the utmost on this occasion, underwent a long and searching examination from Mr. Lowther and the self-congratulatory Tatlow.
The afternoon was already advanced, and Mr. Tatlow had gone away and returned again, when the boy's explanation was concluded, and the plans formed upon it were finally arranged. Then the lawyer's quick eye noticed symptoms of giving way in Mr. Felton. There were many hours of excitement and strain upon the nerves still to be endured, and not yet might he be free to face the grief which was his---pre-eminently his; not yet must he seek solitude, to mourn for his only son. Anguish, fear, and fatigue were setting their mark upon him, but he must not yet have even bodily rest.
"You will not come with us?" said Mr. Lowther.
"No," replied Mr. Felton, with an irrepressible shudder. "I could not see that mail beforeI must."
"You will lie down and rest?"
"Not yet. I will rest to-night. I must see my brother-in-law, who will reach London this evening, and tell him all that has happened."
"Your brother-in-law?"
"Mr. Carruthers, my sister's husband. Much depends on George's mother being kept in ignorance, and Mr. Carruthers must be prepared."
During this short dialogue, Jim had been speaking eagerly to Mr. Tatlow, apparently urging very strongly an earnest appeal. On its cessation, Mr. Tatlow addressed Mr. Lowther.
"He agrees to everything, if one of you gentlemen will write to Mrs. Routh for him. That's it, ain't it?" said he, turning again to Jim.
"Yes, sir," said the boy, with an earnestness of entreaty in his voice and his look which touched the listeners. "If one of you will write toher. I don't mean a letter of your own--grand like--for then she mightn't believe it, and she might think as I was paid. I did it for Mr. Dallas; but I don't think as I should have done it if he hadn't been bad to her, and if I hadn't seen her a-dyin' day after day, as courageous as can be, but still a-dyin', and he a-neglectin' of her first and deceivin' of her after."
"She is this man's accomplice," said Mr. Lowther, moodily.
"Perhaps so, to a certain extent," said Mr. Felton; "but she is to be pitied, too. I saw that. I saw a little way into her life at Homburg, and, from all George has told me, I would be as little hard with her as possible. He cannot escape us, she cannot shield him; let us hear what the boy wishes to say to her, and then decide. Tell me," he said, kindly, to Jim, "what do you wish to say to this lady?"
"You must understand," said Mr. Tatlow, "that you can't send your letter till we've got him."
"I don't want to, sir," said Jim. "I think as he's runnin' away from her to-night, partik'lar as the lady is gone."
(Mr. Tatlow had ascertained the fact of Mrs. Ireton P. Bembridge's departure during his brief absence.)
"He didn't go home last night, and I think as he's afraid to face her, and is runnin' away to-night."
"Very well, then," said Mr. Lowther, "I will write the letter. You shall tell me what to say, and it shall be sent to her this evening."
So Jim dictated, with infinite difficulty and astonishing slowness, and Mr. Lowther wrote:
"Dear Ma'am,--This comes from Jim Swain, as wouldn't like to hurt you, but has to tell at last, because of Mr. Dallas being took for what he didn't do. I wanted to see you to-day, but you was out, and I couldn't, and I come down here and heard of Mr. Dallas being took. You, weren't in it, dear ma'am, I'm sure, and so I have told the gentlemen and Mr. Tatlow, which has me in charge at present; but you know it, and that Mr. Dallas did not do it, and Mr. Routh did. I followed them all the night it was done, and I saw Mr. Dean and Mr. Routh going down to the river, and I went down to the river, when one was gone away alive and the other couldn't be found, only his blood on the stones, and I found the gold thing he had on his chain, which the gentleman has it now, and Mr. Routh have the same in a little drawer in the big desk in the parlour. I haven't hid anything, dear ma'am, and Mr. Routh will be took, at six o'clock, at the railway, where he told me to meet him, which so I am to do. I know about a lady, too, which her picture is in the gold thing, and I would have told you about her if I could have seen you to-day. I hope you won't be hurt. I didn't mean to do it to hurt you. I wish I hadn't been so secret so long."
When Jim had formally made his mark, the letter was sealed and directed, and Mr. Lowther took charge of it.
Considerably before the platform of the London-bridge railway-station, from which the tidal train for Folkstone was about to start, had received the usual crowd of passengers and their friends, a lady, plainly dressed and closely veiled, made her unobtrusive appearance upon it. "I am waiting to see a friend off," she had said, as the official at the barrier questioned her, and she attracted no further notice. Slowly and with downcast eyes, and hands which clasped each other closely under her shawl, she walked up and down, keeping close to the wall, and allowing the groups, as they began to form, to form between her and the edge of the platform. Once or twice she unclasped her hands, and lifted her veil, and breathed deeply, then after one piercing glance, which comprehended every face under the roof within its vision, dropped it again. Once, as she did this, a nursemaid with a child in her arms at the back of the platform noticed her, and said to a fellow-servant:
"That woman's face is enough to frighten one; she looks like death!"
But life was strong in Harriet Routh, and hope was strong in her also, a terrible hope, indeed, which to any suffering less than hers would have worn the semblance of despair. A little while now and he would be safe, safe for the present, for the next few hours which were so all-important. The letter she had written, telling him all she had done, and why, would await him at Amiens, and show him that all his plans were vain, would convince him at last. The arrangement of his money matters, which he must have made for the flight he contemplated, would avail in the case of this flight which she had imposed upon him. A little more torture, a little more suspense, and something like rest would come. Perhaps she should be able to sleep a little to-night, while he would be speeding through the darkness to safety. Something like a forlorn sense of peace came to her with the anticipation. So she walked up and down, thinking these thoughts, and sometimes lapsing into a mental blank, out of which condition she would come with a start, to go into a kind of vision of the last two days--of the woman she had so completely mastered--of the last time she had seen her husband's face--of the blow he had struck her; but she felt no anger in the remembrance; what did it matter now, in the face of this great crisis? It was strange that she had heard nothing of George, and the fact rendered her only the more eager and apprehensive. He was busy with the investigation, which must end in--what? In that which she had now effectually prevented. So she walked up and down, thinking, and the platform became peopled, and all the fuss and hurry of the departure of the tidal train was around her. Presently, as she reached the end of the platform, and turned, to resume her walk, she saw her husband, coming quickly towards the line of carriages, carrying the small bag which had been sent to him at Tokenhouse-yard in the morning, and which she had packed with reference to this occasion. Routh, indeed, had been not a little surprised by its contents. He came along the platform, the bag in one hand, a letter in the other, looking frowningly round, as though in search of somebody. She shrank back, as much out of sight as possible. Presently, just as he was stepping into a carriage, Jim Swain appeared, and went up to him. A few words passed between them, and then Harriet saw two persons, one of whom was a smart, slightly built man in a gray suit, address him. Straining her eyes with a fixed intensity of gaze which made her brain ache, she looked. He tore the letter in his hand to pieces, with inconceivable quickness, the fragments fluttering to the ground, turned, and with one of his unknown interlocutors on either side, and Jim following--how strange the boy looked, Harriet thought--walked along the platform, passed through the barrier, and was lost to her gaze at the distant entrance.