“It is strange that you should ask that,” he said. “Sometimes, especially when I have come upon him alone, or have seen him excited, his tone and little mannerisms have seemed somehow vaguely familiar. And yet,” he added thoughtfully, “I have never been able to recall of whom they have reminded me.”
I opened my trembling lips to speak, but a wave of cold doubt swept in upon me. Surely this thing could not be! I must be mad to let the idea linger for a moment in my mind. And yet——
At that moment of my hesitation, my father’s hand fell heavily upon my arm. He pointed forward along the dark avenue with a shaking finger. In the dim twilight we could see the tall gaunt figure of a man in ragged clothes, making his way up to the castle.
“That is not one of my men, Philip,” he said hoarsely. “Who is it?”
I shook my head.
“It is a stranger.”
My father turned abruptly from the avenue into a side-walk.
“Follow me,” he said; “we will go in by the private way.”
We walked across the turf, through a little iron gate, which my father unlocked, and entered the shrubbery walk.
Once I looked round through an opening in the laurel leaves. The stranger was leaning wearily against the railings round the lodge, waiting for admittance.
Not until we had reached the Castle and were in the library did my father speak to me. Then his words were grave enough.
“We have done Mr. Marx an injury, Philip,” he said slowly.
“How?” I asked.
“Listen, and you will know.”
He went to the telephone and signalled. The answer came at once.
“Someone has been asking for me at the gate,” he said. “Who is it?”
“A stranger, sir, to see you.”
“What name?”
“Hart, sir.”
“Is he waiting?”
“Yes, sir. I told him that it would be useless, but he refuses to go away.”
“You can pass him. Send him here at once.”
My father turned away and looked at me with all the old weariness in his face, but with little agitation. Of the two, I was the more nervous. I crossed the room and laid my hand gently upon his shoulder.
“Thank God that I am here with you! What shall you say to him, father? What does he want, think you? Money?”
My father shook his head sadly.
“He would send if that were all. He has what he wants and that is not much. I fear that he wants something else.”
“What?”
“His good name cleared.”
“He took the guilt willingly,” I cried. “He must bear it now. He cannot escape from it.”
“He can,” my father answered. “He can tell the truth.”
“No one would believe him. It would be his word against yours. What chance would he have?”
My father turned a stern, dark face upon me.
“So you think that I would swear to a lie, Philip? No! There was always this risk. I have felt that if ever he should demand to be set right with the world, it must be done.”
“It shall be done.”
We started, for the words came from the other side of the room. Standing in the deep shadows just inside the door was a tall, gaunt man, with long dishevelled beard and pale, ghastly face. His clothes were ragged and weather-stained and his boots were thick with mud. I looked towards him fascinated. It was the face of the lunatic who had twice attempted Mr. Marx’s life. It was Hart,aliasFrancis, the man who held in his hands a life dearer to me than my own.
“Is it really you, Francis?” my father asked, in a shocked tone. “You are altered. You have been ill. Sit down.”
He took no notice. Whilst my father had been speaking his eyes had been wandering restlessly round the room.
“Where is—he?” he asked hoarsely.
“Do you mean Mr. Marx?” I said.
“Yes.”
“He is in London.”
“Ah!”
There was an expression in his face partly of disappointment, partly of relief. He drew a long breath and remained silent, as though waiting to be questioned.
“Do you want money?” my father asked.
“No.”
“Do you want to give up your secret, to let the world know the truth?”
“Yes.”
A cry burst from my lips, but my father checked me.
“It is well,” he said. “Sit down. You need not fear; I will confess.”
“You have nothing to confess. It is I who must do that.”
“What do you mean?” my father asked, peering forward into the darkness, for there was no lamp lit in the room. “Come nearer; I cannot see your face.”
With trembling fingers I drew up the blind from the high window. The moon, which had just emerged from a bank of black, flying clouds, cast a long stream of light across the room.
Francis moved forward with slow, reluctant steps. Then, with a sudden, wild cry, he threw himself upon his knees before my father.
“As God in Heaven forgives, swear that you will forgive me!” he cried passionately.
“Forgive! I have nothing to forgive,” my father answered gently. “You wish to lay down your burden. Good! I am ready to take it up.”
He stooped forward in his chair and stretched out his hand to the man to help him rise. In his altered position the moonlight seemed to cast a sort of halo round his face, and it seemed to me like the face of an angel.
“Don’t touch me,” cried the man; “don’t. I can’t bear it! Let me tell you the truth, or I shall die. You think that you killed Farmer Morton. It’s false! Mr. Marx killed him.”
“What!”
My father had sprung to his feet. Somehow, I found myself by his side. Francis still grovelled on the floor.
“Up, man, and tell me all the truth,” my father cried out in a voice of thunder; “up on your feet and speak like a man.”
He obeyed at once, trembling in every limb. Then he faltered out his story:
“I was in the wood that night. It was dark; I lost my way. Suddenly I heard voices—yours and Morton’s. You were struggling within a few feet of me. Before I could interfere you had thrown him down and rushed away. I heard him breathing hard, and I saw Mr. Marx steal out from behind a tree and creep up to him. Morton heard, too, and sprang up. They struggled together; perhaps in the darkness, Morton mistook him for you. I remembered the quarry and rushed out. I was too late.
“There was a fearful flash of lightning and I saw Marx put forth all his strength and throw the other into the slate-pit. He turned round and saw me.
“He would have hurled me over, too, if he had dared, but I was strong and he was exhausted. So he offered me money to go away. I accepted, never thinking that they would fix the crime upon me. Marx had thought it all out with a devilish cunning. He provided me with disguises and told me where to go to and how to get there. When I was safe away and read the papers, I saw at once how I had been trapped. I had pleaded guilty to the murder.
“Time went on and I grew more miserable every day. Marx sent me plenty of money—too much. I began to drink. I was ill. When I recovered I wrote to tell him that I could bear it no longer and that I was coming to see him. I told him that I meant to go to a magistrate after I had given him time to get out of the country. He dared me to come to the Castle. Still, I came. It was dusk when I got here. He met me in the avenue. He offered me large sums of money to go away, but I was determined and refused everything. It was then from something he let fall in his anger that I knew how he had been deceiving you. Then I would not listen to him any more and bade him stand out of the way. He let me pass him and then struck me on the back of the head with some heavy weapon.”
“My God!” I cried. “I was close to you. I heard you cry and I met Mr. Marx directly afterwards. He must have thrown you down the gravel-pit.”
“It was there I found myself when I came to my senses,” Francis continued. “Directly I sat up and tried to think over what had happened I began to feel my head swim. After that everything is blurred and dim in my mind. I fled. The second time, you, Mr. Morton, saved his life from me, as my fingers were closing upon his throat.
“They put me in an asylum. Afterwards Mr. Marx passed himself off as my brother and had me moved into a private one. The commissioners came and I appeared before them. I was sane. They let me go. Where is Mr. Marx? Where is Mr. Marx?”
There was a deep silence. Then I held out my hand to my father and he clasped it.
“Thank God!” I cried, my voice quivering with a great sob—“thank God!”
“Amen,” my father repeated softly.
Again that question, in the same dry, hard tone.
“Where is Mr. Marx?”
We looked at him—at his nervously twitching hands and burning eyes. The madness was upon him again. We must not let him go. My father drew me on one side.
“I shall go to London with you to-night,” he said. “What shall we do with this man?”
“He must stay here,” I answered. “Leave it to me.”
I went up to him and laid my hand upon his shoulder.
“Listen, Francis,” I said. “There are two places where Mr. Marx is likely to be this week. One is in London, the other here. Do you understand?”
“Yes,” he answered; “I understand.”
“Now, Mr. Ravenor and I know best where to find him in London, but we can’t leave unless we know that there is someone on the look-out here as well. If we go to London, will you remain here and watch for him?”
The man’s eyes sparkled.
“Yes,” he answered quickly. “This is the room where he writes, isn’t it? He will come here. Yes, I will wait; I will watch here in this room.”
My father rang a bell and ordered a carriage to take us to the station. Then he gave special orders about Francis. He was to be allowed to remain in the library, to use Mr. Ravenor’s own sleeping apartment, and to have meals brought to him regularly.
An hour later we left the castle for Torchester. As we drove across the courtyard we could see a pale, gaunt figure standing at the library window, silent and rigid. It was Francis, waiting.
At ten o’clock we reached St. Pancras, travelling by fast train from Torchester, and half an hour later a hansom put us down at the Hotel Metropole. Immediately in front of the entrance Count de Cartienne’s small brougham was waiting, and as we descended from the cab his servant stepped forward and handed me a note. I tore it open and read it under the gas-lamp.
“Come to me at once and you will find Mr. M——. Bring the box with you.—C——.”
I passed the note on to my father and drew him a little on one side. At the sight of the handwriting he started.
“Philip, whose writing is this?” he asked quickly.
“The writing of the man who alone knows where Marx is,” I answered. “It is he who calls for his letters and forwards them.”
“His name? I insist upon knowing his name.”
“de Cartienne.”
My father’s face turned a shade paler and his eyebrows contracted.
“You have been keeping this from me, Philip. You shall not go near that man. I forbid it. My God! Marx and de Cartienne friends!”
He stopped short on the pavement and looked at me with a new light in his face. He began to understand.
“Marx and de Cartienne,” he repeated slowly. “Philip, cannot you see what this means? Marx has been de Cartienne’s tool and I have been their victim. Where is de Cartienne? Philip, you shall tell me! Do you hear?”
My father seized my arm and held it fast. I turned and faced him.
“Father, you must leave this to me,” I said, firmly. “I have thought it all over in the train and my plans are made. You will trust me?”
“Tell me what they are,” he said.
“I have in my possession a box belonging to de Cartienne, which contains a secret. Until I yield that box up to him I am safe, since he can only get it from me. You see that he tells me in this note to bring it with me.”
“Yes. Go on.”
“Well, I am going without the box, and if he is really ignorant of who I am and willing to give me the information about Marx, why, then I can easily come back for it, and whatever it contains he must have unopened.
“If, on the other hand, I fall into any sort of trap and he makes me send for it, then, immediately on receipt of my message, no matter how it is couched, you must force the box open, and if it contains anything in the least suspicious, come straight to my aid with the police. The messenger who comes for the box must be bribed or frightened into bringing you.”
“I do not like it, Philip. It is all too roundabout. If de Cartienne has any idea who you are, you are running a risk.”
“I don’t think so,” I answered. “Until he gets possession of that box he will feel himself, to a certain extent, in my hands and will not be likely to do me an injury.”
“What do you suppose the box contains?”
I hesitated and looked around. de Cartienne’s servant was some distance off and there was no one within hearing.
“Have you read the newspapers just lately?” I asked.
My father shook his head.
“Only the literary newspapers.”
I bought a special edition, which a newsboy was brandishing in our faces, and, turning down the leading article, passed it on to my father. He glanced down at it and then looked up at me in blank amazement.
“Philip, you cannot mean this!” he exclaimed.
“Why not?” I answered. “I do, indeed; but whether there is anything in it or not we shall soon know. I must go now. You understand what to do if I send for the box.”
“I don’t like your expedition at all,” he said, doubtfully. “Have you any idea where you are going?”
I shook my head.
“None; but I shall come to no harm. My star is in the ascendant now. If it leads me into danger it will bring me safely out of it.Au revoir!”
Then I sprang into the carriage and was driven swiftly away.
Our journey came to a sudden end, and, if I was surprised at the locality into which it had brought me, I was still more so at its termination. The carriage had stopped outside a gloomy-looking warehouse, the back of which, ornamented with several cranes, overlooked the river. The whole of the front appeared to be in darkness, but from a gas-lamp on the other side of the narrow way I could read the brass sign-plate by the side of the door:
HIGGENSON AND CO.Merchants and Exporters.
The door of the carriage was thrown open and I was evidently expected to descend. I did so after a moment’s hesitation.
“Are you sure that you have brought me to the right place?” I asked the man who held the door open. “This seems to be a warehouse. I think there must be some mistake.”
The man silently closed the carriage door and stepped up to his seat beside the driver.
“There is no mistake,” he said curtly. “You will find the Count de Cartienne—there.”
He pointed to the warehouse door and I saw that it was now open and that a man was standing upon the threshold. I turned towards him doubtfully.
“Will you come this way, Mr. Morton?” he said. “Count de Cartienne is sorry to have to bring you here, but we are busy—very busy, and he had no time to get back to the hotel. The carriage will wait to take you back.”
The man’s manner and tone were certainly not those of a servant, but from the position in which he stood I could see nothing save the bare outline of his figure. I crossed the pavement towards him.
We left the room and he conducted me down a passage and into a small chamber. Here my companion paused and lit a lamp which stood on a table in the middle of the room.
“Count de Cartienne will be with you in a moment,” he said, walking to the door. “Kindly excuse me.”
I turned the lamp a little higher and looked around. The room was quite a small one and plainly furnished as a waiting-room.
For the first time I began to realise fully what I had done in coming to this place at such an hour. Some wild thoughts of a tardy retreat flashed into my mind, and I tried the handle of the door by which we had entered. It turned, but the door remained closed. I stooped down and examined it. The result was as I had feared—a spring lock had fastened it. I tried the other door, by which my guide had issued. The result was the same. I was a prisoner.
I had scarcely time to realise my position before it became necessary to act. The door was suddenly opened and Count de Cartienne stood before me, his eyes flashing with anger and his tall, lithe frame quivering with rage.
“Why have you not brought that box?” he exclaimed in a low, fierce tone.
I stood up facing him, with my back to the table, striving to keep calm, for the situation was critical. The complete change in his appearance and manner towards me was sufficient warning.
“The box is safe enough,” I answered. “You can have it in an hour’s time. But——”
“But what?” he interrupted, savagely. “Why have you not brought it, as I bade you in my note? Why is it not here? We want it at once!”
“You forget that there is aquid pro quowhich I expect from you. It seems to me, Count de Cartienne, that you are making a tool of me, and——”
“What is it you want—to see this man Marx?”
“Yes.”
“Well, he is not here.”
I checked the rejoinder which, had I spoken it, would probably have cost me my life.
“Where is he, then?” I asked.
“I will tell you when you have written for that box,” he said, opening a drawer and placing pen and paper upon the table.
I shook my head. “There is no need for me to write. It is of no use my remaining if Mr. Marx is not here. Send your servant back with me and I will give it him.”
“No, I shall hold you as a hostage for the box. Besides, I have a few words to say to you, boy,” he added grimly. “Write.”
I hesitated, but only for a moment.
“Do I understand that you detain me here against my will?” I said, slowly.
“Understand anything you please, but write.”
I took up the pen without another word. When I had finished the note he took it from me and read it through. Then he glanced at the address and started.
“Mr. Ravenor! Oh, Mr. Ravenor is in London, is he?” he remarked slowly.
“Yes.”
He looked away with the ghost of an evil smile upon his lips.
“Ravenor in London! How strange. He and I are old acquaintances. I must call on him,” he added mockingly.
He stood still for a moment and then left the room abruptly with the note in his hand. I tried to follow him, but the door closed too quickly. If I could have seen any means of escape I should have made use of them, for I had gained the knowledge which I had come to seek, and I knew that I was in danger. There was only that solitary window looking out upon the river and the closed door. If this man meant mischief, I was securely in his power.
In a few minutes Count de Cartienne returned:
He flashed a sudden keen glance at me.
“I wonder if you have any idea as to the contents of that box,” he said, keeping his eyes fixed curiously upon me.
Looking back now, I see clearly that I was guilty of the grossest folly in answering as I did. But I was young, impetuous, conscious of great physical strength, and with all that contempt of danger which such consciousness brings. So, without hesitation, I drew from my pocket the evening paper which I had bought in Northumberland Avenue, and laid my finger upon the column which I had shown my father.
“This may have something to do with it,” I remarked.
His face grew a shade paler as he glanced it through. Then he folded it up and handed it back to me with a polite gesture.
“So that is your idea, is it?” he remarked. “Why didn’t you go to Scotland Yard and tell them of your suspicions?”
I felt that he was watching me keenly and made a great effort to remain composed, although my pulses were beating fast and I felt my colour rising.
“It was no business of mine,” I answered. “Besides, if I had done so I should have lost my chance of finding out anything about Mr. Marx from you.”
“Your reasoning does you infinite credit,” he answered, with a slight sneer. “You are quite a Machiavelli. Come; I want to show you over my—warehouse.”
I followed him reluctantly, for I liked his manner less and less; but I had scarcely an alternative.
We passed along a narrow passage and through several rooms piled up to the ceiling with huge bales; then we descended a winding flight of iron steps, and as we reached the bottom I began to hear a faint hum of voices and strange, muffled sounds.
He unlocked a small, hidden door before us, and we stood on the threshold of a large, dimly-lit cellar.
One swift glance around showed me the truth of my vague suspicions, and warned me, too, of my peril. It was a weird sight. At the far end of the place a small furnace was burning, casting a vivid glow upon the white, startled faces of the men who were grouped around it. One held in his hand a great ladlefull of hissing liquid, and another on his knees was holding steady the mould which was to receive it. But though they kept their positions unchanged, they thought no more of their tasks. The attention of one and all was bent upon me in horror-struck amazement.
The man who first recovered himself sufficiently to be able to frame an articulate sentence was the man holding the ladle.
“Are you mad, de Cartienne?” he hissed out. “What have you brought that young cub down here for?”
“I have brought him here,” he answered, with a shade of contempt in his tone at the alarm which they were all showing, “because he is safer here than anywhere else—for the present.
“Somehow or other—probably by looking inside that unfortunate box—this young cub, as you call him, knows our secret. To let him go would, of course, be absurd, so I’ve brought him here to be tried for his unpardonable curiosity. What shall we do with him? I propose that we throw him into the river.”
I moved a little farther back towards the door, listening with strained ears and bated breath, for I fancied that I heard a faint sound of voices and footsteps above. Apparently the others had heard it, too, for there was a death-like silence for a few moments. Then spoke the Count.
“That must be Drummond with the box. Will you go and see, Ferrier?”
There was the trampling of many feet outside, and then a sudden swift torrent of blows upon the closed door.
In an instant all was wild confusion. Count de Cartienne was the only one who was not panic-stricken.
“The game is up,” he cried fiercely, “and here is the traitor.”
Like lightning he stooped down and I saw something in his hand flash before my eyes. There was a strange burning pain and then everything faded away before my sight. I heard the door beaten down and the sound of my rescuers streaming in. Then all sound became concentrated in a confused roar, which throbbed for a moment in my ears and then died away. Unconsciousness crept in upon me.
When I opened my eyes again I found myself lying upon a bed in a strange room. By my side was my father, leaning back in a low, easy chair.
“Where am I?” I asked. “How long have I been here! Tell me all about it.”
My father stood up with a little exclamation of relief.
“Better, Philip? That is well. You are at the nearest decent hotel we could find last night, or rather this morning.”
“Tell me all about it,” I cried.
“Everyone was taken except de Cartienne. He fought like a tiger and got off. But it is only for a while. He will be caught. His description——”
“His description will be of no use at all,” I interrupted, breathlessly. “Has anything been heard of Mr. Marx?”
My father picked up an open telegram from the table by his side.
“Mr. Marx has gone back to Ravenor. This telegram is from the stationmaster at Mellborough.”
I leapt from the bed and plunged my still aching head into a basin of water.
“What is the matter, Philip? You will be ill again if you excite yourself,” my father said wondering.
“I’m all right,” I answered. “What is the time?”
“Four o’clock.”
“Quick, then, and we shall catch the five o’clock train to Mellborough,” I urged.
“To Mellborough! But how about de Cartienne?”
“de Cartienne! He exists no longer! It is Marx we want.”
Then the truth broke in upon my father, and he sprang to his feet with a low cry.
“Philip, why did you not tell me before?”
“I only knew last night for certain. Thank God, I kept it to myself. He thinks himself safe as Mr. Marx—safer than flying the country as the Count de Cartienne—the villain!”
Suddenly my father stopped short on his way to the door.
“Philip,” he said hoarsely, “do you remember whom we left at Ravenor waiting for Mr. Marx?”
For the moment I had forgotten it. We looked at one another and there crept into my mind the vision of a gaunt, desperate man, his white face and burning eyes filled with an unutterable fiendish longing. The same thought filled us both. If Mr. Marx made use of his private keys and went straight to the library at the castle, what would come of it?
I laid my hand upon my father’s arm.
“There is justice in the world after all,” I said hoarsely. “That man will kill him.”
Then we went out together without another word.
It was twenty minutes to eight when we arrived at Mellborough, and, as we had not sent word on, there was no carriage to meet us, nor, as it happened, any spare vehicle. After a brief word or two with the stationmaster, we decided to walk down into the town and order a fly.
When we reached the house, the butler stepped forward, his ruddy face blanched and his voice shaking.
“Thank God you are come, sir! The man you left here, he’s gone a raving lunatic, and he’s shut himself up there, and got your revolvers out, and swears that no one shall enter the room till you come.”
“There’s someone with him,” my father said quickly.
The man’s face seemed literally shrunken up with horror.
“It’s awful, sir; I’ve been near once, and I’ll never get over it as long as I live. He’s got some poor wretch there, killing him by inches, torturing him like a cat does a mouse. He’s been shrieking for help for hours, and we can do nothing. The poor creature must be nearly dead now. Ah, there it is again, sir! Four of our men have been shot trying to get to him. Listen! Oh, why does he not die!”
A low, faint cry, full of a most heart-stirring anguish, floated out from the library window. It was the most awful sound I have ever heard in my life. Following close upon it, drowning its faint echo, came the loud mocking laugh of the torturer, ringing out harsh and mirthless in hideous contrast.
A deep, audible shudder passed through the little group of bystanders. Then my father, without a word, started forward across the lawn towards the window and I followed close behind. It seemed to me that everyone must be holding their breath, the silence was so intense. The wind had dropped for a moment, and the moon shone faintly down through a cloud of mist upon the white, eager faces, filled now with a new anxiety.
A few swift steps brought us to the window. A lamp was burning upon the writing-table and the interior of the room was clearly visible. On the floor a little distance from the window was a dark shape which, as we drew nearer, we could see to be the prostrate figure of a man. Walking up and down in front of it, with short, uneven steps, was Francis, his hair and dress in wild disorder and his whole appearance betokening that he had recently been engaged in a desperate struggle.
Suddenly he turned round and saw us. With a wild cry of rage he rushed to the window, the glass of which was completely wrecked, and glared at us threateningly through the framework.
“Away! away!” he shrieked, “or there will be more trouble! I must stay here, I must wait till he comes! Let me be, I tell you!”
The revolver, which he clenched in his right hand, was raised and levelled. It was a dreadful moment.
“It is I, Mr. Ravenor,” my father answered calmly. “Don’t you know me, Francis?”
Again the moon broke through the clouds and shone with a faint light upon my father’s pale, stern face. Francis recognised him at once. He threw his hands high over his head in a wild gesture of welcome and flung open the window. My father walked steadily forward into the room and I followed him. Francis, trembling with eagerness, stood between us.
“See,” he cried, pointing downwards, “is it not well done? See! Let me tell you about it. Quick! quick! He came! It was twilight! He was at the cabinet there. I stole out of the darkness. I flung my arms around him. He struggled. Ah, how he struggled; but it was all no use. Ha! ha! ha! I was too strong for him. I held him tighter and tighter, till I nearly strangled him, and he gasped and gurgled and moaned. Oh! it was fine to see him. Then I found a cord in the drawer there and I bound him, and while I fastened the knots I laughed and I talked to him. I talked about that night in the storm when he threw his father”—he pointed a long, quivering finger at me—“threw him into the slate quarry, and about that day when he came to the Castle gate and brought me to the plantation, and suddenly caught me by the throat till he thought he had strangled me, and beat me on the head. Ah, how my head has burned ever since, ever since, ever since! Ah, Milly, come to me! Milly, I am on fire! My head is on fire! Ah, ah!”
The foam burst out from between his pallid, quivering lips, and his eyes, red and burning, suddenly closed. A ghastly change crept over his blood-stained, pallid face. He sank backwards and fell heavily upon the floor.
We scarcely noticed him, for our eyes were bent elsewhere. The horror of that sight lived with me afterwards for many years, a haunting shadow over my life—disturbing even its sweetest moments, a hideous, maddening memory. I am not going to attempt to describe it. No words could express the horror of it. Such things are not to be written about.
Even my father’s iron nerve seemed to give way for a moment, and he stood by my side trembling, with his head buried in his hands. Then he sank on his knees and loosened the cords.
“Thank God he is dead,” he murmured fervently, as he felt the cold body and lifeless pulse, and cleared away the last fragments of disguise from the head and face. “You had better call Mr. Carrol in, Philip.”
Even as he spoke, a little awed group was silently filling the room, Carrol and his sergeant amongst them. But after all they were cheated of their task, for out in the moonlight John Francis lay stark, the madness gone from his white, still face, and the calm of death reigning there instead.
We were together, my father and I, under the shade of a little cluster of olive trees high up among the mountains. Far away below us the Campagna stretched to the foot of the dim hills steeped in blue which surround the Eternal City, towards which we had been gazing in a silence which had been for long unbroken. It was I at last who spoke, pointing downwards to where the bare grey stone walls of a small monastic building rose with almost startling abruptness from a narrow ledge of sward overhanging the precipice.
“Is this to be the end, then, father?” I cried bitterly; “this prison-house?”
He turned towards me with a look upon his face which I had grown to hate—a look calm and gentle enough, but full of resolution as unchanging as the mountains which towered above us.
“It must be so, Philip,” he said, quietly. “Is it well, think you, that I should return again into the life which I am weary of, when all that I desire lies here ready to my hand? Peace and rest—I want nothing more.”
“And why cannot you find them in England—at Ravenor with me?” I cried eagerly. “And your work, too—it could be done again. We would live alone there and bury ourselves from the world and everyone in it. I could help you. I could be your amanuensis. I should like that better than anything. Remember how all the papers lamented the cruel destruction of your manuscripts, and how everyone hoped that you would rewrite them. Oh, you must not do this thing, father—you must not! You have no right to cut yourself off from the world—no right!” I re-echoed passionately.
He shook his head slowly, but alas! with no sign of yielding.
“Philip,” he said quietly, “it troubles me to hear you plead like this in vain, for so it must ever be. I am happy now; happy in the recollection of the time we have spent together. Happy, too, in the thought that I can end my days in peace, with no disturbing ghosts of the past to rise up and haunt me!”
I was silent and kept my face turned away towards the mountains, for I would not have had him see my weakness. Soon he spoke again, and this time there was a vein of sadness in his tone.
“The time has come for us to part for awhile, Philip. There is one thing more which I would say to you. It concerns Cecil.”
“Cecil?” I echoed vaguely.
“Yes.”
“All his life he has been brought up to consider himself my heir. Now, of course, things will be very different with him. He is weak and easily led. I should like to think that you were friends; and if you have an opportunity of helping him in any way you will not neglect it.”
“I will not,” I promised. “Cecil and I will always be friends.”
We descended the steep hillside path and stood together almost on the threshold of the little monastery. Then my father held out his hand to me, and a soft, sweet light shone for a moment in his dark blue eyes.
“Farewell, Philip,” he said—“farewell. God bless you.” And while I was returning the grasp of his closed fingers and struggling to keep down a rising lump in my throat, he passed away from me silently, like a figure in a dream, and the thick, nail-studded door opened and was closed behind him.
Then I set my face towards Rome, with blurred eyesight and a bitter sense of loss at my heart. I was going back to England to take possession of a great inheritance, but there was no joy in the thought, only an unutterable, intolerable loneliness which weighed down my heart and spirits and filled me with deep depression.
Cecil met me in London, and we went to Ravenor together. It was a strange sensation to me to enter the Castle as its virtual owner, to wander from room to room, from gallery to gallery, and know that it was all mine, and that the long line of Ravenors who frowned and smiled upon me from their dark, worm-eaten frames were my ancestors. At first it seemed pleasant—pleasant, at least, in a measure,—but when I stood in the library and passed on into that little chamber the memories connected with them swept in upon me with such irresistible force that I was glad to send Cecil away for a while.
For some time I lived quite alone, save for Cecil’s frequent visits, keeping aloof from the people who lived near, and making but few acquaintances. The days I spent either on horseback or with my gun, or often tramping many miles over the open country with a book in my pocket, after the fashion of the days of my boyhood. The nights I had no difficulty about whatever. With such a library as my father’s to help me, my love of reading became almost a part of myself.
There was one person who viewed this change with profound dissatisfaction, and who at last broke into open protest.
“I say, Phil, you know it won’t do,” Cecil declared one night, when I had tried to steal away into the library on some pretext. “A young fellow of your age, with eighty thousand a year, has no business to shut himself up with a lot of musty books and dream away his time like an old hermit. People are asking about you everywhere, and I’m getting tired of explaining what a rum sort of chap you are. It won’t do, really.”
“Well,” I answered, “what do you want me to do?”
“I want you to come back to town with me and put up with my people a bit. The mater is very keen about it; in fact, she says that she shall come down here in the autumn if you don’t come.”
I leaned back in my chair and a day-dream rose up before me.
“What is your sister like now, Cis?” I asked suddenly.
“Trixie! Oh, she’s turned out pretty well, I think!” he answered complacently. “What friends you two used to be, by the by!”
We said no more about the matter then, but on the following morning I received two letters, one from Lady Silchester and the other from Lord Langerdale, both urging me to pay at least a short visit to London and perform social duties, which naturally seemed of more importance to them than to me. I read them through carefully and made up my mind at once. But Lord Langerdale’s letter had stirred up some old memories, and I did not tell Cecil my decision immediately.
“You are about town a good deal, Cecil. Do you ever see anything of Leonard de Cartienne?” I asked.
Cecil shook his head.
“No, nor am I ever likely to,” he answered. “I have heard of him, though, by a strange fluke.”
“What is he doing?”
“Got a commission in the Turkish army. Queer thing I heard the other day from a man I used to know very well once. He’s secretary at the Embassy now at Constantinople, and he asked me whether I ever came across him. Seems he isn’t particularly popular out there.”
“He’s a bad lot,” I remarked.
“Jolly sure of it,” Cecil assented. “No one but a blackguard would have behaved as he did to poor little Milly. But about London, Phil?”
“I will go,” I said. “If you like we will leave here to-morrow.”
Lady Silchester received us very kindly, and Beatrice, though full of the distractions of her first season, seemed even better pleased to see us. It was strange how much I found in the tall slim girl, whom everyone was quoting as the beauty of the season, to remind me of the quaint, old-fashioned child whose imperious manner and naïve talk had so charmed me a few years ago. There were the same wealth of ruddy golden hair, the same delicate features, and the same dainty little mannerisms. Everyone admired Lady Beatrice, and so did I.
My stay in London lasted till the end of the season. I made my orthodoxdébutinto Society under the wing of Lord Langerdale, and divided my time pretty well between my aunt and uncle and the house in Cadogan Square. When at last it was all over, Lord and Lady Langerdale, Lady Silchester, Cecil, and Beatrice returned to Ravenor as my guests.