WASit possible that she had slept? A moment ago and it was daylight—a red sunset afternoon: now the pale half-light, struggling with the black darkness, filled the apartment. She was lying on the sofa where Mary had laid her, and by her side, upon a chair within her reach, was some tea untasted, which Mary must have brought after she had fallen into that momentary slumber. The fire burned brightly, with occasional little outbreaks of flame. Such a silence seemed in the house—silence that crept and shuddered—and to think she should have slept!
The night had found covert in all the corners, so dark they were; but one pale line of light came from the window, and the room had a little ruddy centre in the fire. Mrs. Vincent, in the poignant anguish of her awakening, grew superstitious; some other breath—some other presence—seemed in the room besides her own. She called “Mary,” but there was no answer. In her excited condition anything was possible—the bounds of the living world and the possible seemed gone for ever. She might see anything—hear anything—in the calm of her desperation. She got up, and hastily lighted the candle which stood on the table. As she looked over the little light a great cryescaped her. What was it? rising darkly, rising slowly, out of the shadows in which it had been crouching, a huddled indistinct figure. Oh God! not Susan! not her child! As it rose slowly facing her, the widow cried aloud once more, and put her hand over her eyes to shut out the dreadful vision. Ghastly white, with fixed dilated eyes—with a figure dilated and grandiose—like a statue stricken into marble, raised to grandeur—could it be Susan who stood there, without a word, without a movement, only with a blank dark gaze at the horrified woman, who dared not meet those dreadful eyes? When life rallied in Mrs. Vincent’s horror-stricken heart, she went to the ghastly creature, and put warm arms round it, and called it Susan! Susan! Had it any consciousness at all, this dreadful ghost? had it come from another world? The mother kissed it with lips that woke no answer—held it motionless in her trembling arms. She cried again aloud—a great outcry—no longer fearing anything. What were appearances now? If it was Susan, it was Susan dead whom she held, all unyielding and terrible in her warm human arms.
Mary heard and came with exclamations of terror and sympathy. They got her between them to the fire, and chafed her chill hands and feet. Nobody knew how she had got in, where she had come from; no one was with her—no one had admitted her. She sat a marble woman in the chair where they had placed her, unresistant, only gazing, gazing—turning her awful eyes after her mother. At last she drew some long gasping breaths, and, with a shudder whichshook her entire frame, seemed to come to herself. “I am Susan Vincent,” said the awful ghost. No tears, nor cries, nor wild pressure of her mother’s arms, nor entreaties poured into her cold ear, could extract any other words. Mrs. Vincent lost her self-possession: she rushed out of the room for remedies—rung the bell—called for Arthur in a voice of despair—could nobody help her, even in this horrible crisis? When she had roused the house she recollected herself, and shut the door upon the wondering strangers, and returned once more to her hopeless task. “Oh, Mary! what are we to do? Oh, Susan, my child, my darling! speak to your poor mother,” cried the widow; but the marble figure in the chair, which was Susan, made no reply. It began to shiver with dreadful trembling fits—to be convulsed with long gasping sobs. “I am—Susan—Susan Vincent”—it said at intervals, with a pitiful iteration. The sight of her daughter in this frightful condition, coming after all her fatigue and strain of excitement, unnerved Mrs. Vincent completely. She had locked the door in her sudden dismay. She was kneeling, clasping Susan’s knees—wasting vain adjurations upon her—driven beyond hope, beyond sense, beyond capacity. Little rustic Mary had all the weight of the emergency thrown upon her shoulders. It was she who called to the curious landlady outside to send for the doctor, and who managed to get Susan put into her mother’s bed. When they had succeeded in laying her down there, a long interval, that seemed like years, passed before Dr. Rider came. The bed was opposite the window, through whichthe pale rays of the twilight were still trembling. The candle on the other side showed Mrs. Vincent walking about the room wringing her hands, now and then coming to the bedside to look at the unconscious form there, rent by those gasping sobs, uttering those dreadful words. Mary stood crying at the foot of the bed. As for the widow, her eyes were tearless—her heart in an intolerable fever of suffering. She could not bear it. She said aloud she could not bear it—she could not bear it! Then she returned again to call vainly upon her child, her child! Her strength had given way—she had spent all her reserves, and had nothing to resist this unexpected climax of misery.
It was quite dark when Dr. Rider came. Mary held the candle for him as he felt Susan’s pulse, and examined her wide-open eyes. The doctor knew nothing about her any more than if he had not been a doctor. He said it must have been some dreadful mental shock, with inquiring looks at Mrs. Vincent, who began to recover herself. He put back the heavy locks of golden brown hair, which had been loosened down from Susan’s head, and said he was afraid there was pressure on the brain. What could he say?—he knew nothing more about it. He left some simple directions, said he would send some medicine, and took Mrs. Vincent into a corner to ask what it was. “Some severe mental shock?” asked Dr. Rider; but, before she could reply, a cab drove rapidly up to the door, and sounds of a sudden arrival were audible in the house. “Oh, doctor, thank God, my son is come—now I can bear it,” said thewidow. Dr. Rider, who was of a compassionate nature, waited with pitying eyes till the minister should come up, and went to take another look at the patient, relieved to think he could speak to her brother, instead of racking her mother’s heart. Mrs. Vincent grew calm in the sudden consolation of thinking Arthur at hand. She sat down by the bedside, with her eyes fixed on the door, yearning for her son, the only living creature from whom she could have entire sympathy. Was it necessary that they should speak so loudly as they came up-stairs?—could he be bringing a stranger with him to Susan’s sickroom? Her heart began to beat louder with mingled expectation and displeasure. It was not like Arthur—and there was no sound of his voice in the noise that swept up the stair. She rose up instinctively as the footsteps approached—heavy steps, not like her son’s. Then the door was thrown open. It was not Arthur who stood upon the dim threshold. It was a stranger in a rough travelling-coat, excited, resolute, full of his own errand. He made a stride into the room to the bedside, thrusting Mrs. Vincent aside, not wittingly, but because she was in his way. Mary stood at the other side with the doctor, holding up the one pale candle, which threw a flickering light upon the marble white figure on the bed, and the utter consternation and surprise in Dr. Rider’s face. Mrs. Vincent, too much alarmed and astonished to offer any resistance, followed the man who had thus entered into her sanctuary of anguish. He knew what he was doing, though nobody else did. He went straight forward to the bed. But the sightof the unconscious figure there appalled the confident stranger. “It is she, sure enough,” he said; “are you a doctor, sir? is the lady taken ill? I’ve come after her every step of the way. She’s in my custody now. I’ll not give any trouble that I can help, but I must stay here.”
Mrs. Vincent, who scarcely could endure to hear, and did not understand, rushed forward while he was speaking, and seized him by the arm—“Leave the room!” she cried with sudden passion—“He has made some impudent mistake, doctor. God help me!—will you let my child be insulted? Leave the room, sir—leave the room, I say! This is my daughter, Miss Vincent, lying here. Mary, ring the bell—he must be turned out of the room. Doctor, doctor! you are a man; you will never let my child be insulted because her brother is away.”
“What does it mean?” cried Dr. Rider—“go outside and I will come and speak to you. Miss Vincent is in a most dangerous state—perhaps dying. If you know her——”
“Know her, doctor! you are speaking of my child,” cried Mrs. Vincent, who faced the intruder with blazing eyes. The man held his ground, not impertinently, but with steadiness.
“I know her fast enough,” he said; “I’ve tracked her every step of the way; not to hurt the lady’s feelings, I can’t help what I’m doing, sir. It’s murder;—I can’t let her out of my sight.”
Mrs. Vincent clasped her hands together with a grasp of desperation. “What is murder?” she said, in a voice that echoed through the room. The doctor,with an exclamation of horror, repeated the same question. Murder! it seemed to ring through the shuddering house.
“It’s hard upon a lady, not to say her mother,” said the man, compassionately; “but I have to do my duty. A gentleman’s been shot where she’s come from. She’s the first as suspicion falls on. It often turns out as the one that’s first suspected isn’t the criminal. Don’t fret, ma’am,” he added, with a glance of pity, “perhaps it’s only as a witness she’ll be wanted—but I must stay here. I daren’t let her out of my sight.”
There was a dreadful pause. Mrs. Vincent looked up at the two men before her with a heartrending appeal in her eyes. Would anybody tell her what it meant?—would nobody interfere for Susan? She moaned aloud inarticulate in her voiceless misery. “And Arthur is not here!” was the outcry which at last burst from her heart. She was beyond feeling what this was—her senses were confused with extremity of suffering. She only felt that another blow had been dealt at her, and that Arthur was not here to help to bear it. Then the stranger, who had put himself so horribly in possession of Susan’s sickroom, once more began to speak. The widow could not tell what he said—the voice rang in her ears like a noise of unmeaning sound, but it stirred her to a flush of female passion, as violent as it was shortlived. She sprang forward and took hold of his arm with her white little trembling hand: “Not here—not here!” cried the mother in her passion. With her feeble force excited into something irresistible,she put the astonished stranger out of the room before he knew what she was doing. If an infant had done it the man could not have been more utterly astonished. Outside, the people of the house were standing in an excited group. She thrust the dreadful messenger of justice out with those hands that shook with tremors of anguish and weakness. She shut the door upon him with all her feeble strength, locked it, put a chair against it; then she stumbled and fell as she stretched out for another—fell down upon her knees, poor soul! and remained so, forgetting, as it seemed, how she came there, and gradually, by instinct, putting together the hands which trembled like leaves in the wind—“Lord, Lord!” cried the mother, hovering on the wild verge between passion and insensibility. She called Him by name only as utter anguish alone knows how; she had nothing to tell Him; she could only call upon Him by His name.
Dr. Rider took the half-insensible form up in his arms and carried her to the bedside, where Susan still lay motionless with her eyes wide open, in an awful abstraction and unconsciousness. He put Mrs. Vincent tenderly into the chair, and held the hands that shook with that palsied irrestrainable tremor. “No one can bring her to life but you,” said the doctor, turning the face of the miserable mother towards her child. “She has kept her senses till she reached you; when she was here she no longer wanted them; she has left her life in your hands.” He held those hands fast as he spoke; pressed them gently, but firmly; repeated his words over again.“In your hands,” said the doctor once more, struck to his heart with horror and pity. Susan’s bare beautiful arm lay on the coverlid, white, round, and full, like marble. The doctor, who had never seen the fair Saxon girl who was Mrs. Vincent’s daughter a week ago, thought in his heart that this full developed form and face, rapt to grandeur by the extremity of woe, gave no contradiction to the accusation he had just heard with so much horror. That week had obliterated Susan’s soft girlish innocence and the simplicity of her eighteen years. She was a grand form as she lay there upon that bed—might have loved to desperation—fallen—killed. Unconsciously he uttered aloud the thought in his heart—“Perhaps it would be better she should die!”
Then the mother rose. Once more her painful senses came back to the woman who was still the minister’s mother, and, even in this hideous dream of misery, had not forgotten the habits of her life. “When my son comes he will settle it all,” said Mrs. Vincent. “I expect him—any time—he may come any minute. Some one has made—a mistake. I don’t know what that man said; but he has made—a mistake, doctor. My son, Mr. Vincent, will see to all that. It has nothing to do with us. Tell me what we are to do for my child. Cut off her hair? Oh, yes, yes, anything! I don’t mind it, though it is a sacrifice. She has had—a—a great fright, doctor. She could not tell me particulars. When her brother comes home, we will hear all—” said the widow, looking with a jealous gaze in his eyes to see if he believed her. The scene altogether overcame Dr.Rider. He turned away and went to the other side of the room, and took a glass of water from the table before he could answer her or meet that appeal. Then he soothed her as he best could with directions about Susan. He went away immediately to come back in an hour, if perhaps there might be any change—so he said; but, in reality, he wanted to escape, to hear this dreadful story, to think what was best. Friendless, with nobody near to protect them, and the officer of justice waiting at the door, what were these women to do? perhaps death waited closer than the visible messenger of fate. Would it be well to stay that more merciful executioner on his way?
The doctor found the officer outside the door, waiting, not without pity, at his post. He heard what was this man’s version of the strange tragedy—strange, and yet not unfamiliar to human ears. The young woman had been betrayed and ruined. In wild vengeance and misery she had seized one of her seducer’s pistols and shot him through the head—such was the story. And now she had fled from the scene of the murder, tracked step by step by the avenger. The whole house was in a tumult, as may be supposed. The indignant landlady, who was a member of Salem, could scarcely be prevented going into the jealously-closed room and turning out the unhappy criminal. Another lodger, a nervous woman, had already collected her goods to fly from the place. Outside, some mysterious instinct had collected a few people about the door of the hitherto irreproachable house, which imagination magnified into a crowd.Already Tozer had set out from his shop, red with anger, to inquire into this incipient excitement, which nobody could explain. And still Arthur had not appeared to stand by the miserable women in this horrible climax of fate.
When the doctor went back to the room where Susan was, he found Mrs. Vincent in a state of agitated activity. Mary and she were flitting about the room, moving lights before Susan’s eyes, making what noises they could with the furniture, keeping a fantastic commotion about the bed. “She stirred, doctor, and we were trying to rouse her,” said the widow, who had put everything but Susan’s bodily extremity from her eyes at the moment. The doctor, who was desperate, and whose heart was moved, resorted to desperate measures. He gathered them about the bed, set Mrs. Vincent to support the insensible form, and raising that white marble arm which had developed into such glorious proportion, touched the swollen blue vein with his lancet. The touch acted like magic. In another moment she had struggled up out of her mother’s grasp, and thrown out the arm, from which the blood flowed, up above her head: the crimson stream caught her wild eye as she raised her arm in the air. A convulsive shudder shook her frame. She threw herself over on her face with a cry of horror, far more than a match, in her strength of youth and passion, for the agitated arms that held her. “Mother, mother, mother! it is his blood! it is his life!” cried that despairing voice. The confused bed, the convulsed frame, the flowing blood, all pitifully lighted up byMary’s candle, made up of themselves a scene like murder; and Dr. Rider vainly tried to forget the dreadful words which forced upon his mind their untimely testimony. He shuddered at the touch of that white woman’s hand as he bound up the wounded arm. He withdrew his eyes from the pallid grandeur of the stricken face. In spite of himself, horror mingled with his pity. A heavier stain was upon her than those crimson traces on her pearly skin. Other words followed in an incoherent stream. Fever of the heart and brain, burning up into consuming frenzy, had seized upon this lost creature, who was no longer a girl or innocent. Ere long they had to send for nurses, to restrain her delirium. She, raving with a wild madness which betrayed in every wandering exclamation the horror upon her soul, lay desperate in the room which had enclosed for so many lingering hours her mother’s anguish of suspense and fear. In an adjoining room, the man who had followed her to this refuge still waited, watchful yet pitiful, intent that his prisoner should not escape him. While outside a few gazers lingered, looking up at the lights in the windows, with a strange perception that something unusual had happened, though nobody knew what it was. Such was the scene upon which Arthur Vincent, not unwarned, yet incredulous, came suddenly with eyes of horror and wild indignation as he reached his own door.
WHENVincent was set down, in the darkness and silence of the Sunday night, in the Dover railway station, it was some minutes before he could collect himself, and understand where he was. He had fallen into a feverish sleep during the journey, little as he could have supposed himself capable of sleeping at such a moment; but he was young, and unused to the ceaseless fatigue and excitement and total want of rest which had obliterated for him the natural distinction between night and day. While his fellow-passengers trooped away with all the bustle and excitement of travellers, who had then only completed the first stage of their journey, to the pier and the night-boat which waited to carry them across the Channel, he, whom various porters and attendants stimulated with adjurations to make haste, and warnings that he would be late, stumbled out into the dark, collecting his faculties, and trying to think what he must do first. He was giddy and feverish with that insufficient snatch of sleep which had lost him the time in which he might have been laying his plans. But when he got outside the station into the unknown place, into the gloom of night, and heard the “moanings of the homeless sea” sounding sullen against the unseen shore, recollection and energy came back to him. That very sound, booming through the darkness, inspired Susan’s brother. He thought of her forlorn, desolate, succourless, a weary wanderer seeking rest and finding none, shrouded up in darkness and danger, lost in the mysterious gloom—such was the sentiment of the night. The minister went on rapidly to the town, with its restless lights, through which everybody seemed to be passing towards the unseen sea. Should he follow with the stream, or should he stop at the hotel of which Mary had told him? He quickened his steps as he reached the open door of the inn, and plunged in to make rapid inquiries. Nobody knew either Colonel Mildmay or Mr. Fordham, but the party which he described had been there, and had left only an hour before—not for the boat, the attendants thought: but the boat was ringing its bells through the night; and if by chance they had gone there, no time was to be lost. He rushed from the inn as fast as his wearied limbs could carry him to the pier, where the lookers-on stood aside out of his way, recognising his excitement. He went through among all the passengers with the rough captain and his lantern, having briefly explained to that functionary what he wanted. But they were not there. When he had satisfied himself, he left the boat, and stood with suspicious reluctance, unwilling to lose sight of it, on the pier, and watched the coloured lamp on the mast of the steamer gradually gliding through the darkness out of the sheltering harbour, till it began to plunge and heave on the unseen sea. Then he took his troubled way back to the inn. Itwas very late, and all the population seemed to disappear out of the streets, with the little attendant crowd which had been waiting upon the last event of the day, the departure of this night-boat. The inn itself looked half asleep, and was half closed when he returned. No further arrivals, no incidents in the shape of trains or boats, were to be looked for till the morning. It was the first time that Arthur had encountered this compulsory pause of night. He struggled against it for some time, questioning the waiters, and gleaning some particulars which did but increase his anxiety, but the waiters themselves were sleepy, and all the world around had closed itself up in utter quietness and rest.
Vincent went out again, but he could get admittance nowhere, save at the office of the police, where he went in desperation to ask the services of some one skilful in such inquiries. He found this not without difficulty, but nothing was to be done that night. He had to go back to the hotel to consent to the necessary rest for which, notwithstanding the fever of his mind, his worn-out frame craved. Weariness, indeed, had gradually overpowered and absorbed him—stronger than anxiety, more urgent even than his love for his sister, was this present and over-powering exhaustion which began to occupy all his thoughts. Though he struggled with it he could not but feel in his heart, with a certain guilt, how this overwhelming desire to throw himself down somewhere and rest possessed him to the exclusion of more worthy impulses. After he had ordered some refreshment, of which, indeed, he stood as much inneed, the young man threw himself upon a sofa, and there fell into a deep sleep of utter weariness. He could do no more. He slept as youth must sleep, were it on the edge of a precipice, were it at the deathbed of its dearest friend. The very waiter who brought in the food he had ordered, took pity upon the worn-out slumberer. The man heaped up the fire, and covered Vincent with his railway wrapper before he withdrew; and it was not till morning that the young minister awoke out of that profound slumber—awoke chilled and aching, and confused, in the dark, with the untouched meal still on the table, the candle flaming in its socket, and he himself totally unaware how long he had been asleep.
In the interval that elapsed before the first sounds of awakening life in the house, he had time to collect himself, and when he went down-stairs to the coffee-room, still in the dark of the winter morning, had regained more command of himself and his powers than at any previous moment since this misery came upon him.
But it was still so early that the fire was scarcely alight, and he had to wait for the cup of coffee he ordered. Vincent went to the window, as was natural—a large window looking into the dark street, faintly lighted with lamps, which somehow burned less bright in the chill of the morning than they did at night. Looking out vaguely, yet with the vigilance of anxiety, without being able to discriminate anything except here and there a dark figure passing in the darkness, the young man waited with his face close to the uncurtained panes. There was nothingin that blank undecipherable street to interest him, and yet he gazed out mechanically in the anxious pre-occupation of his mind. When the attendant came into the room with his coffee, his attention was temporarily distracted. He got up to go to the table where breakfast was being arranged for him; but, as he rose, his eye was caught by the gleam of a passing face, ghastly white in the darkness, looking in. Before he could draw breath, the apparition was gone. Without saying a word to the astonished waiter, who began to think him mad, Vincent dashed out after this vanished vision. Two female figures were visible a little further on in the gloomy street. He pursued them with breathless, noiseless speed, and grasped at the arm of a terrified woman who, gasping with sudden fright, turned upon him a face he had never seen before. Nobody else was to be seen in any direction. The minister made an inarticulate apology, and turned back to search for some opening or passage through which that face could have disappeared. It was no fancy of his that painted that pale countenance upon the darkness—the same face that he had seen in the railway carriage following Colonel Mildmay—the same, but with a new look of horror and desperation in its eyes. The young man investigated, as he thought, every doorway, every corner which could have given shelter to such a fugitive. He returned, excited and agitated, to the inn, to ask if there was any passage through the line of houses which he might have overlooked, but could hear of none. It was on his lips to ask if they had heard of any crime or accident during the night—any—murder; but prudence restrained the incautious utterance. He went out with the wildest agitation in his mind; something had happened. Mrs. Hilyard’s face, gleaming in unconscious at the window, betrayed to him much more clearly than any confession, that some new and awful event had been added to that woman’s strange experiences of life; and in the darkness he had been aware of some shadowy figure beside her, accompanying her ghostly way. Perhaps her child—perhaps—could it be Susan? The young man went out, not knowing where he went, into the darkness of the winter morning; he hastened to the pier, to the railway, startling the half-awakened people about, but nowhere could either see or hear of her. Could it be a delusion? but the wildest imagination in the world could not have inspired with such a new horror of expression the eyes that gleamed out of that ghastly pale face.
The grey daylight had just got final mastery of the dark, when Vincent met the man whom he had employed the night before to help him in his inquiries. This agent, more skilful than the minister, had found out the cab-driver who conveyed the party from the hotel on the previous evening. Colonel Mildmay seemed to have made the precipitate retreat of a man suddenly startled and frightened out of his plans. The cabman gave a detailed account of the strange conduct of his fare. “We was a-going to the pier to the Ostend steamer, sir,” said the driver, “when I was pulled up sharp, and got my directions to turn about sudden and go to therailway. There was a lady as I see keeping her eye on us, a-standing by the pier gates with her bag in her hand; but it was dark, and she couldn’t have seen who was in the cab. The same occurred, sir, as we came up to the railway. I don’t say as I see the lady there—but sure enough I was pulled up second time, and ordered out along the Folkestone road, a matter o’ three mile or so. Then I was turned back again; and the end of all was that I took them to the Swan in Walmer Street, as is a place where there’s well-aired beds and chops, and that style o’ thing. That ain’t the style of thing as is done in the Lord Warden. To take a fare, and partic’lar along with ladies, from the one of them places to the other, looks queer—that’s what it does; it looks very queer, sir. It made me take a deal of notice. Gen’leman tall, light-haired, hook nose, awful swell to look at. Ladies, one on ’em pretty tall, one little; pretty creatures, but dreadful skeared as far as I could see. The little one had a blue veil. That’s them, sir; thought as I was right.”
“And you can take me to the place?” said Vincent.
“Jump into my cab, and I’ll have you there, sir, in five minutes,” said the man.
The minister sprang into the cab alone. He no longer wanted the aid of a stranger; the darkling streets seemed to glide past him, and not he past them, as he dashed on at last to find his sister, this time there could be no mistake. After they had threaded several obscure streets, the driver came to a sudden pause, got off his box, and touched his hatwith an alarmed look. “I can’t drive up to the very ’ouse, sir—there’s a crowd around the door; they do say as something has happened. I hope it ain’t to any of your friends?” said the cabman. Vincent flung the door open as he was speaking, and rushed out. A horrified and excited crowd was besieging the door of the shabby public-house to which he had been brought. Seeing his hasty arrival, and the passionate anxiety in his eyes, the crowd gave way before him, recognising his right of entry; the very policeman at the door yielded to him in the force of his passion. “What is it?” he cried, aware of putting away some women and babies from the door with mechanical kindness, but unconscious that he had stumbled up the steps like a man in a dream, and was demanding an answer to his question with an almost wild vehemence. The question was answered by a dozen eager voices. It was murder—murder! He could make out nothing but the word in the confusion of many speakers and of his own mind. Nobody opposed his entrance or asked what business he had there. He sprang up the stairs in two or three steps, pressed forward to a half-open door, within which he saw some people assembled, and, unawares thrusting aside a man who stopped him, went into that chamber of death. Several people were around the bed—one, a surgeon, occupied with the prostrate figure there. Vincent, over the heads of the spectators, gazed with burning eyes at this horrible spectacle. Susan herself, whom he did not expect to find there, nor could associate in any way with such a scene, faded out of his mindas he gazed with haggard face and horror-stricken soul at the shattered head, bound up in bloody-bandages, scarce recognisable except by sharp eyes of love or hate, which rested on that mean pillow. He asked no questions for the moment. To him alone the business needed no explanation. He was not even surprised—he stood gazing in a momentary trance of horror at the lamentable sight. It was a wretched room, shabby and meagre, such a place as only terror could have driven Mildmay to. Villain as he was, his punishment had begun before that pistol-shot brought it to a climax—even in his success he had been conscious that she would keep her word.
The policeman at the door touched Vincent on the sleeve, just as he turned from the dreadful spectacle before him. “Nobody is allowed in here but for a good reason,” said this man, gazing suspiciously at the stranger; “unless you knows something about it, or have come to identify the poor gentleman, or are of some use somehow, I can’t let you stay here.”
“I do not wish to stay here,” said Vincent, turning away with a shudder. “I want to see the ladies who were with him. Yes, I know who he is—but I am not a friend of his; I have nothing to do with the matter. Where are the ladies who were with him? Miss Vincent,” said the minister with a pang, “and—and Miss Mildmay. I have come to take them away.”
“The ladies as were with him? Oh, it’s them as you’re awanting; perhaps you’ll stop a minute and talk to the inspector,” said the policeman. “Theladies as were with him? Maybe you can tell the inspector something as will help justice? You didn’t know the reason as brought out two young women a-travelling with a gen’leman, did you? They’ll want all the friends they can collect afore all’s done. You come this way with me.”
It was a relief to get out of sight of that which horrified yet fascinated his eyes. Vincent followed the man into another room without observing the evident suspicion with which he was regarded. “Where are they?” he asked again. “I have a cab below. This is not a place for women. I have come to take them away. Where are the people of the house? What do you mean by keeping your hand on me? I want Miss Vincent. Do you hear me? I have nothing to do with Colonel Mildmay. He has plenty of friends to avenge him. I want my sister. Where is she? Call the people of the house.”
Vincent threw off the policeman’s hand from his arm, and, looking for a bell, rang violently. He was too much horror-stricken, and too secure of finding Susan, weeping and helpless in some corner, to show any of the passionate eagerness with which he had started on his search. Little doubt she was there, poor lost soul. He shrank from meeting with her, now that the meeting was so near; and his thoughts went after that other desperate wretched woman, flying—who could tell where?—in despair and darkness. The house was in utter disorder, as was natural; none of its humble occupants being capable, at the present exciting moment, of attending to their usualduties. Vincent rang the bell again, till it pealed and echoed through the place. Then he bethought himself, with a natural shudder, of the death-chamber close by. He turned to the man by his side, with an instinctive involuntary curiosity. “Is any one suspected?” said the minister, feeling his face grow pale with a dreadful consciousness of the secret which he shared. But before he could hear the answer, his second summons had brought up the terrified mistress of the house, attended half way up the stair by a throng of curious women. He went hurriedly to meet her at the door.
“Where are the ladies?” said the minister. “I have just heard that my sister was brought here last night. Tell her I am here. Take me to her. Don’t be alarmed. You know what I mean? The two ladies—young ladies who came here with Colonel Mildmay last night—where are they? Good heavens! do you not understand what I mean?”
“The young ladies, sir?” faltered the landlady, gasping and looking at the man who still kept by Vincent’s side. “Oh, Lord bless us! The young ladies——”
“Make haste and let them know I am here,” said Vincent, gradually growing more and more anxious. “I will undertake to produce them if they are wanted as witnesses. Where are they?—where is my sister? I tell you she is my sister. I have come for her. Tell Miss Vincent. Surely I am speaking plain English,” said the young man, with a flush of sudden dread. “The elder one, Miss Vincent—you understand me? Let her know that I am here.”
“His sister! Oh, Lord bless us; and he don’t know no more than the unborn,” cried the woman of the house. “Oh, Lord! p’liceman, can’t you tell the poor gentleman? His sister! oh, that’s worse than ever, that is. Some poor young thing as has been beguiled and led astray. Lord bless us! don’t look at me o’ that way. I ain’t to blame. Oh, gracious me, that I should have to tell the gentleman, and you standing there! Oh, sir, it’s her as has done it. She’s gone away from here afore break of day. I don’t blame her; oh, I don’t blame her; don’t look o’ that dreadful way at me. He’s drove her to it with bad usage. She’ll have to suffer for it; but I don’t blame her. I don’t blame her if it was my last word in life.”
Vincent felt his tongue cleave to his mouth. He was stunned; he did not know what he said—what he was hearing. “Blame her? whom? for what?” he said, with a mechanical effort. He seemed to himself to be suddenly engulfed in some horrible cloud, but he did not know what it meant.
“Oh, Lord! don’t look o’ that dreadful way at me; she’s gone off from here as soon as she done it,” cried the woman. “She had that much sense left, poor soul. He’s drove her mad; he’s drove her to it. My man says it can’t be brought in no worse than manslaughter——”
“You don’t understand me,” Vincent broke in; “you are talking of the criminal. Who are you talking of?—but it does not matter. I want Miss Vincent. Do you hear me?—the young lady whom he brought here last night. Where is my sister?Gone away before daybreak! You mean the criminal, but I want my sister. Susan! take me to where she is. She had nothing to do with it. I will give you anything—pay you anything, only take me to where she is.”
He moved towards the door as he spoke, half believing that, if he could but hold out and refuse to credit this horror, Susan might still be found. “Lord bless us! the poor young gentleman’s gone out of his senses,” cried the landlady. “Let him go through all the house if that’s what he wants. There ain’t nothing to conceal in my house. I’ll take you to the room as they were in—she and the other one. This way, sir. They hadn’t nothing with them but two little bags, so there wasn’t much to leave; but such as it is, being her night-things, is there. She wasn’t thinking of bags, nor any of her little comforts, when she went away. Here, sir; walk in here.”
The woman took him to a room up-stairs, where Vincent followed her mechanically. The room had evidently been occupied a very short time before. Upon a chair, open, with the contents only half thrust in, was a travelling-bag, which the minister recognised at once—a piece of family property dreadful to see in such a place. Susan had been putting her things away with the orderly instinct of her mother’s daughter when this sudden shock of terror came upon her. “Do you mean to tell me that it is she who has gone away,” said Vincent, with a look of incredulous wonder and appeal—“she—Susan Vincent, my sister? Take time to think. It was not she—somebody else. Tell me where she is—”
“Oh, sir, don’t say anything as may come against her,” cried the landlady. “It’s nobody but her, poor soul, poor soul. If it was possible to think as it could be another, I would—but there was nobody else to do it. As soon as we heard the shot and the groan the master got up. He met her on the stair, sir, if you’ll believe me, like a woman as was walking in her sleep. He was that struck he daren’t say a word to her. He let her pass by him and go out at the door—and when he went into the gentleman’s room and found him there a-dying, she was gone clean off, and couldn’t be heard of. Folks say as my husband should have stopped her, but it wasn’t none of his business. Oh, sir, don’t say nothing as’ll put them on her track! There’s one man gone off after her already—oh, it’s dreadful!—if you’ll be advised by me, you’ll slip out the back way, and don’t come across that policeman again. If she did kill him,” cried the weeping landlady, “it was to save herself, poor dear. I’ll let you out the back way, if you’ll be guided by me.”
The horror of this accusation had come home to Vincent’s mind at last. He saw, as if by a sudden flash of dreadful enlightenment, not guilt indeed, or its awful punishment, but open shame—the disgrace of publicity—the horrible suspicions which were of themselves more than enough to kill the unhappy girl. He made a great effort to speak, but could not for the moment. He thrust in the white soft garments which were hanging out of it, into that familiar bag, which somehow gave him a pang more acute than all the terrible news he was hearing. Hehad travelled with it himself on innocent boyish journeys, had seen it in his mother’s innocent hands—and now to find it in this shuddering atmosphere of crime and mystery! He too shuddered as he roused himself to speak. “Hush—hush,” said Vincent, “you mistake, my sister has nothing to do with it; I—I can prove that—easily,” said the minister, getting the words out with difficulty. “Tell me how it all happened—when they came here, what passed; for instance——” He paused, and his eye caught another evidence of the reality of his horrible position. It was the blue veil which he had followed and described, and looked for through all these weary hours. He took it up in his hand, crushing it together with an almost ungovernable impulse of rage, from where it had been thrown down on the shabby carpet. “For instance,” said Susan’s brother, restraining himself, “where is the girl who wore this? You said Miss Vincent went away alone—where was the other? was she left behind—is she here?”
The policeman had followed them up into the room in natural curiosity and suspicion. The landlady’s husband had sworn that Susan left the house by herself. Then, where was the girl? The fugitive had been tracked to the railway, the policeman said; but she was alone. Nobody had thought before of her helpless companion. The inspector arrived while they were going over the house trying if it were possible to find any traces of this forlorn creature. Vincent was much too profoundly concerned himself to keep silence about the mysterious movements of the woman whom he had seen on hisway to Dover—whom he had seen that very morning in the darkness—whom he knew to be the bitterest enemy of the murdered man. It was only when he described her—when he tried to collect all the information he had ever had about her for the guidance of justice—that he saw how little he knew of her in reality. His very description was tinged with a touch of fancy; and in this frightful emergency he perceived, for the first time, how much his imagination had supplied of the interest he felt in this woman. When he had done all it was possible to do to set the pursuer on her track, and gathered all he could of the supposed proofs against Susan, he left the place where he could do nothing further. He had to describe himself fully—to prove his identity by a reference to the Dissenting minister of the place, and explain whence he had come and whither he was going, before the officers in charge of the house, although conscious that they had no grounds for detaining him, would let him go. But he was permitted to leave at last. While he waited for the next train to Carlingford, he questioned the cabman, who could give but a very faint and indistinct description of the lady whom he had seen at the pier-gates, whose appearance had stopped Colonel Mildmay in the prosecution of his journey. She was standing under a lamp, the man said: the gentleman might see her, but he didn’t think as she could see him; but dim as the vision was, this was another little link in the chain of evidence. If it did but vindicate Susan—save her, not from the penalty, but from the very shadow and suspicion ofsuch a horror! It was this which filled the minister’s mind with every sort of frightful apprehension. To have Susan’s name exposed to such a horrible publicity—to have such a scene, such a crime anyhow connected with his sister—the idea shook Vincent’s mind utterly, and almost disabled him from thought at all. And where was she, poor horror-stricken fugitive? He scarcely dared hope that she had gone to her mother. Sudden death, madness, any misery, seemed possible to have overtaken the unhappy girl thus suddenly reft out of the peacefulness of her youth into circumstances so horrible. When he entered Carlingford, late at night, it was with insupportable pangs of suspense and alarm that he looked into the faces he met on the lighted streets. Were they looking at him already with a consciousness that some frightful shadow enveloped him? Tozer’s shop was already shut—earlier than usual, surely—and two or three people stood talking at the open door, clearly visible against the gaslight, which still burned bright within. Farther up, opposite his own house, two or three passengers had stopped to look up at the lighted windows. When Vincent thrust aside a lad who happened to be in his way, asking, with uncontrollable irritation, what he wanted there, the door opened suddenly at the sound of his voice. All was excited and confused within—common life, with its quiet summonses and answers, was over there. Wild confusion, agitation, reproach, surrounded the unfortunate minister. His landlady came forward to meet him, to bewail her own misfortune, and upbraid him with the wronghe had done her. “I took in the pastor for a lodger, because he was sure to be steady and respectable, and this is what he has brought to me!” cried the hysterical woman. “What is the meaning of all this?” cried Vincent, looking round him with restrained fury, but he did not wait for an answer. He went up to his rooms to know the worst. As he rushed breathless up-stairs, loud outcries of delirium reached him. In his horror and anguish he could not recognise the voice—was it his mother who had given way under the terrible burden? He dashed open the door of the sitting-room in which he had spent so many quiet hours—neither mother nor sister were there; instead of them a rough-featured man, in a blue travelling-coat, and Tozer, flushed and argumentative, standing by the table. Vincent had not time to ask what the controversy was that was going on between the two. The butterman grasped his hand with an almost violent pressure, and took the stranger’s arm. “Beg your pardon for being in your room, Mr. Vincent, but me and this gentleman has a little business. I’ll be back presently and explain,” said the good deacon, with a compassionate look at the young man, whose weary eyes sought with instinctive suspicion that unknown face. “I’m your friend, Mr. Vincent— I always was; I’m not one as will desert a friend in trouble,” said Tozer, with another shake of his hand, lowering his voice. Then he disappeared with his strange companion. The minister was alone with those cries, with this agitation. He threw himself down in momentary despair. The worst, it appeared,had happened—the horror had travelled before him. He gave up everything in the anguish of that moment. There seemed to be no use for any further struggle. To this sensitive, spotless, inexperienced household, suspicion was worse than death.
WHENVincent came to himself, and began to see clearly the true horrors of his position, his mind, driven to its last stronghold, rallied convulsively to meet the worst. It was Susan who was raving close by; but her brother, in the sickening despair of his heart, had not the courage to go into that agitated sick-room. He sat waiting for Tozer’s return with a sense of helplessness, a sense of irritation, against which he had no strength to contend. In that bitter moment he gave up everything, and felt himself no longer capable of striving against his fate. He felt in his heart that all Carlingford must already be discussing the calamity that had come upon him, and that his innocent honourable name was already sullied by the breath of the crowd; and, with a strange mixture of intolerance and eagerness, he waited the return of the man who had first, as it appeared, thrust himself into the secret—a man whom the minister must not affront, must not defy, on peril of all he had in the world. These few silent moments were more terrible to Vincent than any that had gone before them. Was it any good holding out, attempting to keep a brave face to the world, struggling against this crushing blow?—or would it not be easiest to give in, to drop the useless arms, to fly from the inevitable downfall? Some corner of the earth there surely remained where he could hide his head and find a shelter for the two poor women who were greater sufferers than he. It was with such feelings that he awaited the return of Tozer—feelings aggravated by the consciousness that somehow the butterman was engaged in his service at this very moment, and by a shadowy and unexpressed suspicion in his mind as to the character of the stranger whom Tozer had taken away. The excellent deacon returned at last with looks of conscious importance. He was very sorry and anxious, but he could not help looking confidential, and standing a little higher upon the ground of this mystery, which nobody shared but himself. Once more he shook hands with Vincent, sympathetically, and with a grasp full of meaning.
“The thing for us to do is to keep it quiet—to keep it quiet, sir,” said Tozer, lowering his voice as he spoke. “Nothing must be said about it—no more nor can be helped, Mr. Vincent. As far as it has gone, there’s nobody as has heard but me. If it could be kept private from the Salem folks,” continued the butterman, taking a seat at the table, and looking cautiously round him, as if to make sure that no one was within hearing, “it would be for the best. Them women do make such a talk about everything. Not to tell a falsehood, sir, as I wouldn’t, not to save my own, if so be as my own could be in such a position—we’ll say as your sister’s took bad, sir, that’s what we’ll say. And no lie neither—hear to her, poor soul!— But, Mr. Vincent,” said Tozer, drawing closer, and confiding his doubt in a whisper, “what she says is best not to be listened to, if you’ll take my advice. It ain’t to be built upon what a poor creature says in a fever, but them sort of words and screechings don’t come out of nothing but a troubled mind. She was aggravated awful—so the man tells me.”
“Who was the man?” asked Vincent, hurriedly.
“The man? oh!—which man was you meaning, sir?” asked Tozer, with a little fright, recurring to his more generous intention of keeping this intruder altogether from the knowledge of the minister; “nobody in particular, Mr. Vincent—nobody as is worth mentioning. One as was sent to inquire—that’s all. I’ve cleared him away out of the road,” said the butterman, not without some natural complacency: “there ain’t no matter about him. Don’t ask me no more, Mr. Vincent, for it’s losing time as is precious. If there’s anything as can be done, it’s best to do it directly. I’d speak to John Brown as is the cleverest attorney in Carlingford, sir, if I was you. She’s young, and, as I was saying, she was aggravated awful. She might be got off.”
“Hush!” said Vincent, who had to put a desperate curb upon himself, lest the restrained rage with which he heard this implication of guilt should burst out; “you think there is something in this horrible business—that my sister has something to do with it. It is all a frightful delusion—an infernal——”
“Mr. Vincent, sir, you mustn’t swear. I’m as sorry for you as a man can be; but you’re a minister, and you mustn’t give way,” said Tozer. “If thereain’t nothing in it, so much the better; but I’m told as the evidence is clean again’ her. Well, I won’t say no more; it’s no pleasure to me to think of a young creature, and a minister’s daughter, with a mother like what she’s got, going any ways astray—far the contrary, Mr. Vincent: your own father, if he was living, couldn’t be more sorry than me. But my advice is, keep quiet, and don’t let anything get out no more nor can be helped. I don’t mean to say as it can be altogether kep’ quiet—that ain’t in the nature of things; nor I don’t mean to make you suppose as all is likely to go smooth, and no fault found. There’s pretty sure to be some unpleasantness, one way or another; and the only thing as I can see is just to put up with it, and stand your ground, and do your duty all the same. And I for one will stand by you, sir,” said Tozer, rising to his feet with a little glow of conscious generosity and valour, and shaking the hand of the poor young minister with cordial kindness—“I’ll stand by you, sir, for one, whatever happens; and we’ll tide it out, Mr. Vincent, that’s what we’ll do, sir, if you can but hold on.”
“Thank you,” said poor Vincent, moved to the heart—“thank you. I dare not think how it is all to end, but thank you all the same; I shall not forget what you say.”
“And tell your mother,” continued Tozer, swelling to a little triumph in his own magnanimity—“tell your mother as I said so; tell her as I’ll stand by you through thick and thin; and we’ll pull through, we’ll pull through!” said the butterman, slowly disappearing,with a face radiant with conscious bounty and patronage, through the open door.
Vincent had followed him with an instinct of civility and gratitude. Just as Tozer withdrew, a fresh burst of outcry came from the sick-room, ringing through the excited house. The deacon turned round half-way down the stair, held up his hands, listened, and made a movement of wondering pity towards the closed door which hid Susan, but did not keep in her cries. The wretched minister drew back from that compassionate gesture as if some one had struck him a blow. He went back and threw himself down on the sofa, and covered his face with his hands. The pity and the patronage were the last drop of humiliation in his bitter cup. Hot tears came to his eyes; it seemed to him more than flesh and blood could bear.
Some time elapsed, however, before Vincent had the courage to meet his mother. When those dreadful outcries sank into exhaustion, and all for the moment was quiet in the sick-room, he sent to tell her he had arrived, and went to the dreadful door which she kept closed so jealously. He was afraid to meet her eye when she came to him, and noiselessly drew him within. Judging by himself, he had not ventured to think what his mother’s horror and despair would be. But Mrs. Vincent put her arms round her son with an exclamation of thanksgiving. “Oh, Arthur! thank God, you are come. Now I shall be able to bear it,” cried his mother. She cried a little upon his breast, and then wiped her eyes and looked up at him with quivering lips. “Oh, Arthur, what mypoor darling must have come through!” said Mrs. Vincent, with a wistful appeal to him in her tender eyes. She said nothing of the darker horror. It lay upon her soul a frightful, inarticulate shadow; but in the mean time she could only think of Susan and her fever—that fever which afforded a kind of comfort to the mother—a proof that her child had not lost her innocence lightly, but that the shock had been to Susan a horrible convulsion, shaking earth and heaven. The mother and son went together to the bedside to look at the unhappy cause of all their sorrows—she clinging with her tender hand to his arm, wistful now, and afraid in the depths of her heart lest Arthur, who was only a man, might be hard upon Susan in her terrible abasement. It was more than a year since Vincent had seen his sister. Was it Susan? The grandeur of the stricken form, the features sublimed and elevated, the majestic proportions into which this awful crisis of fate had developed the fair-haired girl of Lonsdale, struck her brother with unspeakable awe and pity. Pity and awe: but yet another feeling mingled in the wonder with which he gazed upon her. A thrill of terror came over him. That frightful, tropical blaze of passion, anguish, and woe which had produced this sudden development, had it developed no unknown qualities in Susan’s heart? As she lay there in the majesty of unconsciousness, she resembled more a woman who could avenge herself, than a soft girl, the sudden victim of a bad man. Vincent turned away from the bed with an involuntary shudder. He would not, could not, look at her again: he left hismother to her unceasing vigil, and himself went to his own room, to try if rest were possible. Rest was not easy in such a terrible complication of affairs; but weariness is omnipotent with youth. He did sleep by snatches, in utter fatigue and exhaustion—slept long enough to secure for himself the unspeakable torture of waking to the renewed horror of a new day.
NEXTmorning the minister rose to the changed life and world which now surrounded his way, if not with much less excitement, at least with a more familiar knowledge of all the troubles which encompassed him. As he sat over the pretended breakfast, for which he had no appetite, and not even heart enough to make a show of eating, hearing close by the voice of his sister’s delirium, sometimes in faint murmurs, sometimes rising into wild outcries of passion, and pondered all the circumstances of this frightful calamity, it is not wonderful that his heart fainted within him. He had found out quickly enough that it was an officer of justice whom Tozer had succeeded, by what means he could not tell, in removing from his house. His landlady knew all the facts sufficiently well to be by times reproachful and by times sympathetic. The other lodgers in the house, some of whom had already left for fear of pollution, were equally aware of all the circumstances of the case; and it was impossible to hope that a tale so exciting, known to so many, could be long of spreading. The minister seemed to himself to look ruin in the face, as he sat in profound dejection, leaning his head in his hands. He had committed his sister’s interests into the hands of the best attorney he could hear ofin Dover, that watch and search might be made on the spot for any further information; and now the only thing possible to be done was to secure some still more skilful agent in London to superintend the case, and set all the machinery of detection in motion to discover Mrs. Hilyard. Vincent had nothing in the world but the income which he drew from the liberality of Salem; an income which could ill stand the drain of these oft-repeated journeys, not to speak of the expenses of Susan’s defence. All that the minister had would not be enough to retain a fit defender for her, if she had to undergo the frightful ordeal of a trial. The very thought of it drove her unhappy brother desperate. Would it not be better if she died and escaped that crowning misery, which must kill her anyhow, if she survived to bear it? But these ponderings were as unprofitable as they were painful. When he had seen his mother, who whispered to him accounts of Susan’s illness, which his mind was too much preoccupied to understand, he went away immediately to the railway, and hastened to town. While he stood waiting in the lawyer’s office, he took up listlessly, without knowing what he was doing, the newspaper of the day. There he found the whole terrible tale made into a romance of real life, in which his sister’s name, indeed, was withheld, but no other particular spared. As he stood wiping the heavy dew from his forehead, half frantic with rage and despair, the quick eye of his misery caught a couple of clerks in another corner of the office, talking over another newspaper, full of lively interest and excitement. It was Susan’s storythat interested them; the compiler had heightened with romantic details those hideous bare facts which had changed all his life, and made the entire world a chaos to Vincent; and all over the country by this time, newspaper readers were waking up into excitement about this new tale of love, revenge, and crime. The poor minister put down the paper as if it had stung him, and drew back, tingling in every nerve, from the table, where he could almost hear the discussion which was going on about Miss ——; where she could have escaped to, and whether she would be found. It restored him to his senses and self-command when he found himself face to face with the cool lawyer, who waited for his tragic story as a matter of business, and who had nothing to do with the heartbreaks or the disgrace which it involved. He was detained there for some time, giving as full an account as he could of all the circumstances, and describing as well as he could his reasons for suspecting Mrs. Hilyard, and her mysterious appearance at the scene of the murder. Vincent perceived, with a sensation of comfort at his heart, that his story interested the acute attorney, accustomed to the tricks and expedients of crime, who perceived at once the circumstances of suspicion, and understood at once how to go about it, and ferret the secret out. The minister himself grew steadier as he entered into his narrative. No shivers of wonder or pain convulsed the calm lawyer as he listened. Under his touch, Susan’s dreadful position became one not unprecedented, to be dealt with like any other condition of actual life; and when Vincent, after furnishing allthe information he could, and satisfying himself that no time was to be lost in the prosecution of the search for the real criminal, left the office to return to Carlingford, it was with a mind somewhat calmed out of its first horror. He went back again by the train, deeply depressed and anxious, but not so susceptible to every glance and word as he had been an hour or two before. He tried, indeed, to take a certain gloomy satisfaction from the idea that now everything was known. Fear of discovery could no longer appal the stricken household; and to meet the horror in the face was less dreadful than to feel themselves skulking under a secret shadow which might at any moment be found out. He set his face sternly, and looked everybody full in the eyes who looked at him, as he once more alighted at the familiar station. He accepted the fact that people were talking of him, pitying him, contemplating him with wonder and fright, as somehow involved in an atmosphere of tragedy and crime. With this feeling he went slowly along George Street on his homeward way, with no susceptibility left in him, so far as he was aware, except as concerned this sudden calamity which had swallowed up his life.
When suddenly the sound of a carriage stopping came dully upon his ears; he would not have noted or heard it but for the sound that followed of some one calling his own name, and the soft rush of footsteps on the pavement; even then he did not turn round to see who called him. It was accordingly with a thrill of strange emotion—a strange, sudden, guilty suffusion of delight over all his tingling frame and aching heart,even in the midst of his suffering, that he felt the light touch of Lady Western’s hand first laid on his arm, then softly stealing within it in the sudden sympathy which possessed her as she looked up into his colourless face. It was pity and natural kindness which prompted the young Dowager to this unwonted familiar touch. She was sorry for him to the bottom of her heart—she would fain have made him amends somehow for the terrible evil which had come upon him. With the natural impulse of a woman to caress or soothe, or cheat a man anyhow out of that look of suffering which it is intolerable to her to see on his face, Lady Western acted instinctively, without thinking what she did. She did her beautiful hand into his arm, clung to him, looked up with her lovely appealing face and eyes full of tears to the pale face of the minister, which that touch moved beyond all expression. If he did not stop and take her into his arms, and lean his great anguish upon her in a sweetness of relief unspeakable and measureless, it was only because ordinary rule and custom are stronger than even passion. He was as much deceived as if he had done it, the poor young deluded soul. Out of the thunder and storm, all at once, without prelude or warning, he thought it was the light of love that broke upon him all radiant and glorious. With that he could brave all, overcome all; for that he could be content to fathom any depths of wretchedness. So he thought, as he looked down from those sudden heights of unhoped-for tremulous blessedness into that lovely face, and saw it trembling with divine compassion and tenderness. So he thought the ice breaking, the depthsstirring in his own soul. Hope, deliverance, happiness, a delight more exquisite still, that consolation of love which makes anguish itself sweet, breathed over the poor young Nonconformist as that hand slid within his arm. His very brain grew dizzy with the sweetness of relief, the sudden ease that possessed his soul.
“Oh, Mr. Vincent, my heart is breaking; what shall we do—what shall we do?” cried Lady Western. “If it is true, I shall never dare speak to you again, and I feel for you to the bottom of my heart. Oh, Mr. Vincent, you don’t think she did it? I am sure she did not do it—your sister! It was bad enough before,” cried the lovely creature, crying without restraint, but still holding his arm and gazing up into his face, “but now my heart is broken. Oh, will you tell me what I must do? I will not go to him, for he has been a bad man; and I dare not go to your dear mother as I should like to go; and I feel for you, oh, to the very bottom of my heart!”
“Then I can bear it,” said Vincent. Though he did not speak another word, the sound of his voice, the expression of his face, betrayed him. He put his hand involuntarily upon the little hand that rested on his arm. It was all so sudden that his self-command forsook him. A smile trembled upon his face as he looked down at her with all his heart in his eyes. “Then I can bear it,” said the poor young minister, overwhelmed and penetrated by that exquisite consolation. Lady Western gave a little start of alarm as she read the unmistakable meaning in his face. She withdrew her hand hastily with a flushof radiant colour and downcast look of fright and shame. What had she done? Her confusion, her agitation, her sudden withdrawal, did but increase the spell. To Vincent’s charmed soul it seemed that she had betrayed herself, and that womanly reserve alone drew her back. He attended her to her carriage with a tender devotion which could not express itself in words. When he had put her in, he lingered, gazing at the face, now so troubled and downcast, with a delicious feeling that he had a right to gaze at her. “You have made me strong to bear all things,” he said, in the low tone of passion and secret joy. In the depth of his delusion he saw no other meaning than sudden timidity and womanly reticence in her confused and alarmed looks. When the carriage drove off he stood looking after it with eyes full of dreamy light. Darkness surrounded him on every side, darkness more hideous than a nightmare. The poor young soul believed for that delicious moment that superlative and ineffable, like his misery, was to be his joy.
Harder thoughts regained the mastery when he got within his own house again. It was no longer the orderly, calm, well-regulated house which had taken in the minister of Salem by way of adding yet a finer touch to its own profound respectability. Susan’s unhappy presence pervaded the place. Boxes of other lodgers going away encumbered the hall, where the landlady hovered weeping, and admitted the pastor sullenly with an audible sob.
Though he had imagined himself invested in armour of light against all these petty assaults, Vincent was not strong enough, even in the fictitious strength given him by Lady Western’s kindness, to bear the reality of his position. The very face of his landlady brought before him the whole array of faces at Salem, which he must shortly encounter, all directed towards him in judicial severity—an awful tribunal. When he reached the shelter of his room up-stairs, the ‘Carlingford Gazette’ lay upon his table, folded out so as to show that mysterious story of Miss ——, which some one in the house had certainly identified. The poor minister took it in his hands with an impulse to tear it in pieces—to trample it under foot—to give some outlet, now he was by himself, to the rage and indignation with which he saw his own calamity turned into a romance for the amusement of the public. He checked himself with a bitter smile at his own folly; unconsciously he bethought himself of Tozer’s back-parlour, of Mr. Tufton’s sitting-room, of all the places about where he had seen his people gleaning information and amusement from the ‘Carlingford Gazette.’ How the little paper, generally so harmless, would amuse and excite its readers to-day! What surmises there would be, and how soon the fatal knowledge would ooze out and be talked over on all sides! It was no matter of feeling to him—it was ruin in every way to the poor young minister, whose credit and living depended solely upon the caprice of his “flock.” The sight of the newspaper had so stunned him, that it was some time before he perceived a letter lying under it on the table. When he saw that the post-mark was Dover, he snatched up this letter eagerly and tore itopen. It was from the lawyer whom he had consulted there. For the first moment he did not comprehend the information it conveyed. Good news!—what news could be good under his dreadful circumstances? The young man’s mind was stupified, and could not take it in. It was the copy of a doctor’s certificate—the opinion of a famous surgeon who had been summoned from London—to the effect that Colonel Mildmay’s wound was not necessarily fatal, and that if fever did not come on he might recover. The minister read it over again and again before he could comprehend it, and when he did comprehend it, the fact seemed rather an aggravation than a comfort to his misery. He was not dead—this destroyer. Perhaps at this moment, when his unhappy victim lay struggling between life and death, he, with the horrible good fortune of wickedness, was coming back from the edge of the grave. At the first shock it did not seem good news to Vincent. Not dead!—“the cursed villain,” he said through his clenched teeth. The earth was not rid of that pitiless wretch. It looked like another grand injustice in the world, where all the landmarks were overturned, and only evil seemed to prosper. He did not connect it anyhow with possible relief or deliverance to Susan; on the contrary, it raised in his own mind all the resentment and rage which had been quenched by Mildmay’s supposed death. He could scarcely compose himself after that unexpected information. If all went well, it would naturally change the character of the case—perhaps, under the circumstances, there might be no prosecution, said the lawyer’s letter. Vincent wasyoung—excited out of all self-command or prudential considerations. In his soul he resented even this hope, which might still save his sister, and grudged what he felt to be the diabolical good-luck of her destroyer. Not dead!—not going to die!—not punished anyhow. About, after all the misery he had occasioned, to recover, and go on prosperously again, and spread wretchedness and ruin upon others. “He shall render me an account,” cried the minister fiercely to himself. “He shall answer for it to me!” He felt it intolerable, that this guilty soul should escape its punishment.
Thoughts more reasonable, however, came to him after a time. He began to see the importance of the intelligence to Susan—and even to himself. At least she could not be accused of shedding blood—at least she might be hidden somewhere in her shame, poor lost soul, and kept from the cruel eyes of the world. When he began to feel the influence of this gleam of comfort, he ventured to go to the sick-room to tell his mother, whom he had not yet seen; but Mrs. Vincent was deaf and insensible to everything but her child, whose need and danger were too urgent to permit more distant spectres, however terrible, to be visible in her sick-chamber. Mary, already worn out with fatigue, had gone to bed with a headache, with the liveliest conviction in her mind that she had taken the fever too. The widow, who had lived for the past week as though she had no physical frame at all, sat sleepless, with hot eyes and pallid face, by her daughter’s bed. She could still smile—smiles more heart-breaking than any outcry of anguish—and leaned herpoor head upon her son, as he came near to her, with a tender pressure of her arms and strain of absolute dependence which went to his heart. She could not speak, or say, as she had said so often, that her boy must take care of his sister—that Susan had no one else to stand by her. Leaning upon him in an unspeakable appeal of love and weakness, smiling on him with her wistful quivering lips, was all the poor mother could do now.
All; for in that room no one could speak. One voice filled its silence. The restless movement of the head on that pillow turning from side to side in search of the rest which was nowhere to be found, stilled every other motion. Not even fever could flush the marble whiteness of her face. Awfully alone, in her mother’s anxious presence, with her brother by her bedside, Susan went on unconscious through the wild distracted world of her own thoughts—through what had been her own thoughts before horror and anguish cast them all astray. Vincent stood aside in breathless attention like the rest, before he had been many minutes in the room. We say to each other how strange it is that no heart can ever fully communicate itself to another; but when that revelation does take place, awful is the spectacle. All unawares, in her dread distraction, Susan opened up her heart.
“What does it matter what they will say?” said Susan; “I will never see them again. Unless—yes, put down her veil; she is pretty, very pretty; but what has Herbert to do with her? He said it was me he wanted; and why did he bring me away ifhe did not love me? Love me! and deceived me, and told me lies. Oh God, oh God! is it not Carlingford? Where is it? I am taking God’s name in vain. I was not thinking of Him—, I was thinking——. His name is Fordham, Herbert Fordham,—do you hear? What do you mean by Mildmay? I know no Mildmay. Stop and let me think. Herbert—Herbert! Oh, where are you—where are you? Do you think it never could be him, but only a lie? Well! if he did not love me, I could bear it; but why, why did he cheat me, and bring me away? The door is locked; they will not let me get out. Herbert! was there never, never any Herbert in the world? Oh, come back, even if you are only a dream! Locked! If they would only kill me! What do they mean to do with me? Oh God, oh God! but I must marry him if he says so. I must, must marry him, though he has told me lies. I must, whatever he does. Even if I could get through the window and escape; for they will call me wicked. Oh, mamma, mamma! and Arthur a minister, and to bring disgrace on him! But I am not disgraced. Oh no, no; never, never!— I will die first— I will kill him first. Open the door; oh, open the door! Let me go!”
She struggled up in one of her wilder paroxysms. She had thrown herself half out of bed, rising up wildly, and tossing her arms into the air, before her startled brother could rush forward to control her. But as the voice of the unhappy girl rose into frenzy, some unseen attendants stole in and took her out of his unskilful hands. The sight was too painful forunaccustomed eyes—for eyes of love, which could scarcely bear, even for her own sake, to see such means of restraint employed upon Susan. Mrs. Vincent stood by, uttering unconscious cries, imploring the two strong women who held her daughter, oh, not to hurt her, not to grasp her so tightly; while Susan herself beat the air in vain, and entreated, with passionate outcries, to be set free—to be let go. When she was again subdued, and sank into the quiet of exhaustion, Vincent withdrew from this saddest scene of all, utterly depressed and broken-spirited. The wretch lived who had wrought this dread wreck and ruin. What did it matter? Within that room it gave no relief, eased no heart, to say that he was not dead. Forms more terrific still than those of law and public vengeance—madness and death—stood on either side of Susan’s bed; till they had fought out the desperate quarrel, what matter to those most immediately concerned whether a greater or a lesser penalty lowered over her head? The minister went back to his own retirement with an aching heart, utterly dejected and depressed. He threw himself into a chair to think it all over, as he said to himself; but as he sat there, hopeless and solitary, his mind strayed from Susan. Could any one blame him? Who does not know what it is to have one secret spot of personal consolation to fly to in the midst of trouble? Vincent betook himself there in the utter darkness of everything around. Once more he seemed to feel that sudden touch which took away half his burden. No words could have spoken to his heart like that fairy hand uponhis arm. He brooded over it, not thinking, only living over again the moment which had made so great a difference in the world. He forgot Fordham; he forgot everything; he took neither reason nor likelihood with him in his self-delusion. A sudden rosy mist suffused once more the cruel earth upon which he was standing; whatever came, he had something of his own to fall back upon, an ineffable secret sweetness, which stanched every wound before it was made. The young minister, out of the very depths of calamity, escaped into this garden of delights; he put aside the intolerable misery of the house; he thrust away from him all the lesser troubles which bristled thick in front of him in the very name of Salem. He fled to that one spot of joy which he thought remained to him in the middle of the waste, doubly sweet and precious. It gave him strength to hold out through his trouble, without being overwhelmed. He escaped to that delicious resting-place almost against his will, not able to resist the charm of the indescribable solace he found there. He alone, of all concerned, had that footbreadth of personal happiness to take refuge in amid the bitter storm. He did not know it was all delusion, self-deception, a woeful miserable blunder. He hugged it to his heart in secret, and took a comfort not to be spoken from the thought. Vanity of vanities; but nothing else in the world could have stolen with such fairy balms of consolation and strength to the heart of the poor minister. It was not long till he was called to face his fate again, and all the heavy front of battle set in array against him; but it waswith a feeling of sweet guilt that he started up in the winter twilight, and left his room to see Tozer, who waited for him below. That room henceforward was inhabited by the fairy vision. When he went back to it, Love, the consolatrix, met him again, stealing that visionary hand within his arm. Blank darkness dwelt all around; here, falsest, fairest mirage of imagination, palpitated one delicious gleam of light.