What was it that had so strangely affected Hermia; that had sent the blood surging round her heart, and had caused the room and its contents to rock before her eyes as though shaken by an earthquake?
On the envelope which she had made up into a parcel with the bag of gold her eye had been caught by these words, written in pencil, "Given into my charge by my son Richard on the 6th of October."
The 6th of October was the day on which Mr. Hazeldine had been found on the floor of his office, stabbed to the heart!
When Hermia, in response to Mrs. Varrel's appeal, had said: "I will myself take the parcel to London," the answer had sprung to her lips of its own accord, so to speak, and as if her will had had no part in the framing of it.
It was a promise which, having once been given, she felt bound to fulfil; but, indeed, after consideration showed her no reason why she should wish to do otherwise than fulfil it. She was determined, in the first place, to carry out her promise, and, in the second, if it were by any means possible to do so, to clear up the terrible suspicion which had taken root in her mind, either by proving that it had no basis of fact to rest upon, or else, by the accumulation of further evidence, to put together a case sufficiently strong to warrant her in placing it in other and more competent hands, leaving it for them to work out to whatever issue it might lead them.
In pursuance of this resolution it was that, two days after Mrs. Varrel's death, and without affording the faintest hint to anyone of the real object she had in view, Hermia wrote the note, already given, to her lover; and after bidding Uncle John and Aunt Charlotte a tender farewell, set out for London on an errand which she herself felt all but convinced would prove to be nothing more than a bootless errand.
She drove direct from the London terminus to the house of her friend, Mrs. Wingate, in Maida Vale. Both Mrs. Wingate and her husband made Hermia as welcome as it was possible to make anyone. She explained to them the object of her journey as far as the delivery of the parcel was concerned, upon which Mr. Wingate kindly offered to keep her company on her errand, assuring her, after she had told him the address she wanted to go to, that the neighborhood in question was a very low one, being infested by loose characters of various kinds, and that a lady unattended--unless she were a Sister of Mercy, or a "visitor," and known to be such--could scarcely traverse it without the risk of being insulted, to say nothing of the further risk she would run of being hustled and robbed.
On consideration, Hermia deemed it best to accept Mr. Wingate's offer. She had not mentioned Richard Varrell's name, and, bearing in mind her promise to his mother, she determined not to do so.
Accordingly, they set out about six o'clock the following day, Mr. Wingate being of opinion that if the person Miss Rivers was in search of were in any kind of employment she would be more likely to find him at home in the evening than at any other time. Mr. Wingate had engaged a hansom, and after what had seemed to Hermia an interminable ride, but which was none the less strange and fascinating to her untutored eyes on that account, they were set down opposite a church having a spire so tall and stately that if it could have been transplanted to the flat country about Ashdown it would have served as a landmark for miles around. After skirting the churchyard and leaving behind all the main thoroughfares of traffic, they found themselves in a maze of streets, courts and alleys, the like of which Hermia had never dreamed of before and never wished to see again. The farther they penetrated, the more squalid and mean became their surroundings. The whole neighborhood swarmed with life--but such life! Could Hermia ever forget the dream of baleful faces which passed like a procession before her that evening; some scowling and sinister, some leering, some with an ape-like grin upon them, and others verging on the vacancy of an idiot's, with here and there one bearing the impress of a wickedness so unfathomable that the girl could but shudder and veil her eyes? "But the children--oh, my dears, the little children!" as she said afterwards, when recounting her experience to Uncle John and Aunt Charlotte, her blue eyes flushed with tears. "It was simply heartrending to see them and to feel and know that I could do nothing for them."
At length, but not till after two or three inquiries on Mr. Wingate's part, Plumtree Street was found, number sixteen. It was a narrow street of three-storey tenements, all of them looking unspeakably squalid and uncared for, with broken windows stuffed with rags and paper, and in many cases with doors which hardly hung together on their hinges. Mr. Wingate now gave Hermia the parcel, which he had hitherto taken charge of, and while he waited on guard, as it were, on the corner of the street, Hermia made her way to number sixteen, and not without a little fluttering of the nerves, knocked at the door. Again and again she knocked, first with her knuckles and then with the handle of her umbrella--the knocker itself, if there had ever been one, having apparently been wrenched away long ago--but to no purpose, although she could hear a woman inside objurgating someone at the top of her voice. A swarm of children watched her every movement, and presently, as if by some preconcerted signal, windows were thrown up, and the doorways near at hand began to fill with the shapes of slatternly women, and frowsy, disreputable-looking men.
Hermia began to feel far from comfortable, and she was just considering whether she had not better go back to Mr. Wingate, when the door was suddenly opened from within, and she found herself face to face with Richard Varrel.
She knew him again at a glance, despite the woeful change which a few short years had wrought in him. In days gone by, when he was a clerk, and she a girl of ten or twelve, she used often to meet him on her way to school, when he had always a smiling "Good-morning" for her. In those days he was a dandified, good-looking young man, with a facile smile, and the easy manner of one who was on excellent terms with himself and the world.
Hermia had not seen him after his "misfortune," as he termed it, till the evening of the trial when he spoke to John Brancker through the cab window, and even then she had been shocked to see the change in him; but now, when she beheld him again, the change was still more marked. His hands trembled like aspen leaves, his eyes were bleared and bloodshot, his face sallow and fallen away to little more than skin and bone.
He stood staring at Hermia, holding the open door in his hand, with a sort of half-gleam of recognition in his furtively suspicious eyes.
"Mr. Varrel," she said, "I see that you fail to remember me. My name is Hermia Rivers, and I am the niece of Mr. Brancker, of Ashdown."
The moment she began to speak his face lighted up with what seemed like the ghost of his old pleasant smile.
"What a stupid I must be to have forgotten you even for a moment!" he exclaimed. "Why of course I remember you, Miss Hermia--remember you from the time you were no higher than a table. Do you know what I used to think in those days? But how should you? I used to think that when you grew up I should like to marry you. Ah, I did, and I was in earnest about it, too!"
This was not at all what Hermia wanted, so she made haste to say:
"Are you not curious, Mr. Varrel, to know why I have come all this way to find you? But, first of all, why did you neglect to answer the letter I wrote you to this address more than a week ago?"
"Letter!--what letter?" he queried, with a half-mazed look, and with that he pushed back his hat and pressed his hands to his forehead for a few moments, as if trying to recall something to mind. Then, half-doubtingly, he thrust his hand into an inner pocket of his coat and drew from it a letter--the one Hermia had written him, as she saw at a glance, and still unopened. He stared at it for a space of a dozen seconds, and then he said, confusedly:
"I recollect, now, I put it in my pocket when it came--I wasn't very well at the time--and afterwards I forgot all about it. I did, upon my honor!"
"Open it and read it," was all Hermia could say.
When he had done so, he looked at her with a question in his eyes which his lips seemed afraid to ask.
"Your mother died three days ago," said Hermia, "looking to the last for the son who never came."
He turned away, and putting up an arm against the door-post, he leaned his head upon it. The tears that dropped from his eyes made tiny black dents in the grimy dust into which they fell.
"I've not one word of excuse, Miss Hermia, to urge for myself," he said presently. "I put the letter in my pocket, and forgot all about it. It was all owing to the drink--the cursed drink!"
Thereupon Hermia proceeded to give him his mother's last message.
"God bless her! She was a good woman," he said, sorrowfully. "Maybe, if I had been a different son to her she would have lived for years to come."
That he was genuinely moved by the news of his mother's death it was impossible to doubt.
"The errand which brought me here is not yet completed," said Hermia, presently. "Your mother entrusted me with a sum of money to give into your hands."
His cheek paled on the instant. "Hush! Not a word about it here," he whispered, with a quick, apprehensive glance around. "If the wretches hereabouts once suspected that I had anything more than the merest trifle in the way of money in my possession, I should be a dead man before to-morrow morning. Will you come into my room for three minutes, Miss Rivers? You may safely do so, and I won't detain you longer."
Mr. Wingate was still keeping watch and ward at the corner of the street. "Lead the way and I will follow," was all she said.
Accordingly, they entered the house, and after Varrel had shut the door behind them he led the way up a rickety staircase, the handrail of which had been torn away, into a small back room on the first floor. Never before had Hermia been in such a room; but the evening was drawing in by this time, and in the half light its more sordid features did not seem so obtrusive as they would have done at mid-day.
"Not a palace, truly, Miss Rivers," he said, with a shrug and a cynical smile, "but cheerful, homelike, nay, almost luxurious in comparison with some of its neighbors."
Hermia's only reply was an involuntary shudder.
Motioning her to the one chair in the place, he seated himself on the edge of a box, and cut the string of the parcel, which Hermia had handed him on entering the room. Before him lay the envelope and its contents, together with the bag of gold. He looked up, and his and Hermia's eyes met.
"This," he said, laying a finger on the envelope, "my mother was to keep for me until I should choose to reclaim it; but this," shifting his finger to the bag, "was for her sole use, as I told her when I gave it her--to buy whatever she wanted, and help to make her comfortable."
"Your mother refused to touch it, Mr. Varrel," replied Hermia, looking him steadily in the face.
"What do you mean?" he demanded, with startling suddenness. "Who told you she would not touch it?"
"She herself. She said there was blood on it--those were her words--and that she would have nothing to do with it till you had proved to her how you had come by it."
He sat for some seconds without speaking or stirring, like one in doubt what to do or say next. Then he said, sneeringly:
"Old people when they lie dying often get strange fancies into their heads, and give expression to all manner of ridiculous things. Sensible people take no heed of their ravings at such times."
"On the contrary, it is at such times that secrets long hidden come unexpectedly to light."
He bit his lip as if to restrain himself from saying something which he might afterwards have regretted. Having glanced at the seal, he was about to put the envelope into his pocket unopened, when Hermia said:
"Mr. Varrel, have you noticed what is written outside that packet?"
"No--what is it?" he demanded.
In the twilight he had overlooked the writing. He now crossed to the window and read it. Then for a little space he stood stock still, with eyes that seemed fixed on vacancy. Then, going back to his seat, he said dryly:
"My mother's writing, without a doubt, Miss Rivers. But it was scarcely worth while--was it?--to draw my attention specially to it."
"You are quite aware of my motive in drawing your attention to it." responded Hermia. "Those words were written within twenty-four hours of the time Mr. Hazeldine was found murdered."
He put down the packet with a sudden movement, as if it had scorched his fingers.
"Oh, Mr. Varrel!" cried, the girl, clasping her hands in front of her bosom, as if thereby to enforce her appeal, "if you know anything whatever in connection with that terrible crime--if you have any clue, even the faintest, to the perpetrator of it--I implore you no longer to conceal it."
Varrel got up abruptly, and, crossing to the window, stood staring out of it with his back towards her. Hermia waited till the silence became all but unbearable.
"I am quite at a loss, Miss Rivers," he began at length, speaking in a hard, dry voice, "to know why you should address so singular an appeal to me, or assume that I know anything more about Mr. Hazeldine's tragical end than is known to the world at large. A certain remark made by an old woman--a certain coincidence of date in connection with a parcel of banknotes--such is the flimsy superstructure round which you choose to build an imaginary theory, and then appeal to me for facts to enable you to substantiate it. No, Miss Rivers, it won't do. Your house of cards has no foundation beyond that which is supplied by your own vivid imagination. Pray accept my assurance on that score. The way in which the money, both gold and notes, came into my mother's hands is easily explained. I had won it over a certain race a few days before. The gold, as I have already remarked, I gave to her for her own use. That she did not choose to benefit by it is no fault of mine. The notes, which were intended by me for a very special purpose, I asked her to take charge of till the time should come for me to reclaim them, knowing well, as I did, that if I kept them by me, they would inevitably disappear after the fashion in which so many of their kind had disappeared already. The explanation is a simple one. I trust that you are satisfied."
He had come back to the table while speaking. Tearing open the envelope with an air of manifest defiance, he extracted the notes from it, and proceeded to stuff them unceremoniously into his pocket.
But Hermia was far from being satisfied. She felt instinctively that he was prevaricating, and that he knew far more than he cared to tell. But, in face of his emphatic denial, what was it possible for her to do more than she had done already? His manner implied that, as far as he was concerned, the interview was at an end, and, indeed, Hermia felt that it was high time for her to go. There was upon her a sense of hopeless bewilderment as she rose and pushed back her chair. She was like one groping in the mazes of a dark cavern, who, while feeling sure the daylight is close at hand, vainly strives to find the way which will lead him to it. She would have to go back to Ashdown no wiser than she had left it.
"Before you go, Miss Rivers," said Varrel, "permit me to thank you, which I do from the bottom of my heart, for all your kindness to my poor mother."
He added a little more in the same strain, which it is not needful to repeat.
Three minutes later Hermia had rejoined Mr. Wingate.
Had it not been for the pressure put upon her by Mr. and Mrs. Wingate, Hermia would have returned to Ashdown by an early train next day, so disheartened was she by the result of her interview with Richard Varrel. In deference, however, to the wishes of her friends, she agreed to extend her stay for three days longer. She had quite made up her mind that she had seen the last of Varrel; that his path and hers would never cross each other again. Yet all the while an indefinable sense of something still to come held her in her own despite. It could hardly be called a premonition, so shadowy and elusive was it, and yet it so impressed her that she could not hear a knock at the door without holding her breath to listen for a summons, for which her reason told her she might wait till the last day of her life, and always might be in vain.
However, strangely enough, the summons did come, and that just forty-eight hours after she had parted from Varrel. Before leaving him she had laid a card on the table. "Here is my address, in case you should at any time be desirous of communicating with me," she had said.
His only answer had been a cynical smile.
Having no cards of her own, she had pencilled her Ashdown address on the back of one of Mrs. Wingate's cards, which had that lady's address on the other side, and it was there the messenger came in search of her. A man of the name of Richard Varrel, who was lying in St. Gregory's Hospital in a very critical state, earnestly entreated that Miss Rivers would go to him with the least possible delay, as he had something of extreme importance to communicate to her. Such was the message that now reached Hermia.
A cab was at once ordered, and ten minutes later she was on her way to the Hospital, accompanied, as before, by Mr. Wingate.
Before being admitted to the ward Hermia was shown into an ante-room, where she was presently joined by a middle-aged, ladylike person, with a strong yet kindly face, dressed in the usual Hospital uniform, whose name she afterwards found to be Miss Davis. From her Hermia learned that in the course of the preceding night Varrel had been brought in by the police, unconscious and apparently in a dying state. His story when he came to himself, was to the effect that while on his way to his lodgings he had been set upon by three men, who had somehow discovered that he had a considerable sum of money about him, and that in the fight which ensued he had not only been robbed, but stabbed in three places. His case was an utterly hopeless one, Miss Davis went on to say; he might possibly linger for two or three days, but should internal hemorrhage set in the end would come still more quickly. Then she went on to ask whether Hermia was a relative of the dying man, and on receiving a reply in the negative, requested her to make her interview as brief as possible, and especially to avoid all topics which would be likely in any way to excite the patient. After that she led the way into the ward, while Mr. Wingate awaited Hermia's return in the ante-room.
Varrel's eyes lighted up the moment they rested on Hermia. His face was the face of one on the verge of the last great change, and the girl could not keep back her tears. She sat down by the side of his pallet, after which one of the attendants placed a large screen round them, so as to shut them in from the other patients.
"You didn't think to see me so soon again, Miss Hermia, I'll be bound--nor I you!" began Varrel, with a dim smile, but speaking more clearly and strongly than Hermia would have thought possible for one in his condition. "However, here I am, and there's no help for it. It was the money that was the cause of it--the money you brought me. A sort of Nemesis. They--the men my life has been mixed up with of late--found out somehow I had it about me. The wonder is they left any life in me at all. But it's not for long. I know that I'm booked for the journey for which no return tickets are issued. Well, I'm not sorry--on my soul, I'm not!--that the end has come. But it was to talk about something very different that I sent for you, for since I've been lying here, I've made up my mind to tell all I know."
He ceased, and lay for a little while with shut eyes. When he opened them it was seemingly to fix them on a flickering shadow flung by the lamplight on the ceiling. Suddenly a hollow voice spoke,
"Miss Hermia, it was not John Brancker, but the man you see before you, who killed Mr. Hazeldine."
Hermia's heart gave a great bound, and she caught her breath with a gasp like a drowning person. It seemed to her as if an ice-cold wind blew for a minute across her face. She shuddered, and involuntarily drew a little farther away from the dying man.
"I haven't strength enough left me to go into a lot of details," resumed Varrel, after a pause, "but if I'm not hurried, I think it will last out till I've told you enough to make the whole business clear, and--and to lift the last shadow of suspicion off John Brancker."
Again he lapsed into silence, and to Hermia it seemed as if he were struggling against some inward force which would fain have compelled him, even at this the eleventh hour, to carry his secret unrevealed to the grave. She waited in a sort of dread expectancy and with nerves all a-tremble for his next words.
The statement which follows, although given here in unbroken sequence, was several times interrupted by a fit of coughing, or by a labored gasping for breath. More than once, in obedience to his request, Hermia gave him to drink of a jug of barley-water which stood within reach of his hand.
"Yes, mine alone is the guilt. I wanted money; I was desperately hard up, and I made up my mind to rob the Bank, if it was possible anyhow to do so. I knew that Thursday night, when the gold had been fetched from London to pay away to market-day customers, was the best time for my purpose. I was acquainted with all the ins and outs of the place, and it was a simple matter for me to push open the swing doors and steal unseen into the building when the day's business was nearly over. Then up the spiral staircase and so into the book-room, where snugly hidden in an empty cupboard, I was safe from observation until the time should have come for me to take my next step, which was to make my way to Mr. Avison's office--he was abroad, and I knew that it was never used during his absence--there to bide my time. To reach it I should have to pass through Mr. Hazeldine's office, the door which led into it from the lobby being kept locked. I was aware that for several weeks past Mr. Hazeldine had been in the habit of working till a late hour, and I calculated that he would most likely do so on this particular night. Earlier in the day I had watched him start for London, and I knew that when he returned he would bring with him the gold he had been there to fetch.
"I waited where I was until the general staff had gone for the night, but I knew that Mr. Brancker and Mr. Judd often worked after hours, and it seemed not unlikely that they might still be on the premises. It was absolutely necessary, however, that I should make my way to Mr. Avison's office before Mr. Hazeldine's return; and this, after a time, I succeeded in doing without being seen by anyone. As I crept down the spiral staircase I could hear the murmur of voices in Mr. Brancker's office. I had not been long in my second hiding-place, before I heard the well-remembered voice of Mr. Hazeldine as he spoke with Obed Sweet in the passage. Then he entered his office and turned up the gas, which had been previously lighted by Sweet; I had left the door between the two rooms open about an inch, and through the interstice a portion of the office was visible to me, including the iron door which gave admittance to the strong room.
"The first thing Mr. Hazeldine did was to place his black bag, containing the gold he had brought from London, on a chair, then he took off his hat and overcoat, and hung them up; and then, presumably, he seated himself at the table where he worked, but when so seated, he was out of my line of vision, and on no account durst I open the door even as much as an inch further. Presently he rose, and having unlocked the door of the strong-room, went inside. Here was the opportunity I had been waiting for, which was neither more nor less than to make a dash from my hiding-place, push to and lock the iron door, with Mr. Hazeldine on the other side of it, and then make off with the black bag and its contents. But now the chance was here I was afraid to take advantage of it. In the passage outside I heard Obed Sweet's wheezy cough, and as far as I knew, both Mr. Brancker and Mr. Judd were still at work in the other office. There was nothing for it but to await a more favorable opportunity.
"In a minute or two Mr. Hazeldine went back to his seat, leaving the door of the strong-room wide open. Presently the sound of Obed's voice reached me from the corridor. Evidently there was someone still at work. I could only grind my teeth and wait.
"After what, alone and in the dark, seemed to me an intolerable time--but which may have been a few minutes only, or may have been an hour--I heard the reverberation of the front door. There could no longer be any doubt that Mr. Hazeldine was now the only official, save Sweet, left in the building. At last my opportunity seemed at hand.
"Still I waited, hoping minute by minute that Mr. Hazeldine would again find it necessary to enter the strong room. As I remarked before, I could not see him, but more than once I heard him groan like a man in pain. The black bag still remained where he had put it on coming in. Then, after a time, to my intense surprise, I again heard the muffled clash of the front door. I could not make it out at all, neither, apparently, could Sweet, who presently came blundering into the office without his customary knock, clearly under the impression that it was Mr. Hazeldine who had just gone, and finely disconcerted he was on discovering his mistake. 'I shall be about half-an-hour yet, Sweet, and will let myself out when I'm ready,' said Mr. Hazeldine; whereupon Sweet made his exit.
"St. Mary's clock had just chimed the half-hour past ten, Mr. Hazeldine would leave the office about eleven, the London train by which I hoped to get away with my booty was due at a quarter past that hour: what I had to do must be done within the next thirty minutes, or not at all. I said to myself: 'I will wait till St. Mary's chimes the quarter to eleven, on the chance of Mr. Hazeldine again going into the strong-room, when I will spring out and shut him in. If the chance does not come by then, I will present myself before him, revolver in hand, and compel him on pain of instant death to do my bidding. When once he is shut up in the strong-room the rest will be easy. He may shout himself hoarse, but Sweet below stairs will hear nothing till he comes on his next round, by which time I and the black bag will be far away.' It is to be borne in mind that I hated Mr. Hazeldine as I hated no other man in the world. He it was who at my trial had no word of mercy to urge in my favor; to him, in a great measure, was due my sentence of penal servitude. But, for all that, I swear I had no more thought or intention of taking' his life than I had of taking my own.
"Chance favored me at the last moment, or seemed to do so. After a time Mr. Hazeldine rose, and went once more into the strong-room. Not a moment did I hesitate. Pushing open the door, behind which I had been in hiding, I sprang out into the lighted office, and made a dash for the iron door, but midway on the floor lay a pile of ledgers over which, in my hurry, I stumbled and fell. Before I could recover myself Mr. Hazeldine was upon me, and when I struggled to my feet it was with his clutch at my throat. The instant the light fell on my face he recognized me. 'Richard Varrel!' he exclaimed, as he let go his hold, and fell back a step or two in sheer amazement. A second later I had whipped out my revolver, which, however, was not loaded--but of course he didn't know that. 'Mr. Hazeldine,' I said, 'thanks to you, I'm a desperate man. I want the money in that bag, and, at whatever cost, I'm determined to have it. So, if you value your life----' But at that moment he made a quick stride forward, and knocked the revolver out of my hand, and before I could recover it he had sprung at me with a long-bladed knife, which he snatched off the table, but for what purpose it happened to be there I cannot even guess. His eyes were as the eyes of a madman; never have I seen such an expression on the face of anyone. On the instant I closed with him, and then began a life-and-death struggle, he trying to stab me, and I trying to wrench the knife from his grasp. How it all happened I shall never know, but his foot slipped, and as he fell he dragged me to the ground with him, and all at once I found the knife in my hand. He struggled desperately to recover himself, then--my God!--somehow the knife----"
Varrel had been growing weaker for several minutes past, his utterance more hollow, his breath more labored, and as the last word dropped from his lips he fainted.
Hermia at once summoned the nurse, who in her turn summoned Miss Davis. Restoratives were applied, and in a little while their patient came round. Hermia was on the point of taking her leave, with the intention of calling again on the morrow; but Varrel motioned that he had something to say to her. He could only speak in a whisper, and Hermia had to bend her ear close to him in order to catch what he said.
"Write down what I have told you--now--at once," he gasped, "and I will sign it."
So, after a few explanatory words to Miss Davis, Hermia rejoined Mr. Wingate in the ante-room, and told him as briefly as possible the particulars she wanted him to set down. Pen, ink, and paper were at hand, and it did not take him long to draw up a short document, in which Varrel acknowledged that to him, and him alone, was due the death of Mr. Hazeldine. When it was finished, Hermia went back to the ward, accompanied by Mr. Wingate. The statement was read over to Varrel, who nodded his head in approval of it. Then he was propped up in bed to enable him to sign it, after which Mr. Wingate and Miss Davis appended their signatures to the paper as witnesses.
Hermia did not see Richard Varrel again. At daybreak next morning he died.
It was on the afternoon of the fifth day after leaving home that Hermia alighted from the London train at Ashdown station. Clement was there to meet her. She had written a few lines daily both to him and to Aunt Charlotte, just enough to allay their anxiety and nothing more.
When the train had gone on its way and the platform was clear of people, Clement drew her into the little waiting-room, which at that hour they had all to themselves. He had already given John and Miss Brancker all particulars in connection with his second visit to Stavering, and it seemed to him that the present would be a capital opportunity for doing the same by Hermia. Accordingly, he proceeded to tell her all about his interview with Barney Dale, and how it had resulted in a promise on his part that Hermia should go to Stavering as soon as possible, when an opportunity would be found by the old servitor for introducing her to Miss Pengarvon. Of that which the girl's heart hungered most to know--whether one or both of her parents were still alive--Clement could tell her nothing.
When he had brought his narrative to an end, Hermia cried a little softly to herself. Why she did so she could not have told anyone, but at her age so curiously are the emotions intermingled, and so close akin does joy seem to sorrow, that both alike find their readiest outlet in tears.
Presently Clement said,
"And now, darling, have you nothing to tell me in return? All of us, your uncle and aunt equally with myself, have been on the tenterhooks of suspense ever since you left home with such mysterious suddenness. I hope we may congratulate you on having achieved the object of your journey, whatever it may have been."
"You may, indeed you may," she exclaimed, turning on him an April-day face in which smiles and tears were exquisitely blended. "I have succeeded beyond my wildest hopes. I have much, very much to tell you--a surprise in store for you all such as none of you dreams of. But Uncle John and Aunt Charlotte must be there when I relate my adventures, such as they are, because, you see, dear, what I have to tell concerns them equally with yourself, and I want one telling to be enough for everybody. So, not a word more about it till evening."
They parted at the gate of Nairn Cottage. Clem, who was in a state of utter mystification, was to return at half-past seven.
At that hour they were all assembled--John, his sister, Hermia, and Clement, in the little sitting-room at the Cottage.
There to her wondering listeners did Hermia her tale unfold.
Over the congratulations and felicitations that were exchanged between one and another of them, when at length she had come to the end of her recital, it needs not that we should linger. The dark cloud, in the shadow of which they had dwelt for so long a time, had lifted at last and vanished into thinnest air. Their mood, however, was less one of jubilation than of reverent thankfulness. If Hermia had not been dear to Clement before, that night would not have failed to make her so. But, indeed, it was not possible for him to love her more than he did already.
"It seems a thousand pities," said John Brancker, who for some minutes had been lost in thought, "that Richard Varrel should have gone to his grave without having had his mind disabused of the belief that he owed it to Mr. Hazeldine, and not to Mr. Avison himself, that he was brought to trial and the charge against him pressed sternly home. In point of fact, Mr. Hazeldine did everything that lay in his power with the view of extenuating Varrel's crime; but Mr. Avison's orders in the matter were imperative, and he had no option but to carry them out. Had Varrel but known this at the time many things might perhaps have fallen out differently; but of course it was nobody's business to enlighten him, and to his hand was due the death of the man who had done his utmost to befriend him."
"There are two points," said Clem, presently, "which I should certainly like to be enlightened upon. In the first place, I should like to know the sum total pocketed by Varrel as the proceeds of his crime; and, in the second, what his object was in entrusting the parcel of notes to his mother's keeping.
"Those were two points as to which Mr. Wingate was equally curious with yourself," replied Hermia, "and he did not fail to question Varrel upon them during the few minutes we were allowed to stay with him after he had signed the confession. As soon as Varrel had realized that Mr. Hazeldine was dead, it was only natural that he should be desirous of getting away from the scene of his crime as speedily as possible. He must seize whatever he could lay hands on at once and decamp. To his intense amazement, the black bag in which he expected to find the gold Mr. Hazeldine was supposed to have brought from London, proved to be empty. All that his hurried search enabled him to lay hands on was a bag containing a hundred sovereigns and a parcel of notes of the value of five hundred pounds. The gold he divided with his mother before setting out for London; but Mrs. Varrel, as we have seen, refused to touch her portion of it. The notes he left in her charge because he felt sure their numbers were known, and that any attempt on his part to change them would simply have led to his arrest."
Late as the hour was when Clement Hazeldine left Nairn Cottage, he felt that he could not sleep until he had seen his brother and told him the news. A brisk walk of half-an-hour brought him to Beecham.
He found Edward sitting in slippered ease over a volume of Montesquieu--as one who hoped some day to help in framing the laws of his country--and a cigar. Ten minutes sufficed him to give his brother the pith of Hermia's narrative. He had brought Varrel's confession, and he finished his recital by producing it and handing it to the other.
Never was a man more astounded than Edward Hazeldine was at the news told him by his brother. To think, to realize as a fact that, after all, his father's death was not due to his own act! It seemed almost too incredible to be true. Of course, the fact remained, and could in no wise be gainsaid, that Mr. Hazeldine had fully intended to take his own life, and would undoubtedly have done so had not fate intervened and brought about the same end after a different fashion; but even so, the relief to Edward Hazeldine was more than he could find words to give expression to. It took him some time to recover himself; the cool, almost frigid, self-possession which was one of his most salient attributes had for the time being deserted him. One of his first remarks, after his wonder had in some measure spent itself, was,
"Thank Heaven! there will now be no need to refund the twelve thousand pounds--for, of course, the confession will have to be made public." Then presently he added, "Do you mean to say, Clem, that this fellow Varrel made no allusion to the fact that the large amount of money which was proved to be missing from the Bank's coffers had not been taken by him?"
"It would certainly seem that he did not. As I have already told you, he fainted before having come to the end of what he had evidently intended to say, and he died a few hours later. What further revelations he would have made had he lived a little while longer, it is now, of course, impossible to say."
"A lucky thing for us he died when he did!" said Edward, more to himself than to his brother. "The world will not fail to saddle him with the double crime."
As the brothers shook hands at parting, by which time it was past midnight, Edward said:
"By the way, Clem, that girl of yours must be one in a thousand. I hereby retract every word in her disparagement that I have ever given utterance to. I shall be proud to be introduced to her." Then more earnestly, and with what for him was an unwonted display of feeling: "In such a business as we have been discussing it is only a part of the selfishness of human nature that we should think of ourselves first, but I hope you'll believe me when I say that not the least portion of the happiness your news has caused me is due to the fact that the last shred of suspicion, which for so long a time has clung to that noble-hearted creature, John Brancker, will now be torn away, and his good name be given back to him as pure and unsullied as, in reality, it has been from the first!"
In the course of the following afternoon, Miss Brancker, Hermia, and Clement arrived at Stavering, and, under the guidance of the latter, proceeded to take up their quarters at the "King's Arms" Hotel.
A few hours later, Clement walked over to the "Chequers Inn," at Dritton, in search of Barney Dale, whom he found seated among his cronies in his usual corner. Drawing the old man aside, Clement said. "Miss Hermia Rivers is in Stavering--at the 'King's Arms' Hotel. How soon can you make it convenient to call and see her?"
"And have you brought her--the bonnie darling?" exclaimed Barney. "Well, well, I suppose I must do what I promised. But the mistress grows queerer every day, and what the upshot will be when I bring 'em together, I canna as much as guess. But I'll be there to-morrow some time in the afternoon, and maybe--but I mun think it all over between now and then;" and with that Barney went back to his pipe and tankard of ale.
Next morning Clement hired a conveyance, and drove Aunt Charlotte and Hermia as far as the park entrance to Broome, where they all alighted. Everything remained as when Clement had been there last. Leading the way through the door in the wall, he brought the ladies to where the mutilated griffin, which he had sketched, lay unheeded among the weeds and grass. Hermia sighed as she looked at it.
"How vividly the sight of it brings back that wet and gloomy afternoon," she said, "when the carriage came to a halt at those very gates, and I sat staring out of the window, more tired than curious. So tired out, indeed, was I, that I felt utterly indifferent as to where I was being taken, or what was going to be done with me. It seems to me, however, that I have to thank the old griffin for a good deal. But for it we might not have been here to-day."
After that they strolled along the grass-grown drive as far as a point whence they could obtain a view of the front of the Hall. Clem, on whose arm Hermia was leaning, felt her shiver involuntarily.
"It gives me quite an eerie feeling to look at it, even by broad daylight," she said. "What it must look like when the shades of evening are closing round it, or by the dim light of a clouded moon, I dare scarcely imagine. I shall dream about it more than once in time to come."
"Were I a story writer, and wanted to describe a haunted house, I should come to Broome," remarked Aunt Charlotte, sententiously.
She also felt the influence of the place and scene.
"It is a sort of feeling that would wear off upon further acquaintance," said Clem. "If, now, one could give a free hand to a London upholsterer, not forgetting the landscape-gardener, and if after they had done their best, one could fill the old house with a party of gay young people, with the addition of half-a-dozen romping children, what a transformation should we behold!"
Hermia shook her head.
"Broome as it appeals to the imagination, but Broome as Clem would have it would be----"
"As commonplace as himself," interrupted the latter, with a laugh. "That was a spot of rain, we had better be getting back to the landau."
Barney Dale reached the hotel about half-past five, and Clem, who was on the look-out for him, at once took him into the sitting-room where Hermia was awaiting his arrival. Then he left them together. Hermia advanced with a blush and a smile, and yet with a strange trembling of her limbs, and held out her hand.
"I cannot express to you how happy it makes me to see you again, Mr. Dale," she said, in soft, emotional tones, which fell like music on the old man's ears.
"Again! How again?" he asked, as he peered closely into her face. "When might you have seen me last, missy?" Then half-aloud, but evidently thinking himself unheard, "The likeness! the likeness! The same eyes and hair--the very marrow of the other!"
"As far as my memory serves, I saw you last on the day you brought me to Broome," answered Hermia. "I had a long, long ride in a carriage with you and someone else--a woman. But come, let us sit, and then we can talk more comfortably."
He loosed the hand he had been holding, and let her lead him to a sofa, where they sat down, side by side.
"Then a little later," resumed Hermia, "I can call to mind being in a room--a very gloomy room--in which sat two ladies, very stately and upright, but, to my childish eyes, very, very awful-looking. I stood before them with my hands behind my back, while they talked to each other about me in French or Italian. Then, after a little while, you came into the room carrying two candlesticks, with lighted candles in them, on a silver tray, whereupon Miss Pengarvon--for she it must have been--at once extinguished one of the candles, after which you were bidden to take me away. I have a good memory, have I not, Mr. Dale?"
Barney's eyes were fixed intently on her face as if he were still tracing, feature by feature, the likeness between it and some other face which dwelt in his memory. He did not heed her question. His lips moved, but no sound came from them; he was talking silently to himself.
"And now, Mr. Dale," resumed Hermia, presently, "I want you to tell me what the relationship is between Miss Pengarvon and myself--for that we are related in some way I feel as sure as that I am sitting here."
"You munna ask me, Miss Hermy," answered the old man with a long, slow shake of his head. "I darena answer any questions. My mistress bound me by an oath not to speak a word to a soul about--about the matter that is between her and me till she gives me leave to do so."
Hermia drew a little nearer to him, and took one of his gnarled and withered hands between her soft palms.
"At least you cannot refuse to tell me this," she said, her blue eyes luminous with a sort of yearning pathos. "You cannot refuse to tell me whether my father and mother are still living?"
Then, as the old man did not answer:
"Think, think what it must be not to know even as much as that," she added pleadingly. "In so far, I am worse off--Heaven help me!--than the meanest beggar's child that tramps the streets."
"Let the mistress blame me, I dunna care. She shall be told," muttered Barney, half-aloud. Then he cleared his voice, and squeezing one of the little hands that held his, he said, "My bonnie darling, I never knew your father--never even heard his name, and canna tell you aught about him. But your mother--ah! Your mother!" He paused, and Hermia saw a tear shining in the corner of either eye.
"Yes--what of her?" she asked, with a catching of her breath, for her heart but too truly presaged what she was about to be told.
"She died a few weeks after you were born."
Hermia dropped the old man's hand, and turning, bowed her head and covered her face with her hands. Silently she wept; Barney's tears brimmed over and trickled down his worn cheeks. In a little while he wiped them away with his cotton handkerchief, and rising, went softly out of the room. He found Clement outside. "Go in and comfort the poor child," he said. "She needs it sorely, and your own heart will teach you how best to do it."