Hogarth, meantime, had made his way to the front of the room, then vomiting its throng, discovered Loveday, and, deciding to walk home, they were soon on the cliffs.
And suddenly Loveday: “To-morrow will conclude my fifth week in Westring. What, do you suppose, has made me stay?”
“I have wondered”.
“I work better here...Hogarth, you inspirit me”.
“Is that so?”
“It is, yes. Merely your presence is for me a freshness and an enthusiasm: I catch in the turn of your body hints of adventurous Columbuses, Drakes, nimble Achilles; and sibylline meanings in some glance of yours infect my fancy with images of Moses, blind old Homers—prophet, lawgiver, poet—”
They were passing along a stretch of sand, with some lights of Lowestoft in sight, arm in arm; and Hogarth said: “Well, you speak some big words. But my life, you understand, has been as simple and small as possible. I will tell you: my father sent me to an extraordinary school—where he got the coin I could never find out—Lancing College at Shoreham. There I did very well—only that I was continuallygettingit! What was the matter with me when a boy I can't understand: I was the devil. One summer vacation (I was fourteen) I stole three pounds from the old man, and ran away one Sunday night. Passed through London and soon was apprentice in a blacksmith's shop in a Kent village called Bigham. But in six months I had the forge at my fingers' ends, and was off: nothing could hold me long. One day I turned up before the Recruiting Office of Marines in Bristol—just of the right age for what they call 'second-class boys'—and decided upon the sea—that sea there—which, from the moment I saw it at the age of four, caused me a swelling of the breast with which, to this day, it afflicts me. Well, I got the birth-certificate of another boy, scraped through, was entered into a District Ship, and finally sailed in theSt. Vincentto the Pacific Station.
“However, my trial of His Majesty's ships was not a success: twice I was in irons, once leapt into mid-ocean; nor could the battleship hold me when she had nothing to teach me; so I did to the King what I had done to the old man—cut and ran.
“It was at Valparaiso, and I made my way across the continent to Buenos Ayres.
“I forget now what took me to Bristol: but there I was one day when I happened to see—what do you think?—a girl—sixteen—I a stripling of nineteen, or so—but she most precocious, spoke like a woman—a grating in a wall between us. Ah, well, God is good, and His Mercy endureth for ever. But she said it could never be—she a Jewess: though that, by the way, is nonsense, for she is a Jewess, and a Parisienne, and a Hindoo, and a Negress, and a Japanese, and the man who marries her will have a harem. My friend, I have seen her this very night!”
He was silent. Suddenly he broke out: “I came home raving! The old man was scared out of his wits by my frenzy—I drank like ten men—in a month was the terror of Westring. One midnight, going home through the beech-wood—I don't know if you have noticed a hollow elm-tree which stands to the right of the path?”
“I think I have”, said Loveday.
“We shall pass near it presently; and at the moment when we approach it, I shall feel a little thrill in my back: always it is so with me. But I was saying: that midnight, as I passed the tree, drunk as I was, I saw a naked black man with a long beard run out; I took to my heels; he was after me; till I reached the bridge, when I stopped, faced him, fired a blow into his eyes, and he vanished.
“During the week I continued to see apparitions. My groans were heard in the farm-yard: Lord have mercy upon me! Christ have mercy upon me! I was visited by the Methodist preacher at Thring; and finally I found solace: I became a class-member, a leader, a local preacher.
“For some time I have been conscious of dissatisfaction among the people with my preaching, who say that my God 'is not a personal God', and that my Christianity is 'rum stuff': I am therefore meaning to give it up. But I still preach every second Thursday night.
“It was about that time that, by accident, I found out the power of my hand to cure headache, and things like that, and the sensation among these villagers was enormous, I can tell you, six years ago; now they come to be touched without the slighest sense of the unusual. But what I have done well in was—the farming. I knew little of agriculture—”
At this point they turned into the lane to Westring: and Loveday went with him a little beyond Priddlestone to see the fatal elm.
The next morning, after breakfast, Hogarth went down old Thring Street, and spent a penny for a note-book to contain the signatures of his association.
But this was no day for interest in that scheme: for under the projecting first-floor of the paper-shop were newspaper placards bearing such words as:
THE EARTH IN DANGER
SHALL WE PERISH TO-NIGHT?
and Hogarth was soon bending in the street over a paragraph, short—but inpica.
M. Tissot, the astronomer, had, at half-past ten the previous night, observed through the 40-inch telescope of the Nice observatory a body which seemed a tiny planet or aerolite of abnormal size. It was sighted at a point two degrees W. ofaLibrae at an angle of 43 1/2° with the horizon, and had been photographed, its elements calculated, its spectrum taken. The ascertained diameter was 3° 17”, or about 73 miles, and its substance seemed to consist of ironstone mixed with diamond.
By noon a fresh light was thrown upon the little world, the Yerkes observatory and Greenwich both uttering their voice, the Astronomer Royal announcing that the so-called planet was merely a meteor—not more than 400 yards in diameter, with a low velocity of two miles a second; and its distance was less than a tenth of that estimated by Tissot. The Yerkes observatory fixed the diameter at 230 yards. All, however, agreed in the opinion that it must strike the earth between ten and twelve that night.
These later announcements so much allayed the panic, that by one o'clock Hogarth, on peeping into the note-book on the box before the smithy, saw six signatures; and a young man who came about six P.M. to sign, cried out: “Hullo! the book is filled up!” on which Hogarth ran out, saying: “Don't run away on that account, I'll run and get—” darting into the house to ask Margaret where a certain account-book was.
“Didn't I throw it into the box of rubbish in the cellar at Lagden, when we were leaving?” she asked; on which he threw off his apron, and was off toward Lagden Dip to get it.
He had almost cleared the village when he was blocked by a crowd before a cottage, from out of which were coming screams—a woman's; and he ran in, found a man named Fred Bates beating his wife, planted a blow on his chest.
The next morning the wife of Bates was found dead, greatly disfigured about the face, whereupon Bates was arrested, and Hogarth, as we shall see, was subpoenaed to give evidence of the beating.
In ten minutes he was at the old farm-house of the Hogarths.
The new tenant was a Mr. Bond, a bankrupt metal-broker, who had two hobbies—farming and astronomy; and, as Hogarth approached the yard-gate, he saw Mr. Bond, his two daughters, his servants, grouped round an optic tube mounted on a tripod. He asked permission to get the account-book, got it, in a few minutes was again passing through, and, as he went by, bowing his thanks, Mr. Bond said: “But—have you seen the asteroid?”
“No—whereabouts?”
“Not quite visible to the naked eye yet: but come—you shall see”.
He himself looked through, fixing the sight, turning the adjuster; then with fussy suddenness: “Now, sir—”
Hogarth put an eager eye to the glass.
“You see her?” said Mr. Bond, rubbing his soft old palms; “straight for us she comes—in a considerable hurry by this time, I can tell you! and if she happens to break up in the air, then, pray, sir, that a splinter of her may fall into your back yard—not too big a one! but a nice little comfortablepiece”—he rubbed his palms—“for you know, no doubt, of what her substance is composed? Diamond, sir, in extraordinary evidence! in conjunction with specular iron ore, commonly called the red haematite, and the ferrous carbonate, or spathic iron. You see her, sir? you see her?”
Hogarth whispered: “Yes”.
There, fairest among ten thousand, sailing the high seas she came; and longer than was modest he stopped there, gazing, then ran, wondering at her daisy loveliness, not dreaming that between himself and her was—a relation.
She broke up with a European display soon after eleven that night over the North Sea.
At the moment when Hogarth was peering through the telescope, a man was loitering before his cottage—one of the Hall's park-keepers; and when Margaret put out her head to look for Richard's coming, the man whistled.
In a moment a note was in her hand.
“DEAR MISS HOGARTH,
“This is to ask you to be certain sure to meet me this evening at 9 P.M. on the towpath. It isn't to-day that you are well aware of the state of my feelings toward you: but it is not to talk sweethearting that I wish to see you now, but about your brother, and the matter is about as important as can be. If I were in your place, I should destroy this letter.
“Yours, with my respects,
“BARUCH FRANKL”.
Margaret tore it up, and “My goodness!” she thought, “what is anyone to do? If I only had the money to make up those fifty pounds! May the Holy Spirit guide me now...!”
Later in the evening she stole out, and met Frankl.
He assumed a very respectful tone.
“Miss Hogarth”, said he at once, “have you heard?”
“No, sir”.
“You have not been told that your brother has been to the Hall?”
“What in patience for?”
“He came—you couldn't believe—to beat me!”
“Richard! I don't understand. When?”
“Yesterday”. (In reality it was four weeks before.)
“But what about?”
“Revenge! Blind, murderous revenge for turning him neck and crop out of Lagden!”
“Youarein a temper! But I can't understand a word of it!”
“Well, that is what I had to tell you. He came to my house—And how good have I been to this man! Didn't I send him the fifty pounds—?”
“Well, thatwaskind. But I must tell you, Mr. Frankl, that Richard knows nothing of the fifty pounds—”
“Well, then it isyourfault! Oh, he did not know of the fifty pounds? Then it is your fault entirely, this rage of his against me—He threatened to shoot me dead—thrice he threatened—soon, he said—”
“Not Richard?”
“Yes, Richard!—your nice Richard! But what did I want you for to-night? It was to let you see that I have it in my power to let your brother in for three months hard—not less. But you know, my dear, don't you, that I wouldn't do anything to give you pain? That is why, so far, I've taken no steps. But your brother must be unarmed. I can't have my life exposed, after his threats, and all”.
“Unarmed....”
“Yes. I have it on good authority that your brother has guns. I must have those guns put into my own hands by you...”
“But I couldn't! He would find out...”
“Then I must act, that's all. Or no—I give you another chance—tell him of the fifty pounds I sent—that may disarm him in another way—”
He was sure that this she would not now do, yet felt relieved when she cried out: “I couldn't! Not now! Can't you see?”
“Well, there is nothing to be done, then. I must act, that's all”.
“But don't behard! What can I do? Sooner or later he'd be sure to miss them!”
“Poh! he is not always shooting, I suppose? And after a few weeks I'd give them back. Anyway, think it over: and I'll be here on Tuesday night next at nine to receive them. Good night—”
She looked palely after him, her feet in a net, new to her, woven of concealments and deceit.
At eleven that night she was sitting in their diminutive parlour,—Hogarth at a table inscribing the association's names received by post that evening; and at last, bending low over her sewing, she said: “Richard, is it true you have been to the Hall?”
He started! “Yes. Who told you?”
“I heard it”.
He looked at her piercingly. “Answer!”
“I heard it”, she said with a stubborn nod, quite pallid.
He turned upon her a stare of displeasure; but in that second they heard a shouting down the village, ran to the front, and saw heaven all like cancer and cracked window-panes, for from a central plash of passion the shattered asteroid had shot long-lingering ribbons of lilac light over the bowl of the sky.
On the Tuesday was the inquest on the murdered Mephibosheth; ending in a verdict of wilful murder against some person unknown.
The same night at nine Frankl had Hogarth's two guns from Margaret on the towing-path, she now well inveigled into his net, and under his commands.
“I want you”, he said, “to meet me-here again on Thursday night, at 7.30”.
“But you will tell one why, I suppose!”
“When you come you will hear. And don't let anything keep you away—notanything, mind—if you take my hint”.
She left him with her head hung, praying for deliverance, but consenting.
The next (Wednesday) morning Frankl was in a high room of the Hall, in a corner of which cowered the Arab, Isaac, and he said in his strong bass in Arabic: “Well, Isaac, well”.
A groan broke from the obese heap of grief; down each side of his kefie streamed waves of trembling; on his square-cut beard of ritual flecks of foam.
“Isaac, why did you kill Mephibosheth?”
Vigorously sputtered Isaac, spitting out the ill-omened words. He said: “Your servant did not kill Mephibosheth”.
“Well, there was an inquest to-day, the Court decided that you did, and has sentenced you to be hanged by the neck like a dog”.
The Arab sprang up, his thick bluish under-lip shivering.
“An eye for an eye”, said Frankl solemnly: “it is written in the Torah”.
“MercyMy father served your father—”
“I have remembered that: that is why I have saved you from hanging like a dog at the hands of theseGoyimvermin: but, Isaac, you must die—”
“God of—!”
“You dare raise your voice! Blood for blood—”
“Mercy!—I did not mean to kill—!”
“Blood for blood, you dog! Raise it, and I fell you! Raise it, and the noose sinks into your fat swine's-throat! Can't you understand?—you have been tracked by the avengers of blood! and you may swing lingeringly, with a crowd of Christian boys and girls mocking round you, or you may shoot yourself in one painless flash. Which shall it be?”
Isaac, again dropping a-heap, covered his face, without answer.
“Well”, said Frankl, walking away, “I can't wait all day. The detectives are at this moment downstairs—”
Now the Arab leapt up, and, in a movement of great dignity, with an out-rush of both arms, rent his caftan from the top to its muslin girdle.
“I will shoot myself”, he said quietly.
Frankl took snuff.
The same night he took his secretary's typewriter, and spelled out the following note:
“SIR,
“Permit me to ask you as an old friend of your father's if you are aware that your sister Margaret is the lover of the lord of the manor? Everybody seems to see it, but yourself. I have reason to know that the very day you receive this she will be meeting him at about 7.30 P.M. under the old elm in the beech-wood near the Hall-park.
“ONE WHO SHALL BE NAMELESS”.
Hogarth received it by post the next morning.
He had to think, as he worked, of something to say at the service that night on the text: “God's way is in the Sea”, but the glare of forge and heated metal swam vaguely, a fog of red, about his consciousness. And mixed with those recurring words: “the old elm”, “God's way”, something with a voice shouted inside him—a name—Margaret!Anon his face flushed to a dusky turbulence, and he hurled the sledge high to shatter the earth, like Thor.
Suddenly he had the thought that he would clean his rifle, and, dropping a hot iron which vanished with a stifled cry into black water, he tossed his tongs clattering, and almost ran toward the cottage.
He had not, however, reached the back door when he heard his name called from behind.
And now happened to him the most momentous event of his life—though nothing could have seemed more commonplace.
It was an old fellow named Tom Bates who had called him—father to that Fred arrested for the murder of his wife—a Yarmouth fisher and herring-curer.
And when Hogarth twisted round, with that stare of his large and bloodshot eye, “Here”, said the old man, “take them”—holding out a basket of herrings.
Hogarth seemed not to understand, but then said: “All those for me?”
“Every bloomin' one!” answered Bates, with the dropped jaw of pantomime, and a far-away look of blue astonishment which he had.
“It is extremely handsome of you. Can you spare all that—?”
“Spare,ya'as!They're easy enough come by, for that matter. Why, the day's work of a fisherman gives him enough fish to live on all the week, and he could lie around idling the other six days, if he chose, only anybody can't live on nothing but fish “.
These words, destined to produce a horror of great darkness, and a cup of trembling of which all the nations should drink, hardly affected Hogarth at the time. Hedid, indeed, shoot an interested glance at the old man, but the next moment his mind, numb that morning, was left dark.
“Here—take them—they are yours”, said Bates. “But with regard to that God-forsaken son of mine: you'll be givin' evidence agen him, I'm told—”
When his sleeve wiped a tear, Hogarth promised to make his evidence mild, and was left alone.
Now his purpose of cleaning the rifle was turned: he went back to the forge, and worked till Margaret, at one o'clock, called: “The dinner is on the table”.
At that table, for a long time, silence reigned, Margaret's eyes fixed on his face, his on his plate.
Toward the end he said: “Are you going to chapel to-night?”
Her bosom heaved; she cleared her throat: she had to meet Frankl by the towing-path.
“I don't think I shall...”
Margaret!
“Why not?”
“I have something to do”.
“What?”
Silence.
“What?”
“Something”—with a stubborn nod, and pallor—“if I tell yousomethingthat should be enough”.
“You will go to chapel to-night”.
“That I shan't”.
“Yes”
Silence.
A little before seven they left the cottage together for the chapel, Hogarth taking his hunting-crop—from habit; he had also a little Bible; in his jacket, tight at the slight waist, unbuttoned at the breast, lay the anonymous letter, and a little poetry-book, neither moon nor star lighting the night, bleak winds swooping like the typhoon among the year's dead leaves.
The chapel was a paltry place, though in the wall to the right of the preacher was a slab bearing the inscription:
ON THIS STONEJOHN WESLEY PREACHEDIN THE VILLAGE, ON THE9TH JULY 1768
And they sang a hymn; Hogarth “prayed”; read a chapter; once more the harmonium mourned; Hogarth gave the text: “God's way is in the sea...”
Even as he uttered it, he happened to glance toward the “mission-pew”—a square pew rather behind the pulpit: Margaret no longer there.
A paleness as of very death—then a dreadful wrath reddened his dark face.
He seized his hunting-crop; and, without a word, sped bent and thievish down the steps—and was gone.
Upon which Loveday in a middle pew, perceiving here something sinister, like a still wind flew to a back door, before ever the amazement of the people had given place to a flutter like leafage; and running fast, he came up with Hogarth by a stile twenty yards behind the chapel, touched his shoulder.
“To the devil with you...!” shouted Hogarth, running still, and there Loveday stood.
Margaret, meantime, was hurrying toward the towing-path, while Richard, in a direction at right angles to hers, was pelting toward that spot terrible to him—the elm.
At the moment when he entered the deep darkness of the beeches, he heard what sounded like a pistol-shot, rain now falling drop by drop, and through the forest with an uplifting whoop, like batsmen, swooped the tomboy winds.
Now, approaching the elm, again he felt that thrill which the spot had for him, and came peering, at slower pace: no sound but the gibbering rout of the stiff-stark beech-leaves. Some steps more, and now he was at the mound which surrounds the tree: stood, listened: silence, sightlessness: Margaret not there.
One more forward step: and now his foot struck a body.
As he stooped, his hand touched a revolver—which was his own; another moment, and he saw running lanterns borne by two park-keepers, and by their light saw the body of Isaac, who but now had shot himself with the weapon that was in Hogarth's hand.
The park-keepers had just been urged by their master to the spot, he having, he told them, heard a pistol-shot; and before anyone could speak Frankl himself was there, defiled with the presence of the dead.
He looked from Hogarth to the corpse, and from the corpse to Hogarth, then, snatching the weapon from Hogarth's hand, exclaimed: “Why, bless my heart, you'vemurderedthe man....”
In a cottage in Thring Street, marked “E. Norfolk, E. 58, Constabulary”, Hogarth passed the night, having been arrested the moment he returned home from the elm.
A few minutes afterwards Margaret, who had found no Frankl at the towing-path, came home to the ghastliest amazement throughout Thring, so that sleep overcame the village only toward morning.
At 7.30 A.M. Hogarth was marched to Beccles, then after an inquest-verdict appeared before the magistrates' court, and was committed.
One of the witnesses in the summary-jurisdiction court had been Loveday, who had deposed that Hogarth, on leaving the chapel, was, beyond doubt, in a passion; and mixed with the crowd was Margaret, who, standing thickly veiled, heard that evidence. And thought she: “Is it possible that he can be giving evidence against Richard like that? And smiling, the mean, false thing—”
She had disappeared on the morning after the arrest: and Loveday was now racked by disquiet, wondering how she was living, though she and he were in the same train, unconscious of each other, when he followed Hogarth to Norwich; and, as Margaret stepped upon the Thorpe platform there, a Jew, who was watching the arrival of every train, spied and shadowed her to the old Maid's Head, this intricate city being now crowded, the Assizes all in the air, mixed with the Saturday cattle-market.
At ten the next morning Margaret learned at the Guildhall the address of her brother's defending solicitor, and set out to find him, the wretchedest woman on earth now.
But as she passed by the archway in the tower of St. Peter Mancroft, Loveday stood before her; and she started like a shying horse.
“Good morning”—she went on past him.
He took two steps after her. “Are you in a hurry? Can I come with you?”
“It is quite near. Thank you—I'd liefer go alone”.
He, a delicate being, all nerves, was repelled; lifted the old cloth hat; but then again stepped after her, saying: “But are you angry with me for something?”
“Why should I be? I have no right to expect anything from you, Mr. Loveday”.
“No right? Youhave, a little, I fancy!”
He said it at her ear with such a lowering of the eyelids, that it pierced to her fond heart, and she smiled with a “H'm!” uncertain, half turned to him; but said: “I must be getting on—”
“But it is most important that I should talk to you about everything. Where are you staying?”
“It is some distance from here”, she answered, undecided whether or not to give her address.
“Ah—in that case—but still—will you meet me? Say here—this evening?”
“I will see if I can”.
“At seven?”
“I will see”.
So they parted, she to tread that intricacy of streets round the Market, with stoppages for enquiries, till she found the office, where she presently sat in an inner room, veil at nose-tip, and before her at a grate stood Hogarth's solicitor.
What, till now, for shame, she had concealed, she revealed: showing how Richard could not possibly have taken the revolver with him to the elm, since she, two days previously, had secretly given it to—someone.
Mr. Carr, the solicitor, frowned, elaborating his nails.
“This is very extraordinary”, he said. “Whyever did you keep us in the dark as to all this before? And to whom was it that you gave the revolver? and why?”
“Am I bound to tell that?”
“No, but you may be sure that the truth will be got from you. Stay—I must ask you to excuse me now. But tomorrow morning at this hour—will you? As for your brother, have no fears at all: he is now absolutely safe”.
Margaret went rapidly away, not knowing whither, only returning toward late afternoon to her inn. As she entered, a letter was handed her from Frankl.
“Dear Miss Hogarth:
“It is only due to you that I should see you at once to explain the mystery of this affair, so as to clear your brother, and as it would not do for me to call upon you for obvious reasons, the only thing for us to do is to meet to-night on Mousehold Heath at 7 P.M. without fail...”
What now was she to do? At “7 P.M.” she had half promised Loveday to meet him.
And what had her meetings with Baruch Frankl, innocent as they were, brought upon her and hers!
Yet Franklmustbe kindly intentioned, she reasoned—since he had sent them the £50; and she thought of that agony of humiliation when she had asked Loveday for £2, and he had refused.
And he had given evidence against Richard with his down-turned smile.
But he had said a word at her ear—and her crushed heart had leapt. She did not know what to do, fell by her bedside and prayed to be taught which of the two was Richard's best friend.
As she passed over the inn-threshold, she decided in favour of Frankl: and a few minutes past seven was on Mousehold Heath.
Frankl hurried to meet her, and the hand which he held out was rather cold; but she did not take it.
“No, Mr. Frankl”, said she, “before I give my hand, it is only what is due to me to hear how Richard's pistol, which I trusted to you, was found where it was—”
“Well, that is only fair”, answered Frankl; “that is only fair. But I have a carriage there, let us get into it, and sit as we talk”.
She could see no carriage in that dark, yet it stood only some yards away—Frankl's own.
“I think I prefer to stand...” said she.
“As you like. But with regard to the gun, I should have thought that you could have guessed how it was—but no, you always mistrust me instead—the Jew. Don't you know that the dead man was a servant in my house? Well, I left the two guns in my study, and he, wanting to shoot himself, stole one, that's all”.
“It washeshot himself?”
“Why, who else? You don't suppose Richard shot him! You are as cool as they make them”.
“Well, that was how it was! But couldn't you say that at the police-court—?”
“I amgoingto at the big trial, of course. But I was ill, am ill now, and here have I been running about all day on your brother's behalf, and dead tired—and ill, and all—and you won't let me have a rest in the carriage—”
“Well, as you put it in that way...” she said.
So they walked to a motor-brougham, sat within, and as they commenced to talk again, the brougham moved.
“Tell me”, said Frankl, “have you mentioned to anyone that you had given the guns to me?”
“I told Richard's solicitor this morning—”
“That was horribly imprudent, without consulting me!”
“I think I have been silent long enough, don't you? I didn't mention your name, but—”
“Oh, you didn't mention my name! That's all right, then! Look here, do you know—?”
“Well?”
“I believe you love me in your heart. Can't help yourself”.
“Oh, Mr. Frankl, do I look as if I was in the mood for that kind of fun to-night, a poor wretch like me, steeped in misery, my God knows”.
“Iloveyou!”
He suddenly grasped her wrist, his eyes blazing.
“Stop—let me get out of this—” she said.
“Wait!—I give you your chance!—Listen: I am not a man whose mind you can read right off like a book, I twist like an eel, I am deep, I am tricky, and I never yet met the man that I didn't hoodwink. Ninety-nine per cent of what I say is a lie; even when it is the truth, it is a lie just the same. But at this particular moment I am talking the God's truth: I want you! You shall be my little girl! Chuck Richard!—chuck the swine's-flesh!—I'll take you right away—to Paris—this very night—”
She had arisen, alarmed by his hissed fury. “But, you are stark, staring, raving mad”, she said proudly, “that is what you are”.
Frankl struck the side of the brougham, it flew, and Margaret tottered backward with an exclamation. The next moment she sent forth a scream, the grip of Frankl on her wrist agonizing her bones.
“Where are we going?” she cried out.
“I gave you your chance!” was Frankl's fierce answer.
“Let me get out!—you must be a wretch—to take advantage—”
He put his mouth to her ear till it touched. “Your nice Richard flogged me like a dog! I felt the cuts to the marrow of my damned soul! Now I've got him in the hollow of this hand! Why, you helped me! you helped me! That's good! And I've got you, too”.
Blackness and swiftness bound her; a dizziness overcame her. Soon they were by a great pool of gloomy water—Wroxham Broad—where hern, wild duck, and the mast of the darkling boat brooded among bulrush; and now in three minutes more the brougham was sweeping over the lawn of a lonely building, surrounded by walls.
She, peering, saw with joy both lights and a well-dressed man and woman; and, as the carriage stopped, she sprang out with alacrity, Frankl with her, still grasping her wrist.
“Sir”, she blurted out at once, “you will help me, I know. I am a poor unfortunate woman—my name is Margaret Hogarth—”
“We know!” said the gentleman, and, approaching Frankl's ear, asked in Yiddish: “How long has she had her delusion?”
“Only about a week, I think. She may be violent at first, but—”
“Come in, Miss—Hogarth”, said the gentleman.
Margaret passed the threshold; the doors closed upon her...
On the third morning of his confinement in Norwich, Hogarth was hurried into the hall of justice and the witness-box—in the dock Fred Bates.
Bates had denied—with sufficient impudence, it seemed: for his wife had been found dead, battered and burned about the face, Bates' own hand also burned by the poker with which,red-hot, he was presumed to have beaten her.
The same afternoon Bates was sentenced to death: but, having had sunstroke in Egypt, was afterwards reprieved.
And two mornings later Hogarth heard the bar of the prisoner's dock clang behind himself.
The speech of leading counsel for the Crown was short: a letter, found on the prisoner, would be produced, in which some busybody had falsely informed the prisoner that Mr. Frankl would meet his sister under a certain elm-tree: and the prisoner, in a crisis of passion, had hurried from the pulpit to that tree, on observing that his sister had left the chapel (to keep a real appointment with Mr. Frankl elsewhere). Under that tree the prisoner had encountered the murdered man, whose Oriental dress on a dark night would give him a resemblance to Mr. Frankl, himself a Jew. The prisoner had then shot the deceased, mistaking him for Mr. Frankl, and had been found holding the smoking weapon, which he admitted to be his own. It was a painful case; but the chain of inference was not assailable.
“Not assailable” found an echo in the minds of solicitor and counsel for Hogarth, who with growing anxiety were awaiting the coming of Margaret with her story of the weapons. Margaret was where her name was changed to Rachel.
Now was the régime of examining counsel for the prosecution. The usher called: “Baruch Frankl!”
A voice in the gallery shouted: “Caps and tassels!” while Frankl, in the witness box, bowed largely to both bench and bar. He put his palms on the red-hot rail, caught them up, put them again, caught up, put them; and still he bowed, while a trembling of the chin gave to his beard a downward waving.
“Now explain to the court the reasons for the state of the prisoner's feelings toward you”.
“For one thing I had turned him out, because he could not pay his rent; for another, his sister was inclined, my lord, to be a little bit weak on my account—”
“A little bitwhat?” asked his lordship.
“Just a little bit weak, my lord”.
“Areciprocalweakness?”
“Well, my lord, you know the world—so do the gentlemen of the jury—”
“And of the Jewry!” screamed his lordship, amid laughter from the merry wigs.
As Frankl stepped down, a name was called at which Hogarth went cold as a ghost: “Rebekah Frankl”.
And in she stepped splendent, to stand like a Nubian woman, with that retreat of the hips, her ears torn with their load of gold, her throat and breast ablaze, she bringing into that English court the gaudy heat of the Orient, Baal and Astarté, orgies of Hindoo women in temples of Parvati, the pallid passion of Bacchantes. Though not tall, she was lofty, and her ebon eyes had that very royalty of the stare of the bent form in the dock, whose heart throbbed quick like paddle-wheels that thrash the sea, she his wild divinity, wild wife of his wild youth....
At her shocking beauty the Court stood hushed.
She suggested the East: but in her speech was the energy of the West—sharp—a bass almost like her father's.
“You recognize the prisoner?”
“Yes”. She smiled.
“You were present on the day of the 11th November when the prisoner entered your father's house, and attempted to strike him?”
“Did strike him”.
“He did?”
“Yes”.
“Did he seem in a passion?”
“Seemed severe”.
“Severe! But was he not highly excited?”
“He did not seem so. Frowned and flogged”.
“By whom was he ejected?”
“Went of his own accord”.
“But—try to remember. What made him go?”
“He suddenly sawme, and fled”.
Laughter droned through the court, in which she naïvely joined, while Hogarth's eyes and hers met one instant, blazed outrageously, and dropped....
That was all. Counsel bowed.
The day grew toward evening, and still the stuffy Court sat.
But Margaret Hogarth did not come; a defending counsel finished examination, counsel on the other side again addressed the Court, and again defending counsel. The judge then held the scales, the jury trooped away, the crowd buzzed.
The light in the room seemed to brood to a denser yellow, and anon to grow dim; the stuffed court festered; voices spoke, but low. The King of Terrors was here.
When the jury came, the judge was called, Hogarth stood up, and the clerk of arraigns put a question to the foreman.
The foreman said: “We find the prisoner guilty: but beg to recommend him to the mercy of the Crown”.
“On what grounds?” asked his lordship.
“On the grounds of past good conduct and strong provocation”.
The judge then placed on his head a square of velvet and passed the sentence of the Court.
During the reign of stillness that followed, while the court clock's ticking was still loud, something which was thrown struck Hogarth on the arm, a red rose, black at heart, that had lain on the breast of Rebekah, who, when Hogarth looked round at her, was calmly drawing her mass of cloak about her throat.