It was three weeks later, and the day of Gumley's trial.
In the same pleasant room, with its French windows opening on the lawn, already known to us, Mrs. Drelincourt was reclining on a lounge, engaged in some kind of fine needlework. On a small occasional table within reach of her hand lay an open telegram. She was alone, and had been so for some time, but she did not on that account think herself neglected. Indeed, she was one of those women, few and far between, who love solitude for its own sake, and can taste to the full its subtle charm.
Before long her reverie was broken by the entrance of Colonel Winslow.
"It's close upon three o'clock, and yet Felix has not returned," he said. "It is not often that he prolongs his ride so far into the afternoon."
"Very seldom indeed. I was becoming rather anxious about him when this came to hand." As she spoke, she handed him the telegram.
The colonel took it and read it aloud:
"'Drelincourt, Greystone Priors, to Mrs. Drelincourt, Fairlawn.--Selim has fallen lame. Shall leave him here, to be fetched by groom tomorrow, and return by train.' That fully accounts for his non-arrival," added the colonel, as he replaced the telegram on the table, and drew up a chair. "You have heard nothing yet, I presume, as to how Gumley's trial is progressing?"
"Nothing whatever. Roden Marsh is in attendance at the sessions house, and will bring us the news at the earliest possible moment."
"I am afraid the result is a foregone conclusion," remarked the colonel.
The subject was one Mrs. Drelincourt did not care to pursue.
"And must your visit really come to an end in the course of a few days?" she presently asked. "Cannot we persuade you to favor us with your company for a fortnight longer?"
"I'm afraid I have no option in the matter. Weeks ago I promised my sister to be with her on the twelfth of this month, and were I to break my word, I should render myself liable to pains and penalties without number."
"But we shall have you with us again later in the season?"
"I certainly hope so. It won't be my fault if you don't."
"I cannot tell you how grateful I feel for the change which your visit--for I can set it down to nothing else--has wrought in FeliX. Not for years--nay, scarcely since our marriage--has he seemed so cheerful, so free from care, so little given to brooding over his experiments and shutting himself up among his books, as during the three weeks you have been with us."
"Ah ha! I do take some little credit to myself for having coaxed our snail out of his shell, for having wheedled our bookworm out of his seclusion; and it must be your care after I'm gone, dear Mrs. Drelincourt, to see that he doesn't revert to his hermit-like ways."
A little sigh escaped Mrs. Drelincourt.
"I am greatly afraid that when your enlivening presence is no longer here, everything will go on precisely as it did before your arrival."
"It is always wise to hope for the best. In any case, I won't fail to come and stir up Felix again in the course of the autumn."
Before more could be said, Marian, closely followed by Walter, each of them carrying a croquet mallet, made their appearance at one of the long windows, which, this balmy afternoon, stood wide open.
"Colonel Winslow," said the flushed and happy looking girl, "we want you to come and decide a point of the game for us about which we can't agree."
Left alone, Mrs. Drelincourt resumed her needlework. Her thoughts were busy with what had just passed between the colonel and herself.
"Yes, Felix has been a changed man from the day of his friend's arrival three weeks ago. And yet, there is something in the change which I fail to understand, and which, for that very reason, dulls the edge of my happiness. To me--but I may be fanciful--there seems something feverish and unreal about his gaiety. His mirth has an air of being assumed for the occasion; in his laughter there is an echo of mockery; it is as though he were laughing at himself for finding anything worth laughing about.
"At times there comes into his eyes a strange, impersonal look, as though he were gazing at something invisible to any one but himself. And why is it that of late he cannot rest at night? Why does he rise and quit the house at daybreak, and not be seen again till breakfast time? There is something below the surface of which I know nothing--something he is hiding from me. He thinks to deceive me by his assumption of gaiety, whereas--Ah!"
A slight noise had caused her to turn her head. There stood her husband, holding aside the portière and gazing smilingly at her. He had gone to the boudoir first in search of her. He now came forward, and having disposed of his hat and gloves on a side table, he bent over his wife and kissed her tenderly.
"My telegram reached you in due course, I see. I was afraid you would be growing uneasy."
"I had indeed grown very uneasy long before it arrived."
"I had gone for a longer ride than usual, when all at once Selim fell lame. I was compelled to dismount and lead him at a snail's pace as far as Greystone Priors, where I had his legs bandaged, and have left him till tomorrow." Then, having drawn up a chair, he asked, but without any apparent eagerness: "Anything fresh? Any news?"
"None whatever."
"Then Rodd has not returned?"--consulting his watch as he put the question.
"I have not seen anything of him. But the trial will scarcely be over as early as this, will it?"
"That is more than I can say."
Thrusting his hands into his pockets, and whistling under his breath a lively operatic air, he strolled to the garden window and stood gazing out for a little while. His wife followed him with her eyes. Now that his back was towards her, her face had grown suddenly aged and anxious looking.
"He is playing a part, and he thinks I cannot see through the pretense," she whispered to herself. "But love has keen eyes. What it is that he is hiding from me I cannot so much as guess, but sure I am that some secret trouble is gnawing at his heartstrings."
Presently Drelincourt turned from the window, and going to the piano, he sat down on the music stool and began to play a bar of the air he had been whistling.
Suddenly Marian appeared at the window, and seeing her father in the room, she laid a finger on her lips as a caution to her mother. Then she ran lightly across the floor, and next moment her arms were round his neck and her lips pressed to his cheek.
"You were gone this morning before I was down, so that I have not been able to thank you till now for your beautiful, beautiful present."
"Nor I an opportunity of wishing my little girl--ought I not rather to say my bouncing big girl?--many, very many happy returns of the day, which I now do from the bottom of my heart."
His arm was round her waist, and for the next few seconds she felt herself pressed close to him. Tears sprang to her eyes. "Dear papa!" she said to herself. "He loves me more than I thought he did."
At this juncture the colonel and young Deane came in by way of the farther window.
"And I have had other charming gifts," resumed Marian. "One from mamma, one from Wally, another from Colonel Winslow, and yet another from Roden Marsh. Am I not a fortunate girl? You must come and see them where they are laid out in mamma's dressing room."
A little later in the afternoon Drelincourt and Walter Deane happened to be left alone in the morning room.
Deane was turning over a book of engravings at one of the tables, but not without an eye for all that was going forward. Drelincourt was lounging against the framework of the farther window.
"In this suspense there lurks a torture worthy of a grand inquisitor," murmured the latter. "I wonder whether I or that poor devil awaiting sentence in the dock suffers the more on our invisible rack."
Having glanced at his watch, he took to slowly pacing the room, his hands behind his back.
"And yet, what need to wonder? He is but a clod, callous, brutalized, degraded; and though his life is doubtless as sweet to him as mine is to me, there are in me a thousand springs of feeling and emotion, each a separate source of torture, of which such as he can know nothing. In my case the stake is more, infinitely more, than is involved in the premature ending of a life by which I have never set any special store. There's the pity of it! If the issues of our actions affected ourselves alone, we could afford to suffer in silence, and bow our necks to the stroke with something like equanimity; but the Eumenides who wait on wrong doing ever contrive to stab us through the hearts of our dearest and our best."
Young Deane's furtive glances followed Drelincourt every time the latter's back was turned on him.
"I have never seen Mr. Drelincourt so restless as he seems this afternoon," he muttered to himself. "There's something on his mind--that's clear. Can it be that he's troubling himself about the result of the trial? Yet, why should he? It's not as if he were a vindictive man. However it may go, it can matter little to him."
"That boy is eying me and wondering what the deuce is the matter," was Drelincourt's unspoken thought. "Eh bien!Let us give him something else to think about."
Drawing up a chair close to Deane, he seated himself astride it, and rested his crossed arms on its back.
"While I was out this morning," he began, "I was told something which put me about more than I like to own."
"Indeed, sir! I am very sorry to hear it," answered the young fellow, as he shut up the book of engravings and turned a sympathetic face toward the other.
"If I tell my wife, she will be greatly distressed, because she is acquainted with the people concerned; and yet I feel that she ought to know. I'm rather at a loss what to do."
Drelincourt paused to follow with his eyes the flight of a butterfly which had found its way into the room.
Walter wondered what was coming next.
"Some little while ago," resumed Drelincourt, "a friend of mine, whom I may be said to have known all my life, was charged on his own confession--a confession he need never have made had he not voluntarily chosen to do so--with the commission of what by the majority of persons would doubtless be regarded as a crime of a very heinous kind; although it is to be presumed that, had he thought well to do so, he could have alleged some justification at least of the crime of which he was guilty. But be that as it may, having made a clean breast of it, there seemed no course left open to him but suicide."
"Suicide! Oh, Mr. Drelincourt!"
"That touches him!" whispered the latter to himself. Then aloud: "Life had become too bitter to him; he could endure it no longer. Well, he had one child, a daughter, who was engaged to be married at the time of her father's death; but after that event, the man to whom she was betrothed broke off the affair on the plea that it was impossible for him to wed the daughter of a criminal and a suicide."
"The mean scoundrel!"
"The double blow--the loss at once of her father and her lover (not to speak of the social stigma which will inevitably cling to her in time to come) has all but broken poor Lucy's heart. On the other hand, there is, of course, much to be urged from young Melville's point of view, and I have no doubt the majority of men would be inclined to do as he has done. Who can estimate the harm it might have done his future career had he married the daughter of a man who, rather than face the consequences of his crime, had preferred to put an end to himself! Yes, on further reflection, I am inclined to think that he behaved with admirable prudence."
"While I, if he were here, would brand him for the coward and despicable wretch he really is!" exclaimed Deane.
His cheeks were flushed, a fine indignation shone in his eyes; there could be no doubt of the sincerity with which he spoke. Nothing of all this was lost on the elder man.
"But the young lady is well rid of him," he went on. "If in the darkest hours of her life he thus abandons her, what he miscalled his love is not a thing either to covet or regret."
"But consider," urged Drelincourt, "what the world would have said! Think of the shock to his friends!"
"In his place I should have thought only of her I loved. If the world and my friends chose to disapprove, they would have been welcome to do so. Oh, Mr. Drelincourt, what a miserable hound this fellow must be! Not to one man in a thousand in these days is the chance afforded of proving what stuff he's really made of. In King Arthur's time men had to win their wives after a fashion which revealed the coward and the cad in their true colors. What a pity that some such test is not enforced nowadays!"
Drelincourt smiled as he rose and pushed away his chair. "In that case, I'm afraid the number of compulsory bachelors would soon mount up to an alarming figure."
Walter also rose and went and stood by one of the windows. He wore a preoccupied air, as of one debating some question with himself.
Drelincourt's lips moved inaudibly.
"As I told Winslow, I had my reasons for affording Marian and this young fellow an opportunity of falling in love with each other. I do not think--no, I do not think that I am mistaken in him!"
Next moment a shadow darkened his face. Again he glanced at his watch. "The trial ought to be over by now. I thought I heard the sound of galloping hoofs." For a few seconds he stood in a listening attitude. "The sound was in my own brain only. So does expectation play the cheat with itself!"
Presently Deane turned from the window and went up to Drelincourt, who was standing at the center table, examining an etching through a magnifying glass. His face was pale, but his lips were firmly set, and his eyes shone with resolution.
"Mr. Drelincourt," he began, in a voice which had lost something of its customary assurance, "after what has just passed between us, I think it due to you to inform you thatIam the son of a man who committed suicide! Probably you will think that such a circumstance ought to have been brought to your knowledge long ago; and, indeed, I feel now that it was both cowardly and wrong on my part to keep it from you. The only excuse I can offer is that my father's memory is so dear to me that--that----"
The words broke on his lips; a mist dimmed his eyes; he turned away while he recovered himself.
Drelincourt laid a hand gently on his shoulder.
"Not a word more is needed," he said in grave, kindly accents. "My boy, all the sad circumstances connected with your father's end are known to me already."
"Mr. Drelincourt!"
"As also how every penny of your legacy was devoted to the payment of the debts he left behind him."
"You know all this, and yet----"
"Hush! Some one comes. Not another word."
It was Marian, who came quickly forward, her cheeks aglow with pleasurable excitement.
"Papa, what do think? There are a couple of Neapolitanpifferarion the lawn, and I have told them to come round here. You should have seen how delighted they were when I spoke to them in Italian. I knew you would be pleased to hear them play a few of their simple airs. It will seem like old times come back again, will it not?"
"Old times, forsooth!" exclaimed Drelincourt with his most riant air. "You talk,mignonne, as if this were your fiftieth birthday instead of your eighteenth. But where are these vagabonds of yours? I suppose I must submit to having my ears tortured, since you will it so." Then, as the girl turned away, the shadow swept over his face again, and under his breath he murmured: "Rodd--Rodd--whip and spur!--whip and spur!"
Marian had flitted on to the lawn, and was beckoning to thepifferari, who presently came slouching along, and took up a position a little way removed from one of the long windows.
"Poor fellows! Their clothes seem little more than tatters," remarked Marian, as she reëntered the room. "And yet how picturesque they look!"
"And how very far from clean!" Added Walter in a low voice. "It would be a charity to make them a present of a bar of soap--if one could feel sure of their using it."
Then they began to play. The air, although set to waltz time, was a wild and plaintive one, and not at all like conventional dance music.
After listening for a couple of minutes, Marian clapped her hands and cried excitedly: "Papa, don't you remember?"
"Remember what, my dear?"
"The air they are playing. It's called 'La Strega,' which"--with a glance at Walter--"being interpreted for the behoof of illiterate people, means 'The Sorceress.'"
"So kind of you to enlighten my ignorance!" murmured the young man.
Marian turned to her father.
"It's the same tune two wandering minstrels played one day ever so long ago on the terrace at Bordighera. And that day you were so gay and light-hearted that you and I danced to it together. Oh, I have not forgotten! And now it's my birthday, and we will dance to it again."
"Idance! Madness!"
"It's a very delightful kind of madness. Am I not queen today? Do you dare, sir, to dispute any of my behests?"
"There's Walter."
"It is you, papa, whom I am going to dance with, not that boy. I won't listen to another word. Come! Let us try for a little while to fancy ourselves back in Italy."
"What it is to be a slave of a tyrant in petticoats!"
He offered no further resistance, but slid an arm round his daughter's waist, and the pair began to waltz to the music. Walter stood looking on from the embrasure of one of the windows. Twice had they gyrated the length of the room and back, when Drelincourt caught sight of Roden Marsh's pale face peering at him through an opening in the portière. The latter had approached unseen and unheard by either of the young folk. For a couple of minutes longer the dancers kept revolving to the music, then, as they again drew near the window where Walter was lounging, Drelincourt beckoned to him to take his place, which the young man did, nothing loath. A second later Drelincourt had disappeared through the portière.
"Your news?" said Drelincourt to Roden Marsh, the moment they were alone.
"Found guilty and sentenced to death."
"So now the curtain is rung up for the last act!"
Rodd grasped one of his foster brother's hands in both his, and for a few moments the two stood looking into each other's eyes.
Then Drelincourt said, "Come," and with that he led the way to his own room, where there was less likelihood of their being intruded upon.
"And of course the judge held out no hope of mercy?" he recommenced, as soon as he had seated himself and motioned Rodd to another chair.
"None whatever. The fact of Gumley having confessed to the robbery seemed to be accepted both by judge and jury as conclusive evidence that he must be guilty of the other crime."
"His counsel----"
"Urged every point in his favor that could be urged, but to no purpose.
"Poor devil! What must his sensations have been when he heard his doom pronounced! But in a little while, as at the wave of a necromancer's wand, the weight of that dread sentence shall be lifted off his heart, and life shall once more taste sweet in his mouth."
"Felix! What would you do?"
"Can you ask? I thought it was long ago understood between us what my course was to be should the worst ever come to pass. The worsthascome to pass--as I have felt all along it would surely do some day--and it has now, to be faced. Could anything be more simple?"
"But consider, Felix, consider! This fellow who was sentenced today is a low, brutal, besotted wretch, who--as was proved against him by the police--has already served two terms of penal servitude for other crimes; who, as I have ascertained, has not a single tie to bind him to life, and of whom, when he dies--and the sooner the better--the world will be well rid. No sane man would seriously think of sacrificing himself for such a scoundrel. Let him hang! Suchcanailleas he are fit fruit for the gallows."
"My dear Rodd, how strangely you must have misread me all these years, if you think it possible that, deliberately and knowingly, I could allow this man to pay the penalty of a crime of which he is as innocent as you are! Granting him to be all that you say he is--assuming him to be the vilest wretch that crawls--his life is the one sacred thing he can call his own till he himself shall forfeit it, and all the unseen powers forbid that I should rob him of it! The thing done by me twenty years ago concerns me, and me only, and I swear that this man's blood shall not lie at my door!"
Then, in a changed voice:
"Rodd, you remember what we agreed upon long ago in case of emergency? Have you the vial still by you which I gave at that time into your keeping?"
"I have."
"That is well--that is very well. Fetch it me now--at once."
A groan broke from Rodd's lips; too well he knew how futile any further remonstrance on his part would have been. There was that about Drelincourt which brooked no denial. All his life Rodd had done his foster brother's bidding, and he did it now.
"How strangely calm I feel now that the suspense is over and I know the worst!" mused Drelincourt, when Rodd had left the room. "My pulse beats as evenly as an infant's. Tonight I shall sleep as I have not slept for weeks. Now that my doom stares me straight in the face, now that I hear a footstep on the threshold audible to myself alone, of what little consequence the world and its business have all at once become to me! Already life and the things which make life sweet have put on an altogether different aspect; already I find myself regarding them almost as impersonally as if I were a denizen of another plant, and had no part or parcel in them. It is a novel experience, and did time allow, I might endeavor to analyze it."
His unspoken soliloquy was brought to an end by the return of Rodd.
"Have you found the vial?" he asked, with restrained eagerness.
"I have." He came slowly forward. "Felix, once more----"
"Give it me. Not another word!" Drelincourt held out his hand, and Rodd had no choice save to do as he was told. Drelincourt's features were lighted up by a faint smile. "Why this childish puling?" he asked. "Why this sudden faint heartedness? You know well how it was agreed between us years ago that this should be my way of escape when none other was left me."
Rodd resumed his seat without replying, and letting his elbows rest on the table, covered his face with his hands. Drelincourt held the vial up to the light.
"Even in the tiny compass of this the Great Destroyer finds room to lurk. 'Swift and painless,' were the words of the Italiansavantwhen he put it into my hands. Swift--and--painless. It is well. Now I am prepared."
Rodd turned on him a face charged with tragic intensity.
"You will not do this thing just yet--if it must be done at all?" he pleaded.
"Not today certainly--nor yet tomorrow. I have much to see to first. Besides, this is my daughter'sfesta, and no faintest shadow of a cloud shall mar its brightness. In years to come, when she is a happy wife, and when the trouble which is now closing round her shall be nothing but a memory, I would fain have her be able to look back on this day as one of unclouded happiness."
"And Mrs. Drelincourt?"
"Ah! Now you stab me. Now you all but unman me. Why did you mention her name?"
He got up abruptly, his hands clinched, his features working. Scarcely ever before had Rodd seen him so moved.
"Leave me now," he went on, after a brief pause. "I must be alone for a little while. I will see you again later. But not a word to my wife about the verdict. Should she question you, tell her that the trial will not be finished till tomorrow. How strangely you look at me! Go, and fear nothing."
Sadly and lingeringly Rodd left the room. "There is one door of escape for him, and it rests with me to open it," he said to himself as he went. "He saved my life when we were boys; why should I not make an effort to save his now? Felix--Felix--dearer to me than any brother could have been--had I a dozen lives I would willingly sacrifice them all to save yours!"
Left alone, Drelincourt crossed to one of the windows which fronted the west, and flung wide the casement.
"Yes, to leave her--my Madeline--will in very truth be to drain death's bitter cup to the lees. If she and I could but walk hand in hand into yonder sunset, and so vanish forever from mortal ken--that would indeed be well!"
It was the early afternoon of the sixth day after Gumley's trial and conviction. In the library at Fairlawn, which just then he had all to himself, Mr. Wicks was planted with his back to the empty fireplace, a newspaper which had just arrived in one hand, and a paper knife in the other. As he stood thus he soliloquized aloud:
"Well, of all the rummy goes I ever heard tell of, this licks the lot! To think of Mr. Roden Marsh going and giving himself up as being the murderer of the first Mrs. Drelincourt! But I must say that I never did altogether approve of Mr. Marsh and his goings on. Not that he was what one might call stuck up, because he wasn't. But, for all that, he had ways about him which I couldn't stummick."
The turning of the door handle transformed him on the instant into a different being.
It was Mrs. Drelincourt who now entered the room.
"Has your master returned yet, Wicks?"
"I have seen nothing of him, ma'am." He was standing at the center table, cutting the newspaper in readiness for Mr. Drelincourt.
"Haveyouheard anything of this dreadful rumor?"
"Meaning about Mr. Marsh, ma'am? I can't deny, ma'am, but what I 'ave heard about it: It's in everybody's mouth, if I may make so bold as to say so."
"When and by whom was the rumor brought?"
"By a messenger from Sunbridge about a couple of hours ago. He brought a letter for master from Mr. Marsh, who, so the man said, is now in Sunbridge jail, having given hisself up to the police late yesterday evening."
"Great Heaven! Can this be true? Where is the letter?"
Wicks took it off the writing desk where he had laid it, and handed it to his mistress. "The messenger brought it, ma'am, when you were out in the pony carriage."
"Yes, it is Roden's writing," said Mrs. Drelincourt to herself, as she glanced at the superscription. For a moment or two she pressed her hand to her heart; then, as she gave back the letter, she said: "But do you mean to imply that Mr. Marsh was away from home all last night?"
"According to the chambermaid, ma'am, his bed had not been slep' in." The door was opened quickly, and Marian, followed by Walter, entered the room.
"Mamma----" began the former, and then stopped at sight of Wicks. "That will do, Wicks," said Mrs. Drelincourt.
The man bowed and left the room.
Then Marian began afresh. "I can see by your face, mamma, that you have heard this terrible rumor; but surely, surely it cannot be true!"
"As you say, dear, it surely cannot be true. And yet I know not what to think. That Roden is in prison seems an undoubted fact."
"The report goes that he went into Sunbridge last evening, and gave himself up to the police." This from Walter.
"As a murderer," said Marian with a shudder. "Oh, it seems incredible!"
"Incredible, indeed," replied her mother. "If it be really true that he is guilty, the act must have been committed during a fit of mental aberration when he was not responsible for his actions. But we shall learn the truth when your papa returns."
"Is not papa back?"
"Not yet. It is quite fifteen miles to Dunford, where Colonel Winslow was to catch the Scotch express. But he cannot be long now."
"How would it be," said Walter, "if I were to have the bay mare saddled and ride down the Dunford road and meet Mr. Drelincourt on his way back? I could then tell him all about the rumor, after which he might perhaps prefer to drive direct into Sunbridge and find out the particulars for himself before coming home."
"An excellent idea, Walter," said Mrs. Drelincourt. "Go at once, and come to me the moment you return."
As soon as he was gone she said to Marian: "Open one of the windows a little way, dear; I feel slightly faint." Then to herself she added: "My heart feels as if it were constricted by a band of steel."
She was lying back in a capacious leathern easy chair. Marian having opened one of the windows, unceremoniously twisted up the outside sheet of theTimesand proceeded gently to fan her mother with it.
Presently the latter looked up at her with a smile. "I am better now, darling," she said. "This sultry weather always tries me."
Marian stooped and kissed her. Then she said: "Oh, mamma, what if it should prove that poor Roden is really out of his mind!"
Mrs. Drelincourt sat up quickly in her chair. "How careless of me to forget!" she exclaimed. "There is a letter on the table from him addressed to your papa, which may possibly explain everything. Run and give it to Walter, and tell him----"
"Here's papa, himself," broke in Marian, as the door opened to admit Drelincourt.
"I am so glad you are come!" sighed his wife, as she turned to him with a quick lighting up of her spiritualized face. Then to her daughter: "Hurry after Walter. You will perhaps be in time to stop him."
"And I am glad that you are glad," replied Drelincourt, regarding her from a little distance with a smile, as he proceeded in leisurely fashion to draw off his-driving gloves. "And yet, all things considered, I have not been long gone. We had quite a race, I must tell you, to catch the express."
"Then you have heard nothing of this dreadful rumor which has put us all so much about?"
"You mean some rumor in connection with Roden Marsh?"
"Yes."
"Old Tyson, the turnpike keeper, did mumble something to me while he was counting out my change."
"Did he tell you that Roden gave himself up last night as being the murderer of--of you know whom?"
"It was something to that effect I gathered from Tyson."
"Oh, Felix, how coolly you take it! How can you--how can you?"
"Because, my dearest and best, I am absolutely sure that in Rodd's self accusation there is not the slightest grain of truth."
"Then you think that it is all a hallucination on his part? That he has brooded over the affair till at length he has come to believe that he himself is the criminal?"
"There can be no doubt that such is the case."
"What a weight you have lifted off my heart!"
"I have noticed that he has been somewhat strange in his manner of late. More than once he has said things to me which I utterly failed to comprehend. Now, however, everything is explained."
"Poor Rodd! Poor fellow! But I am forgetting. There is a letter from him for you which was brought here by a special messenger two or three hours ago."
"So!"
Mrs. Drelincourt rose from her chair, and crossing to the table, found the letter and handed it to her husband.
"Most likely this will throw some further light on Roden's incomprehensible proceeding," she said. "I presume you will at once drive into Sunbridge and take whatever steps may be necessary in order to effect his release."
"That is what I purpose doing--almost immediately. I shall lose no time in carrying out my intention in that regard. It must be done! In my hands rests the question of his freedom or execution, and there is but one course for me to pursue, that the gates of his prison may be opened, and Rodd again enjoy the liberty which is his by right--human and divine."
"Then, for the present, I will leave you. But I shall see you again before you go?"
"Undoubtedly."
"Poor Roden! Most sincerely do I hope that you will be able to bring him back with you."
"I hope so too. In any case, you need not fear but we shall soon have him released from durance vile."
He opened the door for her, and as she was passing out, he stooped and touched her hair with his lips. She smiled up at him, and her lips softly breathed the word "Dearest!"
Could she have seen the change which came over his face the moment the door was shut behind her, she would have been startled, indeed. The transformation was marvelous. The real man was alone with himself.
"Poor Roden, indeed!" he murmured. "But what about poor Felix? And alas!--and alas! What about poor Madeline?"
He was standing in the middle of the floor, turning over the letter absently between his fingers.
"How little she dreams of the awful knowledge which a few short hours must inevitably bring her? For there must be no more delay. This mad act of Rodd's has served to bring matters to a climax a little sooner than I intended. Today is Thursday, and Saturday was the day I had fixed on in my mind as the one on which my long hidden secret should be laid bare to the world. But now that the end is so near, it matters not whether the revelation be made today or a few hours hence. Yes, after twenty years--the end!--just as the past with its dread secret was beginning to assume the vagueness of a half forgotten dream, and life was becoming sweeter to me than ever it had been before. If, perchance, I see tomorrow's sunrise, it will scarcely be from the windows of Fairlawn!"
He crossed to the chair vacated by his wife, and sat down in it.
"I may as well read what that foolish Rodd has to urge in defense of his insane action, although I know quite well beforehand the line of argument he will take."
With that he opened the letter and began to read:
Sunbridge Jail, Thursday, 6 A.M.My Dear Foster Brother:When we were lads together you saved my life at the imminent risk of your own. The time has now come when I can cancel the debt by saving yours.To me life is a concern of little moment. So far as I know, I have not a single relative living, and were I to die tomorrow, there is not a being in the world, with the exception, maybe, of yourself, to whom that event would cause one pang of regret.You, my dear Felix, are possessed of nearly everything which tends to make existence sweet to most persons. In your wife and daughter alone you have a double tie sufficient to cause a man to cling to this world with all his might.Let me, then, for their dear sakes, if not for your own, most earnestly beg and entreat of you to accept the payment hereby offered of that just debt which has been so long owing, and which, I swear as Heaven is above me, will be joyfully discharged byYour devoted and affectionateRoden Marsh.
Sunbridge Jail, Thursday, 6 A.M.
My Dear Foster Brother:
When we were lads together you saved my life at the imminent risk of your own. The time has now come when I can cancel the debt by saving yours.
To me life is a concern of little moment. So far as I know, I have not a single relative living, and were I to die tomorrow, there is not a being in the world, with the exception, maybe, of yourself, to whom that event would cause one pang of regret.
You, my dear Felix, are possessed of nearly everything which tends to make existence sweet to most persons. In your wife and daughter alone you have a double tie sufficient to cause a man to cling to this world with all his might.
Let me, then, for their dear sakes, if not for your own, most earnestly beg and entreat of you to accept the payment hereby offered of that just debt which has been so long owing, and which, I swear as Heaven is above me, will be joyfully discharged by
Your devoted and affectionate
Roden Marsh.
"Just as I thought," said Drelincourt, as he refolded the letter. "Dear, true hearted, simple minded old Rodd! And does he really dream for one moment that I either shall, can, or will accept the sacrifice he is so eager to consummate? Even after all these years, how little he knows me! No, my dear Rodd, neither you, nor Gumley, nor any one shall discharge that debt which is due from Felix Drelincourt alone. So, now to consider--to consider."
He lay back in his chair and closed his eyes, still holding Rodd's letter in his hand. He had sat thus for a matter of five or six minutes when the door was opened by Wicks.
"Sir John Musgrave and Mr. Ormsby to see you, sir."
"So! Where are they?"
"I have shown them into the morning room, sir."
Mr. Drelincourt's eyebrows came together for a moment. "Better show them in here," he said. "Their coming is most opportune for my purpose," he continued aloud, as soon as he was alone. "It will spare me the necessity of a journey to Sunbridge." With that he put away the letter in the breast pocket of his coat, and stood up to receive his visitors. "Now to screw my courage to the sticking place! I could laugh, were this a time for laughter, at the thought of Ormsby aghast--dumfounded--his fat cheeks quivering like a jelly--when the truth is told him. And he was so sure Gumley was the man. Poor Ormsby! At last your thirst for vengeance shall be appeased."
"Sir John Musgrave and Mr. Ormsby," announced Wicks.
Drelincourt advanced smilingly and took the baronet's proffered hand.
"I think I can guess the nature of the business which has brought you, Sir John; but in any case you are welcome," he said. "Ormsby, how are you?"
Sir John cleared his throat. "As I judge, then, you have heard of the singular freak--for at present I can look upon it as nothing more--of your secretary, or whatever he is, Roden Marsh?"
"Who gave himself up last night at Sunbridge as being the murderer of my ever to be lamented sister." This from Mr. Ormsby.
"I have been from home all morning, and the first I heard of the affair was half an hour ago. I was on the point of driving into Sunbridge when you were announced. But pray be seated."
"I am glad to have saved you the journey," remarked Sir John, as he sat down. "My--our--object in coming to see you is to ascertain whether you can throw any light on this most extraordinary business, for, to tell you the truth, we are at a loss to know what steps we ought to take next with the view of either proving or disproving Marsh's statement."
"And not feeling sure how the affair might turn out, nor what fresh light you might be able to throw on it, I ordered Draycot, the chief constable, to follow us, so as to be in readiness in case of emergency."
"That was really very thoughtful on your part, Ormsby."
"Hum--hum. Confound his sneering ways!" remarked Ormsby to himself, with a grunt.
"One thing, gentlemen, I may tell you," went on Drelincourt, "which is, that one of the first steps you will have to take will be to set Mr. Marsh at liberty."
"Then you are satisfied in your own mind," said Sir John, "that he is not really the criminal he seems so desirous of making himself out to be?"
"On that point I am fully satisfied."
"What, then, can be the fellow's motive for such an insane proceeding?" demanded Ormsby--reasonably enough. "Is he a madman, or merely a fool?"
"He is very far from being either one or the other."
"But this is such a terrible crime for any sane man to charge himself with?" interpolated Sir John.
"You say, Drelincourt, that one of our first steps must be to set him at liberty," resumed Ormsby. "Now, I don't see that at all. He has seen fit to charge himself with the commission of a most heinous offense, and has put a lot of people to no end of worry and bother; consequently it will rest with him to thoroughly disprove his words before being allowed to regain his liberty. If I had my way, I would treat such pestilent fellows to a month on the treadmill."
"It is possible that Mr. Drelincourt may be in a position to throw an unexpected light on the affair," remarked Sir John in his blandest tones.
"In that case, of course----"
"It will assume an altogether different complexion from the one it wears at present. That goes without saying." It was Drelincourt who completed the sentence.
He drummed on the table for a few seconds with his finger tips. Then he resumed:
"A few days ago an enlightened British jury declared the man Gumley to be guilty of murder because, having confessed to being a thief, they assumed that he must of necessity be the author of the greater crime. It was a verdict, my dear Ormsby, in which I have no doubt you fully concurred."
"I did concur in it, and most fully. Twenty years ago I avowed my belief in Gumley's guilt, a belief which the result of the recent trial has fully justified, for of course I attach no credence to the so called confession of this hair brained Roden Marsh. No, sir, you may rely upon it that Gumley is the real criminal, and I shall receive with much satisfaction the news that he has been hanged."
"And yet, I am afraid, my dear Ormsby, that for once your usual acumen has been at fault--a rare occurrence, I admit--seeing that I happen to be in a position to prove that yonder poor devil now lying under sentence of death had no more to do with the tragic end of my first wife than either of you."
"God bless my soul!" ejaculated Ormsby.
"Drelincourt, you astound me," exclaimed Sir John. "Are we really to understand that you are in a position to prove Gumley's innocence?"
"I think what I said was clearly to that effect."
"In that case, the question naturally follows: If you are prepared to prove Gumley's innocence, are you, further, in a position to bring the real criminal's guilt home to him?"
"I am."
Mr. Ormsby's lips moved, but no sound came from them.
"You astonish me more and more," responded Sir John. "It is a fortunate thing that Ormsby and I took it into our heads to call upon you."
"Had you not done so, I should have called upon you, Sir John, a little later in the day."
"With the view of conveying to me the same information that you have just now imparted?"
"With that view."
"Then you had made up your mind before seeing us today to reveal what you know?"
"Undoubtedly."
"Of course, our meeting here today is altogether informal andex officio; still, if I gather your intention aright, you will be prepared at another time and place--say tomorrow, at Sunbridge court house--to substantiate on oath what you have just told us?"
"Most assuredly I shall."
"Perhaps you would prefer not to reveal the name of the real criminal till the whole affair can be officially investigated?"
Drelincourt did not answer for a moment or two. "Why wait till tomorrow?" he asked himself. "The time for further concealment is at an end." Then aloud: "Gentlemen, you see the real criminal, as you term him, before you!"
Both the others started to their feet, and stared at him with an amazement which for a little while bereft them of speech.
"God bless my soul!" gasped Ormsby at length, for the second time.
"You! Oh, Drelincourt!" exclaimed Sir John, in a voice broken by emotion.
"Yes, I, and I alone, am the man." He spoke in passionless, almost frigid tones, and as the words left his lips he, too, rose to his feet.
"Drelincourt, never in the whole course of my life have I been shocked as you have just shocked me," said the baronet. "I am utterly at a loss for words. I--I know not what to say." His agitation and distress were unmistakable.
"Then say nothing, Sir John, that will be the wisest course. Yes, I, and I alone, am the man," Drelincourt repeated. "But this I must add in self-justification--so far as such a deed is open to justification--that what I did was done when I could hardly be said to be answerable for my actions. From my youth I have been addicted to occasionally walking in my sleep, and it was in a fit of somnambulism that I killed my wife."
The baronet's face brightened. "Have you any witnesses to prove that such was the case?" he eagerly asked.
"Not one," replied Drelincourt, with a shrug. "As you may perhaps remember, my temporary quarters at the time were at a little shanty of mine called the Cot?" Sir John nodded assent. "On the fatal morning I rose in my sleep, dressed myself in my sleep, and, still asleep, I walked from the Cot to the Towers. But no eye saw me enter the house--which I did through a side door by means of my master key--no eye saw me do the deed, and no eye saw me quit the house after it was done."
"And no judge and jury would credit such a cock and bull story for one moment," broke in Ormsby, with a brutal laugh.
"For once, Ormsby, you and I are fully agreed," answered Drelincourt, with a thin smile. Then, turning again to the baronet: "And now, Sir John, I must ask you to allow me to have a quarter of an hour alone with my wife, after which I shall be entirely at your disposal."
"Does she--does Mrs. Drelincourt know of this?"
"With her the suspicion of such a thing is as far removed as Heaven is from hell."
"Poor lady! Poor unhappy lady!"
The words smote Drelincourt as an ice cold wind might have done. A shiver went through him from head to foot.
Ormsby could no longer contain himself. "So, then, we have got the truth at last!" he burst out, a dull gleam of vindictive malice lighting up his little white lashed eyes. "At last the foul mystery which shrouded my poor sister's fate is dispelled, and the man who, in cold blood--for I tell you plainly that I attach not the slightest credit to your sleep walking rigmarole--slew the innocent being he had sworn to love and cherish through life stands revealed to the world as the miscreant he really is!"
"Ormsby--for God's sake----" broke in Sir John.
But Ormsby went on without heeding him.
"For twenty years my sister's blood has cried aloud for vengeance, but, thank Heaven, it has not cried in vain! For twenty years the gallows has been waiting, and at length it shall be satisfied. The day you are hung, Drelincourt, shall be kept by me and mine as a holiday and festival, and so shall every anniversary of it be kept as long as I live."
Drelincourt fixed him with two glittering eyes, but did not speak. He was standing with his back to the center table, and resting both hands upon it. It was a favorite attitude of his.
Again Sir John felt compelled to protest.
"Ormsby, I will not listen to this sort of thing any longer. It is shameful--shameful!"
But the other had not done yet. He was determined to have his say out at every cost. The concentrated venom of years had at length found an outlet.
"Somnambulism, indeed!" he sneered. "Tell that to the marines. Now we can understand why, twenty years ago, you were so anxious that Gumley should go scot free, and why you lied about the locket; for I have no doubt it was a lie. Now----"
"Stop!" broke in Drelincourt, with uplifted right hand. "That is a point about which I have something to say. Knowing Gumley to be innocent of my wife's death, I did my best at the time to secure his acquittal; but bear in mind this--that had the verdict gone against him, I should most assuredly have given myself up then as I am giving myself up today. From the first I swore that, whatever else I might be guilty of, his death should not be laid to my charge. Sir John, a few moments, if you please."
Out of the library there opened a much smaller room, where most of Roden Marsh's work was done. Towards this Drelincourt now led the way.
"What can he have to say to Sir John that he doesn't want me to hear?" asked Ormsby of himself, as he stood staring after the others with a mingled expression of curiosity and distrust. "After all, what does it matter? It's enough for me that, of his own accord, Drelincourt has put the hangman's rope round his neck. Now that he has confessed, what a blind fool I feel myself to have been not to have suspected the truth long ago. A score of things occur to me, any one of which ought to have sufficed to give me an inkling of it. And yet, not even his wife has the ghost of a suspicion--or so he says! Then let me be the first to enlighten her! A score of years ago his hand stabbed my sister to the heart; but there are more ways of stabbing a person to the heart than one."
A slow, cruel smile crept over his face. He nodded his head twice, as if in approval of what he had decided upon. Then, seating himself at the writing table, and having sought for and found the requisite materials, for the next three or four minutes he wrote busily. When he had done, he inclosed what he had written in an envelope, addressed the latter, and rang the bell.
"Give this into Mrs. Drelincourt's own hands--and as soon as possible," he said to Wicks, as he handed him the letter.
"Ah-ha I my dear Drelincourt, that will serve to go part way in payment of the thousand and one sneers with which you have favored me at various times," he muttered, rubbing his hands gleefully as he rose from the table: "Let those laugh who win! The chance won't be given him of indulging in them much longer. No doubt he will favor the hangman with one of his most cynical smiles as that functionary adjusts the rope, and will say to him in those bland tones of his, which always seem to veil a sneer, 'My good friend, I hope you won't bungle this simple little affair.' The fellow has the cool effrontery of the Foul Fiend himself."
"You may rely upon me, Drelincourt. Everything shall be carried out as you wish." It was Sir John who was speaking, as the two men came back from the inner room.
Ormsby's face darkened. "If Sir John chooses to forget that this man is a criminal, I don't," he said to himself. Then, aloud: "Ahem! I presume you are now prepared, Sir John, to make out and sign a warrant for the committal of Mr. Drelincourt to Sunbridge jail, on the charge of which he has just admitted himself to be guilty!"
"I can't, Ormsby--I can't. I couldn't put pen to paper just now to save my life," replied the kind hearted baronet, whose distress at the position in which circumstances had placed him was self-evident. "Besides, where's the need for a warrant? Drelincourt is giving himself up voluntarily, and--and the charge against him can be taken down at the proper time and place."
"Just as you please, of course. Then, if you have no objection, I will ring for Draycot and give him the requisite instructions and have him carry them out now."
"Ormsby, one moment," said Drelincourt. "I have a few words to say to you on a topic which it is my wish never to have to refer to again. It is in reference to your sister's death. Seeing that I have never attempted to cozen my conscience by putting forward any plea of justification for what I did, other than that it was done while I was asleep, it is not likely that at this time of day I should care to urge anything in extenuation of it, either to you or to any one. Still, I think it well that you should be told, although to no one else will the fact ever pass my lips, that your sister won me for her husband by an act of treachery so base and heartless that I will spare you the pain of listening to any of its details. Believe me or not, as you please, but such is the simple truth. And now, Sir John, with your permission, I will say a few words to my wife, after which I shall be wholly at your disposal. I do not doubt but that you will allow me such a privilege."
He bowed gravely to both gentlemen, then turned and went. As he shut the door behind him and walked into the room a deep sigh welled up from his heart.
"And now for the bitterest ordeal of all!" he murmured under his breath.
"Our business here is at an end, and the sooner we get away the better," remarked Sir John to Ormsby.
"So say I. But it will be requisite to see Draycot for a minute before we go, as he must now take upon himself the responsibility of looking after Drelincourt. I suppose he will prefer being driven into Sunbridge in his brougham. Well, there's no harm in that. It's the last time he will ride in it."
Sir John was already at the door. As Ormsby followed him out, he said to himself, half aloud: "Thank Heaven that I have lived to see this day. At last, my poor Kitty, at last you are avenged!"