It happened in this way. I took Dick Parmiter with me and sailed across to St. Helen's. We beached the boat on the sand near to the well and quarantine hut, and climbed up eastwards till we came to the hole which Glen's party had dug. The ground sloped away from the church in this direction; and as I stood on the edge of the hole with my face towards the side of the aisle, I could just see over the grass the broken cusp of the window. It was exactly opposite to me.
It occurred to me, however, that Glen had measured the distance wrong. So I sent Dick in the boat across to Tresco to borrow a measure, and while he was away I examined the ground there around; but it was all covered with grass and bracken, which evidently had not been disturbed. Here and there were bushes of brambles, but, as I was at pains to discover, no search for the cross had been made beneath them.
In the midst of my search Dick came back to me with a tape measure, and we set to work from the window of the church. The measure was for a few yards, so that when we had run it out to its full length, keeping ever in the straight line, it was necessary to fix some sort of mark in the ground, and start afresh from that; and for a mark I used a big iron key which I had in my pocket. Three chains brought us exactly to the hole which had been dug, and holding the key in my hand, I said:
"They made no mistake. It is plain the plan was carelessly drawn."
And Dick said to me: "That's the key of our cottage."
I handed it to him to make sure. He turned it over in his hand.
"Yes," said he, "that's the key;" and he added reproachfully, with no doubt a lively recollection of his mother's objurgations: "So you had it all the time."
"I found it this morning, Dick," said I.
"Where?"
"In the shed on the Castle Down. Now, how the deuce did it get there? The dead sailormen had no use for keys."
"It's very curious," said Dick.
"Very curious and freakish," said I, and I sat down on the grass to think the matter out.
"Let me see, your mother missed it in the morning after I came to Tresco."
"That's three days ago." And I could hardly believe the boy. It seemed to me that months had passed. But he was right.
"Yes, three days ago. Your mother missed it in the morning. It is likely, then, that it was taken from the lock of the door the night before."
"That would be the night," said Dick, suspiciously, "when you tapped on my window."
"The night, in fact, when I first landed on Tresco. Wait a little."
Dick sat still upon the grass, and I took the key from his hand into mine. There were many questions which at that moment perplexed me--that hideous experience in Cullen Mayle's bedroom, the rifling of Adam Mayle's grave, the replacing of the plan in it and the disappearance of the cross, and I was in that state of mind when everything new and at all strange presented itself as a possible clue to the mystery. It seemed to me that the key which I held was very much more than a mere rusty iron key of a door that was never locked. I felt that it was the key to the door of the mystery which baffled me, and that feeling increased in me into a solid conviction as I held it in my hand. I seemed to see the door opening, and opening very slowly. The chamber beyond the door was dark, but my eyes would grow accustomed to the darkness if only I did not turn them aside. As it was, even now I began to see dim, shadowy things which, uncomprehended though they were, struck something of a thrill into my blood, and something of a chill, too.
"The night that I landed upon Tresco," I said, "we crossed the Castle Down, I nearly fell on to the roof of the shed, where all the dead sailormen were screeching in unison."
"Yes!" said Dick, in a low voice, and I too looked around me to see that we were not overheard. Dick moved a little nearer to me with an uneasy working of his shoulders.
"Do you remember the woman who passed us?" I asked.
"You said it was a woman."
"And it was."
I had the best of reasons to be positive upon that point. I had scratched my hand in the gorse and I had seen the blood of my scratches the next day on the dress of the woman who had brushed against me as she passed. That woman was Helen Mayle. Had she come from the shed? What did she need with the key?
"Is that shed ever used?" I asked.
"Not now."
"Whom does it belong to?"
He nodded over towards Merchant's Rock.
"Then Adam Mayle used it?"
"Cullen Mayle used it."
"Cullen!"
I sprang up to my feet and walked away; and walked back; and walked away again. The shadowy things were indeed becoming visible; my eyes were growing indeed accustomed to the darkness; and, indeed, the door was opening. Should I close, slam it to, lock it again and never open it? For I was afraid.
But if I did shut it and lock it I should come back to it perpetually, I should be perpetually fingering the lock. No; I would open the door wide and see what was within the room. I came back to Dick.
"What did Cullen Mayle use it for?"
"He was in league with the Brittany smugglers. Brandy, wine, and lace were landed on the beach of a night and carried up to the shed."
"Were they safe there?"
Dick laughed. Here he was upon firm ground, and he answered with some pride:
"When Cullen Mayle lived here, the collector of customs daren't for his life have landed on Tresco in daylight."
"And at night the dead sailormen kept watch."
"There wasn't a man who would go near the shed."
"So Cullen Mayle would not have needed a key to lock the shed?"
"No, indeed!" and another laugh.
"Could he have needed a key for any other purpose? Dick, we will go slowly, very slowly," and I sat for some while hesitating with a great fear very cold at my heart. That door was opening fast. Should I push it open, wide? With one bold thrust of the hand I could do it--if I would. But should I see clearly into the room--so clearly that I could not mistake a single thing I saw. No, I would go on, gently forcing the door back, and all the while accustoming my vision to the gloom.
"Has that shed been used since Cullen Mayle was driven away?"
"No."
"You are certain? Oh, be certain, very certain, before you speak."
Dick looked at me in surprise, as well he might; for I have no doubt my voice betrayed something of the fear and pain I felt.
"I am certain."
"Well, then, have you, has any one heard these dead sailormen making merry--God save the mark--since that shed has been disused?"
Dick thought with considerable effort before he answered. But it did not matter; I was certain what his answer would be.
"I have never heard them," he said.
"Nor have met others who have?"
"No," said he, after a second deliberation, "I don't remember any one who has."
"From the time Cullen Mayle left Tresco to the night when we crossed the Down to Merchant's Rock? There's one thing more. Cullen was in league with the Brittany smugglers. He would be in league, then, with smugglers from Penzance, who would put him over to Tresco secretly, if he needed it?"
"He was very good friends with all smugglers," said Dick.
"Then," said I, rising from the ground, "we will sail back, Dick, to Tresco, and have another look into that shed."
I made him steer the boat eastwards and land behind the point of the old Grimsby Harbour, on which the Block House stands, and out of sight of Merchant's Point. It was not that I did not wish to be seen by any one in that house. But--but--well, I did not wish at that moment to land near it--to land where a voice now grown familiar might call to me.
From the Block House we struck up through Dolphin Town on to the empty hill, and so came to the shed. I pushed open the door and went in. Dick followed me timidly.
The floor was of stone. I had been thinking of that as we sailed across from St. Helen's. I had been thinking, too, that when I was carried into the inner room the door of the partition was jambed against the floor, that Roper had kicked it open, and that, as it yielded, I had heard some iron thing spring from beneath it and jingle across the floor. That iron thing was, undoubtedly, the key which I held in my hand.
I placed it again under the door. There was a fairly strong wind blowing. I told Dick to set the outer door wide open to the wind, which he did. And immediately the inner door began to swing backwards and forwards in the draught. But it dragged the key with it, and it dragged the key over the stone floor. The shed was filled with a harsh, shrill, rasping sound, which set one's fingernails on edge. I set my hand to the door and swung it more quickly backwards and forwards. The harsh sound rose to a hideous inhuman grating screech.
"There are your dead sailormen, Dick," said I. "It was Cullen Mayle who took the key from your door on the night I landed on Tresco--Cullen Mayle, who had my horse to carry him on the road and smuggler friends at Penzance to carry him over the sea. It was Cullen Mayle who was in this shed that night, and used his old trick to scare people from his hiding-place. It was Cullen Mayle who was first in the Abbey burial ground. No doubt Cullen Mayle has that cross. And it was Cullen Mayle whom the woman---- But, there, enough."
The door was wide open now, and this key had opened it. I could see everything clearly. My eyes were, indeed, now accustomed to the gloom--so accustomed that, as I stepped from the shed, all the sunlight seemed struck out of the world.
It was all clear. Helen Mayle had come up to the shed that night. She had told Cullen of the stick in the coffin--yes, she must have done that. She told him of the men who watched. What more had passed between them I could not guess, but she had come back with despair in her heart, and, in the strength of her despair, had walked late at night into his room--with that silk noose in her hand.
That she loved him--that was evident. But why could she not have been frank with me? Cullen had spoken with her, had been warned by her, had left the island since. Why had she kept up this pretence of anxiety on his account, of fear that he was in distress, of dread lest he return unwitting of his peril and fall into Glen's hand? Clutterbuck's word "duplicity" came stinging back to me.
I sent Dick away to sail the boat back to Merchant's Point, and lay for a long while on the open hillside, while the sun sank and evening came. It was only yesterday that she had played in her garden upon the violin. I had felt that I knew her really for the first time as she sat with her pale face gleaming purely through the darkness. Why could she not have been frank to me? The question assailed me; I cried it out. Surely there was some answer, an answer which would preserve my picture of her in her tangled garden, untarnished within my memories. Surely, surely! And how could such deep love mate with duplicity?
I put the scarf into my pocket, and crossed the hill again and came down to Merchant's Point. I could not make up my mind to go in. How could I speak of that night when I slept in Cullen Mayle's bedroom? I lay now upon the gorse watching the bright windows. Now I went down to the sea and its kindly murmurings. And at last, about ten o'clock of the night, a white figure came slowly from the porch and stood beside me.
"You have been here--how long?--I have watched you," she said very gently. "What is it? Why didn't you come in?"
I took both her hands in mine and looked into her eyes.
"Will you be frank with me if I do?"
"Why, yes," she said, and her face was all wonder and all concern. "You hurt me--no, not your hands, but your distrust."
We went into the house, but no farther than the hall. For the moment we were come there she placed herself in front of me. I remember that the door of the house was never shut, and through the opening I could see a shoulder of the hill and the stars above it, and hear the long roar of the waves upon the beach.
"We are good friends, I hope, you and I," she said. "Plain speech is the privilege of such friendship. Speak, then, as though you were speaking to a man. Wherein have I not been frank with you?"
There must be, I thought, some explanation which would free her from all suspicion of deceit. Else, how could she speak with so earnest a tongue or look with eyes so steady?
"As man to man, then," I answered, "I am grieved I was not told that Cullen Mayle had come secretly to Tresco and had thence escaped."
"Cullen!" she said, in a wondering voice. "He was on Tresco! Where?"
I constrained myself to answer patiently.
"In the Abbey grounds, on St. Helen's Island, and--" I paused, thinking, nay hoping, that even at this eleventh hour she would speak, she would explain. But she kept silence, nor did her eyes ever waver from my face.
--"And," I continued, "on Castle Down."
"There!" she exclaimed, and added, thoughtfully, "Yes, there he would be safe. But when was Cullen upon Tresco? When?"
So the deception was to be kept up.
"On the night," I answered, "when I first came to Merchant's Point."
She looked at me for a little without a word, and I could imagine that it was difficult for her to hit upon an opportune rejoinder. There was one question, however, which might defer her acknowledgments of her concealments, and, to be sure, she asked it:
"How do you know that?" and before I could answer, she added another, which astonished me by its assurance. "When did you find out?"
I told her, I trust with patience, of the key and the various steps by which I had found out. "And as to when," I said, "it was this afternoon."
At that she gave a startled cry, and held out a trembling hand towards me.
"Had you known," she cried, "had you known only yesterday that Cullen had come and had safely got him back, you would have been spared all you went through last night!"
"What I went through last night!" I exclaimed, passionately. "Oh, that is of small account to me, and I beg you not to suffer it to trouble your peace. But--I do not say had I known yesterday, I say had I beentoldyesterday--I should have been spared a very bitter disappointment."
"I do not understand," she said, and again she put out her hand towards me and drew it in and stretched it out again with an appearance of distress to which even at that moment I felt myself softening. However, I took no heed of the hand. "In some way you blame me, but I do not understand."
"You would, perhaps, find it easier to understand if you were at the pains to remember that on the night I landed upon Tresco, I came over Castle Down and past the shed to Merchant's Point."
"Well?" and she spoke with more coldness, as though her pride made her stubborn in defiance. No doubt she was unaware that I was close to her that night. It remained for me to reveal that, and God knows I did it with no sense of triumph, but only a great sadness.
"As I stood in the darkness a little this side of the shed, a girl hurried down the hill from it. She was dressed in white, so that I could make no mistake. On the other hand, my dark coat very likely made me difficult to see. The girl passed me, and so closely that her frock brushed against my hand. Now, can you name the girl?"
She looked at me with the same stubbornness.
"No," she said, "I cannot."
"On the other hand," said I, "I can. One circumstance enables me to be certain. I slipped on the grass that night, and catching hold of a bush of gorse pricked my hand."
"Yes, I remember that."
"I pricked my hand a minute or two before the girl passed me. As I say, she brushed against my hand, which was bleeding, and the next day I saw the blood smirched upon a white frock--and who wore it, do you think?"
"I did," she answered.
"Ah! Then you own it. You will own too that I have some cause of discontentment in that you have played with me, whose one thought was to serve you like an honest gentleman."
And at that the stubbornness, the growing resentment at my questions, died clean out of her face.
"You would have!" she cried eagerly. "You would indeed have cause for more than discontent had I played with you. But you do not mean that. You cannot think that I would use any trickeries with you. Oh! take back your words! For indeed they hurt me. You are mistaken here. I wore the frock, but it was not I who was on Castle Down that night. It was not I who brushed past you----"
"And the stain?" I asked.
"How it came there I do not know," she said. "But this I do know,--it was not your hand that marked it. I never knew that Cullen was on Tresco. I never saw him, much less spoke to him. You will believe that? No! Why should I have kept it secret if I had?" and her head drooped as she saw that still I did not believe.
There was silence between us. She stood without changing her attitude, her head bent, her hands nervously clasping and unclasping. The wind came through the open door into the hall. Once in the silence Helen caught her breath; it was as though she checked a sob; and gradually a thought came into my mind which would serve to explain her silence--which would, perhaps, justify it--which, at all events, made of it a mistaken act of kindness. So I spoke with all gentleness--and with a little remorse, too, for the harshness I had shown:
"You said we were good friends, you hoped; and, for my part, I can say that the words were aptly chosen. I am your friend--your goodfriend. You will understand? I want you also to understand that it was not even so much as friendship which brought me down to Tresco. It was Dick's sturdy example, it was my utter weariness, and some spark of shame Dick kindled in me. I was living, though upon my soullivingis not the word, in one tiresome monotony of disgraceful days. I had made my fortune, and in the making had somehow unlearnt how fitly to enjoy it."
"But this I know," interrupted Helen, now lifting her face to me.
"I never told you."
"But my violin told me. Do you remember? I wanted to know you through and through, to the heart's core. So I took my violin and played to you in the garden. And your face spoke in answer. So I knew you."
It was strange. This confession she made with a blush and a great deal of confusion--a confession of a trick if you will, but a trick to which no one could object, by which anyone might be flattered. But that other more serious duplicity she could deny with an unwavering assurance!
"You know then," I went on. "It makes it easier for me. I want you to understand then that it was to serve myself I came, and I do verily believe that I have served myself better than I have served you. Why, I did not even know what you were like. I did not inquire of Clutterbuck, he drew no picture of you to persuade me to my journey. Thus then there is no reason why you should be silent concerning Cullen out of any consideration for me."
She looked at me in perplexity. My hint had not sufficed. I must make myself more clear.
"I have no doubt," I continued, "that you have seen. No doubt I might have been more circumspect. No doubt I have betrayed myself this last day. But, believe me, you are under no debt to me. If I can bring Cullen Mayle back to you, I will not harbour a thought of jealousy."
Did she understand? I could not be sure. But I saw her whole face brighten and smile--it was as though a glory shone upon it--and her figure straighten with a sort of pride. Did she understand at the last that she need practise no concealments? But she said nothing, she waited for me to say what more I had to say. Well, I could make the matter yet more plain.
"Besides," I said, "I knew--I knew very well before I set out from London, Clutterbuck told me. So that it is my own fault, you see, if when I came here I took no account of what he told me. And even so, believe me, I do not regret the fault."
"Lieutenant Clutterbuck!" she exclaimed, with something almost of alarm. "He told you what?"
"He told me of a night very like this. You were standing in this hall, very likely as you stand now, and the door was open and the breeze and the sound of the sea came through the open door as it does now. Only where I stand Cullen Mayle stood, asking you to follow him out through the world. And you would have followed, you did indeed begin to follow----"
So far I had got when she broke in passionately, with her eyes afire!
"It is not true! How can men speak such lies? Lieutenant Clutterbuck! I know--he told me the same story. It would have been much easier, so much franker, had he said outright he was tired of his--friendship for me and wished an end to it. I should have liked him the better had he been so frank. But that he should tell you the same story. Oh! it is despicable--and you believe it?" she challenged me. "You believe that story. You believe, too, I went to a trysting with Cullen on Castle Down, the night you came, and kept it secret from you and let you run the peril of your life. You will have it, in a word, whatever I may say or do," and she wrung her hands with a queer helplessness. "You will have it that I love him. Pity, a sense of injustice, a feeling that I wrongly possess what is rightly his--these things you will not allow can move me. No, I must love him."
"Have I not proof you do?" I answered. "Not from Clutterbuck, but from yourself. Have I not proof into what despair your love could throw you?" And I took from my pocket the silk scarf. "Where did I get this?"
She took it from my hands, while her face softened. She drew it through her fingers, and a smile parted her lips. She raised her eyes to me with a certain shyness, and she answered shyly:
"Yet you say you were not curious to know anything of me in London before you started to the West."
The answer was no answer at all. I repeated my question:
"How do I come to have that scarf?"
"I can but guess," she said; "I did not know that Lieutenant Clutterbuck possessed it. But it could be no one else. You asked it of Lieutenant Clutterbuck in London."
For a moment I could not believe that I had heard a right. I stared at her. It was impossible that any woman could carry effrontery to so high a pitch. But she repeated her words.
"Lieutenant Clutterbuck gave it to you no doubt in London, and--will you tell me?--I should like to know. Did you ask him for it?"
Should I strip away this pretence? Should I compel her to own where I found it and how I came by it? But it seemed not worth while. I turned on my heel without a word, and went straight out through the open door and on to the hillside.
And so this was the second night which I spent in the gorse of Castle Down. One moment I was hot to go back to London and speak to no woman for the rest of my days. The next I was all for finding Cullen Mayle and heaping coals of fire upon Helen's head. The coals of fire carried the day in the end.
As morning broke I walked down to the Palace Inn fully resolved. I would search for Cullen Mayle until I found him. I would bring him back. I would see him married to Helen from a dark corner in St. Mary's Church, and when the pair were properly unhappy and miserable, as they would undoubtedly become--I was very sorry, but miserable they would be--why then I would send her a letter. The writing in the letter should be "Ha! ha!"--not a word more, not even a signature, but just "Ha! ha!" on a blank sheet of paper.
But, as I have said, I had grown very young these last few days.
The search was entirely unsuccessful. Through the months of November and December I travelled hither and thither, but I had no hint as to Cullen Mayle's whereabouts; and towards the end of the year I took passage in a barque bound for St. Mary's, where I landed the day before Christmas and about the fall of the dusk. It was my intention to cross over that night to Tresco and report my ill-success, which I was resolved to do with a deal of stateliness. I was also curious to know whether Peter Tortue was still upon the island.
But as I walked along the street of Hugh Town to the "Dolphin" Inn, by the Customs House, a band of women dancing and shouting, with voices extraordinarily hoarse, swept round the corner. I fell plump amongst them, and discovered they were men masquerading as women. Moreover, they stopped me, and were for believing that I was a woman masquerading as a man; and, indeed, when they had let me go I did come upon a party of girls dressed up for sea captains and the like, who swaggered, counterfeiting a manly walk, and drawing their hangers upon one another with a great show of spirit.
The reason of these transformations was explained to me at the "Dolphin." It seems that they call this sort of amusement "a goose-dancing," and the young people exercise it in these islands at Christmas time. I was told that it would be impossible for me to hire a boatman to put me over to Tresco that night; so I made the best of the matter, and to pass the time stepped out again into the street, which was now lighted up with many torches and crowded with masqueraders. They went dancing and singing from house to house; the women paid their addresses with an exaggeration of courtly manners to the men, who, dressed in the most uncouth garments that could be devised, received them with a droll shyness and modesty, and altogether, what with liquor and music, the festival went with a deal of noise and spirit. But in the midst of it one of these false women, with a great bonnet pulled forward over her face, clapped a hand upon my shoulder and said in my ear:
"Mr. Berkeley, I hope you have been holding better putt cards of late;" and would have run on, but I caught him by the arm.
"Mr. Featherstone," said I, "you stole my horse; I have a word to say to you."
"I have not the time to listen," said he, wrenching his arm free as he flung himself into the thick of the crowd. I kept close upon his heels, however, which he perceived, and drawing into a corner he suddenly turned round upon me.
"Your horse is dead," said he. "I very much regret it; but I will pay you, for I have but now come into an inheritance. I will pay you for it to-morrow."
"I did not follow you to speak of the horse, or to Mr. Featherstone at all, but to Mr. Cullen Mayle."
"You know me?" he exclaimed, looking about him lest the name should have been overheard.
"And have news for you," I added. "Will you follow me to the 'Dolphin?'"
I went back to the inn, secured from my host a room where we could be private, and went out to the door. Cullen Mayle was waiting; he followed me quickly in, hiding his face so that no one could recognise him, and when the door was shut--
"How in the world did you come to know of my name?" said he. "I cannot think, but I shall be obliged if you will keep it secret for a day or so, for I am not sure but what I may have some inconvenient friends among these islands."
"Those inconvenient friends are all gone but one," said I.
"You know that too," he exclaimed. "Indeed, Mr. Berkeley, you seem to be very well acquainted with my affairs; but I cannot regret it, since you give me such comforting news. Only one of my inconvenient friends left! Why, I am a match for one--I think I may say so without vaunting--so it seems I can come to Tresco and take up my inheritance."
With that he began briskly to unhook the cotton dress which he had put on over his ordinary clothes.
"Inheritance!" said I. "You mentioned the word before. I do not understand."
"Oh," said he, "it is a long story and a melancholy. My father drove me from the house, and bequeathed his fortune to an adopted daughter."
"Yes," said I quickly, "I know that too."
"Indeed!" and he stopped his toilette to stare at me. "Perhaps you are aware then that Helen Mayle, conscious of my father's injustice, bequeathed it again to me."
"Yes, but--but--you spoke of an immediate inheritance."
"Ah," said he, coolly, "there is something, then, I can inform you of. Helen Mayle is dead."
"What's that?" I cried, and started to my feet. I did not understand. I was like a man struck by a bullet, aware dimly that some hurt has come to him, but not yet conscious of the pain, not yet sensible of the wound.
"Hush!" said Cullen Mayle, and untying a string at his waist he let his dress fall about his feet. "It is most sad. Not for the world would I have come into this inheritance at such a cost. You knew Helen Mayle, perhaps?" he asked, with a shrewd glance at me. "A girl very staunch, very true, who would never forget afriend." He emphasised that word "friend" and made it of a greater significance. "Indeed, I am not sure, but I must think it was because she could not forget a--friend that, alas! she died."
I was standing stupefied. I heard the words he spoke, but gave them at this moment no meaning. I was trying to understand the one all-important fact.
"Dead!" I babbled. "Helen Mayle--dead!"
"Yes, and in the strangest, pitiful way. I cannot think of it, without the tears come into my eyes. The news came to me but lately, and you will perhaps excuse me on that account." His voice broke as he spoke; there were tears, too, in his eyes. I wondered, in a dull way, whether after all he had really cared for her. "But how comes it that you knew her?" he asked.
I sat down upon a chair and told him--of Dick Parmiter's coming to London, of my journey into the West. I told him how I had come to recognise him at the inn; and as I spoke the comprehension of Helen's death crept slowly into my mind, so that I came to a stop and could speak no more.
"You were on your way to Tresco," said he, "when we first met. Then you know that she is dead?"
"No," I answered. "When did she die?"
"On the sixth of October," said he.
I do not think that I should have paid great heed to his words, but something in his voice--an accent of alarm--roused me. I lifted my eyes and saw that he was watching me with a singular intentness.
"The sixth of October," I repeated vaguely, and then I broke into a laugh, so harsh and hysterical that it seemed quite another voice than mine. "Your news is false," I cried; "she is not dead! Why, I did not leave Tresco till the end of October, and she was alive then and no sign of any malady. The sixth of October! No, indeed, she did not die upon that day."
"Are you sure?" he exclaimed.
"Sure?" said I. "I have the best of reasons to be sure; for it was on the sixth of October that I first set foot in Tresco," and at once Cullen Mayle sprang up and shook me by the hand.
"Here is the bravest news," he said. His whole face was alight; he could not leave hold of my hand. "Mr. Berkeley, I may thank God that I spoke to you to-night. 'Helen!'"--and he lingered upon the name. "Upon my word, it would take little more to unman me. So you landed on the sixth of October. But are you sure of the date?" he asked with earnestness. "I borrowed your horse but a few days before. You would hardly have travelled so quickly."
"I travelled by sea with a fair wind," said I. "It was the sixth of October. Could I forget it? Why, that very night I crossed Castle Down to Merchant's Point; that very night I entered the house. Dick Parmiter showed me a way. I crept into the house, and slept in your bedroom----"
I had spoken so far without a notion of the disclosure to which my words were leading me. I was not looking at Cullen Mayle, but on to the ground, else very likely I might have read it upon his face. But now in an instant the truth of the matter was clear to me. For as I said, "I slept in your bedroom," he uttered one loud cry, leapt to his feet, and stood over against me, very still and quiet. I had sufficient wit not to raise my head and betray this new piece of knowledge. That sad and pitiful death on the sixth of October, of which he had heard with so deep a pain--he had never heard it, he hadplannedit, and the plan miscarried. He knew why, now, and so was standing in front of me very still and quiet. He had seen Helen that night on Castle Down; there, no doubt, she had told him how in her will she had disposed of her inheritance; and he had persuaded her, working on her generosity--with what prepared speeches of despair!--to that strange, dark act which it had been my good fortune to interrupt. It was clear to me. The very choice of that room, wherein alone secrecy was possible, made it clear. He had suggested to her the whole cunning plan; and a moment ago I had almost been deceived to believe his expressions of distress sincere!
"I told you I was nearly unmanned," I heard him say; "and you see even so I underrated the strength of my relief, so that the mere surprise of your ingenious shift to get a lodging took my breath away."
He resumed his seat, and I, having now composed my face, raised it full to him. I have often wondered since whether, as he stood above me, motionless and silent during those few moments, I was in any danger.
"Yes," said I, "it was no doubt surprising."
This, however, was not the only surprise I was to cause Cullen Mayle that night.
He proposed immediately that we should cross to Tresco together, and on my objecting that we should get no one to carry us over--
"Oh," said he, "I have convenient friends in Scilly as well as inconvenient." He looked out of the window. "The tide is high, and washes the steps at the back of the inn. Do you wait here upon the steps. I will have a boat there in less than half an hour;" and on the word he hooked up his dress again and got him out of the inn.
I waited upon the steps as he bade me. Behind me were the lights and the uproar of the street; in front, the black water and the cool night; and still further, out of sight, the island of Tresco, the purple island of bracken and gorse, resonant with the sea.
In a little I heard a ripple of water, and the boat swam to the steps. I was careful as we sailed across the road to say nothing to Cullen Mayle which would provoke his suspicion. I did not even allow him to see I was aware that he himself had been upon Tresco on the sixth of October. It was not difficult for me to keep silence. For as the water splashed and seethed under the lee of the boat, and Tresco drew nearer, I had to consider what I should do in the light of my new knowledge. It would have been so much easier had only Helen been frank with me.
Tresco dimly loomed up out of the darkness.
"By the way," said Cullen Mayle, who had been silent too, "you said that one of the watchers had remained. It will be George Glen, I suppose."
"No," I answered. "It is a Frenchman, Peter Tortue," and by the mere mention of the name I surprised Cullen Mayle again that evening. It is true that this time he uttered no exclamation, and did not start from his seat. But the boat shot up into the wind and got into irons, as the saying is, so that I knew his hand had left the tiller. But he said nothing until we were opposite to the Blockhouse, and then he asked in a low trembling voice:
"Did you say Peter Tortue?"
"Yes."
There was another interval of silence. Then he put another question and in the same tone of awe:
"A young fellow, less than my years----"
"No. The young fellow's father," said I. "A man of sixty years. I think I should be wary of him."
"Why?"
"He said, 'I am looking, not for the cross, but for a man to nail upon the cross,' and he meant his words, every syllable."
Again we fell to silence, and so crossed the Old Grimsby Harbour and rounded its northern point. The lights of the house were in view at last. They shot out across the darkness in thin lines of light and wavered upon the black water lengthening and shortening with the slight heave of the waves. When they shortened, I wondered whether they beckoned me to the house; when they lengthened out, were they fingers which pointed to us to be gone?
"Since you know so much, Mr. Berkeley," whispered Cullen Mayle, "perhaps you can tell me whether Glen secured the cross."
"No, he failed in that."
"I felt sure he would," said Cullen with a chuckle, and he ran the boat aground, not on the sand before the house but on the bank beneath the garden hedge. We climbed through the hedge; two windows blazed upon the night, and in the room sat Helen Mayle close by the fire, her violin on a table at her side and the bow swinging in her hand. I stepped forward and rapped at the window. She walked across the room and set her face to the pane, shutting out the light from her eyes with her hands. She saw us standing side by side. Instantly she drew down the blinds and came to the door, and over the grass towards us. She came first to me with her hand outstretched.
"It is you," she said gently, and the sound of her voice was wonderful in my ears. I had taken her hand before I was well aware what I did.
"Yes," said I.
"You have come back. I never thought you would. But you have come."
"I have brought back Cullen Mayle," said I, as indifferently as I could, and so dropped her hand. She turned to Cullen then.
"Quick," she said. "You must come in."
We went inside the door.
"It is some years since I trod these flags," said Cullen. "Well, I am glad to come home, though it is only as an outcast; and indeed, Helen, I have not the right even to call it home."
It was as cruel a remark as he could well have made, seeing at what pains the girl had been, and still was, to restore that home to him. That it hurt her I knew very well, for I heard her, in the darkness of the passage, draw in her breath through her clenched teeth. Cullen walked along the passage and through the hall.
"Lock the door," Helen said to me, and I did lock it. "Now drop the bar."
When that was done we walked together into the hall, where she stopped.
"Look at me," she said, "please!" and I obeyed her.
"You have come back," she repeated. "You do not, then, any longer believe that I deceived you?"
"There is a reason why I have come back," I answered. It was a reason which I could not give to her. I was resolved not to suffer her to lie at the mercy of Cullen Mayle. Fortunately, she did not think to ask me to be particular about the reason. But she beat her hands once or twice together, and--
"You still believe it, then!" she cried. "With these two months to search and catch and hold the truth, you still hold me in the same contempt as when you turned your back on me and walked out through that door?"
"No, no!" I exclaimed. "Contempt! That never entered into any thought I ever had of you. Make sure of that!"
"Yet you believe I tricked you. How can you believe that, and yet spare me your contempt!"
"I am no philosopher. It is the truth I tell you," I answered, simply; and the face of Cullen Mayle appeared at the doorway of the parlour, so that no more was said.