He put the candle on the dressing-table, and sat down in front of the glass. He placed one elbow on the table, bent his head low, and catching his hair, softly rested his head on the ball of his hand.
His brows were knit. His eyes, bent on the toilet-cover, were vacant, rayless; they carefully explored the pattern of the cloth. His mind was a blank. It showed nothing. It was as incapable of reflection as the waters of the middle sea battered by the winds beneath the tawny clouds. His reason was not with him, and the machinery of his mind had stopped. There were no ideas in his imagination. His mind floated free in unoccupied space.
For a while he sat thus. Then he raised his head and looked firmly into the glass.
"What has happened to me?" he thought, with his eyes fixed on the eyes in the glass. "A moment ago, when I discovered she still lived, I felt in despair; and now I am calm. What has happened to me?
"What has happened to me?
"Here is the situation:
"The servants think she went to that boat. She knew on such occasions I always took charge of whatever little luggage we required. They have not seen her since luncheon. They believe she was in theRodwell. It is scarcely possible anyone can say she was not in theRodwell; all the people and crew who were on the after-deck are dead. Any one who heard of my visit to Asherton's Quay, or met one of the servants, would regard me as a widower. Iwasa widower at Asherton's Quay. Iwasa widower while I drove up from Asherton's Quay to this. My servants assure me I am a widower.
"To-morrow all Daneford will regard me a widower.
"To-morrow morning Maud Midharst will think of me as a widower—Maud Midharst, who will one day own that chest, which, when opened, will be found to contain the bones of a thief and a suicide, not the fortune of a great heiress.
"To-morrow morning Maud Midharst will think of me as a widower;what will she think of me as—at night?"
Suddenly the fixed expression left his face. A thought that sent the blood tingling through his veins had rushed in upon him.
"Perhaps," he said, breathless, "I am a widower! She may be dead!"
He rose nimbly, and, taking up the candle, once more went into the passage leading to the first-floor room of the Tower of Silence.
He looked carefully round, and then going to the end of the passage further from the tower, closed the two doors and locked the inner one.
He proceeded cautiously back to the door leading into the tower. This was a single door. He held the candle in his left hand, knocked with his right, and bent his ear towards the door.
No reply.
He knocked again, this time more loudly.
Still no reply.
Holding the candle behind him, he bent low and looked into the keyhole.
Undoubtedly there was the end of the shaft of the key shining against his eye.
He paused a while in deep thought; then shaking himself up, knocked more loudly, battering with his clenched fist.
No answer.
He looked at the candle he carried. It was wax, and in his moving to and fro the wax had overflowed the flame-pan and run down the side, making a long thin ridge. He took a piece of pencil from his pocket, stripped off the ridge of wax, softened the wax at the flame, and stuck a lump the size of a pea on the end of the pencil.
Then he heated the free end of the wax, and when it had just begun to run thrust it cautiously into the keyhole, and pressed the wax against the shaft of the key in the lock. He held the pencil steadily thus for a few minutes. With great caution he tried it. All was well. The wax adhered firmly to the end of the pencil and the shaft of the key.
With elaborate care he twisted the pencil slightly one way, then the other. The key moved slowly in the lock. He tried it four or five times right and left, and holding the candle behind him and his eye on a level with the keyhole. At last the hole was completely blocked up by the body of the key. Forcing the pencil in firmly, the key slipped through the hole and fell on the floor within.
He straightened himself, leaned against the wall for a moment, and wiped his forehead. Then drawing his keys out of his pocket, he inserted one in the lock, turned the lock softly, and entered.
As he did so the head of a man disappeared below the window-sill. Grey did not see this head, nor did he at that time know of the man's presence.
The room was one of medium size, but it was dark in colour, and the one candle was almost lost in it, and revealed little or nothing.
Holding the light above his head Grey peered around.
He approached a couch, on which could be dimly seen the prostrate figure of a woman. The figure did not move as he drew near.
He stood over the couch and looked down upon his wife. She was lying on her back. Her mouth was slightly open, and her face very pale. Her eyes, too, were partly open.
He waved the candle across the eyes. No sign of consciousness. He called "Bee" softly two or three times. No answer.
Could it be she was really dead? Really dead after all?
He stooped down and put his ear over her mouth.
No, this was not death. This was—brandy.
He shook her slightly. He caught her by the shoulder and shook her more strongly, calling her name into her ear.
She responded by neither sound nor motion.
Then putting the candle down on the floor he stood up, folded his arms, and reflected intently with his eyes fixed on her.
Not death but brandy, and yet how like death, and how near death! How near death! And still in the interval between this and death lay his ruin, his destruction. A blanket thrown on that face would bridge over the interval between this state and death, and give him a golden road to happiness and glorious prosperity.
His wife! This his wife here, degraded thus! This woman whom he had loved with all the love he had ever given woman! This woman, whom he had married in defiance of his father's wish and all worldly wisdom! Great God, was this to be borne?
She had brought herself nigh death. She was nigh death now. It might be she would never awake. It was quite possible she might never awake. But then the hideous scandal! The coroner's jury found that Mrs. Grey, wife of Henry Walter Grey, Esq., died of excessive drink! Intolerable!
And yet this wretched woman lying here had made such a thing not only possible but probable. Suppose she should never wake, what an unendurable position for him! He could not live through that odious inquest, never survive that degrading verdict. He should throw himself into the Weeslade, or blow out his brains first.
Any time she might get into such a condition and never awake! Great God! this was a view of the case he had never taken until now. He had always had the dread of disclosure before his mind, but now he should have the infinitely more appalling horrors of a coroner's jury and a coroner's verdict. This was insupportable. Abominable!
Any time in the future she might die as she was now. Then no doubt he should be a widower, but a widower under what a terrible shadow! Suppose she should die now, and by any means it should come out that he had deliberately placed the brandy in her way, he had better leave Daneford at once. They would look on him as a murderer.
As a murderer!
They wouldknowhe had put a fatal temptation in his wife's path. The discovery was what he dreaded.
Suppose she never woke again—ah!
Suppose she never got up alive off that couch!
Never got up from where she lay!
That was a royal thought? Now to make all right, all secure. Now! What a royal thought! A thought worthy of the prince regnant of the Nether Depths.
He stooped, took up his candle, and crossed the room with rapid steps. He locked the door of the tower-room, and, having reached his own room, rang the bell.
James answered the bell.
"James," he said, "I cannot rest. I cannot believe this dreadful thing. I wish you and the other servants to search the house thoroughly from garret to cellars. Mind, a room is not to be omitted. When every room has been examined let me know. I have been in the tower."
James left, and for an hour the banker sat alone in his bedroom. At the end of the hour James came back with the report that every room had been examined and no trace found.
"We can do no more, James. I shall want no one to-night. You may all go to bed as soon as you like. Good-night."
Again he was alone. Alone for the night. Alone save for the proximity of his wife in the next room. Alone with his royal idea and the easy means of carrying it out.
He braced himself, and began walking up and down the room firmly.
Yes, this was a golden opportunity, which would have been utterly worthless but that in the mid-centre and at the right moment his great thought had burst in upon him.
It was most likely his wife would never wake. In fact, the chances were in favour of her not waking. It would be almost a miracle if ever she returned to consciousness.
Why should there ever be an inquest?
Supposing she had died in her sleep, it would have done no one any good to hold an inquest.
Then, if she did die in this sleep, what would Maud Midharst regard him as to-morrow night?
As a widower, of course.
And what should he regard himself as?
As a man doubly delivered from a wife who was the slave of an odious vice, and from ruin, disgrace, and suicide.
She was sleeping still, he supposed. He would go and try.
He stole cautiously out into the passage, and, opening the door into the tower-room, crept towards the couch. He did not carry a candle this time. He stumbled over something hard and metallic which he had seen when last in the room. He recovered himself rapidly. He paused, balanced himself on the balls of his feet, leaned forward, and listened intently.
The sound had not roused her.
It was as dark as a vault. A faint blue square, like the bloom under trees in summer, showed the situation of the one window. All the rest was as much out of view as if the solid earth intervened.
He crossed the room and approached the couch, with his head thrust forward, and all the faculties of his mind bent on his hearing; he stooped over the couch and listened, as though he would pierce remotest silence to reach what he sought.
Yes, there was a low, faint sound of breathing, but so low it seemed to come from a long distance.
He knelt down beside the couch, and called softly in her ear, "Bee."
No answer.
"Bee."
No answer.
"Bee."
No answer.
A long pause followed, during which no sound stirred in the intense darkness. The husband still leant over the wife, the wife still breathed faintly.
Then——
In ten minutes from that strange sound Grey was back in his bedroom, standing before the glass with set resolute lips and a rigid white face.
"There need be no inquest," he thought. "There need be no inquestnow. To-morrow morning every one in Daneford will believe that she is dead, and every one will be—right. Her name will be included in the list of the dead, there will be a reference to my broken-hearted behaviour at Asherton's Quay, and there will be expressions of sympathy with me.
"I shall wear mourning.
"What o'clock is it?" He looked at his watch. "Too soon yet. I must wait until all are asleep.
"I shall wear mourning and receive the condolences of my friends. I shall pass through avenues of faces cast in sorrow for my grief. They will hush their voice when I enter the Daneford Bank. They will unanimously vote resolutions of sympathy at most of the public bodies to which I belong. And I—I—how shall I receive their greetings?
"How shall I receive them? Shall I quail and tremble and jabber of to-night's work? Shall I become hysterical or gloomy? No, no, no. I shall be as bold at least as the thief whom they crucified on the Left Hand.
"The oath I took by that bedside this evening was my swearing into the army of the everlasting damned, and no one shall ever say I quailed or I faltered.
"What o'clock is it? Yet too soon. This is all I need be careful about. Once it is there, I shall be free and blithe—free and blithe!
"I shall meet them all and never show a sign. It is a pity I did not go on the stage. I feel quite confident I can play out this part to the end, and carry my audience with me so thoroughly that not one of them will know I am playing a part. No living man shall find out I do not speak my own words. It is only comrade Judas and his friends know who the real author of the play is."
He turned away from the glass and began pacing the room quickly. He was thinking with fierce pride of the brave front he should show to the world, and motion stimulated his mind and gave reality to his mental action.
Yes, he should never waver. In fact he felt stronger now than before. He had lived under the shadow of her fault; now he faced his own crime. All depended on himself, and he knew he was equal to the situation and its contingencies.
He could face them all. All the people of Daneford and Seacliff. Every one of——
He shivered, drew his body together, and leaned for a moment against the wall. The cold sweat oozed from his white forehead, and he gasped for breath. In a while he shook himself, threw up his arms, and wound them round his head, as if to protect himself against the blows of a merciless enemy, and moaned out, in a tone of craven misery:
"No, no! Not you? Go away! I cannot look at you; you must not come near me. I have ceased to be your son. I am not the child you suckled. I am not the son you taught to pray. I am not the man you inspired with respect and love. I am not the son you always tried to make do his duty. Mother, let me call you mother darling once again; to call you my angel, mother, seems to purge me of my crime. I am a strong man, mother, but I cannot look at you. Bee is dead, and I have killed her. Now, will you not fly from me? Think of your son as dead, and fly this murderer. What! you will not! You see the brand of Cain, and you will not go! Oh, invincible love! Intolerable devotion! Supreme disciple of Christ, you drive me mad. I am mad already. Go, woman; go, woman, or I may kill you too."
He dropped his arms from his head, and glared round the room with the fire of madness in his eyes. The neck-ribbon his wife had worn last night at dinner hung on the glass; a pair of her slippers, soft slippers for comfort, were under the dressing-table. His eyes lighted on the ribbon, then on the slippers.
With an idiotic laugh he staggered across the room, and, sitting down on the side of the bed, remained in a torpor for a long time. The last vision conjured up by him had stunned his imagination and baffled his intellect, and his mind, while he sat thus, was blank as the viewless wind.
It was a long time before he roused himself, and even then he had to employ considerable effort to bring himself up to the point of action. He knew he had yet something of the last importance to do. He looked at his watch.
"Eleven. All is quiet. I may safely go now."
He arose, and, taking the candle with him, walked heavily into the passage, and having opened the other door passed into the tower-room, and locked the door of that room, leaving his own key in the lock.
Remembering the second key, he lowered the candle and looked for it on the dark oak floor. He saw it and picked it up. As he did so his eyes caught another metallic glitter on the floor, and stepping towards it he took up something.
Holding the metallic object next the light, he seemed for a moment perplexed.
"What brings a burglar's jemmy here? How can it have come here?"
He looked very cautiously and slowly round the room.
"I did not notice until now," he thought, "those open drawers. Why, the place has been broken into."
His first impulse was to rush to the window. But he curbed that. It would be just as well not to be seen at that window now. Suppose by any chance the burglar happened to be lurking in the neighbourhood, in the Park. No part of the house or grounds commanded this room, and so long as he did not go near the window all would be well.
He had stumbled over that jemmy before—before he had added to the perfidy of Judas the sin of Cain.
He approached the couch. All was quiet there. Not a sound, not a breath.
He went still nearer. Now for the first time he noticed close by the couch an empty decanter, the one into which James had poured brandy, and by it a glass.
He noticed something else too; the left hand of the figure on the couch lay on the breast, and from the third finger all the rings were gone.
"All the rings gone!" he thought, in dismay. "The place broken into and all the rings gone! This room broken into and the rings taken off the finger! She never removed the wedding-ring, and scarcely ever the guard. She must have been asleep when he came in; and he, no doubt, seeing the decanter and the glass, and observing she took no notice of sounds, went about his work. A bold man, a very bold man."
When had that man been there? He had no means of determining the time at which the burglar had been in the room. It was clear, however, he had been there while she was alive.
Had he been there after the sailing of the steamboatRodwellfrom Daneford that evening? If so, that burglar could hang him, Grey.
Out with the candle.
He extinguished it.
A profound quiet brooded abroad. Not a leaf stirred. The trees were as motionless and the air as mute as if the air was solid crystal. No sound from the city or the road intruded upon the voiceless darkness of that tower-room.
Grey stood a while looking at the square of dim blue bloom indicating where the window was. Then he stooped and touched what lay on the couch, and pulled himself upright with a jerk.
He stooped down his head once more, and listened intently. Last time he had so stooped he had heard a low faint breathing. Now nothing reached his ears, but beyond the reach of human ears he heard the deep roll of the Eternal Ocean on the shores of Everlasting Night.
The ocean of everlasting silence, where her voice had been, was more awful than the clangour of war, or the shouts of a burning town.
"It will not do to think now. I must make thought drunk with action. She is not heavy. I have often carri——No, no; that sort of thing would be the worst of all. Now for it!"
He stooped once again, rose more slowly than at any former time, and walked down the room with heavy footfall, carrying a burden.
The room had two doors—one between it and the passage leading to the bedroom; the other between it and the landing of the tower-stairs.
The staircase down from the landing was boarded off, so that egress from the tower-room by that staircase was impossible.
The upward way was unimpeded. The staircase had not been used once for years. There was nothing in either of the upper rooms, and no one had ever been in either of them since Grey himself, when he had gone over the house before buying it.
The staircase was as dark and silent as a grave. A thin carpet of dust deadened the footfalls, and, clinging to the boot-leather, muffled the feet. Now and then his foot crushed a small piece of plaster which had fallen from the ceiling. This made a sound like a wild beast crunching bones.
The paper had parted from the walls in many places, and hung in damp festoons from the ceiling here and there.
Now and then long slimy arms of paper stretched out to him from the walls and held him back. This made him stagger against the balustrade to steady himself. The balustrade upon which he laid his hand was rickety, and covered with a damp spongy dust, that clung to his hand and worked up between his moist fingers, and stuck his fingers together as with blood. When he had got clear of the paper that, hanging from the walls, had seized him, and had pushed himself away from the slimy balustrade, he toiled upward.
But the day had been a terribly exhausting one, and his progress was very slow.
He held his burden with his right arm on his right shoulder, and steadied himself against the wall with his right elbow, against the balustrade with his left hand.
Owing to the inviolate darkness and his small acquaintance with the way, he was obliged to feel carefully with his foot each step before advancing.
He gained the first landing. The darkness was so complete, it pressed with weight upon his eyeballs, and thickened the air in his lungs. He had already begun to breathe heavily, and he paused for breath. Only about a sixth of his upward way had been accomplished, and yet he felt fatigued. The stifling sultry air of the tower made him languid and drowsy.
The sooner this was done, the better.
He recommenced the ascent.
On reaching the next landing, that of the second-floor room, he paused again.
His breathing had by this time become more laboured, and he felt as if his chest would burst. No fresh air had entered that loathsome place for years. In winter the walls wept, the paper hung off, and fungus covered the walls and the woodwork.
In summer the walls dried up, and from the dead fungi rose the stifling vapours exhaled when decay feeds on decay. These odious vapours enriched the walls with new growing powers, and so the process went on. The tower rotted inwardly. Damp came first, and later mildew, and then fungus. The fungus lived its life and finally fell to pieces, yielding inodorous fibre and mephitic spirit. The spirit fed the later growth of fungus.
Here nitre clung in crystals to the walls, and there were incomplete stalagmites under the stone window-sills.
Huge spiders wove gigantic nets from balustrade to wall, from roof to wall, from window-sash to floor. But no flies ever came to these webs, and the spiders spread needless snares, and lived at ease on lesser game.
In summer all the dust upon the floor moved continually with worm and maggot of extraordinary size, and obscene ugliness of form and colour. Neither beetle nor cockroach, earwig nor cricket, found a home here. Nothing moved swiftly, not even the spider, for he found food without pursuit or strife. Here was no contention among individuals. As in all earliest forms of life, nearly everything was done for the individual by heat and moisture. The unseemly inside of that tower was fretting and rotting slowly away, being slowly devoured by the worm and the maggot and the fungus.
Through the warm vapours of that polluted tower the man staggered upward. His breathing had now become stertorous, and beat in the hollow staircase and against the sounding boards furnished by the empty rooms like the snorting of a hunted monster.
The air grew thicker in his lungs, and his heart tingled and throbbed as though it would burst. The arteries in his neck appeared at each beat of his pulse about to jump from their places. His gullet was dry, and the air rushing through his windpipe seemed burdened with sand that tore the skin of his parched throat. The arteries in his temple twanged against the bone with noises that made him giddy. The uproar of strangulation was in his head. His knees were sinking under him, and he felt he should faint or fall down in a fit if he did not do something.
He resolved to shift his burden from the right shoulder to the left.
How heavy! Ugh!
Cold already!
Oh, great God! the lips had touched his forehead, and they were cold! The lips he had a thousand times——
With a howl that made the hollow chambers and the invisible staircase shake, he clasped his burden to his left shoulder and dashed wildly up the stairs.
Now he ran against the wall in front, now against the balustrade. He took a step too many, and plunged headforemost against the wall. He took a step too few, and fell headlong upon a landing.
What was all that to him now? What was all that to him, who had loved her once, her whose cold lips—cold of his own chilling—had touched his forehead as he shifted his murdered darling from one shoulder to another?
Oh, God! the lips he had lingered on lovingly long ago! The lips he had sought with all his soul and won to his own exclusive use! How often had they told his name! How often had they told her love to him, when all else in the world sank into nothingness compared with the august privilege of knowing she loved him! How often when she slept had he heard those lips breathe his name with terms of endearment! And now, oh God!
On! On! There is a clamour of memories worse than demons at his back.
On! Out of this place! Away from these memories!
The roof at last!
The roof, with cool air and a wide view, and—This!
He placed his burden softly on the roof of the tower; then throwing himself down at full length, rolled over on his face, and, putting one forearm under the other, rested his forehead on the upper arm, and, excepting the heavy heaving of his chest, lay still.
The top of the tower was flat. It was reached through a hooded doorway resembling a ship's companion. A parapet about two and a half feet high ran round the tower on all sides, and in the left-hand angle of the parapet, looking towards the grounds in front of the house, stood the tall, battered, dilapidated, rusted tank.
This tank had been of substantial make. Four upright bars of iron still stood showing where the four angles of the elevation of the tank had been. Binding the top of these four uprights together had been a substantial rail. The inner side of that rail had disappeared; the three other sides remained. Half-way down the uprights had been four girders binding the uprights together. Of these girders three were entire, the one on the outside having succumbed to violence of time. A few of the plates clung to the uprights in the upper section of the tank. In the lower section only one plate was missing, and that on the back of the tank. The base of the tank was eight feet square, the height of the uprights ten feet. Once in it had been stored the water-supply. More than fifty years ago it had been superseded by a tank put up in the main building. Since then not a dozen times had any one visited the top of the tower.
That night of the 17th of August was dark; there were neither stars nor moon. No wind had arisen to disturb the intense calm.
At length Grey rose from the ground somewhat refreshed and quieted. There was no use in being foolhardy, and although a person standing on the avenue below could not possibly see a human figure on the top of the tower, still all means caution could suggest ought to be employed. So he stepped into the dilapidated tank through the opening, and having, except on the inner side, a complete bulwark around him five feet high, there was no chance of any one seeing him. He did not care to face yet the descent through that stifling tower.
He would wait a while until he should be fully restored.
He had eaten nothing since luncheon, and the physical and mental ordeals through which he had since passed reduced the activity of his mind, and made his thoughts move slowly, and dimmed the ideas in his imagination. Still in a dull way he sought to review his position.
There to the right lay Daneford, his town, the city of which he was dictator, which would do anything, everything he asked. You could not see the city from this, but there it reposed under that red-yellow stain upon the sky.
The people of that town, if they had seen him take that old man's gold, would not have believed the evidence of their senses. They would have placed their opinion of him against the evidence of their eyes, and his reputation would turn the balance as though nothing was in the other scale. He was sure of that.
To the left was the Island. The old man probably still lived and would live for some time, but the will was now safe. Maud was still unmarried, and he—was free! Free in a double sense: free to marry again, and free from the clutches of the law—so far.
In front of him lay the Manor Park with its stifling groves and alleys, whose lush, rank vegetation and loathsome reptiles and insects kept curious boy and prying man at bay.
By his side stood the Manor House, upon which no green thing would grow, and which had an evil name.
Beneath him was that repulsive tower, up which no one would care to go except upon dire compulsion.
Behind him——
Yes, behind him lay—It.
The question was, Would his reputation in the town, the fact that by noon to-morrow everyone in Daneford would believe he had lost his wife in theRodwell, the unpopular Park, the uncanny house, the foul tower, the parapet, the remains of this tank (perfect five feet from the roof, except for one eighteen-inch plate, which, owing to its position at the back, could not be even missed from any standpoint but the top of the tower itself), keep It from discovery? be an effectual and life-long barrier between detection and crime, so that he might marry and live once more in——? Well, never mind in what. Anyway, might live?
It was a long question. He put it to himself many times, and could arrive at no answer. His reason answered Yes. His imagination answered No; and according as his reason or his imagination dominated he hoped or he despaired.
The hours advanced. It would be well to get this all over and go down. He had locked the door on the passage, and there was no need for fear or hurry. But staying here did no good, and he had now sufficiently recovered to go down.
He stepped out of the tank and approached the burden.
He raised it, and bending low carried it to the tank. There was difficulty in getting it through the narrow opening, but at last all was accomplished.
He stepped out of the tank, and stood on the open part of the top of the tower for a few moments to recover his breath.
"Hah! I am all right now. I shall grope my way down very well; it will not take half so long to go down as it did to come up."
He placed his hand on the hood of the doorway and stooped to descend; he paused and drew back, thinking:
"If I have killed her, that is no reason why I should add brutality to crime. I did not cover her face, and the birds might——"
He crept back to the tank, leaving the thought unfinished.
He entered it and stooped.
All at once something happened in his mind. Just as he stooped to cover the face of his dead wife, he fell upon his knees beside her, and cried out:
"Almighty God, I have killed her. Almighty God, be merciful if Thou wilt, and let me die."
Burying his face in his hands he burst into hysterical sobs that shook him and would not be uttered without racking pains. They were too big for his chest, too big for his throat, too big for his mouth. While a sob was bursting from his labouring chest he felt the weight of ten thousand atmospheres pressing down his throat. When the sob burst forth, he shuddered and shivered and winced as if a scourge wielded by a powerful arm had fallen on his naked shoulders.
The violence of this outburst had one alleviating effect: while it racked the physical it annihilated the mental man. He was sobbing because he knew he had most excellent cause for inarticulable sorrow. But the sorrow itself made no image in his mind. It was with him as with the player of an instrument, who, coming upon a well-known passage of great mechanical difficulty, finds when the passage is passed small memory of the music and strong memory of each flexion of the fingers, but can, when he needs it, hear all the passage again note for note as it had flown from beneath his fingers.
The wife of his middle life had been murdered by some one long ago. He thought nothing of that. But now he was kneeling by the corpse of the wife of his youth, the bride-sweetheart of his stronger years.
All the trouble, all the cark, all the memory of her faults, of her odd ways, were gone. He was not the middle-aged husband penitent by the body of the middle-aged wife he had murdered. He was the young enthusiastic husband-lover by the side of his dead young wife.
He had not killed the Beatrice he had married long ago. But, O woe, woe, incommunicable agony, he had slain all the faults of his middle-aged wife, he had slain all the years of his life during which his indifference had sprouted and blossomed, and was now by the side of the woman dead whose existence had been to him the sunshine and the rapture of his life.
In a moment of madness he had sought to kill a faulty wife, but by terrible decrees of Heaven he had killed, instead, all the faults of his faulty wife and the sweetheart of his youth. Almighty Maker, did his crime deserve this!
Gradually the physical agony left him, only to be followed by the mental anguish.
"Bee," he moaned, "Bee, won't you get up and walk with me? We shall not go far, for it is late. I want to tell you what we shall do with the back drawing-room in the summer. Don't you remember how I told you once, love, and you were pleased and kissed me, Bee? It is about building the little conservatory for you. You will get up and walk with me a little way. Do, Bee. Let me lift you up."
He stretched out his hand and caught something.
"Cold!
"Cold!"
Then he shuddered and drew back. A third and final change came with the touch of that dead woman's hand. All illusion left him, and, covering the face of the dead, he crawled out of the tank—the murderer of his wife.
Still overhead hung the black sky, still abroad brooded the unbroken stillness.
He looked deliberately around him. What had been done could not be undone, and he had now only to make the best of the situation. Already he felt one good result from his greater crime; it had dwarfed the other to insignificant proportions. The theft now seemed a trifle.
But what had happened to Daneford and the country round, and the grounds about his house, and the tower upon which he stood? Some strange change had come over the relations between him and them. What was it? Daneford, and the country round, and the ground at his feet had receded, gone back from him. He was farther from them than he had been that day. What a strange sensation!
The sensation was very peculiar. He had never felt anything like it before. What had that morning seemed most important to him had now sunk into insignificance. Nothing was of consequence—save One; namely, the chance of a stranger coming to the top of that tower while It remained there.
The feeling was new to Grey, for he was new to the situation he had that night created. The solitude of a vast desert of sand under the pale stars, the solitude of the topmost frozen peaks of the Himalaya, the solitude of an ice-locked Arctic sea, the solitude for a hunted man of an unknown city, is profound and awful; but all combined and intensified a hundred-fold are nothing compared with the appalling solitude upon which man enters when over one shoulder, he knows not which, peers for ever the face of a murdered victim.
That face had not yet come to Grey, but as he descended the muffled stairs of the Tower of Silence he felt her cold lips touch his forehead once again; and once again he plunged forward on his way, caring little for life.
"Maud, darling," said Mrs. Grant, "a gentleman dressed in black, who will not give his name, and says he wants to see you most particularly, has arrived. What message do you wish to send him? Will you see him?"
"Oh, Mrs. Grant, I can't see any one. How can any one be so unreasonable as to think I can see him to-day! Such a day for a stranger to call!"
Both ladies were in the deepest new mourning.
"Mr. Grey has also come. He sends word that he could not think of intruding upon you, but that if you wish to see him he is at your service."
"Oh, no, Mrs. Grant! Dear Mrs. Grant, do save me! Tell them all that I am too wretched to see any one. Thank them all for me, dear Mrs. Grant, and save me from them. Pray, save me from them!" The girl threw her arm round the widow and sobbed helplessly.
"No, no, my child, they shall not come near you. I only brought you the messages. I do not ask you to see any one. You shall, my darling Maud, do just as you please. A number of other people have come too. Many of Sir Alexander's old friends. But you hardly know these. My only thought was, might you wish to see Mr. Grey, who is doing everything; and I wondered if you might not wish to say something to him. I wondered if you might not like to tell him some last wish, for they will start presently—in less than an hour."
The girl made a strong effort, and succeeded in calming herself.
"Dear Mrs. Grant, try to forgive me. I am too selfish. But I am distracted. I never knew till now how fond I was of—of my father, and it would be rude and ungrateful in me not to see Mr. Grey after all his care and trouble. What should we have done without him? Not a soul belonging to us near us. Dear Mrs. Grant, will you go to him and say—don't send a servant, he deserves all the courtesy we can show him—say to him I would go to him myself, but the house and place is so—so crowded, and I am not very—strong. Say I should like to see him, if only for a moment, to thank him. Go, please go. I would not for the world have him think that I did not feel gratitude for all his kindness."
This was on Wednesday, 31st of October, 1866, ten weeks after the blowing up of the steamshipRodwell, on her way from Daneford to Seacliff, and a few days more than eight weeks after the visit of Joe Farleg to the banker Grey at the banker's residence, the Manor, Daneford.
On the preceding Saturday—that is to say, October the 27th—Sir Alexander Midharst had passed quietly away. The doctors had foretold correctly; and from the 17th of August to the 27th of October Sir Alexander Midharst had never had a lucid moment.
While the baronet lay insensible Grey was, as he had foretold, much at the Castle, but in that time nothing of importance arose. Grey had gradually fallen into the position to be occupied by him of right when the old man died, and was consulted on all matters of moment connected with the estate and the Island. In fact, after the first few weeks of Sir Midharst's complete unconsciousness, the direction of affairs fell almost wholly into his hands. He originated all matters of consequence, and, having asked and obtained Miss Midharst's approval, saw them carried out.
This bright, crisp, last day of October was the day of the funeral. For this ceremony Grey had made the arrangements. Only personal friends of the late baronet and twenty of the principal tenants were to go to the Island for the purpose of carrying the body from the Castle to the slip, and accompanying it across the water. The remainder of the tenants, and all others desirous of attending the funeral, were to assemble on the mainland and await the body. When the coffin had been landed, the procession would proceed in a certain determined order; and as the deceased had no near relative, and no relative near or distant was to be present, Mr. Grey, in virtue of his long connection with Sir Alexander, and of the relations in which the will would place him to Sir Alexander's child, was to occupy the place of chief mourner.
Mrs. Grant found the banker in the library, and gave him, in a somewhat modified form, the message Miss Midharst had sent to him. Without saying a word he left the room, following the lady.
"Where is the strange gentleman who wanted to see Miss Midharst, and would not give his name?" asked the lady, as they passed down the corridor leading to the staircase. "I did not see him in the library. Oh, here he is."
They encountered a tall, slight, sad-faced man clad in black.
Mrs. Grant stopped, Mr. Grey fell back a few paces, and the widow said:
"I am sorry Miss Midharst is so much distressed just now that she does not feel equal to seeing you. You will of course understand that the circumstances are very trying upon her."
The stranger bowed, and answered in a low, quiet, full voice:
"I am deeply grieved by Miss Midharst's trouble. I would not think of seeking to intrude upon her but for good reasons. There is no absolute necessity for my seeing her at this moment. Later I hope to have an opportunity of expressing personally to her my sympathy, and of saying what further I wish to say. I am much indebted to you for the effort you have made in my behalf."
He indicated that he had nothing to add, and by keeping bowed showed that he did not desire to detain Mrs. Grant longer.
When she and the banker were out of the stranger's hearing, she said to Grey:
"Do you know who that gentleman is? I have never seen his face before."
"I do not know who he is. Nor have I seen his face before."
It was well for Grey they were in the dimly-lighted corridor, because he blenched and staggered for a moment.
"Who can this man be?" he thought, "who has such urgent business with Miss Midharst? Can this swarthy solemn man be here onofficialbusiness connected with—with Miss Midharst's money? He looks a gentleman, but talks too like a book for one. A detective? That would be a nice finale to this ceremony.
"Dear Miss Midharst, here is Mr. Grey come to see you," said Mrs. Grant, opening the door of the little drawing-room and ushering in the banker.
Grey entered with a calm, sympathetic face.
Maud had collected herself, and was now much less distressed than when Mrs. Grant left her a little while before. She held out her hand, and said, in a tone, under the transient sadness of which could be felt the steady current of grave gratitude,
"Mr. Grey, you will add to all your great kindness if you consider my inexperience and how little I know the way to tell you my thanks. I feel ashamed I am not able to express them; but I know you will understand my gratitude even though I cannot put it in words. Mrs. Grant and you are the only friends I have in the world; and if it were not for you two, I think I should die."
He took her hand respectfully, and retained it a moment.
"Mrs. Midharst, I beg of you not to trouble yourself about such matters. I know Mrs. Grant is invaluable; but as to me—you are aware what I promised Sir Alexander about you, and if you trouble yourself to thank me I shall begin to suspect you imagine I find it irksome to do towards the living what I have sworn to the dead."
"Oh, no, no, no! Forgive me! I only meant to tell you I am very grateful, and don't know how to say it. Indeed, you must think nothing of the kind, Mr. Grey. Tell me you forgive me!" She stretched impetuous appealing hands to him, and looked out of soft tear-dimmed eyes into his.
For a moment his admiration of her delicate beauty overcame everything else, and he remained gazing silently into that sweet young pleading face—that face pleading to him to believe she felt grateful to him. Then he came back to the circumstances and the time, and said,
"There is only one thing I shall never forgive you."
"And what is that?"
"If you discover any way in which I can be of use to you and fail to let me know."
"You are too good, Mr. Grey. How shall I ever thank you?"
He waved her speech aside with a deprecating gesture and a faint smile. "I have come merely to know if I can be of use to you? Is there anything you wish done you did not mention to me yesterday?"
"No, nothing. Only I cannot meet any one. If I must go to the library by and by, that will be more than I should like to see of people. Some gentleman, who did not give his name, and whom I do not know and can't see, has asked me to meet him. If you speak to him you will explain and apologize for me."
"I will, most assuredly," and, bowing once more, the banker retired.
"Who can this man be who has come to the Island uninvited, and seeks to thrust himself upon Miss Midharst such a day as this? Can it be anything has been discovered? I have no assurance but Farleg's word that he did not tell some one besides his wife what he saw in the Tower-room that evening after the blowing up of theRodwell. But then, if he did tell, it is not to this place the owner of such news would come, but to me at the Bank or at the Manor. If this man is here for any unpleasant purpose, it must be in connection with the Consols. There is nothing else to cause the dangerous presence of such a man. If he is here about the Consols, what does he know?"
By this time Grey had reached the library-door, and stood a moment with his hand on the handle. Suddenly his face cleared, as, with a sigh of relief, he thought,
"What right have I to assume he is here for an unpleasant or disastrous purpose? His gloomy face has put a gloomy notion into my head, that is all."
He entered the room, and found the tall, sad-faced stranger alone; the others, those who had been invited, were now assembling in the great hall, where the body of the baronet lay beneath a black velvet pall, under the eyes of his painted ancestors, who stared at the crowd from their gilded frames on the walls.
Mr. Grey approached the stranger with a bland face and conciliatory carriage, saying, "You find us, sir, in very great confusion to-day, and I must apologize to you for any want of courtesy you may have felt. I am sure, however, you will make allowances for us under the melancholy circumstances."
The stranger bowed gravely, and said, in a deep, full voice, "I have experienced no want of courtesy; on the contrary, every one I met has been most polite."
"I feel," Grey went on, with a graceful and urbane gesture of the hand,—"I feel myself more or less responsible for the good treatment of all guests here to-day. My name is Grey. I have just come from Miss Midharst. I understand you wish to see her, and, I am sorry to say, she does not feel herself equal to an interview; but if you will favour me with any communication for her, or let me know the nature of your business, I shall be happy to do anything I can for you." Grey spoke in a kind and winning manner. "There is no knowing what facts he may be in possession of, and nothing can be lost by politeness to him," was Grey's reflection.
"I am very much obliged to you," answered the stranger, with a slight inclination of the head; "but I shall reserve what I have to say until I have an opportunity of saying it later in the day to Miss Midharst herself."
There was in the manner of the speaker a profound and imperturbable self-possession most disquieting to the banker. The latter rejoined,
"But, indeed, I greatly fear she will not be able to see you any time to-day."
The stranger smiled faintly, waved the point aside with an air of perfect assurance, and asked, "Will you be good enough to tell me when and where the will is to be read? I am told it is to be read."
"May I know why you ask?"
"Because I intend to be present?"
"In what capacity?"
"I shall explain then."
"The will is to be read in this room to-day, when we have returned from the funeral. Such was Sir Alexander's wish."
"Thank you. I shall be here. When does the funeral start?"
Grey looked at his watch. "In quarter of an hour."
"I will not detain you further, Mr. Grey. I know your time is fully occupied to-day;" and with a bow which indicated the interview was over, he withdrew towards the window.
Grey was completely confounded between dread of the knowledge this man might possess and the disagreeable sensation awakened by the sense, for the first time experienced in his life, of having met a man, foot to foot and eye to eye, who was a more able fencer than himself.
As Grey took his way from the library to the hall, he felt far from easy. He did not want men near him, and he did not want strange men; he did not want strange men more than a match for him in fence; and, above all, he did not want this man, who was not only a stranger and a better master of the foils, but who, moreover, had matter of importance to communicate to Miss Midharst, and displayed a plain conviction he should that day have an opportunity of speaking to Miss Midharst, notwithstanding her denials.
And now he had declared his intention of being present at this old-fashioned reading of the will. What could that mean? Who could he be that thus insisted upon thrusting himself upon this house of mourning?
Then a terrible fear rushed in upon Walter Grey's mind. Could it be that at the last moment the old man had altered his will and appointed a second trustee, one to act in conjunction with him, Grey, and that this cool self-possessed man was that second trustee? If it were so, the alteration in the will was Grey's death-warrant.
But much remained to be done in little time; so Grey hastened to the hall, and was soon lost in the business of getting the funeral under way.
As the funeral was about starting from the Castle to the Ferry, and just as Mr. Grey had placed himself immediately behind the coffin, the stranger stepped up to the banker's left side, and saying, "Pardon me," slipped his right arm under the left arm of the other.
Grey looked hastily over his shoulder.
"You will let me walk with you. I assure you I have ample authority."
Grey staggered, so that the other had to steady him. "Authority! ample authority!" thought the banker in dismay. "What can the nature of that authority be? Has he a warrant in his pocket to arrest me for the murder of my wife? Does he defer putting it into execution just now, so as to avoid making a scene; and has he thus taken my arm to prevent the chance of my escape?"
Or had he come down with a warrant in his pocket to arrest him the moment the will had been read? It might be that someone at the Bank had discovered the Midharst Consols had been sold; and the only evidence wanting in the chain would be supplied by a reference in the will to the stock, thereby showing that Sir Alexander, at the time of his death, was under the impression the stock was still his, thus proving it had not been disposed of with the baronet's knowledge.
Grey felt himself powerless to resist. He thought it best to raise no question, make no demur. The cold sweat broke out on his forehead; he knew his voice would tremble if he essayed to speak. He bowed his head in token of acquiescence, and the funeral proceeded to the Ferry.
"Can it be," thought Grey in an agony of fear—"Can it be, while I am walking after the body of him whom I have robbed, they are gazing on the body of her I have murdered."
They reached the boats, and were ferried across to the main land.
They re-formed, and were joined by a vast gathering of tenants, labourers, and others. The procession set off once more.
During all this time the stranger remained silent. He did not address a single word to Grey, nor Grey to him.
During all this time Grey was suffering the agony of the rack. He felt confident he was about to be attacked, but he did not know whence the attack would come, or what the nature of it might be. A successful attack of any kind upon him could have but one result—Destruction.
On the way back to the Castle the stranger seemed plunged in still deeper reverie; and beyond a few of the most ordinary common-places, not a word passed between Grey and him.
All throughout the stranger kept on the left-hand side of Grey.
All throughout Grey saw at his left shoulder the Nemesis of his fate, and over the right the pallid face of his murdered victim.
"Now, Maud darling, do try to bear up. Drink this wine to give you strength. Come, they are all waiting for us in the library. Drink this for my sake. Well, half; drink half of it for my sake, my dear, dear child. It was your father's direct order the will should be read and you should be present. Mr. Shaw tells me this is not usual, but must be done."
"I cannot drink the wine. It will not take long, I suppose?"
"Mr. Grey says that it is not likely to take more than quarter of an hour. The will is very short."
"Is Mr. Grey in the library?"
"Yes, dear."
"Please, put away that wine; I am ready to go now. You will come with me?"
"Of course, Maud. My place is at your side, poor darling."
Mrs. Grant's words touched some chord in the girl's heart, and she burst into tears, crying:
"Oh, Mrs. Grant, I never felt lonely before. I don't know what I should do, only for you and Mr. Grey."
"Thank you, love. You know I'll stay with you all my life. I have no one of my own to live for; they are all gone. I have no father or mother, or brother or sister, or husband or child. I am as lonely as you, Maud; only you have lost a father and this home, and by and by you will marry and have a new home, a husband, and little ones at your knee; but for me the world is over. Every day I live keeps me further off from my husband; every day you live brings you nearer to yours. Ah, Maud, women have but poor lives of it, and the poor childless widow is worse than the dead." She burst into tears.
"Mrs. Grant," cried the girl, throwing her arms round the woman, "pray, pray forgive me! I have been cruelly selfish, thinking only of my own sorrow and never of yours. Dear Mrs. Grant, do forgive my selfishness!"
The widow wound her arms around the weeping girl, and crushing back her own grief, said passionately:
"Selfish, Maud! you selfish! Why, my darling never thinks there is such a person as herself until she finds she can be of use to some one. No, love, not selfish. There, love, love, don't cry; we shall be the best of friends all our lives. We are both friendless and alone; that is all the more reason why we should be good friends all our lives, Maud darling. I'll never leave you if you will let me stay. There now, there's a dear child; dry your eyes and drink the wine, and let us go and get this matter over."
"Put away the wine; I am ready. We shall never, never part, Mrs. Grant dear."
The two left the little drawing-room. Mrs. Grant put one arm affectionately round the girl's waist; Maud held one of Mrs. Grant's hands in hers.
As they drew near the library-door they found Mr. Grey awaiting them in the passage. Placing himself on her right side, he offered her his arm. Mrs. Grant dropped to the rear, and, preserving this order, they reached the library-door.
Here Mr. Grey paused for a moment, and said to his partner in a low voice:
"The strange gentleman who would not give his name is within. He says he has authority to be present. He may be a solicitor on behalf of some of the smaller legatees. I do not wish to be rude to him or to say he must give me his authority. He says he will speak to you some time to-day. Do you wish me to tell him to go, or do you prefer that I should merely request him to give up all hope of an interview to-day?"
"I cannot, I cannot see him," cried the girl, clinging to his arm, and looking up appealingly into his face.
"Protect her," he thought, "against this unknown man, who seems to threaten my safety and her peace, of course I shall. This is the first time she has sought my protection, and by a fortunate chance it is against one whom I have reason to dislike. How lucky! How lucky I have been in everything connected with this Castle—about the will, about the old man's illness, about the confidence! All has turned out exactly as I wished. Her arm is now in mine. She is calling out to me for help. I feel already as if I had won her; as if she leaned upon my arm as my—wife."
Then he whispered to her,
"Rest assured this man shall not intrude upon you. If he keeps quiet he may remain until the will has been read. Then I shall be officially installed as your guardian, Miss Midharst, and I shall know how to act towards him if he dares to interfere with you."
Drawing himself up to his full height, he walked slowly into the library with Miss Midharst on his arm, and Mrs. Grant following a few paces behind. His face was calm and firm; in his tread and gait there was conscious power. He felt he could have faced any danger then. She, upon whose good regard towards him and final acceptance of him as a suitor all depended, hung on his arm and clung to him for protection. The chance that the Tower of Silence would in his lifetime give up its secret was one to a million. He had a single reasonable cause of dread, and that was lest she, Maud Midharst, might turn away from him—might finally reject him. With her arm on his, and the memory of her confiding glance, he felt like a great captain, who, having in secret prepared a crushing attack, throws up his head and pants at hearing the great bay of the signal-gun which is to shake out the standards and let loose the thunders of prodigious war.
No more than a dozen people were present. The servants stood at the end of the room remotest from the one large window.
With its back to the window, at the head of the table, was the baronet's great straight-backed oak chair, empty. Mr. Grey led Miss Midharst to a chair on the right of this. As she moved up through the room, half a dozen gentlemen, seated round the room and at the table, rose and bowed. The stranger, whose chair was at the foot of the table, rose with the rest, and bowed more profoundly than any of the others.
As soon as Miss Midharst was seated, Mr. Grey crossed at the back of the vacant chair and sat down upon the left of it. Upon Grey's left sat Mr. Shaw, the deceased baronet's lawyer. On Miss Midharst's right sat Mrs. Grant. Dr. Hardy, who had attended the funeral, was present by particular request. The old lawyer, whose hands were tremulous, closed his eyes up firmly first, pulled his white whiskers, shook his white hair, and, looking at Grey, demanded in a feeble shaky voice:
"Is everything now ready for reading the last will and testament of Sir Alexander Midharst, deceased, as by him desired?"
For a moment there was no reply. Then Grey cleared his throat and said, in soft gentle accents:
"As the heir to the baronetcy and property did not reply to my notification of the late Sir Alexander's death, and therefore was not to be here at the reading of the will, or represented by a solicitor, he being, I understand, in Egypt, I have taken it upon myself to nominate a solicitor to be present on his part. I have therefore asked Mr. Barrington to be good enough to favour us with his presence, and watch the interests of the heir."
An excessively fat and prosperous-looking young man stood up and bowed deeply all round, saying, in a rich oily voice:
"I am proud to represent the heir to this noble house, this lordly property, and the glorious family of Midharst."
Having bowed all round again, he sat down.
Then Mr. Shaw opened the will, and began reading it in a weak and quavering voice.
The will was brief, and the language straightforward and plain.
The baronet left small legacies to his servants, and expressed a desire that Michael might remain in his daughter's service, until he chose to retire, upon which he was to receive an annuity of forty pounds a year, in addition to the five hundred pounds, payable within one year from the opening of the will.
The few other servants kept by the baronet were left legacies on this scale in proportion to their positions.
To Mrs. Grant he left a thousand pounds, coupled with a request that she would continue to stay with Miss Midharst as her companion as long as Miss Midharst might wish.
Upon hearing this Mrs. Grant wept, and put her hand on the girl's hand and caught the hand, and looked at the girl with eyes that swore, "Never, never, will I leave you while I live."
To Dr. Hardy he left two hundred and fifty, and to each of the other two physicians who had attended, one hundred pounds over and above their proper fees.
To Mr. Shaw he bequeathed five hundred pounds, over and above his proper fees, and expressed a hope that any legal business which had to be done in connection with his will, his daughter, or the money, would be intrusted to Mr. Shaw.
To Henry Walter Grey he bequeathed the gross sum of five thousand pounds, over and above all his just claims against the estate. Two thousand five hundred of this was to be paid within twelve months of the opening of the will, and the other two thousand five hundred upon the expiration of Grey's guardianship. This was bequeathed in grateful remembrance of many years of careful guardianship of the testator's fortune in the past, and in consideration of the duties and obligations imposed upon the legatee by the will.
The next clause announced that he left and devised and bequeathed to his daughter Maud, absolutely and for ever, the residue of his property of all kinds, sorts, and descriptions whatever, subject to the bequests above mentioned; and the payment of all just debts and demands for which the testator was liable at the time of his death; and the cost of his funeral, which latter he desired to be simple and unostentatious, and yet not unbecoming the house of which he was head. The residue was not to be paid over to the legatee, but held in trust for her until she had attained the full age of twenty-two. It was the testator's wish that his daughter should not marry until she had attained the full age of twenty-two: but married or single, to her the residue was to go when she attained her twenty-second year. With regard to her marriage, the testator would make no restrictions. He felt sure his daughter would make no unworthy selection, and she would remember that although the title and estates were passing away to a younger branch of the family, she was the only representative of the elder branch now surviving. The testator desired that, should she not marry before her twenty-second year, she should lean upon her guardian for advice at any time later than her twenty-second year. The testator desired it to be clearly understood that the guardian's power extended absolutely only to the property of the residuary legatee; and that she, being at the time of executing this will and testament, full twenty years of age, in all her personal movements, and in the marrying or not marrying, or in the choice of a husband, was free from the greetings of these presents. That is to say, the guardianship of the residuary legatee, as constituted herein, was that of administering her fortune, and of looking after her welfare, without, except in the matter of the property, power of constraint or interference in matters personal to the residuary legatee. The testator, however, reposed the most unlimited confidence in the guardian, and advised the residuary legatee to be largely guided in matters personal by the advice of the aforesaid guardian.
Following this paragraph came one reciting the property of the deceased man, the most important passage of it being this:
"And such Consols as may be found registered in my name in the books of the Bank of England, an account of which, and the Consols themselves, are in the custody of Henry Walter Grey aforenamed, to the value at this date of five hundred and fifty thousand pounds sterling."
Then came the final paragraph:
"And I hereby elect and appoint Henry Walter Grey, of the Manor House, Daneford, banker (hereinbefore described as Henry Walter Grey), executor and trustee to this my last will and testament, to hold authority, and to act in all matters connected with my property at his own sufficient discretion, with the limitations herein aforesaid. And I hereby elect and appoint the same Henry Walter Grey, of the Manor House, Daneford, banker, to be and to act as the sole guardian, with the limitations hereinbefore set forth, of my only daughter Maud, hereinbefore described as of the Castle of Warfinger, the residuary legatee in this my last will and testament. And to the aforesaid Henry Walter Grey I leave the burden of the safe guarding of my daughter's fortune, and the care of her orphanhood. I leave to his charge the savings of half a lifetime, and the last of a noble house. I pray that, as Henry Walter Grey may do by them and me, the God Almighty may do by him. Amen."
The old solicitor then read out the formal ending of the will, looked up, shut his eyes, and said:
"That is the only will which has been found of the late Sir Alexander Midharst, Baronet, of Warfinger Castle."
He opened his eyes for a moment, and then shut them again, adding while they were closed:
"The will is in my handwriting. I drew it at the late baronet's dictation, using almost his identical words."
He turned over the document, and scrutinised it closely.
"There is no codicil or addition of any kind," bowing to Miss Midharst.
There was a moment's silence, during which every one present looked down.
It was only by the most powerful effort Grey could prevent himself from shouting aloud under the intolerable relief. Although he had expected the will to be in some such terms, he could scarcely believe that, after his days and nights of agonised dread, all had come right. He felt like one who, after long durance in a dim and choking cave, is lifted into a sunlit flowery valley, over which larks are singing, and through which flows a bright silver stream, along which he may wander with unquestioned feet.
Now all was secure. This girl and her whole fortune had, within the past half-hour, been signed and sealed into his possession. True, he had no control over her personal actions. But he soon should have control, the most potent of all—the control of husband over wife. According to the will, she might marry as soon as she pleased. There was nothing now in the world to prevent her being his wife in twelve months.
Nothing to interfere with his marrying this girl and blotting out the trace of his crime. Already she liked him. As they came into that room to hear that will read, by which he became sole executor, trustee, and guardian, did she not lean on him? Already she liked him. Soon she should love him. Soon she should marry him.
Considering her position, the world would approve of her marrying; for she had no one to protect her but a guardian, no kin near enough to take any interest in her. In her solitary situation, every one would approve of her marrying soon.
There was a rustle, and all the men rose to their feet upon perceiving Miss Midharst in the act of rising.
Grey looked across for a moment at her, as she stood upon the right hand of the vacant chair.
"She mine!" he thought. "She will be my salvation! There is nothing now to keep her from me! Nothing between her and me!"