There was no sound in the place—no movement of any kind. The chambers were very small—just the lobby outside, and the little sitting-room, and a bedroom beyond. The lobby was empty; the sitting-room contained only the dead man and myself; whoever was there must be in the bedroom beyond. I began to form conjectures as to who might be hidden there—going over in my mind this one and that, who might by any possibility be interested in this matter, or in me. Once, as I watched the door of that inner room, there was a mad feeling in my mind that I would blow out the candle, and make a bolt for it; for the door of the bedroom was closed, and whoever was there could not have seen me. Finally I did nothing at all, but just to stand very still, wondering what I should do. In those few minutes I seemed to live a lifetime—to touch the depths of hope and fear, and life and death, and even madness.
My horror was not decreased by seeing the door of the bedroom begin slowly to open. It took a long time; because whoever was opening that door half repentedof their purpose more than once. For the door would jerk an inch or two open, and then an inch or two back, and then would close again entirely—and all this quite noiselessly. The thing was getting on my nerves to that extent that I know I was on the verge of screaming out, when I saw a hand grasp the lintel of the doorway—a thin bony hand, that gripped the wood tenaciously. Then the door flew open with startling suddenness, and a face—ghastly white, and with a dropping jaw—was thrust out into the room—the face of Jervis Fanshawe.
Even while he stared at me, I found it suddenly necessary that I should rearrange all my ideas. Jervis Fanshawe had not entered into my considerations at all in regard to the murder. I had fixed inevitably upon Arnold Millard—had followed in imagination his every action in the matter; had reasoned out why he should do this or that to the point of actual certainty. And here, in these rooms that I had left locked, was Jervis Fanshawe, whom by no possibility could I believe had had anything to do with the matter. I leaned upon the table, and stared at him; and after a moment or two he came slowly out into the room.
He was so afraid of me, and so appalled at the fact of my coming there at all, that he came slowly towards me, never taking his eyes from my face, and looking at nothing else. It was only when, horribly enough, he stumbled over the feet of the dead man, that he jumped back with a cry, and seemed to recover himself. Then he looked at me again, and over his face stole a smile.
"Why, Charlie—what's wrong?" he whispered; and the whisper seemed to shatter the silences of the place, and to bring us both back in a moment to the hard and stern realities of things.
"How did you get in here?" I demanded.
He did not answer in words; he stared down at the dead man for a moment or two, and while he did so he fumbled in his pockets. Very slowly he drew out something that jingled; still looking at the dead man, he dropped on the table the three keys, tied together with a piece of black tape. I recognized them in a moment as the keys that had been given me when I first paid for the rooms.
He looked at me as though he did not understand the question; looked again at the keys. Then he pointed to the dead man—and I understood. It seemed then as though some extraordinary process went on in my mind, so that old carefully constructed ideas were hurled out of it, and new ones hastily formed. I gasped, and looked at Fanshawe, and looked at the keys; then I cried out at him.—"My God!—you?"
He nodded slowly; it seemed as though he stood there, thinking about something else, and only coming back slowly and with difficulty to the situation he had to face. When at last he began to speak, it was at first in a slow dull whisper, like a man talking to himself, and not realizing that another is listening. It was only later, after the first moment or two, that he began, as it were, to take me into his confidence.
"She seemed to call to me to do it. You remember when she went past me like a spirit in the dark garden—the night we knew the girl was in peril; I first thought of it then. I put it aside for a time; I never had any real courage for such a matter as this. Then I saw the spirit of her again in London here—that Barbara we both had loved, and who died years and years ago. And then I knew clearly enough what I had to do."
He stopped, and looked down at the dead man;it seemed almost as though he went on talking to that ghastly thing that lay at his feet.
"I don't think I killed you out of any real hatred of you; it was only because I was afraid for myself. I saw that you, if only with your lips and your lying tongue, would harm this child, just as another man long ago had harmed the Barbara who was dead; and I felt that you would have to die for it, just as that other man had died. I did not kill you because I was afraid of what you might do; I killed you to save my own soul. Yes—that was it; to save my own soul."
He had been speaking very slowly, and quite without emotion; but now his manner suddenly changed, and he turned to me, and gripped my arm, and went on speaking eagerly, in a pathetic, wistful desire to make me understand.
"Yes, Charlie—I saw in that the only way to atone. Look at me, Charlie: an old man that has suffered, and behind whom lie so many years that are broken and unhallowed, and worse than useless. I felt that someday—quite soon—I might be called to meet my God; and that there—radiant, as we knew her years ago, Charlie, in her young and innocent beauty—there might rise up against me the woman we both loved. She's dead, but she had nothing to fear from death. I knew that whenIdied it would be different; there were accusing eyes that would spring alive with old fires to stare at me—accusing hands that would point at me out of the darkness into which I was going. And I prayed, or tried to pray, that God would show me some way—some sacrifice to be offered up in the old Bible fashion—that should atone. I pushed that thought away from me more than once—the thought of killing him; but I could not get rid of it. It was always with me—and that was why I tried to learn fromyou, who had done the thing once, what it was like, and how best to set about it. For I felt that if I could kill this man—if I could cry to the uneasy spirit of the dead woman—'This have I done to make atonement; this man have I killed, who would have harmed the child so like yourself in the old years that are gone'—why, then I felt that all would be well for me, and that I should not see always her accusing eyes in the darkness, or in my dreams when I slept."
I stared at him for what seemed a long time; it was difficult at first for my mind to grasp this thing, to realize what he had done. At last I asked: "Why have you come back here?"
"I could not stay away," he whispered. "I wanted to know what had happened—whether they had found him; I was even afraid that the blow might not have been strong enough, and that he might have crept out—bloody and horrible—to cry out what had been done, and to tell men who had done it. It has taken me a long time to get back here; I've been afraid."
"What are you going to do now?"
"I'm going away—far away," he said, looking at me cunningly. "I haven't your courage, Charlie; I couldn't face what they might do to me if they found out anything about it. When I was coming here first to kill him I did not think of that; but now I can't bear even to try to understand in my own mind what the rope would be like about my neck—and the cap pulled over me—and the grey morning shut out—and then——No—no—I can't bear to think of that. I shall escape."
"I think you possibly may escape unsuspected," I assured him gravely. "I do not think there is any one likely to point a finger at you, and suggest that you did it."
"You think not, Charlie?" His voice was eager, and something very like a smile was on his face. "Do you think I might get away? I think so too; I'm going to try. And when you come to think of it, Charlie," he went on, with rising spirits—"it was bravely done—finely done. For I'm a weak old man—see these thin hands and arms of mine—and he full of life and vigour. Yet look at him now."
"Tell me how you did it," I said.
"It was after I had talked to you, Charlie—when I spoke about a knife, you know—that I made up my mind how best it could be done. I bought the knife—a long way from here, where no one would be likely to know me—and I chose the very night of his coming here. It was a simple matter, after all. I came up the stairs, and knocked at the door; after a moment or two he opened it, cursed me for disturbing him, and went in, with his back to me. The knife was in my breast pocket, and I had my hand upon it; I could have done it then—easily. But I was afraid; I did not know where to strike. Then, when he came into the room, and I was there with him, he suddenly turned round, and asked me what I wanted. And courage came back to me. I stepped up close to him, and I said suddenly that this was what I wanted; and I drove it in with all my force. He stood staring at me for quite a moment, with that thing sticking in him—staring stupidly, as if he didn't understand what had happened. And then he laughed (or so it seemed to me), and dropped, and died. It was horrible."
"And then?"
"It suddenly occurred to me that I might need to come back here again; I must have that power, at least. I did not dare go near him; but I found that he had dropped the keys on the table, just where they are now. So I took them—and I went away."
I picked up the keys, and looked at them; I was thinking deeply. For now it seemed to me that I had to face a new problem: the problem of what this man Jervis Fanshawe would do. That he would not give himself up for the crime I was certain; but I wanted to understand whether he had determined, in the event of discovery, to shift the blame on the boy Arnold Millard, or on myself. I had suffered once for this man, twenty years before—had been drawn on to murder, practically at his bidding; I did not mean to play the scapegoat again. In the case of the boy it had been different; while I had believed him guilty I had been willing enough, out of that old romantic feeling, to take the burden on my own shoulders. But not for Jervis Fanshawe.
"What are you going to do now?" I asked for the second time. "What plans have you in your mind?"
He looked at me again, with that cunning expression on his face I had seen before. "There is a vessel to sail, on which Murray Olivant took passages for himself and for you," he said in a whisper. "What if I took his place, Charlie—and you came with me?"
"Too late," I said—"even if you had the tickets."
Still keeping his eyes fixed upon my face, he dived into one of his pockets, and brought out an envelope; opened it, and pulled out the tickets. I started, and stared at him, and made a movement to take them from him; but he closed the envelope quickly, and thrust it back into his pocket.
"Ah!—you didn't know that, did you?" he said. "I stole them from you while you slept; I saw my chance there. It only occurred to me, after I had seen you show them to Dawkins, that I might slip away like that, and never be heard of again; I might drop off at some foreign port, and be lost."
"You're too late," I reminded him, with a laugh. "TheEagletsailed this morning."
"You're wrong," he exclaimed, dragging the envelope out again. "Either you made a mistake in the date, or the clerk did; theEagletsails to-morrow morning."
"Are you sure?" I asked in amazement.
For answer he carefully pulled the tickets out, and, keeping a grip on them, let me read the date. Sure enough some one had blundered, for the date was that of the following day.
"Now, Charlie," he whispered, laying an impressive hand on my arm—"the way is clear. Come with me, Charlie—Tinman, the servant, travelling with Murray Olivant. Murray Olivant is expected on board, and his passage is taken; Tinman, his servant, goes with him. As for this thing that lies here"—he jerked his head to indicate the dead man—"who is ever to say that this is Murray Olivant. A chance, Charlie; but all the world is made up of chances, isn't it? Come, Charlie—the road lies clear before us."
"No," I said—"I have other work to do. If you can escape, do so by all means; I will not leave England."
He got his hat from that inner room, and prepared to depart. I had put the keys back on the table, and I saw him eyeing them; I took the key I had from my pocket, and dropped it with the others. "It's a great game of chance," I whispered to him, "and you may never be discovered, after all. Come away—and leave him there; you are safe so far as I am concerned."
He went to the door and opened it; at a sign from me he waited at that outer door, to be certain that no one was about. Then I blew out the candle, and crept out to join him; and for a moment we stoodclose together, listening. Then he opened the door, and slipped out, and I came after him. I pulled the door, and heard the lock click; and knew that the ghastly thing inside was safely shut in, until some one should break down the door, and find it.
We stood for a moment or two listening, and then crept down into the quiet of Lincoln's Inn Fields. As our feet touched the pavement Jervis Fanshawe stopped, and looked over his shoulder back into the dark house.
"Don't you hear anything, Charlie?" he whispered.
"Nothing," I replied. "What should we hear?"
"No door opening quietly?—no soft pad, pad of feet down the stairs? Quick!—don't you hear it?"
"Come away," I said abruptly; for the horror of the thing was creeping over me again.
Yet before we were out of the place he had turned—not once but many times—to look over his shoulder, whispering to me more than once that something was creeping along the other side—there—in the shadow of the railings!—and didn't I see that hand against the breast, gripping something?—and was I sure that the door had been closed?—and would it not be better if we went back, and listened again outside it?
We were well on our way back to his lodging when he stopped, and gripped me, and cried out suddenly that the candle had been left alight; he was sure of it—sure that some one would see it shining through the chinks of the door. But that I gripped him firmly he would have set off then and there, perhaps to burst into the place in some mad fashion, to see what had happened. But I got him back to his lodging, and saw him presently stretched upon the bed, muttering and moaning to himself, and starting up every now and then to ask me if there wasn't afootstep on the stairs, or a hand knocking at the door.
But in the morning he was calmer, and I made him as respectable as possible, and took him down presently to the docks. There we found theEaglet, in the midst of much bustle and excitement, getting ready to start; and I sent him on board, and left him there. The last I saw of him was when the vessel was moving away into the river, and I was standing at the dock side, watching. And Jervis Fanshawe was leaning over the side, with that nervous hand of his plucking at his lips, and with his haunted eyes staring straight through me and behind me, as though at the last he saw Murray Olivant, with the knife in his breast, rushing to stop him.
Of all that I must write of my life, as it faced me after those tragic happenings, certain pictures rise up in my mind, not easily to be effaced. I who write this am poor and old, yet not broken nor downcast any more. For, by the great grace of God, I am not alone; there is one with me, whose tender loving eyes look always at me, with no remembrance of any defects or frailties—with no recollection of anything I may have done that would have been so much better left undone.
Of the pictures that rise before me as I look back, the first is that of being absolutely alone in London, with the fear of death upon me. The fear of death—because the man Jervis Fanshawe had killed lay hidden behind a frail wooden door, that might at any moment be broken down; thereafter I was to expect search to be made for a certain servant named Tinman, sometime Charles Avaline, condemned to death twenty years before for murder.
Yet, strangely enough, that never happened. I have the memory before me now of a day when I walked the streets, and was faced suddenly by a newspaper placard, flaring with the announcement—"Murder of an unknown man in Lincoln's Inn Fields." Thereafter I saw other placards—this one startlingly vivid with a clue, this one hopeless. And I even had the temerityto stand in a little stuffy Coroner's court, what time twelve good men and true brought in a verdict of murder against some person or persons unknown. More than that, I stood one bitter winter evening beside a pauper grave in a cemetery, and knew that the newly turned earth covered all that was mortal of Murray Olivant.
Another picture rises in my mind—so near to the other that it seems to be part of it. I remember that on this occasion I was in a poor eating-house in a poor neighbourhood of London; I was looking through the columns of a newspaper that was a day or two old. A man as poor as I was is necessarily a little behind the times; news filters through to him slowly enough. And looking down the columns of this paper I came across an item of news that was startling:—
"Loss of a British steamer.Only one survivor.—The S.S.Eaglet, concerning the fate of which so many rumours have been rife of late, is now known to have gone on the rocks off Ushant, and to have become a total wreck. The fate of the vessel would probably never have been known, but for the fact that a sailor was washed ashore, and after being tended by the good people there, was able to give some particulars as to the wreck. It appears that the vessel went on the rocks in one of those dense fogs peculiar to that coast, and broke up within a very few minutes. There is not the slightest doubt that this sailor, whose name is given as Henry Howard, is the sole survivor of the ill-fated vessel. It may be mentioned that among the passengers was a young gentleman of fortune—a Mr. Murray Olivant—who was travelling to the Mediterranean on a pleasure cruise."
"Loss of a British steamer.Only one survivor.—The S.S.Eaglet, concerning the fate of which so many rumours have been rife of late, is now known to have gone on the rocks off Ushant, and to have become a total wreck. The fate of the vessel would probably never have been known, but for the fact that a sailor was washed ashore, and after being tended by the good people there, was able to give some particulars as to the wreck. It appears that the vessel went on the rocks in one of those dense fogs peculiar to that coast, and broke up within a very few minutes. There is not the slightest doubt that this sailor, whose name is given as Henry Howard, is the sole survivor of the ill-fated vessel. It may be mentioned that among the passengers was a young gentleman of fortune—a Mr. Murray Olivant—who was travelling to the Mediterranean on a pleasure cruise."
I sat with the soiled paper in my hands; I read somuch more into the paragraph than any one else could have done. The real Murray Olivant lay in that pauper's grave beside which I had stood, and yet was buried as a man unknown; and here he was proclaimed as having been lost in the wreck of the vessel on which he was supposed to have sailed. More than that; for the hungry sea had claimed as a victim that man Jervis Fanshawe of the haunted eyes, who had killed him, and had gone on that voyage in his place. Justice has a long arm.
My memories after that are confused; I think I must have suffered greatly during that winter, when I was alone and friendless in London. In my recollections of that time there is always a great roar and rush of traffic in my ears, and I seem always to be standing in the rain, or with the bitter wind ruffling my garments; at other times I am crouching over fires in small lodging houses, in the company of other forlorn wretches—outcasts like myself. I am always hungry, and I do not seem to understand what reason I have for living at all. And I find myself, like some uneasy ghost that has been forgotten, wandering about old familiar places, and going over again scenes that only I remember, and that belong only to the past.
I find myself again in Lincoln's Inn Fields—unable now to remember clearly where a certain Gavin Hockley is—or whether I killed him, or someone else; wondering vaguely what he had to do with a certain Murray Olivant who died long ago—or was he drowned at sea? I find myself—an old man, with the rain beating upon me, and the wind driving at me—sitting on the steps of a house in Lincoln's Inn Fields, and wondering if I dare climb the stairs, to find what is hidden behind a locked door.
Another picture rises in my mind: I am in a greatclean place of many beds, and I am ill. They talk of want and exposure, and then try to find out who I am, and whether I have any friends. I remember one thing, and one only: that my name is "Tinman"; I am glad to think that I have no friends, and that it may happen that this is the end of my poor life, and that I may finish here in peace.
But the spring comes, and with the spring some stirring of life in my veins. I am so much better that I surprise them all; although they cannot understand why I refer to myself, over and over again, as "No. 145." I beg that they will call me that, because it is what I have been for twenty years. And I ask again and again that the governor will not send me out into a world that I have forgotten, and where I know no one.
But the spring in my blood fights for me, after all; and I am presently free, and a little grateful, perhaps, to be able to sit in the sun, and watch the great glad life of a great glad city all about me. And this is the last of the pictures—for all the rest is dear reality.
I remember that, as I grew stronger, a sudden passion of longing came upon me, and drew me inevitably to the woods and the fields I had known so long before, in a certain summer time, and had known later with the snow upon them, and the chill winds of winter blowing over them. The sun warmed me to life almost as if I had renewed my youth, so that I found myself one day—poor shabby old creature that I was—with my feet set steadily upon the road that led to Hammerstone Market, and with my eager eyes searching the landscape before me to catch the first glimpse of it.
I was weaker than I had imagined, and it took me nearly two days to get to it. But I came to it at last, on a bright spring morning—came into the familiarbustle of the little country town, with the market-place just as it had always been, and theGeorge Hotelas comfortable-looking as ever, with its doors thrown hospitably wide open. I was tired and faint after my long tramp, and I found in a corner of a pocket in my shabby clothes a sixpence. I went into the place, and ordered some bread and cheese and ale.
There seemed some excitement about theGeorgethat morning. There was an air of every one being in their best clothes; there was a young coachman there, in particular, who was obviously smoking an unusual cigar, and who had a white favour fastened to the lapel of his coat. There was another coachman also, more elderly and staid; and the two men were talking with the landlord. I passed unnoticed—a mere shabby stranger, taking his modest refreshment in the corner.
"Well, an' it won't be half a bad thing to see the old place livened up a bit," the landlord was saying. "They do say that the young chap 'as come into a tidy bit o' money since 'is 'alf-brother was drowned in that wreck—a very tidy bit o' money indeed. Well—well—that's the way o' the world: 'ere to day an' gorn to-morrow."
"I mind 'er mother—Lord knows 'ow many year ago, when I was a young chap," said the elder coachman, rolling his cigar between his lips—"an' you take my word for it, if this young lady ain't the very stuck image of 'er. I've only got to shut my eyes, an' I can see the child now—just so like the mother as ever was. And both of 'em with the same names, mind you. Miss Barbara then, an' Miss Barbara now."
I listened wonderingly; I began dimly to understand. Coming a little nearer to them, I ventured to put a question, and they answered me respectfully enough.
"There is to be a wedding to-day?"
"There is that," exclaimed the landlord heartily. "A quiet weddin', mind you—because you can't exactly 'ave much fuss an' flummery with the grass not quite grown on a grave yet, can you?"
"A grave?" I faltered.
"Ah, a grave," said the landlord, glad of a chance to talk to a stranger. "Old Mr. Savell died some three months back—father of the bride, you understand. Had a stroke early in the winter, an' never recovered."
"Never spoke, did 'e?" asked the younger coachman.
"Never a word from the moment that the Lord struck 'im down," said the landlord, with a shake of his head. "Merciful release, in a manner o' speaking; the young folks must 'ave their chance, after the old 'uns is put away. Now, boys, it's time you was goin'; I'm going to give a look in at the church myself, in time to see a bit of the bride an' the young gentleman. Why—would you believe it—in a sense 'e belongs here; used to stop in this very place when first 'e came down a-courtin' the young lady. So, you see, it's only right as theGeorgeshould be represented, ain't it?"
I found my way out of the place, and towards the church. There was a holiday feeling in the air, and a ringing of bells; I felt that I was strangely out of place. A sudden impulse to hide myself came upon me, and I went out beyond the town, and into that green wood—beautiful now in its spring dress—that had meant so much to me so often before. And there for a long time I sat, with the peace of God stealing into my heart, listening to the ringing of the bells, and thinking gratefully that all was well—that all was better, perhaps, because I stood outside it, and could touch it no more.
Yet the bells drew me; they rang a tune in myears that brought me at last to my feet, and set me upon the road to the church. There was a crowd about it now, and much jostling and laughter; I saw the round jolly face of the landlord of theGeorge, and he was evidently still telling any one who would listen to him of his proprietary rights in the bridegroom. I managed to slip into the church, and found my way into a little curtained pew at the back of it, from which I could watch all that was going on, and yet remain unseen.
I had no eyes for any one but the girl; she came in on the arm of an elderly man I judged to be a family lawyer, or in some such position. She looked very beautiful as she went slowly up the old church to join her lover; I thought with a pang of how I had seen her mother—looking just like this—step over these worn stones in her bridal dress, twenty years before. I remembered, too, how I had stood there, with a bursting heart, and had seen her going out of my life. I could not bear the thought of that, even then; I knelt in my curtained pew, and hid my face in my hands, while all the rustling and whispering went on about me. Then the solemn service began, and still I knelt there, as in a dream. But I was happier then than I had ever been; for in my dream this was poor Charlie Avaline, far back in the years, wedding the woman he loved—thereafter to live happily, without any shadow on his life.
I felt that I must see her as she came out of the church; so much at least was due to me. So, with a new boldness, I stepped out of the pew, and stood there in the shadows, waiting, while she came on the arm of her young husband down the church. And the twenty odd years had taught me so much that I could stand like that, and look at it all with no feeling of envy, or bitterness for all I had suffered: only agreat gladness that this Barbara at least was to tread a path of roses. I stood quietly there, watching her as she came down the church; if the tears were in my eyes, they were only there because I remembered poor Charlie Avaline, who had stood in the same place, and had watched that other Barbara whom he loved.
She was within a couple of yards of me when she raised her eyes, and looked straight at me. I would have drawn back, but she was too quick for me; she came forward at once, drawing Arnold Millard with her, and caught at my hand. And it seemed that I was no longer shabby and poor; all in a moment I was greater than any one there.
"It's Tinman! It's dear Tinman!" she said.
In the strangest fashion she had disengaged herself from her husband's arm, and was shaking my hands. We were saying the absurdest things to each other: I congratulating her, and wishing her well, and half laughing and half crying in my weakness and my joy; she murmuring over and over again that this was the best thing of all, to see me like this at such a time. And all about us the strange wondering faces pressing nearer.
And then before them all she raised herself on tiptoe, and kissed me on the cheek—yes, before them all! As she went out of the church, running a little eagerly for a step or two, to join her husband, who was smilingly waiting, she looked back at me, and waved her hand; and so was gone out into the sunlight, amidst a roar of cheering. I felt strangely alone; but that was, of course, inevitable. The Barbara I had loved had gone for ever out of my life; she had told me so, on that day when it had come to the parting of the ways for us. Each of us had done our part. I had been privileged to see the end that day, and nowI must go out into the world, and live in loneliness just so many years as might be given to me. But I was no longer tired or hopeless; I had drunk deep of life, and although there were so many things I would have been glad to have had altered, there was yet so much that was better than I could have hoped. I would linger here for a little time, on this spring morning, and then would go on, to take up the quiet burden of my days.
I found my way back to the old house, and peered in at the gate. All was changed here now: the garden no longer neglected, and the house looking bright and fresh. There was no one about, and I crept in, and stood again on that terrace, looking into the room. There were bright flowers there, and the place was very different from what it had ever been before. I came away, and found my way into that wood that seemed to hold all my memories. I sat down there for the last time—reviewing, as it were, my life, and looking back to see the boy who had painted here among the trees, and had seen coming towards him, with a smile in her eyes, the Barbara of long ago.
And so it happened that I looked up presently, and saw coming through the wood the Barbara I loved: and it almost seemed, despite the passage of the years, that this was the Barbara I had always known, and who was unchanged. The heavy soiled garment of the years dropped away from me; I was again a man with hopes and longings; I suddenly realized how much this dear woman was to me, and how much we both might be, each to the other. I stood there, bareheaded in the sunlight, holding her hands, and looking into her eyes; and I was no longer old or tired; I faced life again, with the spring in my veins and in my heart.
"We are all alone, dear Tinman," she said, usingthat familiar name naturally. "I am the unknown woman, who has stood beside my husband's grave, and yet have not mourned for him; I am the woman who has stood in God's house to day, and seen my child married—just as I might have married poor Charlie Avaline, years and years ago. Such a strange life ours has been, my dear," she added softly; "it seems almost as though you and I are left alone together forgotten and unknown in the great world—with all our work done."
"But we came to the parting of the ways before, Barbara," I said; "there can be no going back now. God has been very good to me: I might never have seen you again; I might have died that shameful death twenty years ago. But I am a felon; I am branded with the brand of Cain; there is blood on my hands."
"Spilled for my sake!" she cried quickly, taking my hands, as she had done once before, and putting her lips to them. "And you lied to me, Charlie; you did not kill Olivant."
"I did not kill Olivant," I said; "but I am guilty, in that I set out to do it. Some one forestalled me: some one who has died a violent death, and paid that penalty. But that, too, was some one who loved you, in however poor a fashion. It was Jervis Fanshawe."
We talked there for a long time in the woods, and at last it seemed to me that the moment had come when I must part from her. For I would not link my life with hers; on that point I was resolute. Yet she clung to me, and told me what was in her heart.
"Years ago, Charlie, when I knew that they would not kill you, but that you must live out your life in bitter servitude for what you had done for me, I made up my mind that there was a duty before me, and that I was called to it inevitably. It seemed to me then that I must consecrate what was left of mylife to you, and to the memory of you; your love for me had been so great a thing that in a sense I belonged to you, if only in spirit. Dear, you came back to me wonderfully from out of your prison; you fought for me again; you were ready to lay down your life for that other Barbara, who was like the Barbara you had loved. I am lonely now—lonely and unknown; do not send me away from you!"
"I am so poor a thing for any woman to cling to," I said pitifully. "I have been down to the depths; I am a thing of poverty, and shame, and degradation."
"You are the man I love," she said, putting her arms about me. "There is a great world waiting for us—a world of sunshine, and life, and laughter; you shall learn to forget all the horror through which you have passed. Charlie, I took your name once—glad and proud to bear it; let me take it now, and keep it to the end."
I have set down here the record of my poor life, so far as I have lived it; yet it is as a slate, crowded with the awkward writing of a child, and much of it obliterated and rubbed out—blotted a little here and there with tears. Much, too, is being obliterated day by day of the sorrow and the misery of it; for a woman's hand steals over mine sometimes, and will not let me write of the sorrowful part that has been mine, and is mine no longer. I have been greatly blessed; I pray my God that when the time comes that He calls me to answer for my great sin, it may happen that at the last her strong warm hand holds mine, and points me to the road—that her strong brave lips whisper to me what I shall say.
THE END
Transcriber's Notes:Apparent typesetting errors and inconsistencies in spelling, punctuation and hyphenation have been corrected.
Apparent typesetting errors and inconsistencies in spelling, punctuation and hyphenation have been corrected.