Robert Audley found the driver asleep upon the box of his lumbering vehicle. He had been entertained with beer of so hard a nature as to induce temporary strangulation in the daring imbiber thereof, and he was very glad to welcome the return of his fare. The old white horse, who looked as if he had been foaled in the year in which the carriage had been built, and seemed, like the carriage, to have outlived the fashion, was as fast asleep as his master, and woke up with a jerk as Robert came down the stony flight of steps, attended by his executioner, who waited respectfully till Mr. Audley had entered the vehicle and been turned off. The horse, roused by a smack of his driver's whip and a shake of the shabby reins, crawled off in a semi-somnambulent state; and Robert, with his hat very much over his eyes, thought of his missing friend.
He had played in these stiff gardens, and under these dreary firs, years ago, perhaps—if it were possible for the most frolicsome youth to be playful within the range of Mr. Harcourt Talboys' hard gray eyes. He had played beneath these dark trees, perhaps, with the sister who had heard of his fate to-day without a tear. Robert Audley looked at the rigid primness of the orderly grounds, wondering how George could have grown up in such a place to be the frank, generous, careless friend whom he had known. How was it that with his father perpetually before his eyes, he had not grown up after the father's disagreeable model, to be a nuisance to his fellow-men? How was it? Because we have Some One higher than our parents to thank for the souls which make us great or small; and because, while family noses and family chins may descend in orderly sequence from father to son, from grandsire to grandchild, as the fashion of the fading flowers of one year is reproduced in the budding blossoms of the next, the spirit, more subtle than the wind which blows among those flowers, independent of all earthly rule, owns no order but the harmonious law of God.
"Thank God!" thought Robert Audley; "thank God! it is over. My poor friend must rest in his unknown grave; and I shall not be the means of bringing disgrace upon those I love. It will come, perhaps, sooner or later, but it will not come through me. The crisis is past, and I am free."
He felt an unutterable relief in this thought. His generous nature revolted at the office into which he had found himself drawn—the office of spy, the collector of damning facts that led on to horrible deductions.
He drew a long breath—a sigh of relief at his release. It was all over now.
The fly was crawling out of the gate of the plantation as he thought this, and he stood up in the vehicle to look back at the dreary fir-trees, the gravel paths, the smooth grass, and the great desolate-looking, red-brick mansion.
He was startled by the appearance of a woman running, almost flying, along the carriage-drive by which he had come, and waving a handkerchief in her uplifted hand.
He stared at this singular apparition for some moments in silent wonder before he was able to reduce his stupefaction into words.
"Is it me the flying female wants?" he exclaimed, at last. "You'd better stop, perhaps," he added, to the flyman. "It is an age of eccentricity, an abnormal era of the world's history. She may want me. Very likely I left my pocket-handkerchief behind me, and Mr. Talboys has sent this person with it. Perhaps I'd better get out and go and meet her. It's civil to send my handkerchief."
Mr. Robert Audley deliberately descended from the fly and walked slowly toward the hurrying female figure, which gained upon him rapidly.
He was rather short sighted, and it was not until she came very near to him that he saw who she was.
"Good Heaven!" he exclaimed, "it's Miss Talboys."
It was Miss Talboys, flushed and breathless, with a woolen shawl thrown over her head.
Robert Audley now saw her face clearly for the first time, and he saw that she was very handsome. She had brown eyes, like George's, a pale complexion (she had been flushed when she approached him, but the color faded away as she recovered her breath), regular features, with a mobility of expression which bore record of every change of feeling. He saw all this in a few moments, and he wondered only the more at the stoicism of her manner during his interview with Mr. Talboys. There were no tears in her eyes, but they were bright with a feverish luster—terribly bright and dry—and he could see that her lips trembled as she spoke to him.
"Miss Talboys," he said, "what can I—why—"
She interrupted him suddenly, catching at his wrist with her disengaged hand—she was holding her shawl in the other.
"Oh, let me speak to you," she cried—"let me speak to you, or I shall go mad. I heard it all. I believe what you believe, and I shall go mad unless I can do something—something toward avenging his death."
For a few moments Robert Audley was too much bewildered to answer her. Of all things possible upon earth he had least expected to behold her thus.
"Take my arm, Miss Talboys," he said. "Pray calm yourself. Let us walk a little way back toward the house, and talk quietly. I would not have spoken as I did before you had I known—"
"Had you known that I loved my brother?" she said, quickly. "How should you know that I loved him? How should any one think that I loved him, when I have never had power to give him a welcome beneath that roof, or a kindly word from his father? How should I dare to betray my love for him in that house when I knew that even a sister's affection would be turned to his disadvantage? You do not know my father, Mr. Audley. I do. I knew that to intercede for George would have been to ruin his cause. I knew that to leave matters in my father's hands, and to trust to time, was my only chance of ever seeing that dear brother again. And I waited—waited patiently, always hoping for the best; for I knew that my father loved his only son. I see your contemptuous smile, Mr. Audley, and I dare say it is difficult for a stranger to believe that underneath his affected stoicism my father conceals some degree of affection for his children—no very warm attachment perhaps, for he has always ruled his life by the strict law of duty. Stop," she said, suddenly, laying her hand upon his arm, and looking back through the straight avenue of pines; "I ran out of the house by the back way. Papa must not see me talking to you, Mr. Audley, and he must not see the fly standing at the gate. Will you go into the high-road and tell the man to drive on a little way? I will come out of the plantation by a little gate further on, and meet you in the road."
"But you will catch cold, Miss Talboys," remonstrated Robert, looking at her anxiously, for he saw that she was trembling. "You are shivering now."
"Not with cold," she answered. "I am thinking of my brother George. If you have any pity for the only sister of your lost friend, do what I ask you, Mr. Audley. I must speak to you—I must speak to you—calmly, if I can."
She put her hand to her head as if trying to collect her thoughts, and then pointed to the gate. Robert bowed and left her. He told the man to drive slowly toward the station, and walked on by the side of the tarred fence surrounding Mr. Talboys' grounds. About a hundred yards beyond the principal entrance he came to a little wooden gate in the fence, and waited at it for Miss Talboys.
She joined him presently, with her shawl still over her head, and her eyes still bright and tearless.
"Will you walk with me inside the plantation?" she said. "We might be observed on the high-road."
He bowed, passed through the gate, and shut it behind him.
When she took his offered arm he found that she was still trembling—trembling very violently.
"Pray, pray calm yourself, Miss Talboys," he said; "I may have been deceived in the opinion which I have formed; I may—"
"No, no, no," she exclaimed, "you are not deceived. My brother has been murdered. Tell me ............