Heaven knows whither Mr. Audley's thoughts might have wandered had he not been startled by a sudden movement of the sick man, who raised himself up in his bed, and called to his mother. The old woman woke up with a jerk, and turned sleepily enough to look at her son.
"What is it, Luke, deary?" she asked soothingly. "It ain't time for the doctor's stuff yet. Mr. Dawson said as you weren't to have it till two hours after he went away, and he ain't been gone an hour yet."
"Who said it was the doctor's stuff I wanted?" cried Mr. Marks, impatiently. "I want to ask you something, mother. Do you remember the seventh of last September?"
Robert started, and looked eagerly at the sick man. Why did he harp upon this forbidden subject? Why did he insist upon recalling the date of George's murder? The old woman shook her head in feeble confusion of mind.
"Lord, Luke," she said, "how can'ee ask me such questions? My memory's been a failin' me this eight or nine year; and I never was one to remember the days of the month, or aught o' that sort. How should a poor workin' woman remember such things."
Luke Marks shrugged his shoulders impatiently.
"You're a good un to do what's asked you, mother," he said, peevishly. "Didn't I tell you to rememer that day? Didn't I tell you as the time might come when you'd be called upon to bear witness about it, and put upon your Bible oath about it? Didn't I tell you that, mother?"
The old woman shook her head hopelessly.
"If you say so, I make no doubt you did, Luke," she said, with a conciliatory smile; "but I can't call it to mind, lovey. My memory's been failin' me this nine yaer, sir," she added, turning to Robert Audley, "and I'm but a poor crittur."
Mr. Audley laid his hand upon the sick man's arm.
"Marks," he said, "I tell you again, you have no cause to worry yourself about this matter. I ask you no questions, I have no wish to hear anything."
"But, suppose I want to tell something," cried Luke, with feverish energy, "suppose I feel I can't die with a secret on my mind, and have asked to see you on purpose that I might tell you; suppose that, and you'll suppose nothing but the truth. I'd have been burnt alive before I'd have told her." He spoke these words between his set teeth, and scowled savagely as he uttered them. "I'd have been burnt alive first. I made her pay for her pretty insolent ways; I made her pay for her airs and graces; I'd never have told her—never, never! I had my power over her, and I kept it; I had my secret and was paid for it; and there wasn't a petty slight as she ever put upon me or mine that I didn't pay her out for twenty times over!"
"Marks, Marks, for Heaven's sake be calm," said Robert, earnestly. "What are you talking of? What is it that you could have told?"
"I'm a-goin to tell you," answered Luke, wiping his lips. "Give us a drink, mother."
The old woman poured out some cooling drink into a mug, and carried it to her son.
He drank it in an eager hurry, as if he felt that the brief remainder of his life must be a race with the pitiless pedestrian, Time.
"Stop where you are," he said to his mother, pointing to a chair at the foot of the bed.
The old woman obeyed, and seated herself meekly opposite to Mr. Audley.
"I'll ask you another question, mother," said Luke, "and I think it'll be strange if you can't answer it. Do you remember when I was at work upon Atkinson's farm; before I was married you know, and when I was livin' down here along of you?"
"Yes, yes," Mrs. Marks answered, nodding triumphantly, "I remember that, my dear. It were last fall, just about as the apples was bein' gathered in the orchard across our lane, and about the time as you had your new sprigged wesket. I remember, Luke, I remember."
Mr. Audley wondered where all this was to lead to, and how long he would have to sit by the sick man's bed, hearing a conversation that had no meaning to him.
"If you remember that much, maybe you'll remember more, mother," said Luke. "Can you call to mind my bringing some one home here one night, while Atkinsons was stackin' the last o' their corn?"
Once more Mr. Audley started violently, and this time he looked up earnestly at the face of the speaker, and listened, with a strange, breathless interest, that he scarcely understood himself, to what Luke Marks was saying.
"I rek'lect your bringing home Phoebe," the old woman answered, with great animation. "I rek'lect your bringin' Phoebe home to take a cup o' tea, or a little snack o' supper, a mort o' times."
"Bother Phoebe," cried Mr. Marks, "who's a talkin' of Phoebe? What's Phoebe, that anybody should go to put theirselves out about her? Do you remember my bringin' home a gentleman after ten o'clock, one September night; a gentleman as was wet through to the skin, and was covered with mud and slush, and green slime and black muck, from the crown of his head to the sole of his foot, and had his arm broke, and his shoulder swelled up awful; and was such a objeck that nobody would ha' knowed him; a gentleman as had to have his clothes cut off him in some places, and as sat by the kitchen fire, starin' at the coals as if he had gone mad or stupid-like, and didn't know where he was, or who he was; and as had to be cared for like a baby, and dressed, and dried, and washed, and fed with spoonfuls of brandy, that had to be forced between his locked teeth, before any life could be got into him? Do you remember that, mother?"
The old woman nodded, and muttered something to the effect that she remembered all these circumstances most vividly, now that Luke happened to mention them.
Robert Audley uttered a wild cry, and fell down upon his knees by the side of the sick man's bed.
"My God!" he ejaculated, "I think Thee for Thy wondrous mercies. George Talboys is alive!"
"Wait a bit," said Mr. Marks, "don't you be too fast. Mother, give us down that tin box on the shelf over against the chest of drawers, will you?"
The old woman obeyed, and after fumbling among broken teacups and milk-jugs, lidless wooden cotton-boxes, and a miscellaneous litter of rags and crockery, produced a tin snuff-box with a sliding lid; a shabby, dirty-looking box enough.
Robert Audley still knelt by the bedside with his face hidden by his clasped hands. Luke Marks opened the tin box.
"There ain't no money in it, more's the pity," he said, "or if there had been it wouldn't have been let stop very long. But there's summat in it that perhaps you'll think quite as valliable as money, and that's what I'm goin' to give you as a proof that a drunken brute can feel thankful to them as is kind to him."
He took out two folded papers, which he gave into Robert Audley's hands.
They were two leaves torn out of a pocket-book, and they were written upon in pencil, and in a handwriting that was quite strange to Mr. Audley—a cramped, stiff, and yet scrawling hand, such as some plowman might have written.
"I don't know this writing," Robert said, as he eagerly unfolded the first of the two papers. "What has this to do with my friend? Why do you show me these?"
"Suppose you read 'em first," said Mr. Marks, "and ask me questions about them afterwards."
The first paper which Robert Audley had unfolded contained the following lines, written in that cramped, yet scrawling hand which was so strange to him:
"MY DEAR FRIEND—I write to you in such utter confusion of mind as perhaps no man ever before suffered. I cannot tell you what has happened to me, I can only tell you that something has happened which will drive me from England a broken-hearted man, to seek some corner of the earth in which I may live and die unknown and forgotten. I can only ask you to forget me. If your friendship could have done me any good, I would have appealed to it. If your counsel could have been any help to me, I would have confided in you. But neither friendship nor counsel can help me; and all I can say to you is this, God bless you for the past, and teach you to forget me in the future. G.T."
The second paper was addressed to another person, and its contents were briefer than those of the first.
"HELEN—May God pity and forgive you for that which you have done to-day, as truly as I do. Rest in peace. You shall never hear of me again; to you and to the world I shall henceforth be that which you wished me to be to-day. You need fear no molestation from me. I leave England never to return.
"G.T."
Robert Audley sat staring at these lines in hopeless bewilderment. They were not in his friend's familiar hand, and yet they purported to be written by him and were signed with his initials.
He looked scrutinizingly at the face of Luke Marks, thinking that perhaps some trick was being played upon him.
"This was not written by George Talboys," he said.
"It was," answered Luke Marks, "it was written by Mr. Talboys, every line of it. He wrote it with his own hand; but it was his left hand, for he couldn't use his right because of his broken arm."
Robert Audley looked up suddenly, and the shadow of suspicion passed away from his face.
"I understand," he said, "I understand. Tell me all; tell me how it was that my poor friend was saved."
"I was at work up at Atkinson's farm, last September," said Luke Marks, "helping to stack the last of the corn, and as the nighest way from the farm to mother's cottage was through the meadows at the back of the Court, I used to come that way, and Phoebe used to stand in the garden wall beyond the lime-walk sometimes, to have a chat with me, knowin' my time o' comin' home.
"I don't know what Phoebe was a-doin' upon the evenin' of the seventh o' September—I rek'lect the date because Farmer Atkinson paid me my wages all of a lump on that day, and I'd had to sign a bit of a receipt for the money he give me—I don't know what she was a-doin', but she warn't at the gate agen the lime-walk, so I went round to the other side o' the gardens and jumped across the dry ditch, for I wanted partic'ler to see her that night, as I was goin' away to work upon a farm beyond Chelmsford the next day. Audley church clock struck nine as I was crossin' the meadows between Atkinson's and the Court, and it must have been about a quarter past nine when I got into the kitchen garden.
"I crossed the garden, and went into the lime-walk; the nighest way to the servants' hall took me through the shrubbery and past the dry well. It was a dark night, but I knew my way well enough about the old place, and the light in the window of the servants' hall looked red and comfortable through the darkness. I was close against the mouth of the dry well when I heard a sound that made my blood creep. It was a groan—a groan of a man in pain, as was lyin' somewhere hid among the bushes. I warn't afraid of ghosts and I warn't afraid of anythink in a general way, but there was somethin in hearin' this groan as chilled me to the very heart, and for a minute I was struck all of a heap, and didn't know what to do. But I heard the groan again, and then I began to search among the bushes. I found a man lyin' hidden under a lot o' laurels, and I thought at first he was up to no good, and I was a-goin' to collar him to take him to the house, when he caught me by the wrist without gettin' up from the ground, but lookin' at me very earnest, as I could see by the way his face was turned toward me in the darkness, and asked me who I was, and what I was, and what I had to do with the folks at the Court.
"There was somethin' in the way he spoke that told me he was a gentleman, though I didn't know him from Adam, and couldn't see his face; and I answered his questions civil.
"'I want to get away from this place,' he said, 'without bein' seen by any livin' creetur, remember that. I've been lyin' here ever since four o'clock to-day, and I'm half dead, but I want to get away without bein' seen, mind that.'
"I told him that was easy enough, but I began to think my first thoughts of him might have been right enough, after all, and that he couldn't have been up to no good to want to sneak away so precious quiet.
"'Can you take me to any place where I can get a change of dry clothes,' he says, 'without half a dozen people knowin' it?'
"He'd got up into a sittin' attitude by this time, and I could see that his right arm hung close by his side, and that he was in pain.
"I pointed to his arm, and asked him what was the matter with it; but he only answered, very quiet like: 'Broken, my lad, broken. Not that that's much,' he says in another tone, speaking to himself like, more than to me. 'There's broken hearts as well as broken limbs, and they're not so easy mended.'
"I told him I could take him to mother's cottage, and that he could dry his clothes there and welcome.
"'Can your mother keep a secret?' he asked.
"'Well, she could keep one well enough if she could remember it,' I told him; 'but you might tell her all the secrets of the Freemasons, and Foresters, and Buffalers and Oddfellers as ever was, to-night: and she'd have forgotten all about 'em to-morrow mornin'.'
"He seemed satisfied with this, and he got himself up by holdin' on to me, for it seemed as if his limbs was cramped, the use of 'em was almost gone. I felt as he came agen me, that his clothes was wet and mucky.
"'You haven't been and fell into the fish-pond, have you, sir?' I asked.
"He made no answer to my question; he didn't seem even to have heard it. I could see now he was standin' upon his feet that he was a tall, fine-made man, a head and shoulders higher than me.
"'Take me to your mother's cottage,' he said, 'and get me some dry clothes if you can; I'll pay you well for your trouble.'
"I knew that the key was mostly left in the wooden gate in the garden wall, so I led him that way. He could scarcely walk at first, and it was only by leanin' heavily upon my shoulder that he managed to............