The man who called himself Henry Dunbar was lying on the tapestried cushions of a carved oaken couch that stood before the fire in his spacious sitting-room. He lay there, listening to the March wind roaring in the broad chimney, and watching the blazing coals and the crackling logs of wood.
It was three o’clock in the morning now, and the servants had left the room at midnight; but the sick man had ordered a huge fire to be made up — a fire that promised to last for some hours.
The master of Maudesley Abbey was in no way improved by his long imprisonment. His complexion had faded to a dull leaden hue; his cheeks were sunken; his eyes looked unnaturally large and unnaturally bright. Long hours of loneliness, long sleepless nights, and thoughts that from every diverging point for ever narrowed inwards to one hideous centre, had done their work of him. The man lying opposite the fire to-night looked ten years older than the man who gave his evidence so boldly and clearly before the coroner’s jury at Winchester.
The crutches — they were made of some light, polished wood, and were triumphs of art in their way — leaned against a table close to the couch, and within reach to the man’s hand. He had learned to walk about the rooms and on the gravel-drive before the Abbey with these crutches, and had even learned to do without them, for he was now able to set the lamed foot upon the ground, and to walk a few paces pretty steadily, with no better support than that of his cane; but as yet he walked slowly and doubtfully, in spite of his impatience to be about once more.
Heaven knows how many different thoughts were busy in his restless brain that night. Strange memories came back to him, as he lay staring at the red chasms and craggy steeps in the fire — memories of a time so long gone by, that all the personages of that period seemed to him like the characters in a book, or the figures in a picture. He saw their faces, and he remembered how they had looked at him; and among these other faces he saw the many semblances which his own had worn.
O God, how that face had changed! The bright, frank, boyish countenance, looking eagerly out upon a world that seemed so pleasant; the young man’s hopeful smile; and then — and then, the hard face that grew harder with the lapse of years; the smile that took no radiance from a light within; the frown that blackened as the soul grew darker. He saw all these, and still for ever, amid a thousand distracting ideas, his thoughts, which were beyond his own volition, concentrated in the one plague-spot of his life, and held him there, fixed as a wretch bound hand and foot upon the rack.
“If I could only get away from this place,” he said to himself; “if I could get away, it would all be different. Change of scene, activity, hurrying from place to place in new countries and amongst strange people, would have the usual influence upon me. That memory would pass away then, as other memories have passed; only to be recalled, now and then, in a dream; or conjured up by some chance allusion dropped from the lips of strangers, some coincidence of resemblance in a scene, or face, or tone, or look. That memory cannot be so much worse than the rest that it should be ineffaceable, where they have been effaced. But while I stay here, here in this dismal room, where the dropping of the ashes on the hearth, the ticking of the clock upon the chimney-piece, are like that torture I have read of somewhere — the drop of water falling at intervals upon the victim’s forehead until the anguish of its monotony drives him raving mad — while I stay here there is no hope of forgetfulness, no possibility of peace. I saw him last night, and the night before last, and the night before that. I see him always when I go to sleep, smiling at me, as he smiled when we went into the grove. I can hear his voice, and the words he said, every syllable of those insignificant words, selfish murmurs about the probability of his being fatigued in that long walk, the possibility that it would have been better to hire a fly, and to have driven by the road — bah! What was he that I should be sorry for him? Am I sorry for him? No! I am sorry for myself, and for the torture which I have created for myself. O God! I can see him now as he looked up at me out of the water. The motion of the stream gave a look of life to his face, and I almost thought he was still alive, and I had never done that deed.”
These were the pleasant fireside thoughts with which the master of Maudesley Abbey beguiled the hours of his convalescence. Heaven keep our memories green! exclaims the poet novelist; and Heaven preserve us from such deeds as make our memories hideous to us!
From such a reverie as this the master of Maudesley Abbey was suddenly aroused by the sound of a light knocking against one of the windows of his room — the window nearest him as he lay on the couch.
He started, and lifted himself into a sitting posture.
“Who is there?” he cried, impatiently.
He was frightened, and clasped his two hands upon, his forehead, trying to think who the late visitant could be. Why should any one come to him at such an hour, unless — unless it was discovered? There could be no other justification for such an intrusion.
His breath came short and thick as he thought of this. Had it come at last, then, that awful moment which he had dreamed of so many times — that hideous crisis which he had imagined under so many different aspects? Had it come at last, like this? — quietly, in the dead of the night, without one moment’s warning? — before he had prepared himself to escape it, or hardened himself to meet it? Had it come now? The man thought all this while he listened, with his chest heaving, his breath coming in hoarse gasps, waiting for the reply to his question.
There was no reply except the knocking, which grew louder and more hurried.
If there can be expression in the tapping of a hand against a pane of glass, there was expression in that hand — the expression of entreaty rather than of demand, as it seemed to that white and terror-stricken listener.
His heart gave a great throb, like a prisoner who leaps away from the fetters that have been newly loosened.
“What a fool I have been!” he thought. “If it was that, there would be knocking and ringing at the hall-door, instead of that cautious summons. I suppose that fellow Vallance has got into some kind of trouble, and has come in the dead of the night to hound me for money. It would be only like him to do it. He knows he must be admitted, let him come when he may.”
The invalid gave a groan as he thought this. He got up and walked to the window, leaning upon his cane as he went.
The knocking still sounded. He was close to the window, and he heard something besides the knocking — a woman’s voice, not loud, but peculiarly audible by reason of its earnestness.
“Let me in; for pity’s sake let me in!”
The man standing at the window knew that voice: only too well, only too well. It was the voice of the girl who had so persistently followed him, who had only lately succeeded in seeing him. He drew back the bolts that fastened the long French window, opened it, and admitted Margaret Wilmot.
“Margaret!” he cried; “what, in Heaven’s name, brings you here at such an hour as this?”
“Danger!” answered the girl, breathlessly. “Danger to you! I have been running, and the words seem to choke me as I speak. There’s not a moment to be lost, not one moment. They will be here directly; they cannot fail to be here directly. I felt as if they had been close behind me all the way — they may have been so. There is not a moment — not one moment!”
She stopped, with her hands clasped upon her breast. She was incoherent in her excitement, and knew that she was so, and struggled to express herself clearly.
“Oh, father!” she exclaimed, lifting her hands to her head, and pushing the loose tangled hair away from her face; “I have tried to save you — I have tried to save you! But sometimes I think that is not to be. It may be God’s mercy that you should be taken, and your wretched daughter can die with you!”
She fell upon her knees, suddenly, in a kind of delirium, and lifted up her clasped hands.
“O God, have mercy upon him!” she cried. “As I prayed in this room before — as I have prayed every hour since that dreadful time — I pray again to-night. Have mercy upon him, and give him a penitent heart, and wash away his sin. What is the penalty he may suffer here, compared to that Thou canst inflict hereafter? Let the chastisement of man fall upon him, so as Thou wilt accept his repentance!”
“Margaret,” said Joseph Wilmot, grasping the girl’s arm, “are you praying that I may be hung? Have you come here to do that? Get up, and tell me what is the matter!”
Margaret Wilmot rose from her knees shuddering, and looking straight before her, trying to be calm — trying to collect her thoughts.
“Father,” she said, “I have never known one hour’s peaceful sleep since the night I left this room. For the last three nights I have not slept at all. I have been travelling, walking from place to place, until I could drop on the floor at your feet. I want to tell you — but the words — the words — won’t come — somehow ——”
She pointed to her dry lips, which moved, but made no sound. There was a bottle of brandy and a glass on the table near the couch. Joseph Wilmot was seldom without that companion. He snatched up the bottle and glass, poured out some of the brandy, and placed it between his daughter’s lips. She drank the spirit eagerly. She would have drunk living fire, if, by so doing, she could have gained strength to complete her task.
“You must leave this house directly!” she gasped. “You must go abroad, anywhere, so long as you are safe out of the way. They will be here to look for you — Heaven only knows how soon!”
“They! Who?
“Clement Austin, and a man — a detective ——”
“Clement Austin — your lover — your confederate? You have betrayed me, Margaret!”
“I!” cried the girl, looking at her father.
There was something sublime in the tone of that one word — something superb in the girl’s face, as her eyes met the haggard gaze of the murderer.
“Forgive me, my girl! No, no, you wouldn’t do that, even to a loathsome wretch like me!”
“But you will go away — you will escape from them?”
“Why should I be afraid of them? Let them come when they please, they have no proof against me.”
“No proof? Oh, father, you don’t know — you don’t know. They have been to Winchester. I heard from Clement’s mother that he had gone there; and I went after him, and found out where he was — at the inn where you stayed, where you refused to see me — and that there was a man with him. I waited about the streets; and at night I saw them both, the man and Clement. Oh! father, I knew they could have only one purpose in coming to that place. I saw them at night; and the next day I watched again — waiting about the street, and hiding myself under porches or in shops, when there was any chance of my being seen. I saw Clement leave the George, and take the way towards the cathedral. I went to the cathedral-yard afterwards, and saw the strange man talking in a doorway with an old man. I loitered about the cathedral-yard, and saw the man that was with Clement go away, down by the meadows, towards the grove, to the place where ——”
She stopped, and trembled so violently that she was unable to speak.
Joseph Wilmot filled the glass with brandy for the second time, and put it to his daughter’s lips.
She drank about a teaspoonful, and then went on, speaking very rapidly, and in broken sentences —
“I followed the man, keeping a good way behind, so that he might not see that he was followed. He went straight down to the very place where — the murder was done. Clement was there, and three men. They were there under the trees, and they were dragging the water.”
“Dragging the water! Oh, my God, why were they doing that?” cried the man, dropping suddenly on the chair nearest to him, and with his face livid.
For the first time since Margaret had entered the room terror took possession of him. Until now he had listened attentively, anxiously; but the ghastly look of fear and horror was new upon his face. He had defied discovery. There was only one thing that could be used against him — the bundle of clothes, the marked garments of the murdered man — those fatal garments which he had been unable to destroy, which he had only been able to hide. These things alone could give evidence against him; but who should think of searching for these things? Again and again he had thought of the bundle at the bottom of the stream, only to laugh at the wondrous science of discovery which had slunk back baffled by so slight a mystery, only to fancy the water-rats gnawing the dead man’s garments, and all the oose and slime creeping in and out amongst the folds until the rotting rags became a very part of the rank river-weeds that crawled and tangled round them.
He had thought this, and the knowledge that strangers had been busy on that spot, dragging the water — the dreadful water that had so often flowed through his dreams — with, not one, but a thousand dead faces looking up and grinning at him through the stream — the tidings that a search had been made there, came upon him like a thunderbolt.
“Why did they drag the water?” he cried again.
His daughter was standing at a little distance from him. She had never gone close up to him, and she had receded a little — involuntarily, as a woman shrinks away from some animal she is frightened of — whenever he had approached her. He knew this — yes, amidst every other conflicting thought, this man was conscious that his daughter avoided him.
“They dragged the water,” Margaret said; “I walked about — that place — under the elms — all the day — only one day — but it seemed to last for ever and ever. I was obliged to hide myself — and to keep at a distance, for Clement was there all day; but as it grew dusk I ventured nearer, and found out what they were doing, and that they had not found what they were searching for; but I did not know yet what it was they wanted to find.”
“But they found it!” gasped the girl’s father; “did they find it? Come to that.”
“Yes, they found it by-and-by. A bundle of rags, a boy told me — a boy who had been about with the men all day —‘a bundle of rags, it looked like,’ he said; but he heard the constable say that those rags were the clothes that had belonged to the murdered man.”
“What then? What next?”
“I waited to hear no more, father; I ran all the way to Winch............