-< iMW/: ^UtUKAK* ^OJITVOJO^ ^AwaarH^ CAMFO/?^ m ^ U ^Til30NVS0# V \W UNIVERS//, %1MNVSQ^ 5 «d m ?3 \YUUNIVtHJ/£. >- ^lUVANLtUj^ vAtLlBKAKYC//- ^JJlHNV-SOV^ %i3AINIHV\V ^•l ^AHvaam^' "% ^•LIBRARY #/ \\At UNlVERi/4 o O uL ^lOS-ANGElfj^ ^UIBRARY0/ -^t! ^ffOJIWJJO^ ^OFCAUFO^ ^OFCAIIFO^ y 0Awaan-^ y oxmmi^ ^jto-soi^ "fysaaAWiutW .^OFCAIIF0% y 0AMn# ^OFCAllFOfy y 0ANvaan$ ^tllBRAHY ^OF-CAUFOfyj, ^OF-CALIFORfc y " What a dreamer you are," she exclaimed at last. "A man must dream, however futile some of his dreams may he," he answered quietly* " Ah, there is her ladyship's carriage." " What a quick ear you have." " Don't you hear it ? " " Yes, I can hear it now, but I didn't when you spoke. But then, I had not been listening so intently as you," added Cora, significantly. He did not notice the insinuation, but walked quickly towards the carriage sweep, and was standing at the foot of the stone steps ready tc help Lady Penrith out of her carriage when it' stopped. " I am very late," she said, apologetically, " but I have been a long way." "And you must be expiring for want of your tea," exclaimed Cora. "Do come into the warm drawing-room and let me minister to you." " No, thank you, Cora. I have had tea, and' 6 THOU ART THE MAN. am very warm in this fur coat. Mr. Coverdale, would you mind taking a turn on the terrace with me before we go indoors ? I want a little serious talk with you." Coralie stared aghast. With her growing suspicions about John Coverdale, this seemed extraordinary conduct on her aunt's part. " And I should be in the way if I stayed," she said pertly. " For this one occasion, yes, Cora." " Then I retire, as gracefully as I can. But I hope you'll change your mind, aunt, and let me order some fresh tea to be ready when you come indoors." "Please no. Don't trouble about me. I shall go straight to my room." Lady Penrith and Mr. Coverdale walked nearly to the end of the terrace before the silence was broken. And then Sibyl opened her heart to this Anglican priest, fearlessly, and told him the story of those eventful months before Lord Penrith appeared upon the scene " FANCIES THAT MIGHT BE, FACTS THAT ARE." 7 as her suitor. "I know you are the soul of honour," she said, " and you are a priest. I can confide in you. I can ask you to help me, as I dare not ask my husband — although all that I am telling you to-night is known to him — all except the events of the last month, of which he knows nothing. You will help me, won't you, Mr. Coverdale ? " " With all my heart and mind," he answered, with an earnestness which she could not mistake. She told him every detail of that night in the village gaol ; how she had allowed Hubert Urquhart to act upon her fears, and how she had urged Brandon Mountford to escape. ""Was I wrong?" she said. "Was I his enemy rather than his friend ? " " In my view of the case he should have stayed to face his accusers. He should not have allowed himself to be persuaded." " Oh, it was my fault. I was made to believe that I was saving him from death, or, at the 8 THOU ART THE MAX. least, from life-long misery and shame. And I sent him to his death, or — or to wretchedness worse than death." And then she told him of that pencil scrawl, and her interpretation of it, and of the scene with the Vicar's wife and daughter that after- noon. That this unknown inmate of the Vicarage was Brandon Mountford seemed to Mr. Cover- dale the wildest and most romantic of fancies ; but, on the other hand, that pencilled appeal in a handwriting which Lady Penrith recognised as Mountford's had to be accounted for; and then place and time agreed. The stormy night, the coming of the unknown lodger between midnight and morning, the hidden life, with its studied seclusion, these facts pointed to some guilty secret, and any man to whom these facts became known was bound in honour to investi- gate them. Had John Coverdale lighted upon such a mystery in his own parish he would not have " FANCIES THAT MIGHT BE, FACTS THAT AKE." 9 rested till be had unearthed the evil doers. His mission was to carry light into dark places. "You may be mistaken as to the identity of this person," he said, after a thoughtful pause, " but there can be no doubt it is a case for investigation. I have heard something of Mr. Carpew's character and antecedents which makes me inclined to think he might lend him- self to underhand dealings." " I am going to St. Jude's to-morrow, directly after breakfast. Will you go there with me, Mr. Coverdale?" " Certainly. It is the very thing I was going to propose. Let me be with you, and it shall go hard if we don't succeed in seeing this poor gentleman." " Yes, yes, with your help I must succeed. How good you are." " Good, when it is such happiness to serve you." She did not notice the earnestness of his 10 THOU ART THE MAN. tone in that one instant of self-betrayal, did not notice how the cold, grave manner changed suddenly to warmest feeling, only to lapse again into that thoughtful calm which was his distinguishing characteristic. " With you at my side I shall be strong," she said. "I felt so weak and helpless to-day, so easily baffled by that shifty woman. I did not know what I ought to do — whether I ought to insist upon waiting for her husband's return. It seemed so feeble in me to leave that house, convinced as I was that he was there, so near me, and in such bitter need of me. But you can help him. You can release him from bondage. They won't be able to trick you." " There is one thing to be remembered, Lady Penrith. A terrible accusation hangs over this man's head — if he is the man you think — and for him to reappear in this neighbourhood will be to re-open that old story." " Let it be re-opened. I would risk that. Let him face the accusation, as he would have " FANCIES THAT MIGHT BE, FACTS THAT ARE." 11 done in the beginning, but for me. I know that he was innocent — that it was another hand that killed my adopted sister." " Whom do you suspect ? " " I cannot tell you yet. I may trust you even with that suspicion by-and-by. No, I would not fear for Brandon Mountford to face his accusers. New evidence would come to light perhaps — if the history of that dreadful night were gone into coldly, quietly, the facts sifted and weighed as they could not be a few hours after .the tragedy, when everyone was bewildered with the horror of that poor girl's death. I know that he was innocent." "And if he is living hidden in St. Jude's Vicarage you would risk the consequences of removing him — the almost inevitable re-opening of the enquiry ? " "Yes, I would risk that." "So be it, Lady Penrith. Then you and I will tackle the Vicar to-morrow morning, or if he be out of the way when we call, we will make 12 TPIOU ART THE MAN. things so unpleasant for him that lie won't be able to evade us very long." " You think he may not see us to-morrow ? " " I think — if he is the scoundrel you believe him to be — he may find some excuse for not receiving us." Sibyl breathed a despairing sigh. " Oh, how difficult it is to right a wrong," she exclaimed. Lady Penrith and Mr. Cover dale drove away from the Castle before ten o'clock next morning in the lady's barouche, with a pair of horses that made light work of distance or of hilly roads. The shooters had set out before the barouche drove up to the front of the Castle, and there were only Lady Selina and Miss Urquhart at home to wonder at this strange proceeding. Coralie ran out to the steps to watch the departure. " Oh, what a delicious morning," she cried. "FANCIES THAT MIGHT BE, FACTS THAT ARE." 13 " How fresh and crisp the air feels," and then, ai with a sudden impulse, " Do let me go with you, Aunt." " Not to-day, Cora. I am taking Mr. Cover- dale to see some poor people. You would only be bored." " No, no, I wouldn't. I am positively longing for a drive." " Then gratify your longing. You have not driven your own particular pony for ever so long." " I hate driving myself. I like to enjoy the air, and the landscape." " Then get a groom to drive you," said Sibyl curtly, and the barouche drove off, leaving Cora standing at the top of the steps dis- comfited. "Now, what in the name of all that's ridicu- lous, does this mean?" she asked herself. " Can it be that the wise, the calm, the ineffable Lady Penrith is carrying on a flirtation with this pious parson, under all our noses ? I 14 THOU AET THE MAN. know that he is in love with her. The creature has not even the art to conceal his emotions." She ran upstairs to her own cosy den, and wrote her account of Lady Penrith's strange conduct of this morning for transmission to Jermyn Street. All compunction that she had felt in the beginning, when the office of spy was first proposed to her, had long died out of her crooked little mind. And now that Lady Penrith's influence was spoiling her chances of a great match, gratitude to the benefactress who had redeemed her from bondage was a thing of the past. " What frauds these icily-beautiful women are," she said to herself, as she folded the closely-written sheet which had occupied her for nearly an hour. And then, opening her secret volume, she relieved her mind by scrib- bling ideas and feelings which she would have imparted to no living confidante. Life at the Castle was growing lonelier and duller. The smart soldier who frankly admired "FANCIES THAT MIGHT BE, FACTS THAT ARE." 15' her sharp sayings and gave her a nightly lesson in billiards was to leave that afternoon, and a Keswick squire had left the day before. The house party after to-day's luncheon would be reduced to Lady Selina and Mr. Coverdale, whose holiday from parish cares was lasting longer than he had intended. His parish was at the East End of London, where he lived a life which would have been self-sacrifice for the son of the poorest com- moner, and where he was generally known to all the over-worked mothers and all the dirty little children as Father Coverdale. 10 THOU ART THE MAN. CHAPTER II. THE VICAR OF ST. JUDE's. Yes, the Vicar was at home. Sarah ushered Lady Penrith and Mr. Coverdale into the drawing-room, and went to fetch her master, who kept them waiting some minutes before he came. A pallid, miserable looking creature when he did appear ; a man with careworn face and bent shoulders, and those furtive glances which the parish priest had seen in many faces, whose meaning he knew only too well. He knew when he saw those shifty, down-looking eyes that he had to do with a difficult subject. He had never been able to do much good with any man who had that kind of look. THE VICAR OF ST JUDE'S. 17 He went straight to the object of their visit, after briefly introducing himself. "Lady Penrith is very anxious to see the invalid gentleman in your care," he said. " I hope you will make no difficulty about the matter." "I regret that it is impossible to gratify her ladyship's wish. The gentleman left me, in the custody of a friend, early this morning." " Left you — left this house after ten years of imprisonment," cried Sibyl. "I don't believe it." " That remark is hardly civil on your lady- ship's part. You have no right to use the word imprisonment in relation to a sufferer who was entrusted, for his own comfort and safety, to my care — nor have you any right to doubt my assertion." The words were firm, but the voice was tremulous, and the manner was as bad as it could be. " How and why was this inmate of the VOL. III. C IS THOU ART THE MAX. Vicarage removed, Mr. Carpew?" asked Mr. Coverdale. " I really cannot gratify your curiosity so far as to say why he was removed. That is the business of the friend who removed him. I can tell you how he left this house — in a fly, ordered from Ardliston. My responsibility ceased from the moment he crossed my thres- hold." " Your responsibility before God will never cease," exclaimed Sibyl, passionately. " You have played a sordid and wicked part — you have lent yourself to the scheme of a villain. The friend you talk of — the friend — oh, what a friend — is Hubert Urquhart, who wove a web of treachery round Brandon Mountford's life." " Lady Penrith, pray, pray be calm," pleaded Mr. Coverdale. " I cannot — I cannot keep silence when I see to what a cruel plot this man has lent himself. But I don't believe his victim has THE VICAR OF ST. JUDE'S. 10 been removed — he is still under this roof, and we are not to be put off with lies." "Lady Penrith, you seem to take pleasure in insulting me. Perhaps you would like to see the empty rooms — they are very untidy — but their emptiness may remove your doubts." "Yes, let me see the rooms — his prison of all these years." The Vicar took no further notice of the obnoxious word, but quietly led the way from the drawing-room to the long dark passage which went between the dining room and kitchen to the east end of the Vicarage, and there ended in an ascent of three steps and a baize-covered door. The Vicar opened this door and ushered his visitors into an empty room — a sitting room, sparsely furnished, like the rest of the house, but by no means a bad room, light enough and airy enough, with a French window opening into that walled garden, of which Gertrude Carpew had spoken. A door 20 THOU ART THE MAN. opened into an adjoining bedroom, where the iron bedstead and shabby furniture were about on a level with the accommodation of third-rate lodgings at a popular watering-place. A charwoman was busy clearing up litter and sweeping out corners. There were a few books on a chiffonier, and a pile of old news- papers on a side table. Sibyl took up the books one after another and examined them. They all belonged to the Yicar, and most of them had his name written in them. Shakespeare, Macaulay, Byron, Thackeray, Pope, Milton. The Milton, the Pope, and the Macaulay were college prizes; but the calf bindings were shabby with much usage. " There are two more rooms above, if you would like to see them ? " said the Vicar. " Yes, I should like to see them," answered Sibyl curtly. " They are quite empty — they have never been furnished — but if it gratifies you " THE VICAR OF ST. JUDE'S. 21 A shrug of the bent shoulders finished the sentence, and Mr. Carpew led the way by a narrow essentially modern staircase to the floor above, which was as blank and bare as he had asserted. " He is gone, you see," he said. "How do we know that you have not hidden him in some other part of your house ? " "You are at liberty to examine my house from celler to garret." " No, no," interposed Mr. Coverdale, " we have no wish to doubt your word, Vicar. I have not, nor I am sure has Lady Penrith, though she spoke hastily just now in her dis- appointment. You must admit that it is a strange and perplexing fact that after inhabit- ing this house for ten years " "Who says that he was here so long as that ? " exclaimed Mr. Carpew. "I say so," answered Sibyl, resolutely. "I say that he was brought to this house on the night of the gale that wrecked the Mary Jane 22 THOU ART THE MAN. fishing smack, the night after my foster sister's murder. He was brought here by your old pupil, Hubert Urquhart, and he has been spirited away by the same man, to prevent my seeing him. He has been robbed of liberty — perhaps of reason — by that man, for his own ends." " My dear Lady Penrith, consider how wild and improbable these charges are." " Answer me one question. Did Mr. Urqu- hart bring you your lodger, or did he not ? " " I cannot answer any such question. Your ladyship must understand that there are many cases in which the friends of an afflicted person desire the utmost secrecy." " Mr. Carpew, are you a clergyman of the Church of England or the keeper of a lunatic asylum ? " demanded John Coverdale, with a severity which shook the Vicar's shattered nerves. "If the gentleman whom you kept shut up in these rooms was out of his mind you were guilty of a breach of the law in THE VICAR OF ST. JUDE'S. 23 keeping him here, and the fact ought to be brought before your Bishop." " You are in a great hurry to misjudge one of your own cloth, Mr. Coverdale. A man may be ill and afflicted without being necessarily a lunatic. The person who occupied these rooms was not a lunatic ; but he was in more need of care and privacy than many lunatics." "He was an epileptic patient," said Sibyl, white to the lips with anger; "a patient for whom open air and movement, change of climate and scene, were essential — a man who should have been roaming the sea in a yacht, or wandering in wild, beautiful scenes, free and unharassed. To keep him in this squalid hole," looking at the square, shabby parlour with eyes accustomed to the lofty spaciousness of Killander Castle and Ellerslie House, " to keep him in such rooms as these — in that dreary, sunless garden — was to murder body and soul. And you, sir, are guilty of murder — you who call yourself a clergyman of 24 TIIOU ART THE MAN". the Church of England. But your Bishop shall know of your infamous conduct — you shall be punished " " Dear Lady Penrith, for God's sake be calm," remonstrated Coverdale, strongly moved by her passionate outburst. She flung herself sobbing upon his shoulder, instinctively clinging to him, to save herself from falling to the ground. He could feel the stormy beating of her heart as his arm supported her — an arm held as King Arthur might have held his in a similar crisis. Never before had this- woman — his ideal among all women — been so near his heart. So near, and yet worlds away ! Alas, how fondly she must have loved that first love of hers ! How much that old story meant in her life ! "Pray be calm," he repeated, gently; "we have no right to jump at conclusions. After all, you may be mistaken as to the person who occupied these rooms. I have no doubt," with a propitiatory glance at the Vicar, " Mr. Car- THE VICAR OF ST. JUDE'S. 25 pew will be good enough to tell us the name of his charge, and where he has gone, and with whom. And then you will be satisfied and at ease again." " I decline to tell anything, or to answer any question put to me by you, Mr. Coverdale. I have been attacked in a most outrageous manner in my own house. This is a free country, and I have done nothing in violation of the law. This wretched living was given to me by the late Earl, so I suppose I must endure any amount of contumely from Lady Penrith, but I will not submit to insult from you." "I understand, then, that you positively de- cline to satisfy Lady Penrith's doubts by giving her the fullest information in your power about the person so lately under your care ? " asked Mr. Coverdale. " I most distinctly refuse to be interrogated about my private and domestic life — even by Lady Penrith," replied the Vicar, doggedly. "In that case, we must take stronger measures- 26 THOU ART THE MAN. Come, Lady Penrith, we are only wasting time here. I wish you good-day, Vicar." The Vicar's sullen reply was only half-audible. He led the way back to the hall, and Lady Penrith returned to her carriage, attended by Mr. Coverdale. " There can be no doubt," she said, as they drove off. " If I had doubted before, I am certain of the fact now. They have smuggled him away between them, to some still more wretched hiding-place. Hubert Urcmhart and that man " " Stop ! " cried Mr. Coverdale to the coach- man. " There is someone running after the carriage — a young lady. She came out of that field." The horses were pulled up about a hundred yards beyond the field gate, and Gertrude Carpew came to the carriage door. " I have been watching for you ever so long, Lady Penrith," she said. " I suppose it's awfully wicked for a girl to hate her father, but THE VICAR OF ST. JUDE'S. 27 I can't help hating mine for the cruel trick he has played upon you — after what happened yesterday afternoon. He swore it was all arranged before you came to the Vicarage — that it was settled for the poor gentleman to leave us. But, if it was, Ma knew nothing about it." " My dear Miss Carpew, pray tell me exactly, as clearly as you can, all that happened since I saw you. This young lady is the Vicar's daughter, Mr. Coverdale, and she sympathises with me in the kindest way." " Who could help sympathising with you ? Poor Ma was crying all the evening. She and Pa had a long talk before supper, and I know they had high words, for Pa was horribly cross to all of us at supper ; and directly after supper he walked out of the house." " Does he often go out so late as that ? " asked Mr. Coverdale. "Not once in a blue moon. It was past ten, and a dark night ; and it was midnight before 2S THOU ART THE MAX. lie came home. I heard him let himself in with his latchkey, for I was too miserable to go to sleep easily ; and I was awake very early in the morning, and I heard a good deal of hustle and moving about downstairs. I lay listening, half awake and half asleep, and then not long after the clock on the stairs struck seven I heard a carriage drive to the door. And I got up and looked out of the window and could just see father and another man huddling someone wrapped in a cloak into a fly." " Could you see what the other man was- like?" " Tall and slight, that was about all I could make out. They were very quick. Father and the stranger both got into the fly, and it drove off directly they were in. When I came down to breakfast mother was looking awfully miser- able, but she wouldn't tell me anything. She's too completely under father's thumb to trust any of us. We'd finished breakfast before father came home in the fly — alone." THE VICAR OF ST. JUDE'S. 29 " Did be say nothing as to where he had heen ? " "Not a word. He was crustier than usual, and sent us all out of the room before he began breakfast. As a rule he takes very little breakfast, and wonders at us for being able to eat so early in the day. I am so sorry you should be disappointed, Lady Penrith; but perhaps after all, the gentleman who left us this morning mayn't be the person you think." " I am more than ever convinced that he is that person," answered Sibyl. " You are a kind, true-hearted girl, Miss Carpew, and I rely on you to help me with any further information you may be able to obtain — any circumstance that may give a clue to the place where my poor friend has been taken. I promise that your kindness to me shall do no injury to your father. Whatever may happen, he shall be protected for your sake, so far as I can protect him. The chief mover in this cruel business is the person 30 THOU AET THE MAN. I bold responsible for tbe wrong done. I shall not rest till be is punished." " Ab, but I'm afraid if father has done wrong in tbe matter it must all come out sooner or later, and we shall be disgraced," said Gertrude, despondently. "But whatever is going to happen to us, I'll do all I can to find out where they have taken that poor gentleman." " I thank you with all my heart. Be assured you shall be compensated for any trouble your kindness may cause." Sibyl and the parson's daughter clasped hands as they said good-bye. The conversation between the two women had been carried on in confidential tones, inaudible to coachman and footman. " Ardliston Boad station," ordered Mr. Cover- dale, and the barouche continued its way, while Gertrude started on a circuitous journey through a field and across a common, so as to arrive at the Vicarage from an opposite direction to that in which Lady Penrith's carriage had gone. THE VICAR OF ST. JUDE'S. 31 " I may as well make some inquiries at the station before we go back to the Castle, if you've no objection," said Mr. Coverdale, explaining the order he had just given to the coachman. " It may make us a little later in returning." " What does that matter ? Let us stay out all day if there is anything to be clone," answered Sibyl, and then lapsed into silence, exhausted by the scene at the Vicarage, and absorbed in gloomy thought. She did not speak till they were at the station, where Mr. Coverdale left the carriage for nearly a quarter of an hour. " I have seen the station-master and the two porters," he told Sibyl, when he came back. " There seems no doubt that the two men went to Keswick. The one who appeared to be an invalid was so wrapped up in an Inverness cloak and large white muffler that it was not easy to distinguish his features. The men only saw that he looked white and haggard. The other man wore a shooting cap, pulled down upon his 32 THOU ART THE MAN. forehead — a cap with a peak — and he, too, had the lower part of his face muffled in a scarf, but this circumstance attracted no attention, as the morning was raw and cold. I asked the station- master to describe the man in charge of the invalid — his figure and carriage, if not his face — and he said he was about the height and figure of Lord Penrith, and reminded him of his lordship." " Hubert Urquhart ! " exclaimed Sibyl. " That is conclusive. Now, Mr. Coverdale, what are we to do ? Go on to Keswick, I say, by the first train that will take us." " My dear Lady Penrith, that would be a wild proceeding. Keswick is a large place — and for you to be seen there, going from pillar to post — and then, to absent yourself from home without explanation to Lord Penrith " " I can send a message by the coachman. I can explain afterwards." " No, no. It would be waste of time and trouble for you to attempt to trace these men. THE VICAR OP ST. JUDE'S. 36 I will follow up the clue and see what can be done, and if I make any discovery before the evening I can telegraph to you, and you can come to Keswick with your maid, and put up at an hotel for a day or two." " Yes, that would do ; I should be near." " But even that would be rather a wild thing to do — and if you could make up your mind to trust this business entirely to me " " I do trust you. I know how much better able you are to help me in this matter than I am to help myself. But when you find him, if he should be very ill and broken, I should like to be near at hand. I might be of some use then." " In that case I promise to summon you with- out a moment's delay." " And you will go to Keswick, and give your- self up to this search ? " " With all my might. Have I not promised to devote myself to your service ? I shall think of nothing else till this is done. If Penrith in- vol. in. r> ok '1II0U ART THE MAN. quire about me you need only say that I had business at Keswick, and that my return to the Castle is uncertain. If you'll allow me, I'll ask your footman to see about sending me a port- manteau. I may be absent for some days." " How good you are ! " " Please, don't say that ! Only trust me, and keep up your courage. Bear in mind that my East End experiences have made me acquainted with strange people and strange things. I am not so unequal to this task as you might suppose." " I know how clever, how resolute you are." " My train will not leave for half an hour, so I had better tell your coachman to drive you home." " Mayn't I wait till you leave ? " " Please, don't. You have had a trying morning, and you will be better at home." He gave his instructions briefly to the foot- man, and then the carriage drove away, he watching till the pale, anxious face looking THE VICAR OF ST. JUDE'S. 35 back at him vanished altogether from his sight. "How she must have loved him!" John Coverdale repeated to himself, with a sigh. CORALIE S PRIVATE DIARY CONTINUED. Her ladyship's conduct becomes hourly more extraordinary. After leaving the Castle early this morning with the parson — coolly declining my company, which I offered in my gushing little way, on the spur of the moment, deter- mined at any rate to embarrass her by forcing a refusal — she returns at three o'clock this afternoon without that inestimable cleric. When I ask her in a casual way what she has done with him she replies that he has gone to Keswick, and that he has business there which may detain him for some days. "Business in Keswick," say I, not conceal- ing my surprise. " I thought the only business in Keswick was making lead pencils and showing 36 THOU ART THE MAN. Southey's house. That is all I've ever heard of in connection with Keswick." "You can't be expected to know everything in the world, Cora," answered she, " least of all to know Mr. Coverdale's business." " Oh, if it is a kind of secret service of course I needn't be ashamed of my ignorance," re- torted I. Lady Penrith is my benefactress — my luxuri- ous life here, my purse filled with pocket-money, all the nice frocks in my wardrobe, testify to the fact — but I am afraid I am beginning to hate her ; and I am afraid she is beginning to hate me. Our relations are at best an armed neutrality. Who knows when war may be declared ? After all I need not exaggerate her beneficence or my obligation. The benefits she has be- stowed upon me — the frocks, the lodging, the pocket-money — are the merest bagatelles for a woman of her means. If she really wanted to befriend me how easy for her to settle the six THE VICAR OF ST. JUDE'S. 37 thousand pounds, which my father tells me has always been the portion of Lord Penrith's daughters, upon me — sole daughter of the house of Urquhart. Six thousand pounds. With her fortune she would have but to sign a cheque for the amount, and might forget the next hour that her coffers were diminished by that paltry sum. But instead of playing a really generous part, and making me independent for life, she lets her dressmaker clothe me, just as my uncle's tailor clothes his liveried servants, and she tolerates my presence in her house. What- ever chance I might have had with Mr. Cover- dale — that pattern of starched propriety — Lady Penrith has contrived to spoil. She must see that he admires her far too much for his peace ; and if she were really that model of all the domestic graces for which she poses, she would have chilled him by quiet avoidance, instead of making him the confidant of her sorrows, what- ever those mysterious sorrows may be. In my delight at escaping from the dusty 38" THOU ART TPIE MAN. horrors of a second-rate lodging-house, I have been over-enthusiastic about my uncle's beau- tiful countess. These quiet women are never to be trusted. Another surprise, and a very painful one, awaited me this evening. It was just on the edge of dark. Lady Pen- rith had not honoured the drawing-room with her presence after coming in from her long drive, minus Coverdale. Lady Selina, after having usurped my favourite chair all the after- noon, clamoured for an early tea, and for one solid hour I was administering to her gorman- dising propensities. Released from this genteel slavery, I made my escape from the drawing-room, lest I should be called upon to hold a huge skein of that teeth-on-edge-setting worsted which she calls Pre-Raphaelite wool. I thought that in the almost deserted state of the house I should at least have the billiard-room to myself, and THE VICAR OF ST. JUDE'S. 39 might enjoy knocking about the balls, and deliverance from Lady Selina's society. Ob, bow siek I am of her married nieces, their bouses, their diamonds, their] babies, their servants — with the latter of whom she is always quarrelling. She tells me the same prosy stories over and over again, and the possibility that she may be boring me to death never for one moment flashes across the great dismal swamp which she calls her mind. The lamps in the hall had not been lighted, and all its stony spaciousness looked cold and grey in the gathering dusk. All the principal rooms open into this sepulchral hall, and I am often reminded of that hall in Macbeth's castle, where the murderer prowled up and down seeing imaginary daggers, while he waited for the bell that was to tell him his pre-historic toddy was ready. I had opened the billiard-room door, and was just going to shut it again when I heard my 40 THOU ART THE MAN. father's voice. My father's voice in a house which he had not entered since the Earl's marriage ! J What could it mean ? Certainly not reconciliation. Those rasping tones came from a heart full of bitterness. Nor was there much of brotherly love in my uncle's reply. " You had better hold your tongue,", he said. "You have been drinking, or you would not have dared to enter this house." They were on the opposite side of the hall, Lord Penrith standing in the open doorway of his own sitting-room, a smallish room next the library, my father standing in the hall. "Dare!" he echoed with an angry laugh. "Dare ! Dare enter the house that was my father's a few years ago." " If it had been your own a few years ago it would have come to the same thing. It is my house now, and I mean to keep you outside it." " You treat me like a doo;." THE VICAR OF ST. JUDE'S. 41 "Oh, no, I don't," answered that cold-blooded monster, my uncle, "lam fond of my dogs. I treat you like what you are, Hubert Urauhart. If there's any animal as vile I have never met with the species. In the way of vermin I know nothing quite so low as the Urquharts." " It's a treat to hear you talk like this, after I played your game, made the running for you, helped you to a rich wife." "You tried to win her for yourself by the very basest means the human mind could invent." " Oh, come, now, this is only tall talk." " You know how you imposed upon her ignor- ance of life, tried to persuade her that her good name was forfeited, that she had fallen so low in the world's esteem that her best chance of redemption was to become your wife." " And with the devil's own luck you struck in, caught her in a fit of hysterics, and won the stakes. There was never such a fluke. Come, Penrith, you can't frighten me away with 42 THOU ART THE MAN. big words. All that kigk-falutin of yours has about the same effect upon me as the proverbial water on the proverbial duck. Hard words don't kill, and hard words won't send me off these premises without hard cash. I have asked :you, my brother, and a rich man, to help me out of a difficulty. I asked you just now for a monkey. It was not much for you to give if you had a spark of generosity." " I have not one scintillation, where you are concerned. I have only one feeling — abhorrence — the kind of abhorrence which includes con- tempt." "Nonsense; we both angled for a big fish, but you were able to bait your hook with a coronet. I wasn't, and I had to diplomatise- Come, Penrith, if you won't stand a monkey, give me your cheque for two hundred and fifty pounds, and I'll wish you a civil good-night. Eemember, after all, I am heir presumptive to your title, and all that goes with it. There is only one life between me and all the good THE VICAR OF ST. JUDE'S. 43 things of this world. Hard lines for a man of my temper to remember that. You ought to consider the circumstances, and if I can^ bring myself to ask you for money — after what happened at Ellerslie ten years ago — you ought not to be such a churl as to refuse." "I wonder you care to show yourself in this part of the world — after what happened at Ellerslie," said my uncle. The last words were spoken slowly, as if they had a hidden meaning. My father was silent, and then Penrith went on in his heartless voice. " As for your privileges as heir-presumptive I have no doubt you have had the market price for them." " The market price was a very bad one. Un- happily the Jews consider your life as good as mine — or better. The difference in our ages is not worth considering, and you are supposed to take more care of your superior carcass than I take of this poor bundle of vices. Once for 44 THOU ART THE MAN. all, Penrith, will you help me or will you not?" " Once for all I will not, and if you don't make yourself scarce immediately you will oblige me to ring for the servants, and get you turned out neck and crop, which will cause an unpleasant scandal, and make things uncom- fortable for your daughter." " For my daughter. Yes, I suppose you would rather like to revenge yourself on her. Well, good night, my brotherly brother. I won't cause a scandal in this abode of peace and pleasantness, this temple of conjugal love. I'll find my own way out." My father crossed the hall, opened the big oak door, and closed it quietly behind him. Penrith waited on the threshold of his own room till the hall door shut, and then shut himself in his den. I don't know if he felt relieved in mind when my father was outside the castle. I know I did. There was no light in the billiard-room, and I had been standing just THE VICAR OF ST. JUDE'S. 45 inside the door, which I held a little way open, and was thus able to hear every word that was said on the other side of the hall. Oh, what a life ! To grovel like a hound, and to be driven out of his brother's house, like a hound. Surely Providence can't expect much good out of any woman who starts in the race of life handicapped with such a father as mine. " After what happened at Ellerslie ten years ago." I must get to know all about Sibyl Higgin- son's engagement to my uncle. There are evidently tragic circumstances — something that comes nearer Lord Penrith and his wife than the murder of her ladyship's foster sister. I must make Lady Selina give me the history of her niece's marriage. She is so fond of talking that I have only to get her in the right vein and she will tell me everything she knows. The dinner this evening was the most melan- 46 THOU ART THE MAN. cboly meal I have sat through since I came to the castle. There were only my uncle and his wife, Lady Selina and myself. His lord- ship was silent and gloomy, evidently brooding over that fraternal conversation I had overheard. Her ladyship seemed lost in thought. Lady Selina prosed and twaddled for the whole party. "lam very tired, aunt, so I shall go straight to my room, and leave you and Cora to amuse each other," said Lady Penrith, as we three women left the dining-room. " I can't think what you are about all day," Lady Selina answered pettishly. "If your cottage visiting keeps you engaged as you have been lately I'm sure it must be too fatiguing for you. You should make Cora help you." This last remark was accentuated by a malevolent look in my direction, as if I had deliberately refused to help. " Her ladyship knows that I am always at her service," said I. THE VICAR OF ST. JUDE'S. 47 Lady Penrith noticed neither her aunt's speech nor mine. She just nodded good-night to us both, and went upstairs, leaving me to the unspeakable dreariness of a night with Lady Selina, and no possibility of escape to the billiard-room, where my uncle would be sitting alone— not a pleasant person to intrude upon in his meditative moments. There was one compensation. I had a whole evening before me in which to make Lady Selina talk about what I wanted to hear. Needless to record the insidious means by which I approached the subject. I doubt if she liked me any better than on the first night of her visit, but custom had made her familiar and confidential, and as it was natural for her to talk, she soon began to expatiate upon the folly of her niece's marriage. " Sibyl might have married ever so much better," she said. " A beautiful girl, who was sole heiress to I am afraid to say how many 48 THOU ART THE MAN. thousands a year, would have had magnificent offers as soon as she appeared in the great world. Her connections on our side of the house would have admitted her at once to the most exclusive circles — if there are any ex- clusive circles left," — interjected Lady Selina with a sigh. " She might have married a Duke. But through my brother-in-law's folly — his mind was utterly unhinged, I believe, by the fate of that mysterious waif — she was hustled into a marriage with a man for whom she never cared a straw, and who was a very poor match for her." " My uncle's family is one of the oldest in the North of England," said I. " My dear young woman, old families go for very little nowadays. Sixty thousand a year is too much to pay for an old family, and a neglected estate, heavily encumbered as this was when my niece married. She could have allied herself to the bluest blood in England on much easier terms, if I had been allowed to THE VICAR OF ST. JUDE'S. 49 chaperon her, as was intended, before that awful business at Ellerslie." " Pray tell me about the murder, Lady Selina." "What, have I never told you?" she ex- claimed, quite oblivious of her curt replies on the first evening we spent together. "It is a most painful story — peculiarly painful to me, since a connexion of our family was involved in it, was actually accused of the murder, and locked up in the wretched hovel that used to accommodate smugglers and such people. They have pulled the place down, I am happy to say, and built a respectable police station." And then she told me how Marie Arnold, a handsome young woman of foreign birth, had been brought up at Ellerslie, almost as a daughter of the house, and how she and Sibyl Higginson had lived together like sisters, and how people had naturally supposed At this point the spinster deemed it necessary to sink her voice to a ghastly whisper, like VOL. III. E 50 THOU AET THE MAN. Lady Macbeth in the sleep-walking scene, although she and I were alone in the spacious drawing-room. "At ai^ rate, my dear, Sir Joseph was greatly attached to this girl, who, I am glad to say, for the credit of humanity, was five or six years older than Sibyl, and was therefore born some time before my sister's marriage. He never recovered from the shock of her death." " But do you really believe that Mr. Mount- ford — your relation — was guilty of this crime ? " I asked. " My dear Miss Urquhart, I don't know what to believe; Brandon Mountford was subject to epileptic attacks when he was at the University ; not in any violent degree, but enough to make him shun society. He had wandered about in Africa — where that kind of thing wouldn't matter — for some years before he appeared at Ellerslie. Everyone spoke well of him " " And your niece liked him ? " THE VICAE OF ST. JUDE'S. 51 " Yes, Sibyl liked him. I never saw them together, but I believe she entertained rather a romantic regard for him. She has always shunned any allusion to him ; so I have never fathomed the hidden depths of her mind upon this subject. There is a great deal of reserve about Lady Penrith. As to the young man's guilt or innocence, that I fear must for ever remain a mystery. So much has been written and discussed of late years about the horrors of epilepsy — and how it can change an amiable being into a wild beast — that one may believe anything of an epileptic sufferer. This poor creature was found kneeling by the murdered girl. The knife which cut her throat was his knife. He did not even deny his guilt, Mrs. Morison told me." Mrs. Morison is the housekeeper at Ellerslie, with whom doubtless the spinster aunt has held lengthy confabulations. There is no one like an old and trusted servant for telling family secrets. 52 THOU ART THE MAN. " Since he was taken red-banded, I suppose there can be no doubt of his guilt," said I. " But if he were not the murderer, who else would be likely to have committed the crime ? Was anyone else ever suspected ? " " No. Poor Brandon's guilt seemed only too obvious. And the murder was too motiveless to be the act of a sane person. The young woman had no enemies. There was no one staying at Ellerslie besides Brandon and your father." ' ' Then my father was there at the time of the murder ? " " Yes, your father used to come and go at Ellerslie .like a member of the family, before Sibyl's marriage. I don't know what the quarrel was about, but there was a quarrel at the period of her engagement to Penrith. Mrs. Morison hinted at a desperate quarrel between the brothers — even blows, broken glass — but that was never clearly known. Your father was certainly hurt, and the doctor had to be called THE VICAR OF ST. JUDE'S. 53 in; but the servants were told be bad had a fall. Whatever the actual circumstances may have been, there was bad blood, for Mr. Urqu- hart never entered Ellerslie House again — after that fall." " ' And when he falls, he falls like Lucifer, Never to hope again,' " muttered I. " My father told me that he and his brother had quarrelled ; but he never ex- plained the rights and wrongs of the story." And then she told me how Brandon Mount - ford had broken out of the lock-up at Ardliston, and was supposed to have perished in a storm at sea. "Only supposed to have perished?" said I. " Then there is really no evidence of his death. He may be alive at this hour." " That's not likely. His family must have heard of him if he were living." "Why should anyone hear of him?" asked I. "It would be the business of his life to avoid being heard of. A man accused of murder — a 5 I THOU AET THE MAN. man conscious of his own guilt ! In all proba- bility be would go back to Africa. I have heard that men who have once been there always want to go back — must go back. The Dark Continent draws them like a loadstone. Eely upon it, Lady Selina, this poor Mr. Mountford is in Africa." " I have no doubt you know a great deal more about him than I do," said Lady Selina, with an offended air. " The young women of the present day are nothing if not positive." In my own mind I had no doubt that the man was, or had been, in Africa. Those books of African travel in Lady Penrith's room testi- fied to so profound an interest in that uncivi- lised world. He had made his escape from England, and had sailed to a land where there are no detectives or magistrates' warrants, or extradition treaties. But if my aunt knows Mr. Mountford to be in Africa, how account for her intense anxiety about this wandering lunatic, for whom she THE VICAR OF ST. JUDE'S. 55 inquired at all the cottages, and all the fuss and driving to and fro, and suppressed emotion of the last ten days ? All these indications point to Brandon Mount - ford's presence in the immediate neighbourhood, or at any rate to her conviction that he is near. 56 THOU ART THE MAX. CHAPTER III. HOME QUESTIONS. Coralie sat late over her private diary that night. The clocks had struck one before she closed the book and put it away in the box where she kept her money and her few trinkets, under lock and key. She slept little that night, and the sleep she had was disturbed by troubled dreams. That interview between her father and her uncle had left a sense of bitter degrada- tion in her mind. She had never really loved her father — there had been nothing between them but the bond of relationship — a bond which he had shown himself very glad to loosen. Yet he was her father, a part of her existence, the only being upon whom she had any strong \ HOME QUESTIONS. 57 claim, and it tortured her to think of degrada- tion that reflected upon herself. To be the daughter of such a father ! There was the sting ! To hear him ask for money, and to hear him so heartlessly refused by his own and only brother ! Little as she liked Penrith, there had been that in his tone which told her he had some strong justification for his brutality. And she was to go on living under the roof of this man — she, Hubert Urquhart's daughter — or go back to the misery from which Lady Penrith had rescued her. " Oh, if Coverdale had only cared for me," she sighed, again and again, in her restless turnings and tossings, while the inexorable clock ticked and the night lamp flickered. And then she thought, as many a woman thinks when the future lies dark before her — lit by not one gleam of hope— thought of what her life might have been if this man had chosen her for his wife. It was all very well to write of him scoffingly as a prim pattern of the 5S THOU ART THE MAN. uninteresting virtues. In her heart of hearts she revered him for those qualities at which she scoffed. The gulf that lay between them was bridged over by her growing interest in his personality. She had begun by thinking of him only as a good match, heir to title and fortune, a man who, with a word, could change the whole tenor of her existence. She knew now by the blank his absence made in that house, by her jealous despair at his too evident re- gard for Lady Penrith — a regard of which he himself might be hardly conscious — she knew now that she loved him, and that if he had been a fortuneless curate she would have been content to share his life and let for- tune go. " But who would marry Hubert Urquhart's daughter?" she asked herself. "Even if I were ever so handsome there would be that against me. And a plain daughter ! I must have been mad ever to hope." She was in the breakfast-room early, neat HOME QUESTIONS. 59 . and fresh looking in her smart tailor gown, and with no indication, save a heavy look in her eyelids, of her miserable night. Her uncle had gone out before breakfast. Lady Penrith talked a little more than she had done at dinner on the previous evening, but was evidently anxious and expectant. A telegram was brought to her in the middle of breakfast, and Coralie could see that it was long. "Xo answer," her ladyship told the servant who waited, after she had read the message twice over with profound attention. " No bad news, I hope, my dear," said Lady Selina. "Oh, no; a telegram nowadays does not imply bad news." " Of course not ; but in this remote place you can't have many trivial telegrams — invitations, acceptances, excuses — the sort of thing one gets in London." "No; not that kind of thing," Lady Penrith 60 TIIOU ART THE MAN. answered absently, as she put the message in her pocket. On her aunt asking her if she was going for a drive in the morning or afternoon, Lady Penrith answered "No." She had a good many letters to write, and was not going out all day. " You and Cora can have the barouche or the pony cart, whichever you prefer," she added. "Thank you, neither. I have not quite got over my influenza cold, and the only induce- ment to drive would have been your company." " Complimentary to me, after my patient endurance of the old creature," thought Coralie, and then she said in her sharp, clear voice — "In that case, I shall go for a long walk directly after breakfast. You won't be angry with me if I should be late for luncheon, will you, aunt ? " "Your aunt has been so irregular herself lately, that she can hardly find fault with HOME QUESTIONS. 61 you for unpunctuality," Lady Selina remarked, somewhat snappishly. Any deviation from the clockwork round of daily life was an offence to this lady. "Angry, Cora, certainly not," said Lady Penrith. "But on what tremendous pilgrimage are you going? It is not ten, and you think you won't be home at two." "Oh, I am going for a long tramp — towards the sea. I am longing for the wind off the sea." " You can get that in this garden — too much of it for the poor flowers." " Ah, but not like the wind one gets on the very edge of the sea — as they at St. Jude's, for instance — where those old firs in the church- yard are bent like human deformities." Lady Penrith gave a little start at the mention of St. Jude's, a movement which did not escape Coralie. " I may go as far as Ardliston," she con- tinued. "It is just the grey, breezy morning I adore." G2 THOU ART THE MAN. "Do as you like, Cora, only don't fatigue yourself." "Now, if I were a pretty girl," mused Cora, " she would hardly let me ramble for three or four hours alone. There would be suspicions of a lover — I might be going to meet someone. But in my case, there can be no such danger. An ugly woman is what Caesar's wife ought to have been — above suspicion." Miss Urquhart had told the truth for once in a way, albeit she was a young person who preferred falsehood. She was going to Ardliston — in quest of her father. After that conver- sation of yesterday evening she felt that she must see him, must question him, at any hazard of hard words. She could exist no longer in this cloud of ignorance. She stopped oh the crest of a wind-blown ridge, hugged her neat little cloth jacket tighter round her, and looked back at the grey towers of Killander Castle. "What a noble old place it was — a rude border HOME QUESTIONS. 63 fortress to begin with, enlarged and improved by successive generations. Sibyl Higginson's money had set the final touches on the picture. "Whatever was wanting of convenience or dignity had been supplied within the last ten years. The gardens and terraces had been extended, a spacious palm-house had been built in the one angle where it would not interfere with the rugged grandeur of the exterior ; and within doors there had been improvements in every detail. Money had been spent like water. "And she is not even tenant for life," mused Coralie. " If my uncle were to die to-morrow she would be houseless — so far as yonder great grey pile is concerned — or the house in Berkeley Square. Hard lines, to spend one's money upon somebody else's property. But then she can afford to waste a few thousands. And she has Ellerslie House standing ready to receive her, if she were to leave the Castle. Ellerslie House ! What a difference between the spick and span modern house, built by a <34 THOU ART THE MAN. self-made millionnaire, and that grey fortress over there, which seeins still to echo with the tramp of armed feet, and the blare of trumpets. Coralie turned her back upon the grey towers, after that contemplative pause, and tramped steadily on, with her face to the sea. It was a long walk from the Castle to Ardliston, but Miss Urquhart was a good walker, well broken in by the wear}' promenades of Madame Michon's pupils in the Bois, or along dusty roads in .the white suburbs that skirt the Bois, .and later by long, lonely wanderings in West End London, rambles which were her only respite from the dullness of the lodging house at the back of Piccadilly. She met only one shepherd boy between the Castle and the beginning of the long straggling street of Ardliston, and Ardliston itself might have been asleep for any signs of life or movement, except at the schools, where she heard the sing-song voices of the children HOME QUESTIONS. 65 chanting the multiplication table, a sound that told her it was not yet noon, and saved her the trouble of looking at her watch. Her father might have gone back to London by the night mail, or by an early morning train, she thought, in which case she would be much disappointed. She wanted to see him — wanted to question him about the past, though she knew not how she would venture to shape her questions. But she had helped him, had watched for him — she had sacrificed her own instincts of loyalty and honour at his bidding — and she had a right to his confidence. " I will do no more for him unless he trusts me fully," she said to herself. No, he had not left the Higginson Arms. The landlady, who was busy in the little bar on one side of the entrance, recognised Coralie. "Come to see your pa, Miss? He's very late this morning. You'll find him at break- fast." VOL. III. f 66 THOU ART THE MAN. She canie out of her snug little nest among the bottles and glasses, and ushered Coralie into a sitting-room where she found her father reading a newspaper at the breakfast table. He rose, startled at seeing her. "What brings you here so early? Anything new?" "Nothing very important. Ten minutes to twelve. Do you call that early ? " "Early enough for a man who is such a beastly bad sleeper that he seldom gets a wink of sleep till daylight. Sit down, Cora. Would you like some tea ? It was made a few minutes ago." He poured out a cup and handed it to her, with some show of attentiveness, while she sat looking at him dumbly, full of thought. He looked haggard and careworn, older than his elder brother, and it seemed to her that all the indications of a debased character were stamped upon his countenance — the furtive eye, the compressed defiant mouth, the curious HOME QUESTIONS. 67 twitch of the nostril now and then before he began to speak. " Well ? " he asked, when he had mixed a brandy and soda for himself, " what's your news?" She told him briefly how Mr. Coverdale had left the Castle with Lady Penrith yesterday morning, and had not returned with her in the afternoon. " What kind of a man is this Coverdale ? " " A good man." " Good ? I don't quite follow your meaning." That seemed likely enough, Coralie thought. " Conscientious and God-fearing. He is devoted to Lady Penrith, but even for her sake he would do nothing that was not strictly honourable." " And you think he has gone upon some kind of mission for her." "I think so. She had a telegram this morning at breakfast — a long message — which I fancy may have been from him." 68 THOU ART THE MAN. " What's the use of fancies ? It may have been from her dressmaker. Had you the nous to find out where it came from ? " "No, I was not near enough to see that. I could only see that the message was long, and that she read it very thoughtfully — must have read it two or three times, I believe, she was so long about it." "Humph, that tells me nothing. Well, keep your eyes open, Cora, and let no detail of her daily life escape your observation. Straws show which way the wind blows. Try to find out where the parson has gone." " Are you going to stay here much longer ? " " That depends upon circumstances. I have no particular inducement to go anywhere else just now. I may go further north, perhaps, for a little shooting — but I have made no plans yet." There was a silence of some minutes. Urqu- hart took up the newspaper again, and read, or made semblance of reading. HOME QUESTIONS. 69 Cora felt as if it was easier to begin upon a painful subject now that his face was bidden. "Father, I was crossing the hall — from the drawing-room to the billiard-room — yesterday afternoon, when you and my uncle were talk- ing, and I could not help hearing a good deal " " You mean you couldn't help listening. Your curiosity got the better of your good breeding," retorted Urquharfc, throwing down the paper, and turning to his daughter with an angry scowl. " And you heard all that passed be- tween my affectionate brother and me. Well, who cares ? " " I care very much. I have been heart-broken ever since." " You need not waste your emotions upon me. I have a pretty tough hide. It has toughened in a long experience of hard knocks." "Father, what odious things he said of you — and you did not deny them." 70 THOU ART THE MAN. "Why should I trouble myself? He is not judge or jury. I wanted help, and he didn't want to help me. The easiest way of refusing was to be abusive. You are woman of the world enough to comprehend that, I hope, Cora." " No, I am not. I can't comprehend that you should let him say such things." "If I had knocked him down there would have been a scene and a scandal ; and you would have found yourself homeless. I know of no other way of dealing with him." "But that you should ask him for money — importune him — swallow all his insults. Father, what degradation there is in that." " Degradation, yes. perhaps. And you wonder that I should put myself in the way of being insulted. You wonder that I should beg of my brother who married the heiress I was trying to marry — the woman who cared not one straw for either of us. You wonder that I should ask him to open his wife's HOME QUESTIONS. 71 coffers for me. Senseless wonder, Cora. A man hemmed round with debt — distracted for want of money as I am — isn't likely to be scrupulous as to the mode and manner of getting it. Don't whine about what you heard yesterday. You may think yourself lucky if I don't turn forger or highwayman, sign her ladyship's name to a stolen cheque, or hold up a train carrying bullion. What might not a man do, at his wits' ends as I am ? And my elder brother has the command of eighty thousand a year, for his wife denies him nothing, and won't give me eight hundred, or eighty, or eight pounds. That's what brotherly love means nowadays, Cora. Very much like the precious ointment upon Aaron's head, ain't it?" "Why does he hate you ? What did you do to offend him ? " " Nothing. We both courted the same woman — he won her by a fluke. Unintention- ally — by sheer ill-luck — I helped him to win 72 THOU AET THE MAN. her. Ho ought to be grateful to me, but he ain't. He finds it cheaper to ride the high horse and abuse me." " But there must have been something, father, on your part — some cruel wrong done — some act of treachery that gives my uncle and his wife the right to hold themselves aloof from you." " She chooses to fancy herself wronged; and he takes advantage of the position. Come, Cora, I am not going to be questioned about my past life by my own daughter." " And I am not going to act as your spy any more unless you give me your fullest confidence," Cora answered resolutely, looking her father full in the face. There was no filial love in that look. If she felt his degradation strongly it was because the degradation was reflected upon her. To be the daughter of such a man, to live on sufferance in a house whose threshold he was not allowed to cross ! That was the sting ! It was her HOME QUESTIONS. 7o own pride that was hurt. She had borne the brunt of poverty, had suffered from shabby frocks, and school-bills in arrear, but never till yesterday evening had her father's fallen state been brought home to her. " Spy. That's a most unpleasant word, Cora, and you seem to repeat it with gusto simply because it is unpleasant. I asked you to keep your ears and eyes open in Penrith's house " "In her ladyship's interest — because of your friendship for her. That was the fable you imposed upon me." " Fable and imposed ! More unpleasant words." He shrugged his shoulders with a light scorn- fulness, as if such words hurt him very little, even from a daughter's lips ; and then he rose, and walked to the window. "But I am to be hoodwinked no longer," pursued Cora impetuously. " I know now that you hate her." 74 THOU ART THE MAN. "Do I ? " asked Mr. Urquhart, drumming on the pane, with his back turned upon his daughter. "If I do it is only the hate that every strong-natured man feels for the woman he loved in vain. She had but to marry me, and I would have been the most docile and devoted of husbands — her head servant out of livery. But you see she preferred my brother, and so I can't be expected to go on loving her for ever. He has treated me like a pariah dog, and she has treated me no better, which is shortsighted on her part, for she should at least remember that I am heir presumptive, and that if anything happened to Penrith all her grandeurs would pass to me. It doesn't matter to him, for his rights and interests in this life must be over and done with before mine could begin ; but it would matter to her to the extent of two fine houses, and a large domain, and all the money she has sunk upon them." " Must they go with the title — both houses ? " HOME QUESTIONS. 75 asked Cora, her indignation lapsing suddenly into interest. "The Castle, and Penrith House, May fair, both go with the title. He was born in one — the heir — at the Castle, of course — an occasion for bonfires on all the hills, and roasted oxen, and kilderkins of strong beer, which niy father could very ill afford. I was born in the other, and I doubt if the household had so much as an extra bottle of wine to celebrate my nativity. Yes, the house in London must go — whenever Penrith goes — and all her ladyship has spent upon it — something like thirty thousand pounds, I believe — will go to the heir, whoever he may be." "Heir presumptive has a grand look against your name in the peerage," said Cora, waxing bitter again, " but I don't think you have much chance of outliving my uncle." " Bar accidents, none — but the bursting of a gun, the running down of a yacht, a smash on the railway, a fall from his horse — anything 76 THOU ART THE MAN. in that way would be as big a fluke for me as his marriage was for him — but I don't expect it," drumming louder, with finger-tips whose sharp touch denoted nervous irritability — "ex- pect it, did I say ? I know that it will never happen. I am one of those men who come into the world with bad luck branded on their foreheads." " There's no such thing as bad luck, father. It's the idlest nonsense to talk in that strain. You inherited a younger brother's portion — and you squandered it. You married foolishly, before you were of age — offended your father, and spoilt your chance of a fortune with a wife, while you were young and handsome. You lived recklessly, and loaded your shoulders with debts. You have never struggled or worked as other men of good race and small means have done. You should have gone to the Bar — or into politics — or to the Colonies. There must have been some career open to you — something better than the miserable life HOME QUESTIONS. 77 you are leading now — a beggar to the brother •who hates you — a beggar, and refused with contumely." She brushed away her tears — so rare in those cold grey eyes — tears of shame and mortifi- cation. " Have you nothing more to say ? " sneered her father. " This moral lecture might be continued ad infinitum — The daughter's rebuke of the reprobate father. A very pretty subject, and offering fine scope for the prosy and the trite." "Well, I will say no more. I know that all lamentations over the irrevocable are worse than useless. Let the past be past — only if you want my help in the future you must let me into your secrets. "Why are you keeping this watch upon your brother's wife ? " " Why ? For my own satisfaction. She is my enemy, and would injure me if she could." "But how could she injure you — what could she do ? " 78 THOU ART THE MAX. " Never mind that, Cora. Knowledge is power, and it suits me to be informed of all that happens at the Castle." " Trust me, then. Be frank, if you can. What was your quarrel with Lady Penrith ? "Why does she hate you ? " " Pooh ! It was a girl's silly hatred, to begin with. She was madly in love with her cousin, who murdered Sir Joseph's adopted daughter in a fit of epileptic rage." " Is it certain that he was the murderer " " Certain ? Yes. He was found almost in the act of murder — his hands and clothes stained with her blood. There is very little room for doubt. Miss Higginson visited him in the lock-up yonder — a wretched hole that was done away with after his escape. I found her there, and helped in the escape — was indeed the chief means of getting him away, and when the boat, on board which I put him, was wrecked in the tempest of that night, she laid his death at my door." HOME QUESTIONS. 79 " But was that the only cause of her dislike ? Penrith accused you of trying to win her by the basest means — trading on her ignorance of life." " Sheer nonsense. People in the neighbour- hood looked coldly at her after that escapade at the lock-up. Her conduct was too uncon- ventional to escape slander. I may have some- what magnified the village scandal when I urged her to marry me. I wanted her to feel the need of a husband to defend her good name." " A shabby trick— and it failed ? " "Yes, it failed — the turtle dove — for Brandon Mountford she had been a very dove — turned upon me like a tigress. She flung herself into my brother's arms — partly from sheer malignity to me, and partly because she knew that whatever scandal there had been would be best covered by a coronet." " Well, it was a shabby business. However, I am glad I know the past. But I can't 80 THOU ART THE MAN. understand the situation in the present. Why should you fear her? Why should you watch her ? " " That's my affair. I shan't answer any more questions." He turned and faced her again, frowningly. " I won't trouhle you any more, except to ask how long you are going to stay here." " I don't know. Perhaps for a few days — perhaps only a few hours. Look here, Cora. If anything out of the common should happen at the Castle you had better come here, as you have done this morning, on the chance of finding me. On reflection I am inclined to wait till the parson's return from his myste- rious mission." " You think his mission may have something to do with you?" " I don't say that, but I should like to know the meaning of it. I rely upon your shrewd- ness for that. Come, Cora, there's no use in your riding the high horse. Remember that HOME QUESTIONS. 81 your interests are interwoven with mine. Any- thing that hurts me must hurt you." "Yes, I know that," she answered, with a sigh. "Your disgrace is my disgrace. It wraps me round like a dark cloud. I live and move in it." This was no idle complaint on her part. The burden of her father's evil reputation had seemed to her a much heavier load since she had known John Coverdale, who, without self-assertion of any kind, had impressed her with the idea of what an honourable man's life and mind ought to be — how fair a record the one, how high a standard the other. And in that pure atmo- sphere of noble thought and lofty aspiration how foul and grim her father's character looked. VOL. III. S2 THOU ART THE MAX. CHAPTER IV. CORA EXPATIATES, Heir presumptive ! How the phrase rang in my ears last night when I lay down to sleep, after another long, dull evening, for the most part alone with Lady Selina, Lady Penrith having retired soon after we left the dining- room, leaving the spinster and me to amuse each other. The spinster is a late bird, and complains of the dull evenings here, and talks of the superior attractions of other houses owned by other nieces — the large house parties, with a constant succession of guests, the theatricals, and charades, and dumb crambo, and music, and cards. Yes ; this dissipated old person actually sighs for a round game or a rubber ! CORA EXPATIATES. 83 Heir presumptive ! Of the two lives iny uncle's, so far as I can judge, is the better. His two years of seniority count for nothing against my father's habits — late hours and, I fear, deep drinking. Yet an accident might alter the situation in a breath ; an accident, and my father might be Earl of Penrith and master of this house — master here, where he has been treated with contumely ; sole owner of the house whose door has been shut against him for the last ten years. Life hangs by so thin a thread. No, I won't suffer my thoughts to dwell upon such possibilities. I am not particularly fond of my uncle, and I owe him nothing, since any- thing I enjoy in this house is given me by his wife ; but I won't indulge in castle-building upon such a ghastly foundation. Notwithstanding which resolve I could not resist the temptation of drawing Lady Selina on the subject of the Penrith property when she and I were left alone, and I had to perform my 84 TIIOU ART THE MAN. nightly task of sorting her worsteds and admiring her hideous blanket. She is one of the people who think that high art begins and ends with muddy greens and dingy yellows, when if they had eyes to see they would know that the leading note of high art is brilliant colour. "I have been rambling about his lordship's estate," said I. "What pretty old homesteads and farm-buildings ! And all so neat and sub- stantial." " Those homesteads and barns are monuments of my niece's folly. She has squandered her money upon Penrith's property, and her own flesh and blood will never be one penny richer for all she has spent." "What a pity she has no son to inherit the estate ! " "Ah ! that would have made all the differ- ence," sighed Lady Selina. "Here is my niece, Lady Hillborough, with an enormous family, and her sister, Lady Eanthorpe, with three great, hulking boys at Eton and Cooper's Hill, COEA EXPATIATES. OO and two more in the nursery : and here is poor Sibyl childless. That is her misfortune, poor girl ! But it does not excuse her folly in lavishing tens of thousands upon her husband's estate." " Why should she not spend her money upon improvements ? " "She might spend it upon Ellerslie, which she can leave to her own family." " Ellerslie is perfection. There is very little room for spending money." " She could make more room — buy more land. There is always land to be bought nowadays, and ridiculously cheap. She ought to have quadrupled her own estate rather than sunk a fortune upon her husband's property. Penrith was almost a pauper when he married — but she has paid off every mortgage — and doubled the value of his land by her improvements." " Xo doubt it has amused her to improve. I can fancy nothing more delightful than messing about a large estate, picking old buildings to S6 THOU ART THE MAN. pieces and putting them together again ; seeing order and beauty where all was squalor and ugliness." "All very well, if there had been an heir, but in the existing state of things sheer lunacy," said Lady Selina decisively. And if Penrith were to die, my father, whom Lady Penrith detests, would be enriched by the wealth she has lavished. He would spring at once from poverty to riches, and his riches would be derived from her — an unencumbered estate, land in the perfection of high farming, tenants who know they are better off than any other tenants in Cumberland. He would owe all to her, and could turn her out of doors if he liked — as Penrith turned him out two days ago. Well, I won't dwell upon the thought. This journal of mine is not a starched composition, but it shall not be ghastly. I won't let my mind brood upon the chances that hang by the thin thread of one life. CORA EXPATIATES. 87 But if I dismiss one hideous subject — shake off the gloom of one idea — other fancies crowd in upon me as dark or darker. I cannot get the thought of that murdered girl out of my mind. Curious as I have been about that tragic story, I had resolved not to ask any questions of the servants, but I have broken down in that com- mendable resolution. A lady never talks to ser- vants except in a purely business-like manner. " Put out my blue gown ! Put away my red ! "Where are my satin shoes?" and so on. Nothing more interesting than an Ollendorff dialogue ought ever to pass between mistress and maid. Well, I am as much a lady as I can be, but I am first a woman ; and I am devoured by a morbid curiosity that must be satisfied. The horror of that murder haunts me — a young woman, young and beautiful, full of the pride of life, caught like a hunted fawn in a wood, caught and slaughtered by a raging maniac — for the epilepsy that hungers for 88 THOU ART THE MAN. blood must be lunacy under its most revolting aspect. No one saw her struggles. If she had time to cry for help no ear heard her cry. In the loneliness and darkness the murderer's knife did its work. I know all about it, now. The picture pre- sented by Lady Selina was vague and shadowy, but last night I let her ladyship's maid come into my room after her mistress had gone to bed, and while she was brushing my hair I led up to the story of Marie Arnold's death. The woman has all the ghoulish relish for horrors which seems natural to persons in that sphere, and she was charmed to dilate upon every detail. She took immense credit to her- self for having been at Ellerslie at the time. One of her male relatives could have been no more proud had he ridden along that avenue of guns we all know so well in the Balaclava charge. She was at Ellerslie. She followed in the murdered girl's funeral pro- CORA EXPATIATES. SO cession. She never hopes to see such a funeral again. She distinctly used the word hope. She was really very interesting. She conjured up the image of the young woman in all her showy foreign beauty. She suggested the unrevealed link between her and Sir Joseph. Everybody in the steward's room had suspected that she was something nearer and dearer than an adopted daughter, though she had been put somewhat in the background; and when they saw the poor old gentleman's grief after her death they were sure they had guessed right. And then she described Brandon Mountford as a man from whom no evil could have been anticipated — so handsome, such a gentleman, always polite to the servants, though he kept himself very much to himself. He had no valet, and on the morning before the murder he had been in his own room packing for some hours. The servants noticed a change in him at luncheon that day. He was in the garden 90 THOU ART THE MAN. with Miss Higginson after luncheon, and later in the afternoon my informant saw him going into his own room again, and he looked pale and agitated — " Very much upset " was her expression. She was sitting at her needlework by a window in the corridor, and she could hear him walking up and down his room, and throw- ing things about, and when she looked into the room after he had gone downstairs she found his portmanteau still open, and his books and things scattered about, as if he had been too upset to get on with his packing. He was seen by one of the men going out into the garden again ; but at dinner there was no sign of him, nor of Miss Arnold. And then she told me how Miss Arnold had seemed very much upset at luncheon, and had left the room before the meal was finished ; and she told me there was no doubt in her mind that poor Miss Arnold was deeply in love with Mr. Mountford. "And he with her ? " I asked. CORA EXPATIATES. 91 "Ob no, Miss," says the woman. "It was a regular game of cross purposes. Mr. Mount- ford was in love with my young mistress. One could see that with half an eye ; but there was someone else in love with Miss Arnold, and had been for a long time." " Who was that ? " asked I. "You might be offended, Miss, if I were to say." Her meaning flashed upon me in a moment. " Do you mean my father ? " "Yes, Miss. Mr. Urquhart was very much attached to Miss Arnold. He wanted to marry her, but she wouldn't have him. One of the gardeners overheard their talk in the conserva- tory one afternoon. He was at work behind the tree-ferns, and they didn't know he was there, and they talked quite free, and the young man didn't like to show himself after they began to talk, so he stopped quietly there till they left the conservatory. Mr. Urquhart was quite violent — carried away by his feelings, the 92 THOU ART THE MAN. young man said — but Miss Arnold was very haughty and determined; she couldn't have been prouder had she been a duchess." This revelation throws a new light upon my father's character. I did not think passionate love was in his line, even when he was ten years younger. And that he could be in love with the poor dependent while the millionaire heiress was in the house, to be wooed and won. That was strange. And then, when this poor girl was dead, he had set himself to win the heiress — and had failed dismally. I asked Ferriby if she and her fellow- servants believed in Mr. Mountford's guilt. " I'm afraid there's no doubt about it, Miss," she answered, shaking her head. "He was the nicest of gentlemen — but he was not a bit like himself that day — several of us saw the change in him — and he must have killed her in a fit of madness. They say his poor mother was mad for many years, and died in a madhouse. If he wasn't guilty why should he run away ? " COKA EXPATIATES. 93 Yes, that flight of his was the strongest evidence against him. " Was no one else ever suspected," I asked. "No one, Miss, not by any of us — but Sir Joseph, he would never believe that Mr. Mount- ford was the murderer. He told the steward so. He believed that the poor young lady was killed by a tramp, for the sake of the jewellery she was wearing." " Was her jewellery taken ? " " No, Miss — not a thing — but then, Sir Joseph said the murderer must have been surprised by Mr. Mountford's approach before he had time to rob his victim, and had slipped off through the wood without being seen by the two stablemen who were searching for the poor young lady. That was Sir Joseph's idea, but we didn't see it. If Mr. Mountford was innocent he'd no call to run away — even if those who were interested in him over-per- suaded him." " You mean your mistress," said I. 91 THOU ART THE MAN. The woman nodded significantly. "Yes, Miss, my mistress and Mr. Urquhart were both mixed up in it. They acted for the best, no doubt — but if the poor gentleman was innocent they made him look guilty." They made him look guilty. I have thought of those words a good deal since her ladyship's maid uttered them. May not one of those concerned in the wretched man's flight have meant to damage him rather than to aid ? There can be no doubt of Miss Higginson's good faith — but my father's motive is not so obvious. I'm afraid I am as much of a ghoul as her ladyship's maid, for ever since that young woman brushed my hair last night I have been haunted by the image of the handsome, amiable young man tormented by one of the direst diseases that afflict humanity — a disease which can change the man who would not hurt a worm into a bloodthirsty murderer. CORA EXPATIATES. 95 So haunted have I been all clay by that ghastly suggestion of a frank and courteous gentleman suddenly transformed into a human ■wild beast, that I have been absolutely unable to rest quiet indoors, least of all to endure solitary confinement with Lady Selina, which I should have had to endure if I had not taken the key of the fields. Lady Penrith retired to her own room after breakfast, with the meagre excuse of having letters to write. I believe she does really cover reams of note-paper in the course of her correspondence with innumerable aunts and cousins, among the latter of whom there is always one who is just engaged or just going to be married, and who requires extra sym- pathy and something magnificent in the way of a wedding present. But I doubt if aunts or cousins are profiting much by her lady- ship's present seclusion, as I shrewdly suspect that her only correspondent is Mr. Coverdale, and that she sits in her morning-room wait- 96 THOU ART THE MAX. ing for " wires " from that clerical knight- errant. I left the Castle soon after her disappearance, and in my purposeless wanderings on the moor whom should I meet but Mr. Dewsnap, the family doctor, the dapper bachelor who attends her ladyship and my uncle for any small ail- ment, and who generally has a patient or two among the Castle household. He has been allowed to look at my tongue and feel my pulse on one or two occasions, and has been dis- appointed to discover me a wiry little person, never good for more than three visits. He was riding an elderly white pony, but at sight of my neat tailor gown and toque jumped off and put the bridle over his arm. He looks about forty, an elderly young man, very neat in his dress ; with, I fancy, some pretension to lady-killing : and, above all, he is an inveterate gossip. He seemed delighted at the opportunity of talking to me. For Mr. Coverdale I may be only a plain young woman, but for the family CORA EXPATIATES. 97 practitioner I am the young lady of Killander Castle, an earl's niece, and worthy of attention. Under ordinary circumstances I should certainly have kept him very much in his place, and he would have remounted his ancient steed in five minutes ; but in my present mood I was delighted to get a talk with a man who could tell me all about that horrible malady which I had been brooding upon in connection with Brandon Mountford. We talked of the weather, and then I said, casually — " No doubt you are able to read all the local meteorological signs, for I am told you have lived in this neighbourhood for a good many years." " Except when I was walking the hospital in London, I have hardly ever lived anywhere else," answered he. " My father had the only good practice between here and Workington. I began my professional career as his assistant, and I have continued it as his successor. I VOL. III. H 9S THOU ART THE MAN. doubt if I shall ever extend my travels beyond these hills and moors. A country practice gives a vast variety of experience." "No doubt. You must have seen many curious cases in all these years," said I, walking slowly along the footpath, while the medico sauntered at my side, and the medico's horse crept along, cropping the russet sward as he went. " I wonder if you remember that terrible event at Ellerslie Park, ten years ago " " If you mean the murder of Marie Arnold it would not be easy for me to forget it," replied the doctor. " I was acquainted with that un- fortunate young lady. She was the most beautiful woman I ever saw." "Was she handsomer than my aunt, Lady Penrith ? " "Quite another style of beauty — a more brilliant style — distinctly southern — a richer colouring. I own to a weakness for rich colouring " — he looked at my drab complexion, hesitated, and added, "but where there is an CORA EXPATIATES. 09 intellectual expression, where mind lights the face, colouring is of little consequence." Oh, with what weariness of spirit have I heard that specious lie about my intellectual expression — heard it from the lips of men who have shown in every look that I was of no more account in their sight than if my face had been cut out of wood. "I see you greatly admired that poor girl," said I. Mr. Dewsnap's only answer was a profound sigh. " Can you believe that Mr. Mountford was her murderer ? " I asked. " My dear Miss Urquhart," cried the creature, growing disgustingly familiar, " I can believe* anything of an epileptic subject, just as I can believe anything of a madman. From the moment I knew Mountford was an epileptic sufferer, and heard of his low spirits and dis- composure on the day of the murder, I had no hesitation as to his guilt. That gloomy agita- 100 THOU ART THE MAN. tion presaged an attack, and there is no doubt that alone in the wood the devil of epilepsy seized upon him, and as the fit passed it left him like the demoniac of old, panting with wild impulses, thirsting for blood. And with that fierce rage upon him he met that poor girl, seized her as the tiger seizes its prey, and killed her more swiftly than the tiger kills. I have thought it all out — the image of the victim has haunted me." He stifled a sob, and I began to feel more kindly towards him. "Yes," he continued, after a pause, "the man whom I had only seen as a calm and courteous gentleman was the fiend who killed Marie Arnold — the same but not the same. And when the deed was done he fell down beside his victim, exhausted, in a comatose sleep, on awakening from which memory was a blank. He might remember nothing of that savage crime — he might feel nothing but a vague sense of trouble." COEA EXPATIATES. 101 " Have you heard what became of him after his escape from the lock-up ? " I asked. "No one in this neighbourhood has any actual knowledge of his fate. He may have been landed somewhere along the coast, within a few miles of Ardliston, before the fishing boat in which he left came to grief; but the general idea is that he went down with the skipper and his crew. Nothing has ever been heard of him since that night by anyone about here." " Then it would seem likely that he was drowned. Or might he not have left the country — gone back to Africa, for instance ? " "Yes, that would be probable enough, if they were able to land their passenger in the teeth of such a storm." We had come to a point of junction between the footpath and the Ardliston road, and here the doctor bade me good-day, remounted his pony, and trotted homewards, while I turned my face towards the Castle, where I arrived only a few minutes before luncheon. ]02 THOU ART THE MAX. I was surprised to find the station brougham waiting at the door, with a portmanteau and travelling bag on the roof. "Who is going away?" I asked the groom, though the S. P. painted in bold red letters upon the portmanteau left no room for doubt. "Her ladyship is leaving by the 2.40 train, ma'am." " For London ? " The groom did not know. I ran into the house, and to the dining-room, where I found Lady Selina and her niece, the elder lady evidently out of temper, the younger grave and composed, but very pale, and with that eager look in her eyes which has distinguished her of late. "What wonders are happening," I exclaimed. " To think of you deserting us like this, aunt ! Are you going to London ? " "Not nearly so far." " Where then — if one may venture to ask?" COKA EXPATIATES. 103 " One may ask anything, Cora, but my move- ments are so uncertain that it is hardly worth while entering into particulars. I hope to be home again in a day or two. If there should be any need to write to me my aunt has an address that will find me." " What shall we do without you ? " " I have no doubt you will contrive to exist." A servant appeared at the dining-room door. " Are my things in the carriage — is Ferriby there?" " Yes, my lady. Kingdon says it is time for you to start." Kingdon is her ladyship's particular coach- man. His office is to drive her, and no one else, and to be waited upon and worked for by three or four underlings. " You had better let me go with you, Sibyl," said Lady Selina, as if following up a previous request. " Impossible. Take care of yourself, auntie, and of Cora." 104 THOU AET THE MAN. " How shall I explain your absence to Penrith?" " I have explained — in a letter. Good-bye." She kissed her aunt, gave me a friendly nod, and hurried away. We both followed to the hall, and stood disconsolately watching as the brougham drove away, with Lady Penrith inside, and Lady Penrith's confidential maid with her. Most women in her position would have a highly-trained Parisian, with fairy fingers for the adjustment of ribbons or lace, and with fine taste in hair-dressing. Lady Penrith has kept the woman who came to her from a village school, and who has been in her service for over ten years. If one were inclined to think evil one might suspect her ladyship of some secret reason for keeping this woman about her. Old servants are not to be lightly dismissed. They know too much. But I must add that Ferriby spoke of her mistress with a frankness and freedom which CORA EXPATIATES. 105 one would not expect if there were any secrets in Lady Penrith's life. Lady Selina ate her luncheon in silence, evidently out of temper with her niece and things in general. She sent away some roast pheasant because it was too high ; she objected to the fricasseed fowl because the mushrooms in the sauce were underdone. "I think Lady Penrith has about as bad a chef as money could buy for her," said Lady Selina ; " and I have observed that the higher wages people give the worse cooks they get. We had a cordon bleu at Basingstoke House for forty pounds a year. My father couldn't afford a man cook ; but we had better dinners than people who were giving three hundred a year to a chef — better everyday food I mean, my dear." And then the spinster thawed, and read me a long lecture upon the management of a great house, which I fear can never be of the slightest use to me. A shabby London lodging 10G THOU ART THE MAN. or a tiny villa in a dusty suburb is the only home I can see waiting for me in the dismal desert of my future. Lady Selina ate an enormous luncheon in spite of her abuse of the cook, and talked for nearly an hour about the folly of masters and mistresses and the iniquity of servants : of her nieces who managed well, and her nieces who managed ill ; till I found myself upon the point of dropping asleep. I proposed a drive before tea. Lady Selina has scarcely finished her lunch when she begins to look forward to her tea. No, she didn't care about driving. There were only two tolerable drives, and she knew them both by heart. She would sit by the fire and get on with her work. So by the fire I left her, promising to go back to her at tea- time, and went to the billiard-room. My uncle had gone out shooting by himself directly after breakfast, and was not likely to return till dusk, so I had the room and the table to myself, and CORA EXPATIATES. 107 I gave myself an hour's practice, making the most brilliant flukes and some really clever cannons, and accomplishing the spot stroke six or seven times in succession. It is wonderful how good a game I can play when I have no opponent and no gallery. An hour of this work tired me, so I put on my hat and set out on another ramble. My mind has been so thoroughly unhinged of late that nothing but a long walk seems to do me any good — a long, lonely walk in a wild, bleak landscape. No doubt Lady Penrith has gone to Keswick. The 2.40 train stops at Keswick. I looked at Bradshaw in the hall on my way to the billiard- room. She has gone to join Coverdale. There is something mysterious going on in which he is her agent and preux chevalier. Were she a different woman, were he another man, I might suspect a guilty intrigue ; but if I could suspect her of evil I could not believe evil of 108 THOU ART THE MAN. him. There is a transparency in that calm, steadfast soul. If ever there were truth and candour to be found in mankind they are to be found in John Coverdale. He is a King Arthur among priests. Oh, if I had but been handsome ! Oh, if he had but cared for me ! How I would have cast off this slough of wickedness which has gradually grown over my mind and heart, and would have emerged from the dismal swamp of past experience a good woman, purified by his love, ennobled by sympathy with his noble nature ! I cannot imagine evil where he is concerned ; so I can only think that secret business which engages Lady Penrith and her friend has some relation to her past life — to the romance of her girlhood — to the tragic story of Brandon Mountford. My idea is that the man has come back from Africa, and that Lady Penrith and Mr. Cover- dale are engaged in finding some safe retreat CORA EXPATIATES. 109 for him, some remote spot where he may be out of reach of the law. The afternoon has been dull and grey and drizzly, and I am sitting as close as I can to the cosy fire in my comfortable room — half dressing-room, half boudoir — whose thick walls keep out wind and weather, a very comfortable room : indeed there are no comforts or luxuries lacking in my life at Killander Castle, and if it were not for the uncertain tenure by which I hold these things, the dependence upon her ladyship's liking, I might be happy. Happy, quotha, with such a', father at my door ! Happy, with the gnawing knowledge that my plain face cuts me off from the golden chances that lie all along the pathway of a pretty woman's life — like the enchanted apples that distracted Atalanta. When I came in at half-past five I found to my great relief that Lady Selina had a head- ache, and was lying down, so I came straight 110 TIIOU ART THE MAN. to my own snug room, throw some logs on the fire, and had my tea-tray, with a pile of those delicious biscuits which the still-room maid makes to perfection, brought to me here, and here I am at a quarter to seven still scribbling the record of the day, for my own amusement only. I find an undiminishing interest in this volume, and the facility with which my pen runs along the page makes me think that I shall some day blossom into a novelist. I see myself ten years hence a spinster novelist, in a snug little house — in May fair. The merest doll's house would do, provided it were in a smart street. That would not be half so bad. My father might be dead by that time. I am not calculating on his death in a cold-blooded manner, but we are all mortal, and it is only natural that I should look forward to the years when I may stand alone in the world, free from a tie that galls me, but perhaps without a friend. I must be a fool if I quarrel with the one CORA EXPATIATES. Ill friend who has made life pleasant for me — a fool if I let envy and all uncharitableness set me against Sibyl Penrith — yet when I see her absorbing John Coverdale's attentions, see her spoiling what might have been my chance of winning his affection, it is very difficult for me not to hate her. To see her so handsome, so richly provided with all the good things of this world, so scornful of the wealth for which so many people are ready to sell their souls to Satan ! I can't help remembering that she has done nothing to deserve this good fortune except take the trouble to be born, as somebody said of a French patrician. Well, at any rate let me think twice before I do anything to forfeit her friendship. I won't be in any hurry to tell my father of this sudden journey of hers. It is clear to me now that he means mischief. I am worried and perplexed by his hanging about this neighbourhood — living almost in hiding at the inn at Ardliston — and I shall 112 THOU ART THE MAN. feel it a profound relief when he is gone. Why should he linger here? He can hardly mean to make a further appeal to my uncle, to be again insulted and repulsed. "What a hard-hearted wretch Penrith must be ! Granted that my father behaved badly in his courtship of the heiress. What superior merit can the Earl boast of on his own part ? He too wanted the fortune much more than the lady, and I daresay would have stooped to any meanness to win her. I saw my father this afternoon — saw him amusing himself in his quiet, solitary way, just like his brother, who I believe is happier now the house party has gradually melted away and he can prowl over the hills alone with his gun and dogs than he was when he had his friends about him, and when the great stone hall used to echo their talk and laughter as they set out in the morning. I was walking along the topmost ridge of the hill when I caught sight of my father CORA EXPATIATES. 113 in the valley below, crossing a stubble field with his gun under his arm — a gun but no dog. Could he be poaching, I wondered ? I know so little of the game laws that I don't know whether it would be poaching on his part to shoot any bird that he chanced upon in those fields ; but as I believe all the land round here belongs to my uncle, and as they are ill friends, I concluded that the Honourable Hubert Urqu- hart, heir presumptive to the title and estates, can be no better than a common poacher when he knocks down a pheasant on his brother's land. Heir presumptive, quotha! In reading the description of some sprig of nobility's marriage the other day, I read that, as heir presumptive to the Duke of Dash, he had been handsomely provided for by that nobleman. As heir presumptive ! All that my father has received as heir presumptive, is what Lady Penrith's nephew would call " the dirty kick out." Hideous slang, no doubt, but it best vol. in. i 114 THOU ART THE MAN. expresses the treatment the younger brother received from the elder — as heir presumptive. The rain had begun — a drizzling rain, not much more than a Scotch mist. I saw my father creeping along by the low stone wall, with his gun, stopping to look about him every now and then, intent on pheasants no doubt. There was nothing left of the sun but a low yellow light behind the dark shoulder of the moor, and eastward the shadows of evening were stealing over the dull grey sea ; but there was light enough for me to watch my father's movements. He was queerly dressed, and looked like a keeper or even a keeper's under- ling. It amused me to watch his movements, with a touch of contempt for the sporting instinct which could gratify itself at the sacrifice of all manly pride. To steal the birds upon the land of a man who had heaped insult upon him — and that man his brother ! He passed through a gap in the stone wall into a second field — a field I know well, for it COKA EXPATIATES. 115 skirts the footpath by which the shooters often come down the hill on their way home, and along which I have tramped with them many a time. How merry we have been sometimes along that path, what trifles have set us in a roar ! That little sub is an amusing little beast, and I'm afraid I used to laugh at his jokes with a frankness that disgusted the Eeverend John if he happened to be with us — not that there was anything really wrong in the jokes — only a touch of vulgarity, a flavour of the messroom and the stables. But men like John Coverdale are so easily scared ; and then there is all the difference between a pretty woman and a plain one. From Beauty's lips even the slang of the saddle-room has a charm. Human nature has such strange " sports " and varieties. There are men — starched prigs like John Coverdale — who are fascinated by their opposites, and who make themselves the world's wonder by choosing a wife out of the gutter ; but such men are poor invertebrate creatures, in spite of the starch. 116 THOU ART THE MAN. Their prim propriety is only outside wear. Not so with John Coverdalc. With him it is the whiteness of a lofty spirit. He is firm as a rock, knows his ideal, and will accept nothing less pure and perfect ; and he has found his ideal in Lady Penrith, whom he can't marry, but whom he can worship. The thought of those homeward walks in the twilight with him, in those hours when he condescended to talk with me as a friend and intellectual equal, and when I felt myself an- other creature — the very thought of that past, so recent, yet so far away, made me melancholy. I am not prone to the melting mood, but there were tears in my eyes as I watched my father stealing along by the stone wall towards the high tangled hedge which divides the field from the footpath — one of the few real rustic English hedges about here, where the fields are so large, and for the most part bounded by ugly stone walls. What a stealthy air a solitary sportsman has ! COKA EXPATIATES. 117 How much more like a poacher my father looked, creeping along under the shadow of the hedge, waiting for his chance, no dog to point, or to put up his bird for him ; only the chance of some belated pheasant lumbering heavily home to its cover, or rising scared at the sound of those stealthy footsteps. It seemed very poor sport to my mind ; but I can imagine that my father may feel a malicious pleasure in shooting a brace or two of Penrith's pampered pheasants — which are said to cost him half a guinea apiece — almost within earshot of the Castle. He was not very lucky while I watched him, for he only fired once, just as I was turning my footsteps homeward across the open moor. Only one shot ! How it echoed along the silent valley, with a sharp, rattling sound, which set a whole army of rooks screaming and chattering high above my head in the grey evening gloom. It was growing cold, and the damp had begun to penetrate my little cloth 118 THOU AKT THE MAN. jacket, so I hurried borne as fast as I could to my snug room and rousing fire and luxurious tea. Assuredly in choosing between my father and Lady Penrith I should be a fool if I were to hesitate as to where my loyalty should be given. Eight o'clock, and I am only half dressed. No matter, for there will be nobody sitting down to dinner in the Castle to-night. I was in the midst of my dressing when I was startled by a tremendous ringing of bells and opening and shutting of doors below. Could Lady Penrith have returned unex- pectedly? No, it must be something more than that. The sudden arrival of a whole family could hardly cause such a noise of hurrying footsteps and ringing of bells as I heard reverberating from the stone hall and corridors. I flew out to the gallery to listen, wrapped in my dressing-gown, with my hair streaming — and stood there trying to make CORA EXPATIATES. 119 out the meaning of those sounds — but they gradually died away into silence, and I was none the wiser. An inexplicable terror was upon me. My hands were shaking then, when I knew nothing, my teeth chattering, almost as badly as my hand shakes now, as I write this, now that I know the worst. Agonised with that dreadful uncertainty I went along the gallery to the great open space at the top of the staircase, hearing low murmurs of several voices and the heavy tread of feet upon the stairs, as I hurried on. I knew what that tread meant — they were carrying something upstairs. The something was Lord Penrith. Four men were carrying him slowly — very slowly — up the broad staircase to his own bedroom, and he lay in their arms without sound or movement of so much as one finger of the hand that swung loosely from the sleeve of his dark grey shooting jacket. 120 THOU ART THE MAN. I drew back into the shadow, and saw that awful group pass by almost in silence, while a servant who had gone in advance opened the door of the bedroom, and lighted the lamps inside. They passed in with their burden, and the door was shut. I ran downstairs, and found plenty of people standing about, eager to tell me what had happened. He was dead. It was an accident, a common kind of accident, which might have been avoided by the most ordinary precaution on his lord- ship's part. He had been found shot through the heart and lungs, lying across a gap in a hedge, his gun by his side, one charge exploded. It was the old story of a sportsman scrambling through a hedge with his loaded gun in his hand. His lordship had dismissed the keeper late in the afternoon, and had walked homewards alone. The keeper thought he would have gone the shortest way, by the footpath — but instead COEA EXPATIATES. 121 of that he must have taken a somewhat wider round, and crossed the big turnip field to get into the footpath by the gap at the lower end — a gap which the shooters had used very often that season. They were all eager to give me the details. His favourite Clumber spaniel had been with him, and had come back to the Castle in a cowed and frightened condition, which had given the first alarm at the kennels, the men seeing that something was wrong with the dog, and apprehending an accident to his master. And then the stablemen started in a body to search the homeward track, and found their master in the hedge at the bottom of the hill. A stone wall divides the turnip field from its neighbours on three sides. There is only the hedge by the footpath — almost the only hedge upon his lordship's estate, moaned the house- steward. "Why do I place these things on record ? 122 THOU ART THE MAN. God knows. My band shakes so that it is difficult to -write. My fire is nearly out — I sit shivering beside the smouldering logs, and my room which looked so bright and cheery an hour ago is now the picture of desolation. The wintry wind is shrieking outside my window. I shall write no more in this journal. I close the book for ever this miserable night. My heart is frozen. ( 123 ) CHAPTER V. DEATH IN LIFE. The telegram that had summoned Lady Penrith upon her mysterious journey early on that fatal November afternoon was of the briefest. " Found. Come as soon as you like. I wait here for your reply. — Coverdale, Lodore Hotel, Keswick." The reply was decisive — "I start for Keswick by the 2.40 train to- day." Mr. Coverdale was waiting on the platform when the train arrived. The grave kindly face seemed like a welcome, and Lady Penrith felt cheered and sustained by his greeting. He had a carriage waiting for her, looked after 124 THOU ART THE MAN. her maid and her luggage, and then took his seat beside her, and spared her all agitating questions by telling his story at once, and fully. "In the first place, I have found him," he said — "plain facts first, and details afterwards. I have found him — he is desperately ill — a changed man from the man you remember at Ellerslie. You must bear that in mind, Lady Penrith. You have to prepare yourself for a terrible shock in seeing him after a lapse of years, -which have done more to alter him, poor fellow, than twice the number would in any ordinary life." " Desperately ill — so ill, so changed," she faltered, trying to keep back her tears. " Tell me the worst — don't be afraid to tell me. Will he know me again ? Is his mind affected?" " Seriously affected, I fear. I would not say that reason is altogether gone, but it is no longer a sane mind. There are hallucina- DEATH IN LIFE. 125 tions, alternating with a dull apathy. The treatment may not have been cruel — has not been actively cruel — for there have been intervals since yesterday in which he has talked rationally, and answered all my ques- tions about his life at St. Jude's with perfect clearness and understanding — but it has been the worst possible treatment for such a case as his." " It has been murder, slow, deliberate murder, and those people at St. Jude's have acted as hired murderers." " Mr. Carpew has been your brother-in-law's paid agent. I think there is no doubt of his guilt in that degree. Mr. Urquhart has an extraordinary influence over him — some stronger hold than money. But it is not worth while to enter upon that question. The wrong has been done, and cannot be undone. It is possible that this poor fellow might have degenerated — in bodily and mental health — under the happiest circumstances." 126 THOU ART THE MAN. " What does the doctor say — no doubt you have called in a doctor ? ' ' "The man of highest repute in the neigh- bourhood. He considers the case one of epilepsy, pure and simple — epilepsy in that severe form in which the frequent attacks tend towards lunacy, and too often result in lunacy. He does not think the patient likely to be long lived." "Long lived, a life of misery! Oh, God! to think of what he was when I knew him ! Oh, if you could have seen him then, Mr. Coverdale — young, handsome, a king among men — his mind so highly cultivated — knowing and loving all the books I loved. So full of enthusiasm — telling us of adventures that showed such courage and ready wit — uncon- sciously, for he was the last of men to boast of what he had done. And now you tell me that he is a wreck — a wreck in mind and body — a creature to be pitied. To hear you speak of him just now as ' this poor fellow ' " DEATH IN LIFE. 127 She burst into tears, crushed and humiliated, as if Brandon Mountford's humiliation bowed her proud head to the dust. "Pray, bear with me," she said, as Cover- dale murmured some consoling commonplace, hardly knowing what he said, his heart aching for her as it had never ached before for a woman in sorrow. " Think what it is for me to have loved him — as I did love him — these lips told him so — a few hours before Marie Arnold's death — and to find him — thus. Bear with me, Mr. Coverdale. You are a good man, my true, kind friend — the only friend I can look to now." Coverdale was silent, not daring to trust himself to speech in answer to that declara- tion of friendship. For him too, as for Sibyl, life seemed a hard riddle to read just now. " How did you find him ? " she asked, after a pause. They were driving along the road by the lake, through the drizzling rain. An expanse 128 THOU ART THE MAX. of dark grey water stretched in front of tliein, with mountains on either side, and wintry gloom brooding over mountain and lake. " It was not easy — but still it only required patience and the following up of every clue. I have had to hunt for people in the East End, and I have found out that there is only one way of doing it. I had the Keswick police to help me — two men who know the neighbour- hood for a good many miles round, and with their help I soon discovered traces of him. A mysterious arrival of an invalid gentleman in a lonely farmhouse on the further side of Buttermere had been heard of at an inn in the neighbourhood — an inn used by excur- sionists in summer, but almost deserted at this time of the year. We found the man who drove them there. Not one of the flymen who ordinarily meet the trains, but a man from a livery yard, engaged by a telegram overnight. Had one of the station flies been employed we should have made our discovery much DEATH IN LIFE. 129' sooner, for naturally my first inquiries were among those men." " What kind of a place — what kind ' of people ? " asked Sibyl. " A decent farmhouse ; very lonely, a place to hide in — decent kindly people, anxious to do their utmost for their charge, I believe. He had been sent to them by Mr. Carpew, whom they had known years ago, when they had a farm near St. Jude's — a farm on your father's estate. They knew nothing of the man who brought him, had never seen him before to their knowledge, but they knew Mr. Carpew,. and were willing to oblige him. They were to be paid for the gentleman's board and lodging, and for a man to look after him, and all that was wanted was seclusion and secrecy. The poor gentleman had relatives who wanted to put him in a lunatic asylum, and who would perhaps make out a case of lunacy against him if they could get hold of him, though he was by no means a lunatic. Mrs. Holloway, the VOL. III. k 130 THOU ART THE MAN. farmer's wife, seems a kindly soul, and her sympathies were aroused hy this story." " Thank God, he has not fallen among thieves — so far as these people are concerned. Are you taking me to him — now ? " " I am taking you to the hotel, where I have engaged rooms for you. I hope you will rest quietly for to-night — and to-morrow morning we will start for the farm as early as you like." "Why should I wait till to-morrow? I am longing to see him — to know the worst about him. You tell me he is ill — a broken man. Your manner implies that he is very ill. He may die before to-morrow morning, and then I shall go down to my grave without having seen the wreck which I helped to make." " Lady Penrith, you must not look at this story in that light. No one can tell what influence surrounding circumstances may have upon him. It is possible that he was doomed to suffer as he has done — that in the brightest DEATH IN LIFE. 131 surroundings his fate would have been the same. And if he committed the crime for which he was arrested " " No, no, no ! He did not commit that crime. Don't speak of it. I am angry at the thought of my own folly — the web of lies in which I was caught. Let us go to the farm at once. We can stop at the hotel, just to get rid of Ferriby and the luggage, and then drive •on." " Not on a dark night like this. The distance is too long. The drive would not be without ■danger, and you would see the patient at his worst, startled by such a late arrival." " I want to see him at his worst. I want to know all he has suffered in these long, dreary years." "But think what the shock might be for him. He must be prepared for seeing you." "Is he not prepared already ? Have you told him nothing of my anxiety about his fate — my bitter grief for his sufferings ? " 132 THOU ART THE MAN. " Yes, I have spoken of you ; but perhaps not enough. Be assured it will be better for you and for him that you should defer the meeting till to-morrow." " You have been so good to me that I cannot disobey you," Sibyl answered, with a sigh. " What is the name of the hotel where I am to stop? " she asked. " The Lodore. I thought you would like to- be by the lake, and away from the town." " Yes. I gave them no address when I was leaving. I was afraid Penrith might follow me, and interfere in some manner. I must go back to-morrow afternoon, when we have de- cided what is to be done." " Has Mr. Mountford no near relations ? Is he quite alone in the world ? " " Quite alone. He has no relation nearer than my uncle, Lord Braemar, and they are only second cousins, a relationship which does not count for much in a large family like my grandfather's. I was interested in him for DEATH IN LIFE. 133 another reason over and above relationship. His father loved my mother — hopelessly — loved her after he was hound to another. His son told me the story of that sad, hopeless love. Oh, Mr. Coverdale, forgive me," she said, startled by a stifled sob from the man sitting by her side ; " pray forgive me if I have touched upon some sad story of your own " "No, no; it was nothing," he said, hastily. "That kind of story— the idea of a hopeless love, a hopeless grief, manfully battled with — is always pathetic. You remember Warring- ton's story — a mere episode in ' Pendennis.' It moves one more than all the rest of the book, doesn't it ? Ah, here we are at the Lodore ; and now I shall leave you to get all the rest you can till to-morrow morning." The carriage stopped in front of the hotel ; Lady Penrith's maid alighted ; the porter took the luggage; lights shone brightly in the hall within, with all the stir and bustle of an impor- tant arrival. Head waiter and head chamber- 134 THOU ART THE MAN. maid were in eager attendance to show the way to her ladyship's rooms. A titled visitor in that dead season of the year was worthy of the utmost homage. "lam staying at the Keswick Hotel," Cover- dale said, as he bade goodnight; "but I will be with you as early as you like to-morrow,, with a carriage and a good pair of horses. You had better bring your maid. The journey will be long and tiring ; and if we should have a hopelessly wet day " " I am not afraid of bad weather. Would eight o'clock be too early for you to be here ? " " Not too early for me. If I can get the livery people to be astir early I will be with you at eight. Only I beg that you will try to rest to-night. They have given you rooms looking towards the lake, and I hope the sound of the waterfall will be only loud enough to serve as a slumber-song." "Do not think of me. You have taken DEATH IN LIFE. 135 worlds of trouble. I don't know how I shall ever thank you." " Don't thank me. I have to take much more trouble at the East End for duty's sake. It will be my most cherished memory that you looked to me for help in your anxieties. Good night." He did not even stop to shake hands with her, but left her with a stiff bow which seemed curiously at variance with the suppressed emotion in the tones of his voice. He went back to the carriage through the rain, and she heard him drive away, leaving her with the long evening before her in a strange hotel. A two hours' drive in the clear morning air brought Lady Penrith and her companion to a solitary farmhouse hidden amongst the hills, a spot more lonely than even St. Jude's Vicarage ; but this rustic homestead, with its group of barns and stable-yard in the back- ground, and its little garden, where autumn 136 THOU ART THE MAN. flowers still lingered, had a more cheerful aspect than the straggling stone house at St. Jude's, with its walled garden and gloomy firs. Brandon Mountford ! Yes, this was Brandon Mountford ; this tall wasted figure ; this hollow- eyed countenance, with the downward melan- choly lines about the mouth, and the ner- vous contraction of the brow, and the wasted hands that lay in helpless inaction on the arms of the chair. Sibyl stood gazing at him in awestricken silence, almost as she might have looked upon a ghost. She could find no words to say to him — no words of pity or affection. Speech seemed frozen. Vainly had 'Coverdale sought to prepare her for the shock. The anguish of the spectacle was not lessened by anything that he had told her. The silence lasted for minutes. Coverdale heard the old clock in the passage ticking solemnly on, as if it were dealing out a long -day, or a long lifetime, so hopeless seemed DEATH IN LIFE. 137 the duration of that agony ; the woman stand- ing statue-like, white as marble ; the man sitting with eyes that gazed idly out beyond the open window, across the little garden, where the asters and marigolds made a bank of gaudy colour, to the grey dimness of great rugged hills. The November morning was still and bright, and the air in the shelter of the hills had a summer-like softness. At last, over the blank melancholy of that aged and altered face there crept a slow vague smile, and Brandon Mountford lifted his eyes towards Sibyl. "I knew that you would come," he said slowly. " I knew that you would understand my message — though I have almost lost the trick of writing." "Brandon, you know me, you know me," she cried, sinking on her knees by his chair, clasping one of those wasted hands, deadly cold to her touch. 138 THOU ART THE MAN. " Know you — yes, of course." " You have been cruelly treated, but that is all over now. All that this world can give of happiness shall be yours. It shall be my care — the object of my life to atone." " No, no, there has been no cruelty. It was my doom — the curse laid upon me. What could they do but hide me — hide me from my fellow-men — a wretch — a murderer ? I have suffered, but I have had my dreams — dreams of that wild country where I was so happy — centuries ago — centuries of weariness and pain. The black faces came back to me in dreams — the river — the forest. And I have dreamt that you and I were wandering there — you and I sitting together by the camp fire. I have seen your face in the red light ! And then the fire has changed to the fire of hell, and I have suffered like a soul in everlasting agony. I have suffered for my crime." In broken sentences, with piteous entreaty, she protested against his self- denunciation. DEATH IN LIFE. ISO* "It is a dream," she said; "a horrible dream. You had nothing to do with poor Marie's death — except the misfortune to be the first to find her. You have been the victim of a cruel conspiracy — a plot to hide away an innocent man in order to prevent suspicion falling on the real murderer." He looked at her curiously, as if lapsing into a reverie in which her words hardly reached, him — looked at her wonderingly, as if her face were strange to him. x\nd then his eyes wandered away from that earnest, eager face to the gaudy autumn flowers and the great grave hills veiled in thin white mist. Alas, it was but too evident that the shadows which clouded his reason only cleared away now and again for a brief space, as the autumn haze parted and patches of the hill-side showed clear and bright through a rift in the veil. "It is not wise to talk to him of that dread- ful event," said Coverdale. " What we have 140 TJIOU ART THE MAN. to consider is what is best to be clone for him. The doctor will be here at twelve o'clock. You may be glad to hear his opinion from his own lips." " Yes. I should like to hear what he thinks. But ought we not to have a specialist ? We might telegraph to Edinburgh." " There will be time for that by-and-by. Will you come into the garden with me " " What, leave him alone ? " "He has been accustomed to sitting alone. The woman of the house is within call. I should like to have a quiet talk with you out yonder." Sibyl did not answer him, scarcely heard him, perhaps. She was looking at Brandon Mountford in agonised contemplation. What- ever there had been of intellect or of power in his face a few minutes ago had vanished from it like a light extinguished behind a transparent picture — leaving the picture dull and meaning- less. Weakness, physical and mental, hopeless DEATH IN LIFE. 141 despondency, were all that [could be read in that face now, a countenance of sickly pallor, every facial muscle relaxed, dull misery ex- pressed in every languid line. This was what solitude and silence, the slow decay of monotonous years, had done for Brandon Mountford. If Sibyl could have looked back along that dark line of years — if some magic mirror could have shown her pictures of the past, what would she have seen ? First a strong man caught in a trap, fighting with his captors for release into the free air of heaven, then suddenly subjugated and rendered powerless, not by their violence or their persuasion, but by the fell disease which the horrors and agitations of his life had inten- sified, which set its grip upon body and brain with a force never felt till then. She would have seen one attack following upon another, with brief intervals of languor and exhaustion, till strength was sapped and 142 THOU ART THE MAN. intellect weakened — weakened but not anni- hilated. She would have seen a brave man submissive as a child to a bond which he could have broken had he so willed — submissive because hopeless and despairing. He was told that he was a murderer, that a warrant was out against him, that to escape from that dull prison house, that life of hopeless monotony, would be to run into the noose of the law, to doom himself it might be to the gallows, or at best to the imprisonment of a State mad-house, a felon among other felons, a lunatic among other lunatics. She would have seen him — as his brain weakened, and the power of logical argument and even of consecutive thought gradu- ally diminished — fooled by the hope of release. He should be got away, later, when the coast was clear — should be got on board a steamer and drafted away to that dark continent of which he dreamt so often, where liberty and life were waiting for him, among the dark faces, under the tropical sun. Cozened from day DEATH IX LIFE. 143 to day, and month to month, and year to year, with that reiterated " by-and-by," she would have seen him gradually losing count of days, and months and years, till time was one long blank, and his life knew no change save the change from heat to cold, and back to heat again — from sunshine pouring in at his open windows to the early darkness of endless winter nights — from the dark, iron blank where the firelight had leapt and sparkled so merrily, to the welcome fireglow coming back again to fill the dull black void. No changes save the rain whipping the window panes — the wind howling over the distant sea, or whistling in the chimney. There was thunder sometimes — a thunder peal that shook the house, and made him wish that the roof would crack and the walls crumble, and bury him among dust and ruin, and so make an end of this dull blank space and time which seemed to be endless — infinite space — infinite time. He repeated the words sometimes as if they had 144 THOU ART THE MAN. been a formula — "Who disputes that either is infinite ? I have proved them both," ho said; for not only did time seem endless, im- measurable, but in his frequent periods of hallucination space also seemed without limit, and his weary spirit wandered in worlds that knew neither change nor boundary, neither night nor day — dim greyness, peopled by silent ghosts — an endless labyrinth, or a wide stretch of barren sand leading to a horizon that was always the same, and yet for ever receding. The commonest dreamer in a dream of a minute can invent and people a place unknown to his waking intelligence — but in the diseased brain that dreaming power, increased a hundred-fold, becomes a source of unspeakable suffering, a well-spring of horror. And what of his more rational hours; those longer intervals between one attack and another when there was time for the brain to regain some touch of reasoning power? Alas, those hours of reason and remembrance were the DEATH IN LIFE. 145 worst of all, for in those he believed himself Marie Arnold's murderer, recalled the image of the corpse in the wood, brooded over the cruelty of such an end to that bright young life, and the shame and disgrace of the crime — disgrace reflecting upon all who were of his blood, a blot upon a stainless pedigree. "Better that I should rot in this seclusion," he told himself in those waking hours, "than that I should go out into the world to set men talking of my crime. Yet if it were possible — if I could get clear of England without scandal — could get back to the Zambesi and my faithful Kaffir boys, they would hardly think worse of me for that story of bloodshed. They would only pity me as the victim of witch- craft." And in such an interval, when his janitor came to him with the meal which only Mr. Carpew or his wife ever served to the mysterious "boarder," Brandon Mountford would urge the fulfilment of that reiterated promise. VOL. III. L 146 THOU ART THE MAN. Surely the time had come when he might go away. Whatever watch had been kept upon the house must have ceased long ago. He had lost all count of time, but he knew that it must be long — and he looked down at his clothes, which had been replaced by ready- made garments more than once since he came there, and which yet were threadbare and worn at the edges. He looked at his wasted hands, where the muscles had been so firm and the flesh so hard and brown, in those old days by the salmon river. Yes, it was long, very long. Suspicion, watchfulness, must have been worn out long ago. Why could he not get away ? The Vicar had various excuses. The danger was not over. His lodger was a marked man. Any movements in that lonely spot would excite curiosity. And then there was the question of money. It would cost a good deal of money to get him out of England — to pay his passage to the Cape. DEATH IN LIFE. 147 " And you wouldn't like to land there penni- less," said the Vicar. Penniless, yes — penniless under those stars. He would not fear. Besides, he had friends in London — friends who would gladly help him — men to whom money was of no account — if he could remember their names, or where to find them. Ah, there was the agony ! He could not remember. Names, localities, even the faces of the past were lost in the thick mists of forgetfulness. Faces haunted him — faces ap- peared to him — rooms in which he seemed to have lived — gardens whose every tree and shrub seemed familiar — but he could not dis- tinguish memories from dreams— the things which had been, and were real even to-day, from the things that his fancy invented. If Sibyl could have known how, through the clouds that darkened mind and memory, one image had shown out clearly, unchanged and unforgotten, and that image hers ; if she could 148 THOU ART THE MAN. Lave beard his appeal to his gaoler, repeated! day after day, " Let Hie see her. Has she had rny letter? Have you sent a messenger to Ellerslie, as you said you would ? " and how, day after day, he was put off with excuses and postponements. He was told that she had married Lord Penrith, and was a leading light in the London world. It was implied that she had forgotten her unhappy kinsman, and was indifferent to his fate. She was abroad — in the South of France — an assertion that had been justified by her actual absence in several winters — but the same story had been told him when she was at Killander Castle. To-morrow and to-morrow. There had always been the same promise that his desire should be realised by-and-by — and as the brain weakened he had grown to believe in that by-and-by, and to wait and watch for her coming. He had written many such scrawls as the one which reached her hands — but on that DEATH IX LIFE. 149 last occasion be had been fortunate in bis messenger, a wretched Jack of all trades who lived in a hovel at St. Jude's, and did odd jobs of work for the farmers. The key had been left in the lock of the garden door for onee in a way, and Brandon, who was allowed to walk alone in this joyless enclosure, had opened the door unobserved and gone out into the lane. He had no idea of escape now, having been told that escape was hopeless — he was too weak and helpless even to contemplate any act requiring prompt decision or sustained exertion. He only wanted to see Sibyl — to find some messenger who would carry his appeal. The garden door opened on the heath, but he