III. ACCUSED…

III. ACCUSED

The grey dawn of the early May morning was breaking over the world--over the group gathered in Mr. Dare's dining-room. That gentleman, his surviving sons, a stranger, a constable or two; and Sergeant Delves, who had been summoned to the scene. Sundry of the household were going in and out, of their own restless, curious accord, or by summons. The sergeant was making inquiries into the facts and details of the evening.

Anthony Dare--as may be remembered--had sullenly retired to his room, refusing to go out when the message came to him from Lord Hawkesley. It appeared, by what was afterwards learnt, that he, Anthony Dare, had made an appointment to meet Hawkesley and some other men at the Star-and-Garter hotel, where Lord Hawkesley was staying; the proposed amusement of the evening being cards. Anthony Dare remained in his chamber, solacing his chafed temper with brandy-and-water, until the waiter from the Star-and-Garter appeared a second time, bearing a note. This note Sergeant Delves had found in one of the pockets, and had it now open before him. It ran as follows:--

"DEAR DARE,--We are all here waiting, and can't make up the tables without you. What do you mean by shirking us? Come along, and don't be a month over it.--Yours,

"HAWKESLEY."

This note had prevailed. Anthony, possibly repenting of the solitary evening to which he had condemned himself, put on his boots again and went forth: not--it is not pleasant to have to record it, but it cannot be concealed--not sober. He had taken ale with his dinner, wine after it, and brandy-and-water in his room. The three combined had told upon him.

On his arrival at the Star-and-Garter, he found six or seven gentlemen assembled. But, instead of sitting down there in Lord Hawkesley's room, it was suddenly decided to adjourn to the lodgings of a Mr. Brittle, hard by; a young Oxonian, who had been plucked in his Little Go, and was supposed to be reading hard to avoid a second similar catastrophe. They went to Mr. Brittle's and sat down to cards, over which brandy-and-water and other drinks were introduced. Anthony Dare, by way of quenching his thirst, did not spare them, and was not particular as to the sorts. The consequence was that he soon became most disagreeable company, snarling with all around; in short, unfit for play. This contretemps put the rest of the party out of sorts, and they broke up. But for that, they might probably have sat on, until morning, and that poor unhappy life have been spared. There was no knowing what might have been. Anthony Dare was in no fit state to walk alone, and one of them, Mr. Brittle, undertook to see him home. Mr. Brittle left him at the gate, and Anthony Dare stumbled over the lawn and gained the house. After that, nothing further was known. So much as this would not have been known, but that, in hastening for Delves, the policeman had come across Mr. Brittle. It was only natural that the latter, shocked and startled, should bend his steps to the scene; and from him they gathered the account of Anthony's movements abroad.

But now came the difficulty. Who had let Anthony in? No one. There was little doubt that he had made his way through the dining-room window. Joseph had turned the key of the front door at eleven o'clock, and he had not been called upon to open it until the return of Mr. and Mrs. Dare. The policeman who happened to be passing when Anthony came home--or it may be more correct to say, was brought home--testified to the probable fact that he had entered by means of the dining-room window. The man had watched him: had seen that, instead of making for the front door, which faced the road and was in view, he had stumbled across the grass, and disappeared down by the side of the house. On this side the dining-room window was situated; therefore it was only reasonable to suppose that Anthony had so entered.

"Had you any motive in watching him?" asked Sergeant Delves of this man.

"None, except to see that he did not fall," was the reply. "When the gentleman who brought him home loosed his arm, he told him, in a joking way, not to get kissing the ground as he went in; and I thought I'd watch him that I might go to his assistance if he did fall. He could hardly walk: he pitched about with every step."

"Did he fall?"

"No; he managed to keep up. But I should think he was a good five minutes getting over the grass plat."

"Did the gentleman remain to watch him?"

"No, not for above a minute. He just waited to see that he got safe over the gravel path on to the grass, and then he went back."

"Did you see anyone else come in? About that time?--or before it?--or after it?"

The man shook his head. "I didn't see anyone else at all. I shut the gate after Mr. Anthony, and I didn't see it opened again. Not but what plenty might have opened and shut it, and gone in, too, when I was higher up my beat."

Sergeant Delves called Joseph. "It appears uncommonly odd that you should have heard no noise whatever," he observed. "A man's movements are not generally very quiet when in the state described as being that of young Mr. Dare's. The probability is that he would enter the dining-room noisily. He'd be nearly sure to fall against the furniture, being in the dark."

"It's certain that I never did hear him," replied Joseph. "We was shut up in the kitchen, and I was mostly nodding from the time I locked up at eleven till master came home at two. The two girls was chattering loud enough; they was at the table, making-up caps, or something of that. The cook went to bed at ten; she was tired."

"Then, with the exception of you three, all the household were in bed?"

"All of 'em--as was at home," answered Joseph. "The governess had gone early, the two young ladies went about ten, Mr. Cyril and Mr. George went soon after ten. They came home from cricket 'dead beat' they said, had supper, and went to bed soon after it."

"It's not usual for them--the young men, I mean--to go to bed so early, is it?" asked Sergeant Delves.

"No, except on cricket nights," answered Joseph. "After cricket they generally come home and have supper, and don't go out again. Other nights they are mostly sure to be out late."

"And you did not hear Mr. Herbert come in?"

"Sergeant Delves, I say that I never heard nothing nor nobody from the time I locked the front door till master and missis came home," reiterated Joseph, growing angry. "Let me repeat it ten times over, I couldn't say it plainer. If I had heard either of the gentlemen come in, I should have gone to 'em to see if anything was wanted. Specially to Mr. Anthony, knowing that he was not sober when he went out."

Two points appeared more particularly to strike Sergeant Delves. The one was, that no noise should have been heard; that a deed like this could have been committed in, as it appeared, absolute silence. The other was, that the dining-room window should have been found fastened inside. The latter fact confirmed the strong suspicion that the offender was an inmate of the house. A person, not an inmate of the house, would naturally have escaped by the open dining-room window; but to do this, and to fasten it inside after him was an impossibility. Every other window in the house, every door, had been securely fastened; some in the earlier part of the evening, some at eleven o'clock by Joseph. Herbert Dare voluntarily acknowledged that it was he who had fastened the dining-room window. His own account was--and the sergeant looked at him narrowly while he gave it--that he had returned home late, getting on for two o'clock; that he had come in through the dining-room, and had put down the window fastening. He declared that he had not seen Anthony. If Anthony had been lying there, as he was afterwards found, he, Herbert, had not observed him. But, he said, so far as he remembered, he never glanced to that part of the room at all, but had gone straight through on the other side, between the table and the fireplace. And if he had glanced to it he could have seen nothing, for the room was dark. He had no light, and had to feel his way.

"Was it usual for the young gentlemen to fasten the window?" Sergeant Delves asked of Joseph. And Joseph replied that they sometimes did, sometimes did not. If by any chance Mr. Anthony and Mr. Herbert came in together, then they would fasten it; or if, when the one came in, he knew that the other was not out, he would equally fasten it. Mr. Cyril and Mr. George did not often come in that way; in fact, they were not out so late, generally speaking, as were their brothers.

"Precisely so," Herbert assented, with reference to the fastening. He had fastened it, believing his brother Anthony to be at home and in bed. When he went out the previous evening, Anthony had already gone to his room, expressing his intention not to leave it again that night.

Sergeant Delves inquired--no doubt for reasons of his own--whether this expressed intention on the part of Anthony could be testified to by any one besides Herbert. Yes. By Joseph, by the governess, by Rosa and Minny Dare; all four had heard him say it. The sergeant would not trouble the young ladies, but requested to speak to the governess.

The governess was indignant at the request being made. She was in and out amongst them with her white face, in her many-coloured peignior. She had been upstairs and partially dressed herself; had discarded the calico nightcap and done her hair, put on the peignior again, and come down to see and to listen. But she did not like being questioned.

"I know nothing about it," she said to the sergeant, speaking vehemently. "What should I know about it? I will tell you nothing. I went to bed before it was well nine o'clock; I had a headache; and I never heard anything more till the commotion began. Why you ask me?"

"But you can surely tell, ma'am, whether or not you heard Mr. Anthony say he was going to his chamber for the night?" remonstrated the sergeant.

"Yes, he did say it," she answered vehemently. "He said it in the salon. He kicked off his boots, and told Joseph to bring his slippers, and to take brandy-and-water to his room, for he should not leave it again that night. I never thought or knew that he had left it until I saw him lying in the dining-room, and they said he was dead."

"Was Mr. Herbert present when he said he should go to his room for the night?"

"He was present, I think: I think he had come in then to the salon. That is all I know. I made the tea, and then my head got bad, and I went to bed. I can tell you nothing further."

"Did you hear any noise in the house, ma'am?"

"No. If there was any noise I did not notice it. I soon went to sleep. Where is the use of your asking me these things? You should ask those who sat up. I shall be sick if you make me talk about it. Nothing of this ever arrived in any family where I have been before."

The sergeant allowed her to retire. She went to the stairs and sat down on the lower step, and leaned her cheek upon her hand, all as she had done previously. Mr. Dare asked her why she did not go upstairs, away from the confusion and bustle of the sad scene; but she shook her head. She did not care to be in her chamber alone, she answered, and her pupils were shut in with Madame Dare and Mademoiselle Adelaide.

It is possible that one thing puzzled the sergeant: though what puzzled him and what did not puzzle him had to be left to conjecture, for he said nothing about it. No weapon had been found. The policemen had been searching the room thoroughly, had partly searched the house; but had come upon no instrument likely to have inflicted the wound. A carving-knife or common table-knife had been suggested, remembering the previous occurrences of the evening; but Mr. Glenn's decided opinion was, that it must have been a very different instrument; some slender, sharp-pointed, two-edged blade, he thought, about six inches in length.

The most suspicious evidence, referring to Herbert, was the cloak. The sergeant had examined it curiously, with compressed lips. Herbert disposed of this, so far as he was concerned--that is, if he was to be believed. He said that he had put his cloak on, had gone out in it as far as the entrance gate; but finding it warmer than was agreeable, he had turned back, and flung it on to the dining-room table, going in, as he had come out, through the window. He added, as a little bit of confirmatory evidence, that he remembered seeing the cloak begin to slide off the table again, that he saw it must fall to the ground; but, being in a hurry, he would not stop to prevent its doing so, or to pick it up.

The sergeant never seemed to take his sidelong glance from Herbert Dare. He had gone to work in his own way; hearing the different accounts and conjectures, sifting this bit of evidence, turning about that, holding a whispered colloquy with the man who had been sent to examine Herbert's room: holding a longer whispered colloquy with Herbert himself. On the departure of the surgeon and Mr. Brittle, who had gone away together, he had marched to the front and side doors of the house, locked them, and put the keys into his pocket. "Nobody goes out of this without my permission," quoth he.

Then he took Mr. Dare aside. "There's no mistake about this, I fear," said he gravely.

Mr. Dare knew what he meant. He himself was growing grievously faint-hearted. But he would not say so; he would not allow it to be seen that he cast, or could cast, a suspicion on Herbert. "It appears to me that--that--if poor Anthony was in the state they describe, that he may have sat down or laid down after entering the dining-room, and dropped asleep," observed Mr. Dare. "Easy, then--the window being left open--for some midnight housebreaker from the street to have come in and attacked him."

"Pooh!" said Sergeant Delves. "It is no housebreaker that has done this. We have a difficult line of duty to perform at times, us police; and all we can do to soften matters, is to go to work as genteelly as is consistent with the law. I'm sorry to have to say it, Mr. Dare, but I have felt obliged to order my men to keep a look-out on Mr. Herbert."

A chill ran through Mr. Dare. "It could not have been Herbert!" he rejoined, his tone one of pain, almost of entreaty. "Mr. Glenn says it could not have been done later than half-past eleven, or so. Herbert never came home until nearly two."

"Who is to prove that he was not at home till near two?"

"He says he was not. I have no doubt it can be proved. And poor Anthony was dead more than two hours before."

"Now, look you here," cried Sergeant Delves, falling back on a favourite phrase of his. "Mr. Glenn is correct enough as to the time of the occurrence: I have had some experience in death myself, and I'm sure he is not far out. But let that pass. Here are witnesses who saw him alive at half-past eleven o'clock, and you come home at two and find him dead. Now, let your son Herbert thus state where he was from half-past eleven till two. He says he was out: not near home at all. Very good. Only let him mention the place, so that we can verify it, and find, beyond dispute, that he was out, and the suspicion against him will be at an end. But he won't do this."

"Not do it?" echoed Mr. Dare.

"He tells me point-blank that he can't and he won't. I asked him."

Mr. Dare turned impetuously to the room where he had left his second son--his eldest son now. "Here, Herbert"--he was beginning. But the officer cut short the words by drawing him back.

"Don't go and make matters worse," whispered he: "perhaps they'll be bad enough without it. Now, Lawyer Dare, you'll do well not to turn obstinate, for I am giving you a bit of friendly advice. You and I have had many a transaction together, and I don't mind going a bit out of my way for you, as I wouldn't do for other people. The worst thing your son could do, would be to say before those chattering servants that he can't or won't tell where he has been all night, or half the night. It would be self-condemnation at once. Ask him in private, if you must ask him."

Mr. Dare called his son to him, and Herbert answered to it. A policeman was sauntering after him, but the sergeant gave him a nod, and the man went back.

"Herbert, you say you did not come in until near two this morning."

"Neither did I. It wanted about twenty minutes to it. The churches struck half-past one as I came through the town."

"Where did you stay?"

"Well--I can't say," replied Herbert.

Mr. Dare grew agitated. "You must say, Herbert," he hoarsely whispered, "or take the consequences."

"I can't help the consequences," was Herbert's answer. "Where I was last night is no matter to any one, and I shall not say."

"Your not saying--if you can say--is just folly," interposed the sergeant. "It's the first question the magistrates will ask when you are placed before them."

Herbert looked up angrily. "Place me before the magistrates!" he echoed. "What do you mean? You will not dare to take me into custody!"

"You have been in custody this half-hour," coolly returned the sergeant.

Herbert looked terribly fierce.

"I will not submit to this indignity," he exclaimed. "I will not. Sergeant Delves, you are overstepping----"

"Look here," interrupted the sergeant, drawing something from some unseen receptacle; and Mr. Herbert, to his dismay, caught sight of a pair of handcuffs. "Don't you force me to use them," said the officer. "You are in custody, and must go before the magistrates; but now, you be a gentleman, and I'll use you as one."

"I protest upon my honour that I have had neither act nor part in this crime!" cried Herbert, in agitation. "Do you think I would stain my hand with the sin of Cain?"

"What is that on your hand?" asked the sergeant, bending forward to look more closely at Herbert's fingers.

Herbert held them out openly enough. "I was doing something last night which tore my fingers," he said. "I was trying to undo the fastenings of some wire. Sergeant Delves, I declare to you solemnly, that from the moment when my brother went to his chamber, as witnesses have stated to you, I never saw him until my father brought me down from my bed to see him lying dead."

"You drew a knife on him not many hours before, you know, Mr. Herbert!"

"It was done in the heat of passion. He provoked me very much; but I should not have used it. No, poor fellow! I should never have injured him."

"Well, you only make your tale good to the magistrates," was all the sergeant's answer. "It will be their affair as soon as you are before them--not mine."

Herbert Dare was handed back to the constable; and, as soon as the justice-room opened, was conveyed before the magistrates--all, as the sergeant termed it, in a genteel, gentlemanly sort of way. He was charged with the murder of his brother Anthony.

To describe the commotion that spread over Helstonleigh would be beyond any pen. The college boys were in a strange state of excitement: both Anthony and Herbert Dare had been college boys themselves not so very long ago. Gar Halliburton--who was no longer a college boy, but a supernumerary--went home full of it. Having imparted it there, he thought he could not do better than go in and regale Patience with the news, by way of divertissement to her sick bed. "May I come up, Patience?" he called out from the foot of the stairs. "I have something to tell you."

Receiving permission, up he flew. Patience, partially raised, was sewing with her hands, which she could just contrive to do. Anna sat by the window, putting the buttons on some new shirts.

"I have finished two," cried she, turning round to Gar in great glee. "And my father's coming home next week, he writes us word. Perhaps thy mother has had a letter from William. Look at the shirts!" she continued, exhibiting them.

"Never mind bothering about shirts, now, Anna," returned Gar, losing sight of his gallantry in his excitement. "Patience, the most dreadful thing has happened. Anthony Dare's murdered!"

Patience, calm Patience, only looked at Gar. Perhaps she did not believe it. Anna's hands, holding out the shirts, were arrested midway: her mouth and blue eyes alike opening.

"He was murdered in their dining-room in the night," went on Gar, intent only on his tale. "The town is all up in arms; you never saw such an uproar. When we came out of school just now, we thought the French must have come to invade us, by the crowds there were in the street. You couldn't get near the Guildhall, where the examination was going on. Not more than half a dozen of us were able to fight our way in. Herbert Dare looked so pale; he was standing there, guarded by three policemen----"

"Thee hast a fast tongue, Gar," interrupted Patience. "Dost thee mean to say Herbert Dare was in custody?"

"Of course, he was," replied Gar, faster than before. "It is he who has done it. At least, he is accused of it. He and Anthony had a quarrel yesterday, and it came to knives. They were parted then; but he is supposed to have laid wait for Anthony in the night and killed him."

"Is Anthony dead? Is he----Anna! what hast thee----?"

Anna had dropped the shirts and the buttons. Her blue eyes had closed, her lips and cheeks had grown white, her hands fell powerless. "She is fainting!" shouted Gar, as he ran to support her.

"Gar, dear," said Patience, "thee shouldst not tell ill news quite so abruptly. Thee hast made me feel queer. Canst thee stretch thy hands out to the bell? It will bring up Hester."

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IV. COMMITTED FOR TRIAL

Helstonleigh could not recover its equanimity. Never had it been so rudely shaken. Incidents there had been as startling; crimes of as deep a dye; but, taking it with all its attendant circumstances, no occurrence, in the memory of the oldest inhabitant, had excited the interest that was attaching to the death and assumed murder of Anthony Dare.

The social standing of the parties, above that in which such unhappy incidents are more generally found; the conspicuous position they occupied in the town, and the very uncertainty--the mystery, it may be said--in which the affair was wrapped, wrought local curiosity to the highest point.

Scarcely a shadow of doubt rested on the public mind that the deed had been done by Herbert Dare. The Police force, actively engaged in searching out all the details, held the same opinion. In one sense, this was, perhaps, unfortunate; for, when strong suspicion, whether of the police or of the public, is especially directed to one isolated point, it inevitably tends to keep down doubts that might arise in regard to other quarters.

It seemed scarcely possible to hope that Herbert was not guilty. All the facts tended to the assumption that he was so. There was the ill-feeling known to have existed between himself and his brother: the quarrel and violence in the dining-room not many hours before, in which quarrel Herbert had raised a knife upon him. "But for the entrance of the servant Joseph," said the people, one to another, "the murder might have been done then." Joseph had stopped evil consequences at the time, but he had not stopped Herbert's mouth--the threat he had uttered in his passion--still to be revenged. Terribly those words told now against Herbert Dare.

Another thing that told against him, and in a most forcible manner, was the cloak. That he had put it on to go out; nay, had been seen to go out in it by the housemaid, was indisputable; and his brother was found lying on this very cloak. In vain Herbert protested, when before the magistrates and at the coroner's inquest, that he returned before leaving the gates, and had flung this cloak into the dining-room, finding it too hot that evening to wear. He obtained no credit. He had not been seen to do this; and the word of an accused man goes for little. All ominous, these things--all telling against him, but nothing, taking them collectively, as compared with his refusal to state where he was that night. He left the house between eight and nine, close upon nine, he thought; he was not sure of the exact time to a quarter of an hour; and he never returned to it until nearly two. Such was his account. But, where he had been in the interim, he positively refused to state.

It was only his assertion, you see, against the broad basis of suspicion. Anthony Dare's death must have taken place, as testified by Mr. Glenn, somewhere about half-past eleven; who was to prove that Herbert at that time was not at home? "I was not," Herbert reiterated, when before the coroner. "I did not return home till between half-past one and two. The churches struck the half-hour as I was coming through the town, and it would take me afterwards some ten minutes to reach home. It must have been about twenty minutes to two when I entered."

"But where were you? Where had you been? Where did you come from?" he was asked.

"That I cannot state," he replied. "I was out upon a little business of my own; business that concerns no one but myself; and I decline to make it public."

On that score nothing more could be obtained from him. The coroner drew his own conclusions; the jury drew theirs; the police had already drawn theirs, and very positive ones.

These were the two facts that excited the ire of Sergeant Delves and his official colleagues: with all their searching, they could find no weapon likely to have been the one used; and they could not discover where Herbert Dare had gone to that evening. It happened that no one remembered to have seen him passing in the town, early or late; or, if they had seen him, it had made no impression on their memory. The appearance of Mr. Dare's sons was so common an occurrence that no especial note was likely to have been taken of it. Herbert declared that in passing through West Street, Turtle, the auctioneer, was leaning out at his open bedroom window, and that he, Herbert, had called out to him, and asked whether he was star-gazing. Mr. Turtle, when applied to, could not corroborate this. He believed that he had been looking out at his window that night; he believed that it might have been about the hour named, getting on for two, for he was late going to bed, having been to a supper party; but he had no recollection whatever of seeing Mr. Herbert pass, or of having been spoken to by him, or by any one else. When pressed upon the point, Mr. Turtle acknowledged that his intellects might not have been in the clearest state of perception, the supper party having been a jovial one.

One of the jury remarked that it was very singular the prisoner could go through the dining-room, and not observe his brother lying in it. The prisoner replied that it was not singular at all. The room was in darkness, and he had felt his way through it on the opposite side of the table to that where his brother was afterwards found. He had gone straight through, and up to his chamber, as quietly as possible, not to disturb the house; and he dropped asleep as soon as he was in bed.

The verdict returned was "Wilful murder against Herbert Dare," and he was committed to the county gaol to take his trial at the assizes. Mr. Dare's house was beyond the precincts of the city. Sergeant Delves and his men renewed their inquiries; but they could discover no trace, either of the weapon, or of where Herbert Dare had passed the suspicious hours. The sergeant was vexed; but he would not allow that he was beaten. "Only give us time," said he, with a characteristic nod. "The Pyramids of Egypt were only built up stone by stone."

Tuesday morning--the morning fixed for the funeral of Anthony Dare. The curious portion of Helstonleigh wended its way up to the churchyard; as it is the delight of the curious portion of a town to do. What a sad sight it was! That dark object, covered by its pall, carried by its attendants, followed by the mourners; Mr. Dare, and his sons Cyril and George. He, the father, bent his face in his handkerchief, as he walked behind the coffin to the grave. Many a man in Helstonleigh enjoyed a higher share of esteem and respect than did Lawyer Dare; but not one present in that crowded churchyard that did not feel for him in his bitter grief. Not one, let us hope, that did not feel to his heart's core the fate of the unhappy Anthony, now, for weal or for woe, to answer before his Maker for his life on earth.

That same day, Tuesday, witnessed the return of Samuel Lynn and William Halliburton. They arrived in the evening, and of course the first news they were greeted with was the prevailing topic. Few things caused the ever-composed Quaker to betray surprise; but William was half-stunned with the news. Anthony Dare dead--murdered--buried that very day; and Herbert in prison, awaiting his trial for the offence! To William the whole affair seemed more incredible than real.

"Sir," he said to his master, when, the following morning, they were alone together in the counting-house at the manufactory, "do you believe Herbert Dare can be guilty?"

Mr. Ashley had been gazing at William, lost in thought. The change we often see, or fancy we see, in a near friend, after a few weeks' absence, was apparent in William. He had improved in looks; and yet those looks, with their true nobility, both of form and intellect, had been scarcely capable of improvement. Nevertheless, it was there, and Mr. Ashley had been struck with it.

"I cannot say," he replied, aroused by the question. "Facts appear conclusively against him; but it seems incredible that he should so have lost himself. To be suspected and committed on such a charge is grief enough, without the reality of guilt."

"So it is," acquiesced William.

"We feel the disgrace very keenly--as all must who are connected with the Dares in ever so remote a degree. I feel it, William; feel it as a blow; Mrs. Ashley is the cousin of Anthony Dare."

"They are relatives of ours also," said William in a low tone. "My father was first cousin to Mrs. Dare."

Mr. Ashley looked at him with surprise. "Your father first cousin to Mrs. Dare!" he repeated. "What are you saying?"

"Her first cousin, sir. You have heard of old Mr. Cooper, of Birmingham?"

"From whom the Dares inherited their money. Well?"

"Mr. Cooper had a brother and a sister. Mrs. Dare was the daughter of the brother; the sister married the Reverend William Halliburton, and my father was their son. Mrs. Dare, as Julia Cooper, and my father, Edgar Halliburton, both lived together for some time under their uncle's roof at Birmingham."

A moment's pause, and then Mr. Ashley laid his hand on William's shoulder. "Then that brings a sort of relationship between us, William. I shall have a right to feel pride in you now."

William laughed. But his cheek flushed with the pleasure of a more earnest feeling. His greatest earthly wish was to be appreciated by Mr. Ashley.

"How is it I never heard of this relationship before?" cried Mr. Ashley. "Was it purposely concealed?"

"It is only within a year or two that I have known of it," replied William. "Frank and Gar are not aware of it yet. When we first came to Helstonleigh, the Dares were much annoyed at it; and they made it known to my mother in so unmistakable a manner, that she resolved to drop all mention of the relationship; she would have dropped the relationship itself if she could have done so. It was natural, perhaps, that they should feel annoyed," continued William, seeking to apologize for them. "They were rich and great in the eyes of the town; we were poor and obscure."

Mr. Ashley was casting his recollections backwards. A certain event, which had always somewhat puzzled him, was becoming clear now. "William, when Anthony Dare--acting, as he said, for me--put that seizure into your house for rent, it must have been done with the view of driving you from the town?"

"My mother says she has always thought so, sir."

"I see; I see. Why, William, half the inheritance, enjoyed by the Dares, ought justly to have been your father's!"

"We shall do as well without it, in the long-run, sir," replied William, a bright smile illumining his face. "Hard though the struggle was at the beginning!"

"Ay, that you will!" warmly returned Mr. Ashley. "The ways of Providence are wonderful! Yes, William--and I know you have been taught to think so--what men call the chances of the world, are all God's dealings. Reflect on the circumstances favouring the Dares; reflect on your own drawbacks and disadvantages! They had wealth, position, a lucrative profession; everything, in fact, to help them on, that can be desired by a family in middle-class life; whilst you had poverty, obscurity, and toil to contend with. But now, look at what they are! Mr. Dare's money is dissipated; he is overwhelmed with embarrassment--I know it to be a fact, William; but this is for your ear alone. Folly, recklessness, irreligion, reign in his house; his daughters lost in pretentious vanity; his sons in something worse. In a few years they will have gone down--down. Yes," added Mr. Ashley, pointing with his finger to the floor of his counting-house, "down to the dogs. I can see it coming, as surely as that the sun is in the heavens. You and they will have exchanged positions, William; nay, you and yours, unless I am greatly mistaken, will be in a far higher position than they have ever occupied; for you will have secured the favour of God, and the approbation of all good men."

"That Frank and Gar will attain to a position in time, I should be worse than a heathen to doubt, looking back on the wonderful manner in which we have been helped on," thoughtfully observed William. "For myself I am not sanguine."

"Do you never cherish dreams on your own account?" inquired Mr. Ashley.

"If I do, sir, they are vague dreams. My position affords no scope for ambition."

"I don't know that," said Mr. Ashley. "Would you not be satisfied to become one of the great manufacturers of this great city?" he continued, laughing.

"Not unless I could be one of the greatest. Such as----" William stopped.

"Myself, for instance?" quietly put in Mr. Ashley.

"Yes, indeed," answered William, lifting his earnest eyes to his master. "Were it possible that I could ever attain to be as you are, sir, in all things--in character, in position, in the estimation of my fellow-citizens--it would be sufficient ambition for me, and I should sit down content."

"Not you," cried Mr. Ashley. "You would then be casting your thoughts to serving your said fellow-citizens in Parliament, or some such exalted vision. Man's nature is to soar, you know; it cannot rest. As soon as one object of ambition is attained, others are sought after."

"So far as I go, we need not discuss it," was William's answer. "There's no chance of my ever becoming even a second-rate manufacturer; let alone what you are, sir."

"The next best thing to being myself, would perhaps be that of being my partner, William."

The voice in which his master spoke was so significant, that William's face flushed to crimson. Mr. Ashley noticed it.

"Did that ambition ever occur to you?"

"No, sir, never. That honour is looked upon as being destined for Cyril Dare."

"Indeed!" calmly repeated Mr. Ashley. "If you could transform your nature into Cyril, I do not say but that it might be so in time."

"He expects it himself, sir."

"Would he be a worthy associate for me, think you?" inquired Mr.

Ashley, bending his gaze full on William.

William made no reply. Perhaps none was expected, for his master resumed:

"I do not recommend you to indulge that particular dream of ambition; I cannot see sufficiently into the future. It is my intention to push you somewhat on in the world. I have no son to advance," he added, an expression of sadness crossing his face. "All I can do for my boy is to leave him at ease after me. Therefore I may, if I live, advance you in his stead. Provided, William, you continue to deserve it."

A smile parted William's lips. That, he would ever strive for, heaven helping him.

Mr. Ashley again laid his hand on William, and gazed into his face. "I have had a wonderful account of you from Samuel Lynn. And it is not often the Friend launches into decided praise."

"Oh, have you, sir?" returned William with animation. "I am glad he was pleased with me."

"He was more than pleased. But I must not forget that I was charged with a message from Henry. He is outrageous at your not having gone to him last night. I shall be sending him to France one of these days, under your escort, William. It may do him good, in more ways than one."

"I will come to Henry this evening, sir. I must leave him, though, for half an hour, to go round to East's."

"Your conscience is engaged, I see. You know what Henry accused you of, the last time you left him to go to East's?"

"Of being enamoured of Charlotte," said William, laughing in answer to Mr. Ashley's smile. "I will come, at any rate, sir, and battle the other matter out with Henry."

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V. A BRUISED HEART

If it were a hopeless task to attempt to describe the consternation of Helstonleigh at the death of Anthony Dare, far more difficult would it be to picture that of Anna Lynn. Believe Herbert guilty, Anna did not; she could scarcely have believed that, had an angel come down from heaven to affirm it. Her state of mind was not to be envied; suspense, sorrow, anxiety filled it, causing her to be in a grievous state of restlessness. She had to conceal this from the eyes of Patience; from the eyes of the world. For one thing, she could not get at the correct particulars; newspapers did not come in her way, and she shrank, in her self-consciousness, from asking. Her whole being--if we may dare to say it here--was wrapt in Herbert Dare; father, friends, home, country; she could have sacrificed them all to save him. She would have laid down her life for his. Her good sense was distorted, her judgment warped; she saw passing events, not with the eye of dispassionate fact, or with any fact at all, but through the unhealthy tinge of fond, blind prejudice. The blow had almost crushed her; the dread suspense was wearing out her heart. She seemed no longer the same careless child as before; in a few hours she had overstepped the barrier of girlish timidity, and had gained the experience which is bought with sorrow.

On the evening mentioned in the last chapter, just before William went out to keep his appointment with Henry Ashley, he saw from the window Anna in his mother's garden, bending over the flowers, and glancing up at him. Glancing, as it struck William, with a strangely wistful expression. He went out to her.

"Tending the flowers, Anna?"

She turned to him, her fair young face utterly colourless. "I have been so wanting to see thee, William! I came here, hoping thee wouldst come out. At dinner time I was here, and thee only nodded to me from the window. I did not like to beckon to thee."

"I am sorry to have been so stupid, Anna. What is it?"

"Thee hast heard what has happened--that dreadful thing! Hast thee heard it all?"

"I believe so. All that is known."

"I want thee to tell it me. Patience won't talk of it; Hester only shakes her head; and I am afraid to ask Gar. Thee tell it to me."

"It would not do you good to know, Anna," he gravely said. "Better try and not think----"

"William, hush thee!" she feverishly exclaimed. "Thee knew there was a--a friendship between me and him. If I cannot learn all there is to be learnt, I shall die."

William looked down at the changing cheek, the eyes full of pain, the trembling hands, clasped in their eagerness. It might be better to tell her than to leave her in this state of suspense.

"William, there is no one in the wide world that knows he cared for me, but thee," she imploringly resumed. "Thee must tell me; thee must tell me!"

"You mean that you want to hear the particulars of--of what took place on Thursday night?"

"Yes. All. Then, and since. I have but heard snatches of the wicked tale."

He obeyed her: telling her all the broad facts, but suppressing a few of the details. She leaned against the garden-gate, listening in silence; her face turned from him, looking through the bars into the field.

"Why do they not believe him?" was her first comment, spoken sharply and abruptly. "He says he was not near the house at the time the act must have been done: why do they not believe him?"

"It is easy to assert a thing, Anna. But the law requires proof."

"Proof? That he must declare to them where he has been?"

"Undoubtedly. And corroborative proof must also be given."

"But what sort of proof? I do not understand their laws."

"Suppose Herbert Dare asserted that he had spent those hours with me, for instance; then I must go forward at the trial and confirm his assertion. Also any other witnesses who may have seen him with me, if there were any. It would be establishing what is called an alibi."

"And would they acquit him then? Suppose there were only one witness to speak for him? Would one be sufficient?"

"Certainly. Provided the witness were trustworthy."

"If a witness went forward and declared it now, would they release him?"

"Impossible. He is committed to take his trial at the assizes, and he cannot be released beforehand. It is exceedingly unwise of him not to declare where he was that evening--if he can do so."

"Where do the public think he was? What do they say?"

"I am afraid the public, Anna, think that he was not out anywhere. At any rate, after eleven or half-past."

"Then they are very cruel!" she passionately exclaimed. "Do they all think that?"

"There may be a few who judge that it was as he says; that he was really away, and is, consequently, innocent."

"And where do they think he was?" eagerly responded Anna again. "Do they suspect any place where he might have been?"

William made no reply. It was not at all expedient to impart to her all the gossip or surmises of the town. But his silence seemed to agitate her more than any reply could have done. She turned to him, trembling with emotion, the tears streaming down her face.

"Oh, William! tell me what is thought! Tell me, I implore thee! Thee cannot leave me in this trouble. Where is it thought he was?"

He took her hands; he bent over her as tenderly as any brother could have done; he read all too surely how opposite to the truth had been her former assertion to him--that she did not care for Herbert Dare.

"Anna, child, you must not agitate yourself in this way: there is no just cause for doing so. I assure you I do not know where it is thought Herbert Dare may have been that night; neither, so far as can be learnt, does any one else know. It is the chief point--where he was--that is puzzling the town."

She laid her head down on the gate again, closing her eyes, as in very weariness. William's heart ached for her.

"He may not be guilty, Anna," was all the consolation he could find to offer.

"May not be guilty!" she echoed in a tone of pain. "He is not guilty. William, I tell thee he is not. Dost thee think I would defend him if he could do so wicked a thing?"

He did not dispute the point with her; he did not tell her that her assumption of his innocence was inconsistent with the facts of the case. Presently Anna resumed.

"Why must he remain in gaol till the trial? There was that man who stole the skins from Thomas Ashley--they let him out, when he was taken, until the sessions came on, and then he went up for trial."

"That man was out on bail. But they do not take bail in cases so grave as this."

"I may not stay longer. There's Hester coming to call me in. I rely upon thee to tell me anything fresh that may arise," she said, lifting her beseeching eyes to his.

"One word, Anna, before you go. And yet, I see how worse than useless it is to say it to you now. You must forget Herbert Dare."

"I shall forget him, William, when I cease to have memory," she whispered. "Never before. Thee wilt keep my counsel?"

"Truly and faithfully."

"Fare thee well, William; I have no friend but thee."

She ran swiftly into their own premises. William turned to pursue his way to Mr. Ashley's, the thought of Henry Ashley's misplaced attachment lying on his mind as an incubus.

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VI. ONE DYING IN HONEY FAIR

Mrs. Buffle stood in what she called her "back'us," practically superintending a periodical wash. The day was hot, and the steam was hot, and, as Mrs. Buffle rubbed away, she began to think she should never be cool again.

"Missis," shrieked out a young voice from the precincts of the shop, "Ben Tyrrett's wife says will you let her have a gill o' vinegar? Be I to serve it?"

The words came from the small damsel who was had in to help on cleaning and washing days. Mrs. Buffle kept her hands still in the soapsuds, and projected her hot face over the tub to answer.

"Matty, tell Mary Ann Tyrrett as she promised faithful to bring me something off her score this week, but I've not seen the colour of it yet."

"She says as it's to put to his head," called back Matty, alluding to the present demand. "He's bad a-bed, and have fainted right off."

"Serve him right," responded Mrs. Buffle. "You may give her the vinegar, Matty. Tell her as it's a penny farthing. I heered he had been drinking again," she added to herself and the washing tub, "and laid hisself down in the wet road the night afore last, and was found there in the morning."

Later in the day, it happened that William Halliburton was passing through Honey Fair, and met Charlotte East. She stopped him. "Have you heard, sir, that Tyrrett is dying?" she asked.

"Tyrrett dying!" repeated William in amazement. "Who says he is?"

"The doctor says it, I believe, sir. I must say he looks like it. Mary Ann sent for me, and I have been down to see him."

"Why, what can be the matter with him?" asked William. "He was at work the day before yesterday!"

"He was at work, sir, but he could not speak, they tell me, for that illness that has been hanging about him so long, and had settled on his chest. That night, after leaving work, instead of going home and getting a basin of gruel, or something of that sort, he went to the Horned Ram, and drank there till he couldn't keep upright."

"With his chest in that state!"

"And that was not the worst," resumed Charlotte. "It had been a wet day, if you remember, sir, and he somehow strayed into Oxlip Lane, and fell down, and lay there till morning. What with drink, and what with exposure to the wet, his chest grew dangerously inflamed, and now the doctor says he has not many hours to live."

"I am sorry to hear it," cried William. "Is he sensible?"

"Too sensible, sir, in one sense," replied Charlotte. "His remorse is dreadful. He is saying that if he had not misspent his life, he might have died a good man, instead of a bad one."

William passed on, much concerned at the news. His way led him past Ben Tyrrett's lodgings, and he turned in. Mary Ann was sobbing and wailing, in the midst of as many curious and condoling neighbours as the kitchen would contain. All were in full gossip--as might be expected. Mrs. Cross had taken home the three little children, by way of keeping the place quiet; and the sick man was lying in the room above, surrounded by several of his fellow-workmen, who had heard of his critical state.

Some of the women sidled off when William entered, rather ashamed of being caught chattering vehemently. It was remarkable the deference that was paid him, and from no assumption of his own--indeed, the absence of assumption may have partially accounted for it. But, though ever courteous and pleasant with them all, he was a thorough gentleman: and the working classes are keen to distinguish this.

"Why, Mrs. Tyrrett, this is sad news!" he said. "Is your husband so ill?"

"Oh, he must die, he must die, sir!" she answered in a frantic tone. Uncomfortably as they had lived together, the man was still her husband, and there is no doubt she was feeling the present crisis; was shrinking with dread from the future. A widow with three young children, and the workhouse for an asylum! It was the only prospect before her. "He must die, anyways; but he might have lasted a few hours longer, if I could have got what the doctor ordered."

William did not understand.

"It was a blister and some physic, sir," explained one of the women. "The doctor wrote it on a paper, and said it was to be took to the nearest druggist's. But when they got it there, Darwin said he couldn't trust the Tyrretts, and they must send the money if they wanted the things."

"It was not Mr. Parry, then, who was called in?"

"It were a strange doctor, sir, as was fetched. There was Tyrrett's last bout of illness owing for to Parry, and so they didn't like to send for him. As to them druggists, they be some of 'em a cross-grained set, unless you goes with the money in your hand."

William asked to see the prescription. It was produced, and he read its contents--he was as capable of doing so and of understanding it as the best doctor in Helstonleigh. He tore a leaf from his pocket-book, wrote a few words in pencil, folded it with the prescription, and desired one of the women to take it to the chemist's again. He then went up to the sick room.

Tyrrett was lying on a flock mattress, on an ugly brown bedstead, the four posts upright and undraped. A blanket and a checked blue cotton quilt covered him. His breathing was terribly laboured, his face painfully anxious. William approached him, bending his head, to avoid contact with the ceiling.

"I'm a-going, sir," cried the man, in tones as anxious as his face. "I'm a-going at last."

"I hope not," said William. "I hope you will get better. You are to have a blister on your chest, and----"

"No he ain't, sir," interrupted one of the men. "Darwin won't send it."

"Oh yes, he will, if he is properly asked. They have gone again to him. Are you in much pain, Tyrrett?"

"I'm in an agony of pain here, sir," pointing to his chest. "But that ain't nothing to my pain of mind. Oh, Mr. Halliburton, you're good, sir; you haven't nothing to reproach yourself with; can't you do nothing for me? I'm going into the sight of my Maker, and He's angry with me!"

In truth, William knew not what to answer. Tyrrett's voice was as a wail of anguish; his hands were stretched out beseechingly.

"Charlotte East were here just now, and she told me to go to Christ--that He was merciful and forgiving. But how am I to go to Him? If I try, sir, I can't, for there's my past life rising up before me. I have been a bad man: I have never once in all my life tried to please God."

The words echoed through the stillness of the room; echoed with a sound that was terribly awful. Never once to have tried to please God! Throughout a whole life, and throughout all its blessings!

"I have never thought of God," he continued to reiterate. "I have never cared for Him, or tried to please Him, or done the least thing for Him. And now I'm going to face His wrath, and I can't help myself!"

"You may be spared yet," said William; "you may indeed. And your future life must atone for the past."

"I shan't be spared, sir; I feel that the world's all up with me," was the rejoinder. "I'm going fast, and there's nobody to give me a word of comfort! Can't you, sir? I'm going away, and God's angry with me!"

William leaned over him. "I can only say as Charlotte East did," he whispered. "Try and find your Saviour. There is mercy with Him at the eleventh hour."

"I have not the time to find Him," breathed forth Tyrrett, in agony. "I might find Him if I had time given me; but I have not got it."

William, shrinking in his youth and inexperience from arguing upon topics so momentous, was not equal to the emergency. Who was? He did what he could; and that was to despatch a message for a clergyman, who answered the summons with speed.

The blister also came, and the medicine that had been prescribed. William went home, hoping all might prove as a healing balm to the sick man.

A fallacious hope. Tyrrett died the following morning. When William went round early on his mission of inquiry, he found him dead. Some of the men, whom he had seen with Tyrrett the previous night, were assembled in the kitchen.

"He is but just gone, sir," they said, "The women be up with him now. They have took his wife round screeching to her mother's. He died with that there blister on his chest."

"Did he die peacefully?" was William's question.

"Awful hard, sir, toward the last; moaning, and calling, and clenching his hands in mortal pain. His sister, she come round--she's a hard one, is that Liza Tyrrett--and she set on at the wife, saying it was her fault that he'd took to go out drinking. That there parson couldn't do nothing with him," concluded the speaker, lowering his voice.

William's breath stood still. "No!"

The man shook his head. "Tyrrett weren't in a frame o' mind for it, sir. He kep' crying out as he had led a bad life, and never thought of God--and them was his last words. It ain't happy, sir, to die like that. It have quite cowed down us as was with him: one gets thinking, sir, what sort of a place it may be, t'other side, where he's gone to."

William lifted his head, a sort of eager hope on his countenance, speaking cheerily. "Could you not let poor Tyrrett's death act as a warning to you?"

There was a dead silence. Five men were present; every one of them leading careless lives. Somehow they did not much like to hear of "warning," although the present moment was one of unusual seriousness.

"Religion is so dreadful dull and gloomy, sir."

"Religion dull and gloomy!" echoed William. "Well, perhaps some people do make a gloomy affair of it; but then I don't think theirs can be the right religion. I do not believe people were sent into the world to be gloomy: time enough for that when troubles come."

"What is religion?" asked one of the men.

"It is a sort of thing that's a great deal better to be felt than talked about," answered William. "I am no parson, and cannot pretend to enlighten you. We might never come to an understanding over it, were we to discuss it all day long. I would rather talk to you of life, and its practical duties."

"Tyrrett said as he had never paid heed to any of his duties. It were his cry over and over again, sir, in the night. He said he had drunk, and swore, and beat his wife, and done just what he oughtn't to ha' done."

"Ay, I fear it was so," replied William. "Poor Tyrrett's existence was divided into three phrases--working, drinking, quarrelling: dissatisfaction attending all. I fear a great many more in Honey Fair could say the same."

The men's consciences were pricking them; some of them began to stand uncomfortably on one leg. They tippled; they quarrelled; they had been known to administer personal correction to their wives on provocation.

"Times upon times I asked Tyrrett to come round of an evening to Robert East's," continued William. "He never did come. But I can tell you this, my men; had he taken to pass his evenings there twelve months ago, when the society--as they call it--was first formed, he might have been a hale man now, instead of lying there, dead."

"Do you mean that he'd have growed religious, sir?"

"I tell you we will put religion out of the discussion: as you don't seem to like the word. Had Tyrrett taken to like rational evenings, instead of public-houses, it would have made a wonderful difference in his mode of thought, and difference in conduct would have followed. Look at his father-in-law, Cross. He was living without hope or aim, at loggerheads with his wife and with the world, and rather given to wishing himself dead. All that's over. Do you think I should like to go about with a dirty face and holes in my coat?"

The men laughed. They thought not.

"Cross used to do so. But you see nothing of that now. Many others used to do so. Many do so still."

Rather conscience-stricken again, the men tried to hide their elbows. "It's true enough," said one. "Cross, and some more of 'em, are getting smart."

"Smart inside as well as out," said William. "They are acquiring self-respect; one of the best qualities a man can find. They wouldn't be seen in the street now in rags, or the worse for drink, or in any other degrading position; no, not if you bribed them with gold. Coming round to East's has done that for them. They are beginning to see that it's just as well to lead pleasant lives here, as unpleasant ones. In a short time, Cross will be getting furniture about him again, towards setting up the home he lost. He--and many more--will also, as I truly believe, be beginning to set up furniture of another sort."

"What sort's that, sir?"

"The furniture that will stand him in need for the next life; the life that Tyrrett has now entered upon," replied William in deeper tones. "It is a life that must come, you know; our little span of time here, in comparison with eternity, is but as a drop of water to the great river that runs through the town; and it is as well to be prepared for it. Now, the next five I am going to get round to East's are you."

"Us, sir?"

"Every one of you; although I believe you have been in the habit of complimenting your friends who go there with the title of 'milksops.' I want to take you there this evening. If you don't like it, you know you need not repeat the visit. You will come, to oblige me, won't you?"

They said they would. And William went out satisfied, though he hardly knew how Robert East would manage to stow away the new comers. Not many steps from the door he encountered Mrs. Buffle. She stopped him to talk of Tyrrett.

"Better that he had spent his loose time at East's than at the publics," remarked that lady.

"It is the very thing we have been saying," answered William. "I wish we could get all Honey Fair there; though, indeed there's no room for more than we have now. I cast a longing eye sometimes to that building at the back, which they say was built for a Mormon stronghold, and has never been fitted up, owing to a dispute among themselves about the number of wives each elder might appropriate to his own share."

"Disgraceful pollagists!" struck in Mrs. Buffle, apostrophizing the Mormon elders. "One husband is enough to have at one's fireside, goodness knows, without being worried with an unlimited number."

"That is not the question," said William, laughing. "It is, how many wives are enough? However, I wish we could get the building. East will have to hold the gathering in his garden soon."

"There's no denying that it have worked good in Honey Fair," acknowledged Mrs. Buffle. "It isn't alone the men that have grown more respectable, them as have took to go, but their wives too. You see, sir, in sitting at the public-houses, it wasn't only that they drank themselves quarrelsome, but they spent their money. Now their tempers are saved, and their money's saved. The wives see the benefit of it, and of course try to be better-behaved theirselves. Not but what there's plenty of room for improvement still," added Mrs. Buffle, in a tone of patronage.

"It will come in time," said William.

"What we must do now, is to look out for a larger room."

"One with a chimbley in it, as'll draw?" suggested Mrs. Buffle.

"Oh yes. What would they do without fire on a winter's night? The great point is, to have things thoroughly comfortable."

"If it hadn't been for the chimbley, I might have offered our big garret, sir. But it's the crankiest thing ever built, is that chimbley; the minute a handful of fire's lighted, the smoke puffs it out again. And then again--there'd be the passing through the shop, obstructing the custom."

"Of course there would," assented William. "We must try for that failure in the rear, after all."

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VII. COMING HOME TO THE DARES

The Pyramids of Egypt grew, in the course of time, into pyramids, as was oracularly remarked by Sergeant Delves; but that official's exertions, labour as hard as he would, grew to nothing--when applied to the cause with which he had compared the pyramids. All inquiry, all searching brought to bear upon it by him and his co-adherents, did not bring anything to light of Herbert Dare's movements on that fatal night. Where he had passed the hours remained an impenetrable mystery; and the sergeant had to confess himself foiled. He came, not unnaturally, to the conclusion that Herbert Dare was not anywhere, so far as the outer world was concerned: that he had been at home, committing the mischief. A conclusion the sergeant had drawn from the very first, and it had never been shaken. Nevertheless, it was his duty to put all the skill and craft of the local police force into action; and very close inquiries were made. Every house of entertainment in the city, of whatever nature--whether a billiard-room or an oyster-shop; whether a chief hotel or an obscure public-house--was visited and keenly questioned; but no one would acknowledge to having seen Herbert Dare on the particular evening. In short, no trace of him could be unearthed.

"Just as much out as I was," said the sergeant to himself. And

Helstonleigh held the same conviction.

Pomeranian Knoll was desolate: with a desolation it had never expected to fall upon it. A shattering blow had been struck to Mr. and Mrs. Dare. To lose their eldest son in so terrible a manner, seemed, of itself, sufficient agony for a whole lifetime. Whatever may have been his faults--and Helstonleigh knew that he was somewhat rich in faults--he was dear to them; dearer than her other children to Mrs. Dare. Herbert had remarked, in conversing with Anna Lynn, that Anthony was his mother's favourite. It was so. She had loved him deeply, had been blind to his failings. Neither Mr. Dare nor his wife was amongst the religious of the world. Religious thoughts and reflections, they, in common with many others in Helstonleigh, were content to leave to a remote death-bed. But they had been less than human, worse than heathen, could they be insensible to the fate of Anthony--hurled away with his sins upon his head. He was cut off suddenly from this world, and--what of the next? It was a question, an uncertainty, that they dared not follow; and they sat, one on each side their desolate hearth, and wailed forth their vain anguish.

This would, in truth, have been tribulation enough to have overshadowed a life; but there was more beyond it. Hemmed in by pride, as the Dares had been, playing at being great and grand in Helstonleigh, the situation of Herbert, setting aside their fears or their sympathy for himself, was about the most complete checkmate that could have fallen upon them. It was the cup of humiliation drained to its dregs. Whether he should be proved guilty or not, he was thrown into prison as a common felon, awaiting his trial for murder; and that disgrace could not be wiped out. Did they believe him guilty? They did not know themselves. To suspect him of such a crime was painful in the last degree to their feelings; but why did he persist in refusing to state where he was on the eventful night? There was the point that staggered them.

A deep gloom overhung the house, extending to all its inmates. Even the servants went about with sad faces and quiet steps. The young ladies knew that a calamity had been dealt to them from which they should never wholly recover. Their star of brilliancy, in its little sphere of light at Helstonleigh, had faded into dimness, if not wholly gone down below the horizon. Should Herbert be found guilty, it could never rise again. Adelaide rarely spoke; she appeared to possess some inward source of vexation or grief, apart from the general tribulation. At least, so judged Signora Varsini; and she was a shrewd observer. She, Miss Dare, spent most of her time shut up in her own room. Rosa and Minny were chiefly with their governess. They were getting of an age to feel it in an equal degree with the rest. Rosa was eighteen, and had begun to go out with Mrs. Dare and Adelaide: Minny was anticipating the same privilege. It was all stopped now--visiting, gaiety, pleasure; and it was felt as a part of the misfortune.

The first shock of the occurrence subsided, the funeral over, and the family settled down in its mourning, the governess exacted their studies from her two pupils as before. They were loth to recommence them, and appealed to their mother. "It was cruel of mademoiselle to wish it of them," they said. Mademoiselle rejoined that her motive was anything but cruel: she felt sure that occupation for the mind was the best counteraction to grief. If they would not study, where was the use of her remaining, she demanded. Madame Dare had better allow her to leave. She would go without notice, if madame pleased. She should be glad to get back to the Continent. They did not have murders there in society; at least, she, mademoiselle, had never encountered personal experience of it.

Mrs. Dare did not appear willing to accede to the proposition. The governess was a most efficient instructress; and six or twelve months more of her services would be essential to her pupils, if they were to be turned out as pupils ought to be. Besides, Sergeant Delves had intimated that the signora's testimony would be necessary at the trial, and therefore she could not be allowed to depart. Mr. Dare thought if they did allow her to depart, they might be accused of wishing to suppress evidence, and it might tell against Herbert. So mademoiselle had to resign herself to remaining. "Tres bien," she equably said; "she was willing; only the young ladies must resume their lessons." A mandate in which Mrs. Dare acquiesced.

Sometimes Minny, who was given to be incorrigibly idle, would burst into tears over the trouble of her work, and then lay it upon her distress touching the uncertain fate of Herbert. One day, upon doing this, the governess broke out sharply.

"He deserves to lie in prison, does Monsieur Herbert!"

"Why do you say that, mademoiselle?" asked Minny resentfully.

"Because he is a fool," politely returned mademoiselle. "He say, does he not, that he was not home at the time. It is well; but why does he not say where he was? I think he is a fool, me."

"You may as well say outright, mademoiselle, that you think him guilty!" retorted Minny.

"But I not think him guilty," dissented mademoiselle. "I have said from the first that he was not guilty. I think he is not one capable of doing such an injury, to his brother or to any one else. I used to be great friends with Monsieur Herbert once, when I gave him those Italian lessons, and I never saw to make me believe his disposition was a cruel."

In point of fact, the governess, more explicitly than any one else in the house, had unceasingly declared her belief in Herbert's innocence. Truly and sincerely she did not believe him capable of so grievous a crime. He was not of a cruel or revengeful disposition: certainly not one to lie in wait, and attack another savagely and secretly. She had never believed that he was, and would not believe it now. Neither had his family. Sergeant Delves' opinion was, that whoever had attacked Anthony had lain in wait for him in the dining room, and had sprung upon him as he entered. It is possible, however, that the same point staggered mademoiselle that staggered the rest--Herbert Dare's refusal to state where he was at the time. Believing, as she did, that he could account for it if he chose, she deemed herself perfectly justified in applying to him the complimentary epithet you have just heard. She expressed true sympathy and regret at the untimely fate of Anthony, lamenting him much and genuinely.

Upon Cyril and George the punishment also fell. With one brother not cold in his grave, and the other thrown into gaol to await his trial for murder, they could not, for shame, pursue their amusements as formerly; and amusements to Cyril and George Dare had become a necessity of daily life. Their friends and companions were growing shy of them--or they fancied it. Conscience is all too suggestive. They fancied people shunned them when they walked along the street: Cyril, even, as he stood in Samuel Lynn's room at the manufactory, thought the men, as they passed in and out, looked askance at him. Very likely it was only imagination. George Dare had set his heart upon a commission; one of the members for the city had made a half-promise to Mr. Dare that he would "see what could be done at the Horse Guards." Failing available interest in that quarter, George was in hope that his father would screw out money to purchase one. But, until Herbert was proved innocent (if that time should ever arrive), the question of his entering the army must remain in abeyance. This state of things altogether did not give pleasure to Cyril and George Dare. But there was no remedy for it, and they had to content themselves with sundry private explosions of temper, by way of relief to their minds.

Yes, the evil fell upon all; upon the parents and upon the children. Of course, the latter suffered nothing in comparison with Mr. and Mrs. Dare. Unhappy days, restless nights, were their portion now: the world seemed to be growing too miserable to live in.

"There must be a fatality upon the boys!" Mr. Dare exclaimed one day, in the bitterness of his spirit, as he paced the room with restless steps, his wife sitting moodily, her elbow on the centre-table, her cheek pressed upon her hand. "Unless there had been a fatality upon them, they never could have turned out as they have."

Mrs. Dare resented the speech. In her unhappy frame of mind, which told terribly upon her temper, it seemed a sort of relief to resent everything. If Mr. Dare spoke against their sons, she stood up for them. "Turned out!" she repeated angrily.

"Let us say, as things have turned out, then, if you will. They appear to be turning out pretty badly, as it seems to me. The boys have had every indulgence in life: they have enjoyed a luxurious home; they have ruined me to supply their extravagances----"

"Ruined you!" again resented Mrs. Dare.

"Ay; ruined. It has all but come to it. And yet, what good has the indulgence or have the advantages brought them? Far better--I begin to see it now--that they had been reared to self-denial; made to work for their daily bread."

"How can you give utterance to such things!" rejoined Mrs. Dare, in a chafed tone.

Mr. Dare stopped in his restless pacing, and confronted his wife. "Are we happy in our sons? Speak the truth."

"How could any one be happy, overwhelmed with a misfortune such as this?"

"Put that aside: what are they without it? Rebellious to us; badly conducted in the sight of the world."

"Who says they are badly conducted?" asked Mrs. Dare, an undercurrent of consciousness whispering that she need not have made the objection. "They may be a little wild; but it is a common failing with those of their age and condition. Their faults are only faults of youth and of uncurbed spirits."

"I wish, then, their spirits had been curbed," was Mr. Dare's reply. "It is useless now to reproach each other," he continued, resuming his walk; "but there must have been something radically wrong in their bringing-up. Anthony, gone: Herbert, perhaps, to follow him by almost a worse death, certainly a more disgraceful one: Cyril----" Mr. Dare stopped abruptly in his catalogue, and went on more generally. "There is no comfort in them for us: there never will be any."

"What can you bring against Cyril?" sharply asked Mrs. Dare. It may be, that these complaints of her husband fretted her temper; chafed, perhaps, her conscience. Certain it was, they rendered her irritable; and Mr. Dare had latterly indulged in them frequently. "If Cyril is a little wild, it is a gentlemanly failing. There's nothing else to urge against him."

"Is theft gentlemanly?"

"Theft!" repeated Mrs. Dare.

"Theft. I have concealed many things from you, Julia, wishing to spare your feelings. But it may be as well now that you should know a little more of what your sons really are. Cyril might have stood where Herbert will stand--at the criminal bar; though for a crime of lesser degree. For all I can tell, he may stand at it still."

Mrs. Dare looked scared. "What has he done?" she asked, her tone growing timid.

"I say that I have kept these things from you. I wish I could have kept them from you always; but it seems to me that exposure is arising in many ways, and it is better that you should be prepared for it, if it must come. I awake now in the morning to apprehension; I am alarmed throughout the day at my own shadow, dreading what unknown fate may not be falling upon them. Herbert in peril of the hangman: Cyril in peril of a forced voyage to the penal settlements."

A sensation of utter fear stole over Mrs. Dare. For the moment, she could not speak. But she rallied her powers to defend Cyril.

"I think Cyril is hardly used, what with one thing and another. He was to have gone on that French journey, and at the last moment was pushed out of it for Halliburton. I felt more vexed at it, almost, than Cyril himself, and I spoke a word of my mind to Mrs. Ashley."

"You did?"

"Yes. I did not speak of it in the light of disappointment to Cyril; the actual fact of not taking the journey; so much as of the vexation he experienced at being supplanted by one whom he--whom we all--consider inferior to himself, William Halliburton. I let Mrs. Ashley know that we regarded it as a most unmerited and uncalled-for slight; and I took care to drop a hint that we believed Halliburton to have been guilty in that cheque affair."

Mr. Dare paused. "What did Mrs. Ashley say?" he presently asked.

"She said very little. I never saw her so frigid. She intimated that Mr. Ashley was a competent judge of his own business----"

"I mean as to the cheque?" interrupted Mr. Dare.

"She was more frigid over that than over the other. She preferred not to discuss it, she answered; who might have stolen it; or who not."

"I can set you right on both points," said Mr. Dare. "Cyril came to me, complaining of being superseded in this French journey, and I complied with his request, that I should go and remonstrate with Mr. Ashley--being a simpleton for my pains. Mr. Ashley informed me that he never had entertained the slightest intention of despatching Cyril, and why Cyril should have taken up the notion, he could not tell. Mr. Ashley went on to say that he did not consider Cyril sufficiently steady to be intrusted abroad alone----"

"Steady!" echoed Mrs. Dare. "What has steadiness to do with executing business? And, as to being alone, Quaker Lynn went over also."

"But at the outset, which was the time I spoke to him, Mr. Ashley's intention was to dispatch only one--Halliburton. He said that Cyril's want of steadiness would always have been a bar to his thinking of him. Shall I go on and enlighten you on the other point--the cheque?" Mr. Dare added, after a pause.

"Y--es," she answered, a nervous dread causing her to speak with hesitation. Had she a foreshadowing of what was coming?

"It was Cyril who took it," said Mr. Dare, dropping his voice to a whisper.

"Cyril!" she gasped.

"Our son, Cyril. No other."

Mrs. Dare took her hand from her cheek, and leaned back in the chair. She was very pale.

"He was traced to White's shop, where he changed the cheque for gold. He had put on Herbert's cloak, the plaid lining outside. When he began to fear detection, he ripped the lining out, and left the cloak in the state it is; now in the possession of the police. Some of the jags and cuts have been sewn up, I suppose by one of the servants: I made no close inquiries. That cloak," he added, with a passing shiver, "might tell queer tales of our sons, if it were able to speak."

"How did you know it was Cyril?" breathed Mrs. Dare.

"From Delves."

"Delves! Does he know it?"

"He does. And the man is keeping the secret out of consideration for us. Delves is good-hearted at bottom. Not but that I spoke a friendly word for him when he was made sergeant. It all tells."

"And Mr. Ashley?" she asked.

"There is no doubt that Ashley has some suspicion: the very fact of his not making a stir in it proves that he has. It would not please him that a relative--as Cyril is--should stand his trial for felony."

"How harshly you put it!" exclaimed Mrs. Dare, bursting into tears. "Felony."

"Nay; what else can I call it?"

A pause ensued. Mr. Dare resumed his restless pacing. Mrs. Dare sat with her handkerchief to her face. Presently she looked up.

"They said it was Halliburton's cloak that the person wore who went to change the cheque."

"It was not Halliburton's. It was Herbert's turned inside out. Herbert knew nothing about it, for I questioned him. He had gone out that night, leaving his cloak hanging in his closet. I asked him how it happened that his cloak, on the inside, should resemble Halliburton's, and he said it was a coincidence. I don't believe him. I entertain little doubt that it was so contrived with a view to enacting some mischief. In fact, what with one revelation and another, I live, as I say, in constant dread of new troubles turning up."

Bitter, most bitter were these revelations to Mrs. Dare; bitter had they been to her husband. Too swiftly were the fruits of their children's rearing coming home to them, bringing their recompense. "There must be a fatality upon the boys!" he reiterated. Possibly. But had neither parents nor children done aught to invoke it?

"Since these evils have come upon our house--the fate of Anthony, the uncertainty overhanging Herbert, the certain guilt of Cyril," resumed Mr. Dare: "I have asked myself whether the money we inherited from old Mr. Cooper may not have wrought ill for us, instead of good."

"Have wrought ill?"

"Ay! Brought with it a curse, instead of a blessing."

She made no remark.

"He warned us that if we took Edgar Halliburton's share it would not bring us good. Do you remember how eagerly he spoke it? We did take it," Mr. Dare added, dropping his voice to the lowest whisper. "And I believe it has just acted as a curse upon us."

"You are fanciful!" she cried, her hands shivering, as she raised her handkerchief to her pale face.

"No; there's no fancy in it. We should have done well to attend to the warning of the dying. Heaven is my witness that at the time, such a thought as that of appropriating it ourselves never crossed my mind. We launched out into expense, and the other share became a necessity to us. It is that expense which has ruined our children."

"How can you say it?" she rejoined, lifting her hands in a passionate sort of manner.

"It has been nothing else. Had they been reared more plainly, they would not have acquired those extravagant notions which have proved their bane. Without that inheritance and the style of living we allowed it to entail upon us, the boys must have understood that they would have to earn money before they spent it, and they would have put their shoulders to the wheel. Julia," he continued, halting by her, and stretching forth his troubled face until it nearly touched hers, "it might have been well now, well with them and with us, had our children been obliged to battle with the poverty to which we condemned the Halliburtons."

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VIII. AN UGLY VISION

Mr. Dare had not taken upon himself the legal conduct of his son Herbert's case. It had been intrusted to the care of a solicitor in Helstonleigh, Mr. Winthorne. This gentleman, more forcibly than any one else, urged upon Herbert Dare the necessity of declaring--if he could declare--where he had been on the night of the murder. He clearly foresaw that, if his client persisted in his present silence, there was no chance of any result but the worst.

He could obtain no response. Deaf to him, as he had been to others, Herbert Dare would disclose nothing. In vain Mr. Winthorne pointed to consequences; first, by delicate hints; next, by hints not delicate; then, by speaking out broadly and fully. It is not pleasant to tell your client, in so many words, that he will be hanged and nothing can save him, unless he compels you to it. Herbert Dare so compelled Mr. Winthorne. All in vain. Mr. Winthorne found he might just as well talk to the walls of the cell. Herbert Dare declared, in the most positive manner, that he had been out the whole of the time stated; from half-past eight o'clock, until nearly two; and from this declaration he never swerved.

Mr. Winthorne was perplexed. The prisoner's assertions were so uniformly earnest, bearing so apparently the stamp of truth, that he could not disbelieve him; or rather, sometimes he believed and sometimes he doubted. It is true that Herbert's declarations did wear an air of entire truth; but Mr. Winthorne had been engaged for criminal offenders before, and knew what the assertions of a great many of them were worth. Down deep in his heart he reasoned very much after the manner of Sergeant Delves: "If he had been absent, he'd confess it to save his neck." He said so to Herbert.

Herbert took the matter, on the whole, coolly; he had done so from the beginning. He did not believe that his neck was really in jeopardy. "They'll never find me guilty," was his belief. He could not avoid standing his trial: that was a calamity from which there was no escape: but he steadily refused to look at its results in a sombre light.

"Can you tell me where you were?" Mr. Winthorne one morning impulsively asked him, when June was drawing to its close.

"I could if I liked," replied Herbert Dare. "I suppose you mean by that, to throw discredit on what I say, Winthorne; but you are wrong. I could point out to you and to all Helstonleigh where I was that night; but I will not do so. I have my reasons, and I will not."

"Then you will fall," said the lawyer. "The very fact of there being no other quarter than yourself on which to cast a shadow of suspicion, will tell against you. You have been bred to the law, and must see these things as plainly as I can put them to you."

"There's the point that puzzles me--who it can have been that did the injury. I'd give half my remaining life to know."

Mr. Winthorne thought that the whole of it, to judge by present appearances, might not be an inconveniently prolonged period; but he did not say so. "What is your objection to speak?" he asked.

"You have put the same question about fifty times, Winthorne, and you'll never get any different answer from the one you have had already--that I don't choose to state it."

"I suppose you were not committing murder in another quarter of the town, were you?"

"I suppose I was not," equably returned Herbert.

"Then, failing that crime, there's no other in the decalogue that I'd not confess to, to save my life. Whether I was robbing a bank, or setting a church on fire, I'd tell it out rather than be hanged by the neck until I was dead."

"Ah, but I was not doing either," said Herbert.

"Then there's the less reason for your persisting in the observance of so much mystery."

"My doing so is my own business," returned Herbert.

"No, it is not your own business," objected Mr. Winthorne. "You assert that you are innocent of the crime with which you are charged----"

"I assert nothing but the truth," interrupted Herbert.

"Good. Then, if you are innocent, and if you can prove your innocence, it is your duty to your family to do it. A man's duties in this life are not owing to himself alone: above all, a son's. He owes allegiance to his father and mother; his consideration for them should be above his consideration for himself. If you can prove your innocence it will be an unpardonable sin not to do it; a sin inflicted on your family."

"I can't help it," replied Herbert in his obstinacy. "I have my reasons for not speaking, and I shall not speak."

"You will surely suffer the penalty," said Mr. Winthorne.

"Then I must suffer it," returned the prisoner.

But it is one thing to talk, and another to act. Many a brave spirit, ready and willing to undergo hanging in theory, would find his heart fail and his bravery altogether die out, were he really required to reduce it to practice.

Herbert Dare was only human. After July had come in and the time for the opening of the assizes might be counted by hours, then his courage began to flinch. He spent a night in tossing from side to side on his pallet (a wide difference between that and his comfortable bed at home), during which a certain ugly apparatus, to be erected for his especial use within the walls of the prison some fine Saturday morning, on which he might figure by no means gracefully, had mentally disturbed his rest.

He arose unrefreshed. The vision of that possible future was not a pleasant one. Herbert remembered once, when he had been a college boy, that the Saturday morning's occasional drama had been enacted for the warning and edification of the town, and of the country people flocking into it for market. The college boys had determined for once in their lives to see the sight--if they could accomplish it. The ceremony was invariably performed at eight o'clock; the exhibition closed at nine; and the boys' difficulty was, how to arrive at the scene in time, considering that it was only at the striking of the latter hour that they were let loose down the steps of the school. They had tried the time between the cloisters and the county prison; and found that by dint of taking the shorter way through the back streets, tearing along at the fleetest pace, and knocking over every obstruction--human, animal, or material--that might unfortunately be in their path, they could do the distance in four minutes. Arriving rather out of wind, it's true: but that was nothing.

Four minutes! they did not see their way. If the curtain descended at nine, sharp, as good be forty minutes after the hour, as four, in point of practical effect. But the Helstonleigh college boys--as you may sometimes have heard remarked before--were not wont to allow difficulties to overmaster them. If there was a possible way of overcoming obstacles, they were sure to find it. Consultations had been anxious. To request the head-master to allow them as a favour to depart five or ten minutes before the usual time, would be worse than useless. It was a question whether he ever would have accorded it; but there was no chance of it on that morning. Neither could the whole school be taken summarily with spasms, or croup, or any other excruciating malady necessitating compassion and an early dismissal.

They came to the resolve of applying to the official who had the cathedral clock under his charge: or, as they phrased it, "coming over the clock-man." By dint of coaxing, or bribery, or some other element of persuasion, they got this functionary to promise to put the clock on eight minutes on that particular morning. And it was done. And at eight minutes before nine by the sun, the cathedral clock rang out its nine strokes. But, instead of the master lifting his finger--the signal for the boys to tear forth--the master sat quiet at his desk, and never gave it. He sat until the eight minutes had gone by, when the other churches in the town gave out their hour; he sat four minutes after that: and then he nodded them their dismissal.

The twelve minutes had seemed to the boys like twelve hours. Where the hitch was, they never knew; they never have known to this day; as they would tell you themselves. Whether the master had received an inkling of what was in the wind; or whether, by one of those extraordinary coincidences that sometimes occur in life, he, for that one morning, allowed the hour to slip by unheeded--had not heard it strike--they could not tell. He gave out no explanation, then or afterwards. The clock-man protested that he had been true; had not breathed a hint to any one living of the purposed advancement; and the boys had no reason to disbelieve him.

However it might have been, they could not alter it. It was four minutes past nine when they clattered pele-mele down the school-room steps. Away they tore, full of fallacious hope, out at the cloisters, through the cathedral precincts, along the nearest streets, and arrived within the given four minutes, rather than over it.

Alas, for human expectations! The prison was there, it is true, formidable as usual; but all trace of the morning's jubilee had passed away. Not only had the chief actor been removed, but also that ugly apparatus which Herbert Dare had dreamt of. That might have afforded them some gratification to contemplate, failing the greater sight. The college boys, dumb in the first moment of their disappointment, gave vent to it at length with three dismal groans, the echoes of which might have been heard as far off as the cathedral. Groans not intended for the unhappy mortal, then beyond hearing of that or any other earthly sound; not for the officials of the county prison, all too quick-handed that morning; but given as a compliment to the respected gentleman at that time holding the situation of head-master.

Herbert Dare remembered this: it was rising up in his mind with strange distinctness. He himself had been one of the deputation chosen to "come over" the clock-man; had been the chief persuader of that functionary. Would the college boys hasten down if he were to----In spite of his bravery, he broke off the speculation with a shudder; and, calling the turnkey to him, he despatched a message for Mr. Winthorne. Was it the remembrance of his old school-fellows, of what they would think of him, that brought about what no other consideration had been able to effect?

As much indulgence as it was possible to allow a prisoner was accorded to Herbert Dare. Indeed, it may be questioned whether any previous prisoner, incarcerated within the walls of the county prison, had ever enjoyed so much. The governor of the prison and Mr. Dare had lived on intimate terms. Mr. Dare and his two elder sons had been familiar, in their legal capacity, with both its civil and criminal prisoners; and the turnkeys had often bowed Herbert in and out of cells, as they now bowed out Mr. Winthorne. Altogether, what with the governor's friendly feeling, and the turnkey's reverential one, Herbert Dare obtained more privileges than the ordinary run of prisoners. The message was at once taken to Mr. Winthorne, and it brought that gentleman back again.

"I have made up my mind to tell," was Herbert's brief salutation when he entered.

"A very sensible resolution," replied the lawyer. Doubts, however, crossed his mind as he spoke, whether the prisoner was not about to set up some plea which had never had place in fact. In like manner to Sergeant Delves, Mr. Winthorne had arrived at the firm belief that there was nothing to tell. "Well?" said he.

"That is, conditionally," resumed Herbert Dare. "It would be of little use my saying I was at such and such a place, unless I could bring forward confirmatory evidence."

"Of course it would not."

"Well; there are witnesses who could give this satisfactory evidence: but the question is, will they be willing to do it?"

"What motive or excuse could they have for refusing?" returned Mr. Winthorne. "When a fellow-creature's life is at stake, surely there is no man so lost to humanity as not to come forward and save it, if it be in his power."

"Circumstances alter cases," was the curt reply of Herbert Dare.

"Was it your doubt, as to whether they would come forward, that caused your hesitation to call on them to do so?" asked Mr. Winthorne, something not pleasant in his tones.

"Not altogether. I foresaw a difficulty in it; I foresee it still. Winthorne, you look at me with a face full of doubt. There is no need for it--as you will find."

"Well, go on," said the lawyer; for Herbert had stopped.

"The thing must be gone about in a very cautious manner; and I don't quite see how it can be done," resumed Herbert slowly. "Winthorne, I think I had better make a confidant of you, and tell you the whole story from beginning to end."

"If I am to do you any good, I must hear it, I expect. A man can't work in the dark."

"Sit down then, and I'll begin. Though, mind--I tell it you in confidence. It's not for Helstonleigh. But you will see the expediency of being silent when you have heard it."

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IX. SERGEANT DELVES "LOOKS UP."

The following Saturday was the day fixed for the opening of the commission at Helstonleigh. It soon came round, and the streets in the afternoon wore their usual holiday appearance. The high sheriff's procession went out to meet the judges, and groups stood about, waiting and watching for its return. Amongst other people blocking up the way, might be observed the portly person of Sergeant Delves. He strolled along, seeming to look at nothing, but his keen eye was everywhere. It suddenly fell upon Mr. Winthorne, who was picking his way through the crowd as fast as he could do so, apparently in a hurry. Hurry or not, Sergeant Delves stopped him, and drew him to a safe spot beyond the reach of curious ears.

"I was looking for you, Mr. Winthorne," said Delves in a confidential tone. "I say--this tale, that Dare will succeed in establishing an alibi, is it reliable?"

"Why--who the mischief can have been setting that afloat?" returned the lawyer, in tones of the utmost astonishment, not unmixed with vexation.

"Dare himself was my informant," replied the sergeant. "I was in the prison just now, and saw him in the yard with the turnkey. He called me aside, and told me he was as good as acquitted."

"Then he is an idiot for his pains. He had no right to talk of it, even to you."

"I am dark," carelessly returned Delves. "I don't wish ill to the Dares, and wouldn't work it to them; as perhaps some of them could tell you," he added significantly. "What about this acquittal that he talks of?"

"There's no doubt he will be acquitted. He will prove an alibi."

"Is it a got-up alibi?" asked the plain-speaking sergeant.

"No. And as far as I go, I would not lend myself to getting up anything false," observed the solicitor. "He has said from the first, you know, that he was not near the house at the time, and so it will turn out."

"Has he confessed where he was, after all his standing out?"

"Yes; to me: it will be disclosed at the trial."

"He was after no good, I know," nodded the sergeant oracularly.

Mr. Winthorne raised his eyebrows, and slightly jerked his shoulders. The movement may have meant anything or nothing. He did not reply in words.

Sergeant Delves fell into a reverie. He roused himself from it to take a searching gaze at the lawyer. "Sir," said he, and he could hardly have spoken more earnestly had his life depended on it, "tell me the truth out-and-out. Do you, yourself, from the depths of your own judgment, believe Herbert Dare to have been innocent?"

"Delves, as truly as that you and I now stand here, I honestly believe that he had no more to do with his brother's death than we had."

"Then I'm blest if I don't take up the other scent!" exclaimed Mr. Delves, slapping his thigh. "I did think of it once, but I dropped it again, so sure was I that it was Master Herbert."

"What scent is that?"

"Look here," said the sergeant--"but now it's my turn to warn you to be dark. There was a young woman met Anthony Dare the night of the murder, when he was going down to the Star and Garter. It's a young woman he did not behave genteel to some time back, as the ghost says in the song. She met him that night, and she gave him a bit of her tongue; not much, for he wouldn't stop to listen. But now, Mr. Winthorne, it has crossed my mind many times whether she might not have watched for his going home again, and followed him; followed him right into the dining-room, and done the mischief. I'll lay a guinea it was her!" added the sergeant, arriving at a hasty conclusion. "I shall look up again now."

"Do you mean that young woman in Honey Fair?" asked Mr. Winthorne.

"Just so. Her, and nobody else. The doubt has crossed me; but, as I say, I was so certain it was the brother, that I did not follow it up."

"Could a woman's feeble hand inflict such injuries?" debated the solicitor.

"'Feeble' be hanged!" politely rejoined the sergeant. "Some women have the fists of men; and the strength of 'em, too. You don't know 'em as we do. A desperate woman will do anything. And Anthony Dare, remember, had not his strength in him that night."

Mr. Winthorne shook his head. "That girl has no look of ferocity about her. I should question it being her. Let's see--what is her name?"

"Listen!" returned the sergeant. "When you have had half as much to do with people as I have, you'll have learnt not to go by looks. Her name is Caroline Mason."

At that moment the cathedral bells rang out, announcing the return of the procession, the advent of the judges. As if the sound reminded the lawyer of the speed of time, he hastily went on his way; leaving the sergeant to use his eyes and ears at the expense of the crowd.

"I wonder how the prisoners in the gaol feels?" remarked a woman whom the sergeant recognised as being no other than Mrs. Cross. She had just come out of a warehouse with her supply of work for the ensuing week.

"Ah, poor creatures!" responded another of the group, and that was Mrs. Brumm. "I wonder how young Dare likes it!"

"Or how old Dare likes it--if he can hear 'em all the way up at his office. They'll know their fate soon, them two."

In close vicinity to this colloquy was a young woman, drawn against the wall, under shelter of a projecting doorway. Her once good-looking face was haggard, and her clothes were scanty. It was for this reason, perhaps, that she appeared to shun observation. Sergeant Delves, apparently without any other design than that of working his way leisurely through the throng, edged himself up to her.

"Looking out for the show, Miss Mason?"

Caroline turned her spiritless eyes upon him. "I'm waiting till there's a way cleared for me to get through, without pushing against folks and contaminating 'em. What's the show to me, or me to it?"

"At the last assizes, in March, when the judges came in, young Anthony Dare made one in the streets, looking on," resumed the sergeant, chatting affably. "I saw him and spoke to him. And now he is gone where there's no shows to see."

She made no reply.

"The women there," pointing his thumb at the group of talkers hard by, "are saying that Herbert Dare won't like the sound of the college bells.--Hey, me! Look at those young toads of college boys, just let out of school!" broke off the sergeant, as a tribe of some twenty of the king's scholars came fighting and elbowing their way through the throng to the front. "They are just like so many wild colts! Maybe the prisoner, Herbert Dare, is now casting his thoughts back to the time when he made one of the band, and was as free from care as they are. It's not so long ago."

Caroline Mason asked a question somewhat abruptly. "Will he be found guilty, sir, do you think?"

The sergeant turned the tail of his keen eye upon her, and answered the question by asking another. "Do you?"

She shook her head. "I don't think he was guilty."

"You don't?"

"No, I don't. Why should one brother kill another?"

"Very true," coughed the sergeant. "But somebody must have done it. If Herbert Dare did not, who did?"

"Ah! who did? I'd like to know," she passionately added. "He had folks in this town that owed him grudges, had Mr. Anthony Dare."

"If my vision didn't deceive me, I saw you talking to him that very same night," carelessly observed the sergeant.

"Did you see me?" she rejoined, apparently as much at ease as the sergeant himself. "I had to do an errand at that end of the town, and I met him, and told him what he was. I hadn't spoke to him for months and months; for years, I think. I had slipped into doors, down entries, anywhere to avoid him, if I saw him coming; but a feeling came over me to speak to him then. I'm glad I did. I hope the truths I said to him went along with him to enliven him on his journey!"

"Did you see him after that, later in the evening?" resumed the inspector, putting the question sociably, and stretching his neck up to obtain a view of something at a distance.

"No, I didn't," she replied. "But I would, if I had thought it was going to be his last. I'd have bade him remember all his good works where he was going to. I'd almost have went with him, I would, to have heard how he answered for them, up there."

Caroline Mason glanced upwards to indicate the sky, when a loud flourish of trumpets from the advancing heralds sounded close upon them. As they rode up at a foot pace, they dropped their trumpets, and the mounted javelin-men quickly followed, their javelins in rest. A carriage or two; a few more officials; and then advanced the equipage of the high sheriff. Only one of the judges was in it, fully robed: a fine man, with a benign countenance. A grave smile was on it as he spoke to the sheriff, who sat opposite to him, his chaplain by his side.

Sergeant Delves's attention was distracted for an instant, and when he looked round again, Caroline Mason had disappeared. He just caught sight of her in the distance, winding her way through the crowd, her head down.

"Did she do it, or did she not?" cried the sergeant, in soliloquy. "Go on, go on, my lady, for the present; you are about to be a bit looked after."

How did the prisoners feel, and Herbert Dare amongst them, as the joyous sounds, outside, fell upon their ears; the blast of the trumpets, the sweetness of the bells, the stir of life: penetrating within the walls of the city and county prisons? Did they feel that the pomp and show, run after as a holiday sight, was only a cruel advent to them?--that the formidable and fiery vision in the scarlet robe and flowing wig, who sat in the carriage, bending his serene face upon the mob, collected to stare and shout, might prove the pronouncer of their doom?--a doom that should close the portals of this world upon them, and open those of eternity!

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X. THE TRIAL

Tuesday morning was the day fixed for the trial of Herbert Dare. You might have walked upon the people's heads in the vicinity of the Guildhall, for all the town wished to get in to hear it. Of course only a very small portion of the town, relatively speaking, could have its wish, or succeed in fighting a way to a place. Of the rest, some went back to their homes, disappointed and exploding; and the rest collected outside and blocked up the street. The police had their work cut out that day; whilst the javelin-men, heralding in the judges, experienced great difficulty in keeping clear the passages. The heat in court would be desperate as the day advanced.

Sir William Leader, as senior judge, took his seat in the criminal court. It was he whom you saw in the sheriff's carriage on Saturday. The same benignant face was bent upon the crowded court that had been bent upon the street mob; the same penetrating eye; the same grave, calm bearing. The prisoner was immediately placed at the bar, and all eyes, strange or familiar, were strained to look at him. They saw a tall, handsome young man, looking too gentlemanly to stand in the felon's dock. He was habited in deep mourning. His countenance, usually somewhat conspicuous for its bright complexion, was pale, probably from the moment's emotion, and his white handkerchief was lifted to his mouth as he moved forward; otherwise he was calm. Old Anthony Dale was in court, looking far more agitated than his son. Preliminaries were gone through, and the trial began.

"Prisoner at the bar, how say you? Are you guilty, or not guilty?"

Herbert Dare raised his eyes fearlessly, and pleaded in a firm tone:

"Not Guilty!"

The leading counsel for the prosecution, Serjeant Seeitall, stated the case. His address occupied some time, and he then proceeded to call witnesses. One of the first examined was Betsy Carter. She deposed to the facts of having sat up with the lady's-maid and Joseph, until the return of Mr. and Mrs. Dare and their daughter; to having then gone into the dining-room with a light to look for Mr. Dare's pipe, which she had left there in the morning, when cleaning the room. "In moving forward with the candle, I saw something dark on the ground," continued Betsy, who, when her first timidity had gone off, seemed inclined to be communicative. "At the first glance, I thought it was one of the gentlemen gone to sleep there; but when I stooped down with the light, I saw it was the face of the dead. Awful, it looked!"

"What did you next do?" demanded the examining counsel.

"Screeched out, gentlemen," responded Betsy.

"What else?"

"I went out of the room, screeching to Joseph in the hall, and master came in from outside the front door, where he was waiting, all peaceful and ignorant, for his pipe, little thinking what there was so close to him. I screeched out all the more, gentlemen, when I remembered the quarrel that had took place at dinner that afternoon, and I knew it was nobody but Mr. Herbert that had done the murder."

The witness was sharply told to confine herself to evidence.

"It couldn't be nobody else," retorted Betsy, who, once set going, was a match for any cross-examiner. "There was the cloak to prove it. Mr. Herbert had gone out in the cloak that very night, and the poor dead gentleman was lying on it. Which proves it must have come off in the scuffle between 'em."

The fact of the quarrel, the facts connected with the cloak, as well as all other facts, had been mentioned by the learned Serjeant Seeitall in his opening address. The witness was questioned as to what she knew of the quarrel: but it appeared that she had not been present; consequently could not testify to it. The cloak she could say more about, and spoke of it confidently as Mr. Herbert's.

"How did you know the cloak, found under the dead man, was Mr. Herbert's?" interposed the prisoner's counsel, Mr. Chattaway.

"Because I did," returned the witness.

"I ask you how you knew it?"

"By lots of tokens," she answered. "By the shining black clasp, for one thing, and by the tears and jags in it, for another. Nobody has ever pretended it was not the cloak. I have seen it fifty times hanging up in Mr. Herbert's closet."

"You saw the prisoner going out in it that evening?"

"Yes, I did," she answered. "I was looking out at Miss Adelaide's chamber window, and I saw him come out of the dining-room window, and go off towards the front gates. The gentlemen often went out through the dining-room window, instead of at the hall door."

"The prisoner says he came back immediately, and left his cloak in the dining-room, going out finally without it. Did you see him come back?"

"No, I didn't," replied Betsy.

"How long did you remain at the window?"

"Not long."

"Did you remain long enough for him to cross the lawn to the front entrance gates, and come back again?"

"No, I don't think I did, sir."

"The court will please take note of that answer," said Mr. Chattaway, who was aware that a great deal had been made of the fact of the housemaid's having seen him go out in the cloak. "You left the window then, immediately?"

"Pretty near immediately. I don't think I stayed long enough at it for him to come back from the front gates--if he did come. I have never said I did," she resentfully continued.

"What time was it that you saw him go out?"

"I hadn't took particular notice of the time. It was dusk. I was turning down my beds; and I generally do that a little before nine. The next room I went into was Mr. Anthony's."

"The deceased was in it, was he not?"

"He was in it, stretched full length upon the sofa. He had his head down on the cushion, and his feet up over the arm at the foot, all comfortable and easy, with a cigar in his mouth, and some glasses and things on the table near him. 'What are you come bothering in here for?' he asked. So I begged his pardon; for you see, gentlemen, I didn't know he was there, and I went out again, and met Joseph carrying up a note to him. A little while after that, he went out."

The witness's propensity to degenerate into gossip appeared irrepressible. Several times she was stopped; once by the judge.

"Of how many servants did the household of Mr. Dare consist?" she was asked.

"There were four of us, gentlemen."

"Did you all sit up that night?"

"All but the cook. She went to bed."

"And the family, those who were at home, went to bed?"

"All of them, sir. The governess went early; she was not well; and Miss Rosa and Miss Minny went, and the two young gentlemen went when they came home from playing cricket."

"In point of fact, then, no one was up except you three servants in the kitchen?"

"Nobody, sir."

"And you heard no noise in the house until the return of Mr. and Mrs. Dare?"

"We never heard nothing," responded Betsy. "We were sitting quietly in the kitchen; me and the lady's-maid at work, and Joseph asleep. We never heard any noise at all."

This was the substance of what was asked her. Joseph was next called, and gave his testimony. He deposed to having fastened up the house at eleven o'clock, with the exception of the dining-room window: that was left open in obedience to orders. All other facts within his knowledge he also testified to. The governess, Signorina Varsini, was called, and questioned upon two points: what she had seen and heard of the quarrel, and of the subsequent conduct of Anthony and Herbert to each other in the drawing-room. But her testimony amounted to nothing, and she might as well not have been troubled. She was also asked whether she had heard any noise in the house between eleven o'clock and the return of Mr. and Mrs. Dare. She replied that she did not hear any, for she had been asleep. She went to sleep long before eleven, and did not wake up until aroused by the commotion caused by the finding of the body. The witness was proceeding to favour the court with her own conviction that the prisoner was innocent, but was brought up with a summary notice that that was not evidence, and that, if she knew nothing more, she might withdraw. Upon which, she honoured the bench with an elaborate curtsey, and retired. Not a witness throughout the day gave evidence with more absolute equanimity.

Lord Hawkesley was examined; also Mr. Brittle--the latter coming to Helstonleigh on his subpoena. But to give the testimony of all the witnesses in length, would only be to repeat what has already been related. It will be sufficient to extract a few questions here and there.

"What were the games played in your rooms that evening?" was asked of Mr. Brittle.

"Some played whist; some ecarte."

"At which did the deceased play?"

"At whist."

"Was he a loser, or a gainer?"

"A loser; but to a very trifling amount. We were playing half-crown points. He and myself played against Lord Hawkesley and Captain Bellew. We broke up because he, the deceased, was not sufficiently sober to play."

"Was he sober when he joined you?"

"By no means. He appeared to have been drinking rather freely; and he took more in my rooms, which made him worse."

"Why did you accompany him home?"

"He was scarcely in a state to proceed alone: and I felt no objection to a walk. It was a fine night."

"Did he speak, during the evening, of the dispute which had taken place between him and his brother?" interposed the judge.

"He did not, my lord. A slight incident occurred, as we were going to his home, which it may be perhaps as well to mention----"

"You must mention everything which bears upon this unhappy case, sir," interrupted the judge. "You are sworn to tell the whole truth."

"I do not suppose it does bear upon it directly, my lord. Had I attached importance to it, I should have spoken of it before. In passing the turning which leads to the race-course, a man met us, and began to abuse the deceased. The deceased was inclined to stop and return it, but I drew him on."

"Of what nature was the abuse?" asked the counsel.

"I do not recollect the precise terms. It was to the effect that he, the deceased, tippled away his money instead of paying his debts. The man backed against the wall as he spoke: he appeared to have had rather too much himself. I drew the deceased on, and we were soon out of hearing."

"What became of the man?"

"I do not know. We left him standing against the wall. He called loudly after the deceased to know when his bill was to be paid. I judged him to be some petty tradesman."

"Did he follow you?"

"No. At least, we heard no more of him afterwards. I saw the deceased safely within his own gate, and left him."

"What state, as to sobriety, was the deceased in then?"

"He was what may be called half-seasover," replied the witness. "He could talk, but his words were not very distinct."

"Could he walk alone?"

"After a fashion. He stumbled as he walked."

"What time was this?"

"About half-past eleven. I think the half-hour struck directly after I left him, but I am not quite sure."

"As you returned, did you see anything of the man who had accosted the deceased?"

"Not anything."

Strange to say the very man thus spoken of was in court, listening to the trial. Upon hearing the evidence given by Mr. Brittle, he voluntarily came forward as a witness. He said he had been "having a drop," and it had made him abusive, but that Anthony Dare had owed him money long for work done, mending and making. He was a jobbing tailor, and the bill was a matter of fourteen pounds. Anthony Dare had only put him off and off; he was a poor man, with a wife and family to keep, and he wanted the money badly; but now, he supposed, he should never be paid. He lived close to the spot where he met the deceased and the gentleman who had just given evidence, and he could prove that he went home as soon as they were out of sight, and was in bed at half-past eleven. What with debts and various other things, he concluded the town had had enough to rue in young Anthony Dare. Still, the poor fellow didn't deserve such a shocking fate as murder, and he would have been the first to protect him from it.

That the evidence was given in good faith, was undoubted. He was known to the town as a harmless, inoffensive man, addicted, though upon rare occasions, to taking more than was good for him, when he was apt to dilate upon his grievances.

The constable who had been on duty that night near Mr. Dare's residence was the next witness called. "Did you see the deceased that night?" was asked of him.

"Yes, sir, I did," was the reply. "I saw him walking home with the gentleman who has given evidence--Mr. Brittle. I noticed that young Mr. Dare talked thick, as if he had been drinking."

"Did they appear to be on good terms?"

"Very good terms, sir. Mr. Brittle was laughing when he opened the gate for the deceased, and told him to mind he did not kiss the grass; or something to that effect."

"Were you close to them?"

"Quite close, sir. I said 'Good night' to the deceased, but he seemed not to notice it. I stood and watched him over the grass. He reeled as he walked."

"What time was this?"

"Nigh upon half-past eleven, sir."

"Did you detect any signs of people moving within the house?"

"Not any, sir. The house seemed quite still, and the blinds were down before the windows."

"Did you see any one enter the gate that night besides the deceased?"

"Not any one."

"Not the prisoner?"

"Not any one," repeated the policeman.

"Did you see anything of the prisoner later, between half-past one and two, the time he alleges as that of his going home?"

"I never saw the prisoner at all that night, sir."

"He could have gone in, as he states, without your seeing him?" interposed the prisoner's counsel.

"Yes, certainly, a dozen times over. My beat extended to half-a-mile beyond Mr. Dare's."

One witness, who was placed in the box, created a profound sensation: for it was the unhappy father, Anthony Dare. Since the deed was committed, two months ago, Mr. Dare had been growing old. His brow was furrowed, his cheeks were wrinkled, his hair was turning white, and he looked, as he obeyed the call to the witness-box, as a man sinking under a heavy weight of care. Many of the countenances present expressed deep commiseration for him.

He was sworn, and various questions were asked him. Amongst others, whether he knew anything of the quarrel which had taken place between his two sons.

"Personally, nothing," was the reply. "I was not at home."

"It has been testified that when they were parted, your son Herbert threatened his brother. Is he of a revengeful disposition?"

"No," replied Mr. Dare, with emotion; "that, I can truly say, he is not. My poor son, Anthony, was somewhat given to sullenness; but Herbert never was."

"There had been a great deal of ill-feeling between them of late, I believe."

"I fear there had been."

"It is stated that you yourself, upon leaving home that evening, left them a warning not to quarrel. Was it so?"

"I believe I did. Anthony entered the house as we were leaving it, and I did say something to him to that effect."

"The prisoner was not present?"

"No. He had not returned."

"It is proved that he came home later, dined, and went out again at dusk. It does not appear that he was seen afterwards by any member of your household, until you yourself went up to his room and found him there, after the discovery of the body. His own account is, that he had only recently returned. Do you know where he was, during his absence?"

"No."

"Or where he went to?"

"No," repeated the witness in sadly faltering tones, for he knew that this was the one weak point in the defence.

"He will not tell you?"

"He declines to do so. But," the witness added, with emotion, "he has denied his guilt to me from the first, in the most decisive manner: and I solemnly believe him to be innocent. Why he will not state where he was, I cannot conceive; but not a shade of doubt rests upon my mind that he could state it if he chose, and that it would be the means of establishing the fact of his absence. I would not assert this if I did not believe it," said the witness, raising his trembling hand. "They were both my boys: the one destroyed was my eldest, perhaps my dearest; and I declare that I would not, knowingly, screen his assassin, although that assassin were his brother."

The case for the prosecution concluded, and the defence was entered upon. The prisoner's counsel--two of them eminent men, Mr. Chattaway himself being no secondary light in the forensic world--laboured under one disadvantage, as it appeared to the crowded court. They exerted all their eloquence in seeking to divert the guilt from the prisoner: but they could not--distort facts as they might, call upon imagination as they would--they could not conjure up the ghost of any other channel to which to direct suspicion. There lay the weak point, as it had lain throughout. If Herbert Dare was not guilty, who was? The family, quietly sleeping in their beds, were beyond the pale of suspicion; the household equally so; and no trace of any midnight intruder to the house could be found. It was a grave stumbling-block for the prisoner's counsel; but such stumbling-blocks are as nothing to an expert pleader. Bit by bit Mr. Chattaway disposed, or seemed to dispose, of every argument that could tell against the prisoner. The presence of the cloak in the dining-room, from which so much appearance of guilt had been deduced, he converted into a negative proof of innocence. "Had he been the one engaged in the struggle," argued the learned Q.C., "would he have been mad enough to leave his own cloak there, underneath his victim, a damning proof of guilt? No! that, at any rate, he would have taken away. The very fact of the cloak being under the murdered man was a most indisputable proof, as he regarded it, that the prisoner remained totally ignorant of what had happened--ignorant of his unfortunate brother's being at all in the dining-room. Why! had he only surmised that his brother was lying, wounded or dead, in the room, would he not have hastened to remove his cloak out of it, before it should be seen there, knowing, as he must know, that, from the very terms on which he and his brother had been, it would be looked upon as a proof of his guilt?" The argument told well with the jury--probably with the judge.

Bit by bit, so did he thus dispose of the suspicious circumstances: of all, except one. And that was the great one, the one that nobody could get over: the refusal of the prisoner to state where he was that night. "All in good time, gentlemen of the jury," said Mr. Chattaway, some murmured words reaching his ear that the omission was deemed ominous. "I am coming to that later; and I shall prove as complete and distinct an alibi as it was ever my lot to submit to an enlightened court."

The court listened, the jury listened, the spectators listened, and "hoped he might." He had spoken, for the most part, to incredulous ears.

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XI. THE WITNESSES FOR THE ALIBI

When the speech of the counsel ended, and the time came for the production of the witness or witnesses who were to prove the alibi, there appeared to be some delay. The intense heat of the court had been growing greater with every hour. The rays of the afternoon sun, now sinking lower and lower in the heavens, had only brought with them a more deadly feeling of suffocation. But, to go out for a breath of air, even had the thronged state of the passages permitted the movement, appeared to enter into no one's thoughts. Their suspense was too keen, their interest too absorbing. Who were those mysterious witnesses, that would testify to the innocence of Herbert Dare?

A stir at the extreme end of the court, where it joined the other passage. Every eye was strained to see, every ear to listen, as an usher came clearing the way. "By your leave there--by your leave; room for a witness!"

The spectators looked, and stretched their necks, and looked again. A few among them experienced a strange thrill of disappointment, and felt that they should have much pleasure in being allowed the privilege of boxing the usher's ears, for he preceded no one more important than Richard Winthorne, the lawyer. Ah, but wait a bit! What short and slight figure is it that Mr. Winthorne is guiding along? The angry crowd have not caught sight of her yet.

But, when they do--when the drooping, shrinking form is at length in the witness-box; her eyes never raised, her lovely face bent in timid dread--then a murmur arises, and shakes the court to its foundation. The judge feels for his glasses--rarely used--and puts them across his nose, and gazes at her. A fair girl, attired in the simple, modest garb peculiar to the sect called Quakers, not more modest than the lovely and gentle face. She does not take the oath, only the affirmation peculiar to her people.

"What is your name?" commenced the prisoner's counsel.

That she spoke words in reply, was evident, by the moving of her lips: but they could not be heard.

"You must speak up," interposed the judge, in tones of kindness.

A deep struggle for breath, an effort of which even those around could see the pain, and the answer came. "They call me Anna. I am the daughter of Samuel Lynn."

"Where do your live?"

"I live with my father and Patience, in the London Road."

"What do you know of the prisoner at the bar?"

A pause. She probably did not understand the sort of answer required. One came that was unexpected.

"I know him to be innocent of the crime of which he is accused."

"How do you know this?"

"Because he could not have been near the spot at the time."

"Where was he then?"

"With me."

But the reply came forth in so faint a whisper that again she had to be enjoined to speak louder, and she repeated it, using different words.

"He was at our house."

"At what hour did he go to your house?"

"It was past nine when he came up first."

"And what time did he leave?"

"It was about one in the morning."

The answer appeared to create some stir. A late hour for a sober little Quakeress to confess to.

"Was he spending the evening with your friends?"

"No."

"Did they not know he was there?"

"No."

"It was a clandestine visit to yourself, then? Where were they?"

A pause, and a very trembling answer. "They were in bed."

"Oh! You were entertaining him by yourself, then?"

She burst into tears. The judge let fall his glasses as though under the pressure of some annoyance, every feature of his fine face expressive of compassion: it may be, his thoughts had flown to daughters of his own. The crowd stood with open mouths, gaping with undisguised astonishment, and the burly Queen's counsel proceeded.

"And so he prolonged his visit until one o'clock in the morning?"

"I was locked out," she sobbed. "That is how he came to stay so late."

Bit by bit, with question and cross-questioning, it all came out: that Herbert Dare had been in the habit of paying stolen visits to the field, and that Anna had been in the habit of meeting him there. That she had gone in on this night just before ten, which was later than she had ever stayed out before: but, finding Hester had to go out for medicine for Patience, she had run to the field again to take a book to the prisoner; and that upon attempting to enter soon afterwards, she found the door locked, Hester having met the doctor's boy, and come back at once. She told it all, as simply and guilelessly as a child.

"What were you doing all that time? From ten o'clock until one in the morning?"

"I was sitting on the door-step, crying."

"Was the prisoner with you?"

"Yes. He stood by me part of the time, telling me not to be afraid; and the rest of the time--more than an hour, I think--he was working at the wires of the pantry window, to try to get in."

"Was he all that time at the wires?"

"It was a long time before I remembered the pantry window. He wanted to knock up Hester, but I was afraid to let him. I feared she might tell Patience, and they would have been so angry with me. He got in, at last, at the pantry window, and he opened the kitchen window for me, and I went in by it."

"And you mean to say he was all that time, till one o'clock in the morning, forcing the wires of a pantry window?" cried Sergeant Seeitall.

"It was nearly one. I am telling thee the truth."

"And you did not lose sight of the prisoner from the time he first came to the field, at nine o'clock, until he left you at one?"

"Only for the few minutes--it may have been four or five--when I ran in and came out again with the book. He waited in the field."

"What time was that?"

"The ten o'clock bell was going in Helstonleigh. We could hear it."

"He was with you all the rest of the time."

"Yes, all. When he was working at the pantry window I could not see him, because he was round the angle of the house, but I could hear him at the wires. Not a minute of the time but I heard him. He was more than an hour at the wires, as I have told thee."

"And until he began at the wires?"

"He was standing up by me, telling me not to be afraid."

"All the time? You affirm this?"

"I am affirming all that I say to thee. I am speaking as before my Maker."

"Don't you think it is a pretty confession for a young lady to make?"

She burst into fresh tears. The judge turned his grave face upon Sergeant Seeitall. But the sergeant had impudence enough for ten.

"Pray, how many times had that pretty little midnight drama been enacted?" he continued, whilst Anna sobbed in distress.

"Never before," burst forth a deep voice. "Don't you see it was a pure accident, as she tells you? How dare you treat her as you might a shameless witness?"

The interruption--one of powerful emotion--had come from the prisoner. At the sound of his voice, Anna started, and looked round hurriedly to the quarter whence it came. It was the first time she had raised her eyes to the court since entering the witness-box. She had glanced up to answer whoever questioned her, and that was all.

"Well?" said Sergeant Seeitall, as if demanding what else she might have to communicate.

"I have no more to tell. I have told thee all I know. It was nearly one o'clock when he went away, and I never saw him after."

"Did the prisoner wear a cloak when he came to the field that night?"

"No. He wore one sometimes, but he did not have it on that night. It was very warm----"

But, at that moment, Anna Lynn became conscious that a familiar face was strained upon her from the midst of the crowd: familiar, and yet not familiar; for the face was distorted from its natural look, and was blanched, as of one in the last agony--the face of Samuel Lynn. With a sharp cry of pain--of dread--Anna fell on the floor in a fainting fit. What the shame of being before that public court, of answering the searching questions of the counsel, had failed to take away--her senses--the sight of her father, cognizant of her disgrace, had effected. Surely it was a disgrace for a young and guileless maiden to have to confess to such an escapade--an escapade that sounded worse to censuring ears than it had been in reality. Anna fainted. Mr. Winthorne stepped forward, and she was borne out.

Another Quakeress was now put into the witness-box, and the court looked upon a little middle-aged woman, whose face was sallow, and who showed her defective teeth as she spoke. It was Hester Dell. She wore a brown silk bonnet, lined with white, and a fawn-coloured shawl. She was told that she must state what she knew, relative to the visit of Herbert Dare that night.

"I went to rest at my usual hour, or, maybe, a trifle later, for I had waited for the arrival of some physic, never supposing but that the child, Anna, had gone to her room before me, and was safe in bed. I had been asleep some considerable time, as it seemed, when I was awakened by what sounded like the raising of the kitchen window underneath. I sat up in bed and listened, and was convinced that the window was being raised slowly and cautiously, as if the raiser did not want it to be heard. I was considerably startled, the more so as I knew I had left the window fastened: and my thoughts turned to house-breakers. While I deliberated what to do, seeing I was but a lone woman in the house, save for the child Anna, and Patience who was disabled in her bed, I heard what appeared to be the voice of the child, and it sounded in the yard. I went to my window, but I could not see anything, it being right over the kitchen, and I not daring to open it. But I still heard Anna's voice: she was speaking in a low tone, and I believed I caught other tones also--those of a man. I thought I must be asleep and dreaming: next I thought it must be young Gar from the next door, Jane Halliburton's son. Her other sons I knew to be not at home; the one being abroad, the other at the University of Oxford. I deliberated, could anything be the matter at their house, and the boy have come for help. Then I reflected that that was most unlikely, for why should he be stealthily opening the kitchen window, and why should Anna be whispering with him? In short, to tell thee the truth"--raising her eyes to the judge, whom she appeared to address, to the ignoring of everyone else--"I did not know what to think, and I grew more disturbed. I quietly put on a few things, and went softly down the stairs, deeming it well, for my own sake, to feel my way, as it were, and not to run headlong into danger. I stood a moment at the kitchen door, listening; and there I distinctly heard Anna laugh--a little, gentle laugh. It reassured me, though I was still puzzled; and I opened the door at once."

Here the witness made a dead pause.

"What did you see when you opened the door?" asked the judge.

"I would not tell thee, but that I am bound to tell thee," she frankly answered. "I saw the prisoner, Herbert Dare. He appeared to have been laughing with Anna, who stood near him, and he was preparing to get out at the window as I entered."

"Well? what next?" inquired the counsel in an impatient tone; for Hester had stopped again.

"I can hardly tell what next," replied the witness. "Looking back, it appears nothing but confusion in my mind. It seemed nothing but confusion at the time. Anna cried out, and hid her face in fear; and the prisoner attempted some explanation, which I would not listen to. To see a son of Anthony Dare's in the house with the child at that midnight hour, filled me with anger and bewilderment. I ordered him away; I believe I pushed him through the window; I threatened to call in a policeman. Finally he went away."

"Saying nothing?"

"I tell you all, I would not listen to it. I remembered scraps of what he said afterwards. That Anna was not to blame--that I had no cause to scold her or to acquaint Patience with what happened--that the fault, if there was any fault, was mine, for locking the back door so quickly. I refused to hear farther, and he departed, saying he would explain when I was less angry. That is all I saw of him."

"Did you mention this affair to anyone?" asked the counsel for the prosecution.

"No."

"Why not?"

"The child clung about me in tears after he was gone, giving me the explanation that I would not hear from him, and beseeching me not to acquaint Patience. She told me how it had happened. That upon my going out to see after the sleeping-draught for Patience, she had taken the opportunity to run to the field with a book, where Herbert Dare waited: and that upon attempting to come in again she found the door locked."

"You returned sooner than she expected?"

"Yes. I met the doctor's boy near our house, bringing the physic, and I took it from him and went home again directly. Not seeing Anna about, I never thought but that she had retired to bed. I went up also, trying the back door as I passed it, which to my surprise I found unfastened."

"Why to your surprise?"

"Because I had, as I believed, previously turned the key of it. Finding it unlocked, I concluded I must have been mistaken. Afterwards, when the explanation came, I learnt that Anna had undone it. She clung about me, as I tell thee, sobbing and crying, saying, as he had said, that there was no cause to be angry with her: that she could not help what had happened; and that she had sat crying on the door-step the whole of the time, until he had effected an entrance for her. I went to the pantry window, and saw where the wires had been torn away, not roughly, but neatly; and I knew it must have taken a long time to accomplish. I fell in with the child's prayer, and did not speak of what had occurred; not even to Patience. This is the first time it has escaped my lips."

"So you deemed it desirable to conceal such an adventure, and give the prisoner opportunity to renew his midnight visits?" retorted the counsel for the prosecution.

"What was done could not be undone," said the witness. "I was willing to spare the scandal to the child, and not be the means of spreading it abroad. While I was deliberating whether to tell Patience, seeing she was in so suffering a state, news came that Herbert Dare was a prisoner. He had been arrested the following morning, on the accusation of murdering his brother, and I knew that he was safe for several weeks to come. Hence I held my tongue."

The witness had given her evidence in a clear, straightforward, uncompromising manner, widely at variance with the distressed timidity of Anna. Not a shade of doubt rested on the mind of any person in court that both had spoken the exact truth. But the counsel seemed inclined to question still.

"Since when did you know you were coming here to give this evidence?"

"Only when I did come. Richard Winthorne, the man of law, came to our house in a fly this afternoon, and brought us away with him. By some remarks he exchanged with Anna when we were in it, I found that she had known of it this day or two. They feared to avert me, I suppose, lest, maybe, I might refuse to attend."

"One question more, witness. Did the prisoner wear a cloak that night?"

"No; I did not see any."

This closed the evidence, and the witness was allowed to withdraw. Richard Winthorne went in search of Samuel Lynn, and found him seated on a bench in the outer hall surrounded by gentlemen of his persuasion, many of them of high standing in Helstonleigh. Tales of marvel, you know, never lose anything in spreading; neither are people given to placing a light construction on public gossip, when they can, by any stretch of imagination, give it a dark one. In this affair, however, no very great stretch was required. The town jumped to the charitable conclusion that Anna Lynn must be one of the naughtiest girls under the sun; imprudent, ungrateful, disobedient; I don't know what else. Had she been guilty of scattering poison in Atterly's field, and so killed all the lambs, they could not have said, or thought, worse than they did. All joined in it, charitable and uncharitable; all sorts of evil notions were spread, and were taken up. Herbert Dare, you may be very sure, came in for his share.

The news had been taken to Mr. Ashley's manufactory, sent by the astounded Patience, that Richard Winthorne had come and taken away Anna and Hester Dell to give testimony at the trial of Herbert Dare. The Quaker, perplexed and wondering, believed Patience must be demented; that the message could have no foundation in truth. Nevertheless, he bent his steps to the Guildhall, accompanied by William Halliburton, and was witness to the evidence. He, strict and sober-minded, was not likely to take up a more favourable construction of the general facts than the town was taking up. It may be guessed what it was for him.

He sat now on a bench in the outer hall, surrounded by friends, who, on hearing the crying scandal whispered, touching a young member of their body, had come flocking down to the Guildhall. When they spoke to him, he did not appear to hear; he sat with his hands on his knees, and his head sunk on his breast, never raising it. Richard Winthorne approached him.

"Miss Lynn and her servant will not be wanted again," said the lawyer. "I have sent for a fly."

The fly came. Anna was placed in it by Mr. Winthorne; Hester Dell followed; and Samuel Lynn came forward and stumbled into it. It is the proper word. He appeared to have no power left in his limbs.

"Thou wilt not be harsh with her, Samuel," whispered an influential Friend, who had a benevolent countenance. "Some of us will confer with thee to-morrow; but, meanwhile, do not be harsh with her. Thou wilt call to mind that she is thy child, and motherless."

Samuel Lynn made no reply. He did not appear to hear. He sat opposite his daughter, his eyes never lifted, and his face assuming a leaden hue. Hester suddenly leaned from the door, and beckoned to William Halliburton.

"Will thee please be so obliging as go up with us in the fly?" she said in his ear. "I do not like his look."

William stepped in, and the fly drove away with closed blinds, to the intense chagrin of the curious mob. Before it was out of the town, William and Hester, with a simultaneous movement, supported the Quaker. Anna screamed. "What is it?" she uttered, terrified at the sight of his drawn, distorted face.

"It is thy work," said Hester, less placidly than she would have spoken in a calmer moment. "If thee hast saved the life of thy friend, Herbert Dare, thee hast probably destroyed that of thy father."

They were close to the residence of Mr. Parry, and William ordered the fly to stop. The surgeon was at home, and took William's place in it. Samuel Lynn had been struck down with paralysis.

William was at the house before they were, preparing Patience. Patience was so far restored to health herself as to be able to walk about a little; she was very lame still.

They carried Mr. Lynn to his room. Anna in her deep humiliation and shame--having to give evidence, and such evidence, in the face of that open court, had been nothing less to her--flew to her own chamber, and flung herself, dressed as she was, on the carpet, in desperate abandonment. William saw her there as he passed it from her father's room. There was no one to attend to her, for they were occupied with Mr. Lynn. It was no moment for ceremony, and William entered and attempted to raise her.

"Let me be, William; let me be! I only want to die."

"Anna, child, this will not mend the past. Do not give way like this."

But she resolutely turned from him, sobbing more wildly. "Only to die! only to die!"

William went for his mother, and gave her the outline of the tale, asking her to go to the house of distress and see what could be done. Jane, in utter astonishment, sought further explanation. She could not understand him in the least.

"I assure you, I understand it nearly as little," replied William. "Anna was locked out through some mistake of Hester's, it appears, and Herbert Dare stayed with her. That it will be the means of acquitting him, there is no doubt; but Helstonleigh is making its comments very freely."

Jane went in, her senses bewildered. She found Patience in a state not to be described; she found Anna where William had left her, reiterating the same cry, "Oh, that I were dead! that I were dead!"

Meanwhile, the trial at the Guildhall was drawing to its close, and the judge proceeded to sum up. Not with the frantic bursts of oratory indulged in by those eloquent gentlemen, the counsel, but in a tone of dispassionate reasoning. He placed the facts concisely before the jury, not speaking in favour of the prisoner, but candidly avowing that he did not see how they could get over the evidence of the prisoner's two witnesses, the young Quaker lady and her maid. If that was to be believed--and for himself he fully believed it--then the prisoner could not have been guilty of the murder, and was clearly entitled to an acquittal. It was six o'clock when the jury retired to deliberate.

The judge, the bar, the spectators, sat on, or stood, with what patience they might, in the crowded and heated court. On the fiat of those twelve men hung the life of the prisoner: whether he was to be discharged an innocent man, or hanged as a guilty one. Reposing in the pocket of Sir William Leader was a certain little cap, black in colour, innocuous in itself, but of awful significance when brought forth by the hand of the presiding judge. Was it destined to be brought forth that night?

The jury were coming in at last. Only an hour had they remained in deliberation, for seven o'clock was booming out over the town. It had seemed to the impatient spectators more than two hours. What must it have seemed to the prisoner? They ranged themselves in their box, and the crier proclaimed silence.

"Have you agreed upon your verdict, gentlemen of the jury?"

"We have."

"How say you, gentlemen, guilty or not guilty?"

The foreman advanced an imperceptible step and looked at the judge, speaking deliberately:

"My lord, we find the prisoner NOT GUILTY."

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XII. A COUCH OF PAIN

"William, I have had my death-blow! I have had my death-blow!"

The speaker was Henry Ashley. Four days had elapsed since the trial of Herbert Dare, and William Halliburton saw him now for the first time after that event. What with mind and body, Henry was in a grievous state of pain: all William's compassion was called forth, as he leaned over his couch.

It has been hinted that Helstonleigh, in its charity, took up the very worst view of the case that could be taken up, with regard to Anna Lynn. Had she gone about with a blazing torch and set all the houses on fire, their inhabitants could not have mounted themselves on higher stilts. Somehow, everybody took it up. It was like those apparently well-authenticated political reports that arrive now and then by telegram, driving the Stock Exchange, or the Paris Bourse, into a state of mad credulity. No one thought to doubt it; people caught up the notion from one another as they catch a fever. If even Samuel Lynn had looked upon it in the worst light, bringing to him paralysis, little chance was there that others might gaze through a brighter glass. It had half killed Henry Ashley: and the words were not, in point of fact, so wild as they sounded. "I have had my death-blow! I have had my death-blow!"

"No, you have not," was William's answer. "It is a blow--I know it--but not one that you cannot outlive."

"Why did you not come to me? Four whole days, and you have never been near the house!"

"Because I feared that you would be throwing yourself into the state of agitation that you are now doing," replied William, candidly. "Mr. Ashley said to me on the Wednesday, 'Henry has one of his bad attacks again.' I knew it to be more of mind than body this time, and I thought it well that you should be left in quiet. There's no one you can talk about it to, except me."

"Your staying away has not served your purpose, then. My father came to me with the details, thinking to divert me for a moment from my physical pain; never supposing that each word was a dagger plunged into my very being. My mother came, with this scrap of news, or the other scrap. Mary came, wondering and eager, asking information at second-hand: mamma was mysterious over it, and would not tell her. Mary cannot credit ill of Anna: she has as great a trust in her still as I had. As I had! Oh, William! she was my object in life. She was all my future--my world--my heaven!"

"Now you know you will suffer for this excitement," cried William, almost as he would have said it to a wayward child.

He might as well have talked to the wind. Henry neither heard nor heeded him. He continued, his manner as full of agitation as his mind.

"I am not as other men. You can go forth, all of you, into the world, to your pleasures, your amusements. I am confined here. But what mattered it? Did I envy you? No. While I had her to think of, I was happier than you."

"Had this not happened, you might have been crossed in some other way, and so it would have come to the same thing."

"And now it is over," reiterated Henry, paying no attention to the remark. "It is over, and gone; and I--I wish, William, I had gone with it."

"I wish you would be reasonable."

"Don't preach. You active men, with your innumerable objects and interests in life, cannot know what it is for one like me, shut out from the world, to love. I tell you, William, it was literally my life; the core of my life; my all. I am not sure but that I have been mad ever since."

"I am not sure but that you are mad now," returned William, believing that to humour him might be the worst plan he could adopt.

"I dare say I am," was the unsatisfactory answer. "Four days, and I have had to bury it all within me! I could not wail it out to my own pillow at night; for they concluded it was one of my bad attacks, and old nurse was posted in the bed in the next room with the door open. There's no one I can rave to but you, and you must let me do it, unless you would have me go quite mad, I hope I shan't be here long to be a trouble to any of you."

William did not know what to say. He believed there was nothing for it at present but to let him "rave himself out." "But I wish," he said, aloud, continuing the bent of his own thoughts, "that you would be a little rational over it."

"Stop a bit. Did you ever experience a blow such as this?"

"No indeed."

"Then don't hold forth to me, I say. You do not understand. It was all the joy I had on earth."

"You must learn to find other joys, other----"

"The despicable villain!" broke forth Henry, the heat-drops welling to his brow, as they had welled to Anna's when before the judge. "The shame-faced, cowardly villain! Was she not Samuel Lynn's child, and my sister's friend? What possessed the jury to acquit him? Did they think a rope's-end too good for his neck?"

"He was proved innocent of the murder. If he has any conscience----"

"What?" fiercely interrupted Henry Ashley. "He a conscience! I don't know what you are dreaming of. Is he going to stop in Helstonleigh?"

"I conclude so. He resumed his place quietly in his father's office the day after the trial. He is in London now, but only temporarily."

"Resumed his place quietly! What was the mob about, then?"

The question was put so quaintly, in such confiding simplicity, that a smile rose to William's face. "In awe of the police, I expect," he answered. "The Dares, while his fate was uncertain, have been rusticating. Cyril told me to-day, that now that the accusation was proved to have been false, they were 'coming out' again."

"Coming out in what? Villainy?"

"He left the 'what' to be inferred. In grandeur, I expect. The established innocence of Herbert----"

"If you apply that word to the man, William Halliburton, you are as black as he is."

William remembered Henry's tribulation both of mind and body, and went on without the shadow of a retort.

"I apply it to him in relation to the crime of which he was charged. His acquittal and release have caused the Dares to hold up their heads again. But they have lost caste in Helstonleigh."

"Caste!" was the scornful ejaculation of Henry Ashley. "They never had any caste to lose. Does the master intend to retain Cyril in the manufactory?"

"I have heard nothing to the contrary. If he retained him whilst the accusation was hanging over Herbert Dare's head, he will not be likely to discard him now it is removed."

"Removed!" shrieked Henry. "If one accusation has been removed, has not a worse taken its place?"

"Would it be just to visit on one brother the sins of another?"

"A nice pair of brothers they are!" cried Henry in the sharp, petulant manner habitual to him, when racked with pain. "How will Samuel Lynn like the company of Cyril Dare by his side in the manufactory, when he gets well again?"

William shook his head. These considerations were not for him. They were Mr. Ashley's.

"You heard her give her evidence?" resumed Henry, breaking a pause.

"Most of it."

"Tell it me."

"No, Henry; it would not do you good to hear it."

"Tell it me, I say," persisted Henry wilfully. "I know it in substance. I want to have it repeated over to me, word for word."

"But----"

Henry suddenly raised his hand and laid it on William's lips, with a warning movement. He turned and saw Mary Ashley.

"Take her back to the drawing-room, William," he whispered. "I can bear no one but you about me now. Not yet, Mary," he added aloud, motioning his sister away with his hand. "Not now."

Mary halted in indecision. William advanced, placed her hand within his arm, and led her, somewhat summarily, from the room.

"I am only obeying orders, Miss Ashley," said he. "They are to see you back to the drawing-room."

"If Henry can bear you with him, he might bear me."

"You know what his whims and fancies are, when he is suffering."

"Is there not a particularly good understanding between you and Henry?" she pointedly asked.

"Yes; we understand each other perfectly."

"Well, then, tell me--what is it that is the matter with him this time? I do not like to say so to mamma, because she might call me fanciful, but it appears to me that Henry's illness is more on the mind than on the body."

William made no reply.

"And yet, I cannot imagine it possible for Henry to have picked up any annoyance or grief," resumed Mary. "How can he have done so? He is not like one who goes out into the world--who has to meet with cares and cheeks. You do not speak," she added, looking at William. "Is it that you will not tell me? or do you know nothing?"

William lowered his voice. "I can only say that, should there be anything of the sort you mention, the kinder course for Henry--indeed the only course--will be, not to allow him to perceive that you suspect it. Conceal the suspicion both from him and from others. Remember his excessive sensitiveness. When he sees cause to hide his feelings, it would be almost death to him to have them scrutinized."

"I think you must be in his full confidence," observed Mary, looking at William.

"Pretty well so," he answered, with a passing smile.

"Then, if he has any secret grief, will you try and soothe it to him?"

"With all my best endeavours," earnestly spoke William. But there was not the least apparent necessity for his taking Mary Ashley's hand between his own, and pressing it there while he said it, any more than there was necessity for that vivid blush of hers, as she turned into the drawing-room.

But you must be anxious to hear of Anna Lynn. Poor Anna! who had fallen so terribly into the black books of the town, without really very much deserving it. It was a most unlucky contretemps, having been locked out; it was a still more unfortunate sequel, having to confess to it at the trial. She was not a pattern of goodness, it must be confessed: had not yet attained to that perfect model, which expects, as of a right, a niche in the saintly calendar. She was reprehensibly vain; she delighted in plaguing Patience; and she took to running out into the field, when it had been far better that she had remained at home. That running out entailed deceit and some stories: but it entailed nothing worse, and Helstonleigh need not have been so very severe in its judgment.

Never had there been a more forcible illustration of the old saying, "Give a dog a bad name, and hang him," than in this instance. When William Halliburton had told Anna that Herbert Dare was not a good man, and did not bear a good name, he had told her the strict truth. For that very reason a secret intimacy with him was undesirable, however innocent it might be, however innocent it was, in itself: and for that very reason did Helstonleigh look at it through clouded spectacles. Had she been locked out all night, instead of half a one, with some one in better odour, Helstonleigh had not set up its scornful crest. It is quite impossible to tell you what Herbert Dare had done, to have such a burden on his back as people seemed inclined to lay there. Perhaps they did not know themselves. Some accused him of one thing, some of another; ill reports never lose by carrying: the two cats on the tiles, you know, were magnified into a hundred. No one is as black as he is painted--there's a saying to that effect--neither, I dare say, was Herbert Dare. At any rate--and that is what we have to do with--he was not so in this particular instance. He was as vexed at the locking out as any one else could have been; and he did the best (save one thing) that he could for Anna, under the circumstances, and got her in again. The only proper thing to have done, was to knock up Hester. He had wished to do it, but had yielded to Anna's entreaties, that were born of fear.

Not a soul seemed to cast so much as a good word or a charitable thought to him in the matter. Did he deserve none? However thoughtless or reprehensible his conduct was, in drawing Anna into those field excursions, when the explosion came, he met it as a gentleman. Many a one, more renowned for the cardinal graces than was Herbert Dare, might have spoken out at once, and cleared himself at the expense of making known Anna's unlucky escapade. Not so he. A doubt may have been upon him that were it betrayed Helstonleigh might cast a taint on her fair name: and he strove to save it. He suffered the brand of a murderer to be attached to him--he languished for many weeks in prison as a criminal--all to save it. He all but went to the scaffold to save it. He might have called Anna and Hester Dell forward at the inquest, at the preliminary examination before the magistrates, and thus have cleared himself; but he would not do so. Whilst there was a chance of his innocence being brought to light in any other manner, he would not call on Anna. He allowed the odium to settle upon his own head. He went to prison, hoping that he should be cleared in some other way. There was a generous, chivalric feeling in this, which Helstonleigh could not understand when emanating from Herbert Dare, and they declined to give him credit for it. They preferred to look at the affair altogether in a different light, and to lavish hard names upon it. Every soul was alike: there was no exception: Samuel Lynn, and all else in Helstonleigh. They caught the epidemic, I say, one from another.

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XIII. A RAY OF LIGHT

The first sharpness of the edge worn off, Anna grew cross. She did not see why every one should be blaming her. What had so sadly prostrated herself was the shame of having to appear before the court; to stand in it and give her evidence. The excitement, the shame, combined with the terrifying illness of her father, brought on, as Hester told her, through her, had sent her into a wild state of contrition and alarm. Little wonder that she wished herself dead! The mood passed away as the days went on, and Anna became tolerably herself again. When Friends called at the house to inquire after or to see her father, she ran and hid herself in her room, fearful lest a lecture on those field recreations might be delivered to her gratuitously. She shunned Patience, too, as much as she could. Patience had grown cold and silent; and Anna rather liked the change.

She sat for the most part in her father's room, never moving from his bedside, unless disturbed from it; never speaking; eating only when food was placed before her. Anna was in grievous fear lest a public reprimand should be in store for her, delivered at meeting on First Day: but she saw no reason why every one should continue to be cross with her at home.

She happened to be alone with her father when he first recovered consciousness. Some fifteen days had elapsed since the trial. But for the fact of her being with him, a difficulty might have been experienced to get her there. She dreaded his anger, his reproach, more than anything. So long as he lay without his senses, knowing her not, so long was she content to sit, watching. She was seated by the bedside in her usual listless attitude, head and eyes cast down, when her father's hand, not the one affected, was suddenly lifted and laid upon hers, which rested on the counterpane. Startled, Anna turned her gaze upon him, and she saw that his intellects were restored. With a suppressed cry of dismay she would have flown away, but he clasped his fingers round hers.

"Anna!"

She sank down on her knees, shaking as if with ague, and buried her face in the clothes. Samuel Lynn stretched forth his hand and put it on her head.

"Thou art my own child, Anna; thy mother left thee to me for good and for ill; and I will stand by thee in thy sorrow."

She burst into a storm of hysterical tears. He let it have its course; he drew her wet face to his and kissed it; he talked to her soothingly, never speaking a single word of reproach; and Anna overcame her fear and her sobs. She knelt down by the bed still, and let her cheek rest on the counterpane.

"It has nearly killed me," he murmured, after a while. "But I pray for life: I will struggle hard to live, that thee mayst have one protector. Friends and foes may cast reproach to thee, but I will not."

"Why should they cast reproach to me, father?" returned Anna, with a little spice of resentment. "I have not harmed them."

"No, child; thee hast not; only thyself. I will help thee to bear the reproach. Thou art my own child."

"But there's nothing for them to reproach me with," she reiterated, her face buried deeper in the counterpane. "It was not pleasant to stand there; but it is over. And they need not reflect upon me for it."

"What is over? To stand where?" he asked.

"At the Guildhall, on the trial."

"It is not that that people will reproach thee with, Anna. It was not a nice thing for thee; but that, in itself, brings no reproach."

Anna lifted her head wonderingly. "What does, then?" she uttered.

He did not answer. He only closed his eyes, a deep groan bursting from the very depths of his heart. It came into Anna's mind that he must be thinking of her previous acquaintance with Herbert Dare; of her stolen meetings in the field by twilight.

"Oh, father, don't thee be angry with me!" she implored, the tears streaming from her eyes. "It was no harm; it was not indeed. Thee mightst have been present always, for all the harm there was, and I wish thee hadst been. Why should thee think anger of it? There was no more harm in my talking with him now and then in the field, than there was in my talking with him in Margaret Ashley's drawing-room."

Something in the simple words, in the tone, in the manner altogether, caused the Quaker's heart to leap within him. Had he been making a molehill into a mountain? Surely, yes! But what else he would have said or done, what questions asked, cannot be known, for they were interrupted by a visit from William Halliburton. Anna stole away.

William was full of hearty congratulation on the visible improvement--the, so far, restoration to health. The Quaker murmured some half-inarticulate words, indicating something to the effect that he might not have been ill, but for taking up a worse view of the case than, as he believed now, it really merited.

William leaned over him; a glad look in his eye; a glad sound in his low voice.

"My mother has been telling Patience so to-day. She, my mother, is convinced now that very exaggerated blame was cast upon Anna. It was foolish of her, of course, to fall into the habit of running to the field; but the locking out might have happened to anyone. My mother told me this not half an hour ago. She has seen and talked to Anna frequently this last day or two, and has drawn her own positive deductions. My mother is vexed with herself for having fallen into the popular condemnation."

"Ay!" uttered Samuel Lynn. "There is condemnation abroad, then? I thought there was."

"People will come to their senses in good time," was William's answer. "Never doubt it."

The Quaker raised his feeble hand, and laid it upon William's. "The Ashleys--have they blamed her?"

"I fear they have," was the only reply he could make, in his strict truth.

"Then, William, thee go to them. Go to them now, and set them right."

He was already going, for he was engaged to the Ashleys that evening. Between Henry Ashley, the men at East's, and his own studies, which he would not wholly neglect, William's evenings had a tolerably busy time of it. He had assumed Samuel Lynn's place in the manufactory by Mr. Ashley's orders, head of all things, under the master. Cyril ground his teeth at this; he looked upon it as a slight to himself; but Cyril had no power to alter it.

William found Mr. and Mrs. Ashley alone. Mary was out. He sat with them for a few minutes, talking of Anna, and then rose to go to Henry. "How is he this evening?" he inquired.

"Ill and very fractious," was Mr. Ashley's reply. "William, you have great influence over him. I wish you could persuade him to give way less. He is not ill enough, so far as we can see, to keep his room; but we cannot get him out of it."

Henry was in one of his depressed moods, excessively dispirited and irritable. "Oh! so you have come!" he burst forth as William entered. "I should be ashamed to neglect a sick fellow as you neglect me. If I were well and strong, and you ill, you would find it different."

"I know I am late," acknowledged William. "Samuel Lynn took up a little of my time; and I have been sitting some minutes in the drawing-room."

"Of course!" was the fractious answer. "Any one before me."

"Samuel Lynn is a great deal better," continued William. "His mind is restored."

Henry received the news ungraciously, making no rejoinder; but his side was twitching with pain. "How is she?" he asked. "Is the shame fretting out her life?"

"Not at all. She is very well. As to shame--as you call it--I believe she has not taken much to herself."

"It will kill her: you'll see. The sooner the better for her I should say."

William sat down on the edge of the sofa, on which the invalid was lying. "Henry, I would set you right upon a point, if I thought it would be expedient to do so. You do go into fits of excitement so great, that it is dangerous to speak."

"Tell out anything you have to tell. Tell me, if you choose, that the house is on fire, and I must be pitched out of window to escape it. It would make no impression upon me. My fits of excitement have passed away with Anna Lynn."

"My news relates to Anna."

"What if it does? She has passed away for me."

"Helstonleigh, in its usual hasty fashion of jumping to conclusions, has jumped to a false one," continued William. "There have been no grounds for the great blame cast to Anna; except in the minds of a charitable public."

"A fact?" asked Henry, after a pause.

"There's not a shade of doubt about it."

He received the answer with equanimity; it may be said, with apathy. And turning on his couch, he drew the cover over him, repeating the words previously spoken: "She has passed away for me."

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XIV. MR. DELVES ON HIS BEAM ENDS

Samuel Lynn grew better, and Mr. Ashley, in his considerate kindness, proposed that he should reside abroad for a few months in the neighbourhood of Annonay, to watch the skin market, and pick up skins that would be suitable for their use. Anna and Patience were to accompany him. Anna had somewhat regained her footing in the good graces of the gossipers. That she did so, was partly owing to the indignant defence of her, entered upon by Herbert Dare. Herbert did behave well in this case, and he must have his due. Upon his return from London, whither he had gone soon after the termination of the trial, remaining away a week or two, he found what a very charitable ovation Helstonleigh was bestowing upon Anna Lynn. He met it with a storm of indignation; he bade them think as badly of him as they chose; believe him a second Burke if they liked; but to keep their mistaken tongues off Anna. What with one thing and another, some of the scandal-mongers did begin to think they had been too hasty, and withdrew their censure. Some (as a matter of course) preferred to doubt still; and opinions remained divided.

Helstonleigh took up the gossip on another score--that of Mr. Ashley's sending Samuel Lynn abroad, as his skin-buyer, for an indefinite period. "A famous trade Ashley must be doing, to go to that expense!" grumbled some of the envious manufacturers. True; he had a famous trade. And if he had not had one, he might have sent him all the same. Helstonleigh never knew the benevolence of Thomas Ashley's heart. The journey was fully decided upon; and Samuel Lynn had an application from a member of his own persuasion, to rent his house, furnished, for the term of his absence. He was glad to accept the accommodation.

But, before Mr. Lynn and his family started, Helstonleigh was fated to sustain another loss, in the person of Herbert Dare. Herbert contrived to get some sort of mission entrusted to him abroad, and made rather a summary exit from Helstonleigh to enter upon it. A friend of Herbert's, who had gone over to live in Holland, and with whom he was in frequent correspondence, wrote and offered him a situation in a merchant's house in Rotterdam, as "English clerk." The offer came in answer to a hint, or perhaps more than a hint, from Herbert, that a year or two's sojourn abroad would be acceptable to him. He would receive a good salary, if he proved himself equal to the duties, the information stated, and might rise in it, if he chose to remain. Herbert wrote off-hand to secure it, and then told his father what he had done.

"Enter a house at Rotterdam, as English clerk!" repeated Mr. Dare, unable to credit his own ears. "You a clerk!"

"What am I to do?" asked Herbert. "Since I came out of there," pointing in the direction of the county prison, "claims have thickened upon me. I do owe a good deal, and that's a fact--what with my own scores, and that for which I am liable for--for poor Anthony. People won't wait much longer; and I have no fancy to try the debtor's side of the prison."

They were standing in the front room of the office. Mr. Dare's business appeared to be considerably falling off, and the office had often leisure on its hands now. Of the two clerks kept, one had holiday, the other was out. Somehow, what with one untoward thing and another, people were growing shy of the Dares. Mr. Dare leaned against the corner of the window-frame, watching the passers-by, his hands in his pockets, and a blank look on his face.

"You say you can't help me, sir?" Herbert continued.

"You know I can't; sufficiently to do any good," returned Mr. Dare. "I am too much pressed for money myself. Look at the expenses attending the trial: and I was embarrassed enough before. I cannot help you."

"It seems to me, too, that you want me gone from here."

"I have not said so," curtly responded Mr. Dare.

"You told me the other day that it was my presence in the office which scared clients from it."

Mr. Dare could not deny the fact. He had said it. What's more, he had thought it; and did so still. "I cannot tell what else it is that is keeping clients away," he rejoined. "We have not had a dozen in since the trial."

"It is a slack season of the year."

"Maybe," shortly answered Mr. Dare. "Slack as it is, there's some business astir, but people are going elsewhere to get it done; those, too, who have never for years been near anyone but us. The truth is, Herbert, you fell into bad odour with the town on the day of the trial; and that you must know. Though acquitted of the murder, all sorts of other things were laid to your charge. Quaker Lynn's stroke amongst the rest."

"Carping sinners!" ejaculated Herbert.

"And I suppose it turned people against the office," continued Mr. Dare. "My belief is, they won't come back again as long as you are in it."

"That's precisely what I meant you had hinted to me" said Herbert. "Therefore, I thought I had better leave it. Pattison says he can get me this berth, and I should like to try it."

"You'll not like to turn merchant's clerk," repeated Mr. Dare with emphasis.

"I shall like it better than being nailed for debt here," somewhat coarsely answered Herbert. "It is not so agreeable at home now, especially in this office, that I should cry to stay in it. You have changed, sir, amongst the rest: many a day through, you don't give me a civil word."

Again Mr. Dare felt that he had changed to Herbert. When he found that he--Herbert--might have cleared himself at first from the terrible accusation of fratricide, had he so chosen, instead of allowing the obloquy to rest upon himself and his family for so long a period, he had become bitterly angry. Mrs. Dare and the whole family joined in the feeling, and Herbert suffered.

"As to civility, Herbert, I must first get over the soreness left by your conduct. You acted very badly in allowing the case to go on to trial. If you had no objection to sit down quietly under the crime yourself, you had no right to throw the disgrace and expense upon your family."

"If it were to come over again, I would not do so," acknowledged Herbert. "I thought then I was acting for the best."

"Pshaw!" was the peevish ejaculation of Mr. Dare.

"Altogether," resumed Herbert, "I think I had better go away. After a time, something or other may turn up to make things smoother here, and then I can come home again; unless I find a better opening abroad. I may do so; and I believe I shall like living there."

"Very well," said Mr. Dare, after some minutes' silence. "It may be for the best. At all events, it will give time for things here to blow over. If you don't find it what you like, you can only return."

"I shall be sure not to return, unless I can square up some of my liabilities here," returned Herbert. "You must help me to get there, sir."

"What do you want?" asked Mr. Dare.

"Fifty pounds."

"I can't do it, Herbert," was the prompt answer.

"I must have it if I am to go," was Herbert's firm reply. "There are two or three trifles here which I will not leave unsettled, and I cannot go over there with pockets absolutely empty. Fifty pounds is not so great a sum, sir, to pay to get rid of me."

Old Anthony Dare knit his brow in perplexity. He supposed he must furnish the money, though he did not in the least see how it was to be done.

The matter settled, Herbert took his hat and went out. The first object his eyes alighted on outside was Sergeant Delves. That worthy, pacing through the town, had brought himself to an anchor opposite the office of Mr. Dare, and was regarding it, lost in a brown study. The sergeant was in a state of discomfiture, touching the affair of the late Anthony Dare. He had lost no time in "looking after" Miss Caroline Mason, as he had promised himself; and the sequence had been--defeat. Without any open stir on the part of the police--without allowing Caroline herself to know that she was doubted--the sergeant contrived to put himself in full possession of her movements on that night. The result proved that she must be exempt from the suspicion; or, as the sergeant expressed it, "was out of the hole;" and that gentleman remained at fault again.

Herbert crossed over to him. "What are you looking at, Delves?"

"I wasn't looking at anything in particular," was the answer. "Coming in sight of your office naturally brought my thoughts back to that unsatisfactory business. I never was so baffled before."

"It is very strange who it could have been," observed Herbert. "I often think of it."

"Never so baffled before," continued the sergeant, as if there had been no interruption to his own words. "I could almost have been upon oath at the time, that the murderer was in the house; hadn't left it. And yet----"

"You could have been upon oath that it was I," interrupted Herbert.

"That's true. I could. But you had yourself chiefly to thank for it, Mr. Herbert Dare, through making a mystery of your movements that night. After you were cleared, my mind turned to that girl; and that, I found, was no go."

"What girl?" interrupted Herbert.

"The one in Honey Fair: your brother Anthony's old sweetheart. It wasn't her, though; I have proofs. Charlotte East had her at her house that evening, and kept her till twelve o'clock, when she went home to bed in her garret. Charlotte's going to try to make something of her again. And now I am baffled, and I don't deny it."

"To suspect any girl is ridiculous," observed Herbert Dare. "No girl, it is to be hoped, would possess the courage or the strength to accomplish such a deed as that."

"You don't know 'em as we police do," nodded the sergeant. "I was asking your father only a day or two ago, whether he could make sure of his servants, that they had not been in it----"

"Of our servants?" interrupted Herbert, in surprise. "What an idea!"

"Well, I have gone round to my old opinion--that it was some one in the house," returned the sergeant. "But it seems the servants are all on the square. I can't make it out."

"Why on earth should you suppose it to be any one in the house?" questioned Herbert, in considerable wonderment.

"Because I do," was the answer. "We police see and note down what others pass over. There was odds and ends of things at the time that made us infer it; and I can't get it out of my mind."

"It is an impossibility that it could have been a resident of the house," dissented Herbert. "Every one in it is above suspicion."

"Who do you fancy it might have been?" asked the sergeant, abruptly, almost as if he wished to surprise Herbert out of an incautious answer.

But Herbert had nothing to tell him; no suspicion was on his mind to be surprised out of. "If I could fancy it was, or might be, any particular individual, I should come to you and say so, without asking," he replied. "I am as much at fault as you can be. Anthony may have made slight enemies in the town, what with his debts and his temper, and one thing or another; but no enemies of that terrible nature--capable of killing him. I wish I could see cause for a reasonable suspicion," he added with emotion. "I would give my right arm"--stretching it out--"to solve the mystery. As well for my sake as for my dead brother's."

"Well, all I can say is, that I am down on my beam ends," concluded the sergeant.

Meanwhile Henry Ashley was getting little better. He had fallen into a state of utter prostration. Mental anguish had told upon him physically, and his bodily weakness was no doubt great: but he made no effort to rouse himself. He would lie for hours, his eyes half-closed, noticing no one. The medical men said they had seen nothing like it, and Mr. and Mrs. Ashley grew alarmed. The only one to remonstrate with him--he alone held the key to its cause--was William Halliburton.

William's influence over him was very great: he yielded to no one, not even to his father, as he would yield to William. Henry gave the reins to his tongue, and said all sorts of irritating things to William, as he did to every one else. It only masked the deep affection, the lasting friendship, which had taken possession of his heart for William.

"Let me be; let me be," he said to William one day, in answer to a remonstrance that he should rouse himself. "I told you that my life had passed out with her."

"But your life has not passed out with her," argued William; "your life is in you, just as much as it ever was. And it is your duty to make some use of your life; not to let it run to waste--as you are doing."

"It does not affect you," was the tart reply.

"It does very much affect me. I am grieved to see you hug your pain, instead of shaking it off; vexed to think that a man should so bury his days. It is an unfortunate thing that no one is cognizant of this matter but myself."

"Is it though!" retorted Henry. "You are a fine Job's comforter!"

"Yes, it is. Were it known to those about you, you would not for shame lie here, and indulge regrets after an imprudent and silly girl."

Henry flashed an angry glance at him from his soft dark eyes. "Take care, my good fellow! I can stand some things; but I don't stand all."

"An imprudent, silly girl, who does not care a rush for you," emphatically repeated William: "whose wild and ill-judged affection is given to another. Was ever infatuation like unto yours!"

"Have a care, I tell you!" burst forth Henry. "By what right do you say these things to me?"

"I say them for your good--and I intend that you should feel them. When a surgeon's knife probes a wound, the patient groans and winces; but it is done to cure him."

"You are a man of eloquence!" sarcastically rejoined Henry. "Pity but you could flourish at the Bar, and take the anticipated shine out of Frank!"

"Answer me one plain question, Henry. Do you still indulge a hope towards Anna Lynn?--to her becoming your wife?"

With a shriek of anger, Henry caught up his slipper, and sent it flying through the air at William's head.

"What's that for?" equably demanded William, dodging his head out of the way.

"How dare you hint at such a thing? I told you there were some things I wouldn't stand. Is it fitting that one who has figured in such an escapade should be made the wife of an Ashley? If we were left by our two selves upon the earth, all else gone dead and out of it, I wouldn't marry her."

"Precisely so. I have judged you rightly. Then, under this state of things, what in the name of fortune is the use of your lying here and thinking about her?"

"I don't think about her," fractiously returned Henry. "You are always fancying things."

"You do think about her. I can see that you do. I should be above it," quaintly continued William.

"Go and pick up my slipper."

"Will you come down to tea this evening?"

"No, I won't. You come here and preach up this morality, or divinity, or whatever you may please to term it, to me; but, wait and see how you'd act, if you should ever get struck on the keen edge as I have been."

"Come! let me help you up."

"Don't bother. I am not going to get up. I----"

At that moment, Mr. Ashley opened the door. His errand likewise was to induce Henry to leave his sofa and his room, and join them below. Henry could not be brought to comply.

"No. I have just told William. I cannot think why he did not go back and say so. He only stops here to worry me. There! get along, William; and come back when you have swallowed enough tea."

Mr. Ashley laid his hand on William's arm, as they walked together along the corridor, and brought him to a halt. "What is this illness of Henry's? There is some secret connected with it, I am sure, and you are cognizant of it. I must know what it is."

Mr. Ashley's tone was a decided one; his manner firm. William made no reply.

"Tell me what it is, William."

"I cannot," said William. "Certainly not without Henry's permission; and I do not think he will give it. If it were my secret, sir, instead of his, I would tell it at your bidding."

"Is it of the mind or the body?"

"The mind. I think the worst is over. Do not speak to him about it, I pray you, sir."

"William, is it anything that can be remedied? By money?--by any means at command?"

"It can never be remedied," replied William earnestly, "Were the whole world brought to bear upon it, it could do nothing. Time and his own good sense must effect the cure."

"Then I may as well not ask about it if I cannot aid. You are fully in his confidence."

"Yes. And all that another can do, I am doing. We have a daily battle. I want to rouse him out of his apathy."

"Oh, that you could!" aspirated Mr. Ashley.

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XV. A LOSS FOR POMERANIAN KNOLL

Pomeranian Knoll had scarcely recovered its equanimity after the shock of the departure of Herbert Dare for foreign parts, when it found itself about to be shorn of another inmate. The word "shock" is used to express the suddenness of the affair, rather than in its enlarged and more ordinary sense. Herbert, what with one thing and another, had brought a good deal of vexation upon the paternal home; Helstonleigh also had not been holding him in extensive favour since the trial; and that home was not sorry that he should absent himself from it for a time. But it certainly did not bargain for his announcing his departure one night, and being off the next morning. Yet such was the course he pursued: and in that light his departure may be said to have been a shock to the town. Mr. Dare had known of it longer; but he had not proclaimed it any more than Herbert had: it may be that Herbert feared being stopped, if the intended journey got wind.

A week or two after this, Signora Varsini received a letter with a foreign post-mark on it. The fact was nothing extraordinary in itself: the signora did occasionally receive letters bearing foreign post-marks; but this one threw her into a state of commotion, the like of which had never been witnessed. Thrusting the letter into the deepest pocket of her dress when it was delivered to her, she finished giving the music lesson to Minny, which she was occupied upon, and then retired to her room to peruse it. From this she emerged a short time after, with a long face of consternation, uttering frantic ejaculations. Mrs. Dare was quite alarmed. What was the matter with mademoiselle?

"Ah, what misere! what desolation! what tristes nouvelles!" The letter was from her aunt in Paris, who was thrown upon her death-bed; and she, mademoiselle, must hasten thither without delay. If she could not start by a train that day, she must go by the first one the next. She was desolee to leave madame at a coup; her heart would break in bidding adieu to the young ladies; but necessity was stern. She must make her baggage forthwith, and would be obliged to madame for her salary.

Mrs. Dare was taken--as the saying runs--all of a heap. She had not cared to part with mademoiselle so soon, although the retaining her entailed an additional expense, which they could ill afford in their gradually increasing embarrassments and straitening means: but the chief point that puzzled her was the paying up of the salary. Between thirty and forty pounds were due. There appeared, however, to be no help for it, and she applied to Mr. Dare.

"You may as well ask me for my head as for that sum to-day," was that gentleman's reply, thinking he was destined never to find peace on earth. "Tell her you will send it after her, if she must go."

Mrs. Dare shook her head. It would not be of the least use, she was sure. Mademoiselle was not one to be put off in that way, or to depart without her money.

How Mr. Dare managed it he perhaps hardly knew himself; but he brought home the money at night, and the governess was paid in full. On the following morning there was a ceremonious leave-taking, loud and suggestive on the part of mademoiselle. She saluted them all on both cheeks, and promised to write every week, at least. A fly came to the door for her and her luggage, and George Dare mounted the box to escort her to the station. Mademoiselle politely invited him inside; but he had just lighted a cigar, and preferred to stop where he was.

"I say, mademoiselle," cried he, after she was seated in the railway carriage, "if you should happen to come across Herbert, I wish you'd tell him----"

Mademoiselle interrupted with a burst of indignation. She come across Monsieur Herbert! What should bring her coming across him? Monsieur George must be fou to think it. Monsieur Herbert was not in Paris, was he? She had understood he was in Holland.

"Oh, well, it's all on the other side of the Channel," answered George, whose geographical notions of the Continent were not very definite. "Perhaps you won't see him, though, mademoiselle; so never mind."

Mademoiselle replied by telling him to take care of himself; for the whistle was sounding. George drew back, and watched the train off; mademoiselle nodding her farewell to him from the window.

And that was the last that Helstonleigh saw of Mrs. Dare's Italian governess, the Signora Varsini. Helstonleigh might not have been any the worse had it never seen the first of her. Mrs. Dare, after her departure, suddenly remembered that mademoiselle had once told her she had not a single relative in the world. Who could this aunt be, to whom she was hastening?

And Henry Ashley? As the weeks and the months went on, Henry began to rouse himself from his prostration; his apathy. William Halliburton made no secret of it to Henry that it was suspected he was suffering from some inward grief which he was concealing, and that he had been questioned on the point by Mr. Ashley. "You know," said William, "I shall have no resource but to tell, unless you show yourself a sensible man, and come out of this nonsense."

It alarmed Henry; rather than have his secret feelings betrayed for the family benefit, he could have died. In a grumbling and discontented sort of mood, he went about again, and resumed his idle occupations (such as they were) as usual. One evening William enticed him out for a walk, took possession of his arm, and pounced into Robert East's, before Henry well knew where he was. He sat down, apathetic and indifferent, after nodding carelessly to the respectful salutation of the men. "I must give just ten minutes to them, as I am here," observed William. "You can go to sleep the while."

The ten minutes lengthened into twenty, and Henry's attention was so far roused that he came to the table in his impulsive way, and began talking on his own account. When William was ready to go, he was not; and he actually told the men that he would come round again. It was a great point gained.

Small beginnings, it has been remarked, lead to great endings. The humble, confined way in which the class had begun at Robert East's; the vague ideas of William upon the subject; the doubtings of East and Crouch, were looked back upon with a smile. For the little venture had swollen itself into a great undertaking--an undertaking that was destined to effect a revolution throughout the whole of Honey Fair, and might probably even extend to Helstonleigh itself. The drawback now was want of room; numbers were being kept away by it. Henry Ashley did go again; and finding that books of the right kind ran short, he, the day after his second visit, wrote off an order for a whole cargo.

Mr. Ashley was in a state of inward delight. Anything to rouse him! "You think it will succeed, that movement, do you, Henry?" he carelessly observed.

"It's safe to succeed," was the answer. "William, with his palavering, has gained the ear of the fellows. I don't believe there's William Halliburton's equal in the whole world!" he added, with enthusiasm. "Fancy his sacrificing his time to such a thing, and for no benefit to himself! It will bear a rich crop of fruit too. If I have the gift--I'll give you a long word for once--of ratiocination, this reform of William's will be more extensive than we now foresee."

The chief thing in these evenings was to keep alive the interest of the men. Not to lead them to abstruse things, which they had a difficulty in understanding, and remained strange to at best; but rather to plunge them into familiar home topics--the philosophy, if you will, of everyday life. There is a right and a wrong way of doing most things, and it often happens that people, from ignorance, pursue the wrong. Of the plain sanitary laws, relating to physical health, Honey Fair was intensely ignorant: of the ventilation of rooms, of cleanliness, of the most simple rules by which the body can be kept in order, they knew no more than they did of the moon. When a man was, to use Honey Fair phraseology, "took bad," he generally neglected the symptoms altogether, thereby laying the foundation of worse illness: or else he went to a doctor, and ran himself into expense. A little familiarity with ordinary complaints and ordinary antidotes would have remedied this. An acquaintance with sanitary laws would have prevented it. When children were down with measles or scarlatina, the careless of the land allowed the maladies to take their own course, and the sufferers to air themselves in the gutters, as usual. The cautious ones smothered the patients in a hot room, keeping up a fire as large as the stock of coals would allow, and borrowing all the blankets from the houses on either side, to heap upon them. No wonder the supply of little coffins was great to Honey Fair.

All these things would be talked of and discussed, and a little enlightenment imparted to the men, as a guidance for the future. No one who did not witness it can imagine the delighted satisfaction with which these and similar practical topics were welcomed; for they bore for them a personal interest--they concerned themselves, their families, and their homes.

One evening the way in which Honey Fair rather liked to spend its Sundays was under discussion; namely, the men in smoking; the women slatternly and dirty; the children fighting and quarrelling in the dirt outside.

William Halliburton was asking them in a half-earnest, half-joking manner, what particular benefit they found in it, that it should not be remedied? Could they impart its pleasures to him? If so----

His voice suddenly faltered and stopped. Standing just inside the door of the room, a quiet spectator and listener of the proceedings, was Thomas Ashley. The men followed William's gaze, saw who was amongst them, and rose in respectful silence.

Mr. Ashley came forward, signing to William to continue. But William's eloquence had died out, leaving only a heightened colour in its place. In the presence of Mr. Ashley, whom he so loved and respected, he had grown timid as a child.

"Do you know," said Mr. Ashley, addressing the men, "it gives me greater pleasure to see you here than it would do were I to hear that you had come into a fortune."

They smiled and shook their heads. "Fortunes didn't come to the like o' them."

"Never mind," replied Mr. Ashley: "fortunes are not the best gifts in life."

He stayed talking with them some little time, quiet words of encouragement, and then withdrew, wishing them good luck. William left with him: and as they passed through Honey Fair, the women ran to their doors to gaze after them. Mr. Ashley, slightly bent with his advancing years, leaned upon William's arm, but his face was fresh as ever, and his dark hair showed no signs of age. William erect, noble; his height greater than Mr. Ashley's, his forehead broader, his deep grey eyes strangely earnest and sincere; and a flitting smile playing on his lips. He was listening to Mr. Ashley's satisfaction at what he had witnessed.

"How long do you intend to sacrifice your evenings to them?"

"It is no sacrifice, Mr. Ashley. I am glad to do it. I consider it one of the best uses to which my evenings could be given. I intend to enlist Henry for good in the cause, if I can do so."

"You will be an ingenious persuader if you do," returned Mr. Ashley. "I would give half I am worth," he abruptly added, "to see the boy take an interest in life."

"It will be sure to come, sir. One of these days I shall surprise him into reading a good play to the men. Something to laugh at. It will be a beginning."

"He is very much better," observed Mr. Ashley. "All that listless apathy is going."

"Oh yes. He is all but cured."

"What was it, William?"

William was taken by surprise. He did not answer, and Mr. Ashley repeated the question.

"It is his secret, sir, not mine."

"You must confide it to me," said Mr. Ashley, in his tone of quiet firmness. "You know me, William. When I promise that neither it nor the fact of its having been disclosed to me, shall ever escape me, directly or indirectly, to any living person, you know that you may depend upon me."

He paused. William did not speak: he was debating with himself what he ought to do.

"William, it is a relief that I must have. Since my suspicions, that there was a secret, were confirmed, I cannot tell you what improbable fancies and fears have not run riot in my brain. For prostration so excessive to have overtaken him, one would almost think he had been guilty of murder, or some other unaccountable crime. You must relieve my mind: which, in spite of my uncontrollable fancies, I do not doubt the truth will do. It will make no difference to any one; it will only be an additional bond between myself and you; and you, my almost son."

William's duty rose before him, clear and distinct. But when he spoke, it was in a whisper.

"He loved Anna Lynn."

Mr. Ashley walked on without comment. William resumed.

"Had that unhappy affair not taken place, Henry's intention was to make her his wife, provided you could have been brought to consent to it. His whole days used to be spent, I believe, in planning how he could best invent a chance of obtaining it."

"And now?" very sharply asked Mr. Ashley.

"Now the thing is at an end for ever. Henry's good sense has come to his aid; I suppose I may say his pride; his self-esteem. Innocent of actual ill as Anna was in the affair, there was sufficient reflection cast upon her to prove to Henry that his hopeful visions could never be carried out. That was Henry's secret, sir: and I almost feared the blow would have killed him. But he is getting over it."

Mr. Ashley drew a deep breath. "William, I thank you. You have relieved me from a nightmare: and you may forget having given me the confidence if you like, for it will never be abused. What are you going to do about space?" he continued, in a different tone.

"About space, sir?"

"For those proteges of yours, at East's. They seem to me to be tolerably confined for it, there?"

"Yes, and that is not the worst," said William. "Men are asking to join every day, and they cannot be taken in."

"I can't think how you manage to get so many--and to keep them."

"I suppose the chief secret is, that their interest enters into it. We contrive to keep that up. Most of them would not go back to the Horned Ram for the world."

"Well, where shall you stow them?"

"It is more than I can say, sir. We must manage it somehow."

"Henry told me you were ambitious enough to aspire to the Mormon failure."

"I was foolish enough to do so," replied William, with a laugh. "Seeing it was very much in the condition of the famed picture taken of the good Dr. Primrose and his family--useless--I went and offered a rent for it--only a trifling sum, it is true; but if our fires only kept it from damp, one would think the builder might have been glad to let it, thrown as it is upon his hands. I told him so."

"What did he say?"

"He stood out for thirty pounds. But that's more than I--than we can afford."

"And who was going to find the money? You?"

William hesitated; but did not see any way out of the dilemma.

"Well, sir, you know it is a sad pity for the good work to be stopped, through so insignificant a trifle as want of room."

"I think it is," replied Mr. Ashley. "You can hire it to-morrow, and move your forms and tables and books into it as soon as you like. I will find the rent."

The words took William by surprise. "Oh, Mr. Ashley, do you really mean it?"

"Really mean it? It is little enough, compared with what you are doing. A few years, William, and your name may be great in Helstonleigh. You are working on for it."

William walked with Mr. Ashley as far as his house, and then turned back to his own. He found sorrow there. Not having been home since dinner-time, for he had taken tea at Mr. Ashley's, he was unconscious of some tidings which had been brought by the afternoon's post. Jane sat and grieved while she told him. Her brother Robert was dead. Very rarely indeed did she hear from the New World; Margaret appeared to be too full of cares and domestic bustle to write often. She might not have written now, but to tell of the death of Robert.

"I have lost myself sometimes in a vision of seeing Robert home again," said Jane, with a sigh. "And now he is gone!"

"He was not married, was he?" asked William.

"No. I fear he never got on very well. Never to be at his ease."

Gar came in noisily, and interrupted them. The death of an uncle whom he had never seen, and who had lived thousands of miles away, did not appear to Gar to be a matter calling for any especial amount of grief. Gar was in high spirits on his own account; for Gar was going to Cambridge. Not in all the pomp and pride of an unlimited purse, however, but as a humble sizar.

Gar, not seeing his way very clearly, had been wise enough to pluck up courage and apply for counsel to the head master of the college school. He had told him that he meant to go to college, and how he meant to go, and he asked Mr. Keating if he could help him to a situation, where he might be useful between terms. "A school where I might become a junior assistant," suggested Gar. "Or any family who would take me to read with their sons? If I only earned my food, it would be so much the less weight upon my mother," added he, in the candid spirit peculiar to the family.

"Have you forgotten that you ought to work, yourself, out of terms, nearly as hard as in them?" asked Mr. Keating.

"Oh, no, sir, I have not forgotten it. I will take care to accomplish my own work as well. That should not suffer."

Mr. Keating looked at the cheerful, hopeful face, a sure index of the brave hopeful spirit. He had taken unusual interest in the two Halliburtons, so clever and persevering. It had been impossible for him not to do so; for, if Mr. Keating had a weakness, it was for a good classical scholar.

"I'll see about it, Gar," said he. "But you are rather young to read with students. And I do not suppose any school would be willing to engage you on account of the interruption that keeping your terms would cause. If nothing better turns up, you can remain in the college school-room here, and undertake one of the junior desks. I should give you nothing for it," added the master, "except your meals. Those you would be welcome to take at my house with my private pupils, sleeping at your own home. And I think that, for you, it would be a better arrangement than any other, for it would leave you plenty of time for your own studies, and I could still superintend them."

Gar thought the arrangement would be first-rate. It would be the very thing. "Not that I ever thought of it," he ingenuously said. "I did not know the college school admitted assistants."

"Neither does it," replied the master. "You would be ostensibly my private pupil. And if I choose to set a private pupil to keep the desks to their work, that is my affair."

Gar could only reiterate his thanks.

"I am pleased to give you this little encouragement," remarked Mr. Keating. "When I see boys hopefully plodding on in the teeth of difficulties, of brave heart, of sterling conduct, they deserve all the encouragement that can be given to them. If you and your brothers only go on as you have hitherto gone on, you will stand in after-years as bright examples of what industry and perseverance can achieve."

So that, altogether, Gar was in spirits, and did not by any means put on superfluous mourning for a gentleman who had died in the backwoods of Canada, although he was his mother's brother.

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