The dead man’s horse had disappeared, and was probably trotting back to
his stable in Twickenham. But Tom Bendibow’s steed, which knew its
master, could be heard cropping the herbage a few rods away, at the
other end of the open place. This sound, and the struggling breathing of
Tom himself, were distinctly audible in the stillness of the night.
Marion, after there was no longer any doubt as to Mr. Grant’s being
dead, sat for several minutes motionless and silent, his head resting on
her lap. Philip meanwhile was examining Tom’s injuries, which proved to
be a crushing blow at the base of the head, behind the right ear, and
two upper ribs on the same side broken, apparently by the stamp of a
horse’s hoof. It seemed hardly possible that he could live long.
“Shall I lift them into the wagon?” he asked Marion. “We should lose no
time in getting home.”
“If you take out the seat of the wagon, they can lie at full length,”
she said. “I will get in with them. You must ride Mr. Bendibow’s horse
and lead ours.”
The plan was as good as the circumstances admitted; and Philip, assisted
by Marion, succeeded in lifting the two lifeless weights into the bottom
of the vehicle, in which had previously been placed a kind of pillow,
improvised out of Philip’s coat and Marion’s shawl. Marion then got in
and supported Tom in such a manner that the jolting might distress him
as little as possible; and finally, Philip, having caught and mounted
Tom’s horse, grasped the reins of the baker’s phlegmatic steed, and the
party moved forward. The strange darkness, which had been at its
densest at the moment of the catastrophe, now began to lighten; a star
or two appeared toward the east, and gradually the heavy veil of
obscurity was withdrawn in the direction of the west and south. The
faces of the two victims were faintly revealed. Mr. Grant’s countenance
bore a serene and austere expression; but poor Tom’s features were
painful to contemplate--the heaviness of insensibility alternated there
with the contractions of suffering. “Poor boy!” Marion murmured, more
than once, but with an inward and musing tone, as if her compassion
extended to something beyond his physical calamity. At other times this
compassionate aspect gave place to an expression of stern severity; and
this again was once or twice succeeded by a beautifully tender look,
which deepened her eyes and made her lips move tremulously. Few words
were exchanged between her and Philip during their sad journey, which
seemed to both of them as long as a lifetime, and yet brief.
Brief or long, the journey ended at last, and in the paleness of early
dawn, Philip, with the help of the astounded baker, who had been aroused
for the purpose, carried Tom Bendibow and the body of Mr. Grant through
the iron gate, and beneath the overspreading limbs of the cedar, and
into the house where Mrs. Lockhart, horror-stricken and speechless,
stood to receive them. Then the baker was sent for a physician; the dead
man’s body was laid on the bed in his chamber, and Philip did whatever
was possible to make Bendibow comfortable in his own room. The latter
had by this time begun to regain the use of his senses, and with
these--though only feebly and at intervals--the power of speech.
“Did the ... fellow who did this ... get off?” was his first question.
To which Philip replied in the affirmative.
After a pause Tom resumed: “Well, I’m done for!”
“Nothing of the sort; you will be all right in time,” said Philip.
“No; I’m a dead man; and ... I’ll tell you what, I’m ... glad of it!” He
said this with all the emphasis at his command. By-and-by he added,
“What about the ... old gentleman?”
“Shot through the heart.”
Several minutes passed, and Philip thought that Tom was relapsing into
unconsciousness, when he suddenly exclaimed: “Do you mean to say he’s
dead?”
“He died instantly.”
“Give me ... some water,” said Tom, with a ghastly expression; and after
he had drank, he continued, “I tried to help; but when I heard his
voice” ... he broke off abruptly.
“Whose voice? Oh, you mean Marion’s--Miss Lockhart.”
“Very likely,” said Tom. “I’d better tell you how it all came on: I
shan’t be of any use by the time the inquest begins. I rode over the
river to meet him ... to give the letter, you know. Took the wrong road,
but he’d taken it, too, so ... we rode along together, talking, first
about Perdita: then he spoke of Miss Lockhart ... she was on his mind;
he liked her, didn’t he?”
“That’s strange!” muttered Philip to himself.
“And we talked about ... well, no matter! Then my girths got loose and I
got down to tighten ’em, and he rode on. Just as I was mounting I heard
another horse coming along ... and there seemed to be some row.... I
rode up. I heard him say, ‘Hand it over, or....’ ”
“The highwayman said that?”
“Yes,” replied Tom, after a long pause. “By that time I was almost on
’em. He fired; by the flash I saw his face.... Oh, my God!”
“You would know him again, then?”
“I shall never see him again,” replied Tom, with a certain doggedness of
tone. His bearing during this conversation had been so singular, and in
some respects so unaccountable, that Philip was disposed to think his
mind was affected. “You had better rest,” he said kindly.
“I shall rest--till Judgment Day,” replied the wounded youth; “and I
shan’t say much more before then. Oh, I have my wits about me ... more
now than when that shot was fired! Just after that I heard a call
somewhere down the road; I shouted back. Then he rode at me and hit me
with the butt of his pistol. Well, he’s a villain; but it’s better for
me to die than to hang him. I’ve had enough.”
At this point Marion came to the door with a letter in her hand, and as
Philip approached her, she said to him in a low voice: “I found this in
Mr. Grant’s pocket. It is addressed to Perdita Desmoines. What shall be
done about it?”
Philip took the letter from her and looked at it. It was inclosed in a
sealed packet of stout paper, and the address was in Mr. Grant’s
handwriting. Its appearance indicated that it had been kept for some
time; the corners were dog-eared and the edges somewhat worn. Across the
corner of the packet was the following indorsement:
“In case of my decease to be handed at once to the person to whom
it is addressed, and on no account to be opened by any other
person.
J. G.”
“I can’t leave here at present,” said Lancaster, “and ’twould not be
safe to trust it to a messenger. Let it wait till this evening or
to-morrow.”
“What’s that about Perdita?” demanded Tom from the bed; for, with the
abnormal acuteness of perception that sometimes characterizes the
dying, he had caught her name. “A letter for her? Send for her, Miss
Lockhart, please! I want to see her before I go. And she ought to be
here besides. Tell her that he’s dead and I’m dying and she’ll come.”
Philip questioned Marion’s face with a look, and she responded by a look
of assent. She had long ago divined the secret of poor Tom’s love, and
now the new birth in her own heart had quickened her sympathies toward
all lovers. “I will write her a message and send it off immediately,”
she said, walking up to the bedside and touching the boy’s hand softly
with her own. “She will be here by the time the surgeon has dressed your
wounds, and then you’ll be feeling better. You are not to die, sir.
Madame Desmoines and I will nurse you and make you well.”
“That’s all right,” said Tom, closing his eyes with a sigh; and,
yielding to his exhaustion, he sank into a semi-somnolent state which
seemed likely to last some time.
“By-the-by,” said Philip, when Marion had written her message to
Perdita, “there’s this boy’s father; I forgot about him; he must be
summoned instantly. I’ll send word to him post-haste.”
“Do you think he will come?” she answered, glancing at him for a moment
and then looking away. But before Philip could reply to so singular a
query, she responded to herself, “I suppose he would. And it would be
worth while to have him here. Mr. Grant was his guest last night. He
might help in finding the murderer.”
“After what I’ve seen to-night,” Philip remarked, “I should hardly like
to ask you where the murderer is.”
“This is different,” she returned, “I know nothing. I see only people
that I love. Don’t think of me that way, Philip.”
“You know how I think of you, Marion.”
“If I did not, I could not bear this.”
They were in the little sitting-room down stairs, standing by the window
where they had so often stood before. Overhead was audible occasionally
the soft footfall of Mrs. Lockhart, moving about in the room where Grant
lay. The east was exquisite with the tints of approaching sunrise, and
the calm and strength of nature made the morning sweet. The earth, which
had wheeled through the light and darkness, the life and death of so
many myriad years, still maintained her tireless pace no less freshly
than on the first day. Could a human heart, also, turn as hopefully from
the shadows of the past, and voyage onward through untraveled paths
toward the source of light? or must the dust and gloom of weary years
still cling to it and make its progress dreary? Love is truly life:
deprived of it, body and soul alike stagnate and decline; but, gifted
with its might, we breathe the air of heaven even in the chamber of
death, and our faces are illuminated even in a dungeon.
It was in the air and light of this immortal morning that Marion and
Philip now looked at each other, brightened thereby from within as the
sunrise brightened them from without. The utterance of their hearts was
visible in their eyes, and there was hardly need of words. But the love
which has not avowed itself in words is incomplete.
“Will you be my wife, Marion?” said Philip.
“Have you known me long enough?” was her reply.
“I have known you all my life.”
“But to have me will be more wearisome than to know me.”
“Marion, I love you.”
“I love you, Philip. Oh, Philip, can this be happiness that makes my
heart ache so? If I did not know there was so much sorrow in the world,
I could hardly live! Can Philip Lancaster belong to me, and I to him! I
am afraid to have you know how much I love you. I am afraid to know
myself. No! I will not be afraid. Take me, Philip! Kiss me.” ...
It was with reverence that Philip kissed her first; but then love
overcame him. There was no one like her in the world. He would be a hero
and a saint for her sake.
* * * * *
About nine o’clock in the morning, Perdita, Marquise Desmoines, drove up
to the gate. She alighted and walked quickly up the path to the door.
Her face was vivid, and her bearing alert and full of life. Philip met
her at the entrance.
“Is Tom really dying?” was her first question.
“He seems to wish it, and the surgeon gives no encouragement. He is
anxious to see you.”
“Is it known who did this?”
“Nothing as yet. Tom Bendibow seemed to have something on his mind, but
I think he wanders a little. He may speak more explicitly to you.”
“Take me to him,” said Perdita; and when they were at the door of the
room she added: “I will see him alone.” So Philip went away,
thoughtfully.
Perdita closed the door and moved up to the bedside.
Tom’s face was turned toward her: it had the pallor of coming death upon
it, but her propinquity seemed to check the ebbing current of vitality,
and to restore the poor youth in some measure to himself.
“Good morning, Perdita,” he said, with a feeble echo of cheerfulness in
his tone. “I told you yesterday I’d like to die for you, and here I am
at it, you see!”
“Do anything but that, Tom. I want you to live.”
“It can’t be done, now. I don’t believe even your marrying me would keep
me alive now!” said Tom, though with an intonation as if the matter
were open to question. “And it’s just as well, you know. I had no notion
till now how easy dying is. It doesn’t hurt half so much as a licking at
school. I rather like it.”
“I wish I knew who struck you,” said Perdita, with a frown in her eyes.
“Nobody shall ever know that: I’ve made up my mind!” said Tom gravely.
“Do you know, Tom?”
“Yes, I do know. I wanted to tell you that much, though I’ll tell
nothing more. And it’s just as well I’m going, for I couldn’t stand
keeping such a secret long. Don’t try to guess it, Perdita, please.
Whoever he is, he’s got worse than hanging already. Let’s talk about
other things. I found him--your father--and gave him the letter. He
never read it; the night was like pitch. But we spoke about you. We’ve
all of us made a mistake about him; he was true grit, I can tell you.
Oh, here’s a letter for you, that came out of his pocket! I’m glad of
it, for it was an excuse for sending for you.”
Perdita received the packet in her hand, but scarcely glanced at it. She
leaned over the helpless figure of the last of the Bendibows, and
stroked the hair on his forehead with a touch as light and soothing as
the waft of a breeze. “My dear, dear Tom,” she said, “I wish I could
have made you happy. I am not happy myself.”
“You do make me happy: and if ... I say, Perdita....”
“What, dear?”
“Do you remember when I left you yesterday I couldn’t kiss your hand,
because I felt ... I’d better not. But now, you know....”
“You shall kiss my lips, dear, if you care to,” said Perdita, bending
her lovely face near him.
“Oh.... But not yet, Perdita; not quite yet. Because I should like that
to be the last thing ... the very last of all, you know. You go on and
read your letter, and let me hold your hand; and when I’m ready I’ll
press it, so: and then ... will you?”
“Yes; anything you like, dear,” she answered.
She broke the seal of the packet. It contained a second inclosure, also
sealed. But there was also a loose fold of paper, on which was written
the following:
“MY DEAR DAUGHTER: This will come to you when I am no more. It
contains the explanation of the Past: why I left you; what manner
of man I, your father, was. This information is comprised in
letters written by myself and others twenty years ago. I have kept
them by me ever since as a measure of defense against possible
injury. After I am dead they will no longer serve this use, and I
do not require you to peruse them. You may, if you see fit, burn
them unread; but, if you feel a curiosity as to your father’s real
fate and character, I do not forbid you to read them. Act herein
according to your own inclination and judgment, and I shall be
content. But I request you in no case to act against any other
person on the authority of what is contained here. What is past in
our lives may be used to increase wisdom and charity, but should
never be made the instrument of revenge.
“My dear daughter, I have loved you heartily all my life. I pray
that God may bless you and make you noble and pure. Your father,
“CHARLES JOHN GRANTLEY.”
After reading and re-reading this letter, Perdita sat for some time lost
in thought. Should she open the other packet? Might it not be wiser to
burn it?
Her hand had been lying in Tom’s meanwhile, though she had almost
forgotten it. On a sudden she felt a slight pressure; very slight, but
it made her turn quickly and look at him. It was easy to read the
tidings of that face; pinched, pallid, lacking in beauty and dignity;
but the face of a man who loved her and who was at the point of death.
She put her mouth to his and kissed him. His lips just responded and no
more.
A carriage drove rapidly up to the gate and Sir Francis Bendibow’s
footman rapped loudly on the door.