A sudden hush fell upon the group. Each looked at the others aghast. The
general opinion was that Mr. Lepel's fever had returned upon him and
that he was raving. But at least three persons knew or suspected that he
spoke only the truth.
"He's mad--delirious!" said the General angrily. "Take him back to his
room, some of you, and help me to secure the criminal!"
"You had better come here and listen to my story first," said Hubert,
still clutching at the door to steady himself. "Keep the police
down-stairs for five minutes, General, if you please. Neither Westwood
nor I shall escape in that time. Jenkins, drop that gentleman's arm!"
Jenkins relinquished his hold of Westwood's arm with great promptitude.
Cynthia said a few words to him in an undertone which sent him
down-stairs at once. She had heard the front door open and shut, and
believed that the police had come. They, at least, could be detained for
a few minutes--she had no hope of anything more; but she felt that
Hubert's confession should be made to his own relatives first of all.
She ran to his side and gave him her arm to lean upon, conducting him
back to the drawing-room; and thither the others followed her in much
agitation and perturbation of mind. The General was almost foaming at
the mouth with rage; Miss Vane looked utterly blank and stupefied;
Flossy's face was white as snow; Sabina watched the scene with stolid
and sullen curiosity; while Westwood marched into the drawing-room with
the air of a proud man unjustly assailed.
They found Hubert leaning against the mantelpiece. He would not sit
down; but he was not strong enough to stand without support. Cynthia was
clinging to him with her face half hidden on his shoulder; his arm was
clasped about her waist.
"What does this mean?" said the General.
"It means," answered Flossy's quiet voice, "that Hubert is raving, and
that the doctor must be sent for immediately."
"You know better than that, Florence," said her brother. "I speak the
truth, and nothing but the truth. I accuse no one else," he said, with
marked emphasis; "but I wish you all now to know what were the facts. It
was I who met Sydney Vane that day in the fir plantation beside the road
that leads up the hill to Beechfield. We quarrelled, and we agreed to
settle the matter by a duel. We were unequally matched. He had a
revolver and I had this man Westwood's gun, which I found on the ground.
We fired, and Sydney fell."
There was a brief silence. Then a bitter cry escaped from Miss Vane's
lips.
"Oh, Hubert, Hubert," she wailed, "can this be true?"
"God knows that it is true!" answered Hubert; and his face carried
conviction if his words did not.
"It is impossible!" cried the General. "To begin with, if you had
committed this crime--for a duel in the way you mention was a crime and
nothing else--you would never have allowed this man to suffer for it. I
absolutely refuse to believe, sir, that my kinsman is such a base,
cowardly villain! This is a fit of delirium--nothing else!"
"It is simple truth," said Hubert sadly. "That I did not at once
exonerate Andrew Westwood is, to my thinking, the worst part of my
crime. I acknowledge that I--I dared not confess; and I left him to bear
the blame."
"Good heavens, sir, do you tell me that to my face?" thundered the old
man, with uplifted hand. "You are a disgrace to the family! I am glad
that you do not bear my name."
He would perhaps even have struck the younger man if Cynthia had not
twined her arms more closely round Hubert's neck, and made herself for
the moment a defence to him. But Hubert drew himself away.
"Let me go, Cynthia," he said quietly. "You must not come between us.
The General is right, and I am a disgrace to my name. He must do what he
thinks fit."
But the General had turned away, and was walking furiously up and down
the room, too angry and too much overcome for speech. Miss Vane was
sobbing bitterly. Flossy watched her brother's face. She saw that he
was trying not to implicate her. Would she escape? If his silence and
her own could save her, she would be safe. But she had reckoned without
Andrew Westwood.
"I beg pardon, sir," said Cynthia's father, addressing himself to the
General; "but this ain't fair! Mr. Lepel is getting more of the blame
than he deserves. Suppose you let me speak a word for him?"
"You!" said the General, stopping short. "You, who have suffered his
punishment, cannot have much to say for him! If--if this is true," he
went on, with a curious mixture of stiffness and of shame, "we have much
to answer for with respect to you--much to make up----"
"Not so much as maybe you think," said Andrew Westwood. "I was bitter
enough at the time, and I have thought often and often of the words that
I said at the trial--how I cursed the man that brought me to that pass
and all that he held dear. Curses come home to roost, they say. At any
rate, the person who is dearest to him, I believe, is my very own
daughter, whom I myself love better that any one in the whole wide
world; and far be it from me to wish evil to her or to any one that she
loves."
Miss Vane's handkerchief fell to her lap. The General stared at the
speaker open-mouthed. The man's native nobility of soul amazed them
both. Andrew Westwood went on soberly.
"You have not asked Mr. Lepel how he came to fight Mr. Vane, sir. You
might be sure that it wasn't for a poor reason; and there was never
anything considered dishonorable in a fair fight between two armed men."
"That does not do away with the injury to yourself," said the General
grimly. "Such blame as there was ought to have been borne by him and not
by you."
Westwood waved his hand.
"As for injury," he said, "me and Cynthia have agreed to forget about
that. If I'd been at Portland all this time, why, then no doubt I should
feel it worse. But I got away after four years of it, and made my way to
America, and 'struck ile' there. I've done better since then than, ever
I did in my life before; so I have no need to complain. But you haven't
asked him why he fought Mr. Vane, sir."
"Well, why was it?" said the General sternly and grudgingly.
He did not see that his wife suddenly rose from her seat, and with
clasped hands darted a look full of miserable fear and entreaty towards
her brother. But all the others saw, though some of them did not
understand; and Hubert responded to the appeal.
"I cannot tell you," he answered, with his eyes on the ground.
"But I can!" said Westwood. "And Mrs. Vane could, if she chose! Blame
her if you like, sir, for she's known the truth all along as much as Mr.
Hubert's done; and it was to save her that he would not open his lips."
They had tried in vain to stop him--Hubert by angry imperative words,
Flossy by a piteous cry of terror; but Westwood's rough sonorous voice
rose above all other sounds. He paused for a moment, looking at the
General's face of incredulous dismay, at Mrs. Vane's shrinking figure,
and his tones softened a little as he spoke again.
"I don't wish to say more myself than is necessary. Miss Lepel as she
was then and Mr. Sydney Vane were in the habit of meeting each other in
the wood. Many of the village people knew it--it was common talk in
Beechfield. Mr. Lepel found it out and was angry. He told Mr. Vane there
must be no more of it; and then the quarrel followed that Mr. Lepel
speaks about. I don't want to make too much of it"--casting a reluctant
glance at Hubert--"but I think that Mr. Lepel was right in objecting and
in trying to put a stop to it."
It was certain that he had very much softened the facts of the case; but
the General could not have looked more confounded, or Flossy more
overwhelmed, if a great deal more had been said. The veins swelled upon
the old man's forehead, his face grew lividly purple as he strode over
to his wife's side and laid his hand heavily on her shoulder.
"Florence, is this true?" he said.
She sat mute and shrinking in her chair, crushed as if beneath an
invisible weight--her hands clasped, her white face averted. Miss Vane,
watching her eagerly, felt with a thrill of horror that she looked like
a guilty woman.
"Is this true?" the General asked again, giving her a little shake. But
Flossy still sat mute.
Then Miss Vane interposed.
"Let her alone, Richard," she said. "She is overcome--she cannot answer
just now. She will explain everything by-and-by."
"Speak!" cried the General, his eyes blazing with rage. He would have
shaken her again and more violently if Hubert had not interfered.
"You forget, sir, that she is a woman and that she is your wife," he
said. "Whatever may have happened in the past, she has no doubt
regretted what was an imprudence. I was to blame for taking up the
matter too seriously. You know what your brother was; I know my sister.
We must judge them by what we know."
The words were halting and ambiguous; but they produced some effect. The
General fell back, still gazing at his wife; and Flossy, released from
the pressure of his heavy hand, sat up and looked about her with a
strange red light glowing in her eyes. Then, to everybody's horror, she
burst into a fit of wild laughter terrible to hear.
"He says that he knows his sister!" she cried. "Oh, yes--he knows her
well enough! What maudlin stuff will he talk next? 'Imprudence' in
meeting each other in the wood! I tell you that Sydney Vane loved
me--that he was ready to abandon wife and child for me!"
"Florence, have mercy! Stop--stop!" cried Hubert. But his sister would
not stop.
"He was ready to go to the world's end with me, I tell you! We had
arranged to start the next day--we were going to Ceylon, never to come
back again. We meant to be happy because we loved each other. That was
what Hubert found out!" she cried, laughing wildly. "That was what he
tried to stop! That was why he killed Sydney Vane--the man I loved--oh,
Heaven, the man for whom I would have sold my very soul!"
And then the hysteric passion overcame her, and she fell back in a
frenzy of laughter, sobs, and screams, painful alike to see and hear.
Cynthia, Miss Vane, and Sabina went to her aid. Between them they
carried her into another room, whence her terrible screams resounded at
intervals through the house; and the three men were left alone. The
General sank down upon a chair near the table and hid his face in his
hands. He was breathing heavily, and every now and then a moan escaped
him in the silence of the room.
"Oh, Heaven," he said, "what have I done that this should come upon me
all at once? What have I done?"
Hubert, exhausted by the excitement that he had gone through, staggered
to the sofa and threw himself down upon it. Westwood remained in his
former position, grasping the back of a chair and looking from one to
the other, as if he were anxious to help, but knew not how to offer any
assistance. In the silence that prevailed, the sound of heavy footsteps
could be distinctly heard upon the stairs. The police had arrived at
last.
Almost immediately Cynthia and Sabina Meldreth returned to the room.
They had left Miss Vane with Florence, who seemed more manageable when
her aunt touched her and spoke to her than with anybody else. And, as
soon as they came in, Cynthia went up to Hubert, kissed him, and sat
down beside him, holding her hand in his. But Sabina Meldreth looked
fixedly at the General.
"Don't take on, sir!" she said, going up to the table and speaking
rather softly. "She ain't worth it--she's a reg'lar bad 'un, she is!"
"Woman, how dare you!" cried the poor General, starting from his seat,
and turning his discolored face, his bloodshot eyes, angrily upon the
intruder. "I do not believe a word--a word you say! My wife is--is above
reproach--my wife--the mother of my boy!" There was a curious little
hitch in his speech, as if he could not say the words he wanted to say.
"The mother of your boy!" cried Sabina, with intense scorn. "Much mother
she was to him! Look here, sir! I'll own the truth now, and perhaps it
will soften things a bit to you. The boy was not Mrs. Vane's at all--he
was mine."
Everyone started. The General uttered an inarticulate cry of rage; then
his head dropped on his hands, and he did not speak again. In vain
Hubert tried to silence the speaker.
"Keep your story for another time," he said. "There is no need to make
such accusations now. You cannot substantiate them, and you are only
paining General Vane."
"You'd better ask Miss Enid, sir," said the woman half defiantly, half
desperately. "She knows. It troubled her a good bit as to whether she
ought to tell the General or not; but I believe she decided not. Mrs.
Vane thought that if she married you you would keep her quiet. My mother
confessed it all to Miss Enid on her death-bed. I expect the Rector
knows too by this time. He was always trying to get it out of me."
"Can this be true?" said Hubert, half to himself and half to the
General. But the old man, with his head bowed upon the table, did not
seem to hear.
"It's true as Gospel!" said Sabina. "And I don't much care who knows it
now. My prospects are all gone, as far as I can make out. This gentleman
here is not the murderer, it seems, and so I sha'n't get the three
hundred pounds for finding him; and Mrs. Vane's payments will be stopped
now, no doubt. She was giving me two hundred a year. I'll take less if
you like to give me something, sir, for going away and holding my
tongue. When Mrs. Vane knew about--about me, and mother was in trouble
over my misfortune, it was just at the time when your own little baby
was born, sir. It was a boy too, and it died when it was only twelve
hours old. And Mrs. Vane spoke to mother about my baby that was just the
same age; and mother and I both thought it would be a good thing if my
little boy could be made the heir of Beechfield Hall. For in that way
Mrs. Vane's position would be better, and she would be able to pay
mother and me a good round sum. And so we settled it. But now poor
little Dick's dead and gone, and all Mrs. Vane's schemes have come to
naught. Mother always said that there would be a bad ending to the
affair."
"You seem to have forgotten, young woman," said Andrew Westwood sternly,
"that there is a God above us all who takes care of the innocent and
punishes the guilty."
"I'd not forgotten it," said Sabina, confronting him with an unabashed
air; "but I hadn't believed it till now."
At that moment an inspector in plain clothes, who had been hastily
fetched from Scotland Yard, made his way into the room and inquired what
he was wanted for.
"We shall both have to go with you, I think," said Hubert firmly,
glancing at Westwood as he rose. "I presume that you cannot liberate Mr.
Westwood at once."
"What--Westwood the convict? I should think not!" said the inspector
briskly; and he made a sign to his men, who stepped forward with a pair
of handcuffs.
"I shall come quietly enough," said Westwood, with a smile. "You needn't
trouble yourself about the bracelets."
"Ah, I dare say!" said the inspector. "You've been rather a slippery
customer hitherto, I believe. We'll make sure of you now."
But Hubert interfered.
"No, no," he said--"Westwood is innocent! It was I--I who committed the
crime for which he was condemned. Put the handcuffs on me, if on any
one, but not on that innocent man!"
"Well, this is a rum start!" said the inspector to himself. "You don't
look very fit to run away, sir; we won't trouble you," he said to Hubert
with a friendly smile. "Head wrong, I suppose?" he asked of Cynthia, in
a stage-aside.
They had some trouble in convincing him that Hubert meant to be taken to
the station with Westwood; and, even when he had heard the story, it was
plain that he did not quite believe it. However, he consented to let
Hubert accompany him and then he remarked that, as it was getting late,
it would be better if his companions started at once.
"And the old gentleman?" he said, looking at the General with interest.
"Is he coming too?"
Hubert hesitated. Then he went up to the old man and touched him gently
on the shoulder.
"Will you not look at me, sir?" he said. "Have you nothing to say to me
before I go?"
No, he had nothing to say; he would never say anything again. The
General was dead.