Then I knew
That I was saved. I never met
His face before, but, at first view,
I felt quite sure that God had set
Himself to Satan: who would spend
A minute's mistrust on the end?
_Count Gismond._
"It is an infamous falsehood!"
Every one turned in the direction of the speaker. Elsa, who had sunk on
the ground, clinging to Henry Fowler's knees, made a sudden movement,
and held out her hands.
It is very seldom, in our prosaic century, that a man first meets a
woman in such circumstances--first sees her with all the restraints of
conventionality stripped clean away--with helpless, appealing anguish
written in her eyes.
To Percivale it seemed as if the whole scene dated back for about six
centuries, as though he were a knight-errant, one of Arthur's knights,
coming suddenly upon a distressed maiden, who claimed his help as her
divine right. A long dreadful moment had elapsed between Mrs. Orton's
accusation and his reply, a moment which he had expected would have been
seized either by Mr. Fowler or the young man who stood by.
But no. Both were silent, for the same fatal reason. They both thought
it possible, knowing what provocation had been Elsa's, that, in a moment
of passion, she had struck blindly. But the sound of the stranger's
frank, fearless tones seemed, for no reason at all, to make Henry feel
ashamed of himself. He stooped to Elsa and lifted her to her feet.
"Take courage, my child, tell the truth," he said, tenderly.
Mrs. Orton and Mr. Percivale stood facing each other.
"May I ask by what right you are meddling in this affair, sir?" asked
Ottilie, with studied insolence. "What do you know of the matter? How
can you possibly presume to give an opinion? If I might venture to make
a suggestion to so grand a gentleman, it would be that you return to
your vessel, and continue that cruise which you so charitably
interrupted to bring us this awful intelligence."
Percivale never moved his large, calm eyes from her face; but, slowly
removing his cap from his bright head, made her a graceful bow.
"With all possible aversion to disobeying a lady's commands, madam, I
must decline to take your thoughtful suggestion," he said, courteously.
"I have just told you, in hasty words which were the result of a
moment's indignation, that I believe the statement you just now made to
be false. Whilst apologising for the manner in which I expressed myself,
I beg to say that I meant every word I said; and you will thus see that
I have rendered it impossible for me to leave this place, until it is
proved that I am right and you are wrong."
She laughed insultingly, she was too excited to know exactly what she
said or did.
"You will have to stay a long time," said she, with a sneer. "Why, look
at Elaine Brabourne! Look at her cowering there! Doesn't her attitude
speak for itself? Do you wish to be better acquainted with the
situation? Will it satisfy you to be told that a fortune of eighty
thousand pounds comes to this girl on her brother's death, and that it
is only a week since she was made aware of the fact? And if I say
further that she wants to marry a beggarly artist, and that only my
little Godfrey's frail life stood between----"
"Ottilie, Ottilie, hold your tongue, my dear girl," said Frederick,
nervously. "You are overwrought, you must take some rest, and leave me
to search out this affair."
"Leave you!" She wrenched herself away scornfully. "Leave _you_ to do
it? Why, you could be made to say black was white in ten minutes by
anyone who would discuss the question with you. Well"--to
Percivale--"are you still mad enough to say that the matter admits of a
doubt?"
The perfect quiet of his answer was a most complete contrast to her
violence.
"It is unfortunate," he said, "that the consideration of the same
circumstances should lead us to diametrically opposite conclusions; but
so it is. You consider that the young lady's present appearance and
attitude argues guilt; to me it strongly indicates innocence. This shows
how necessary it is that I should have proof of the truth of my view,
which proof I shall immediately take steps to find."
Henry Fowler roused himself; his face seemed to have grown ten years
older during the last half-hour.
"I am grateful to you, sir," he said to Percivale, with a piteous
humility. "Elsa, my darling, you must go home at once."
Raising her lovely head from his shoulder, she stood upright, for the
first time since her accusation. She looked straight at the stranger,
holding out her hands.
"It is false--every word they said about me," she faltered. "I could
tell you----" here her voice broke.
Holding his hat in his left hand, he grasped both her small hands in his
right, and, bending low, kissed them respectfully.
"I want no assurances," he said. "I do not even want you to tell me of
your innocence. I know it; and all these people, who have heard you
falsely accused, shall hear justice done if God grant me life and
strength to do it." He smiled for the first time--a quiet, grave smile
which irradiated all his face. "I do not even know your name," he said;
"but I know that you are innocent."
Miss Charlotte, white and subdued, came up and took the girl's hand.
Elsa moved slightly, as if she were dreaming, and then smiled back into
Percivale's eyes, a smile of perfect trust, as though an angel had
appeared to champion her.
It was her only leave-taking: she never spoke; but, turning, walked
through the assembled peasants with a mien as dignified, as consciously
noble, as that of Marie-Antoinette at her trial.
"They can take our fly--I am going along the cliffs to find my boy,"
said Mrs. Orton, with a burst of tears.
Her husband and Claud followed the three ladies to the carriage. Henry
Fowler was left face to face with the stranger.
"God help us," he said, brokenly. "What is to be done?"
"The first thing," said Percivale, quietly, "is to decide whether the
boy found by my crew is the brother of Miss--Miss----"
"Brabourne,--true. But he is only her half-brother."
"The next thing will be to prove----"
"It is hopeless," cried Henry, helplessly, as they moved away from the
crowd together. "You don't know, as I do, the weight of evidence against
her. You do not--pardon me--understand the circumstances."
"No. For my enlightenment I must apply first to you. As the matter seems
to be a family one, and as I am an utter stranger, I shall consider you
fully justified if you decline to afford me any help at all. But I must
warn you that, if I cannot get information from you, I shall apply for
it elsewhere. It will take longer; but I have pledged my word."
Henry surveyed him with an interest bordering on admiration.
"I shall tell you anything you ask," he said. "Our first meeting has
been too far beyond the limits of conventionalities for us to be bound
by any rules. God bless you for your unhesitating defence of my poor
little girl. I was too crushed--I knew too much to be able to speak
promptly, as you did; and I terribly fear that when you have heard all I
can tell you, though you may not waver in your belief in her, you will
think the case against her looks very grave."
They paused, and turned to watch Mr. and Mrs. Orton, and Claud, who were
approaching. Mr. Percivale called to one of the crew of the _Swan_ to
come ashore and lead the way; and after the party had been yet further
augmented by the Edge Valley policeman, they set forth towards the
cliffs.
Ottilie hurried on first, sweeping her husband in her train. Claud, Mr.
Fowler, and Percivale walked more slowly, and as they went, the latter
was put in full possession of the facts of the case, so far as they
could be known.
He disagreed entirely with the inference that Elsa's odd conduct of the
preceding day, and seeming uncertainty as to where she had parted from
her brother, was a sign of guilt.
"We cannot," he urged, "any of us dwell for a moment on such a
hypothesis as that it was a murder in cold blood. The next conclusion,
then, would be, a blow struck in a fit of passion, unintentionally
causing death. Now, consider probabilities for a moment. In such a case,
would it not be the only impulse of any girl, terrified by the
unexpected result of her anger, to rush for help? Miss Brabourne has
never seen death--she would think of a swoon from loss of blood as the
worst possible contingency, she would have hurried home, she would have
told the first wayfarer she met, she would have been so agitated as to
render concealment impossible. Besides, the poor boy's clothes were
saturated with blood; how could she have lifted him--how could she have
scooped any sort of hole without her clothes bearing such evident traces
of it?"
"The front of her dress was very dirty," said Claud, reluctantly. "You
know I always notice that sort of thing. No rain had fallen then, so it
was not mud; but it was chalk, I am certain."
"You have not watched Elsa, Mr. Percivale, as I have done," said Henry,
sadly. "You are ignorant of her character, and her bringing-up. She has
never known what sympathy meant. Every trivial offence has been treated
as a crime. Her childhood was one long atmosphere of punishment. The
Misses Willoughby are good women, but they have not understood how to
bring her up--repression, authority, decorum, those are their ideas. If
ever Elsa laughed, she laughed alone; if she suffered, it was in secret.
She is reserved by nature, and this training has made her far more so.
Were she to fall into any grievous trouble, such as this, for instance,"
pausing a moment, he then added firmly, "I must confess that I think her
first, second, and third impulse would be to conceal it."
Percivale made no reply.
"Her temper, too--she has never been taught to govern it," went on
Henry, sadly; "and it is very violent. Add to this the provocation she
has had----"
"Have you," asked Claud, suddenly, "have you mentioned to anyone the
book we found on the cliff last night?"
Henry made a gesture of despair.
"I had forgotten that," he said, miserably. "But it is another strong
piece of evidence."
Claud explained to Percivale.
"Miss Brabourne told us that she had not been on the cliffs yesterday.
As we walked home, we found a favorite book of hers lying out in the
rain--a book which only some very unforeseen agitation would induce her
to part with."
"Of course we could suppress that evidence at the inquest," was the
immoral suggestion of the Justice of the Peace.
"It will not be necessary," tranquilly replied their companion. "I shall
know the truth by then."
They were out on the cliffs by this time, and presently became aware, by
the halting of the sailors in front, that the fatal spot was reached.
They saw Mrs. Orton cast herself on the ground in the theatrical way
which seemed habitual to her, and saw her husband's face turn greenish
white as he averted it from the little corpse over which she bent so
vehemently. Walking forward, they too stood beside the dead boy.
Every feeling of animosity, of dislike, which Henry Fowler might have
cherished, melted before the pitiful sight. It was through a mist of
tears, which came near to falling, that he gazed down on the child's
white face.
It was quite composed and the eyes half shut. A certain drawn look about
the mouth, and the added placidity and beauty of death gave to it a
likeness to Elsa which had not seemed to exist in life. It was somewhat
horrible to contemplate. In her moments of dumb obstinacy Henry had seen
her look so.
He turned away his face for a moment, looking out over the busy,
tossing, sunlit sea, where the shadows of the clouds chased each other
in soft blurs of shadow, with green and russet shoals between.
The fresh quick air swept over the chalk, laden with brine. A warm odor
of thyme was in its breath, and there lay Godfrey, with stiff limbs and
still heart, in a silence only broken by his aunt's sobs, and the
whistling of the wind among the rocks.
"How do you know that death was caused by a blow?" asked Mr. Percivale
of the sailors, at length.
Bergman explained, in his German accents, that they had made an
examination of the body to see if it could be identified.
"It is not lying now as we found it, sir. It was bent together--we
straightened the limbs. In pulling down the shirt to see if there was a
name marked on it, we discovered a livid bruise."
Mr. Percivale knelt down by the dead boy, and, passing an arm gently
beneath him, raised the lifeless head till it lay against his shoulder,
and exposed the bruise in question.
Mrs. Orton, who had been silent till now, uttered an inarticulate cry of
rage:
"Look there!" she gasped.
"Is anyone here ignorant enough to assert that this scar is the result
of the blow of a girl's fist?" demanded Percivale, raising his head. "It
has been done with a stick--a heavy stick. See, it has grazed the skin
right across; you can follow the direction of it. Does Miss Brabourne
carry a weapon of that description?"
"She had no stick when we met her in the lane yesterday," said Claud,
eagerly.
"Idiot! As if she could not throw away a dozen on her way home from
here," passionately broke in Mrs. Orton.
"Ottilie," said her husband, in a low, warning voice, "take care."
"Take care! Too late to say that now," she cried. "Why didn't I take
care sooner--care of my poor little boy? Why did I ever send him to
this den of assassins? But, thank Heaven, we are in England, and shall
have justice--a life for a life," she concluded, wildly.
"We are willing to make all possible allowances for Mrs. Orton's
feelings," said Percivale, with great gentleness. "I must agree with her
that it is much to be regretted that she trusted such a delicate child,
and one on whose life so much depended, out of her own personal care."
"What do you mean, sir?" cried Ottilie, suddenly.
"What do I mean? Merely what I said, madam," he answered, astonished.
"You are trying to make insinuations," she cried, too excited to think
of prudence. "What depended on Godfrey's life? Do you suppose I am
thinking of the paltry few hundreds a year we received for taking care
of him?"
"Madam," he replied at once, "an hour since you did not scruple openly,
in the presence of numbers of people, to accuse Miss Brabourne of
murdering her brother to obtain his fortune; I am therefore not
surprised that you imagine others may be ready to supply a base motive
for your grief at his death. Believe me, however, my imagination is not
so vivid as yours; what you suggest had not occurred to me until you
mentioned it."
She had no answer to make; she was choking with rage; the stranger was a
match for her. Her husband stood by, reflecting for the first time on
the effect which Godfrey's death must have for him. The few hundreds of
which his wife spoke so contemptuously had nevertheless been
particularly acceptable to people who habitually lived far beyond their
income, and were always in want of ready money. But beyond this--had
Godfrey lived to attain his majority, the whole of his fortune would
have been practically in his uncle's hands. He could have invested it,
turned it over, betted with it, speculated with it; and the boy would
have made a will immensely in his favor. He had never looked forward to
a long life for the young heir.
Weakly, and viciously inclined, he had always imagined that four or
five years of indulgence would "finish" him; but that he should live to
be twenty-one was all-important. Now the whole of that untouched fortune
was Elsa's, unless this murder could be proved against her. Mr. Orton
began to divine the more rapid workings of his wife's mind. In the event
of both children dying unmarried, the money was willed, half to
Frederick, half to the Misses Willoughby.
Never had Mr. and Mrs. Orton been in more urgent, more terrible need
than at this moment. The year had been a consistently unlucky one. Their
Ascot losses had merely been the beginning of sorrows.
The hurried flight from Homburg had really been due, not to poor
Godfrey's complaints of his dulness, but to an inability to remain
longer; and they had arrived at Edge with the full intention of
partaking of the Misses Willoughby's hospitality as long as they could
manage to endure the slowness of existence at their expense.
And now here was this dire calamity befallen them! Frederick smarted
under a righteous sense of injury. He thought Fate had a special spite
against him. What was a man to do if everything would persist in being a
failure? Every single road towards paying his debts seemed to be
inexorably closed. This was most certainly his misfortune and not his
fault; he was perfectly willing to pay, if some one would give him the
money to do it with; and, as nobody would, it followed that he was most
deeply to be pitied.