"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."

CHAPTER 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."

CHAPTER 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."

CHAPTER 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!

CHAPTER 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.

CHAPTER 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."

CHAPTER 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.

CHAPTER 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."

CHAPTER 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."