HOW THE STORY ENDED
"When I reached the house luck unexpectedly favoured me. My maid, whom I
had been obliged to take, up to a certain point, into my confidence, and
who, after the manner of her class, had acquired more than a sympathetic
inkling of the way my people had been treating me, was waiting up on the
look-out for my return, and quietly let me in. She told me that no one
but herself had any idea that I was out of the house; she had led them to
believe that I had gone to bed early with a headache, which considering
the stress of the past two days was plausible enough. So I got back
safely to my room which it had not seemed likely. I should ever enter
again, and next morning I could see that my over-night's adventure was
quite unsuspected.
"Naturally I anticipated a continuation of my stepmother's attempts to
force me into the marriage she had in view, and it rather puzzled me to
understand why they seemed to be dropped. The prospective bridegroom did
not come to the house, and, stranger still, his name was not mentioned.
The explanation was soon forthcoming. I did not see the newspapers just
then, in fact I have an idea they were purposely kept away from me; but
some people who were calling mentioned a big society-scandal coming on in
the Law Courts in which this precious peer was desperately involved. The
relief with which I heard the news was unbounded considering all it meant
for me, but my joy was turned to bitter grief by the news that Archie
Jolliffe after lying unconscious for nearly a week had died of his
injury. I had contrived, during the days he lingered, to make secret
inquiries as to his condition, and so knew that what would have seemed my
heartless absence from his bedside had made no difference to him."
"Poor fellow," Gifford commented.
"It was unspeakably sad," Edith Morriston continued, "but it seemed like
fate, seeing how things rearranged themselves afterwards. Certainly if I
was to blame for his piteous end, I was to pay the penalty. For no sooner
was I out of one trouble than another was ready for me.
"After this long preface, I come to the most unpleasant episode of
Henshaw and his persecution.
"On the day I heard of poor Archie's death I had gone out for a walk
possessed by a great longing to be alone in my grief. On my way home by a
woodland path leading to the Hall grounds, I, to my great annoyance, came
upon Clement Henshaw. I can't say I was altogether surprised, for I had
caught a glimpse of some one very like him in the village a day or two
before. Of that I had thought little, merely taking care that the man did
not see me. But now there was no avoiding him, and I had more than a
suspicion that he had been lying in wait for me. At the risk of appearing
horribly ungrateful I made up my mind on the instant to try to pass him
with a bow, but need not say that was utterly futile. He stood directly
in my path, and raised his hat.
"'I am sorry to be the bearer of sad news, Miss Morriston,' he said.
"So he had found out my name, assuredly not by accident, and the fact
angered me, perhaps unreasonably.
"'I have heard of Mr. Jolliffe's death,' I replied coldly, 'if that is
what you have to tell me.'
"'I thought,' he rejoined, with assurance, 'it quite possible you might
not have heard so soon.'
"From his manner I began to see that the man was likely to become an
annoyance if he were not snubbed, but soon discovered that it was not so
easily done. I thanked him coldly enough, and tried to dismiss him, but
he insisted on walking with me. What could I do? He seemed determined to
force his company upon me and I could not run away. He tried to get out
of me how I had come to be driving with Archie that night, and although I
evaded his questions it was plain that he had a shrewd inkling of the
reason. Not to weary you with a long account of this disagreeable and
humiliating affair, I will only say that from that day forward I became
subject to a determined system of persecution from Clement Henshaw. He
waylaid me on every possible occasion, holding over me a covert threat of
the exposure of my escapade, till at last I was absolutely afraid to go
outside the house for fear of meeting him."
"He wanted to marry you?" Gifford suggested.
Edith Morriston gave a little shudder. "I suppose so. He was always
making love to me, and was quite impervious to snubbing. When, in
consequence of my keeping within bounds of the house and garden, he could
not see me, he took to writing, and kept me in terror lest one of his
letters should fall into my stepmother's hands. I wished afterwards that
I had taken a bold line, confessed what had happened, and defied the
consequences. I think it was the fear of being disgraced in my brother's
eyes on his return which kept me from doing so.
"In the midst of my worry my father fell into a state of bad health and
we took him down to the Devonshire coast for change of air. Needless to
say Henshaw soon found out our retreat, and to my dismay appeared there.
His persecution went on with renewed vigour and I, having less chance
there of escaping it, was nearly at my wits' end, when fate curiously
enough again intervened. We were caught in a storm on a long country
excursion, my stepmother got a severe chill and within a week was dead.
We returned to Haynthorpe, my father being now in a very precarious state
of health, Henshaw followed us with a pertinacity that was almost
devilish. But I now ventured to defy his threats of exposing me; he
strenuously denied any such intention and declared himself madly in love
with me. I had now taken courage enough to reject him uncompromisingly; I
forbade him ever to speak to me again, and, as after that he disappeared
from the village, began to flatter myself that I had got rid of him.
"My father grew worse now from day to day; he lingered through the summer
and with the chill days of autumn the end came. Dick hurried home and
arrived just in time to see him alive. He left a much larger fortune than
we had supposed him to possess, and Dick, always fond of sport, was soon
in negotiation for this place which had come into the market.
"No sooner had we settled in here than, to my horror, Clement Henshaw
began to renew his persecution. He had evidently heard that I had
inherited a good share of my father's fortune, and was worth making
another effort for. He recommenced to write to me, he came down secretly
and waylaid me, and when everything else failed he resorted to threats,
not veiled as before, but open and unmistakable. He vowed that if I
persisted in refusing to marry him he would take good care that I should
never marry any one else. He held, he said, my reputation in his hand; he
hoped he should never have to use his power, but I ought to consider the
state of his feelings towards me and not goad him to desperate measures.
In short he took all the joy out of my life, for I had come from mere
dislike simply to loathe the man who could show himself such a dastardly
cad. And the worst of it was that I saw no way out of it. Dick is a good
fellow and very fond of me, but, although you might not think it, he is
almost absurdly proud of the family name and its unsmirched record. And
if I had confided in him, and he had horsewhipped Henshaw, what good
could that have done? It would simply have infuriated the man, who would
have at once made public my escapade, and few people would have given me
the credit of its being innocent. Dick had just sunk a large part of his
fortune in this place, he had taken over the hounds and was certain of
becoming popular. All that would be nullified and upset if this man,
Henshaw, chose to let loose his tongue. For how could I even pretend to
deny his story? At the very least the truth would mean a hateful
reflection on my dead father, and the whole thing would have led to an
intolerable scandal. Yet it seemed as though this could be avoided in no
other way but by marrying my persecutor, a man whom I had reason to hate
and who had shown himself to be such an unchivalrous bully. About this
time--that is shortly before the Hunt Ball--rumours had got about the
neighbourhood that I was going to marry Lord Painswick. He was certainly
paying me a good deal of attention, and I fancy Dick would have liked
the match, but I could not bring myself to care for Painswick, and indeed
his courtship only added to my other worries.
"But Clement Henshaw heard the rumour and it had naturally the effect of
rousing his wretched pursuit of me to greater activity. He vowed with
brutal vehemence that I should not marry Painswick, and declared that
when our engagement was announced he would tell him the story he had
against me. That in itself did not trouble me much since I had no
intention of marrying Painswick; still the man's relentless persecution
was getting more than I could bear.
"I now come to the night of the Hunt Ball. For some days previously I had
seen or heard nothing of Henshaw, and had even begun to hope that
something might have happened to make the man abandon his line of
conduct. I might have known him better. To my intense annoyance and
dismay I saw him come into the ballroom with all the hateful assurance
that was so familiar to me. I could not well escape, seeing that I was
acting as hostess. For a while he, beyond a formal greeting, let me
alone. But I felt what was surely coming, and it was almost a relief when
he took an opportunity of asking for a dance.
"He must have seen the hate in my eyes as in my hesitation they met his,
for he said with a forced laugh, 'You need not do violence to your
feelings by dancing with me, Miss Morriston, if you don't care to, but
there is something I must say to you. Let us come out of the crowd to
where we shall not be overheard.'
"I had never felt so madly furious with the man as at that moment; and it
was with a reckless desire to tell him in strong language my opinion of
his tactics, to insult him, if that were possible, to declare that I
would die rather than yield to him, that I led the way to the tower. My
desire to get out of the crowd was even greater than his, for a mad hope
possessed me that in some desperate way I might bring our relations to a
final issue.
"We went into the sitting-out room. 'Some one will be coming in here,' he
objected. 'Is there a room upstairs where we can talk?'
"'There is a room up there,' I answered, as steadily as my indignation
would let me, and unheeding the idea of compromising myself I went up the
dark staircase in front of him. Naturally the idea that our stormy
interview was to have a witness would have been the last thing to enter
my mind; it never occurred to me to make sure no one was already in the
room when we entered it.
"You know what happened, Mr. Gifford, so I need not go through that. The
man showed himself the cowardly bully that he was. Somehow up there
alone with him, as at least I thought, in the dark, my courage gave way,
and it was only when the man sought in his vehemence to take hold of me
that anger and disgust cast out fear. It was quite by accident that I
touched and caught up the chisel lying on the window-sill. As the man's
hand sought me it struck the edge of the chisel, and got a wound; that
must have been how the blood came upon my dress. He seized my arm, and
after a struggle wrenched the implement away. But I never struck him
with it, far from giving him his death-blow. The chisel was never in my
hand afterwards. When I rushed for the door in a sudden panic, for,
knowing that I had hurt him, I believed the man in his rage might be
capable of anything, and when in springing after me he stumbled and
fell, the chisel must have been held by him edge upwards, and so pierced
him to his death."
"That, I am certain now," Gifford said, "is what must have happened."
"And you thought I had stabbed him?" the girl said with a
reproachful smile.
"I hardly dare ask you to forgive me for harbouring such a thought," he
replied. "Yet had it been true I, who had been a witness of the man's
vile conduct, could never have blamed you. If ever an act was
justifiable--"
An elongated shadow shot forward on the ground in front of them. Gifford
stopped abruptly, and with an involuntary action his companion clutched
his arm as both looked up expectantly. Next moment Gervase Henshaw stood
before them.