WHEN Vincent was set down, in the darkness and silence of the Sunday
night, in the Dover railway station, it was some minutes before he could
collect himself, and understand where he was. He had fallen into a
feverish sleep during the journey, little as he could have supposed
himself capable of sleeping at such a moment; but he was young, and
unused to the ceaseless fatigue and excitement and total want of rest
which had obliterated for him the natural distinction between night and
day. While his fellow-passengers trooped away with all the bustle and
excitement of travellers, who had then only completed the first stage of
their journey, to the pier and the night-boat which waited to carry them
across the Channel, he, whom various porters and attendants stimulated
with adjurations to make haste, and warnings that he would be late,
stumbled out into the dark, collecting his faculties, and trying to
think what he must do first. He was giddy and feverish with that
insufficient snatch of sleep which had lost him the time in which he
might have been laying his plans. But when he got outside the station
into the unknown place, into the gloom of night, and heard the "moanings
of the homeless sea" sounding sullen against the unseen shore,
recollection and energy came back to him. That very sound, booming
through the darkness, inspired Susan's brother. He thought of her
forlorn, desolate, succourless, a weary wanderer seeking rest and
finding none, shrouded up in darkness and danger, lost in the mysterious
gloom--such was the sentiment of the night. The minister went on rapidly
to the town, with its restless lights, through which everybody seemed to
be passing towards the unseen sea. Should he follow with the stream, or
should he stop at the hotel of which Mary had told him? He quickened his
steps as he reached the open door of the inn, and plunged in to make
rapid inquiries. Nobody knew either Colonel Mildmay or Mr. Fordham, but
the party which he described had been there, and had left only an hour
before--not for the boat, the attendants thought: but the boat was
ringing its bells through the night; and if by chance they had gone
there, no time was to be lost. He rushed from the inn as fast as his
wearied limbs could carry him to the pier, where the lookers-on stood
aside out of his way, recognising his excitement. He went through among
all the passengers with the rough captain and his lantern, having
briefly explained to that functionary what he wanted. But they were not
there. When he had satisfied himself, he left the boat, and stood with
suspicious reluctance, unwilling to lose sight of it, on the pier, and
watched the coloured lamp on the mast of the steamer gradually gliding
through the darkness out of the sheltering harbour, till it began to
plunge and heave on the unseen sea. Then he took his troubled way back
to the inn. It was very late, and all the population seemed to
disappear out of the streets, with the little attendant crowd which had
been waiting upon the last event of the day, the departure of this
night-boat. The inn itself looked half asleep, and was half closed when
he returned. No further arrivals, no incidents in the shape of trains or
boats, were to be looked for till the morning. It was the first time
that Arthur had encountered this compulsory pause of night. He struggled
against it for some time, questioning the waiters, and gleaning some
particulars which did but increase his anxiety, but the waiters
themselves were sleepy, and all the world around had closed itself up in
utter quietness and rest.
Vincent went out again, but he could get admittance nowhere, save at the
office of the police, where he went in desperation to ask the services
of some one skilful in such inquiries. He found this not without
difficulty, but nothing was to be done that night. He had to go back to
the hotel to consent to the necessary rest for which, notwithstanding
the fever of his mind, his worn-out frame craved. Weariness, indeed, had
gradually overpowered and absorbed him--stronger than anxiety, more
urgent even than his love for his sister, was this present and
over-powering exhaustion which began to occupy all his thoughts. Though
he struggled with it he could not but feel in his heart, with a certain
guilt, how this overwhelming desire to throw himself down somewhere and
rest possessed him to the exclusion of more worthy impulses. After he
had ordered some refreshment, of which, indeed, he stood as much in
need, the young man threw himself upon a sofa, and there fell into a
deep sleep of utter weariness. He could do no more. He slept as youth
must sleep, were it on the edge of a precipice, were it at the deathbed
of its dearest friend. The very waiter who brought in the food he had
ordered, took pity upon the worn-out slumberer. The man heaped up the
fire, and covered Vincent with his railway wrapper before he withdrew;
and it was not till morning that the young minister awoke out of that
profound slumber--awoke chilled and aching, and confused, in the dark,
with the untouched meal still on the table, the candle flaming in its
socket, and he himself totally unaware how long he had been asleep.
In the interval that elapsed before the first sounds of awakening life
in the house, he had time to collect himself, and when he went
down-stairs to the coffee-room, still in the dark of the winter morning,
had regained more command of himself and his powers than at any previous
moment since this misery came upon him.
But it was still so early that the fire was scarcely alight, and he had
to wait for the cup of coffee he ordered. Vincent went to the window, as
was natural--a large window looking into the dark street, faintly
lighted with lamps, which somehow burned less bright in the chill of the
morning than they did at night. Looking out vaguely, yet with the
vigilance of anxiety, without being able to discriminate anything except
here and there a dark figure passing in the darkness, the young man
waited with his face close to the uncurtained panes. There was nothing
in that blank undecipherable street to interest him, and yet he gazed
out mechanically in the anxious pre-occupation of his mind. When the
attendant came into the room with his coffee, his attention was
temporarily distracted. He got up to go to the table where breakfast was
being arranged for him; but, as he rose, his eye was caught by the gleam
of a passing face, ghastly white in the darkness, looking in. Before he
could draw breath, the apparition was gone. Without saying a word to the
astonished waiter, who began to think him mad, Vincent dashed out after
this vanished vision. Two female figures were visible a little further
on in the gloomy street. He pursued them with breathless, noiseless
speed, and grasped at the arm of a terrified woman who, gasping with
sudden fright, turned upon him a face he had never seen before. Nobody
else was to be seen in any direction. The minister made an inarticulate
apology, and turned back to search for some opening or passage through
which that face could have disappeared. It was no fancy of his that
painted that pale countenance upon the darkness--the same face that he
had seen in the railway carriage following Colonel Mildmay--the same,
but with a new look of horror and desperation in its eyes. The young man
investigated, as he thought, every doorway, every corner which could
have given shelter to such a fugitive. He returned, excited and
agitated, to the inn, to ask if there was any passage through the line
of houses which he might have overlooked, but could hear of none. It was
on his lips to ask if they had heard of any crime or accident during
the night--any--murder; but prudence restrained the incautious
utterance. He went out with the wildest agitation in his mind; something
had happened. Mrs. Hilyard's face, gleaming in unconscious at the
window, betrayed to him much more clearly than any confession, that some
new and awful event had been added to that woman's strange experiences
of life; and in the darkness he had been aware of some shadowy figure
beside her, accompanying her ghostly way. Perhaps her child--perhaps--could
it be Susan? The young man went out, not knowing where he went, into the
darkness of the winter morning; he hastened to the pier, to the railway,
startling the half-awakened people about, but nowhere could either see
or hear of her. Could it be a delusion? but the wildest imagination in
the world could not have inspired with such a new horror of expression
the eyes that gleamed out of that ghastly pale face.
The grey daylight had just got final mastery of the dark, when Vincent
met the man whom he had employed the night before to help him in his
inquiries. This agent, more skilful than the minister, had found out the
cab-driver who conveyed the party from the hotel on the previous
evening. Colonel Mildmay seemed to have made the precipitate retreat of
a man suddenly startled and frightened out of his plans. The cabman gave
a detailed account of the strange conduct of his fare. "We was a-going
to the pier to the Ostend steamer, sir," said the driver, "when I was
pulled up sharp, and got my directions to turn about sudden and go to
the railway. There was a lady as I see keeping her eye on us,
a-standing by the pier gates with her bag in her hand; but it was dark,
and she couldn't have seen who was in the cab. The same occurred, sir,
as we came up to the railway. I don't say as I see the lady there--but
sure enough I was pulled up second time, and ordered out along the
Folkestone road, a matter o' three mile or so. Then I was turned back
again; and the end of all was that I took them to the Swan in Walmer
Street, as is a place where there's well-aired beds and chops, and that
style o' thing. That ain't the style of thing as is done in the Lord
Warden. To take a fare, and partic'lar along with ladies, from the one
of them places to the other, looks queer--that's what it does; it looks
very queer, sir. It made me take a deal of notice. Gen'leman tall,
light-haired, hook nose, awful swell to look at. Ladies, one on 'em
pretty tall, one little; pretty creatures, but dreadful skeared as far
as I could see. The little one had a blue veil. That's them, sir;
thought as I was right."
"And you can take me to the place?" said Vincent.
"Jump into my cab, and I'll have you there, sir, in five minutes," said
the man.
The minister sprang into the cab alone. He no longer wanted the aid of a
stranger; the darkling streets seemed to glide past him, and not he past
them, as he dashed on at last to find his sister, this time there could
be no mistake. After they had threaded several obscure streets, the
driver came to a sudden pause, got off his box, and touched his hat
with an alarmed look. "I can't drive up to the very 'ouse, sir--there's
a crowd around the door; they do say as something has happened. I hope
it ain't to any of your friends?" said the cabman. Vincent flung the
door open as he was speaking, and rushed out. A horrified and excited
crowd was besieging the door of the shabby public-house to which he had
been brought. Seeing his hasty arrival, and the passionate anxiety in
his eyes, the crowd gave way before him, recognising his right of entry;
the very policeman at the door yielded to him in the force of his
passion. "What is it?" he cried, aware of putting away some women and
babies from the door with mechanical kindness, but unconscious that he
had stumbled up the steps like a man in a dream, and was demanding an
answer to his question with an almost wild vehemence. The question was
answered by a dozen eager voices. It was murder--murder! He could make
out nothing but the word in the confusion of many speakers and of his
own mind. Nobody opposed his entrance or asked what business he had
there. He sprang up the stairs in two or three steps, pressed forward to
a half-open door, within which he saw some people assembled, and,
unawares thrusting aside a man who stopped him, went into that chamber
of death. Several people were around the bed--one, a surgeon, occupied
with the prostrate figure there. Vincent, over the heads of the
spectators, gazed with burning eyes at this horrible spectacle. Susan
herself, whom he did not expect to find there, nor could associate in
any way with such a scene, faded out of his mind as he gazed with
haggard face and horror-stricken soul at the shattered head, bound up in
bloody-bandages, scarce recognisable except by sharp eyes of love or
hate, which rested on that mean pillow. He asked no questions for the
moment. To him alone the business needed no explanation. He was not even
surprised--he stood gazing in a momentary trance of horror at the
lamentable sight. It was a wretched room, shabby and meagre, such a
place as only terror could have driven Mildmay to. Villain as he was,
his punishment had begun before that pistol-shot brought it to a
climax--even in his success he had been conscious that she would keep
her word.
The policeman at the door touched Vincent on the sleeve, just as he
turned from the dreadful spectacle before him. "Nobody is allowed in
here but for a good reason," said this man, gazing suspiciously at the
stranger; "unless you knows something about it, or have come to identify
the poor gentleman, or are of some use somehow, I can't let you stay
here."
"I do not wish to stay here," said Vincent, turning away with a shudder.
"I want to see the ladies who were with him. Yes, I know who he is--but
I am not a friend of his; I have nothing to do with the matter. Where
are the ladies who were with him? Miss Vincent," said the minister with
a pang, "and--and Miss Mildmay. I have come to take them away."
"The ladies as were with him? Oh, it's them as you're awanting; perhaps
you'll stop a minute and talk to the inspector," said the policeman.
"The ladies as were with him? Maybe you can tell the inspector
something as will help justice? You didn't know the reason as brought
out two young women a-travelling with a gen'leman, did you? They'll want
all the friends they can collect afore all's done. You come this way
with me."
It was a relief to get out of sight of that which horrified yet
fascinated his eyes. Vincent followed the man into another room without
observing the evident suspicion with which he was regarded. "Where are
they?" he asked again. "I have a cab below. This is not a place for
women. I have come to take them away. Where are the people of the house?
What do you mean by keeping your hand on me? I want Miss Vincent. Do you
hear me? I have nothing to do with Colonel Mildmay. He has plenty of
friends to avenge him. I want my sister. Where is she? Call the people
of the house."
Vincent threw off the policeman's hand from his arm, and, looking for a
bell, rang violently. He was too much horror-stricken, and too secure of
finding Susan, weeping and helpless in some corner, to show any of the
passionate eagerness with which he had started on his search. Little
doubt she was there, poor lost soul. He shrank from meeting with her,
now that the meeting was so near; and his thoughts went after that other
desperate wretched woman, flying--who could tell where?--in despair and
darkness. The house was in utter disorder, as was natural; none of its
humble occupants being capable, at the present exciting moment, of
attending to their usual duties. Vincent rang the bell again, till it
pealed and echoed through the place. Then he bethought himself, with a
natural shudder, of the death-chamber close by. He turned to the man by
his side, with an instinctive involuntary curiosity. "Is any one
suspected?" said the minister, feeling his face grow pale with a
dreadful consciousness of the secret which he shared. But before he
could hear the answer, his second summons had brought up the terrified
mistress of the house, attended half way up the stair by a throng of
curious women. He went hurriedly to meet her at the door.
"Where are the ladies?" said the minister. "I have just heard that my
sister was brought here last night. Tell her I am here. Take me to her.
Don't be alarmed. You know what I mean? The two ladies--young ladies who
came here with Colonel Mildmay last night--where are they? Good heavens!
do you not understand what I mean?"
"The young ladies, sir?" faltered the landlady, gasping and looking at
the man who still kept by Vincent's side. "Oh, Lord bless us! The young
ladies----"
"Make haste and let them know I am here," said Vincent, gradually
growing more and more anxious. "I will undertake to produce them if they
are wanted as witnesses. Where are they?--where is my sister? I tell you
she is my sister. I have come for her. Tell Miss Vincent. Surely I am
speaking plain English," said the young man, with a flush of sudden
dread. "The elder one, Miss Vincent--you understand me? Let her know
that I am here."
"His sister! Oh, Lord bless us; and he don't know no more than the
unborn," cried the woman of the house. "Oh, Lord! p'liceman, can't you
tell the poor gentleman? His sister! oh, that's worse than ever, that
is. Some poor young thing as has been beguiled and led astray. Lord
bless us! don't look at me o' that way. I ain't to blame. Oh, gracious
me, that I should have to tell the gentleman, and you standing there!
Oh, sir, it's her as has done it. She's gone away from here afore break
of day. I don't blame her; oh, I don't blame her; don't look o' that
dreadful way at me. He's drove her to it with bad usage. She'll have to
suffer for it; but I don't blame her. I don't blame her if it was my
last word in life."
Vincent felt his tongue cleave to his mouth. He was stunned; he did not
know what he said--what he was hearing. "Blame her? whom? for what?" he
said, with a mechanical effort. He seemed to himself to be suddenly
engulfed in some horrible cloud, but he did not know what it meant.
"Oh, Lord! don't look o' that dreadful way at me; she's gone off from
here as soon as she done it," cried the woman. "She had that much sense
left, poor soul. He's drove her mad; he's drove her to it. My man says
it can't be brought in no worse than manslaughter----"
"You don't understand me," Vincent broke in; "you are talking of the
criminal. Who are you talking of?--but it does not matter. I want Miss
Vincent. Do you hear me?--the young lady whom he brought here last
night. Where is my sister? Gone away before daybreak! You mean the
criminal, but I want my sister. Susan! take me to where she is. She had
nothing to do with it. I will give you anything--pay you anything, only
take me to where she is."
He moved towards the door as he spoke, half believing that, if he could
but hold out and refuse to credit this horror, Susan might still be
found. "Lord bless us! the poor young gentleman's gone out of his
senses," cried the landlady. "Let him go through all the house if that's
what he wants. There ain't nothing to conceal in my house. I'll take you
to the room as they were in--she and the other one. This way, sir. They
hadn't nothing with them but two little bags, so there wasn't much to
leave; but such as it is, being her night-things, is there. She wasn't
thinking of bags, nor any of her little comforts, when she went away.
Here, sir; walk in here."
The woman took him to a room up-stairs, where Vincent followed her
mechanically. The room had evidently been occupied a very short time
before. Upon a chair, open, with the contents only half thrust in, was a
travelling-bag, which the minister recognised at once--a piece of family
property dreadful to see in such a place. Susan had been putting her
things away with the orderly instinct of her mother's daughter when this
sudden shock of terror came upon her. "Do you mean to tell me that it is
she who has gone away," said Vincent, with a look of incredulous wonder
and appeal--"she--Susan Vincent, my sister? Take time to think. It was
not she--somebody else. Tell me where she is----"
"Oh, sir, don't say anything as may come against her," cried the
landlady. "It's nobody but her, poor soul, poor soul. If it was possible
to think as it could be another, I would--but there was nobody else to
do it. As soon as we heard the shot and the groan the master got up. He
met her on the stair, sir, if you'll believe me, like a woman as was
walking in her sleep. He was that struck he daren't say a word to her.
He let her pass by him and go out at the door--and when he went into the
gentleman's room and found him there a-dying, she was gone clean off,
and couldn't be heard of. Folks say as my husband should have stopped
her, but it wasn't none of his business. Oh, sir, don't say nothing
as'll put them on her track! There's one man gone off after her
already--oh, it's dreadful!--if you'll be advised by me, you'll slip out
the back way, and don't come across that policeman again. If she did
kill him," cried the weeping landlady, "it was to save herself, poor
dear. I'll let you out the back way, if you'll be guided by me."
The horror of this accusation had come home to Vincent's mind at last.
He saw, as if by a sudden flash of dreadful enlightenment, not guilt
indeed, or its awful punishment, but open shame--the disgrace of
publicity--the horrible suspicions which were of themselves more than
enough to kill the unhappy girl. He made a great effort to speak, but
could not for the moment. He thrust in the white soft garments which
were hanging out of it, into that familiar bag, which somehow gave him a
pang more acute than all the terrible news he was hearing. He had
travelled with it himself on innocent boyish journeys, had seen it in
his mother's innocent hands--and now to find it in this shuddering
atmosphere of crime and mystery! He too shuddered as he roused himself
to speak. "Hush--hush," said Vincent, "you mistake, my sister has
nothing to do with it; I--I can prove that--easily," said the minister,
getting the words out with difficulty. "Tell me how it all
happened--when they came here, what passed; for instance----" He paused,
and his eye caught another evidence of the reality of his horrible
position. It was the blue veil which he had followed and described, and
looked for through all these weary hours. He took it up in his hand,
crushing it together with an almost ungovernable impulse of rage, from
where it had been thrown down on the shabby carpet. "For instance," said
Susan's brother, restraining himself, "where is the girl who wore this?
You said Miss Vincent went away alone--where was the other? was she left
behind--is she here?"
The policeman had followed them up into the room in natural curiosity
and suspicion. The landlady's husband had sworn that Susan left the
house by herself. Then, where was the girl? The fugitive had been
tracked to the railway, the policeman said; but she was alone. Nobody
had thought before of her helpless companion. The inspector arrived
while they were going over the house trying if it were possible to find
any traces of this forlorn creature. Vincent was much too profoundly
concerned himself to keep silence about the mysterious movements of the
woman whom he had seen on his way to Dover--whom he had seen that very
morning in the darkness--whom he knew to be the bitterest enemy of the
murdered man. It was only when he described her--when he tried to
collect all the information he had ever had about her for the guidance
of justice--that he saw how little he knew of her in reality. His very
description was tinged with a touch of fancy; and in this frightful
emergency he perceived, for the first time, how much his imagination had
supplied of the interest he felt in this woman. When he had done all it
was possible to do to set the pursuer on her track, and gathered all he
could of the supposed proofs against Susan, he left the place where he
could do nothing further. He had to describe himself fully--to prove his
identity by a reference to the Dissenting minister of the place, and
explain whence he had come and whither he was going, before the officers
in charge of the house, although conscious that they had no grounds for
detaining him, would let him go. But he was permitted to leave at last.
While he waited for the next train to Carlingford, he questioned the
cabman, who could give but a very faint and indistinct description of
the lady whom he had seen at the pier-gates, whose appearance had
stopped Colonel Mildmay in the prosecution of his journey. She was
standing under a lamp, the man said: the gentleman might see her, but he
didn't think as she could see him; but dim as the vision was, this was
another little link in the chain of evidence. If it did but vindicate
Susan--save her, not from the penalty, but from the very shadow and
suspicion of such a horror! It was this which filled the minister's
mind with every sort of frightful apprehension. To have Susan's name
exposed to such a horrible publicity--to have such a scene, such a crime
anyhow connected with his sister--the idea shook Vincent's mind utterly,
and almost disabled him from thought at all. And where was she, poor
horror-stricken fugitive? He scarcely dared hope that she had gone to
her mother. Sudden death, madness, any misery, seemed possible to have
overtaken the unhappy girl thus suddenly reft out of the peacefulness of
her youth into circumstances so horrible. When he entered Carlingford,
late at night, it was with insupportable pangs of suspense and alarm
that he looked into the faces he met on the lighted streets. Were they
looking at him already with a consciousness that some frightful shadow
enveloped him? Tozer's shop was already shut--earlier than usual,
surely--and two or three people stood talking at the open door, clearly
visible against the gaslight, which still burned bright within. Farther
up, opposite his own house, two or three passengers had stopped to look
up at the lighted windows. When Vincent thrust aside a lad who happened
to be in his way, asking, with uncontrollable irritation, what he wanted
there, the door opened suddenly at the sound of his voice. All was
excited and confused within--common life, with its quiet summonses and
answers, was over there. Wild confusion, agitation, reproach, surrounded
the unfortunate minister. His landlady came forward to meet him, to
bewail her own misfortune, and upbraid him with the wrong he had done
her. "I took in the pastor for a lodger, because he was sure to be
steady and respectable, and this is what he has brought to me!" cried
the hysterical woman. "What is the meaning of all this?" cried Vincent,
looking round him with restrained fury, but he did not wait for an
answer. He went up to his rooms to know the worst. As he rushed
breathless up-stairs, loud outcries of delirium reached him. In his
horror and anguish he could not recognise the voice--was it his mother
who had given way under the terrible burden? He dashed open the door of
the sitting-room in which he had spent so many quiet hours--neither
mother nor sister were there; instead of them a rough-featured man, in a
blue travelling-coat, and Tozer, flushed and argumentative, standing by
the table. Vincent had not time to ask what the controversy was that was
going on between the two. The butterman grasped his hand with an almost
violent pressure, and took the stranger's arm. "Beg your pardon for
being in your room, Mr. Vincent, but me and this gentleman has a little
business. I'll be back presently and explain," said the good deacon,
with a compassionate look at the young man, whose weary eyes sought with
instinctive suspicion that unknown face. "I'm your friend, Mr.
Vincent-- I always was; I'm not one as will desert a friend in trouble,"
said Tozer, with another shake of his hand, lowering his voice. Then he
disappeared with his strange companion. The minister was alone with
those cries, with this agitation. He threw himself down in momentary
despair. The worst, it appeared, had happened--the horror had travelled
before him. He gave up everything in the anguish of that moment. There
seemed to be no use for any further struggle. To this sensitive,
spotless, inexperienced household, suspicion was worse than death.