start back in awe and horror, and press her hand before her eyes. She,
Elizabeth Ryan, might do her worst now. She could not undo what had been
done before. She could not kill Death, and Death had forestalled her
here.
A cold dew broke out upon the woman's forehead. She could not move. She
could only stand still and stare. Her brain was dazed. She could not
understand, though she saw plainly enough. After a few moments she did
understand, and her heart sickened as it throbbed. Oh that it would beat
its last beat there and then! Oh if only she too might die! Standing, as
she thought, in the presence of death for the second time that night,
Elizabeth Ryan lifted her two arms, and prayed that the gracious cold
hand might be extended to her also. In the quenching of the fires that
had raged in her brain, in the reawakening of her heart's anguish, this
poor soul besought the Angel of Death not to pass her by, praying
earnestly, pitifully, dumbly, with the gestures of a fanatic.
She lowered her eyes to face for the last time her whom death had
snatched from vengeance. She started backwards, as she did so, in sudden
terror. What was this? The dead girl moved--the dead girl breathed--the
counterpane rose and fell evenly. Had she been mistaken in her first
impression? Elizabeth Ryan asked herself with chattering teeth. No! More
likely she was mistaken now. This must be an illusion, like the last;
she had been terrified by a like movement in the room at the Blue Bell,
and it had proved but a cruel trick of the sight and the imagination;
and this was a repetition of the same cruel trick.
No, again! The longer she looked the more distinct grew this movement.
It was regular, and it was gentle. Faint yet regular breathing became
audible. The face on the pillows was flushed. Death had stopped short at
Melmerbridge; Death had not travelled so far as this--at least, not yet:
there was still a chance for vengeance!
But Elizabeth Ryan had undergone a swift psychological reaction. That
minute in which she stood, as she believed, for the second time that
night in the presence of Death--that minute in which her spirit yearned
with a mighty longing to be stilled, too, for ever--that minute had done
its work. In it the mists of passion had risen from the woman's mind; in
it the venom had been extracted from her heart. Her eyes, now grown soft
and dim, roved slowly round the room. They fell curiously upon something
upon a chair on the far side of the bed--a heap of light hair; they
glanced rapidly to the head on the pillows--it was all but shaved.
Elizabeth Ryan raised her clenched left hand; the hand trembled--the
woman trembled from head to foot. She laid her arms upon the chest of
drawers, and her face upon her arms, and stood there until her trembling
ceased. When at last she raised her head, her eyes were swimming, but a
bright determination shone out through the tears.
She moved cautiously round the foot of the bed and dipped her left hand
into the heap of light hair, and for the first time unclasped her hand.
The hand was lifted empty, but the heap of Alice's hair remained a heap
of her hair still; it had but received its own again.
This strange yet simple act seemed to afford the performer the deepest
relief; she gazed kindly, even tenderly, on the young wan face before
her, and sighed deeply. Then hastily she retraced her steps to the door.
At the door she stopped to throw back a glance of forgiveness and
farewell.
Now it happened that the head of the sleeping girl had slipped upon the
pillow, so that its present position made the breathing laboured.
Quick as thought, Mrs. Ryan recrossed the room from the door, and, with
her woman's clever light hand, rearranged the pillows beneath the
burning head, and smoothed them gently. But in doing this the silent
tears fell one after the other upon the coverlet; and when it was done
some sudden impulse brought Elizabeth upon her knees by the bedside, and
from that bleeding heart there went up a short and humble prayer, of
which we have no knowing--at which we can make no guess, since it flew
upward without the weight of words.
How cold, how bitter, how piercing were the blast and the driving rain
outside! In the earlier part of the night their edge had not been half
so keen; at all events, it did not cut so deep. Where was a woman to
turn on such a night? A woman who had no longer any object in life, nor
a single friend, nor--if it came to that--a single coin: what was such
an one to do on a night like this?
The picture of the warm, dry bedroom came vividly back to Elizabeth
Ryan; she felt that she would rather lie sick unto death in that room
than face the wild night without an ailment more serious than a broken,
bleeding heart. She looked once back at the dim light in the upper
window, and then she set her face to Gateby. Before, however, she was
many paces on her way, quick footsteps approached her--footsteps that
she seemed to know--and a man's voice hailed her in rapid, excited
tones:
"Are you from Melmerbridge?"
"Yes," she faltered. What else dared she say. It was true, too.
"Then you are the nurse! you are the nurse! I have been waiting for you,
looking out for you, all the night, and now you have come; you have
walked through the storm; God bless you for it!"
His voice was tremulous with thanks and joy; yet trouble must have
clouded his mind, too, or he never could have believed in his words.
"I do not understand--" Mrs. Ryan was beginning, but he checked her
impatiently:
"You are the nurse, are you not?" he cried, with sudden fear in his
voice. "Oh don't--don't tell me I'm mistaken! Speak--yes, speak--for
here we are at the house."
The pause that followed well-nigh drove him frantic. Then came the
answer in a low, clear voice:
"You are not mistaken. I am waiting to be shown into the house."
XXXI
THE CHARITY OF SILENCE
Dr. Mowbray, coming first thing in the morning, declared that the
patient had passed a better night than he had hoped for; but he told
Colonel Bristo privately that he must count on nothing as yet, and be
prepared for anything.
To his surprise and delight, the physician found his patient in the
hands of a gentle, intelligent nurse. This was the more fortunate since
he had failed to find in Melmerbridge a capable woman who was able to
come. Whoever the dark, shabbily-dressed woman was, she must not be
allowed to leave the bedside for the present. "She is a godsend," said
Dr. Mowbray on coming downstairs. Colonel Bristo, for his part, knew
nothing of the woman; he supposed she was from Gateby. Mrs. Parish, no
doubt, knew all about her; and after the doctor's account of her
services, the Colonel made no inquiries.
Edmonstone and Pinckney were to drive back to Melmerbridge with the
doctor to attend the inquest on the body of the suicide. Before they
started the Colonel called the two young men aside, and a brief, earnest
colloquy took place.
During the drive Dr. Mowbray mentioned a strange report that had reached
him before leaving Melmerbridge; it was noised in the village, at that
early hour, that the dead man had moved one of his hands during the
night.
"It will show you," the doctor said, "the lengths to which the rustic
imagination can stretch. The fact is, they are terribly excited and
primed with superstition, for there hasn't been a suicide in the parish
in the memory of this generation. What is more," added the old
gentleman, suddenly, "I'm not sure that there's been one now!"
There was some excuse, perhaps, for the string of excited questions
reeled off on the spur of the moment by young Pinckney: "Why? How could
it be anything else but suicide? Had they not got the pistol--Miles's
own pistol? Had not Dr. Mowbray himself said that the bullet extracted
fitted the one empty cartridge found in the revolver? Besides, Miles had
not denied shooting himself when asked by Edmonstone what he had done."
"But did he admit that he had shot himself?" asked Dr. Mowbray, turning
to Edmonstone.
"No, he did not."
"Was his manner, up to the last, that of a man who had deliberately shot
himself?"
"No, it was not. It might have been an accident."
"Neither the one nor the other," said the doctor. "Now I'll tell you two
something that I shall make public presently: a man cannot point a
pistol at himself from a greater distance than two feet at the outside;
but this shot was fired at three times that range!"
"How can you tell, sir?" asked Pinckney, with added awe and subtracted
vehemence.
"The clothes are not singed; the hole might have been made by a drill,
it was so clean."
The young man sat in silent wonder. Then Dick put a last question:
"You think it has been--murder?"
"Personally, I am convinced of it. We shall say all we know, and get an
adjournment. At the adjourned inquest Colonel Bristo will attend, and
tell us his relations with the dead man, who, it appears, had no other
friend in the country; but to-day that is not absolutely necessary, and
I shall explain his absence myself. Meanwhile, detectives will be sent
down, and will find out nothing at all, and the affair will end in a
verdict against some person or persons unknown, at best."
Dr. Mowbray's first prediction was forthwith fulfilled: the inquest was
adjourned. The doctor at once drove back to Gateby with the two young
men. As they drove slowly down the last hill they descried two
strangers, in overcoats and hard hats, conversing with Colonel Bristo in
the road. Philip Robson was standing by, talking to no one, and looking
uncomfortable.
When the shorter of the two strangers turned his face to the gig, Dick
ejaculated his surprise--for it was the rough, red, good-humoured face
of the Honourable Stephen Biggs.
"What has brought you here?" Dick asked in a low voice when he had
greeted the legislator.
By way of reply, Biggs introduced him to the tall, grave, black-bearded,
sharp-featured gentleman--Sergeant Compton, late of the Victorian
Mounted Police.
There was an embarrassed silence; then Philip Robson stepped forward.
"It was my doing," he said, awkwardly enough; and he motioned Dick to
follow him out of hearing of the others. "I listened," he then
confessed, "to a conversation between you and Miles. I heard you read a
letter aloud. From what passed between you, I gathered that Miles was a
blackleg of some kind, whom you were screening from the police. Miles
found that I had overheard you, and swore to me that you were the victim
of a delusion. When I reflected, I disbelieved him utterly. I copied the
address of the letter you had written, and the next day I wrote myself
to Mr. Biggs, describing Miles as well as I could, and saying where he
was. I did not dream that Miles was a bushranger, even then--I thought
he was merely a common swindler. However, that's the whole truth.
Edmonstone, I'm sorry!"
Dick's first expression of contempt had vanished. Frank admissions turn
away wrath more surely than soft answers. Besides, Robson had behaved
well yesterday: without him, what might not have happened before Dr.
Mowbray arrived?
"I believe," said Dick, "that you were justified in what you did,
only--I'm sorry you did it."
Mr. Biggs was in close conversation with Colonel Bristo. Sergeant
Compton stood aloof, silent and brooding; in the hour of triumph Death
had baulked him of his quarry; his dark face presented a study in fierce
melancholy.
"If only," the Colonel was saying piteously, "the tragedy could stop at
the name of Miles! The scandal that will attach to us when the whole
sensation comes to light is difficult to face. For my part, I would face
it cheerfully if it were not--if it were not for my daughter Alice. And,
after all, it may not annoy her. She may not live to hear it."
The last words were broken and hardly intelligible.
The rugged face of Stephen Biggs showed honest concern, and honest
sympathy too. It did not take him long to see the case from the
Colonel's point of view, and he declared very bluntly that, for his
part, he would be glad enough to hush the thing up, so far as the dead
man's past life was concerned (and here Mr. Biggs jingled handfuls of
coins in his pockets), but that, unfortunately, it did not rest with
him.
"You see, Colonel," he explained, "my mate here he's been on Ned Ryan's
trail, off and on, these four years. Look at him now. He's just mad at
being cheated in the end. But he's one of the warmest traps in this
Colony--I mean out in Vic.; and, mark me, he'll take care to let the
whole Colony know that, if he warn't in at Sundown's death, he was
nearer it than any other blessed 'trap.' There's some personal feeling
in it, Colonel," said Biggs, lowering his voice. "Frank Compton has
sworn some mighty oath or other to take Ned Ryan alive or dead."
"Suppose," said the Colonel, "we induce your friend here to hold his
tongue, do you think it would be possible for us to let this poor fellow
pass out of the world as Miles, a squatter, or, at worst, an unknown
adventurer?"
"How many are there of you, Colonel, up here who know?"
"Four."
"And there are two of us. Total six men in the world who know that Ned
Ryan, the bushranger, died yesterday. The rest of the world believes
that he was drowned in the Channel three months ago. Yes, I think it
would be quite possible. Moreover, I don't see that it would do the
least good to any one to undeceive the rest of the world; but Frank
Compton--"
"Is he the only detective after Miles in this country?"
"The only one left. The others went back to Australia, satisfied that
their man was drowned."
"But our police--"
"Oh, your police are all right, Colonel. They've never so much as heard
of Sundown. They're easily pleased, are your police!"
It was at this point that Dr. Mowbray reappeared on the steps. Colonel
Bristo went at once to learn his report, which must have been no worse
than that of the early morning, for it was to speak of the inquest that
the Colonel hurried back the moment the doctor drove away.
"Dick," said he, in a voice that all could hear (Edmonstone was still
talking to Robson--Compton still standing aloof), "you never told me the
result. The inquest is adjourned; but there is a strong impression it
seems that it is not a case of suicide after all, gentlemen--but one of
wilful murder."
The personal bias mentioned by Biggs had not altogether extinguished
ordinary professional instincts in the breast of Sergeant Compton; for,
at this, his black eyes glittered, and he pulled his patron aside.
Biggs, in his turn, sought a private word with the Colonel.
"Compton," he said, "is bent on at once seeing the spot where Ryan was
shot. Will you send some one with us? I'll bring my man back this
evening, and we'll try to talk him over between us; but I fear it's
hopeless."
Between three and four that afternoon the body of Jem Pound was found at
the bottom of the cliff, a mile from Melmerbridge, among the fir-trees.
Between eight and nine that evening, in the little gun-room at the
shooting-box, Biggs--in the presence of Colonel Bristo--made a last
effort to induce Sergeant Compton to join the conspiracy of silence
regarding the identity of Miles, the Australian adventurer, now lying
dead at Melmerbridge, with Sundown, the Australian bushranger, supposed
to have been drowned in the Channel in the previous April. All to no
purpose. The Sergeant remained obdurate.
"Mr. Biggs," said he, "and you, sir, I must declare to you firmly and
finally that it is impossible for me to hold my tongue in a case like
this. I will not speak of fairness and justice, for I agree that no one
will be a bit the better off for knowing that Ned Ryan died yesterday
instead of last spring. I will be perfectly candid. I will ask you to
think for a moment what this means to me. It means this: when I get back
to Melbourne I will be worth twice what I was before I sailed. The fact
of having been the only man to disbelieve in Ryan's drowning, and the
fact of having as near as a touch taken both Ryan and Pound alive, will
make my fortune for me out there."
Honest Biggs rattled the coins in his pockets, and seemed about to
speak.
"No, sir," said Compton, turning to his patron. "My silence won't be
given--it cannot be bought. I have another reason for telling
everything: my hatred for Ned Ryan--that death cannot cool!"
These words Compton hissed out in a voice of low, concentrated passion.
"I have not dogged him all these years for mere love of the work. No! He
brought disgrace upon me and mine, and I swore to take him alive or
dead. I keep my oath--I take him dead! All who know me shall know that I
have kept my oath! As for Jem Pound, his mate and his murderer--"
The door opened, and the nurse stood panting on the threshold. Even in
her intense excitement she remembered that she had left her charge
sleeping lightly, and her words were low:
"What is it you say? Do you say that Jem Pound murdered my husband?"
Colonel Bristo and the Sergeant started simultaneously. "Well, I might
have known that--I might have told you that. But upstairs--I have been
forgetting! I have been forgetting--forgetting! Yet when I heard you
gentlemen come in here I remembered, and it was to tell you what I knew
about Jem Pound that I came down."
Sergeant Compton had turned an ashen grey; his eyes never moved from the
face of the woman from the moment she entered the room. Elizabeth Ryan
crossed the room and stood in front of him. His face was in shadow.
"You, sir--I heard your voice as my hand was on the door-handle; and I
seemed to know your voice; and, while I stood trying to remember whose
voice it was, I heard what you said. So you will not let the dead man
rest! So, since he escaped you by his death, you would bring all the
world to hoot over his grave! Oh, sir, if the prayers of his wife--his
widow--"
She stopped. The man had risen unsteadily from his chair. His face was
close to hers. She sprang back as though shot.
Sergeant Compton whispered one word: "Liz!"
Biggs and the Colonel watched the pale dark woman and the dark pale man
in silent wonder. There was a likeness between man and woman.
"Liz!" repeated the Sergeant in a low, hoarse voice.
"Who--who are you? Are you--are you--"
"I am Frank!"
"Frank!" she whispered to herself, unable to realise all at once who
Frank had been--it was so long since there had been a Frank in her life.
"What!" she exclaimed in a whisper; "not my brother Frank?"
"Yes, your brother Frank. But--but I thought you were out there, Liz. I
thought he had long ago deserted you; and that made me thirst all the
more--"
His sister flung herself at his feet.
"Oh, Frank! Frank!" she wailed. "Since the day I married I have spoken
to none of my own kith and kin until this night. And this is how we
meet! Frank!--Frank!"--her voice fell to a tremulous whisper--"do one
thing for me, and then, if you are still so bitter against me, go away
again. Only one thing I ask--a promise. Promise, for your part, to keep
silence! Let the dead man--let the dead man sleep peacefully. If the
whole truth will come out, come out it must; but don't let it be through
you, Frank--never let it be through you! Speak. Do you promise?"
The low, tearful, plaintive tones ceased, and there was silence in the
room. Then Francis Compton bent down, and lifted his sister Elizabeth in
his arms.
"I promise," he whispered in a broken voice. "God knows you have
suffered enough!"
XXXII
SUSPENSE: REACTION
Days of suspense followed, while Alice's life trembled in the balance.
In what way these days were passed the watchers themselves scarcely
knew: for it is among the offices of suspense to make word and deed
mechanical, and life a dream. The senses are dulled; nothing is
realised--not even death itself, when death comes. Afterwards you
remember with horror your callousness: when all the time your senses
have been dulled by the most merciful of Nature's laws. Afterwards you
find that you received many an impression without knowing it. Thus Dick
Edmonstone, for one, recalled a few things that he had quite forgotten,
on his way south in the train afterwards.
He could feel again the wind lifting the hair from his head on the dark
hilltop. He saw the crescent moon racing through foamy billows of
clouds, like a dismasted ship before the wind. He felt the rushing air
as he sped back to the post in the lonely road from which he watched all
night that square of yellow light--the light through her window-blind.
This faint yellow light shot beams of hope into his heart through the
long nights; he watched it till dawn, and then crept wearily to his bed
in the inn. When he roamed away from it, a superstitious dread seized
him that he would return to find the light gone out for ever. The pale,
faint light became to him an emblem of the faint, flickering life that
had burnt so low. He would wildly hurry back, with death at his heart.
Thank God! the light still burned.
In memory he could hear his own voice treating with a carter for a load
of straw. He was again laying down with his own hands the narrow road
with this straw; he was sitting half the day at his post in the gap of
the hedge, watching her window; he was tasting again of the delight with
which he watched the first vehicle crawl noiselessly across that straw.
These were among his most vivid recollections; but voices came back to
him plainest of all.
The voices of the professional nurses, whispering where they little
dreamt there was a listener; foreboding the worst; comparing notes with
their last fatal cases; throwing into their tones a kind of pity worse
than open indifference--perfunctory and cold. Or, again, these same
voices telling how a certain name was always on the feverish lips
upstairs.
"Ah, poor soul!" said they; "she thinks of nothing but him!"
Of whom? Whose name was for ever on her lips? The name of him to whom
she had breathed her last conscious words?
Even so; for another voice had echoed through the silent house more than
once, and could never be forgotten by those who heard it; the piercing,
heart-rending, delirious voice of Alice herself, reiterating those last
conscious words of hers:
"Hear what it was he said to me, and my answer--which is my answer
still!"
What had Miles said? What had been Alice's answer? Who would ever know?
Not Dick; and these words came back to him more often than any others,
and they tortured him.
But there were other words--words that had been spoken but yesterday,
and as yet seemed too good to be true; the words of the kind old country
doctor:
"She is out of danger!"
* * * * *
And now Dick Edmonstone was being whirled back to London. Alice was
declared out of danger, so he had come away. Alice was not going to die.
Her young life was spared. Then why was Dick's heart not filled with joy
and thanksgiving? Perhaps it was; but why did he not show it? He who had
been frenzied by her peril, should have leapt or wept for joy at her
safety. He did neither. He could show no joy. Why not?
Edmonstone arrived in town, and broke his fast at an hotel--he had
travelled all night. After breakfast he drove, with his luggage, first
to the offices of the P. and O. Company in Leadenhall Street. He stepped
from that office with a brisker air; something was off his mind;
something was definitely settled. On his way thence to Waterloo he
whistled lively tunes in the cab. By the time he reached Teddington and
Iris Lodge, the jauntiness of his manner was complete. In fact, his
manner was so entirely different from what his mother and Fanny had been
prepared for, that the good ladies were relieved and delighted beyond
measure for the first few minutes, until a something in his tone pained
them both.
"Oh yes," he said, carelessly, in answer to their hushed inquiry, "she
is out of danger now, safe enough. It has been touch and go, though."
He might have been speaking of a horse or dog, and yet have given people
the impression that he was a young man without much feeling.
"But--my boy," cried Mrs. Edmonstone, "what has been the matter with
you? We never heard that you were ill; and you look like a ghost, my
poor Dick!"
Dick was standing in rather a swaggering attitude on the hearthrug. He
wheeled round, and looked at himself in the large glass over the
chimneypiece. His face was haggard and lined, and his expression just
then was not a nice one.
"Why," he owned, with a grating laugh, "I certainly don't look very fit,
now you mention it, do I? But it's all on the surface. I'm all right,
bless you! I'm not on speaking terms with the sexton yet, anyway!"