T. W. Speight

“ Garside.
“Aunt, I know perfectly well what I am thinking of. I have been Lionel’s promised wife for some time. I am now going to be his wife in reality. I am only a weak woman, I know; I cannot really help him; I can only love him and watch over him, and do my best to lighten the dark hours of his life in prison.”
“But suppose the worst comes to the worst,” said Lionel, very gravely, “and such a result is by no means improbable.”
Edith shuddered. “You only supply me with one argument the more,” she answered. “The deeper your trouble—the greater your peril—the closer must I cling to you. ”

“ With me, to love and to be loved is everything. In comparison with that all else is as nothing.”
“Edith, I could not come to you penniless, and ask you to become my wife. When I found myself a poor man, I had no profession to fly to; I was acquainted with no business. I was a great hulking good-for-nothing, able to plough and reap, and earn a bare crust by the sweat of my brow, and that was all. How was it possible for me to become a dependent on you for my daily bread?”
“You would not have been a dependent, Lionel. My money would have been yours, just as my love was yours.” ”

“ Osmond must leave Park Newton, and at once. No other course was—— Now that he listened more particularly, he could hear the footsteps of more than one person in the next room—of more than two—of several. And there were footsteps in the corridor, passing to and fro as if in a hurry. There was a whispering, too, as if close outside his door; then the hurried muttering of many voices in Osmond’s room; then the clash of two doors far away in the opposite wing of the house. ”

“ Life is so strangely uncertain, you know; and it seems to me more uncertain still when you stand so terribly in the light of another man. Perhaps you will say that I am superstitious. So be it. But can any man say where superstition begins and where it ends, even in his own mind? I can’t. All I know is this: that if I were Monsieur Dering, the last man in the world whom I would ask to cross my threshold would be Monsieur Kester St. George.”
A fortnight had come and gone since the arrival of Kester St. George and Percy Osmond at Park Newton. ”

“ But, then, what a little suffices to make us happy when we are in love! Kind-hearted Mrs. Garside was happy in the happiness of Edith, and in the freshness and change which Lionel’s welcome arrival brought with it. Edith and Lionel asked nothing more for the time being than to be able to see each other, and speak to each other, and to spell out that silent language of the eyes which has often a meaning far more deep and heartfelt than any words can convey. ”

“ I’ve nothing to say against them,” said Mr. Osmond, as he sat down deliberately on the stairs, for they were all in the house by this time. “It’s the people who live in them that I complain of. To send your guests to bed at eleven-thirty against their will, and to decline a simple game of billiards with one of them because you’re afraid to acknowledge that he’s the better player of the two—can this be your old English hospitality?”
“My dear Osmond, I will play you a game of billiards with pleasure, if your mind is so set on it,” said Lionel. ”

“ After his simple dinner was over, Lionel spent an hour among his letters and papers, and then took a cigar and his travelling cap with the intention of having a quiet smoke in the shrubbery. The night was clear and cold. There was no moon, but the stars were shining brightly. The footways were dry and pleasant to walk on, and Lionel lingered outside for nearly an hour, winding in and out among the maze of walks, and the thick clumps of evergreens, wherever his vagrant footsteps led him. His thoughts were with Edith. ”

“ Lionel saw from the moment of his arrest that the evidence against him was far too strong to allow him to hope for any other issue than a commitment for trial at the assizes. And he was right. The magistrates before whom he was taken could not do otherwise than commit him for wilful murder. The jet stud found in the dead man’s hand, the saturated handkerchief, the streaks of blood on his shirt—damning proofs all, which Lionel Dering could neither explain nor extenuate—left them no other alternative. ”

“ Lionel had paused for a moment to gather breath. A flash—and there, not fifty yards away, and coming towards him, was a man—a stranger! It was the work of an instant for the lightning to photograph the picture on his brain, but that one instant was enough for him to see and recognize the deadly peril in which the man was placed. He was marching unknowingly to his death. Not six yards in front of him yawned the most dangerous chasm in the whole face of the cliff.
In another moment Lionel had recovered his presence of mind. “Stop! stop for your life!” ”

“ A wild hurricane of wind and rain was beating furiously over land and sea. Utterly regardless of the storm, Lionel lay down at full length on the short, wet turf, and shading his eves with his hands, peered down into the black gulf below. It was a dangerous thing to do, but in the excitement of the moment all sense of personal fear was forgotten. He waited for the flashes; but when they came they showed him nothing save the wild turmoil of the rising tide as it dashed itself in fury against the huge boulders with which the beach was thickly strewn. ”

“ Perrins went off to bed at an early hour, after indulging in a due modicum of choice old port; but Lionel sat up till far into the small hours, with no companion but his favourite meerschaum.
His musings were very pleasant ones. How could they be otherwise? Not till to-day had he seemed to realize to the full all that was implied by his sudden change of fortune. In London he was nobody, or next to nobody; one rich man among ten thousand. Here, at Park Newton, he was lord and master of everything. ”

“ Lionel saw clearly that, in any case, it would be quite impossible for him to return by the way he was going till ebb of tide. He must find some “coign of vantage” among the fallen rocks, or high up in the face of the cliff, beyond reach of the waves, and there wait patiently for further help. But first to find the stranger.
Manfully, gallantly, Lionel Dering set himself to the task before him. Foot by foot, yard by yard, he fought his way forward. The lightning showed him at once the dangers he had to contend against, and how best to avoid them. ”

“ George. Lionel again laid his hand on his cousin’s shoulder.
“Mr. Osmond is my guest,” he said, impressively. “In a moment of temper he has made use of certain expressions which he will be the first to regret to-morrow. Let us look upon the game as a drawn one, and, if need be, discuss it fully over breakfast in the morning.”
“You have an uncommonly nice way of slipping out of a difficulty, Dering, I must confess. But it won’t wash with me. The moment I find a man’s not acting on the square, I brand him before the world as a cheat and a blackleg.” ”

“ All at once it struck him—and the thought sent a chill through his heart—that the room in question was none other than the Griffin—none other, in fact, than the room in which his Uncle Arthur had died. The more he thought of it, the more certain he felt that he was right. It was the Griffin without doubt. But what could any living being be doing in that room of all others, and at that hour of the night? The room had been left untouched since his uncle’s death, and, as far as he, Lionel, was concerned, was likely to be so left for some time to come. ”

“ It was the state bedroom of the house, this room called the Griffin. None of the rooms near it were occupied: the servants all slept in the opposite wing. Had Lionel slept in his own room that night, the unknown intruder would have had one whole wing of Park Newton entirely to himself—a fact that was probably well-known and calculated upon. Along the chilly corridor and up the oaken staircase, lighted candle in hand, stole Lionel step by step, slowly and without noise. At the top of the staircase he paused and listened. ”

“ He had a good forehead, a rather large aquiline nose, and thin, firmly-cut lips. In his suit of well-brushed black, and his spotless white tie, he looked the model of a respectable and thoroughly trustworthy servant. He looked more than that. Had he been set down at a public dinner among a miscellaneous assemblage of guests, a stranger would probably have picked him out as a banker or a rich merchant, or might even have asked, and have been pardoned for asking, whether he were not some celebrated lawyer, or member of the Lower House. ”

“ Garside’s mild protestations that she couldn’t, for the life of her, understand why that strange Mr. Bristow should want them to give up their comfortable apartments for a dull old house that looked for all the world as if it were haunted, and was built in such an out-of-the way place that to live there was really very little better than being buried alive. But Edith’s faith in Tom was not to be shaken. She felt sure that he would not have asked them to take up their quarters in Alder Cottage without having good reasons for proposing such a removal. ”

“ The man’s features were wanting neither in power nor intellect, but they were marred by an air of habitual dissipation—of sottishness, even—which he made no effort to conceal.
“Jabez Creede is still with you, I see,” said Tom, as he and the lawyer walked down the street.
“Yes, I still keep him on,” answered Hoskyns, “though, if I have threatened once to turn him away, I have a hundred times. With his dirty, drunken ways, the man, as a man, is unbearable to me; but, as a clerk, I don’t know what I should do without him. For engrossing, or copying, he is useless, his hand is far too shaky. ”

“ Of no apparent use, were it not that a few wild-flowers choose to grow there, and a few birds, equally wild, to build their nests there. But over it, as over more favoured spots, the free breeze of heaven blows day and night, and keeps it sweet; and the sea makes everlasting music at its feet.”
These thoughts were still in Mr. Dering’s mind when a sudden turn in the pathway brought him in view of the lighthouse, whose gleaming lantern, although full half a mile away, shone out through the coming storm like the cheery welcome of a friend. ”

“ Going suddenly into the bedroom one day, without knowing that he was there, I found him standing by the cupboard, with the door open, and the diamond necklace in his hand. It was not my place to say anything, and it seemed no more than likely, at that time, that some day the necklace would be his own property. But, as regards the staircase, sir, I don’t know as Mr. Kester was ever told about that.”
There was nothing more to be learned, so Lionel took a kindly leave of the old man, who seemed as if he could not sufficiently express his delight at not having been forgotten by “the new master.” ”

“ He sat down again, still twisting and turning the cheque absently between his fingers. “Only a miserable eight pounds! It’s like offering a quarter of a biscuit to a man who is dying of starvation. Mr. Percy Osmond doesn’t seem to have paid much attention to the art of calligraphy when he was young. Upon my word I never saw a signature that it would be easier to imitate. All that a clever fellow wants is a blank cheque on the same bank. With that, what wonders might be wrought! I’ve heard Osmond say that he always sleeps with his keys under his pillow. ”

“ Already the base of the cliff was washed by the inrushing waves. Lionel shouted with all his might, but the wind blew the sound back again, and the thunder drowned it. He stood up despairingly. What should he do to succour the poor wretch who lay there, dying or, perhaps, already dead, at the foot of the cliff? What could he do? Alone and unaided he could do nothing. He must seek the help of others. But where? The nearest point where he could hope to get assistance was the lighthouse, and that was nearly half-a-mile away. ”

“ If, now and then, when I feel better and stronger, there come moments when I long to glance over the money article of ‘The Times,’ or to write a long, impatient letter to my broker in London, there are days and nights when such things have no longer the faintest interest for me—times when bare life itself seems a burden almost too heavy for endurance, and all my ambitious schemes and speculations nothing more than a tissue of huge mistakes. ”

“ Before Lionel had quite made up his mind whether he would attend the funeral or not, there came a second note from Mr. Perrins, more imperative than the first one:—“Your cousin, Mr. Kester St. George, is away on the Continent. I am doubtful whether my notification of your uncle’s death will reach him in time to allow of his being at the funeral. You and he are the late Mr. St. George’s sole relatives, except General St. George, who is in India. If neither you nor your cousin attend the funeral, your uncle will be followed to the grave by no one of his own blood. ”