T. W. Speight

“ You are a man, a husband, a Christian! He is my husband, and he is innocent. I swear before Heaven that he is innocent! Arrest him, and his blood will lie at your door, and be a curse upon you and yours for ever.”
“I—I must do my duty, ma’am,” stammered Tilley. “This gentleman is my prisoner, and he must come along with me.”
“Four hundred pounds are offered for his capture,” said Edith. “No one but you knows that he is here. Keep that knowledge to yourself—lock it up as a secret in your own breast, and six hundred pounds shall be put into your hands this very night.” ”

“ Finch, isn’t the old General a darling?”
“Yes, Miss Piper, I approve of the General—I approve of him very much indeed. But Mr. Kester St. George is a sort of person whom I would never condescend to engage as my employer. I don’t like that gentleman. It seems a strange thing to say, but he has never looked his proper self since the night of the murder. His man tells me that he has to drench himself with brandy every morning before he can dress himself. Who knows? Perhaps it’s the ghosts. They’re enough to turn any man’s brain.” ”

“ The two men eyed each other for a moment or two in silence. They might have been two gladiators about to engage in a deadly struggle, each of whom was measuring the other’s strength. “This man is my enemy,” was the thought that flashed through Kester’s brain; and for the moment his heart sank within him. The dark, stern, resolute-looking man before him would be a very different sort of person to cope with, from good-tempered, easy-going Lionel.
“Kester, this is my nephew, Richard, from India,” said the General. “Dick, this is your cousin, Kester St. George. ”

“ THE SQUIRE’S TRIBULATION
What more thankless office is there than to be the bearer of ill news to those we love or regard? Not often in the course of his life had such a duty fallen to the lot of Tom Bristow, and never had the burden seemed so heavy as on this present occasion. He would gladly have given a very fair share of all that he was worth could he but have turned his ill news into good news, or else have imposed upon some one else the telling of those evil tidings of which he was the bearer. ”

“ I’m an old campaigner, and could have my rattletraps ready in a few hours.”
“But to go away thus,” resumed Tom, “with the red stain of murder clinging to his name; with the foul conspiracy to destroy him still unravelled; with his wrongs unavenged; is what Lionel Dering will never consent to do. And I confess that, were I in his place, my feelings in the matter would be very similar to his. He has set before himself one great object in life, and he will never rest till he has accomplished it. And that is—to track out and bring to punishment the real murderer of Percy Osmond.” ”

“ Then he laughed, a forced, hollow laugh.
“Really, sir, you are rather hard on me,” he said. “After not seeing you for eight years, this is scarcely the greeting I anticipated from you. You have called me an unhappy man. Granting that I am one, am I any exception to the ordinary run of my fellow mortals? Show me the man who is really happy—who has no skeleton locked up in the secret closet of his heart!”
“Kester St. George, what have you done with your cousin, Lionel Dering?” ”

“ Should you, sir, ever choose to leave the house, what chance shall I have of getting another tenant? None! With the reputation of being haunted, no one will live in it. Slowly but surely it will go to rack and ruin.”
“It is hardly to be wondered at,” said the General, “that these people have connected a tragedy so terrible, as that which will make Park Newton memorable for a century to come, with certain ghostly appearances. I myself find my thoughts dwelling upon the same thing very frequently indeed. What a strange, sad fate was that of poor young Osmond! ”

“ Deceived by the silence in the room, believing all danger to be at an end, and cramped in every limb from standing so long in one position without moving, Lionel Dering touched the spring, pushed open the false back of the wardrobe, and prepared to emerge from his hiding-place. The first object that met his startled gaze was the terror-stricken face of Sergeant Tilley, who, seated on the extreme edge of the sofa, was gazing at him as though he were some unsubstantial ghost come to revisit the pale glimpses of the moon. ”

“ To live for ever the life of a hunted criminal; to go through the world with the brand of a murderer on his brow; to have every hope and feeling, and all that makes life sweet and dear to ordinary mortals, crushed out of him by the weight of a terrible accusation from which it seemed impossible that he could ever free himself, was more than he could bear. His heart broke, and he died.”
Petrified and dumb still sat Kester St. George. ”

“ Yet I confess that, except by way of a brief change now and again, life to me anywhere else would soon become unendurable.”
“You look prematurely old, sir—prematurely old,” said the General, severely. His spectacles were across his nose again by this time, and he was again looking Kester steadily in the face. And now he spoke in a voice that was low, stern, and impressive. “You look as if you had a burden on your mind: you look as if you had some secret care that was eating away your very life. Kester St. George, you are an unhappy man!” ”

“ George, after deliberately rubbing his spectacles with his handkerchief, placed them across his nose, and proceeded to take a steady survey of his nephew.
Kester fidgeted a little under the ordeal, but smiled and tried to appear pleased.
“You don’t look so young as when I saw you last,” said his uncle.
“Eight years make a difference in the appearance of most men,” said Kester; “and London life is very wearing.”
“No doubt it is,” said the veteran, drily. “But that any absolute necessity exists for you to live in London is more than I was aware of before.” ”

“ But even if released from her engagement to Edward Cope, Jane knew that she would still be as far as ever from the haven of her secret hopes, and that without running entirely counter to her father’s wishes and prejudices, the haven in question could never be reached by her. But although it might never be possible for her to marry the man whom she secretly loved, she was fully determined in her own mind never to marry any one else, however strongly the world might consider her to be bound by the fetters of her odious engagement. ”

“ But joy rarely kills; and basking in the warmth and sunlight of his wife’s love, Lionel breathed an atmosphere of happiness beyond what words could tell, which, like ozone to a sick man, gave him back by degrees his health both of mind and body, and endowed him with strength and vigour to fight the stern battle still before him.
Every precaution against a surprise was taken by the inmates of Alder Cottage. ”

“ Lionel Dering dead! What did not such news mean to him—if only—if only it were true! It was like a reprieve at the last moment to some poor wretch condemned to die. The news is whispered in his ear, the cords are unloosened, he stares round like a man suddenly roused from some hideous nightmare, and cannot, for a little time, believe that the blissful words he has just heard are really true. So it was with St. George. ”

“ Lionel shuddered and stared at Tom, but spoke not a single word.
“The trial is going against you, and to-morrow morning will see you condemned to death. Are you prepared to die by the hangman’s hand for a crime of which you know nothing? Are you prepared to leave your young wife to the tender mercies of a world which will not fail to remember that her husband was a murderer? ”

“ He questioned himself again and again whether suicide would not be far preferable to the pauper’s life, which was all that he now saw before him—whether it would not be better, by one bold stroke, to cut at once and for ever through the tangled web of difficulties that bound him. Over his dead body the men to whom he owed money might wrangle as much as they chose: a comfortable nook in the family vault would doubtless be found for him, and beyond that he would need nothing more. Unspeakably bitter to-night were the musings of Kester St. George. ”

“ Not that the old man would not have been as stanch as steel in such a case, and would have done anything and everything to assist Lionel. But, unfortunately, he had a garrulous tongue, which could not always be trusted to keep a secret—which often betrayed secrets without knowing that it had done so; and in a matter so grave as the one in which he was now engaged, Tom was careful to avoid the slightest unnecessary risk. It would be far better for every one that the squire should rest in happy ignorance, till the future should bring its own proper time for revealing everything. ”

“ But not till the great day of all would their awful silence ever be broken.
Drayton and Whiffins, drawing nearer to the coffin, gazed down through the glass plate at the immovable features underneath. Kester, leaning against one of the cold stone pillars, shuddered, but drew no nearer. Beyond the faint circle of light which radiated from the tapers, all was obscurity and gloom the most profound. ”

“ In some remote nook of the New World, where the nearest city is a hundred miles away, with his wife on one hand and you on the other, to love and care for him, Lionel Dering, like a storm-tossed ship that has reached a happy haven at last, might live out the remainder of his days in quiet happiness ”

“ A week or so after the departure of Lionel for Cumberland, Jane had been taken by Tom to Alder Cottage and introduced to Edith. How warmly the latter thanked her for what she had done need not be told here. In that hour of their meeting was laid the foundation of one of those friendships, rare between two women, which death alone has power to sever.
However deeply Mr. Tom Bristow might be in love, however infatuated he might be on one particular point, he in nowise neglected his ordinary business avocations, nor did he by any means spend the whole of his time in Duxley and its neighbourhood. ”

“ Dering without a moment’s delay,” said Jane.
“Pardon me,” said Tom, “but the very kindness of your offer would defeat the object we have most in view. Dering’s safety depends on the absolute secrecy which must enshroud this night’s transactions. What you have just suggested could not be carried out without exciting the suspicions of one or more of your servants. From suspicion to inquiry is only one step, and from inquiry to discovery is often only another.”
“You are right, Mr. Bristow. But you are not without a plan of your own, I am sure.” ”

“ As Finch had said, he had to dose himself heavily with brandy before he could dress and crawl downstairs to breakfast. But as the day wore on he always got stronger and better, so that by the time it was necessary to dress for dinner, he was quite like his old self again, as well seemingly and as buoyant as the Kester St. George of a dozen years before. It was the dark hours that tried him most, when he was left alone in his great gloomy bedroom, with a candle, and a book, and his own thoughts.
He had brought his valet with him to Park Newton. Not Pierre Janvard this time. ”

“ Tom, all this time, had been talking volubly, and making ample use of his big pocket-handkerchief—doing his best, in fact, to keep his companion from being overmuch noticed. But now had come the most dangerous moment of all. They were all crowded together close to the outer gate, waiting for it to be unfastened—the three warders, Tom, and Lionel—under the light of a flaring gas-lamp. The slightest hesitation—the least want of presence of mind—might have been fatal to everything. ”

“ Osmond as you are!”
“You are a good man—you are a kind-hearted man,” pleaded Edith. “I can see it in your face—I can read it in your eyes. You have a wife and children. Think what you can buy for them—think with what comforts you can surround them, out of six hundred pounds. But stain your hands with that vile blood-money, and you will be a marked man among your fellow-men to the last hour of your miserable life!”
“Tilley, Tilley, where are you? Why don’t you come down?” called Mr. Drayton from below.
“Coming, sir—coming,” cried Tilley. ”

“ Wigley made the wardrobe according to instructions, and treated the whole affair as though he were in the habit of making articles of furniture with false backs to them every day in the week. But Tom’s first mistake lay in thinking that such a man would be less likely than a more reputable and well-to-do tradesman to connect in his own mind, as two links in a possible chain, the escape of a prisoner from Duxley gaol with the fact of having sent to that very town a wardrobe so constructed that a man might be hidden away in it with ease. ”

“ The footsteps passed slowly into the dining-room, and then Edith could hear the low muttering of two or three voices, as though the superintendent and his men were deep in consultation.
“Surely the worst is over,” said Mrs. Garside. “A few minutes more, and they will be gone.”
But suddenly Edith started to her feet with an exclamation. “There were three men: went upstairs,” she cried, “but only two of them have come down! Why has not the third man come down with the others?” ”

“ Under the portico stood a man smoking a cigar. Their eyes met for an instant in the lamplight, but they were strangers to each other, and Tom passed on his way. Next moment he started, and turned to look again. He had heard a voice say: “Mr. St. George, your dinner is served.”
He had come at last, then, this cousin, who had not been seen in Duxley since the day of the inquest—on whose evidence to-morrow so much would depend.
“Is that the man, I wonder,” said Tom to himself, “in whose breast lies hidden the black secret of the murder? ”

“ With a sneer, he flicked open the envelope that held the telegram, opened the paper, and read the one line that was written therein.
“Lionel Dering is dead. Come here at once!”
The telegram dropped from his fingers—the cigar fell from his lips. A strange, death-like pallor overspread his face. He pressed both his hands to his left side, and sank back in his chair like a man suddenly stricken by some invisible foe.
The waiter, who had been hovering near, was by his side in a moment. “Are you ill, sir?” he said. “What can I get you? Would you like a glass of water?” ”