CHAPTER XV.
At that moment there was a visitor in the bar down-stairs. He was an elderly man, with shaggy eyebrows and a wizened face; a diminutive creature with a tousled head of black and gray. It was Gubblum Oglethorpe. The mountain peddler had traveled south to buy chamois leather, and had packed a great quantity of it into a bundle, like a panier, which he carried over one arm.
Since the wedding at Newlands, three days ago, Gubblum's lively intelligence had run a good deal on his recollection of the man resembling Paul Ritson, whom he had once seen in Hendon. He had always meant to settle for himself that knotty question. So here, on his first visit to London, he intended to put up at the very inn about which the mystery gathered.
"How's ta rubbun on?" he said, by way of salute on entering. When Mrs. Drayton had gone upstairs she had left the pot-boy in charge of the bar. He was a loutish lad of sixteen, and his name was Jabez.
Jabez slowly lifted his eyes from the pewters he was washing, and a broad smile crossed his face. Evidently the new-comer was a countryman.
"Cold neet, eh? Sharp as a step-mother's breath," said Gubblum, throwing down the panier and drawing up to the fire.
The smile on the face of Jabez broadened perceptibly, and he began to chuckle.
"What's ta snertan at, eh?" said Gubblum. "I say it's hot weather varra. Hasta owt agenn it?"
Jabez laughed outright. Clearly the countryman must be crazy.
"What's yon daft thingamy aboot?" thought Gubblum. Then aloud, "Ay, my lad, gie us a laal sup o' summat."
Jabez found his risible faculties sorely disturbed by this manner of speech. But he proceeded to fill a pewter. The pot-boy's movements resembled those of a tortoise in celerity.
"He's a stirran lad, yon," thought Gubblum. "He's swaddering like a duck in a puddle."
"Can I sleep here to-neet?" he asked, when Jabez had brought him his beer.
Then the sapient smile on the pot-boy's face ripened into speech.
"I ain't answering for the sleeping," said Jabez, "but happen you may have a bed—he, he, he! I'll ask the missis—he, he, haw!"
"The missis? Hasta never a master, then?" said Gubblum.
Now, Jabez had been warned, with many portentous threats, that in the event of any one asking for the master he was to be as mute as the grave. So in answer to the peddler's question he merely shook his wise head and looked grave and astonishingly innocent.
"No? And how lang hasta been here?"
"Three years come Easter," said Jabez.
"And how lang dusta say 'at missis has been here?"
"Missis? I heard father say as Mistress Drayton has kep' the Hawk and Heron this five-and-twenty year."
"Five-and-twenty! Then I reckon that master would be no'but a laal wee barn when she coomt first," said Gubblum.
"Happen he were," said Jabez. Then, recovering the caution so unexpectedly disturbed, Jabez protested afresh that he had no master.
"It's slow wark suppen buttermilk wi' a pitchfork," thought Gubblum, and he proceeded to employ a spoon.
"Sista, my lad, wadsta like me to lend thee a shilling?"
Jabez grinned, and closed his fat fist on the coin thrust into his palm.
"I once knew a man as were the varra spitten picter of your master," said Gubblum. "In fact, his varra sel', upsett'n and doon thross'n. I thowt it were hissel', that's the fact. But when I tackled him he threept me down, and I was that vexed I could have bitten the side out of a butter-bowl."
"But I ain't got no master," protested Jabez.
"I were riding by on my laal pony that day, but now I'm going shankum naggum," continued Gubblum, unmindful of the pot-boy's mighty innocent look. "'A canny morning to you, Master Paul,' I shouted, and on I went."
"Then you know his name?" said Jabez, opening wide his drowsy eyes.
"'Master Paul's half his time frae home,' says the chap on t'road. 'Coorse he is,' I says: 'it's me for knowing that,' Ah, I mind it same as it were yesterday. I looked back, and there he was standing at the door, and he just snitit his nose wi' his finger and thoom. Ey, he did, for sure."
Jabez found his conscience abnormally active at that moment. "But I ain't got none," he protested afresh.
"None what?"
"No master."
"That's a lie, my lad, for I see he's been putten a swine ring on yer snout to keep ye frae rooting up the ground."
After this Gubblum sat a good half-hour in silence. Mrs. Drayton came down-stairs and arranged that Gubblum should sleep that night in the house. His bedroom was to be a little room at the back, entered from the vicinity of the ladder that led to the attics.
Gubblum got up, said he was tired, and asked to be shown to his room. Jabez lighted a candle, and they went off together.
"Whereiver does that lead to?" said Gubblum, pointing to the ladder near his bedroom door.
"I dunno," said Jabez, moodily. He had been ruminating on Gubblum's observation about the swine ring.
"He's as sour as vargis," thought Gubblum.
There was the creak of a footstep overhead.
"Who sleeps in the pigeon loft?" Gubblum asked, tipping his finger upward.
"I dunno," repeated Jabez.
"His dander's up," thought Gubblum.
Just then the landlady in the bar heard the sound of wheels on the road, and the next moment a carriage drew up at the open door.
"I say there, lend a hand here, quick!" shouted the driver.
Mrs. Drayton hobbled up. The flyman was leaning through the door of the fly, helping some one to alight.
"Take a' arm, missy; there, that's the size of it. Now, sir, down, gently."
The person assisted was a man. The light from the bar fell on his face, and the landlady saw him clearly. It was Paul Ritson. He was flushed, and his eyes were bloodshot. Behind him was Mercy Fisher, with recent tears on her cheeks.
"Oh, he's ill, Mrs. Drayton," said Mercy.
Paul freed one of his arms from the grasp of the girl, waved with a gesture of deprecation, smiled a jaunty smile, and said:
"No, no, no; let me walk; I'm well—I'm well."
With this he made for the house, but before he had taken a second step he staggered and fell against the door-jamb.
"Deary me, deary me, the poor gentleman's taken badly," said Mrs. Drayton, fussing about.
Paul Ritson laughed a little, lifted his red eyes, and said:
"Well, well! But it's nothing. Just dizzy, that's all. And thirsty—very—give me a drink, good woman."
"Bring that there bench up, missy, and we'll put him astride it," said the driver. "Right; that's the time o' day. Now, sir, down."
"Deary me, deary me, drink this, my good gentleman. It'll do you a mort o' good. It's brandy."
"Water—bring me water," said Paul Ritson, feebly; "I'm parched."
"How hot his forehead is," said Mercy.
"And no light 'un to lift, neither," said the driver. "Does he live here, missis?"
Mrs. Drayton brought a glass of water. Paul drained it to the last drop.
"No, sir; I mean yes, driver," said the landlady, confusedly.
"He warn't so bad getting in," the driver observed.
"Oh, dear, oh, dear! where is Mr. Christian—Parson Christian?" said Mercy, whose distracted eyes wandered around.
"The gentleman's come, sir; he's upstairs, sir," said the landlady, and, muttering to herself, Mrs. Drayton hobbled away.
Paul Ritson's head had fallen on his breast. His hat was off, and his hair tumbled over his face. The strong man sat coiled up on the bench. Then he shook himself and threw up his head, as if trying to cast off the weight of stupor that sat on him.
"Well, well! who'd have thought of this? Water—more water!" he mumbled in a thick voice.
Mercy stood before him with a glass in her hand.
"Is it good for him, I wonder?" she said. "Oh, where is Mr. Christian?"
Paul Ritson saw the glass, clutched at it with both hands, then smiled a poor, weak smile, as if to atone for his violence, and drank every drop.
"Well, well!—so hot—and dizzy—and cold!" he muttered, incoherently.
Then he relapsed into silence. After a moment, the driver, who was supporting him at the back, looked over at his face. The eyes were closed, and the lips were hanging.
"He's gone off unconscious," said the flyman. "Ain't ye got a bed handy?"
At that moment Mrs. Drayton came hastily down-stairs, in a fever of agitation.
"You've got to get him up to his room," she said, between gusts of breath.
"That's a job for two men, ain't it, missis?" said the driver.
Mercy had loosened Paul's collar, and with a nervous hand she was bathing his burning forehead.
"Oh, tell Mr. Christian," she said; "say he has fainted."
Mrs. Drayton hobbled back. In another instant there was a man's step descending the stairs. Hugh Ritson entered the bar. He looked down at the unconscious man and felt his pulse. "When did this happen?" he asked, turning to Mercy.
"He said he was feeling ill when I met him; then he was worse in the train, and when we reached Hendon he was too dizzy to stand," said Mercy.
"His young woman, ain't it?" said the flyman, aside, to Hugh.
Hugh nodded his head slightly. Then, turning toward Mrs. Drayton, with a significant glance, "Your poor son is going to be ill," he said.
The landlady glanced back with a puzzled expression, and began in a blundering whimper, "The poor gentleman—"
"The old lady's son?" said the flyman, tipping his finger in the direction of the landlady.
"Paul Drayton," said Hugh.
Mercy saw and heard all. The tears suddenly dried in her eyes, which opened wide in amazement. She said nothing.
Hugh caught the altered look in her face.
"Mrs. Drayton," he said, "didn't you say you had something urgent for Mercy to do? Let her set about it at once. Now, driver, lend a hand—upstairs; it's only a step."
They lifted Paul Ritson between them, and were carrying him out of the bar.
"Where's the boy?" asked Hugh. "Don't let him get in the way. Boys are more hindrance than help," he added, in an explanatory tone.
They had reached the foot of the stair. "Now, my man, easy—heavy, eh? rather."
They went up. Mercy stood in the middle of the floor with a tearless and whitening face.
Half a minute later Hugh Ritson and the flyman had returned to the bar. The phantom of a smile lurked about the flyman's mouth. Hugh Ritson's face was ashen, and his lips quivered.
The boxes and portmanteaus which Paul and Greta had left in the bar three nights ago still lay in one corner. Hugh pointed them out to the driver. "Put them on top of the cab," he said. The flyman proceeded to do so.
When the man was outside the door, Hugh Ritson turned to Mrs. Drayton. The landlady was fussing about, twitching her apron between nervous fingers. "Mrs. Drayton," said Hugh, "you will go in this fly to the Convent of St. Margaret, Westminster. There you will ask for Mrs. Ritson, the lady who was here on Friday night. You will tell her that you have her luggage with you, and that she is to go with you to St. Pancras Station to meet her husband, and return to Cumberland by the midnight train. You understand?"
"I can't say as I do, sir, asking pardon, sir. If so be as the lady axes why her husband didn't come for her hisself—what then?"
"Then say what is true—nothing more, Mrs. Drayton."
"And happen what may that be, sir?"
"That her husband is ill—but mind—not seriously."
"Oh, well, I can speak to that, sir, being as I saw the poor gentleman."
Mrs. Drayton was putting on her bonnet and shawl. The flyman had fixed the luggage on top of the cab, and was standing in the bar, whip in hand.
"A glass for the driver," said Hugh. Mrs. Drayton moved toward the counter. "No, you get into the cab, Mrs. Drayton; Mercy will serve."
Mercy went behind the counter and served the liquor in an absent manner.
"It's now ten-thirty," said Hugh, looking at his watch. "You will drive first to the convent, Westminster, and from there to St. Pancras, to catch the train at twelve."
Saying this, he walked to the door and put his head through the window of the cab. The landlady was settling herself in her seat. "Mrs. Drayton," he whispered, "you must not utter a syllable about your son when you see the lady. Mind that. You understand?"
"Well, sir, I can't say—being as I saw the gentleman—wherever's Paul?"
"Hush!"
The driver came out. He leaped to his seat. In another moment the cab rattled away.
Hugh Ritson walked back into the house. The boy Jabez had come down-stairs. "When do you close the house?" Hugh asked.
"Eleven o'clock, sir," said Jabez.
"No one here—you might almost as well close now. No matter—go behind the bar, my lad. Mercy, your eyes are more inflamed than ever; get away to bed immediately."
Mercy's eyes were not more red than their expression was one of bewilderment. She moved off mechanically. When she reached the foot of the stairs she turned and tried to speak. The words would not come. At length she said, in a strange voice: "You did not tell me the truth."
"Mercy!"
"Where's Parson Christian?" said Mercy, and her voice grew stern.
"You must not use that tone to me. Come, get away to bed, little one."
Her eyes dropped before his. She turned away. He watched her up the stairs. So sure of hand was he that not even at that moment did he doubt his hold of her. But Mercy did not go to bed. She turned in at the open door of Drayton's room. The room was dark; only a fitful ray of bleared moonlight fell crosswise on the floor; but she could see that the unconscious figure of Paul Ritson lay stretched upon the bed.
"And I have led you here with a lie!" she thought. Then her head swam and fell on to the counterpane. Some minutes passed in silence. She was aroused by footsteps in the passage outside. They were coming toward this room. The door, which stood ajar, was pushed open. There was no time for Mercy to escape, so she crept back into the darkness of a narrow space between the foot of the bed and the wall.
Two men entered. Mercy realized their presence in the dark room rather by the sense of touch than by the sense of hearing or sight. They walked lightly, the darkness hid them, but the air seemed heavy with their hot breath. One of them approached the bedside; Mercy felt the bed quiver. The man leaned over it, and there was a pause. Only the scarcely perceptible breathing of the insensible man fell on the silence.
"He's safe enough still," said a voice that thrilled her through and through. "Now for it—there's no time to lose!"
The girl crouched down and held her breath.
"Damme if I ain't wishing myself well out of it!" muttered another voice.
Mercy knew both men. They were Hugh Ritson and Paul Drayton.
Hugh closed the door. "What simpleton says fortune favors the brave?" he said, in a low, derisive tone. "Here is fortune at the feet of a man like you!"
Drayton growled, and Mercy heard the oath that came from beneath his breath. "I'm wanting to be out of this, and I ain't ashamed for you to know it."
Hugh Ritson's light laugh came from the bedside. He was still standing by Paul Ritson's head. "If the lord mayor came for you in his carriage, with a guard of flunkies, you would leave this house in less safety," he said. Then he added, impatiently: "Come, waste no words; strip off that tell-tale coat."
With this he leaned over the bed, and there was a creak of the spring mattress.
"What's that?" said Drayton, in an affrighted tone.
"For God's sake, be a man!" said Hugh, bitterly.
"D'ye call this a man's work?" muttered Drayton.
The light laugh once more. "Perhaps not so manly as robbing the dead and dying," said Hugh Ritson, and his voice was deep and cold.
Mercy heard another muttered oath. Dear God! what was about to be done? Could she escape? The door was closed. Still, if she could but reach it, she might open it and fly away.
At that instant, Hugh Ritson, as if apprehending her thought, said, "Wait," and then stepped back to the door and drew the snap bolt. Mercy leaned against the wall, and heard the beating of her heart. In the darkness she knew that Paul Drayton had thrown off his coat. "A good riddance!" he muttered, and the heavy garment fell with a thud.
Hugh Ritson had returned to the bed-head. "Give me a hand," he said; "raise him gently—there, I'll hold him up—now draw off his coat—quietly, one arm at a time. Is it free? Then, lift—away."
Another heavy garment fell with a thud.
"What's the fence got in his other pockets, eh?"
"Come, lend your hand again—draw off the boots—they're Cumberland make, and yours are cockney style—quick!"
Drayton stepped to the bottom of the bed and fumbled at the feet of the insensible man. He was then within a yard of the spot where the girl stood. She could feel his proximity, and the alcoholic fumes of his breath rose to her nostrils. She was dizzy, and thought she must have fallen. She stretched out one hand to save herself, and it fell on to the bed-rail. It was within a foot of Drayton's arm.
"Take off his stockings—they're homespun—while I remove the cravat. The pin was a present; it has his name engraved on the plate behind."
The slant of the moonlight had died off the floor, and all was dark.
Drayton's craven fears seemed to leave him. He laughed and crowed. "How quiet the fence is—very obliging, I'm sure—just fainted in the nick of time. Will it last?"
"Quick! strip off your own clothes and put them where these have come from. The coat with the torn lapel—where is it? Make no mistake about that."
"I'll pound it, no!" Drayton laughed a short, hoarse laugh.
There was some shuffling in the darkness. Then a pause.
"Hush!"
Mercy knew that Hugh Ritson had grasped the arm of Drayton, and that both held their breath. At that moment the moonlight returned, and the bleared shaft that had once crossed the floor now crossed the bed. The light fell on the face of the prostrate man. His eyes were open.
"Water—water!" said Paul Ritson, very feebly.
Hugh Ritson stepped out of the moonlight and went behind his brother. Then Mercy saw a hand before Paul's face, putting a spirit flask to his mouth.
When the hand was raised the face twitched slightly, the eyes closed with a convulsive tremor, and the half-lifted head fell back on to the pillow.
"He'll be quieter than ever now," said Hugh Ritson, softly. Mercy thought she must have screamed, but the instinct of self-preservation kept her still. She stirred not a limb. Her head rested against the wall, her eyes peered into the darkness, her parched tongue and parted lips burned like fire.
"Quick! put his clothes on to your own back, and let us be gone."
Drayton drew on the garments and laughed hoarsely. "And a good fit, too—same make of a man to a T—ex—act—ly!"
The window and the door stood face to face; the bed was on the left of the door, with the head at the door-end. The narrow alcove in which the girl stood was to the left of the window, and in front of the window there was a dressing-table. Drayton stepped up to this table to fix the cravat by the glass. The faint moonlight that fell on his grinning face was reflected dimly into the mirror.
At that moment Mercy's sickening eyes turned toward the bed. There, in repose that was like death itself, lay the upturned face of Paul Ritson. Two faces cast by nature in the same mold—one white and serene and peaceful, the other bloated, red, smirking, distorted by passion, with cruel eyes and smoking lips.
"The very thing—the very thing—damme if his own mother wouldn't take me for her son!"
Hugh Ritson stepped to Drayton's side. When he spoke his voice was like a cold blast of wind.
"Now listen: From this moment at which you change your coat for his you cease to be Paul Drayton, and become Paul Ritson."
"Didn't you say I was to be Paul Lowther?"
"That will come later."
"As I say, it won't go into my nob."
"No matter; say nothing to yourself but this, 'I am to pretend to be Paul Ritson.'"
"Well, now for it!"
"Ready?" asked Hugh. He returned to the bed-head.
"Ready."
"Then give a hand here. We must put him up into your garret. When the police come for him he must seem to be in hiding and in drink. You understand?"
A low, hoarse laugh was the only answer.
Then they lifted the unconscious man from the bed, opened the door, and carried him into the passage.
Mercy recovered her stunned senses. When the men were gone she crept out on tiptoe and tripped down the passage to her own room. At the door she reeled and fell heavily. Then, in a vague state of consciousness, she heard these words passed over her—"Carry her back into her room and lock her in." At the same instant she felt herself being lifted in a strong man's arms.
CHAPTER XVI.
Before Gubblum Oglethorpe parted with Jabez, he tried to undo the mischief he had done. "Give us a shak' o' thy daddle," he said, holding out his hand. But Jabez had not forgotten the similitude of the swine ring. He made no response.
"Dang him for a fool!" thought Gubblum. "He's as daft as a besom." Then Gubblum remembered with what lavish generosity he had bribed the pot-boy to no purpose. "He cover't a shilling dammish," he thought; "I'll dang his silly head off!"
Jabez put down the candle and backed out of the room, his eyes fixed on the peddler with a ghostly stare.
"You needn't boggle at me. I'll none hurt ye," said Gubblum. Jabez pulled the door after him. "His head's no'but a lump of puddin' and a daub o' pancake," thought Gubblum.
Then the peddler sat on the bed and began to wonder what possible reason there might be for the lad's sudden change of temper. He sat long, and many crude notions trotted through his brain. At last he recalled the fact that he had said something about Jabez's snout carrying a swine ring. That was the rub, sure enough. "I mak' no doobt he thowt it was a by-wipe," thought Gubblum.
Just as the peddler had arrived at this sapient conclusion, he heard heavy footsteps ascending and descending the ladder that stood in the passage outside. Gubblum understood the sounds to mean that the inn was so full of visitors that some of them had to be lodged even in the loft. "Ey, I shouldn't wonder but this is a bonny paying consarn," he thought.
He undressed, got into bed, and blew out his light. He lay awhile waiting for sleep, and thinking of the failure of his plummets to sound the depths of Jabez. Then he remembered with vexation that the lad had even laughed at him in spite of the "shilling dammish."
"Shaf, it was no'but his guts crowkin'," thought Gubblum; and he rolled over, face to the wall, and began to pay nasal tribute to sleep.
From the slowly tightening grip of unconsciousness Gubblum was roused to sudden wakefulness. There was a noise as of heavy shuffling feet outside his door. The peddler raised himself and listened.
"Too dark in this corner," said a voice. "Get a light."
Gubblum crept out of bed, held his head to the door, and listened.
There were retreating steps. Then the man who had spoken before spoke again. "Quick, there! we must catch the train at eleven fifteen."
The voice pealed in Gubblum's memory. He knew it. It was the voice of the last man he should have looked for in this house—Hugh Ritson.
Presently the footsteps approached, and thin fingers of light shot over Gubblum's head into his dark room. He looked up at the door. Three small round holes had been pierced into the styles for ventilation.
"Put the candle on the floor and take the feet—I'll go up first," said the same voice.
Gubblum raised himself on tiptoe and tried to peer through the perforations. He was too small a man to see through. There was a chair by the side of his bed, and his extinguished candle stood on it. He removed the candlestick, lifted the chair cautiously, placed its back to the door, and mounted it. Then he saw all.
There were two men, and he knew both—the brothers Ritson. Ah! had he not said that Paul Ritson kept this inn? "I'll shut up the whole boilin' of 'em next time," thought the peddler, "Wait! what are they lugging into the pigeon loft?"
"Easy!—damme, but the fence is a weight!"
It was the hoarse voice of the other man. The candle was behind him and on the floor. It cast its light on his back. "If I could no'but get a blink frae the cannel, I'd see what's atween them," thought Gubblum.
The men with their burden were now at the top of the ladder.
"Twist about, and go in sideways," muttered the voice first heard.
The man below twisted. This movement brought the full light of the candle on to the faces of all three.
"Lord A'mighty, whativer's this?" Gubblum thought.
The burden was a man's body. But it was the face that startled the peddler—the face of Paul Ritson.
Gubblum's eyes passed over the group in one quick glance. He saw two Paul Ritsons there, and one of them lay as still as the dead.
A minute more of awful tension, and the door of the loft above was slammed and shut, the heavy feet of the two men descended the ladder quickly, and went down the stairs into the bar.
Gubblum listened as if with every sense. He knew that the outer door to the road had opened and closed. He heard footsteps dying away in the distance without. All was silent within the house.
Two men hastening in the night to the Hendon railway station paused at that turn of the road which leads to the police offices and jail.
"You go on and take care of yourself—I'll follow in five minutes," said one.
"You ain't going to give a man away?" said the other.
There was only a contemptuous snort for answer. The first speaker had turned on his heel. When he reached the police offices, he rang the bell. The door was answered by a sergeant in plain clothes. "I've found your man for you," said Hugh Ritson.
"Where, sir?"
"At the Hawk and Heron."
"Who is he?"
"Paul Drayton. You'll find him lying in the garret at the west end of the gable—drunk. Lose not an hour. Go at once."
"Is the gentleman who struggled with him still staying there—Mr. Paul Ritson?"
"No; he goes back home to-night."
"What's his address in the country?"
"The Ghyll, Newlands, Cumberland."
"And yours, sir?"
"I am his brother, Hugh Ritson, and my address is the same."
"We'll go this instant."
"Well, take your piece of frieze with you and see if it fits. It was by the torn ulster that I recognized your man. Good-night."
CHAPTER XVII.
As soon as the noise of the retiring steps had died away on Gubblum's ear, he dressed himself partially, opened the door of his bedroom cautiously, and stepped into the passage. He was still in the dark, and groping with one hand, he felt for the ladder by which the two men had carried their burden to the loft above. He had grasped the lowest rungs of it, and was already some steps up, when he heard a singular noise. It was something between the cry of a child and the deep moan of a sick man. Did it come from the loft? Gubblum held his head in that direction and listened. No; the sound was from the other end of the passage. Now it was gone, and all was quiet. What a strange house was this!
"Can't see a styme," thought Gubblum. "I'll away for the cannel."
Back in his bedroom he struck a match, and then stepped afresh into the passage, guarding the newly lighted candle with the palm of his hand. Then there came a shrill cry. It seemed to be before him, above him, behind him, everywhere about him. Gubblum's knees gave way, but the stubborn bit of heart in him was not to be shaken.
"A rayder queerly sort of a house," he thought; and at that instant there were heavy lunges at a door at the further end of the passage, and a cry of "Help! help!"
Gubblum darted in the direction of the voice.
"Let me out!" cried the voice from within.
Gubblum tried the door. It was locked.
"Help! help!" came again.
"In a sniffer; rest ye a bit!" shouted Gubblum, and putting the light on the floor, he planted his shoulder against the door, and one foot against the opposite wall.
"Help! help! let me out! quick, quick!" came once more from within.
"Sec a skrummidge!" shouted Gubblum, panting for breath.
Then the lock gave way and the door flew open. In the midst of the bad light Gubblum saw nothing at first. Then a woman with wild eyes and a face of anguish came out on him from the dark room. It was Mercy Fisher.
When they recognized each other there was a moment of silence. But it was only a moment, and that moment was too precious to be lost. In a flood of tears the girl told him what had happened.
Gubblum understood no more than that villainy had been at work. Mercy saw nothing but that she had been deceived and had been herself the instrument of deception. This was enough.
"The raggabrash! I'd like to rozzle their backs with an ash stick," said Gubblum.
"Oh, where have they taken him—where, where?" cried Mercy, wringing her hands.
"Don't put on wi' thee—I know," said Gubblum. "I questit them up the stairs. Come along wi' me, lass, and don't slobber and yowl like a barn."
Gubblum whipped up his candle, and hurried along the passage and up the ladder like a monkey, Mercy following at his heels.
"Belike they've locked this door forby," he said.
But no, the key was in the lock. Gubblum turned it and pushed it open. Then he peered into the garret, holding the candle above his head. When the light penetrated the darkness, they saw a man's figure outstretched on a mattress that lay on the bare floor of the empty room. They ran up to it, and raised the head.
"It's his fadder's son, I'll uphod thee," said Gubblum. "And yon riff-raff, his spitten picter, is no'but some wastrel merry-begot."
Mercy was down on her knees beside the insensible man, chafing his hands. There was a tremulous movement of the eyelids.
"Sista, he's coming tul't. Slip away for watter, lass," said Gubblum.
Mercy was gone and back in an instant.
"Let a be, let a be—he'll come round in a crack. Rub his forehead—stir thy hand, lass—pour the watter—there, that's enough—plenty o' butter wad sto a dog. Sista, he's coming tul't fast."
Paul Ritson had opened his eyes.
"Slip away for mair watter, lass—there, that's summat like—rest ye, my lad—a drink?—ey, a sup o' watter."
Paul looked around him. His filmy eyes were full of questions. But at first his tongue would not speak. He looked up at the bare skylight and around at the bleached walls, and then back into the face of the peddler. He noticed Mercy, and smiled.
"Where are we, my girl?" he said, faintly.
"This is the Hawk and Heron," she answered.
"How do I come to be here?" he asked.
Mercy covered her face, and sobbed.
"I brought you," she said, at length.
Paul looked at her a moment with bewildered eyes. Then the tide of memory flowed back upon his mind.
"I remember," he said, quietly; "I was feeling dizzy—hadn't slept two nights—not even been in bed—walked the streets the long hours through."
Everything had rushed over him in a moment, and he closed his eyes with a deep groan. At his feet Mercy buried her face and sobbed aloud.
Paul drew himself feebly up on his elbow.
"Where is Parson Christian?" he asked, and gazed around, with a faint smile.
The girl's anguish overflowed.
"That was a lie I told you," she sobbed.
The smile fled away.
"A lie! Why a lie?"
He was struggling with a dazed sense.
"I told you that Parson Christian was here and wanted you. He is not here."
And Mercy's weeping seemed to choke her.
"My good girl, and why?"
"They brought you to this room and left you, and now they are gone."
"They! Who?"
"Your brother Hugh and Mr. Drayton."
Paul looked deadly sick at heart.
"Who is this Drayton?"
"The spitten picter of yourself, my lad," said Gubblum; "the man I telt ye of lang ago—him as keeps this house."
Paul's eyes wandered vacantly. His nervous fingers twitched at the ulster that he wore.
"What's this?" he said, and glanced down at his altered dress.
"When you were insensible they stripped you of your clothes and put others on you," said Mercy.
"Whose clothes are these?"
"Mr. Drayton's."
Paul Ritson rose to his feet.
"Where are the men?" he said, in a husky voice.
"Gone."
"Where?"
"To the station—that was all I heard."
Paul gazed about with hazy eyes. Mercy flung herself at his feet and wept bitterly.
"Forgive me! oh, forgive me!"
He looked down at her with a confused expression. His brain was benumbed. He drew one arm across his face as though struggling to recover some lost link of memory.
"Why, my good lass, what's this?" he said, and then smiled faintly and made an attempt to raise her up.
"Who is at the convent at Westminster?" she asked.
Then all his manner changed.
"Why?—what of that?" he said.
"Mrs. Drayton was sent there in a cab to tell Mrs. Ritson to be at St. Pancras Station at midnight to meet her husband and return to Cumberland."
The face that had been pale became suddenly old and ghastly. There was an awful silence.
"Is this the truth?" he asked.
"Yes, yes," cried the girl.
"I think I see it all now—I think I understand," he faltered.
"Forgive me!" cried the girl.
He seemed hardly to see her.
"I have been left in this room insensible, and the impostor who resembles me—where is he now?"
He struggled with the sickness that was mastering him. His brain reeled. The palms of his hands became damp. He staggered and leaned against the wall.
"Rest ye a bit, my lad," said Gubblum. "You'll be gitten stanch agen soon."
He recovered his feet. His face was charged with new anger.
"And the wicked woman who trapped me to this house is still here," he said, in a voice thick with wrath.
"Forgive me! forgive me!" wept the girl at his feet.
He took her firmly by the shoulders, raised her to her knees, and turned her face upward till her eyes met his.
"Let me look at her," he said, hoarsely. "Who would have believed it?"
"Forgive me! forgive me!" cried the girl.
"Woman, woman! what had I done to you—what, what?"
The girl's sobs alone made answer.
In his rage he took her by the throat. A fearful purpose was written in his face.
"And this is the woman who bowed down the head of her old father nigh to the grave," he said, bitterly, and flung her from him.
Then he staggered back. His little strength had left him. There was silence. Only the girl's weeping could be heard.
The next instant, strangely calm, without a tear in his sad eyes, he stepped to her side and raised her to her feet.
"I was wrong," he said; "surely I was wrong. You could not lie to me like that, and know it. No, no, no!"
"They told me what I told you," said the girl.
"And I blamed you for it all, poor girl."
"Then you forgive me?" she said, lifting her eyes timidly.
"Forgive you?—ask God to forgive you, girl. I am only a man, and you have wrecked my life."
There was a foot on the ladder, and Jabez, the boy, stepped up, a candle in his hand. He had been waiting for the landlady, when he heard voices overhead.
"The varra man!" shouted Gubblum. "Didsta see owt of thy master down-stairs?"
Jabez grinned, and glanced up at Paul Ritson.
"Hark ye, laal man, didsta see two men leaving the house a matter of fifteen minutes ago?"
"Belike I did," said Jabez. "And to be sure it were the gentleman that come here afore—and another one."
"Another one—your master, you mean?"
Jabez grinned from ear to ear.
"Didsta hear owt?"
"I heard the gentleman say they had to be at St. Pancras at midnight."
Paul fumbled at his breast for his watch. It was gone.
"What's o'clock?" he asked.
"Fifteen after eleven, master," said Jabez. "I've just bolted up."
Paul's face was full of resolution.
"I'll follow," he said; "I've lost time enough already."
"What, man! you'll never manish it—and you as weak as watter forby. You'll be falling swat in the road like a wet sack."
Paul had pulled the door open. Excitement lent him strength. The next moment he was gone.
"Where's the master off to? St. Pancras?" asked Jabez.
"Fadge-te-fadge, gang out of my gate! Away, and lig down your daft head in bed!" said Gubblum.
Jabez did not act on the peddler's advice. He returned to the bar to await the return of Mrs. Drayton, whose unaccustomed absence gave rise to many sapient conjectures in the boy's lachrymose noddle. He found the door to the road open, and from this circumstance his swift intelligence drew the conclusion that his master had already gone. His hand was on the door to close and bolt it, when he heard rapid footsteps approaching. In an instant two men pushed past him and into the house.
"Where's Mr. Drayton," said one, panting from his run.
"He's this minute gone," said Jabez.
"Is that true, my lad?" the man asked, laying a hand on the boy's shoulder.
"He's gone to St. Pancras, sir. He's got to be there at midnight," said Jabez.
The boy had recognized the visitors, and was trembling.
The men glanced into each other's faces.
"That was Drayton—the man that ran past us down the road," said one.
"Make sure of it," said the other. "Search the place; I'll wait for you here."
In two minutes more the men had left the house together.
A quarter of an hour later the night porter at the Hendon railway station saw a man run across the platform and leap into the up train just as the carriages were moving away. He remarked that the man was bareheaded, and wore his clothes awry, and that a rent near the collar of his long frieze ulster exposed a strip of red flannel lining. He thought he knew him.
The train had barely cleared the platform when two men ran up and came suddenly to a stand in front of the porter.
"Gone!" said one of them, with vexation.
"That would be the 11:35," said the other, "to King's Cross. Did any one get into it here, porter?"
"Yes, sergeant—Drayton, of the Hawk and Heron," said the porter.
"Your next up is 11:45 to St. Pancras?"
"Yes, sir, due at twelve."
"Is it prompt?"
"To the second."
The two men faced about.
"Time enough yet," said one.
CHAPTER XVIII.
The cab that drove Mrs. Drayton into London carried with it a world of memories. Thought in her old head was like the dip of a sea-bird in the sea—now here, now there, now a straight flight, and now a backward swirl. As she rattled over the dark roads of Child Hill and the New End, she puzzled her confused brain to understand the business on which she had been sent. Why had the gentleman been brought out to Hendon? Why, being ill, was he so soon to be removed? Why, being removed, was he not put back into this cab, and driven to the station for Cumberland? What purpose could be served by sending her to the convent for the gentleman's wife, when the gentleman himself might have been driven there? Why was the lady in a convent? The landlady pursed up her lips and contracted her wrinkled brows in a vain endeavor to get light out of the gloom of these mysteries.
The thought of the gentleman lying ill at her house suggested many thoughts concerning her son. Paul was not her son, and his name was not Drayton. Whose son he was she never knew, and what his name was she had never heard. But she had fixed and done for him since he was a baby, and no mother could have loved a son more than she had loved her Paul. What a poor, puling little one he was, and how the neighbors used to shake their heads and say:
"You'll never rear it; there's a fate on it, poor, misbegotten mite!"
That was thirty long years ago, and now Paul was the lustiest young man in Hendon. Ah! it was not Hendon then, but London, and her husband, the good man, was alive and hearty.
"It'll thrive yet, Martha," he would say, and the little one would seem to know him, and would smile and crow when he cracked his fingers over its cot.
Then the landlady thought of the dark days that followed, when bread was scarce and the gossips would say:
"Serve you right. What for do you have an extra mouth to feed?—take the brat to the foundling."
But her husband, God bless him, had always said:
"What's bite and sup for a child? Keep him, Martha; he'll be a comfort to ye yet, old woman."
Mrs. Drayton wiped her eyes as she drove in the dark.
Then the bad times changed, and they left the town and took the inn at Hendon, and then the worst times of all came on them, for as soon as they were snug and comfortable the good man himself died. He lay dying a week, and when the end came he cried for the child.
"Give me the boy," he said, and she lifted the child into his arms in bed. Then he raised his thin white hand to stroke the wavy hair, but the poor hand fell into the little one's face.
Mrs. Drayton shifted in her seat, and tried to drive away the memories that trod on the heels of these recollections; but the roads were still dark, and nothing but an empty sky was to be seen, and the memories would not be driven away. She recalled the days when young Paul grew to be a lusty lad—daring, reckless, the first in mischief, the deepest in trouble. And there was no man's hand to check him, and people shook their heads and whispered, "He'll come to a bad end; he has the wickedness in his blood." Poor lad, it was not his fault if he had turned out a little wild and wayward and rough, and cruel to his own mother, as you might say, jostling her when he had a drop to drink, and maybe striking her when he didn't know what he was doing, and never turning his hand to honest work, but always dreaming of fortunes coming some day, and betting and racing, and going here and there, and never resting happy and content at home. It was not his fault: he had been led astray by bad companions. And then she didn't mind a blow—not she. Every woman had to bear the like of that. You want a world of patience if you have men creatures about you—that's all.
Thinking of bad companions suggested to the landlady's mind, by some strange twist of which she was never fully conscious, the idea of Hugh Ritson. The gentleman who had come so strangely among them appeared to have a curious influence over Paul. He seemed to know something of Paul's mother. Paul himself rummaged matters up long ago, and found that the lady had escaped from the asylum, and been lost. And now the strange gentleman came with her portrait and said she was dead.
Poor soul, how well Mrs. Drayton remembered her! And that was thirty years ago! She had never afterward set eyes on the lady, and never heard of her but once, and even that once must be five-and-twenty years since. One day she went for coal to the wharf at Pimlico, and there she met an old neighbor, who said: "Mrs. Drayton, your lodger, she that drowned herself, came back for the babby, but your man and you were shifted away." And to think that the poor young thing was dead and gone now, and she herself, who had thought she was old even in those days, was alive and hearty still!
By this time the cab was rattling through the busy streets of London, and the train of the landlady's thoughts was broken. Only in a vague way did she know where she was going. The cab was taking her there, and it would take her back again. When they reached the convent she had to ask for Mrs. Ritson, and say she was sent to take her to St. Pancras Station to meet her husband there, and return to Cumberland by the train at midnight. That was all.
The clock of the abbey was marking the half-hour after eleven as the cab passed into Parliament Square. In another minute they drew up before the convent in Abbey Gardens.
The cabman jumped from the box, rang the bell, and helped Mrs. Drayton to alight. The iron gate and the door in the portico swung open together, and a nun stood on the threshold, holding a lamp in her hand. Mrs. Drayton hobbled up the steps and entered the hall. A deep gloom pervaded the wide apartment, in which there were but two wicker chairs and a table. The nun wore a gray serge gown, with a wimple cut square on her chest, a girdle about her waist, and a rosary hanging by her side.
"Can I see a lady boarder—Mrs. Ritson?" said the landlady.
The nun started a little, and then answered in a low, melancholy voice, in which the words she spoke were lost. Mrs. Drayton's eyes were now accustomed to the gloom, and she looked into the nun's face. It was a troubled and clouded face, and when it was lifted for an instant to her own, Mrs. Drayton felt chilled, as if a death's-hand had touched her.
It was the face of the mother of Paul! Older, sadder, calmer, but the same face still.
The nun dropped her eyes, and made the sign of the cross. Then she walked with a quick and noiseless step to the other end of the hall, and sounded a deep gong. In a moment this summoned a sister—a novice, dressed like the first, except all in white. Mrs. Drayton was now trembling from head to foot, but she repeated her question, and was led into a bare, chill room, and left alone.
CHAPTER XIX.
When Greta parted from Hugh Ritson three hours before, she was in an agony of suspense. Another strange threat had terrified her. She had been asked to make choice of one of two evils; refusing to believe in Hugh Ritson's power, she had rejected both. But the uncertainty was terrible. To what lengths might not passion, unrequited passion, defeated passion, outraged passion, lead a man like Hugh Ritson? Without pity, without remorse, with a will that was relentless and a heart that never knew truth, he was a man to flinch at no extremity. What had he meant?
Greta's first impulse had been to go in search of her husband, but this was an idle and a foolish thought. Where should she look? Besides this, she had promised to remain in the convent until her husband should come for her, and she must keep her word. She did not go to supper when the gong sounded, but crept up to her room. The bell rang for vespers, and Greta did not go to the chapel. She lay down in anguish and wept scalding tears. The vesper hymn floated up to her where she lay, and she was still weeping. There was no light in this dark place; there was no way out of this maze but to wait and suffer.
And slowly the certainty stole upon her that Hugh Ritson had made no idle threat. He was a resolute man; he had given her a choice of two courses, and had she not taken a selfish part? If Paul, her husband, were indeed in danger, no matter from what machination of villainy—was it much to ask that she, his wife, should rescue him by a sacrifice that fell heaviest upon herself? Hugh Ritson had been right—her part had been a selfish one. Oh, where was Mr. Christian? She had telegraphed for him, and he had answered that he would come; yet hour had followed hour, and still he had not arrived.
Three hours she tossed in agony. She heard the sisters pass up the echoing stone staircase to their dormitories, and then the silent house became as dumb as a vault. Not a ripple flowed into this still tarn from the great stream of the world that rushed and surged and swelled with the clangor of a million voices around its incrusted sides.
Her window overlooked the Abbey Gardens. All was quiet beneath. Not a step sounded on the pavement. Before her the blank wall was black, and the dark, leafless trees stood out from the vague green of the grass beyond. Against the sky were the dim outlines of the two towers of the old abbey—by day a great rock for the pigeons that wheeled above the tumbling sea of the city, by night a skull of stone from which the voice of the bell told of the flight of time.
Out of the calm of a moment's stupefaction Greta was awakened by a knock at her door. The novice entered and told her that a woman waited below to speak with her. Greta betrayed no surprise, and she was beyond the reach of fresh agitation. Without word or question she followed the novice to the room where Mrs. Drayton sat.
She recognized the landlady and heard her story. Greta's heart leaped up at the thought of rejoining her husband. Here was the answer to the prayer that had gone up she knew not how often from her troubled heart. Soon she would be sure that Hugh Ritson's threat was vain. Soon she would be at Paul's side and hold his hand, and no earthly power should separate them again. Ah, thank God, the merciful Father, who healed the wounded hearts of His children, she should very soon be happy once more, and all the sorrows of these past few days would fade away into a dim memory.
"Twelve o'clock at St. Pancras, and you have the luggage in a cab at the door, you say?"
"Yes; and there's no time to lose, for, to be sure, the night is going fast," said Mrs. Drayton.
"And he will be there to meet me?" asked Greta. Her eyes, still wet with recent tears, danced with a new-found joy.
"Yes, at St. Pancras," said the landlady.
Greta's happiness overflowed. She took the old woman in her arms and kissed her wizened cheeks.
"Wait a minute—only a minute," she said, and tripped off with the swift glide of a lapwing. But when she was half-way up the stairs her ardor was arrested, and she returned with drooping face and steps of lead.
"But why did he not come for me himself?" she asked.
"The gentleman is not well—he is ill," said Mrs. Drayton.
"Ill? You say he is ill? Then he could not come. And I blamed him for not coming!"
"The gentleman is weak, but noways worse; belike he will go straight off and meet you at the station."
Greta turned away once again, and went upstairs slowly. At a door on the first landing she tapped lightly, and when a voice answered from within she entered the room.
The superior was on her knees at a table. She lifted a calm and spiritual face as Greta approached.
"Reverend mother," said Greta, "I am leaving you this moment."
"So soon, my daughter?"
"My husband has sent for me; he will meet me at the railway station at twelve."
"Why did he not come himself?"
"He is ill; he has gone direct."
"The hour is late and the message is sudden. Are you satisfied?"
"I am anxious, reverend mother—"
"What is it, my daughter?"
"An old gentleman, a clergyman, Mr. Christian, is coming from Cumberland. I have expected him hourly, but he is not yet arrived. I cannot wait; I must rejoin my husband. Will you order that a message be left for the clergyman?"
"What is the message, my child?"
"Simply that I have returned with my husband by the train leaving St. Pancras at midnight."
"The lay sister in the hall shall deliver it."
"Who is the sister?"
"Sister Grace."
There was a silence.
"Reverend mother, has Sister Grace ever spoken of the past?"
The superior told a few beads.
"The past is as nothing to us here, my daughter. Within these walls the world does not enter. In the presence of the Cross the past and the future are one."
Greta drew a long breath. Then she stooped and kissed the hand of the superior, and turned softly away.
Greta and the landlady passed out through the deep portico, and the same nun who had opened the door closed it behind them. Mrs. Drayton clung to Greta's arm as they went through, and her hand trembled perceptibly.
"Who is she?" whispered the landlady, when they were seated in a cab.
"Sister Grace," said Greta, and turned her head aside.
"I could ha' sworn as she were the mother of my Paul," murmured Mrs. Drayton.
Greta faced about, but the landlady saw nothing of the look of inquiry; her eyes, like her thoughts, were far away.
CHAPTER XX.
Though the hour was late, the streets were thronged. The people were trooping home from the theaters; and the Strand, as Greta and the landlady crossed it, was choked with cabs and omnibuses. The cab drove through the Seven Dials, and there the public-houses were disgorging at every corner their poor ruins of men and women. Shouts, curses, quarreling, and laughter struck upon the ear above the whir of the wheels. Unshaven men and unwashed women, squalid children running here and there among the oyster and orange stalls, thieves, idlers, vagabonds of all conditions, not a few honest people withal, and among them the dark figures of policemen.
Greta's heart beat high that night. Her spirit was full of a new alacrity. Every inch of the way, as they flew over the busy streets, seemed to awake in her soul some fresh sensibility. She wondered where the multitudes of people came from, and whither they were going—vast oceans on oceans of humanity, flowing and ebbing without tide.
She wanted to alight a hundred times, and empty her pockets of all her money. A blind man, playing a tin whistle, and leading a small dog held by a long string, awoke her special pity; the plaintive look in the eye of the cur was an object of peculiar sympathy. A filthy woman, reeling drunk and bareheaded across the street, almost under the feet of the horses, her discolored breast hanging bare, and a puny infant crying feebly in her arms, was another occasion for solicitude. A tiny mite that might have been a dirty boy, coiled up in a ball on a doorstep like a starved cat, was an object of all but irresistible attraction. But she dare not stop for an instant; and, at last, with this certainty, she lay back and shut her eyes very resolutely, and wondered whether, after all, it were not very selfish to be very happy.
The cab stopped with a jolt; they were at St. Pancras station.
"Has he come?" asked Greta, eagerly, and looked about her with eyes that comprehended everything at a glance.
She could not see Paul, and when a porter opened the cab and helped her to alight, it was on her tongue to ask the man if he had seen her husband. But no, she would not do that. She must look for him herself, so that she might be the first to see him. Oh, yes, she must be the very first to see him, and she was now obstinately determined to ask no one.
The porter brought round the truck, and wheeled the luggage onto the platform, and Greta and Mrs. Drayton followed it. Then the wide eyes that half smiled and looked half afraid beneath their trembling lids glanced anxiously around. No, Paul was not there.
"What is the time?" she asked, her eyes still wandering over the bustling throng about her.
"Ten to twelve, miss," announced the porter.
"Oh," she said, with a sigh of relief, "then he will soon be here."
"Will you sit in the waiting-room, miss?" asked the porter; and almost unconsciously she followed him when he led the way. Mrs. Drayton hobbled behind her.
"What did he say about being ill?" she asked, when they were left together.
"That he was only a bit dizzy. Mayhap he's noways 'customed to illness," said the landlady.
"That is true. And what did you say then?"
"I coaxed him to rest him a bit, and take a drop o' summat, and he smiled and said, 'Thank you, my good woman.'
"You were in the right, you dear old soul," said Greta. And she put her arms about the landlady and hugged her. "I'm sure you've been very good to my husband, and watched him tenderly, while I, who should have nursed him, have been away. Thank you, thank you!"
Mrs. Drayton was feeling uneasy. "Well, d'ye know, I can't bear to see a fellow creatur' suffer. It goes agen me someways."
Greta had risen to her feet. "Stay here, Mrs. Drayton—Drayton, isn't it?—stay here while I go on to the platform. He might come and not see me. Ah, yes, he may be looking everywhere for me now."
She went out and elbowed her way among the people who were hurrying to and fro; she dodged between the trucks that were sliding luggage on to the weighing machine and off to the van. The engines were puffing volumes of smoke and steam up to the great glass roof, where the whistle of the engine-man echoed sharp and shrill. Presently she returned to the waiting-room.
"Oh, Mrs. Drayton," she said, "I dreamed a fearful dream last night. What do you think? Will he be well enough to come?"
"Coorse, coorse, my dear. 'Tell her to meet her husband at twelve.' Them's the gentleman's own words."
"How happy I shall be when we are safe at home! And if he is ill, it will be for me to nurse him then."
The light in the dove-like eyes at that moment told plainly that to the poor soul even illness might bring its compensating happiness.
"And as to dreams, to be sure, they are on'y dreams; and what's dreams, say I?"
"You are right, Mrs. Drayton," said Greta, and once more she shot away toward the platform. Her mind had turned to Parson Christian. Could it be possible that he had arrived? The porter who had brought in her luggage was still standing beside it, and with him there was another porter. Their backs were toward Greta as she came out of the waiting-room, and, tripping lightly behind them, she overheard a part of their conversation before they were aware that she was near.
"See the old file in the gaiters by the eleven up?" said one.
"Rather. A reg'lar grandmother's great-grandfather just out of the year one. Talk about swallows, eh?—and the buckles—and the stockings!"
"Good sort, how-an'-ever."
"Good for a tip, eh? Wouldn't ha' thought it."
"No, but a real good-hearted 'un an' if he is a Pape."
"Never?"
"To be sure. Got me to put him in a fly for the Catholic Convent up Westminster way."
Greta could restrain herself no longer, but burst in upon them with twenty questions. When had the parson arrived? When had he left? Was it in a fly? Would it go quickly? Could there be time for it to get back?
"What's your train, miss—twelve to the north?"
"Yes; will he catch it?"
"Scarce get back at twelve," said the porter. But, in spite of this discouraging prophecy, Greta was so elated at the fresh intelligence that she drew out her purse and gave the man five shillings. She had no other change than two half crowns and two pennies, and in her present elevation of soul there could be no choice, between the silver and the copper, as to which the bearer of such news deserved.
The man stared, and then smiled, but he quickly reconciled himself to the unexpected. With extraordinary alacrity he labeled the luggage, and bowled off to the north train, which was already at the platform.
It was now within three minutes of midnight, and Mrs. Drayton had joined Greta in the bustling throng on the platform.
"Oh, I feel as if a thousand hearts were all swelling and beating in my breast at once," said Greta. "Mrs. Drayton, is it certain that he will come? Porter, have you put the luggage in the van? Which is the train—the left?"
"No, miss, the left's going out to make room for the local train up from Kentish Town and Hendon. The right's your train, miss. Got your ticket, miss?"
"Not yet. Must I get it, think you? Is the time short? Yes, I will get two tickets myself," she added, turning to the landlady. "Then when he comes he will have nothing to do but step into the carriage."
"You'll have to be quick, miss—train's nigh due out—only a minute," said the porter.
Greta's luminous eyes were peering over the heads of the people that were about her. Then they brightened, with a flash more swift than lightning, and all her face wore in an instant a heavenly smile. "Ah, he is there—there at the back—at the booking-office—run to him, run my good, dear creature; run and tell him I am here! I'll find a compartment and have the door open."
Greta tripped along the platform with the foot of a deer. In another moment she had a carriage door open, and she stood there with the handle in her hand. She saw him coming who was more than all the world to her. But she did not look twice. No, she would not look twice. She would wait until they were within, alone, together.
Side by side with him walked Hugh Ritson. Could it be possible? And was it he who had brought her husband? Ah! he had repented, and it was only she who had been bitter to the end. How generous of him! how cruel of her!
Her eyes fell, and a warm flush overspread her cheeks as he who came first stepped into the carriage. She did not look again at him, nor did he look again at her. She knew he did not, though her eyes were down. "Oh, when we are alone!" she thought, and then she turned to Hugh Ritson.
The heavenly smile was still on her beautiful face, and the deep light in her eyes spoke of mingled joy and grief.
"Hugh, I fear, I fear," she faltered, "I have been hard and cruel. Let us be friends; let me be your dearest sister."
He looked at her in silence. His infirm foot trailed a pace. He saw what was in her heart, and he knew well what was in his own heart, too; he thought of the blow that he was about to strike her.
She held out her hand, and took in hers his own unresisting fingers. Ay, he knew that there and then he was about to break that forgiving heart forever. He knew who had stepped into that carriage.
She leaned forward and kissed his cheek. The man in him could bear up no longer. He broke down; he could not speak; he was choked with emotion.
She turned to the landlady, who stood near, twitching at the ribbons of her bonnet and peering into the carriage.
"Good-bye, Mrs. Drayton, and God bless you for what you have done for my husband!"
The landlady muttered something that was inaudible; she was confused; she stammered, and then was silent.
Greta stepped into the carriage. The guard was standing at the door. The bell had been rung. The train had been signaled. The whistle had sounded. The clocks were striking midnight.
"Wait! Wait!"
It was a voice from the end of the platform. The guard turned with a smile to see who called on a train to wait. An old gentleman in silk stockings and gaiters, with long white hair flowing under the broad brim of a low-crowned hat, came panting to the only door that was still open.