It almost seemed, to Mr. Channing’s grateful heart, as if the weather had prolonged its genial warmth on purpose for him. A more charming autumn had never been known at Borcette, and up to the very hour of Mr. Channing’s departure, there were no signs of winter. Taking it as a whole, it had been the same at Helstonleigh. Two or three occasional wet days, two or three cold and windy ones; but they soon passed over and people remarked to each other how this fine weather would shorten the winter.
Never did November turn out a more lovely day than the one that was to witness Mr. Channing’s return. The sun shone brightly; the blue sky was without a cloud. All Nature seemed to have put on a smiling face to give him welcome. And yet—to what was he returning?
For once in his life, Hamish Channing shrank from meeting his father and mother. How should he break the news to them? They were arriving full of joy, of thankfulness at the restoration to health of Mr. Channing: how could Hamish mar it with the news regarding Charles? Told it must be; and he must be the one to do it. In good truth, Hamish was staggered at the task. His own hopeful belief that Charley would some day “turn up,” was beginning to die out; for every hour that dragged by, without bringing him, certainly gave less and less chance of it. And even if Hamish had retained hope himself, it was not likely he could impart it to Mr. or Mrs. Channing.
“I shall get leave from school this afternoon,” Tom suddenly exclaimed that morning at breakfast.
“For what purpose?” inquired Hamish.
“To go up to the station and meet them.”
“No, Tom. You must not go to the station.”
“Who says so?” sharply cried Tom.
“I do,” replied Hamish.
“I dare say! that’s good!” returned Tom, speaking in his hasty spirit. “You know you are going yourself, Hamish, and yet you would like to deprive me of the same pleasure. Why, I wouldn’t miss being there for anything! Don’t say, Hamish, that you are never selfish.”
Hamish turned upon him with a smile, but his tone changed to sadness. “I wish with all my heart, Tom, that you or some one else, could go and meet them, instead of myself, and undertake what I shall have to do. I can tell you I never had a task imposed upon me that I found so uncongenial as the one I must go through this day.”
Tom’s voice dropped a little of its fierce shade. “But, Hamish, there’s no reason why I should not meet them at the station. That will not make it the better or the worse for you.”
“I will tell you why I think you should not,” replied Hamish; “why it will be better that you should not. It is most desirable that they should be home, here, in this house, before the tidings are broken to them. I should not like them to hear of it in the streets, or at the station; especially my mother.”
“Of course not,” assented Tom.
“And, were you at the station,” quietly went on Hamish to him, “the first question would be, ‘Where’s Charley?’ If Tom Channing can get leave of absence from school, Charley can.”
“I could say—”
“Well?” said Hamish, for Tom had stopped.
“I don’t know what I could say,” acknowledged Tom.
“Nor I. My boy, I have thought it over, and the conclusion I come to, if you appear at the station, is this: either that the tidings must be told to them, then and there, or else an evasion, bordering upon an untruth. If they do not see you there, they will not inquire particularly after Charles; they will suppose you are both in school.”
“I declare I never set my mind upon a thing but something starts in to frustrate it!” cried Tom, in vexation. But he relinquished his intention from that moment.
Chattering Annabel threw up her head. “As soon as papa and mamma come home, we shall put on mourning, shall we not? Constance was talking about it with Lady Augusta.”
“Do not talk of mourning, child,” returned Hamish. “I can’t give him up, if you do.”
Afternoon came, and Hamish proceeded alone to the station. Tom, listening to the inward voice of reason, was in school, and Arthur was occupied in the cathedral; the expected hour of their arrival was towards the close of afternoon service. Hamish had boasted that he should walk his father through Helstonleigh for the benefit of beholders, if happily he came home capable of walking; but, like poor Tom and his plan, that had to be relinquished. In the first half-dozen paces they would meet half a dozen gossipers, and the first remark from each, after congratulations, would be, “What a sad thing this is about your little Charles!” Hamish lived in doubt whether it might not, by some untoward luck, come out at the station, in spite of his precaution in keeping away Tom.
But, so far, all went well. The train came in to its time, and Hamish, his face lighted with excitement, saw his father once more in possession of his strength, descending without assistance from the carriage, walking alone on the platform. Not in the full strength and power of old; that might never be again. He stooped slightly, and moved slowly, as if his limbs were yet stiff, limping a little. But that he was now in a sound state of health was evident; his face betrayed it. Hamish did not know whose hands to clasp first; his, or his mother’s.
“Can you believe that it is myself, Hamish?” asked Mr. Channing, when the first few words of thankful greeting had passed.
“I should hide my head for ever as a false prophet if it could be any one else,” was the reply of Hamish. “You know I always said you would so return. I am only in doubt whether it is my mother.”
“What is the matter with me, Hamish?” asked Mrs. Channing. “Because you would make about two of the thin, pale, careworn Mrs. Channing who went away,” cried he, turning his mother round to look at her, deep love shining out from his gay blue eyes. “I hope you have not taken to rouge your cheeks, ma’am, but I am bound to confess they look uncommonly like it.”
Mrs. Channing laughed merrily. “It has done me untold good, Hamish, as well as papa; it seems to have set me up for years to come. Seeing him grow better day by day would have effected it, without any other change.”
Mr. Channing had actually gone himself to see after the luggage. How strange it seemed! Hamish caught him up. “If you can give yourself trouble now, sir, there’s no reason that you should do so, while you have your great lazy son at your elbow.”
“Hamish, boy, I am proud of doing it.”
It was soon collected. Hamish hastily, if not carelessly, told a porter to look to it, took Mr. Channing’s arm, and marched him to the fly, which Mrs. Channing had already found. Hamish was in lively dread of some officious friend or other coming up, who might drop a hint of the state of affairs.
“Shall I help you in, father!”
“I can help myself now, Hamish. I remember you promised me I should have no fly on my return. You have thought better of it.”
“Yes, sir, wishing to get you home before bed-time, which might not be the case if you were to show yourself in the town, and stop at all the interruptions.”
Mr. Channing stepped into the fly. Hamish followed, first giving the driver a nod. “The luggage! The luggage!” exclaimed Mrs. Channing, as they moved off.
“The porter will bring it, mother. He would have been a month putting it on to the fly.”
How could they suppose anything was the matter? Not a suspicion of it ever crossed them. Never had Hamish appeared more light-hearted. In fact, in his self-consciousness, Hamish a little overdid it. Let him get them home before the worst came!
“We find you all well, I conclude!” said Mrs. Channing. “None of them came up with you! Arthur is in college, I suppose, and Tom and Charles are in school.”
“It was Arthur’s hour for college,” remarked Hamish, ignoring the rest of the sentence. “But he ought to be out now. Arthur is at Galloway’s again,” he added. “He did not write you word, I believe, as you were so shortly expected home.”
Mr. Channing turned a glance on his son, quick as lightning. “Cleared, Hamish?”
“In my opinion, yes. In the opinion of others, I fear not much more than he was before.”
“And himself?” asked Mr. Channing. “What does he say now?”
“He does not speak of it to me.”
Hamish put his head out at the window, nodding to some one who was passing. A question of Mr. Channing’s called it in again.
“Why has he gone back to Galloway’s?”
Hamish laughed. “Roland Yorke took an impromptu departure one fine morning, for Port Natal, leaving the office and Mr. Galloway to do the best they could with each other. Arthur buried his grievances and offered himself to Mr. Galloway in the emergency. I am not quite sure that I should have been so forgiving.”
“Hamish! He has nothing to forgive Mr. Galloway. It is on the other side.”
“I am uncharitable, I suppose,” remarked Hamish. “I cannot like Mr. Galloway’s treatment of Arthur.”
“But what is it you say about Roland Yorke and Port Natal?” interposed Mrs. Channing. “I do not understand.”
“Roland is really gone, mother. He has been in London these ten days, and it is expected that every post will bring news that he has sailed. Roland has picked up a notion somewhere that Port Natal is an enchanted land, converting poor men into rich ones; and he is going to try what it will do for him, Lord Carrick fitting him out. Poor Jenkins is sinking fast.”
“Changes! changes!” remarked Mr. Channing. “Go away only for two or three months, and you must find them on return. Some gone; some dying; some—”
“Some restored, who were looked upon as incurable,” interrupted Hamish. “My dear father, I will not have you dwell on dark things the very moment of your arrival; the time for that will come soon enough.”
Judy nearly betrayed all; and Constance’s aspect might have betrayed it, had the travellers been suspicious. She, Constance, came forward in the hall, white and trembling. When Mrs. Channing shook hands with Judy, she put an unfortunate question—“Have you taken good care of your boy?” Judy knew it could only allude to Charles, and for answer there went up a sound, between a cry and a sob, that might have been heard in the far-off college schoolroom. Hamish took Judy by the shoulders, bidding her go out and see whether any rattletraps were left in the fly, and so turned it off.
They were all together in the sitting-room—Mr. and Mrs. Channing, Hamish, Constance, Arthur, and Annabel; united, happy, as friends are and must be when meeting after a separation; talking of this and of that, giving notes of what had occurred on either side. Hamish showed himself as busy as the rest; but Hamish felt all the while upon a bed of thorns, for the hands of the timepiece were veering on for five, and he must get the communication over before Tom came in. At length Mrs. Channing went up to her room, accompanied by Constance; Annabel followed. And now came Hamish’s opportunity. Arthur had gone back to Mr. Galloway’s, and he was alone with his father. He plunged into it at once; indeed, there was no time for delay.
“Father!” he exclaimed, with deep feeling, his careless manner changing as by magic: “I have very grievous news to impart to you. I would not enter upon it before my mother: though she must be told of it also, and at once.”
Mr. Channing was surprised; more surprised than alarmed. He never remembered to have seen Hamish betray so much emotion. A thought crossed his mind that Arthur’s guilt might have been brought clearly to light.
“Not that,” said Hamish. “It concerns—Father, I do not like to enter upon it! I shrink from my task. It is very bad news indeed.”
“You, my children, are all well,” cried Mr. Channing, hastily speaking the words as a fact, not as a question. “What other ‘very bad’ news can be in store for me?”
“You have not seen us all,” was Hamish’s answer. And Mr. Channing, alarmed, now looked inquiringly at him. “It concerns Charles. An—an accident has happened to him.”
Mr. Channing sat down and shaded his eyes. He was a moment or two before he spoke. “One word, Hamish; is he dead?”
Hamish stood before his father and laid his hand affectionately upon his shoulder. “Father, I wish I could have prepared you better for it!” he exclaimed, with emotion. “We do not know whether he is dead or alive.”
Then he explained—explained more in summary than in detail—touching lightly upon the worst features of the case, enlarging upon his own hopeful view of it. Bad enough it was, at the best, and Mr. Channing found it so. He could feel no hope. In the revulsion of grief, he turned almost with resentment upon Hamish.
“My son, I did not expect this treatment from you.”
“I have taken enough blame to myself; I know he was left in my charge,” sadly replied Hamish; “but, indeed, I do not see how I could have helped it. Although I was in the room when he ran out of it, I was buried in my own thoughts, and never observed his going. I had no suspicion anything was astir that night with the college boys. Father, I would have saved his life with my own!”
“I am not blaming you for the fact, Hamish; blame is not due to you. Had I been at home myself, I might no more have stopped his going out than you did. But you ought to have informed me of this instantly. A whole month, and I to be left in ignorance!”
“We did it for the best. Father, I assure you that not a stone has been left unturned to find him; alive, or—or dead. You could not have done more had you hastened home; and it has been so much suspense and grief spared to you.”
Mr. Channing relapsed into silence. Hamish glanced uneasily to that ever-advancing clock. Presently he spoke.
“My mother must be told before Tom comes home. It will be better that you take the task upon yourself, father. Shall I send her in?”
Mr. Channing looked at Hamish, as if he scarcely understood the meaning of the words. From Hamish he looked to the clock. “Ay; go and send her.”
Hamish went to his mother’s room, and returned with her. But he did not enter. He merely opened the door, and shut her in. Constance, with a face more frightened than ever, came and stood in the hall. Annabel stood there also. Judy, wringing her hands, and sending off short ejaculations in an undertone, came to join them, and Sarah stood peeping out from the kitchen door. They remained gazing at the parlour door, dreading the effect of the communication that was going on inside.
“If it had been that great big Tom, it wouldn’t matter so much,” wailed Judith, in a tone of resentment. “The missis would know that he’d be safe to turn up, some time or other; a strong fellow like him!”
A sharp cry within the room. The door was flung open, and Mrs. Channing came forth, her face pale, her hands lifted. “It cannot be true! It cannot be! Hamish! Judith! Where is he?”
Hamish folded her hands in his, and gently drew her in again. They all followed. No reason why they should not, now that the communication was made. Almost at the same moment, Mr. Huntley arrived.
Of course, the first thought that had occurred to the minds of Mr. and Mrs. Channing was, that had they been at home to direct affairs in the search, Charley would have been found. It is the thought that would occur to us all: we never give others credit for doing as much as we should have done. “This might have been tried, and the other might have been tried.” It makes little difference when told that they have been tried; for then we fall back upon some other suggestion. Mrs. Channing reproached Hamish with keeping it from them.
“My dear lady, you must blame me, not him,” interposed Mr. Huntley. “Left to himself, Hamish would have started Arthur off to you, post haste. It was I who suggested the desirability of keeping you in ignorance; it was I who brought Hamish to see it: and I know that, when the brunt of your grief shall have passed, you will acknowledge that it was the best, the wisest, and the kindest course.”
“But there are so many things that we could have suggested; that perhaps none but a father or mother would think of!” urged Mrs. Channing, lifting her yearning face. They wished they could see her weep.
“You could have suggested nothing that has not been done,” returned Mr. Huntley. “Believe me, dear Mrs. Channing! We have had many good counsellors. Butterby has conducted the search.”
Mr. Channing turned to them. He was standing at the far window. “I should like to see Butterby.”
“He will be here in an hour’s time,” said Hamish. “I knew you would wish to see him, and I requested him to come.”
“The worst feature of the whole,” put in Judith, with as much acrimony as ever was displayed by Mr. Ketch, “is that them boys should not have got their deserts. They have not as much as had a birching; and I say that the college masters ought to be hooted. I’d ‘ghost’ ‘em!”
“The punishment lies in abeyance for the present,” explained Hamish. “A different punishment from any the head-master could inflict will be required, should—should—” Hamish stopped. He did not like to say, in the presence of his mother, “should the body be found.” “Some of them are suffering pretty well, as it is,” he continued, after a brief pause. “Master Bill Simms lay in bed for a week with fright, and they were obliged to have Mr. Hurst to him. Report goes, that Hurst soundly flogged his son, by way of commencing his share.”
A pushing open of the outer door, a bang, and hasty footsteps in the hall. Tom had arrived. Tom, with his sparkling eyes, his glowing face. They sparkled for his father only in that first moment; his father, who turned and walked to meet him.
“Oh, papa! What baths those must be!” cried honest Tom. “If ever I get rich, I’ll go over there and make them a present of a thousand pounds. To think that nothing else should have cured you!”
“I think something else must have had a hand in curing me, Tom.”
Tom looked up inquiringly. “Ah, papa! You mean God.”
“Yes, my boy. God has cured me. The baths were only instruments in His hands.”
Rejecting all offers of refreshment—the meal which Constance had planned, and Judith prepared, both with so much loving care—Mr. Channing resolved to seek out Butterby at once. In his state of suspense, he could neither wait, nor eat, nor remain still; it would be a satisfaction only to see Butterby, and hear his opinion.
Mr. Huntley accompanied him; scarcely less proud than Hamish would have been, to walk once more arm in arm with Mr. Channing. But, as there is not the least necessity for our going to the police-station, for Mr. Butterby could tell us no more than we already know; we will pay a short visit to Mr. Stephen Bywater.
That gentleman stood in the cloisters, into which he had seduced old Jenkins, the bedesman, having waited for the twilight hour, that he might make sure no one else would be there. Ever since the last day you saw old Jenkins in the cathedral, he had been laid up in his house, with a touch of what he called his “rheumatiz.” Decrepit old fellows were all the bedesmen, monopolizing enough “rheumatiz” between them for half the city. If one was not laid up, another would be, especially in winter. However, old Jenkins had come out again to-day, to the gratification of Mr. Bywater, who had been wanting him. The cloisters were all but dark, and Mr. Ketch must undoubtedly be most agreeably engaged, or he would have shut up before.
“Now then, old Jenkins!” Bywater was saying. “You show me the exact spot, and I’ll give you sixpence for smoke.”
Old Jenkins hobbled to one of the mullioned windows near to the college entrance, and looked over into the dim graveyard. “‘Twas about four or five yards off here,” said he.
“But I want to know the precise spot,” returned Bywater. “Get over, and show me!”
The words made old Jenkins laugh. “Law, sir! me get over there! You might as well ask me to get over the college. How am I to do it?”
“I’ll hoist you up,” said Bywater.
“No, no,” answered the man. “My old bones be past hoisting now. I should never get back alive, once I were propelled over into that graveyard.”
Bywater felt considerably discomfited. “What a weak rat you must be, old Jenkins! Why, it’s nothing!”
“I know it ain’t—for you college gents. ‘Twouldn’t have been much for me when I was your age. Skin and clothes weren’t of much account to me, then.”
“Oh, it’s that, is it?” returned Bywater, contemptuously. “Look here, old Jenkins! if your things come to grief, I’ll get my uncle to look you out some of his old ones. I’ll give you sixpence for baccy, I say!”
The old bedesman shook his head. “If you give me a waggin load of baccy, I couldn’t get over there. You might just as good put a babby in arms on the ground, and tell it to walk!”
“Here! get out of the way for an old muff!” was Bywater’s rejoinder; and in a second he had mounted the window-frame, and dropped into the burial-ground. “Now then, old Jenkins, I’ll go about and you call out when I come to the right spot.”
By these means, Bywater arrived at a solution of the question, where the broken phial was found; old Jenkins pointing out the spot, to the best of his ability. Bywater then vaulted back again, and alighted safe and sound in the cloisters. Old Jenkins asked for his sixpence.
“Why, you did not earn it!” said Bywater. “You wouldn’t get over!”
“A sixpence is always useful to me,” said the old man; “and some of you gents has ‘em in plenty. I ain’t paid much; and Joe, he don’t give me much. ‘Tain’t him; he’d give away his head, and always would—it’s her. Precious close she is with the money, though she earns a sight of it, I know, at that shop of her’n, and keeps Joe like a king. Wine, and all the rest of it, she’s got for him, since he was ill. ‘There’s a knife and fork for ye, whenever ye like to come,’ she says to me, in her tart way. But deuce a bit of money will she give. If it weren’t for one and another friend giving me an odd sixpence now and then, Master Bywater, I should never hardly get any baccy!”
“There; don’t bother!” said Bywater, dropping the coin into his hand.
“Why, bless my heart, who’s this, a prowling in the cloisters at this hour?” exclaimed a well-known cracked voice, advancing upon them with shuffling footsteps. “What do you do here, pray?”
“You would like to know, wouldn’t you, Mr. Calcraft?” said Bywater. “Studying architecture. There!”
Old Ketch gave a yell of impotent rage, and Bywater decamped, as fast as his legs would carry him, through the west door.
Arrived at his home, or rather his uncle’s, where he lived—for Bywater’s paternal home was in a far-away place, over the sea—he went straight up to his own room, where he struck a match, and lighted a candle. Then he unlocked a sort of bureau, and took from it the phial found by old Jenkins, and a smaller piece which exactly fitted into the part broken. He had fitted them in ten times before, but it appeared to afford him satisfaction, and he now sat down and fitted them again.
“Yes,” soliloquized he, as he nursed one of his legs—his favourite attitude—“it’s as sure as eggs. And I’d have had it out before, if that helpless old muff of a Jenkins had been forthcoming. I knew it was safe to be somewhere near the college gates; but it was as well to ask.”
He turned the phial over and over between his eye and the candle, and resumed;
“And now I’ll give Mr. Ger a last chance. I told him the other day that if he’d only speak up like a man to me, and say it was an accident, I’d drop it for good. But he won’t. And find it out, I will. I have said I would from the first, just for my own satisfaction: and if I break my word, may they tar and feather me! Ger will only have himself to thank; if he won’t satisfy me in private, I’ll bring it against him in public. I suspected Mr. Ger before; not but that I suspected another; but since Charley Channing——Oh! bother, though! I don’t want to get thinking of him!”
Bywater locked up his treasures, and descended to his tea. That over, he had enough lessons to occupy him for a few hours, and keep him out of mischief.
Meanwhile Mr. Channing’s interview with the renowned Mr. Butterby had brought forth nothing, and he was walking back home with Mr. Huntley. Mr. Huntley strove to lead his friend’s thoughts into a different channel: it seemed quite a mockery to endeavour to whisper hope for Charley.
“You will resume your own place in Guild Street at once?” he observed.
“To-morrow, please God.”
They walked a few steps further in silence; and then Mr. Channing entered upon the very subject which Mr. Huntley was hoping he would not enter upon. “I remember, you spoke, at Borcette, of having something in view for Hamish, should I be able to attend to business again. What is it?”
“I did,” said Mr. Huntley; “and I am sorry that I did. I spoke prematurely.”
“I suppose it is gone?”
“Well—no; it is not gone,” replied Mr. Huntley, who was above equivocation. “I do not think Hamish would suit the place.”
Mr. Channing felt a little surprised. There were few places that Hamish might not suit, if he chose to exercise his talents. “You thought he would suit then?” he remarked.
“But circumstances have since induced me to alter my opinion,” said Mr. Huntley. “My friend,” he more warmly added to Mr. Channing, “you will oblige me by allowing the subject to drop. I candidly confess to you that I am not so pleased with Hamish as I once was, and I would rather not interfere in placing him elsewhere.”
“How has he offended you? What has he done?”
“Nay, that is all I will say. I could not help giving you a hint, to account for what you might have thought caprice. Hamish has not pleased me, and I cannot take him by the hand. There, let it rest.”
Mr. Channing was content to let it rest. In his inmost heart he entertained no doubt that the cause of offence was in some way connected with Mr. Huntley’s daughter. Hamish was poor: Ellen would be rich; therefore it was only natural that Mr. Huntley should consider him an ineligible parti for her. Mr. Channing did not quite see what that had to do with the present question; but he could not, in delicacy, urge it further.
They found quite a levee when they entered: the Reverend Mr. Pye, Mr. Galloway—who had called in with Arthur upon leaving the office for the night—and William Yorke. All were anxious to welcome and congratulate Mr. Channing; and all were willing to tender a word of sympathy respecting Charles. Possibly Mr. Yorke had also another motive: if so, we shall come to it in due time.
Mr. Pye stayed only a few minutes. He did not say a word about the seniorship, neither did Mr. Channing to him. What, indeed, could either of them say? The subject was unpleasant on both sides; therefore it was best avoided. Tom, however, thought differently.
“Papa!” he exclaimed, plunging into it the moment Mr. Pye’s back was turned, “you might have taken the opportunity to tell him that I shall leave the school. It is not often he comes here.”
“But you are not going to leave the school,” said Mr. Channing.
“Yes, I am,” replied Tom, speaking with unmistakable firmness. “Hamish made me stay on, until you came home; and I don’t know how I have done it. It is of no use, papa! I cannot put up with the treatment—the insults I receive. It was bad enough to lose the seniorship, but that is as nothing to the other. And to what end should I stop, when my chance of the exhibition is gone?”
“It is not gone, Tom. Mr. Huntley—as word was written to me at Borcette—has declined it for his son.”
“It is not the less gone for me, papa. Let me merit it as I will, I shall not be allowed to receive it, any more than I did the seniorship. I am out of favour, both with master and boys; and you know what that means, in a public school. If you witnessed the way I am served by the boys, you would be the first to say I must leave.”
“What do they do?” asked Mr. Channing.
“They do enough to provoke my life out of me,” said Tom, falling into a little of his favourite heat. “Were it myself only that they attacked, I might perhaps stop and brave it out; but it is not so. They go on against Arthur in a way that would make a saint mad.”
“Pooh, pooh!” interposed Mr. Galloway, who was standing by. “If I am content to accept Arthur’s innocence, surely the college school may be.”
Mr. Channing turned to the proctor. “Do you now believe him innocent?”
“I say I am content to accept his innocence,” was the reply of Mr. Galloway; and Arthur, who was within hearing, could only do as he had had to do so many times before—school his spirit to patience. “Content to accept,” and open exculpation, were essentially different things.
“Let me speak with you a minute, Galloway,” said Mr. Channing, taking the proctor’s arm and leading him across the hall to the drawing-room. “Tom,” he added, looking back, “you shall tell me of these grievances another time.”
The drawing-room door closed upon them, and Mr. Channing spoke with eagerness. “Is it possible that you still suspect Arthur to have been guilty?”
“Channing, I am fairly puzzled,” returned Mr. Galloway, “His own manner, relating to it, has not changed, and that manner is not compatible with innocence, You made the same remark yourself, at the time.”
“But you have had the money returned to you, I understand.”
“I know I have.”
“Well, that surely is a proof that the thief could not have been Arthur.”
“Pardon me,” replied Mr. Galloway, “It may be a proof as much against him as for him: it may have come from himself.”
“Nay, where was Arthur to find twenty pounds to send to you?”
“There are two ways in which he might find it. But”—Mr. Galloway broke off abruptly—“I do not like to urge these things on you; they can only inflict pain.”
“Not greater pain than I have already undergone,” was Mr. Channing’s answer. “Tell me, I pray you, all your thoughts—all you suspect: just as though you were speaking to any indifferent friend. It is right that I should know it. Yes, come in, Huntley,” Mr. Channing added, for Mr. Huntley at that moment opened the door, unconscious that any private conference was going forward. “I have no secrets from you. Come in. We are talking of Arthur.”
“I was observing that there are two means by which the money could have come from Arthur,” resumed Mr. Galloway, when Mr. Huntley had entered. “The one, by his never having used the note originally taken; the other, by getting a friend to return it for him. Now, my opinion is, that he did not pursue the first plan, I believe that, if he took the note, he used it. I questioned him on the evening of its arrival, and at the first moment his manner almost convinced me that he was innocent. He appeared to be genuinely surprised at the return of the money, and ingenuously confessed that he had not possessed any to send. But his manner veered again—suddenly, strangely—veered round to all its old unsatisfactory suspiciousness; and when I hinted that I should recall Butterby to my counsels, he became agitated, as he had done formerly. My firm belief,” Mr. Galloway added, laying his hand impressively upon Mr. Channing—“my firm belief is, that Arthur did get the money sent back to me through a friend.”
“But what friend would be likely to do such a thing for him?” debated Mr. Channing, not in the least falling in with the argument. “I know of none.”
“I think”—and Mr. Galloway dropped his voice—“that it came from Hamish.”
“From Hamish!” was Mr. Channing’s echo, in a strong accent of dissent. “That is nonsense. Hamish would never screen guilt. Hamish has not twenty pounds to spare.”
“He might spare it in the cause of a brother; and for a brother’s sake he might even screen guilt,” pursued Mr. Galloway. “Honourable and open as Hamish is, I must still express my belief that the twenty pounds came from him.”
“Honourable and open as Hamish is!” the words grated on Mr. Huntley, and a cynical expression rose to his face. Mr. Channing observed it. “What do you think of it?” he involuntarily asked.
“I have never had any other opinion but that the money did come from Hamish,” drily remarked Mr. Huntley. And Mr. Channing, in his utter astonishment, could not answer.
“Hamish happened to call in at my office the afternoon that the money was received,” resumed Mr. Galloway. “It was after I had spoken to Arthur. I had been thinking it over, and came to the conclusion that if it had come from Arthur, Hamish must have done it for him. In the impulse of the moment, I put the question to him—Had he done it to screen Arthur? And Hamish’s answer was a mocking one.”
“A mocking one!” repeated Mr. Channing. “A mocking, careless answer; one that vexed me, I know, at the time. The next day I told Arthur, point blank, that I believed the money came from Hamish. I wish you could have seen his flush of confusion! and, deny it, he did not. Altogether, my impression against Arthur was rather confirmed, than the contrary, by the receipt of the money; though I am truly grieved to have to say it.”
“And you think the same!” Mr. Channing exclaimed to Mr. Huntley.
“Never mind what I think,” was the answer. “Beyond the one opinion I expressed, I will not be drawn into the discussion. I did not intend to say so much: it was a slip of the tongue.”
Mr. Huntley was about to leave the room as he spoke, perhaps lest he should make other “slips;” but Mr. Channing interposed and drew him back. “Stay, Huntley,” he said, “we cannot rest in this uncertainty. Oblige me by remaining one instant, while I call Hamish.”
Hamish entered in obedience. He appeared somewhat surprised to see them assembled in conclave, looking so solemn; but he supposed it related to Charles. Mr. Channing undeceived him.
“Hamish, we are speaking of Arthur. Both these gentlemen have expressed a belief—”
“I beg your pardon,” interrupted Mr. Huntley. “I said that I should be obliged if you would leave me out of the discussion.”
“What does it signify?” returned Mr. Channing, his tone one of haste. “Hamish, Mr. Galloway has expressed to me a belief that you have so far taken part with Arthur in that unhappy affair, as to send back the money to him.”
“Oh, indeed!” said Hamish; and his manner was precisely what Mr. Galloway had described it to have been at the time; light, mocking, careless. “Mr. Galloway did me the honour to express something of the same belief, I remember.”
“Did you send it, Hamish?” asked his father, a severe look crossing his face.
“No, sir, I did not,” emphatically replied Hamish. And Mr. Huntley turned and bent his keen eye upon him. In his heart of hearts he believed it to be a deliberate falsehood.
“I did not send the money, and I do not know who did send it,” went on Hamish. “But, as we are upon the subject, perhaps I may be allowed to express my opinion that, if there were as much labour taken to establish Arthur’s innocence, as it seems to me there is to prove him guilty, he might have been cleared long ago.”
That the remark was aimed at Mr. Galloway, there was no doubt. Mr. Huntley answered it; and, had they been suspicious, they might have detected a covert meaning in his tone.
“You, at any rate, must hold firm faith in his innocence.”
“Firm and entire faith,” distinctly assented Hamish. “Father,” he added, impulsively turning to Mr. Channing, “put all notion of Arthur’s guilt from you, at once and for ever. I would answer for him with my life.”
“Then he must be screening some one,” cried Mr. Galloway. “It is one thing or the other. Hamish, it strikes me you know. Who is it?”
A red flush mounted to Hamish’s brow, but he lapsed into his former mocking tone. “Nay,” said he, “I can tell nothing about that.”
He left the room as he spoke, and the conference broke up. It appeared that no satisfactory solution could be come to, if they kept it on till midnight. Mr. Galloway took leave, and hastened home to dinner.
“I must be going also,” remarked Mr. Huntley. Nevertheless, he returned with Mr. Channing to the other room.
“You told me at Borcette that you were fully persuaded of Arthur’s innocence; you were ready to ridicule me for casting a doubt upon it,” Mr. Channing remarked to him in a low tone, as they crossed the hall.
“I have never been otherwise than persuaded of it,” said Mr. Huntley. “He is innocent as you, or as I.”
“And yet you join Mr. Galloway in assuming that he and Hamish sent back the money! The one assertion is incompatible with the other.”
Mr. Huntley laid his hand upon Mr. Channing’s shoulder. “My dear friend, all that you and I can do, is to let the matter rest. We should only plunge into shoals and quicksands, and lose our way in them, were we to pursue it.”
They had halted at the parlour door to speak. Judith came bustling up at that moment from the kitchen, a letter in her hand, looking as if in her hurry she might have knocked them over, had they not made way for her to enter.
“Bad luck to my memory, then! It’s getting not worth a button. Here, Master Arthur. The postman gave it me at the door, just as I had caught sight of the fly turning the corner with the master and missis. I slipped it into my pocket, and never thought of it till this minute.”
“So! it has come at last, has it?” cried Arthur, recognising Roland Yorke’s handwriting.
“Is he really off?” inquired Tom.
“Yes, he is really off,” replied Arthur, opening the letter and beginning to glance over the contents. “He has sailed in the ship Africa. Don’t talk to me, Tom. What a long letter!”
They left him to read it in peace. Talking together—Mr. and Mrs. Channing, Mr. Huntley, William Yorke, Hamish, Constance—all were in a group round the fire, paying no attention to him. No attention, until an exclamation caused them to turn.
An exclamation half of distress, half of fear. Arthur had risen from his chair, and stood, the picture of excitement, his face and lips blanching.
“What is the matter?” they exclaimed.
“Roland—the ship—Roland”—and there Arthur stopped, apparently unable to say more.
“Oh, it’s drowned! it’s drowned!” cried quick Annabel. “The ship’s drowned, and Roland with it!” And Arthur sank back in his chair again, and covered his face with his hands.