Agatha Webb Part 24

But he was not the only person on the road at this time. A few minutes previously they had pa.s.sed another man walking in the same direction. As Mr. Sutherland mused over this he found himself peering through the small window at the back of the buggy, striving to catch another glimpse of the two men plodding behind him. He could see them both, his son's form throwing its long shadow over the moonlit road, followed only too closely by the man whose ungainly shape he feared to acknowledge to himself was growing only too familiar in his eyes.

Falling into a troubled reverie, he beheld the well-known houses, and the great trees under whose shadow he had grown from youth to manhood, flit by him like phantoms in a dream. But suddenly one house and one place drew his attention with a force that startled him again into an erect att.i.tude, and seizing with one hand the arm of the driver, he pointed with the other at the door of the cottage they were pa.s.sing, saying in choked tones:

"See! see! Something dreadful has happened since we pa.s.sed by here this morning. That is c.r.a.pe, Samuel, c.r.a.pe, hanging from the doorpost yonder!"

"Yes, it is c.r.a.pe," answered the driver, jumping out and running up the path to look. "Philemon must be dead; the good Philemon."

Here was a fresh blow. Mr. Sutherland bowed before it for a moment, then he rose hurriedly and stepped down into the road beside the driver.

"Get in again," said he, "and drive on. Ride a half-mile, then come back for me. I must see the widow Jones."

The driver, awed both by the occasion and the feeling it had called up in Mr. Sutherland, did as he was bid and drove away. Mr. Sutherland, with a glance back at the road he had just traversed, walked painfully up the path to Mrs. Jones's door.

A moment's conversation with the woman who answered his summons proved the driver's supposition to be correct. Philemon had pa.s.sed away. He had never rallied from the shock he had received. He had joined his beloved Agatha on the day of her burial, and the long tragedy of their mutual life was over.

"It is a mercy that no inheritor of their misfortune remains," quoth the good woman, as she saw the affliction her tidings caused in this much-revered friend.

The a.s.sent Mr. Sutherland gave was mechanical. He was anxiously studying the road leading toward Portchester.

Suddenly he stepped hastily into the house.

"Will you be so good as to let me sit down in your parlour for a few minutes?" he asked. "I should like to rest there for an instant alone.

This final blow has upset me."

The good woman bowed. Mr. Sutherland's word was law in that town. She did not even dare to protest against the ALONE which he had so pointedly emphasised, but left him after making him, as she said, comfortable, and went back to her duties in the room above.

It was fortunate she was so amenable to his wishes, for no sooner had her steps ceased to be heard than Mr. Sutherland rose from the easy-chair in which he had been seated, and, putting out the lamp widow Jones had insisted on lighting, pa.s.sed directly to the window, through which he began to peer with looks of the deepest anxiety.

A man was coming up the road, a young man, Frederick. As Mr. Sutherland recognised him he leaned forward with increased anxiety, till at the appearance of his son in front his scrutiny grew so strained and penetrating that it seemed to exercise a magnetic influence upon Frederick, causing him to look up.

The glance he gave the house was but momentary, but in that glance the father saw all that he had secretly dreaded. As his son's eye fell on that fluttering bit of c.r.a.pe, testifying to another death in this already much-bereaved community, he staggered wildly, then in a pause of doubt drew nearer and nearer till his fingers grasped this symbol of mourning and clung there. Next moment he was far down the road, plunging toward home in a state of great mental disorder.

A half-hour afterwards Mr. Sutherland reached home. He had not overtaken Frederick again, or even his accompanying shadow. Ascertaining at his own door that his son had not yet come in, but had been seen going farther up the hill, he turned back again into the road and proceeded after him on foot.

The next place to his own was occupied by Mr. Halliday. As he approached it he caught sight of a man standing half in and half out of the honeysuckle porch, whom he at first thought to be Frederick. But he soon saw that it was the fellow who had been following his son all the way from Portchester, and, controlling his first movement of dislike, he stepped up to him and quietly said:

"Sweet.w.a.ter, is this you?"

The young man fell back and showed a most extraordinary agitation, quickly suppressed, however. "Yes, sir, it is no one else. Do you know what I am doing here?"

"I fear I do. You have been to Portchester. You have seen my son--"

Sweet.w.a.ter made a hurried, almost an entreating, gesture.

"Never mind that, Mr. Sutherland. I had rather you wouldn't say anything about that. I am as much broken up by what I have seen as you are. I never suspected him of having any direct connection with this murder; only the girl to whom he has so unfortunately attached himself. But after what I have seen, what am I to think? what am I to do? I honour you; I would not grieve you; but--but--oh, sir, perhaps you can help me out of the maze into which I have stumbled. Perhaps you can a.s.sure me that Mr. Frederick did not leave the ball at the time she did. I missed him from among the dancers. I did not see him between twelve and three, but perhaps you did; and--and--"

His voice broke. He was almost as profoundly agitated as Mr. Sutherland.

As for the latter, who found himself unable to rea.s.sure the other on this very vital point, having no remembrance himself of having seen Frederick among his guests during those fatal hours, he stood speechless, lost in abysses, the depth and horror of which only a father can appreciate. Sweet.w.a.ter respected his anguish and for a moment was silent himself. Then he burst out:

"I had rather never lived to see this day than be the cause of shame or suffering to you. Tell me what to do. Shall I be deaf, dumb--"

Here Mr. Sutherland found voice.

"You make too much of what you saw," said he. "My boy has faults and has lived anything but a satisfactory life, but he is not as bad as you would intimate. He can never have taken life. That would be incredible, monstrous, in one brought up as he has been. Besides, if he were so far gone in evil as to be willing to attempt crime, he had no motive to do so; Sweet.w.a.ter, he had no motive. A few hundred dollars but these he could have got from me, and did, but--"

Why did the wretched father stop? Did he recall the circ.u.mstances under which Frederick had obtained these last hundreds from him? They were not ordinary circ.u.mstances, and Frederick had been in no ordinary strait.

Mr. Sutherland could not but acknowledge to himself that there was something in this whole matter which contradicted the very plea he was making, and not being able to establish the conviction of his son's innocence in his own mind, he was too honourable to try to establish it in that of another. His next words betrayed the depth of his struggle:

"It is that girl who has ruined him, Sweet.w.a.ter. He loves but doubts her, as who could help doing after the story she told us day before yesterday? Indeed, he has doubted her ever since that fatal night, and it is this which has broken his heart, and not--not--" Again the old gentleman paused; again he recovered himself, this time with a touch of his usual dignity and self-command. "Leave me," he cried. "Nothing that you have seen has escaped me; but our interpretations of it may differ.

I will watch over my son from this hour, and you may trust my vigilance."

Sweet.w.a.ter bowed.

"You have a right to command me," said he. "You may have forgotten, but I have not, that I owe my life to you. Years ago--perhaps you can recall it--it was at the Black Pond--I was going down for the third time and my mother was screaming in terror on the bank, when you plunged in and--Well, sir, such things are never forgotten, and, as I said before, you have only to command me." He turned to go, but suddenly came back.

There were signs of mental conflict in his face and voice. "Mr.

Sutherland, I am not a talkative man. If I trust your vigilance you may trust my discretion. Only I must have your word that you will convey no warning to your son."

Mr. Sutherland made an indefinable gesture, and Sweet.w.a.ter again disappeared, this time not to return. As for Mr. Sutherland, he remained standing before Mr. Halliday's door. What had the young man meant by this emphatic repet.i.tion of his former suggestion? That he would be quiet, also, and not speak of what he had seen? Why, then--But to the hope thus given, this honest-hearted gentleman would yield no quarter, and seeing a duty before him, a duty he dare not shirk, he brought his emotions, violent as they were, into complete and absolute subjection, and, opening Mr. Halliday's door, entered the house. They were old neighbours, and ceremony was ignored between them.

Finding the hall empty and the parlour door open he walked immediately into the latter room. The sight that met his eyes never left his memory.

Agnes, his little Agnes, whom he had always loved and whom he had vainly longed to call by the endearing name of daughter, sat with her face towards him, looking up at Frederick. That young gentleman had just spoken to her, or she had just received something from his hand for her own was held out and her expression was one of grat.i.tude and acceptance.

She was not a beautiful girl, but she had a beautiful look, and at this moment it was exalted by a feeling the old gentleman had once longed, but now dreaded inexpressibly, to see there. What could it mean? Why did she show at this unhappy crisis, interest, devotion, pa.s.sion almost, for one she had regarded with open scorn when it was the dearest wish of his heart to see them united? It was one of the contradictions of our mysterious human nature, and at this crisis and in this moment of secret heart-break and miserable doubt it made the old gentleman shrink, with his first feeling of actual despair.

The next moment Agnes had risen and they were both facing him.

"Good-evening, Agnes."

Mr. Sutherland forced himself to speak lightly.

"Ah, Frederick, do I find you here?" The latter question had more constraint in it.

Frederick smiled. There was an air of relief about him, almost of cheerfulness.

"I was just leaving," said he. "I was the bearer of a message to Miss Halliday." He had always called her Agnes before.

Mr. Sutherland, who had found his faculties confused by the expression he had surprised on the young girl's face, answered with a divided attention:

"And I have a message to give you. Wait outside on the porch for me, Frederick, till I exchange a word with our little friend here."

Agnes, who had thrust something she held into a box that lay beside her on a table, turned with a confused blush to listen.

Mr. Sutherland waited till Frederick had stepped into the hall. Then he drew Agnes to one side and remorselessly, persistently, raised her face toward him till she was forced to meet his benevolent but searching regard.

"Do you know," he whispered, in what he endeavoured to make a bantering tone, "how very few days it is since that unhappy boy yonder confessed his love for a young lady whose name I cannot bring myself to utter in your presence?"

The intent was kind, but the effect was unexpectedly cruel. With a droop of her head and a hurried gasp which conveyed a mixture of entreaty and reproach, Agnes drew back in a vague endeavour to hide her sudden uneasiness. He saw his mistake, and let his hands drop.

"Don't, my dear," he whispered. "I had no idea it would hurt you to hear this. You have always seemed indifferent, hard even, toward my scapegrace son. And this was right, for--for--" What could he say, how express one-tenth of that with which his breast was labouring! He could not, he dared not, so ended, as we have intimated, by a confused stammering.