Elster's Folly Part 81

"I dare not take it," said he. "You would be up in arms if it were dropped. What is its name?"

"Reginald."

A little while, and she carried the child away, leaving them alone. Mr.

Carr declined refreshment for the present; and he and Val strolled out arm-in-arm.

"I have brought you an item of news, Hartledon. Gorton has turned up."

"Not Gordon?"

"No. And what's more, Gorton never was Gordon. You were right, and I was wrong. I would have bet a ten-pound note--a great venture for a barrister--that the men were the same; never, in point of fact, had a doubt of it."

"You would not listen to me," said Val. "I told you I was sure I could not have failed to recognize Gordon, had he been the one who was down at Calne with the writ."

"But you acknowledged that it might have been he, nevertheless; that his red hair might have been false; that you never had a distinct view of the man's face; and that the only time you spoke to him was in the gloaming,"

reiterated Thomas Carr. "Well, as it turns out, we might have spared half our pains and anxiety, for Gorton was never any one but himself: an innocent sheriff's officer, as far as you are concerned, who had never, in his life set eyes on Val Elster until he went after him to Calne."

"Didn't I say so?" reiterated Val. "Gordon would have known me too well to arrest Edward for me."

"But you admitted the general likeness between you and your brother; and Gordon had not seen you for three years or more."

"Yes; I admitted all you say, and perhaps was a little doubtful myself.

But I soon shook off the doubt, and of late years have been sure that Gordon was really dead. It has been more than a conviction. I always said there were no grounds for connecting the two together."

"I had my grounds for doing it," remarked the barrister. "Gorton, it seems, has been in Australia ever since. No wonder Green could not unearth him in London. He's back again on a visit, looking like a gentleman; and really I can't discover that there was ever anything against him, except that he was down in the world. Taylor met him the other day, and I had him brought to my chambers; and have told you the result."

"You do not now feel any doubt that Gordon's dead?"

"None at all. Your friend, Gordon of Kircudbright, was the one who embarked, or ought to have embarked, on the _Morning Star_, homeward bound," said Mr. Carr. And he forthwith told Lord Hartledon what the man had said.

A silence ensued. Lord Hartledon was in deep and evidently not pleasant thought; and the barrister stole a glance at him.

"Hartledon, take comfort. I am as cautious by nature as I believe it is possible for any one to be; and I am sure the man is dead, and can never rise up to trouble you."

"I have been sure of that for years," replied Hartledon quietly. "I have just said so."

"Then what is disturbing you?"

"Oh, Carr, how can you ask it?" came the rejoinder. "What is it lies on my mind day and night; is wearing me out before my time? Discovery may be avoided; but when I look at the children--at the boy especially--it would have turned some men mad," he more quietly added, pa.s.sing his hand across his brow. "As long as he lives, I cannot have rest from pain. The sins of the fathers--"

"Yes, yes," interposed Mr. Carr, hastily. "Still the case is light, compared with what we once dreaded."

"Light for me, heavy for him."

Mr. Carr remained with them until the Monday: he then went back to London and work; and time glided on again. An event occurred the following winter which shall be related at once; more especially as nothing of moment took place in those intervening months needing special record.

The man Pike, who still occupied his shed undisturbed, had been ailing for some time. An attack of rheumatic fever in the summer had left him little better than a cripple. He crawled abroad still when he was able, and _would_ do so, in spite of what Mr. Hillary said; would lie about the damp ground in a lawless, gipsying sort of manner; but by the time winter came all that was over, and Mr. Pike's career, as foretold by the surgeon, was drawing rapidly to a close. Mrs. Gum was his good Samaritan, as she had been in the fever some years before, going in and out and attending to him; and in a reasonable way Pike wanted for nothing.

"How long can I last?" he abruptly asked the doctor one morning. "Needn't fear to say. _She_'s the only one that will take on; I shan't."

He alluded to Mrs. Gum, who had just gone out. The surgeon considered.

"Two or three days."

"As much as that?"

"I think so."

"Oh!" said Pike. "When it comes to the last day I should like to see Lord Hartledon."

"Why the last day?"

The man's pinched features broke into a smile; pleasant and fair features once, with a gentle look upon them. The black wig and whiskers lay near him; but the real hair, light and scanty, was pushed back from the damp brow.

"No use, then, to think of giving me up: no time left for it."

"I question if Lord Hartledon would give you up were you in rude health.

I'm sure he would not," added Mr. Hillary, endorsing his opinion rather emphatically. "If ever there was a kindly nature in the world, it's his.

What do you want with him?"

"I should like to say a word to him in private," responded Pike.

"Then you'd better not wait to say it. I'll tell him of your wish. It's all safe. Why, Pike, if the police themselves came they wouldn't trouble to touch you now."

"I shouldn't much care if they did," said the man. "_I_ haven't cared for a long while; but there were the others, you know."

"Yes," said Mr. Hillary.

"Look here," said Pike; "no need to tell him particulars; leave them till I'm gone. I don't know that I'd like _him_ to look me in the face, knowing them."

"As you will," said Mr. Hillary, falling in with the wish more readily than he might have done for anyone but a dying man.

He had patients out of Calne, beyond Hartledon, and called in returning.

It was a snowy day; and as the surgeon was winding towards the house, past the lodge, with a quick step, he saw a white figure marching across the park. It was Lord Hartledon. He had been caught in the storm, and came up laughing.

"Umbrellas are at a premium," observed Mr. Hillary, with the freedom long intimacy had sanctioned.

"It didn't snow when I came out," said Hartledon, shaking himself, and making light of the matter. "Were you coming to honour me with a morning call?"

"I was and I wasn't," returned the surgeon. "I've no time for morning calls, unless they are professional ones; but I wanted to say a word to you. Have you a mind for a further walk in the snow?"

"As far as you like."

"There's a patient of mine drawing very near the time when doctors can do no more for him. He has expressed a wish to see you, and I undertook to convey the request."

"I'll go, of course," said Val, all his kindliness on the alert. "Who is it?"

"A black sheep," answered the surgeon. "I don't know whether that will make any difference?"