Starvecrow Farm Part 21

True, she had had this in prospect from the beginning, and, thinking of it, had suffered in the dark hours. But his capture had then been vague and doubtful and the full misery of her exposure had not struck her as it struck her now, with the picture of that man on the stairs fresh in her mind. To have disgraced herself for that!--for that!

She was thinking of this and was still much agitated when she came to the spot where the path through the wood diverged from the road. There with his hand on the wicket-gate, unseen until she was close upon him, stood Mr. Bishop.

He raised his hat and stepped aside, as if the meeting took him by surprise, as if he had not been watching her face through a screen of briars for the last thirty seconds. But that due paid to politeness, the runner's sharp eyes remained glued to her face.

"Dear me, miss," he said, in apparent innocence, "nothing has happened, I hope! You don't look yourself! I hope," respectfully, "that n.o.body has been rude to you."

"It is nothing," she made shift to murmur. She turned her face aside.

And she tried to go by him.

He let her go through the gate, but he kept at her side and scrutinised her face with side-long glances. He coughed.

"I am afraid you have heard bad news, miss?" he said.

"No!"

"Oh, perhaps--seen some one who has startled you?"

"I have told you it is nothing," she answered curtly. "Be good enough to leave me."

But he merely paused an instant in obedience to the gesture of her hand, then he resumed his place beside her. In the tone of one who had made up his mind to be frank--

"Look here, miss," he said, "it is better to come to an understanding here, where there is n.o.body to listen. If it is not that somebody has been rude to you, I'm clear that you have heard news, or you have seen somebody. And it is my business to know the one or the other."

She stopped.

"I have nothing to do with your business!" she cried.

He made a wry face, and spread out his hands in appeal.

"Won't you be frank?" he replied. "Come, miss? What is the use of fencing with me? Be frank! I want to make things easy for all. Lord, miss, you are not the sort, and we two know it, that suffers in these things. You'll come out all right if you'll be frank. It's that I'm working towards; to put an end to it, and the sooner the better. You can't--a wife and four children, miss, and a radical to boot--you can't think much of him! So why not help instead of hindering?"

"You are impudent!" Henrietta said, with a fine colour in her cheeks.

"Be good enough to let me pa.s.s."

"If I knew where he was"--with his eyes on her face--"I could make all easy. All done, and nothing said, my lady; just 'from communications received,' no names given, not a word of what has happened up here!

Lord bless you, what do they care in London--and it is in London he'll be tried--what happens here!"

"Let me pa.s.s!" she answered breathlessly.

He was so warm upon the scent he terrified her.

But he did not give way.

"Think, miss," he said more gravely. "Think! A wife and six children!

Or was it four? Much he cared for any but himself! I'm sure I'm shocked when I think of it!"

"Be silent!" she cried.

"Much he cared what became of you! While Captain Clyne, if you were to consult his wishes, miss, I'm sure he'd say----"

"I do not care what he would say!" she retorted pa.s.sionately, stung at last beyond reticence or endurance. "I never wish to hear Captain Clyne's name again: I hate him; do you hear? I hate him! Let me pa.s.s!"

Then, whether he would or no, she broke from him. She hurried, panting, and with burning cheeks, down the steep path; the briars clutching unheeded at her skirts, and stones rolling under her feet.

He followed at her heels, admiring her spirit; he even tried to engage her again, begging her to stop and hear him. But she only pushed on the faster, and presently he thought it better to desist, and he let her go.

He stood and wiped his brow, looking after her.

"Lord, what a spirit she has!" he muttered. "A fine swelling figure, too, and a sway with her head that makes you feel small! And feet that nimble! But all the same, I'm glad she's not Mrs. Bishop! Take my word for it, she'll be another Mother Gilson--some day."

While Henrietta hurried on at her best pace, resentment giving way to fear and doubt and a hundred perplexities. Betray the man she could not, though he deserved nothing at her hands. She was no informer, nor would become one. The very idea was repulsive to her. And she had woven about this man the fine tissue of a girl's first fancy; she had looked to be his, she had let him kiss her. After that, vile as he was, vilely as he had meant by her, it did not lie with her to betray him to death.

But his presence near her was hateful to her, was frightful, was almost intolerable. Not a day, not an hour, but she must expect to hear of his capture, and know it for the first of a series of ordeals, painful and humiliating. She would be confronted with him, she would be asked if she knew him, she would be asked this and that; and she would have to speak, would have to confess--to those clandestine meetings, to that kiss--while he listened, while all listened. The tale that was known as yet to few would be published abroad. Her folly would be in every mouth, in every journal. The wife and the four children, and she, the silly, silly fool whom this mean thing had captivated, taking her as easily as any doe in her brother's park--the world would ring with them!

CHAPTER XIII

A JEALOUS WOMAN

Meanwhile the man whom she had left in the gloom of the staircase waited. The sound of the girl's tread died away and silence followed.

But she might be taking the news, she might be gone back to those who had sent her. He knew that at any moment the party charged with his arrest might appear, and that in a few seconds all would be over. And the suspense was intolerable. After enduring it a while he pushed the door open, and he crept across the floor of the living-room. He brought his haggard face near the cas.e.m.e.nt and peeped cautiously through a lower corner. He saw nothing to the purpose. Nothing moved without, except the old man, whose rags fluttered an instant among the bushes and vanished again. Probably he was dragging up some treasured sc.r.a.p and hiding it anew with as little sane purpose and as much instinct as the dog that buries a bone.

The man with the price on his head stole back to the foot of the stairs, rea.s.sured for the moment; but with his heart still fluttering, his cheeks still bloodless. He had had a great fright. He could not yet tell what would come of it. But he knew that in the form of the girl whom he had tricked and sought to ruin he had seen the gallows very near.

He had not quite regained the staircase when the sound of a foot approaching the door drove him to shelter in a panic. Bess Hinkson had to call twice before he dared to descend or to run the risk of a second mistake.

The moment she saw his face she knew that something was wrong.

"What is it?" she asked quickly. "What is the matter, lad?"

"I've seen some one," he answered. "Some one who knew me!" He tried to smile, but the smile was a spasm; and suddenly his teeth clicked together. "Knew me by G--d!" he said.

"Bishop?"

"No, but--some one."

Her face cleared.

"What's took you?" she said. "There is no one else here who knows you."

"The girl."

She stared at him. "The girl?" she repeated--and the master-note in her voice was no longer fear, but suspicion. "The girl! How came she here? And how," with sudden ferocity, "came she to see you, my lad?"

"I heard her below and thought that it was you."