The Curse of Carne's Hold Part 32

"Because, as I said, dear, there is a fate against me; because I can never marry; because I must go through the world alone. I told you that the name I bear is not my own. I have been obliged to change it, because my own name is disgraced; because, were I to name it, there is not a man here of those who just at present are praising and making much of me, who would not shrink from my side."

"No, Ronald, no; it cannot be."

"It is true, dear; my name has been a.s.sociated with the foulest of crimes. I have been tried for murdering a woman, and that woman a near relative. I was acquitted, it is true: but simply because the evidence did not amount to what the law required. But in the sight of the world I went out guilty."

"Oh, how could they think so?" Mary said, bursting into tears; "how could they have thought, Ronald, those who knew you, that you could do this?"

"Many did believe it," Ronald said, "and the evidence was so strong that I almost believed it myself. However, thus it is. I am a marked man and an outcast, and must remain alone for all my life, unless G.o.d in His mercy should clear this thing up."

"Not alone, Ronald, not alone," the girl cried "there, you make me say it."

"You mean you would stand by my side, Mary? Thank you, my love, but I could not accept the sacrifice. I can bear my own lot, but I could not see the woman I loved pointed at as the wife of a murderer."

"But no one would know," Mary began.

"They would know, dear. I refused a commission the General offered me to-day, because were I to appear as an officer there are a score of men in this expedition who would know me at once; but even under my present name and my present dress I cannot escape. Only this evening, as I came here, I was taunted by a drunken soldier, who must have known me, as a murderer of women. Good Heavens! do you think I would let any woman share that? Did I go to some out-of-the-way part of the world, I might escape for years; but at last the blow would come. Had it not been for the time we pa.s.sed together when death might at any moment have come to us both, had it not been that I held you in my arms during that ride, I should never have told you this, Mary, for you would have gone away to England and lived your life unhurt; but after that I could not but speak. You must have felt that I loved you, and had I not spoken, what would you have thought of me?"

"I should have thought, Ronald," she said, quietly, "that you had a foolish idea that because my father had money, while you were but a trooper, you ought not to speak; and I think that I should have summoned up courage to speak first, for I knew you loved me, just as certainly as I know that I shall love you always."

"I hope not, Mary," Ronald said, gravely; "it would add to the pain of my life to know that I had spoilt yours."

"It will not spoil mine, Ronald; it is good to know that one is loved by a true man, and that one loves him, even if we can never come together.

I would rather be single for your sake, dear, than marry any other man in the world. Won't you tell me about it all? I should like to know."

"You have a right to know, Mary, if you wish it;" and drawing her to a seat, Ronald told her the story of the Curse of the Carnes, of the wild blood that flowed in his veins, of his half-engagement to his cousin, and of the circ.u.mstances of her death. Only once she stopped him.

"Did you love her very much, Ronald?"

"No, dear; I can say so honestly now. No doubt I thought I loved her, though I had been involuntarily putting off becoming formally engaged to her; but I know now, indeed I knew long ago, that my pa.s.sion when she threw me off was rather an outburst of disappointment, and perhaps of jealousy, that another should have stepped in when I thought myself so sure, than of real regret. I had cared for Margaret in a way, but now that I know what real love is, I know it was but as a cousin that I loved her."

Then he went on to tell her the proofs against himself; how that the words he had spoken had come up against him; how he had failed altogether to account for his doings at the hour at which she was murdered; how his glove had borne evidence against him.

"Is that all, Ronald?"

"Not quite all, dear. I saw in an English paper only a few days ago that the matter had come up again. Margaret's watch and jewels were found in the garden, just hidden in the ground, evidently not by a thief who intended to come again and fetch them, but simply concealed by some one who had taken them and did not want them. If those things had been found before my trial, Mary, I should a.s.suredly have been hung, for they disposed of the only alternative that seemed possible, namely, that she had been murdered by a midnight burglar for the sake of her valuables."

Mary sat in silence for a few minutes, and then asked one or two questions with reference to the story.

"And you have no idea yourself, Ronald, not even the slightest suspicion, against any one?"

"Not the slightest," he said; "the whole thing is to me as profound a mystery as ever."

"Of course, from what you tell me, Ronald, the evidence against you was stronger than against any one else, and yet I cannot think how any one who knew you could have believed it."

"I hope that those who knew me best did not believe it, Mary. A few of my neighbours and many of my brother officers had faith in my innocence; but, you see, those in the county who knew the story of our family were naturally set against me. I had the mad blood of the Carnes in my veins; the Carnes had committed two murders in their frenzy, and it did not seem to them so strange that I should do the same. I may tell you, dear, that this trial through which I have pa.s.sed has not been altogether without good. The family history had weighed on my mind from the time I was a child, and at times I used to wonder whether I had madness in my blood, and the fear grew upon me and embittered my life. Since that trial it has gone for ever. I know that if I had had the slightest touch of insanity in my veins I must have gone mad in that awful time; and much as I have suffered from the cloud that rested on me, I am sure I have been a far brighter and happier man since."

A pressure of the hand which he was holding in his expressed the sympathy that she did not speak.

"What time do you march to-morrow, Ronald?"

"At eight, dear."

"Could you come round first?"

"I could, Mary; but I would rather say good-bye now."

"You must say good-bye now, Ronald, and again in the morning. Why I ask you is because I want to tell my father. You don't mind that, do you? He must know there is something, because he spoke to-day as if he would wish it to be as I hoped, and I should like him to know how it is with us. You do not mind, do you?"

"Not at all," Ronald said. "I would rather that he did know."

"Then I will tell him now," the girl said. "I should like to talk it over with him," and she rose. Ronald rose too.

"Good-bye, Mary."

"Not like that, Ronald," and she threw her arms round his neck.

"Good-bye, my dear, my dear. I will always be true to you to the end of my life. And hope always. I cannot believe that you would have saved me almost by a miracle, if it had not been meant we should one day be happy together. G.o.d bless you and keep you."

There was a long kiss, and then Mary Armstrong turned and ran back to the hospital.

Father and daughter talked together for hours after Mary's return. The disappointment to Mr. Armstrong was almost as keen as to Mary herself.

He had from the first been greatly taken by Harry Blunt, and had encouraged his coming to the house. That he was a gentleman he was sure, and he thought he knew enough of character to be convinced that whatever sc.r.a.pe had driven him to enlist as a trooper, it was not a disgraceful one.

"If Mary fancies this young fellow, she shall have him," he had said to himself. "I have money enough for us both, and what good is it to me except to see her settled happily in life?"

After the attack upon his house, when he was rescued by the party led by Ronald, he thought still more of the matter, for some subtle change in his daughter's manner convinced him that her heart had been touched. He had fretted over the fact that after this Ronald's duty had kept him from seeing them, and when at last he started on his journey down to the coast he made up his mind, that if when they reached England he could ascertain for certain Mary's wishes on the subject, he would himself write a cautious letter to him, putting it that after the service he had rendered in saving his life and that of his daughter, he did not like the thought of his remaining as a trooper at the Cape, and that if he liked to come home he would start him in any sort of business he liked, adding, perhaps, that he had special reasons for wishing him to return.

After Ronald's rescue of his daughter, Mr. Armstrong regarded it as a certainty that his wish would be realised. He was a little surprised that the young sergeant had not spoken out, and it was with a view to give him an opportunity that he had suggested that Mary should go out for a stroll on the last evening. He had felt a.s.sured that they would come in hand in hand, and had antic.i.p.ated with lively pleasure the prospect of paying his debt of grat.i.tude to the young man. It was with surprise, disappointment, and regret that he listened to Mary's story.

"It is a monstrous thing," he said, when she had finished. "Most monstrous; but don't cry, my dear, it will all come right presently.

These things always work round in time."

"But how is it to come right, father? He says that he himself has not the slightest suspicion who did it."

"Whether he has or not makes no difference," Mr. Armstrong said, decidedly. "It is quite certain, by what you say, this poor lady did not kill herself. In that case, who did it? We must make it our business to find out who it was. You don't suppose I am going to have your life spoiled in such a fashion as this. Talk about remaining single all your life, I won't have it; the thing must be set straight."

"It's very easy to say 'must,' father," Mary said, almost smiling at his earnestness, "but how is it to be set straight?"

"Why, by our finding out all about it, of course, Mary. Directly I get well enough to move--and the doctor said this morning that in a fortnight I can be taken down to the coast--we will follow out our original plan of going back to England. Then we will go down to this place you speak of--Carnesworth, or whatever it is, and take a place there or near there; there are always places to be had. It makes no difference to us where we go, for I don't suppose I shall find many people alive I knew in England. We will take some little place, and get to know the people and talk to them. Don't tell me about not finding out; of course we shall be able to find out if it has been done by any one down there; and as you say that the burglar or tramp theory is quite disproved by the finding of these trinkets, it must be somebody in the neighbourhood. I know what these dunderheaded police are. Not one in ten of them can put two and two together. The fellows at once jumped to the conclusion that Mervyn was guilty, and never inquired further."

"He says he had a detective down, father, for some weeks before the trial, and that one has been remaining there until quite lately."

"I don't think much of detectives," Mr. Armstrong said; "but of course, Mary, if you throw cold water on the scheme and don't fancy it, there's an end of it."

"No, no, father, you know I don't mean that, only I was frightened because you seemed to think it so certain we should succeed. There is nothing I should like better; it will matter nothing to me if we are years about it so that we can but clear him at last."

"I have no notion of spending years, my dear. Before now I have proved myself a pretty good hand at tracking the spoor of Kaffirs, and it's hard if I can't pick up this trail somehow."

"We will do it between us, father," Mary said, catching his confidence and enthusiasm, and kissing him as he sat propped up with pillows. "Oh, you have made me so happy. Everything seemed so dark and hopeless before, and now we shall be working for him."