They had left the stubble-field, and were in a lane leading to The Spaniards, a lane sunk between high banks and wooded hedgerows, such as abound in that western world.
"That is enough for me to know," answered Heathcote gravely, "but nothing less than that assurance would be enough. I hope it is given in good faith?"
There was a severity in his manner which was new to Hilda. He had been the most indulgent of brothers hitherto.
"Why should you speak so unkindly about Mr. Grahame?" she said. "What objection have you to make against him, except that he is not rich?"
"His want of money would make no difference to me, Hilda. If it were for your happiness to marry a man of small means, I could easily reconcile myself to the idea, and would do my best to make things easy for you. I have a much graver objection against Bothwell Grahame than the fact that he is without a profession and without income. There is a horrible suspicion in men's minds about him which makes him a man set apart, like Cain; and my sister must have no dealings with such a man!"
"What do you mean, Edward?" exclaimed Hilda, turning angrily upon her brother, with indignant eyes. "What suspicion? How dare any one suspect him?"
"Unhappily, circumstances are his worst accusers. His own lips, his own manner, have given rise to the conviction which has taken hold of men's minds. When the idea that Bothwell Grahame was the murderer of that helpless girl first arose in my own mind, I struggled against the hideous notion. I told myself that I was a madman to imagine such a possibility. But when I found that the same facts had made exactly the same impression upon other minds – "
"You could think such a thing, Edward!" exclaimed Hilda, pale with horror. "You, who have known Bothwell for years, who knew him when he was a boy, you who have called yourself his friend, seen him day after day! You, a lawyer, a man of the world! You can harbour such a thought as this! I could not have believed it of you."
"Perhaps it is because I am a man of the world, and have seen life on the seamy side, and know too well to what dark gulfs men can go down when the tempter urges them. Perhaps it is because of my experience that I suspect Bothwell Grahame."
"O, it is too horrible!" cried Hilda passionately. "I feel as if I must be mad myself, or in company with a madman. Bothwell Grahame – Bothwell, whom I remember when I was a child, the frank, generous-hearted lad, who went away to India to fight for his country, and who fought so well, and won such praise from his commanding officer – "
"Yes, Hilda," interrupted her brother, "and who, just when he seemed on the high road to fortune, threw up his chances, and abandoned his profession, to become an idler at home. That same Bothwell Grahame who, when he was asked what he did with himself during a long day at Plymouth, could give no account of his time. That same Bothwell, whose manner, from the hour of that catastrophe on the line, became gloomy and sullen – altered so completely that he seemed a new man. That same Bothwell, whom everybody in the neighbourhood of Bodmin suspects of a foul crime. That is the man whom I do not wish my sister to marry; albeit he is of the same flesh and blood as the woman whom I respect above all other women upon earth."
"I am glad you have remembered that – at last," said Hilda bitterly. "I am glad you have not quite forgotten that this murderer is Dora Wyllard's first cousin – brought up with her, taught by the same teachers, reared in the same way of thinking."
"God grant I may see reason to alter my opinion, Hilda," replied her brother. "Do you suppose that this suspicion of mine is not a source of pain and grief? But while I think as I do, can you wonder that I forbid any suggestion of a marriage, between my sister and Bothwell Grahame?"
"I have told you that I shall never be his wife," said Hilda. "Pray do not let us ever speak his name again."
They were at the entrance to The Spaniards by this time – not the great iron gates by the lodge, but a little wooden gate opening into the fine old garden, second only in beauty to the Penmorval parterres and terraces.
"Will you mind if I don't appear at dinner, Edward?" asked Hilda presently, as they went into the house. "I have a racking headache."
"Poor little girl!" said her brother tenderly. "You are looking the picture of misery. I am very sorry for you, my dear. I am very sorry for us all; for I fear there is calamity ahead for some of us. If Bothwell is wise he will go to the other end of the world, and take himself as far as possible out of the ken of his countrymen. If he should ask you for counsel, Hilda, that is the best advice you can give him."
"If he should ask me, that is just the very last counsel he would ever hear from my lips," answered Hilda indignantly. "I would entreat him to stand his ground – to live down this vile calumny – to wait the day when Providence will clear his name from this dark cloud. Such a day will come, I am sure of that."
She went to her own room, and shut herself up for the rest of the evening. The convenient excuse of a headache answered very well with the servants. She declined all refreshment – would not have this or that brought up on a tray to oblige Glossop, her own maid, who was deeply concerned at her young mistress's indisposition.
"I have a very bad headache," she said, "and all I want is to be left alone till to-morrow morning. Don't come near me, please, till you bring me my early cup of tea."
Glossop sighed and submitted. It was not often that Miss Heathcote was so wilful. Glossop was the coachman's daughter, had been born and brought up at The Spaniards, in old Squire Heathcote's time. She was a buxom young woman of five-and-thirty, and counted herself almost one of the family.
At last Hilda was alone. She locked her door, and began to pace her room, up and down, up and down, with her hands clasped upon her forehead, trying to think out her perplexities.
It was a fine spacious old bedroom, lighted by old-fashioned casement windows, looking two ways – one to the garden, one to that timber-belted lawn which might almost take rank as a park. There was a sitting-room adjoining, which was Hilda's own particular apartment, containing her books and piano, and the little table on which she painted china cups and saucers. Hilda had spent many a happy hour in these rooms, practising, studying, painting, dreaming over high-art needlework. But this evening she felt as if she could never again be happy, here or anywhere. A dense cloud of trouble had spread itself around her, enfolding her as a mantle of darkness, shutting out all the light of life.
The sun was sinking behind the tall chestnuts, in a sea of red and gold. Every leaflet of rose or myrtle that framed the casements showed distinct against that clear evening sky. Such a pretty room within, such a lovely landscape and sky without; and yet that young soul was full of darkness.
She had defended her lover with indignant firmness just now. She had protested his innocence – declared that this thing could not be true; and now in solitude she looked in the face of that cruel slander, and her faith began to waver.
What could be stranger or more suspicious than Bothwell's conduct this evening? With one breath he had avowed his love; with the next he had told her that he was unworthy to be her lover – that they two could never be man and wife.
Yes, it was true that he had changed of late – that he had become gloomy, despondent, fitful. His manner had been that of a man bowed down by the burden of some secret trouble. But was he for this reason to be suspected of a horrible crime? It was abominable of people to suspect him – most of all cruel and unworthy in her brother, who had known him from boyhood.
And then came the hideous suggestion, as if whispered in her ear by the fiend himself, "What if my brother should be right?" Her own experience of the world was of the slightest. Her chief knowledge of life was derived from the novels she had read. She had read of darkest deeds, of strange contradictions in human nature, mysterious workings of the human heart. Hitherto she had considered these lurid lights, these black shadows, as the figments of the romancer's fancy. Now she began to ask herself if they might not find their counterpart in fact.
She had read of gentlemanlike murderers – assassins of good bearing and polished manners – Eugene Aram, Count Fosco, and many more of the same school. What if Bothwell Grahame were such as these, hiding behind his frank and easy manner the violent passions of the criminal?
No, she would not believe it. She laughed the foul fiend to scorn. Her woman's instinct was truer than her brother's legal acumen, she told herself; and as for those Bodmin busybodies, she weighed their wisdom as lighter than thistledown.
"I would marry him to-morrow, if he asked me to be his wife," she said to herself. "I would stand beside him at the altar, before the face of all his slanderers. I should be proud to bear his name."
She blushed crimson at her own boldness, as she stood before her mirror, with hands clasped, in all the fervour of a vow; but from that moment her faith in Bothwell Grahame knew no wavering.
In an age when infidelity and scorn of religious ceremonial is very common among young men, Bothwell Grahame had always been steadfast to the Church, and to the good old-fashioned habits in which he had been brought up by his aunt. He was not a zealot, or an enthusiast; but he attended the services of his church with a fair regularity, and had a proper respect for the rector of his parish. Even in India, where men are apt to be less orthodox than at home, Bothwell had always been known as a good Churchman.
For the last year it had been his custom to receive the sacrament on the first Sunday of the month. He had risen early, and had walked across the dewy fields to the old parish church, and had knelt among the people who knew him, and had felt himself all the better for that mystic office, even when things were going far from well with him. There was much that was blameworthy in his life; yet he had not felt himself too base a creature to kneel among his fellow-sinners at the altar of the Sinner's Friend.
It was a shock, therefore, to receive a letter from the Rector on the last day of August, requesting him to absent himself from the communion service on the following Sunday, lest his presence before that altar should be a scandal to the other communicants.
"God forbid that I should condemn any man unheard," wrote the Rector; "but you can hardly be unaware of the terrible scandal attaching to your name. You have not come to me, as I hoped you would come, to explain the conduct which has given rise to that scandal. You have taken no step to set yourself right before your fellow-men. Can you wonder that your own silence has been in somewise your condemnation? My duty to my flock compels me to warn you that, until you have taken some steps to free your character from the shadow that now darkens it, you must not approach the altar of your parish church.
"If you will come to me, and open your heart to me, as the sinner should to his priest, I may be able to counsel and to help you. If you can clear yourself to me, I will be your advocate with your fellow-parishioners. – Always your friend,
"JOHN MONKHOUSE."
"He did wisely to write," said Bothwell, crushing the letter in his clenched fist. "If he had spoken such words as those to me, I believe I should have knocked him down, priest though he is."
He answered the Rector's letter within an hour after receiving it.
"I have nothing to confess," he wrote, "and that is why I have not gone to your confessional. The difficulties and perplexities of my life are such as could only be understood by a man of my own age and surroundings. They would be darker than Sanscrit to clerical gray hairs.
"Because I did not choose to answer questions which I could not answer without betraying the confidence of a friend, my wise fellow-parishioners have agreed to suspect me of murdering a girl whose face I never saw till after her death.
"I shall attend to receive the sacrament at the eight-o'clock service next Sunday, and I dare you to refuse to administer it. – I have the honour to be, yours, &c.
BOTHWELL GRAHAME."
He walked to Bodmin and delivered his letter at the Rectory door. He would not run the risk of an hour's delay. On his way home he overtook Hilda, near the gates of The Spaniards. She was very pale when they met, and she grew still paler as they shook hands.
After a word or two of greeting, they walked on side by side in silence.
"I wonder that you can consent to be seen with me," said Bothwell presently, after a farmer's wife had driven past them on her way from market. "You must have heard by this time what people think about me – your brother foremost among them, I believe, for he has given me the cut direct more than once since the inquest."
"I am sorry that he should be so ready to believe a lie," said Hilda, "for I know that this terrible slander is a lie."
"God bless you for those straight, strong words, Hilda!" exclaimed Bothwell fervently. "Yes, it is a lie. I am not a good man. I have taken one false step in my life, and the consequences of that mistake have been very heavy upon me. But I am not capable of the kind of wickedness which my Bodmin friends put down to me. I have not risen to the sublimer heights of crime. I am not up to throwing a fellow-creature out of a railway-carriage."
"Why did you not answer that man's questions at the inquest?" asked Hilda urgently, forgetting that she had hardly the right to demand his confidence. "That refusal of yours is the cause of all this misery. It seems such a foolish, obstinate act on your part."
"I daresay it does. But I could not do more or less than I did. To have answered that inquisitive cur's prying questions categorically would have been to injure a lady. As a man of honour, I was bound to run all risks rather than do that."
"I begin to understand," said Hilda, blushing crimson.
Why had she not guessed his secret long before this? she asked herself. The mystery that surrounded him was the mystery of some fatal love-affair. She was only a secondary person in his life. There was another who had been more to him than she, Hilda, could ever be – another to whom he was bound, for whom he was willing to sacrifice his own character. She felt a jealous pang at the mere thought of that unknown one.
"No, you can never understand," exclaimed Bothwell passionately. "You can never imagine the misery of a man who has bound himself by a fatal tie which chains him to one woman, long after his heart has gone out to another. I gave away my liberty while I was in India, Hilda: pledged myself to one who could give me but little in return for my faith and devotion. I dare not tell you the circumstances of that bondage – the fatality which led to that accursed engagement. I am desperate enough to break the tie, now that it is too late, now that I dare not offer myself to the girl I love, now that my name is blasted for ever. Yes, for ever. I know these narrow-minded rustics, and that to the end of my life I shall in their sight bear the brand of Cain. Here is a fine example of liberal feeling, Hilda."
He handed her the Rector's letter, crumpled in his angry grasp.
She read it slowly, tears welling up to her eyes as she read. How hardly the world was using this poor Bothwell! and the harder he was used the more she loved him.
"What are you going to do?" she asked.
"I shall kneel before the altar of my God, as I have knelt before."
"There will at least be one communicant there who will not shrink from you," said Hilda softly. "We will kneel side by side, if you like."
"God bless you, my darling. God help me to clear my name from this foul stain which fools have cast upon it; and then a day may come when you and I may kneel before that altar, side by side, and I may be thrice blest in winning you for my wife."
There was a brief silence before Hilda murmured, "You have told me that you are bound to another."
"Yes, and I have told you that I will break through that bondage."
"Can you do so with honour?"
"Yes. It will be more honourable to cancel my vow than to keep it; and when I am a free man – when this shadow has been cleared from my name – will you take me for your husband, Hilda – a man with his way to make in the world, but needing only such an inducement as your love to undertake the labours of a modern Hercules? Will you have me, Hilda, when I am my own man again?"
"I will," answered Hilda softly, yet with a firm faith that thrilled him. "I shall have to brave my brother's anger, perhaps; but I will not wait till your name is cleared from this slander. Of what use is fair-weather love? It is in storm and cloud that a woman's faith should be firmest. When you have freed yourself from that old tie which has grown a weariness to you, when you can come to me in all truth and honour, my heart shall answer frankly and fully, Bothwell. And then you can tell all our friends that we are engaged. It may be a very long engagement, perhaps. I shall not be of age till two years hence, you know; but that does not matter. People will know at least that I do not suspect you of a crime."
"My noble girl!" he cried, beside himself with joy.
Never had he thought to find any woman so frank, so generous, so brave. He would have caught her in his arms, pressed her to his passionately beating heart, but she drew herself away from him with a decisive gesture.
"Not until you are free, Bothwell; not until you can tell me that the old tie is broken. Till then we can be only friends."
"Be it so," he answered submissively. "Your friendship is worth more to me than the love of other women. Will you walk to Penmorval with me? Dora has been wondering at your desertion."
"Not to-day. Please tell Dora that I have not been very well. I will go to see her to-morrow. Good-bye, Bothwell."
"Good-bye, my beloved."
They parted at the gate of The Spaniards.
CHAPTER VII.
A RAPID CONVERSION
Three days after that compact between Bothwell and Hilda, an officious friend went out of his way to inform Mr. Heathcote that his sister and Mr. Grahame had been seen together several times of late, and that their manner indicated a more than ordinary degree of intimacy. They had been observed together at the early service on Sunday morning; they had sat in the same pew; they had walked away from the church side by side – indeed, Mr. Heathcote's friend believed they had actually walked to The Spaniards together.
"It is a shame that such a man as Grahame should be allowed to be on intimate terms with an innocent girl," said the worthy rustic, in conclusion.
"My dear Badderly, I hope I am able to take care of my sister without the help of all Bodmin," retorted Heathcote shortly. "Everybody is in great haste to condemn Mr. Grahame; but you must not forget that my sister and I have been intimate with him and his family for years. We cannot be expected to turn our backs upon him all at once, because his conduct happens to appear somewhat mysterious."
Notwithstanding which kindly word for Bothwell, Edward Heathcote went straight home and questioned his sister as to her dealings with that gentleman.
Hilda admitted that she had seen Mr. Grahame two or three times within the last week, and that she had allowed him to walk home with her after the early service.
"Do you think it wise or womanly to advertise your friendship with a man who is suspected of a most abominable crime?" asked her brother severely.
"I think it wise and womanly to be true to my friends in misfortune – in unmerited misfortune," she answered firmly.
"You are very strong in your faith. And pray what do you expect will be the end of all this?"
"I expect – I hope – that some day I shall be Bothwell's wife. I shall not be impatient of your control, Edward. I am only nineteen. I hope during the next two years you will find good reason to change your opinion about Bothwell, and to give your consent to our marriage – "
"And if I do not?"
"If you do not, I must take advantage of my liberty, when I come of age, and marry him without your consent."
"You have changed your tune, Hilda. A week ago you told me that you and Bothwell would never be married. Now, you boldly announce your betrothal to him."
"We are not betrothed – yet."
"O, there is a preliminary stage, is there? A kind of purgatory which precedes the heaven of betrothal. Hilda, you are doing a most ill-advised and unwomanly thing in giving encouragement to this man, in spite of your brother's warning."
"Am I to be unjust because my brother condemns a friend unheard? Believe me, Edward, my instinct is wiser than your experience. Why do you not question Bothwell? He will answer you as frankly as he answered me. He will tell you his reasons for refusing to satisfy that London lawyer's curiosity. O Edward, how can you be so cruel as to doubt him, to harden your heart against him and against me?"
"Not against you, my darling," her brother answered tenderly. "If I thought your happiness were really at stake, that your heart were really engaged, I would do much: but I can but think you are carried away by a mistaken enthusiasm. You would never have cared for Grahame if the world had not been against him; if he had not appeared to you as a martyr."
"You are wrong there, Edward," she answered shyly, her fingers playing nervously with the collar of his coat, the darkly-fringed eyelids drooping over the lovely gray eyes. "I have liked him for a long time. Last winter we used to hunt together a good deal, you know – "
"I did not know, or I should have taken care to prevent it," said Heathcote.
"O, it was always accidental, of course," she apologised. "But in a hunting country, the fast-goers generally get together, don't they?"
"In your case there was some very fast-going, evidently."
"I used to think then that Bothwell cared for me – just a little. And then there came a change. But I know the reason of that change now; and I know that he really loves me."
"O, you are monstrous wise, child, and monstrous self-willed for nineteen years old," said her brother, in those deep grave tones of his, a voice which gave weight and power to lightest words, "and you would take your own road in life without counting the cost. Well, Hilda, for your sake I will try to get at the root of this mystery. I will try to fathom your lover's secret; and God grant I may discover that it is a far less guilty secret than I have deemed."
He kissed Hilda's downcast brow and left her. She was crying; but her tears were less bitter than they had been, for she felt that her brother was now on her side; and Edward Heathcote's championship was a tower of strength.
Once having pledged himself to anything, even against his own convictions, Heathcote was the last man to go from his word; but if he needed a stronger inducement than his sister's sorrowful pleading, that inducement was offered.
He received a note from Dora Wyllard within a few hours of his conversation with Hilda.
"Dear Mr. Heathcote, – My husband and I have both been wondering at your desertion of us. For my own part I want much to see you, and to talk to you upon a very painful subject. Will you call at Penmorval after your ride to-morrow afternoon, and let me have a few words with you alone?
"Always faithfully yours,
"DOROTHEA WYLLARD."
He kissed the little note before he laid it carefully in a drawer of his writing-table. It was a foolish thing to do, but the act was quite involuntary and half unconscious. The sight of that handwriting brought back the feeling of that old time when a letter from Dora meant so much for him. He had trained himself to think of her as another man's wife – to consider himself her friend, and her friend only. He felt himself bound in honour so to think; all the more because he was admitted to her home, because she was not afraid to call him friend. Yet there were moments when the old feeling came over him with irresistible force.
He did not ride that afternoon, but walked across the fields, and presented himself at Penmorval between four and five o'clock. Mrs. Wyllard was alone in her morning-room, a room in which everything seemed part of herself – her favourite books, her piano, her easel – all the signs of those pursuits which he remembered as the delight of her girlhood.
"You paint still, I see," he said, glancing at the easel, on which there was an unfinished picture of a beloved Blenheim spaniel; "you have not forgotten your old taste for animals."
"I have so much leisure," she answered somewhat sadly; and then he remembered her childless home.
She was very pale, and he thought she had a careworn look, as of one who had spent anxious days and sleepless nights. He took the chair to which she motioned him, and they sat opposite each other for some moments in silence, she looking down and playing nervously with a massive ivory paper-knife which was lying on the table at which she had been writing when he entered. Suddenly she lifted her eyes to his face – pathetic eyes which had looked at him once before in his life with just that appealing look.
"It is very cruel of you to believe my cousin guilty of murder," she said, coming straight to the point. "You knew my mother. Surely you must know our race well enough to know that it does not produce murderers."
"Who told you that I believed such a thing?"
"Your own actions have told me. Bothwell has been cut by the people about here; and you, who should have been his staunch friend and champion, you have kept away from Penmorval as if this house were infected, in order to avoid meeting my cousin."
"I cannot tell you a lie, Mrs. Wyllard, even to spare your feelings," replied Heathcote, deeply moved, "and yet I think you must know that I would do much to save you pain. Yes, I must admit that it has seemed to me that circumstances pointed to your cousin, as having been directly or indirectly concerned in that girl's death. His conduct became so strange at that date – so difficult to account for upon any other hypothesis."
"Has your experience of life never made you acquainted with strange coincidences?" asked Dora. "Is it impossible, or even improbable, that Bothwell should have some trouble upon his mind – a trouble which arose just about the time of that girl's death? Everything must have a date; and his anxieties happen to date from that time. I know his frank open nature, and how heavily any secret would weigh upon him."
"You believe, then, that he has a secret?"
"Yes – there is something – some entanglement which prevented his answering Mr. Distin's very impertinent questions."
"Has he confided his trouble to you? Has he convinced you of his innocence?"
"He had no occasion to do that. I never believed him guilty – I never could believe him guilty of such a diabolical crime."
Tears came into her eyes as she spoke, but she dried them hastily.
"Mr. Heathcote, you are a lawyer, a man of the world, a man of talent and leisure. You have been one of the first to do my kinsman a cruel wrong. Cannot you do something towards righting him? I am making this appeal on my own account – without Bothwell's knowledge. I come to you as the oldest friend I have – the one friend outside my own home in whom I can fully confide."
"You know that I would give my life in your service," he answered, with suppressed fervour. He dared not trust himself to say much. "Yes, you have but to command me. I will do all that human intelligence can do. But this is a difficult case. The only evidence against your cousin is of so vague a nature that it could not condemn him before a jury; and yet that evidence is strong enough to brand him as a possible murderer in the opinion of those who saw him under Distin's examination. He can never be thoroughly rehabilitated until the mystery of that girl's death has been fathomed, and I doubt if that will ever be. Where Joseph Distin has failed, with all the detective-police of London at his command, how can any amateur investigator hope to succeed?"
"Friendship may succeed where mere professional cleverness has been baffled," argued Dora. "I do not think that Mr. Distin's heart was in this case. At least that is the impression I derived from a few words which I heard him say to my husband just before he left us."
"Indeed! Can you recall those words?"
"Very nearly. He said he had done his best in the matter, and should not attempt to go further. And then with his cynical air he added, 'Let sleeping dogs lie, Wyllard. That is a good old saying.'"
"Don't you think that sounds rather as if he suspected your kinsman, and feared to bring trouble on your family by any further investigation?"
"It never struck me in that light," exclaimed Dora, with a distressed look. "Good heavens! is all the world so keen to suspect an innocent man? If you only knew Bothwell as I know him, you would be the first to laugh this cruel slander to scorn."
"For your sake I will try and believe in him as firmly as you do," answered Heathcote, "and as Wyllard does, no doubt."
Her countenance fell, and she was silent.
"Your husband knows of this cloud upon your cousin's name, I suppose?" interrogated Heathcote, after a pause.
"Yes, I told him how Bothwell had been treated by his Bodmin acquaintance."
"And he was as indignant as you were, I conclude?"
"He said very little," answered Dora, with a pained expression. "My regard for Bothwell is the only subject upon which Julian and I have ever differed. He has been somewhat harsh in his judgment of my cousin ever since his return from India. He disapproved of his leaving the army, and he has been inclined to take a gloomy view of his prospects from the very first."
"I see. He has not a high opinion of Bothwell's moral character?"
"I would hardly say that. But he is inclined to judge my cousin's errors harshly, and he does not understand his noble qualities as I do. I should not have been constrained to ask for your help, if Julian had been as heartily with me in this matter as he has been, in all other things."