He looked about him savagely, and his eyes finally paused at George Iredale, seated beside Prudence. He cared nothing for his mother’s vituperation, but he was watchful of the smuggler.
Suddenly the burly rancher sprang to his feet. He stepped up to Hervey. The latter moved a pace back.
“Not one cent, you cowardly hound!” he roared. “Not one cent shall you have; do you hear? I thank God that I am here to stop you robbing these, your mother and sister.” Mrs. Malling tried to interfere, but he waved her back. “I’ve come at the right time, and I tell you that you shall not take one cent of the money. I will never leave you lest you should wheedle it from them. I will spoil your game. This is what I intend to do. You and I will set out for Winnipeg to-night, and together we will interview the Commissioner of Police. Do you understand me? I have the whip hand now. And I promise you your silence shall not be bought.”
Prudence interfered.
“Listen to me, George. I implore you not to do this thing. Hervey can have all he wants–everything. You are innocent we know, but you cannot prove your innocence. Why should you break my heart when there is a way out of the difficulty? There is but one person who can denounce you, and his silence we can purchase. Oh, George,” the girl went on passionately, “as you love me, listen. My heart will break if this thing you meditate comes to pass. Oh, my love, say you won’t do it! Let mother pay the man off that he may pass out of our lives for ever. See, mother is going for the money now. It is so easy; so simple.”
Mrs. Mailing had risen from her seat and moved away to the door. Hervey stood at the far end of the parlour facing the open window. He saw his mother pass out, and a great look of satisfaction came into his eyes. After all, these women meant to treat him fairly, he thought.
He grinned over at Iredale.
“Better drop it, Iredale, and don’t play the fool. When I get the money I shall forget that I ever knew you.”
The smuggler was about to fire a swift retort when the sound of voices coming in at the open window interrupted him. The voices were a man’s and a woman’s. Prudence recognized Alice’s tones. The other’s she did not recognize at once.
Sarah Gurridge, who had been a silent observer of the scene, had heard the sound too, but she was absorbed in what was being enacted about her. Her eyes were upon Hervey. She saw him start, and his great haunting eyes were turned upon the window. Suddenly he rushed forward towards it. He had to pass round the table, close to where Prudence was now standing. In doing so he kicked against the dog, which was standing with its ears pricked up and its head turned in the direction whence the voices sounded.
The man’s evil face was blanched. A wild, hunted look was in his eyes. Iredale saw, was startled, and his reply died upon his lips as he wondered at this sudden change.
“Shut the window. Do you hear?” cried Hervey excitedly. “Don’t let them hear. Don’t let them–”
He had reached the window to carry out his own instructions. His hands were upon the casements, and he was about to fling the glass frames together. But suddenly his arms dropped to his sides. He stood face to face with the figure of Robb Chillingwood!
There was a dreadful silence. Then slowly Hervey backed away; his glaring eyes were fixed upon the stern countenance of the ex-Customs officer. Slowly he backed, backed from the apparition; and the onlookers noted the pallid cheeks and blazing eyes, and they wondered helplessly. Nor did Hervey pause until he reached the wall furthest from the window. Then he stood, and his lips silently moved.
Suddenly there was a cry, and it rang with vengeful triumph. It came from the man at the window–Robb Chillingwood.
“By God! it’s Zachary Smith!”
The next instant and he was in the room.
The onlookers gazed blankly from one to the other of the two men. What did it mean? Who was Zachary Smith? And why did Robb so call Hervey? Then their eyes settled on the man against the wall. The cheeks were no longer pallid; they were flushed with a hectic colouring, and those strange eyes were filled with an awful, murderous light. The lips continued to move, but he did not speak; only his right hand slipped round behind him.
Then Robb’s voice sounded through the room again.
“So, Mr. Zachary Smith, we meet again. And, by the Lord Harry, you shall swing for what you did in the mountains! Highway robbery of the Government bullion under the charge of Leslie Grey, and the murder of our Indian guide, Rainy-Moon.” Then he turned–“Hold that door!” he shouted; and Iredale sprang to obey.
“But–” Prudence rushed forward, but Sarah stopped her and drew her back.
A wild laugh came from Hervey’s direction.
“And who’s going to take me?” he cried. “You, Robb Chillingwood, you? Ha, ha!” and his maniacal laugh rang out again. “Look to yourself, you fool. Grey crossed my path, and he paid for it with his life. You shall follow him.”
While his words yet rang upon the air his hand shot out from behind him, gripping a heavy revolver. The pistol was raised, and a shriek went up from the two ladies.
Suddenly there was a rush, a snarl; and a great body seemed to literally hurl itself through the air. A shot rang out; simultaneously a cry echoed through the room; Hervey staggered as something seized him by the throat and tore away the soft flesh; another shot followed.
It all happened in a twinkling. Hervey fell to the ground with a gurgling cry, and Neche, the dog, until then forgotten by everybody, rolled over by his side with one dying yelp of pain. Then silence reigned throughout the room and all was still.
Iredale returned his smoking pistol to his pocket, and went over to Hervey’s side. His movements seemed to release the others from the spell under which they had been held. Robb, unharmed by Hervey’s shot, came forward, and Sarah and Prudence followed in his wake. But Iredale waved the ladies back.
“Stand away, please,” he said quietly. “The dog had finished him before I got my shot in to save him. The brute has literally torn his throat out.” Then he looked over at the dead hound. “It’s awful; I wonder what made the dog turn upon him?”
“Are they both dead?” asked Robb, in an awestruck voice.
Iredale nodded.
“It must have been the sight of Hervey’s levelled pistol that made the dog rush at him,” said Prudence. “I’ve seen him do so before.”
“Strange, strange,” murmured Iredale.
“That dog feared firearms,” said Sarah.
“Perhaps he had reason,” observed Robb significantly, “he only has three sound legs. My God! And not content with his victims in the mountains, he–But, yes, I see it. This man came here without expecting to meet Grey or me.” Robb broke off and looked at Prudence. “Of course, I am beginning to understand. You and Grey were to have been married.” Then he turned back to the contemplation of the dead bodies.
“Yes, the murderer of Grey lies confessed,” said Iredale quietly, “and I think that his motives were even stronger than those attributed to–”
Prudence placed a hand over his mouth before he could complete his sentence.
They were startled from their horrified contemplation of the work of those last few moments by the sound of Hephzibah’s voice calling from her bedroom. The sitting-room door had been opened by Alice, who had entered the moment Iredale had released the handle. Now they could hear the farm-wife moving about overhead, evidently on her way down-stairs.
Sarah was the first to recover her presence of mind. She turned upon Robb.
“Not a word to her about–about–”
Robb shook his head.
Iredale snatched the pistol from the dead man’s hand.
Mrs. Malling’s footsteps came creaking down the stairs. Suddenly Prudence’s hands went up to her face as she thought of the shock awaiting her mother. Alice dragged her away to a chair. Iredale and Robb stood looking down at the two objects on the floor. Master and hound were lying side by side.
Sarah ran to the door and met the farm-wife. She must never know that her son was a murderer–a double murderer.
Those within the room heard the school-ma’am’s gentle tones.
“No, no, Hephzibah, you must not go in there yet. There are things–things which you must not see. The hound has killed him. Hervey enraged the dog, and the wretched beast turned upon him–and he is dead.”
Then there came the sound of a scuffle. The next moment mother Hephzy pushed her way into the room. She looked about her wildly; one hand was clutching a bundle of hundred-dollar bills. Suddenly her round, staring eyes fell upon the two objects lying side by side upon the ground. She looked at the hound; then she looked upon her son. Iredale had covered the torn throat with pocket-handkerchiefs.
The bills slowly fell in a shower from her hand, and her arms folded themselves over her breast. Then she looked in a dazed fashion upon those about her, muttering audibly.
“He’s dead–he’s dead,” she repeated to herself over and over again. Then suddenly she ceased her repetitions and shook her head. “Mussy-a-me, mussy-a-me! The Lord’s will be done!”
And she slowly fell in a heap by her dead son’s side.
IN CONCLUSION
Time, the great healer of all sufferings, all sorrows, can do much, but memory clings with a pertinacity which defies all Time’s best efforts. Time may soften the poignancy of deep-rooted sorrow, but it cannot shut out altogether the pain of a mother’s grief at the loss of an only son. In spite of all Hervey’s crimes he was “the only son of his mother, and she was a widow.” The story of his villainies was rigidly kept from her, and so she thought of him only as a prodigal, as a boy to be pitied, as one whose offences must be condoned; she sought for his good points, and, in her sweet motherly heart, saw a wonderful deal in him on which to centre her loving memory, which, had he lived, even she could never have discovered. It is something that erring man has to be humbly grateful for, that women are like this; so full of the patient, enduring love which can see no wrong in the object of their affections.
But Loon Dyke Farm became intolerable to Hephzibah Malling after the ghastly tragedy of her son’s death; and when Robb and Alice saw fit to marry, urged on to that risky experiment by the two older ladies, she insisted upon leasing the place to them on ridiculously easy terms. She would have given it to them only for their steady refusal to accept such a magnificent wedding gift from her.
The old lady was rich enough for her needs and her daughter’s, and, business woman as she was, she was generous to a fault where her affections were concerned. Prudence too was satisfied with any arrangement which would take her away from the farm. Knowing what she knew of her brother, Loon Dyke could never again be her home. So mother and daughter retired to Ainsley, and only once again did they return to their old home on the briefest of visits, and that was to assist at the function of christening the son and heir of the Chillingwoods.
Later on Prudence induced her mother to make Winnipeg her home, but though, for her daughter’s sake, she acceded to the request, she was never quite at ease among her new surroundings. Nor was Sarah Gurridge, when she visited her old friend during her holidays, slow to observe this. “My dear,” she told Alice, one day after her summer vacation, “Hephzibah is failing fast. She’s quite old, although she is my junior by two years and three months. An idle life doesn’t suit her; and as for Prudence, she wears fine clothes, and goes out in society all day and most of the night, but she’s that thin and melancholy that you wouldn’t know her for the same child. It’s my opinion that she’s pining–they are both pining. I found a letter from Hamilton when I got back home. It was from George Iredale, and I’m going to answer it at once.”
“And what are you going to say in your reply?” laughed Alice. “I know your matchmaking propensity. So does Robb.”
The quiet, dreamy face of the old school-mistress smiled over at the happy mother.
“Say?” she exclaimed. “I’m going to give George a piece of my mind for staying away so long. I know why he’s doing so, and my belief as to the cause of his absence is different from what Prudence is beginning to imagine. She thinks he has left her because of her brother’s doings, and it’s that that’s driving her to an early grave. I shall certainly tell George what I think.” And Sarah wagged her head sagely.
And she was as good as her word. She had not seen fit to tell Alice that she had been in constant communication with George Iredale ever since the day of the tragedy, or that she was in his confidence as regarded Prudence. George had left the district to give both Prudence and her mother time to recover from the shock. And now that a year or more had passed away, he had written appealing to Sarah to tell him if she thought the time auspicious for his return.
In a long, carefully-worded letter Sarah advised him not to delay.
“By dint of much perseverance,” she wrote, “I have persuaded the child out of her absurd notions about the reflections her brother’s doings have cast upon her. She looks at things from a healthier standpoint now. Why should she not marry? What has she done to debar her from fulfilling the mission which is appointed for every woman? Nothing! And I am sure if a certain man should return and renew the appeal which he made at the time when the Lord’s anger was visited upon her brother, she would give him a different reply. However, I must not waste all my space upon the silly notions of a child with a misdirected conscience.”
And how her letter bore fruit, and how George Iredale returned and sought Prudence in the midst of the distractions of Winnipeg’s social whirl, and how the girl’s answer, when again he appealed to her, turned out to be the one Sarah had prophesied for him, were matters of great satisfaction to the sage old school-mistress.
She assisted at the wedding which followed, she saw the bride and bridegroom off at the railway depôt, she remained to console her old friend for the loss of her daughter. Then she hied her off once more, back to the bleak, staring school-house, where she continued to propound sage maxims for the young of the district until her allotted task was done, and the tally of her years complete.