Thus the unhappy Isabel’s career was looked upon as run. Lord Mount Severn forwarded her letter to Mr. Carlyle, with the confirmation of her death, which he had obtained from the French authorities. It was a nine day’s wonder: “That poor, erring Lady Isabel was dead”—people did not call her names in the very teeth of her fate—and then it was over.
It was over. Lady Isabel was as one forgotten.
CHAPTER XXVIII
AN UNEXPECTED VISITOR AT EAST LYNNE
There went, sailing up the avenue to East Lynne, a lady, one windy afternoon. If not a lady, she was attired as one; a flounced dress, and a stylish looking shawl, and a white veil. A very pretty woman, tall and slender was she, and she minced as she walked, and coquetted with her head, and, altogether contrived to show that she had quite as much vanity as brains. She went boldly up to the broad entrance of the house, and boldly rang at it, drawing her white veil over her face as she did so.
One of the men-servants answered it, not Peter; and, seeing somebody very smart before him, bowed deferentially.
“Miss Hallijohn is residing here, I believe. Is she within?”
“Who, ma’am?”
“Miss Hallijohn; Miss Joyce Hallijohn,” somewhat sharply repeated the lady, as if impatient of any delay. “I wish to see her.”
The man was rather taken aback. He had deemed it a visitor to the house, and was prepared to usher her to the drawing-room, at least; but it seemed it was only a visitor to Joyce. He showed her into a small parlor, and went upstairs to the nursery, where Joyce was sitting with Wilson—for there had been no change in the domestic department of East Lynne. Joyce remained as upper maid, partially superintending the servants, attending upon Lucy, and making Miss Carlyle’s dresses as usual. Wilson was nurse still.
“Miss Joyce, there’s a lady asking for you,” said the man. “I have shown her into the gray parlor.”
“A lady for me?” repeated Joyce. “Who is it? Some one to see the children, perhaps.”
“It’s for yourself, I think. She asked for Miss Hallijohn.”
Joyce looked at the man; but she put down her work and proceeded to the gray parlor. A pretty woman, vain and dashing, threw up her white veil at her entrance.
“Well, Joyce, how are you?”
Joyce, always pale, turned paler still, as she gazed in blank consternation. Was it really Afy who stood before her—Afy, the erring?
Afy it was. And she stood there, holding out her hand to Joyce, with what Wilson would have called, all the brass in the world. Joyce could not reconcile her mind to link her own with it.
“Excuse me, Afy, but I cannot take your hand, I cannot welcome you here. What could have induced you to come?”
“If you are going to be upon the high ropes, it seems I might as well have stayed away,” was Afy’s reply, given in the pert, but good-humored manner she had ever used to Joyce. “My hand won’t damage yours. I am not poison.”
“You are looked upon in the neighborhood as worse than poison, Afy,” returned Joyce, in a tone, not of anger but of sorrow. “Where’s Richard Hare?”
Afy tossed her head. “Where’s who?” asked she.
“Richard Hare. My question was plain enough.”
“How should I know where he is? It’s like your impudence to mention him to me. Why don’t you ask me where Old Nick is, and how he does? I’d rather own acquaintance with him than with Richard Hare, if I’d my choice between the two.”
“Then you have left Richard Hare? How long since?”
“I have left—what do you say?” broke off Afy, whose lips were quivering ominously with suppressed passion. “Perhaps you’ll condescend to explain. I don’t understand.”
“When you left here, did you not go after Richard Hare—did you not join him?”
“I’ll tell you what it is, Joyce,” flashed Afy, her face indignant and her voice passionate, “I have put up with some things from you in my time, but human nature has its limits of endurance, and I won’t bear that. I have never set eyes on Richard Hare since that night of horror; I wish I could; I’d help to hang him.”
Joyce paused. The belief that Afy was with him had been long and deeply imbued within her; it was the long-continued and firm conviction of all West Lynne, and a settled belief, such as that, is not easily shaken. Was Afy telling the truth? She knew her propensity for making false assertions, when they served to excuse herself.
“Afy,” she said at length, “let me understand you. When you left this place, was it not to share Richard Hare’s flight? Have you not been living with him?”
“No!” burst forth Afy, with kindling eyes. “Living with him—with our father’s murderer! Shame upon you, Joyce Hallijohn! You must be precious wicked yourself to suppose it.”
“If I have judged you wrongly, Afy, I sincerely beg your pardon. Not only myself, but the whole of West Lynne, believed you were with him; and the thought has caused me pain night and day.”
“What a cannibal minded set you all must be, then!” was Afy’s indignant rejoinder.
“What have you been doing ever since, then? Where have you been?”
“Never mind, I say,” repeated Afy. “West Lynne has not been so complimentary to me, it appears, that I need put myself out of my way to satisfy its curiosity. I was knocking about a bit at first, but I soon settled down as steady as Old Time—as steady as you.”
“Are you married?” inquired Joyce, noting the word “settled.”
“Catch me marrying,” retorted Afy; “I like my liberty too well. Not but what I might be induced to change my condition, if anything out of the way eligible occurred; it must be very eligible, though, to tempt me. I am what I suppose you call yourself—a lady’s maid.”
“Indeed!” said Joyce, much relieved. “And are you comfortable, Afy? Are you in good service?”
“Middling, for that. The pay’s not amiss, but there’s a great deal to do, and Lady Mount Severn’s too much of a Tartar for me.”
Joyce looked at her in surprise. “What have you to do with Lady Mount Severn?”
“Well, that’s good! It’s where I am at service.”
“At Lady Mount Severn’s?”
“Why not? I have been there two years. It is not a great deal longer I shall stop, though; she had too much vinegar in her for me. But it poses me to imagine what on earth could have induced you to fancy I should go off with that Dick Hare,” she added, for she could not forget the grievance.
“Look at the circumstances,” argued Joyce. “You both disappeared.”
“But not together.”
“Nearly together. There were only a few days intervening. And you had neither money nor friends.”
“You don’t know what I had. But I would rather have died of want on father’s grave than have shared his means,” continued Afy, growing passionate again.
“Where is he? Not hung, or I should have heard of it.”
“He has never been seen since that night, Afy.”
“Nor heard of?”
“Nor heard of. Most people think he is in Australia, or some other foreign land.”
“The best place for him; the more distance he puts between him and home, the better. If he does come back, I hope he’ll get his desserts—which is a rope’s end. I’d go to his hanging.”
“You are as bitter against him as Mr. Justice Hare. He would bring his son back to suffer, if he could.”
“A cross-grained old camel!” remarked Afy, in allusion to the qualities, social and amiable, of the revered justice. “I don’t defend Dick Hare—I hate him too much for that—but if his father had treated him differently, Dick might have been different. Well, let’s talk of something else; the subject invariably gives me the shivers. Who is mistress here?”
“Miss Carlyle.”
“Oh, I might have guessed that. Is she as fierce as ever?”
“There is little alteration in her.”
“And there won’t be on this side the grave. I say, Joyce, I don’t want to encounter her; she might set on at me, like she has done many a time in the old days. Little love was there lost between me and Corny Carlyle. Is Mr. Carlyle at home?”
“He will be home to dinner. I dare say you would like some tea; you shall come and take it with me and Wilson, in the nursery.”
“I was thinking you might have the grace to offer me something,” cried Afy. “I intend to stop till to-morrow in the neighborhood. My lady gave me two days’ holiday—for she was going to see her dreadful old grandmother, where she can’t take a maid—and I thought I’d use it in coming to have a look at the old place again. Don’t stare at me in that blank way, as if you feared I should ask the grand loan of sleeping here. I shall sleep at the Mount Severn Arms.”
“I was not glancing at such a thought, Afy. Come and take your bonnet off.”
“Is the nursery full of children?”
“There is only one child in it. Miss Lucy and Master William are with the governess.”
Wilson received Afy with lofty condescension, having Richard Hare in her thoughts. But Joyce explained that it was all a misapprehension—that her sister had never been near Richard Hare, but was as indignant against him as they were. Upon which Wilson grew cordial and chatty, rejoicing in the delightful recreation her tongue would enjoy that evening.
Afy’s account of herself, as to past proceedings, was certainly not the most satisfactory in the world; but, altogether, taken in the present, it was so vast an improvement upon Joyce’s conclusions, that she had not felt so elated for many a day. When Mr. Carlyle returned home Joyce sought him, and acquainted him with what had happened; that Afy was come; was maid to Lady Mount Severn; and, above all, that she had never been with Richard Hare.
“Ah! You remember what I said, Joyce,” he remarked. “That I did not believe Afy was with Richard Hare.”
“I have been telling her so, sir, to be sure, when I informed her what people had believed,” continued Joyce. “She nearly went into one of her old passions.”
“Does she seem steady, Joyce?”
“I think so, sir—steady for her. I was thinking, sir, that as she appears to have turned out so respectable, and is with Lady Mount Severn, you, perhaps, might see no objection to her sleeping here for to-night. It would be better than for her to go to the inn, as she talks of doing.”
“None at all,” replied Mr. Carlyle. “Let her remain.”
Later in the evening, after Mr. Carlyle’s dinner, a message came that Afy was to go to him. Accordingly she proceeded to his presence.
“So, Afy, you have returned to let West Lynne know that you are alive. Sit down.”
“West Lynne may go a-walking for me in future, sir, for all the heed I shall take of it,” retorted Afy. “A set of wicked-minded scandal-mongers, to take and say I had gone after Richard Hare!”
“You should not have gone off at all, Afy.”
“Well, sir, that was my business, and I chose to go. I could not stop in the cottage after that night’s work.”
“There is a mystery attached to that night’s work, Afy,” observed Mr. Carlyle; “a mystery that I cannot fathom. Perhaps you can help me out.”
“What mystery, sir?” returned Afy.
Mr. Carlyle leaned forward, his arms on the table. Afy had taken a chair at the other end of it. “Who was it that committed the murder?” he demanded, in a grave and somewhat imperative tone.
Afy stared some moments before she replied, astonished at the question. “Who committed the murder, sir?” she uttered at length. “Richard Hare committed it. Everybody knows that.”
“Did you see it done?”
“No,” replied Afy. “If I had seen it, the fright and horror would have killed me. Richard Hare quarreled with my father, and drew the gun upon him in passion.”
“You assume this to have been the case, Afy, as others have assumed it. I do not think that it was Richard Hare who killed your father.”
“Not Richard Hare!” exclaimed Afy, after a pause. “Then who do you think did it, sir—I?”
“Nonsense, Afy.”
“I know he did it,” proceeded Afy. “It is true that I did not see it done, but I know it for all that. I know it, sir.”
“You cannot know it, Afy.”
“I do know it, sir; I would not assert it to you if I did not. If Richard Hare was here, present before us, and swore until he was black in the face that it was not him, I could convict him.”
“By what means?”
“I had rather not say, sir. But you may believe me, for I am speaking truth.”
“There was another friend of yours present that evening, Afy. Lieutenant Thorn.”
Afy’s face turned crimson; she was evidently surprised. But Mr. Carlyle’s speech and manner were authoritative, and she saw it would be useless to attempt to trifle with him.
“I know he was, sir. A young chap who used to ride over some evenings to see me. He had nothing to do with what occurred.”
“Where did he ride from?”
“He was stopping with some friends at Swainson. He was nobody, sir.”
“What was his name?” questioned Mr. Carlyle.
“Thorn,” said Afy.
“I mean his real name. Thorn was an assumed name.”
“Oh, dear no,” returned Afy. “Thorn was his name.”
Mr. Carlyle paused and looked at her.
“Afy, I have reason to believe that Thorn was only an assumed name. Now, I have a motive for wishing to know his real one, and you would very much oblige me by confiding it to me. What was it?”
“I don’t know that he had any other name, sir; I am sure he had no other,” persisted Afy. “He was Lieutenant Thorn, then and he was Captain Thorn, afterward.”
“You have seen him since?”
“Once in a way we have met.”
“Where is he now?”
“Now! Oh, my goodness, I don’t know anything about him now,” muttered Afy. “I have not heard of him or seen him for a long while. I think I heard something about his going to India with his regiment.”
“What regiment is he in?”
“I’m sure I don’t know about that,” said Afy. “Is not one regiment the same as another; they are all in the army, aren’t they, sir?”
“Afy, I must find this Captain Thorn. Do you know anything of his family?”
Afy shook her head. “I don’t think he had any. I never heard him mention as much as a brother or a sister.”
“And you persist in saying his name was Thorn?”
“I persist in saying it because it was his name. I am positive it was his name.”
“Afy, shall I tell you why I want to find him; I believe it was he who murdered your father, not Richard Hare.”
Afy’s mouth and eyes gradually opened, and her face turned hot and cold alternately. Then passion mastered her, and she burst forth.
“It’s a lie! I beg your pardon, sir, but whoever told you that, told you a lie. Thorn had no more to do with it than I had; I’ll swear it.”
“I tell you, Afy, I believe Thorn to have been the man. You were not present; you cannot know who actually did it.”
“Yes, I can, and do know,” said Afy, bursting into sobs of hysterical passion. “Thorn was with me when it happened, so it could not have been Thorn. It was that wicked Richard Hare. Sir, have I not said that I’ll swear it?”
“Thorn was with you—at the moment of the murder?” repeated Mr. Carlyle.
“Yes, he was,” shrieked Afy, nearly beside herself with emotion. “Whoever has been trying to put it off Richard Hare, and on to him, is a wicked, false-hearted wretch. It was Richard Hare, and nobody else, and I hope he’ll be hung for it yet.”
“You are telling me the truth, Afy?” gravely spoke Mr. Carlyle.
“Truth!” echoed Afy, flinging up her hands. “Would I tell a lie over my father’s death? If Thorn had done it, would I screen him, or shuffle it off to Richard Hare? Not so.”
Mr. Carlyle felt uncertain and bewildered. That Afy was sincere in what she said, was but too apparent. He spoke again but Afy had risen from her chair to leave.
“Locksley was in the wood that evening. Otway Bethel was in it. Could either of them have been the culprit?”
“No, sir,” firmly retorted Afy; “the culprit was Richard Hare; and I’d say it with my latest breath—I’d say it because I know it—though I don’t choose to say how I know it; time enough when he gets taken.”
She quitted the room, leaving Mr. Carlyle in a state of puzzled bewilderment. Was he to believe Afy, or was he to believe the bygone assertion of Richard Hare?
CHAPTER XXIX
A NIGHT INVASION OF EAST LYNNE
In one of the comfortable sitting-rooms of East Lynne sat Mr. Carlyle and his sister, one inclement January night. The contrast within and without was great. The warm, blazing fire, the handsome carpet on which it flickered, the exceedingly comfortable arrangement of the furniture, of the room altogether, and the light of the chandelier, which fell on all, presented a picture of home peace, though it may not have deserved the name of luxury. Without, heavy flakes of snow were falling thickly, flakes as large and nearly as heavy as a crown piece, rendering the atmosphere so dense and obscure that a man could not see a yard before him. Mr. Carlyle had driven home in the pony carriage, and the snow had so settled upon him that Lucy, who happened to see him as he entered the hall, screamed out laughingly that her papa had turned into a white man. It was now later in the evening; the children were in bed; the governess was in her own sitting room—it was not often that Miss Carlyle invited her to theirs of an evening—and the house was quite. Mr. Carlyle was deep in the pages of one of the monthly periodicals, and Miss Carlyle sat on the other side of the fire, grumbling, and grunting, and sniffling, and choking.
Miss Carlyle was one of your strong-minded ladies, who never condescended to be ill. Of course, had she been attacked with scarlet fever, or paralysis, or St. Vitus’ dance, she must have given in to the enemy; but trifling ailments, such as headache, influenza, sore throat, which other people get, passed her by. Imagine, therefore, her exasperation at finding her head stuffed up, her chest sore, and her voice going; in short, at having, for once in her life, caught a cold like ordinary mortals.
“What’s the time, I wonder?” she exclaimed.
Mr. Carlyle looked at his watch. “It is just nine, Cornelia.”
“Then I think I shall go to bed. I’ll have a basin of arrowroot or gruel, or some slop of that sort, after I’m in it. I’m sure I have been free enough all my life from requiring such sick dishes.”
“Do so,” said Mr. Carlyle. “It may do you good.”
“There’s one thing excellent for a cold in the head, I know. It’s to double your flannel petticoat crossways, or any other large piece of flannel you may conveniently have at hand, and put it on over your night-cap. I’ll try it.”
“I would,” said Mr. Carlyle, smothering an irreverent laugh.
She sat on five minutes longer, and then left, wishing Mr. Carlyle good-night. He resumed his reading; but another page or two concluded the article, upon which Mr. Carlyle threw the book on the table, rose and stretched himself, as if tired of sitting.
He stirred the fire into a brighter blaze, and stood on the hearthrug. “I wonder if it snows still?” he exclaimed to himself.
Proceeding to the window, one of those opening to the ground, he threw aside the half of the warm crimson curtain. It all looked dull and dark outside. Mr. Carlyle could see little what the weather was, and he opened the window and stepped half out.
The snow was falling faster and thicker than ever. Not at that did Mr. Carlyle start with surprise, if not with a more unpleasant sensation; but a feeling a man’s hand touch his, and at finding a man’s face nearly in contact with his own.
“Let me come in, Mr. Carlyle, for the love of life! I see you are alone. I’m dead beat, and I don’t know but I’m dodged also.”
The tones struck familiarly on Mr. Carlyle’s ear. He drew back mechanically, a thousand perplexing sensations overwhelming him, and the man followed him into the room—a white man, as Lucy called her father. Aye, for he had been hours and hours on foot in the snow; his hat, his clothes, his eyebrows, his large whiskers, all were white. “Lock the door, sir,” were his first words. Need you be told that it was Richard Hare?
Mr. Carlyle fastened the window, drew the heavy curtains across, and turned rapidly to lock the two doors—for there were two to the room, one of them leading into the adjoining one. Richard meanwhile took off his wet smock-frock of former memory—his hat, and his false black whiskers, wiping the snow from the latter with his hand.
“Richard,” uttered Mr. Carlyle, “I am thunderstruck! I fear you have done wrong to come here.”
“I cut off from London at a moment’s notice,” replied Richard, who was literally shivering with the cold. “I’m dodged, Mr. Carlyle, I am indeed. The police are after me, set on by that wretch Thorn.”
Mr. Carlyle turned to the sideboard and poured out a wineglass of brandy. “Drink it, Richard, it will warm you.”
“I’d rather have it in some hot water, sir.”
“But how am I to get the hot water brought in? Drink this for now. Why, how you tremble.”
“Ah, a few hours outside in the cold snow is enough to make the strongest man tremble, sir; and it lies so deep in places that you have to come along at a snail’s pace. But I’ll tell you about this business. A fortnight ago I was at a cabstand at the West End, talking to a cab-driver, when some drops of rain came down. A gentleman and lady were passing at the time, but I had not paid any attention to them. ‘By Jove!’ I heard him exclaim to her, ‘I think we’re going to have pepper. We had better take a cab, my dear.’ With that the man I was talking to swung open the door of his cab, and she got in—such a fair young lady, she was! I turned to look at him, and you might just have knocked me down with astonishment. Mr. Carlyle, it was the man, Thorn.”
“Indeed!”
“You thought I might be mistaken in him that moonlight night, but there was no mistaking him in broad daylight. I looked him full in the face, and he looked at me. He turned as white as cloth. Perhaps I did—I don’t know.”
“Was he well dressed?”
“Very. Oh, there’s no mistaking his position. That he moves in the higher classes there’s no doubt. The cab drove away, and I got up behind it. The driver thought boys were there, and turned his head and his whip, but I made him a sign. We didn’t go much more than the length of a street. I was on the pavement before Thorn was, and looked at him again, and again he went white. I marked the house, thinking it was where he lived, and—”
“Why did you not give him into custody, Richard?”
Richard Hare shook his head. “And my proofs of his guilt, Mr. Carlyle? I could bring none against him—no positive ones. No, I must wait till I can get proofs to do that. He would turn round upon me now and swear my life away to murder. Well, I thought I’d ascertain for certain what his name was, and that night I went to the house, and got into conversation with one of the servants, who was standing at the door. ‘Does Captain Thorn live here?’ I asked him.
“‘Mr. Westleby lives here,’ said he; ‘I don’t know any Captain Thorn.’
“Then that’s his name, thought I to myself. ‘A youngish man, isn’t he?’ said I, ‘very smart, with a pretty wife?’
“‘I don’t know what you call youngish,’ he laughed, ‘my master’s turned sixty, and his wife’s as old.’
“That checked me. ‘Perhaps he has sons?’ I asked.
“‘Not any,’ the man answered; ‘there’s nobody but their two selves.’
“So, with that, I told him what I wanted—that a lady and gentleman had alighted there in a cab that day, and I wished to know his name. Well, Mr. Carlyle, I could get at nothing satisfactory; the fellow said that a great many had called there that day, for his master was just up from a long illness, and people came to see him.”
“Is that all, Richard?”
“All! I wish it had been all. I kept looking about for him in all the best streets; I was half mad—”
“Do you not wonder, if he is in this position of life, and resides in London, that you have never dropped upon him previously?” interrupted Mr. Carlyle.
“No, sir; and I’ll tell you why. I have been afraid to show myself in those latter parts of the town, fearing I might meet with some one I used to know at home, who would recognize me, so I have kept mostly in obscure places—stables and such like. I had gone up to the West End this day on a matter of business.”
“Well, go on with your story.”
“In a week’s time I came upon him again. It was at night. He was coming out of one of the theatres, and I went up and stood before him.”
“‘What do you want, fellow?’ he asked. ‘I have seen you watching me before this.’
“‘I want to know your name,’ I said, ‘that’s enough for me at present.’
“He flew into a passion, and swore that if ever he caught sight of me near him again he would hand me over into custody. ‘And remember, men are not given into custody for watching others,’ he significantly added. ‘I know you, and if you have any regard for yourself, you’ll keep out of my way.’
“He had got into a private carriage as he spoke, and it drove away; I could see that it had a great coat-of-arms upon it.”
“When do you say this was?”
“A week ago. Well, I could not rest; I was half mad, I say, and went about, still trying if I could not discover his name and who he was. I did come upon him, but he was walking quickly, arm-in-arm with—with another gentleman. Again I saw him, standing at the entrance to the betting rooms, talking to the same gentleman, and his face turned savage—I believe with fear as much as anger—when he discerned me. He seemed to hesitate, and then—as if he acted in a passion—suddenly beckoned to a policeman, pointed me out, and said something to him in a fast tone. That frightened me, and I slipped away. Two hours after, when I was in quite a different part of the town, in turning my head I saw the same policeman following me. I bolted under the horses of a passing vehicle, down some turnings and passages, out into another street, and up beside a cabman who was on his box, driving a fare past. I reached my lodgings in safety, as I thought, but happening to glance into the street, there I saw the man again, standing opposite, and reconnoitering the house. I had gone home hungry, but this took all my hunger away from me. I opened the box where I kept my disguise, put it on, and got out by a back way. I have been pretty nearly ever since on my feet reaching here; I only got a lift now and then.”
“But, Richard, do you know that West Lynne is the very worst place you could have flown to? It has come to light that you were here before, disguised as a farm laborer.”
“Who the deuce betrayed that?” interrupted Richard.
“I am unable to tell; I cannot even imagine. The rumor was rife in the place, and it reached your father’s ear. The rumor may make people’s wits sharper to know you in your disguise, than they otherwise might have been.”
“But what was I to do? I was forced to come here first and get a little money. I shall fix myself in some other big town, far away from London—Liverpool or Manchester, perhaps; and see what employment I can get into, but I must have something to live upon till I can get it. I don’t possess a penny piece,” he added, drawing out his trousers pockets for the inspection of Mr. Carlyle. “The last coppers, I had, three pence, I spent in bread and cheese and half a pint of beer at midday. I have been outside that window for more than an hour, sir.”
“Indeed!”
“And as I neared West Lynne I began to think what I should do. It was no use in me trying to catch Barbara’s attention such a night as this; I had no money to pay for a lodging; so I turned off here, hoping I might, by good luck, drop upon you. There was a little partition in the window curtain—it had not been drawn close—and through it I could see you and Miss Carlyle. I saw her leave the room; I saw you come to the window and open it, and then I spoke. Mr. Carlyle,” he added, after a pause, “is this life to go on with me forever?”
“I am deeply sorry for you, Richard,” was the sympathizing answer. “I wish I could remedy it.”
Before another word was spoken the room door was tried, and then gently knocked at. Mr. Carlyle placed his hand on Richard, who was looking scared out of his wits.
“Be still; be at ease, Richard; no one shall come in. It is only Peter.”
Not Peter’s voice, however, but Joyce’s was heard, in response to Mr. Carlyle’s demand of who was there.
“Miss Carlyle has left her handkerchief downstairs, sir, and has sent me for it.”
“You cannot come in—I am busy,” was the answer, delivered in a clear and most decisive tone.
“Who was it?” quivered Richard, as Joyce was heard going away.
“It was Joyce.”
“What! Is she here still? Has anything ever been heard of Afy, sir?”
“Afy was here herself two or three months ago.”
“Was she, though?” uttered Richard, beguiled for an instant from the thought of his own danger. “What is she doing?”
“She is in service as a lady’s maid. Richard, I questioned Afy about Thorn. She protested solemnly to me that it was not Thorn who committed the deed—that it could not have been he, for Thorn was with her at the moment of its being done.”
“It’s not true!” fired Richard. “It was Thorn.”
“Richard, you cannot tell; you did not see it done.”
“I know that no man could have rushed out in that frantic manner, with those signs of guilt and fear about him, unless he had been engaged in a bad deed,” was Richard Hare’s answer. “It could have been no one else.”
“Afy declared he was with her,” repeated Mr. Carlyle.
“Look here, sir, you are a sharp man, and folks say I am not, but I can see things and draw my reasoning as well as they can, perhaps. If Thorn were not Hallijohn’s murderer, why should he be persecuting me—what would he care about me? And why should his face turn livid, as it has done, each time he has seen my eyes upon him? Whether he did commit the murder, or whether he didn’t, he must know that I did not, because he came upon me, waiting, as he was tearing from the cottage.”
Dick’s reasoning was not bad.
“Another thing,” he resumed. “Afy swore at the inquest that she was alone when the deed was done; that she was alone at the back of the cottage, and knew nothing about it till afterwards. How could she have sworn she was alone, if Thorn was with her?”
The fact had entirely escaped Mr. Carlyle’s memory in his conversation with Afy, or he would not have failed to point out the discrepancy, and to inquire how she could reconcile it. Yet her assertion to him had been most positive and solemn. There were difficulties in the matter which he could not reconcile.
“Now that I have got over my passion for Afy, I can see her faults, Mr. Carlyle. She’d no more tell an untruth than I should stick—”
A most awful thundering at the room door—loud enough to bring the very house down. No officers of justice, searching for a fugitive, ever made a louder. Richard Hare, his face turned to chalk, his eyes starting, and his own light hair bristling up with horror, struggled into his wet smock-frock after a fashion, the tails up about his ears and the sleeves hanging, forced on his hat and his false whiskers, looked round in a bewildered manner for some cupboard or mouse-hole into which he might creep, and, seeing none, rushed to the fireplace and placed his foot on the fender. That he purposed an attempt at chimney-climbing was evident, though how the fire would have agreed with his pantaloons, not to speak of what they contained, poor Dick appeared completely to ignore. Mr. Carlyle drew him back, keeping his calm, powerful hand upon his shoulder, while certain sounds in an angry voice were jerked through the keyhole.