第19章

"Then, if I must, I must," returned the yielding Richard. "I did love the girl. I would have waited till I was my own master to make her my wife, though it had been for years and years. I could not do it, you know, in the face of my father's opposition."

"Your wife?" rejoined Mr. Carlyle, with some emphasis.

Richard looked surprised. "Why, you don't suppose I meant anything else! I wouldn't have been such a blackguard."

"Well, go on, Richard. Did she return your love?"

"I can't be certain. Sometimes I thought she did, sometimes not; she used to play and shuffle, and she liked too much to be with--him. I would think her capricious--telling me I must not come this evening, and I must not come the other; but I found out they were the evenings when she was expecting him. We were never there together."

"You forget that you have not indicted 'him' by any name, Richard. I am at fault."

Richard Hare bent forward till his black whiskers brushed Mr. Carlyle's shoulder. "It was that cursed Thorn."

Mr. Carlyle remembered the name Barbara had mentioned. "Who was Thorn?

I never heard of him."

"Neither had anybody else, I expect, in West Lynne. He took precious good care of that. He lives some miles away, and used to come over in secret."

"Courting Afy?"

"Yes, he did come courting her," returned Richard, in a savage tone.

"Distance was no barrier. He would come galloping over at dusk, tie his horse to a tree in the wood, and pass an hour or two with Afy. In the house, when her father was not at home; roaming about the woods with her, when he was."

"Come to the point, Richard--to the evening."

"Hallijohn's gun was out of order, and he requested the loan of mine.

I had made an appointment with Afy to be at her house that evening, and I went down after dinner, carrying the gun with me. My father called after me to know where I was going; I said, out with young Beauchamp, not caring to meet his opposition; and the lie told against me at the inquest. When I reached Hallijohn's, going the back way along the fields, and through the wood-path, as I generally did go, Afy came out, all reserve, as she could be at times, and said she was unable to receive me then, that I must go back home. We had a few words about it, and as we were speaking, Locksley passed, and saw me with the gun in my hand; but it ended in my giving way. She could do just what she liked with me, for I loved the very ground she trod on.

I gave her the gun, telling her it was loaded, and she took it indoors, shutting me out. I did not go away; I had a suspicion that she had got Thorn there, though she denied it to me; and I hid myself in some trees near the house. Again Locksley came in view and saw me there, and called out to know why I was hiding. I shied further off, and did not answer him--what were my private movements to him?--and that also told against me at the inquest. Not long afterwards--twenty minutes, perhaps--I heard a shot, which seemed to be in the direction of the cottage. 'Somebody having a late pop at the partridges,' thought I; for the sun was then setting, and at the moment I saw Bethel emerge from the trees, and run in the direction of the cottage.

That was the shot that killed Hallijohn."

There was a pause. Mr. Carlyle looked keenly at Richard there in the moonlight.

"Very soon, almost in the same moment, as it seemed, some one came panting and tearing along the path leading from the cottage. It was Thorn. His appearance startled me: I had never seen a man show more utter terror. His face was livid, his eyes seemed starting, and his lips were drawn back from his teeth. Had I been a strong man I should surely have attacked him. I was mad with jealousy; for I then saw that Afy had sent me away that she might entertain him."

"I thought you said this Thorn never came but at dusk," observed Mr. Carlyle.

"I never knew him to do so until that evening. All I can say is, he was there then. He flew along swiftly, and I afterwards heard the sound of his horse's hoofs galloping away. I wondered what was up that he should look so scared, and scutter away as though the deuce was after him;: I wondered whether he had quarreled with Afy. I ran to the house, leaped up the two steps, and--Carlyle--I fell over the prostrate body of Hallijohn! He was lying just within, on the kitchen floor, dead. Blood was round about him, and my gun, just discharged, was thrown near. He had been shot in the side."

Richard stopped for breath. Mr. Carlyle did not speak.

"I called to Afy. No one answered. No one was in the lower room; and it seemed that no one was in the upper. A sort of panic came over me, a fear. You know they always said at home I was a coward: I could not have remained another minute with that dead man, had it been to save my own life. I caught up the gun, and was making off, when--"

"Why did you catch up the gun?" interrupted Mr. Carlyle.

"Ideas pass through our minds quicker than we can speak them, especially in these sorts of moments," was the reply of Richard Hare.

"Some vague notion flashed on my brain that /my gun/ ought not to be found near the murdered body of Hallijohn. I was flying from the door, I say, when Locksley emerged from the wood, full in view; and what possessed me I can't tell, but I did the worst thing I could do--flung the gun indoors again, and got away, although Locksley called after me to stop."

"Nothing told against you so much as that," observed Mr. Carlyle.

"Locksley deposed that he had seen you leave the cottage, gun in hand, apparently in great commotion; that the moment you saw him, you hesitated, as from fear, flung back the gun, and escaped."

Richard stamped his foot. "Aye; and all owing to my cursed cowardice.