"No, Robert," she answered. "I trust to Dr. Rumsey to bring you back to your senses."

"She does not know what she is saying," muttered Awdrey. He followed his wife to the door, and when she went out turned the key in the lock.

"It is a strange thing," he said, the moment he found himself alone with his guest, "that you, Rumsey, should be here at this moment. You were with me during the hour of my keenest and most terrible physical and mental degradation; you have now come to see me through the hour of my moral degradation--or victory."

"Your moral degradation or victory?" said the doctor; "what does this mean?"

"It simply means this, Dr. Rumsey; I am the unhappy possessor of a secret."

"Ah!"

"Yes--a secret. Were this secret known my wife's heart would be broken, and this honorable house of which I am the last descendant would go to complete shipwreck. I don't talk of myself in the matter."

"Do you mean to confide in me?" asked the doctor, after a pause.

"I cannot; for the simple reason, that if I told you everything you would be bound as a man and a gentleman to take steps to insure the downfall which I dread."

"Are you certain that you are not suffering from delusion?"

"No, doctor, I wish I were."

"You certainly look sane enough," said the doctor, examining his patient with one of his penetrating glances. "You must allow me to congratulate you. If I had not seen you with my own eyes I could never have believed in such a reformation. You are bronzed; your frame has widened; you have not a sc.r.a.p of superfluous flesh about you. Let me feel your arm; my dear sir, your muscle is to be envied."

"I was famed for my athletic power long ago," said Awdrey, with a grim smile. "But now, doctor, to facts. You have come here; it is possible for me to take you into my confidence to a certain extent. Will you allow me to state my case?"

"As you intend only to state it partially it will be difficult for me to advise you," said the doctor.

"Still, will you listen?"

"I'll listen."

"Well, the fact is this," said Awdrey, rising, "either G.o.d or the devil take possession of me to-night."

"Come, come," said Rumsey, "you are exaggerating the state of the case."

"I am not. I am going through the most desperate fight that ever a.s.sailed a man. I may get out on the side of good, but at the present moment I must state frankly that all my inclinations tend to getting out of this struggle on the side which will put me into the Devil's hands."

"Come," said the doctor again, "if that is so there can be no doubt with regard to your position. You must close with right even though it is a struggle. You confess to possessing a secret; that secret is the cause of your misery; there is a right and a wrong to it?"

"Undoubtedly; a very great right and a very grave wrong."

"Then, Awdrey, do not hesitate; be man enough to do the right."

Awdrey turned white.

"You are the second person who has come here to-night and advised me on the side of G.o.d," he said.

"Out with your trouble, man, and relieve your mind."

"When I relieve my mind," said Awdrey, "my wife's heart will break, and our house will be ruined."

"What about you?"

"I shall go under."

"I doubt very much if your doing right would ever break a heart like your wife's," said Rumsey, "but doing wrong would undoubtedly crush her spirit."

"There you are again--will no one take the Devil's part? Dr. Rumsey, I firmly believe that it is much owing to your influence that I am now in my sane mind. I believe that it is owing to you that the doom of my house has been lifted from my brain. When I think of the path which you now advocate, I could curse the day when you brought me back to health and sanity. A very little influence on the other side, a mere letting me alone, and I should now either be a madman or in my grave; then I would have carried my secret to the bitter end. As it is----"

There was a noise heard outside--the sound made by a faltering footstep.

The brush of a woman's dress was distinctly audible against the door; this was followed by a timid knock.

"Who is disturbing us now?" said Awdrey, with irritation.

"I'll open the door and see," said the doctor.

He crossed the room as he spoke and opened the door. An untidily dressed girl with a ghastly white face stood without. When the door was opened she peered anxiously into the room.

"Is Mr. Awdrey in?--yes, I see him. I must speak to him at once."

She staggered across the threshold.

"I must see you alone, Squire," she said--"quite alone and at once."

"This has to do with the matter under consideration," said the Squire.

"Come in, Hetty; sit down. Rumsey, you had best leave us."

CHAPTER XXIV.

A real faint, or suspension of the heart's action, is never a long affair. When Hetty fell in an unconscious state against the body of her dead husband she quickly recovered herself. Her intellect was keen enough, and she knew exactly what had happened. The nice black stuff which gave such pleasant dreams had killed Vincent. She had therefore killed him. Yes, he was stone dead--she had seen death once or twice before, and could not possibly mistake it. She had seen her mother die long ago, and had stood by the deathbed of more than one neighbor. The cold, the stiffness, the gray-white appearance, all told her beyond the possibility of doubt that life was not only extinct, but had been extinct for at least a couple of hours. Her husband was dead. When she had given him that fatal dose he had been in the full vigor of youth and health--now he was dead. She had never loved him in life; although he had been an affectionate husband to her, but at this moment she shed a few tears for him. Not many, for they were completely swallowed up in the fear and terror which grew greater and greater each moment within her. He was dead, and she had killed him. Long ago she had concealed the knowledge of a murder because she loved the man who had committed it.

Now she had committed murder herself--not intentionally, no, no. No more had she intended to kill Vincent than Awdrey when he was out that night had intended to take the life of Horace Frere. But Frere was dead and now Vincent was dead, and Hetty would be tried for the crime. No, surely they could not try her--they could not possibly bring it home to her.

How could a little thing like she was be supposed to take the life of a big man? She had never meant to injure him, too--she had only meant to give him a good sleep, to rest him thoroughly--to deceive him, of course--to do a thing which she knew if he were aware of would break his heart; but to take his life, no, nothing was further from her thoughts.

Nevertheless the deed was done.

Oh, it was horrible, horrible--she hated being so close to the dead body. It was no longer Vincent, the man who would have protected her at the risk of his life, it was a hideous dead body. She would get away from it--she would creep up close to Rover. No wonder Rover hated the room; perhaps he saw the spirit of her husband. Oh, how frightened she was! What was the matter with her side?--why did her heart beat so strangely, galloping one, two, three, then pausing, then one, two, three again?--and the pain, the sick, awful pain. Yes, she knew--she was sick to death with terror.

She got up presently from where she had been kneeling by her dead husband's side and staggered across to the fireplace. She tried wildly to think, but she found herself incapable of reasoning. Shivering violently, she approached the table, poured out a cup of the cocoa which was still hot, and managed to drink it off. The warm liquid revived her, and she felt a shade better and more capable of thought. Her one instinct now was to save herself. Vincent was dead--no one in all the world could bring him back to life, but, if possible, Hetty would so act that not a soul in all the country should suspect her. How could she make things safe? If it were known, known everywhere, that she was away from him when he died, then of course she would be safe. Yes, this fact must be known. Once she had saved the Squire, now the Squire must save her. It must be known everywhere that she had sought an interview with him--that at the time when Vincent died she was in the Squire's presence, shut up in the office with him, the door locked--she and the Squire alone together. This secret, which she would have fought to the death to keep to herself an hour ago, must now be blazoned abroad to a criticising world. The lesser danger to the Squire must be completely swallowed up in the greater danger to herself. She must hurry to him at once and get him to tell what he knew. Ah, yes, if he did this she would be safe--she remembered the right word at last, for she had heard the neighbors speak of it when it a celebrated trial was going on in Salisbury--she must prove an alibi--then it would be known that she had been absent from home when her husband died.

The imminence of the danger made her at last feel quiet and steady. She took up the lighted candle and went into the dairy--she unlocked the cupboard in the wall and took out the bottle of laudanum. Returning to the kitchen she emptied the contents of the bottle into the range and then threw the bottle itself also into the heart of the fire--she watched it as it slowly melted under the influence of the hot fire--the laudanum itself was also licked up by the hungry flames. That tell-tale and awful evidence of her guilt was at least removed. She forgot all about Susan having seen the liquid in the morning--she knew nothing about the evidence which would be brought to light at a coroner's inquest--about the facts which a doctor would be sure to give. Nothing but the bare reality remained prominently before her excited brain.

Vincent was dead--she had killed him by an overdose of laudanum which she had given him in all innocence to make him sleep--but yet, yet in her heart of hearts, she knew that her motive would not bear explanation.

"Squire will save me," she said to herself--"if it's proved that I were with Squire I am safe. I'll go to him now--I'll tell 'im all at once.

It's late, very late, and it's dark outside, but I'll go."