Mrs. Hare answered only by a look of grat.i.tude, and clasped Mr.

Carlyle's hand in both hers. "Archibald, I must see my boy; how can it be managed? Must I go into the garden to him, or may he come in here?"

"I think he might come in; you know how bad the night air is for you.

Are the servants astir this evening?"

"Things seem to have turned out quite kindly," spoke up Barbara. "It happens to be Anne's birthday, so mamma sent me just now into the kitchen with a cake and a bottle of wine, desiring them to drink her health. I shut the door and told them to make themselves comfortable; that if we wanted anything we would ring."

"Then they are safe," observed Mr. Carlyle, "and Richard may come in."

"I will go and ascertain whether he is come," said Barbara.

"Stay where you are, Barbara; I will go myself," interposed Mr. Carlyle.

"Have the door open when you see us coming up the path."

Barbara gave a faint cry, and, trembling, clutched the arm of Mr.

Carlyle. "There he is! See! Standing out from the trees, just opposite this window."

Mr. Carlyle turned to Mrs. Hare. "I shall not bring him in immediately; for if I am to have an interview with him, it must be got over first, that I may go back home to the justices, and keep Mr. Hare all safe."

He proceeded on his way, gained the trees, and plunged into them; and, leaning against one, stood Richard Hare. Apart from his disguise, and the false and fierce black whiskers, he was a blue-eyed, fair, pleasant- looking young man, slight, and of middle height, and quite as yielding and gentle as his mother. In her, this mild yieldingness of disposition was rather a graceful quality; in Richard it was regarded as a contemptible misfortune. In his boyhood he had been nicknamed Leafy d.i.c.k, and when a stranger inquired why, the answer was that, as a leaf was swayed by the wind, so he was swayed by everybody about him, never possessing a will of his own. In short, Richard Hare, though of an amiable and loving nature, was not over-burdened with what the world calls brains. Brains he certainly had, but they were not sharp ones.

"Is my mother coming out to me?" asked Richard, after a few interchanged sentences with Mr. Carlyle.

"No. You are to go indoors. Your father is away, and the servants are shut up in the kitchen and will not see you. Though if they did, they could never recognize you in that trim. A fine pair of whiskers, Richard."

"Let us go in, then. I am all in a twitter till I get away. Am I to have the money?"

"Yes, yes. But, Richard, your sister says you wish to disclose to me the true history of that lamentable night. You had better speak while we are here."

"It was Barbara herself wanted you to hear it. I think it of little moment. If the whole place heard the truth from me, it would do no good, for I should get no belief--not even from you."

"Try me, Richard, in as few words as possible."

"Well, there was a row at home about my going so much to Hallijohn's.

The governor and my mother thought I went after Afy; perhaps I did, and perhaps I didn't. Hallijohn had asked me to lend him my gun, and that evening, when I went to see Af--when I went to see some one--never mind- -"

"Richard," interrupted Mr. Carlyle, "there's an old saying, and it is sound advice: 'Tell the whole truth to your lawyer and your doctor.' If I am to judge whether anything can be attempted for you, you must tell it to me; otherwise, I would rather hear nothing. It shall be sacred trust."

"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 pa.s.s 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 pa.s.sed, 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 pa.s.s 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.

They had better have made a woman of me, and brought me up in petticoats. But let me go on. I came upon Bethel. He was standing in that half-circle where the trees have been cut. Now I knew that Bethel, if he had gone straight in the direction of the cottage, must have met Thorn quitting it. 'Did you encounter that hound?' I asked him. 'What hound?' returned Bethel. 'That fine fellow, that Thorn, who comes after Afy,' I answered, for I did not mind mentioning her name in my pa.s.sion.

'I don't know any Thorn,' returned Bethel, 'and I did not know anybody was after Afy but yourself.' 'Did you hear a shot?' I went on. 'Yes, I did,' he replied; 'I suppose it was Locksley, for he's about this evening,' 'And I saw you,' I continued, 'just at the moment the shot was fired, turn round the corner in the direction of Hallijohn's.' 'So I did,' he said, 'but only to strike into the wood, a few paces up. What's your drift?' 'Did you not encounter Thorn, running from the cottage?' I persisted. 'I have encountered no one,' he said, 'and I don't believe anybody's about but ourselves and Locksley.' I quitted him, and came off," concluded Richard Hare. "He evidently had not seen Thorn, and knew nothing."

"And you decamped the same night, Richard; it was a fatal step."

"Yes, I was a fool. I thought I'd wait quiet, and see how things turned out; but you don't know all. Three or four hours later, I went to the cottage again, and I managed to get a minute's speech with Afy. I never shall forget it; before I could say one syllable she flew out at me, accusing me of being the murderer of her father, and she fell into hysterics out there on the gra.s.s. The noise brought people from the house--plenty were in it then--and I retreated. 'If she can think me guilty, the world will think me guilty,' was my argument; and that night I went right off, to stop in hiding for a day or two, till I saw my way clear. It never came clear; the coroner's inquest sat, and the verdict floored me over. And Afy--but I won't curse her--fanned the flame against me by denying that any one had been there that night. 'She had been at home,' she said, 'and had strolled out at the back door, to the path that led from West Lynne, and was lingering there when she heard a shot. Five minutes afterward she returned to the house, and found Locksley standing over her dead father.'"

Mr. Carlyle remained silent, rapidly running over in his mind the chief points of Richard Hare's communication. "Four of you, as I understand it, were in the vicinity of the cottage that night, and from one or the other the shot no doubt proceeded. You were at a distance, you say, Richard; Bethel, also, could not have been--"

"It was not Bethel who did it," interrupted Richard; "it was an impossibility. I saw him, as I tell you, in the same moment that the gun was fired."