"He is not dead?" asked Bennet, wildly.

"Dead! yes; he is dead, and you killed him!" answered the same man.

"I never meant to kill him," said Bennet, looking once more at the little figure that lay on the ground.

"Why," said a voice, "I heard you say to him, 'I'll kill you!'--I heard you say those very words!"

"I was in a pa.s.sion," Bennet declared, "and did not know what I was doing. I never thought of killing him."

"Then why did you say to him--I heard the words distinctly--'I'll kill you'?"

But Bennet made no reply. He now comprehended fully the position in which he stood, and he thought silence his best policy. Those about him, however, were far from silent. He could not help hearing what was being said, and he understood that nothing but detestation and execration were being expressed. The crowd had no sympathy whatever for him. On the contrary, had the crowd not been composed of Englishmen, accustomed to abide by the law of the land, Bennet would have been given a short shrift. If what he had done had been perpetrated in America, he would undoubtedly have been immediately lynched out of hand. But the crowd waited for the police to come upon the scene.

The crowd, however, talked excitedly, vehemently. The words which had pa.s.sed between Bennet and the jockey were repeated from lip to lip. The statement of Bob Deans that Bennet had tried to bribe him to pull Go Nap, and that he had refused to do so, was soon known to all; in the minds of most was the thought that Bennet, in suggesting this course to the jockey, was guilty of a crime even greater perhaps than murder, and that no punishment was too heavy for it. Many of them would have maintained that hanging was too good for him; some of them even said so.

Presently the police came up, and Bennet was arrested and charged with the murder of Bob Deans.

The affair, as was to be expected, made a tremendous sensation, not only throughout the world of the turf, but everywhere.

At Doncaster itself reports of what had taken place spread like wildfire through the place; nothing else was talked of, and but little interest was taken in the remaining races on the programme that afternoon.

In the whole history of racing never had there been anything so extraordinary.

The popular victory of Go Nap, the murder of the victorious jockey by the owner of the horse, the revelation which had been given by the unfortunate Deans of the reason why Bennet had killed him,--these and other particulars, which grew and grew as they pa.s.sed from mouth to mouth, formed as sensational a set of incidents as could well be imagined. Brief but lurid accounts of what had occurred at Doncaster appeared in the London evening papers the same day, and caused the greatest excitement.

Gilbert Eversleigh, walking about seven o'clock from the Temple to his club for dinner, his mind occupied and distressed by the difficult problem of how his father was to escape ruin, received his first intimation of the tragedy from the placard of one of these journals. In large, solid black letters he read--

"VICTORY OF GO NAP AT DONCASTER.

MURDER OF ITS JOCKEY, BOB DEANS, BY ITS OWNER, HENRY BENNET."

"What new calamity is this?" he asked himself, as his thoughts flew to Kitty. As soon as possible, he procured all the evening papers and read, with feverish haste, their narratives of the terrible event, from which the main facts stood out clearly enough.

"What will happen next?" he cried in his heart, overcome with amazement and horror.

Owing to its being the holiday season of the year, there were but few men at the Club when Gilbert reached it, but such as were there were conversing about the murder. Bennet was well known to several of them; it was recalled that he was a Varsity oar, but what was princ.i.p.ally talked of was his monstrous pa.s.sion for gambling, which it was guessed was responsible for his present terrible situation. Gilbert listened, but took only a small part in the conversation; it was an immense relief to him to find no reference was made by anybody to Bennet's engagement to Kitty. He hoped it might be possible to keep the girl's name out of the business altogether, but in this he was speedily disappointed.

Next morning the papers were full of the affair. Descriptions of what had taken place at Doncaster were given the utmost prominence, and nothing was left untold that could be put together about Bennet in a short s.p.a.ce of time. What was known of his career was published; and amongst other things mention was made of his recent engagement to Miss Kitty Thornton, daughter of the man whose body had been found a few weeks ago in such strange circ.u.mstances in the rooms of the late Mr.

Cooper Silwood, and much sympathy was expressed for her. This was the first public announcement of Kitty's engagement to Bennet, and Gilbert, who noticed it with the greatest pain, wondered how this piece of news had been conveyed to the Press. He could not know that Joel Levy, the big money-lender, had talked about it among his friends, through whom it had got to the ears of the reporters.

The same morning, that is the morning after the death of Bob Deans, Kitty saw a long account of it in the columns of the Yorkshire paper that was delivered every morning at Buckhurst House. Prior to reading this statement, Kitty had deemed herself as unhappy as it was possible for any one to be, but when she knew what had happened, she was plunged into deeper misery still. Bennet a murderer, and she engaged to him! It was the last unkindest stroke of fortune. And yet while she was sorry for herself, and much as she detested Bennet, she could not help feeling sorry for him. It did not at first occur to her that he had, by his rash act, if not crime, put an end, in all probability, to their engagement.

When that thought did come, as it was bound to come, she drearily speculated what the wretched man in his despair would do; in other words, she feared that the bargain she had entered into with Bennet for the salvation of the Eversleighs was a bargain which in these new circ.u.mstances he would not keep.

The papers had announced an inquest was to be held that day, and she awaited the verdict with sickening apprehension. And what might there not appear in these journals in addition to the account of the inquest?

Of course, she told herself, it was quite improbable that Bennet would say anything about the Eversleigh matter at the inquest; but what might he not say, might he not already have said, to others--to the police, for instance? She was not long left in doubt as to the line Bennet intended to take.

The inquest was held in a crowded court which was entirely hostile to Bennet. And that the jury took the darkest view of Bennet's action soon was manifest. A local solicitor, called Deakin, had been retained for him, and he did his best to get a verdict of manslaughter returned, but even if the evidence had been less convincing than it was, the general feeling would still have been too strong for him.

There were plenty of witnesses who agreed, with only small verbal discrepancies which are always a feature of such cases, and confirm rather than detract from the value of the main volume of testimony, as to what had pa.s.sed between Bennet and Bob Deans. The words used by the two men were quoted by several witnesses with substantial accuracy; particularly the threat of Bennet to the jockey, "I'll kill you!" was brought forward by them all, and practically settled in the minds of coroner and jury the degree of Bennet's guilt.

Bennet, they concluded, had intended killing Bob Deans, and had killed him. The cause of the murder made Bennet's crime blacker and blacker still.

His solicitor tried to show there had not been, there could not be, any premeditation on Bennet's part, and that the deed was done in the heat of pa.s.sion without there being any real intention to kill the man. He urged that the death of the jockey was of the nature of an accident; his client had certainly struck the blow, but could not know it was likely to be fatal. The most and worst Bennet was guilty of, Deakin contended, was manslaughter.

But the jury were of another mind. Without retiring to consider their verdict, they at once found Bennet guilty of the wilful murder of the jockey.

It was a verdict which met with general approval. The coroner, in accepting it, said the case was one of the most painful nature, but as it would doubtless form matter for the consideration of a higher court, he would make no further comment upon it.

Like hundreds of thousands of people who were following this dark story of the turf with the most absorbing interest, both Kitty and Gilbert saw the finding of the jury, and later that Bennet had been committed for trial at the next a.s.sizes on the capital charge. Kitty, wondering miserably what Bennet would do, thereafter received from him a letter, in which he asked her to visit him in prison without delay. By this time he had been removed from Doncaster to York, and thither Kitty went, accompanied by her relative, Mrs. Joicey, that very day, though it was not until the next that she saw him.

Prison life had already told on Bennet, and she observed a marked change in his appearance, which filled her with pity; but the man was in a black, reckless, defiant humour, as she soon noticed; even the near presence of a warder did not deter him from expressing what was in his mind.

"I'm very, very sorry for you, Harry," she said, and there was the sound of tears in her voice. It was the first time, too, since their engagement that she had called him "Harry."

"Sorry!" he cried. "Do you think I believe that? Don't be a hypocrite.

You are glad, you must be glad of my misfortune. You think it will set you free!"

"Oh, Harry, do not think of me; think of yourself!"

"Think of myself!" said Bennet, fiercely, implacably. "Can I not think of myself and of others too?"

The girl involuntarily shrank from him.

"Oh, Harry, Harry!" she said piteously.

"I sent for you," Bennet went on without heeding her appeal, "to tell you that I will not release you. I do not believe that I shall be found guilty of murder--it was no murder, and I shall not release you from your engagement to me. But if I am found guilty, you may be sure I shall not go out of the world without letting it know the truth about Francis Eversleigh. There! That is all! And now you can go."

"Harry, Harry!" cried Kitty; "how can I touch your heart?"

"Touch my heart! The day has gone past for that. Now go--and go at once; the sight of you is torture. Go!"

CHAPTER XXIX

Though Bennet had said to Kitty Thornton that the sight of her was torture to him, yet, when she had departed, her pleading face remained present for a short time in his thoughts and temporarily softened him.

But this frame of mind quickly pa.s.sed, leaving him a prey to hatred, malignity, and the darkest pa.s.sions.

His devilish humour now prompted him to an act of hideous malice. The idea came to him that if he had Gilbert Eversleigh as his counsel at the forthcoming trial, he would inflict on Gilbert, as well as on Kitty, the most exquisite pain. It was the idea of a fiend rather than of a human being, and showed, as perhaps nothing else could have done, how Bennet's whole nature had been warped to the side of evil. He gloated over this monstrous idea, telling himself that in this way, whatever happened, he would glut his desire for revenge. He knew that, in ordinary circ.u.mstances, Gilbert would never consent to appear for him if he could avoid doing so; but a threat to expose Francis Eversleigh would be enough, Bennet believed, to settle the matter. Whether Gilbert would or would not be a good counsel counted for little with him in comparison with the gratification he expected and promised himself, from seeing the man he had always hated placed in this position.

It was much the same thing as if Bennet had said to Gilbert--

"If you succeed in getting me off from the capital charge, I shall not release Kitty from her engagement, but will marry her after my term of imprisonment has expired. Though I shall be a convict, I shall compel her to marry me, for the same reason that made her engage herself to me.

"Or, if you don't succeed, and I am sentenced to death, and there is no Kitty for me, then you shall not have her; for I will not quit this world without exposing your father and bringing disgrace on you, in which case you will not seek to marry her."

No matter the result of the trial, Bennet a.s.sured himself, with diabolical satisfaction, that he would cause Gilbert's heart to suffer the most horrible agony.