But tell me what you mean?' he added.

'In turning the thing over in my mind, this question has occurred to me.--He read from the ma.n.u.script that oh the blade of the sword, near the hilt, were the initials of Wilfrid c.u.mbermede. Now, if the sword had never been drawn from the scabbard, how was that to be known to the writer?'

'Perhaps it was written about that time,' said Charley.

'No; the ma.n.u.script was evidently written some considerable time after.

It refers to tradition concerning it.'

'Then the writer knew it by tradition.'

The moment Charley's logical faculty was excited his perception was impartial.

'Besides,' he went on,' it does not follow that the sword had really never been drawn before. Mr Close even may have done so, for his admiration was apparently quite as much for weapons themselves as for their history. Clara could hardly have drawn it as she did if it had not been meddled with before.'

The terror lest he should ask me how I came to carry it home without the scabbard hurried my objection.

'That supposition, however, would only imply that Brotherton might have learned the fact from the sword itself, not from the book. I should just like to have one peep of the ma.n.u.script to see whether what he read was all there!'

'Or any of it, for that matter,' said Charley. 'Only it would have been a more tremendous risk than I think he would have run.'

'I wish I had thought of it sooner, though.'

My suspicion was that Clara had examined the blade thoroughly, and given him a full description of it. He _might_, however, have been at the Hall on some previous occasion, without my knowledge, and might have seen the half-drawn blade on the wall, examined it, and pushed it back into the sheath; which might have so far loosened the blade that Clara was afterwards able to draw it herself. I was all but certain by this time that it was no other than she that had laid it on my bed. But then why had she drawn it? Perhaps that I might leave proof of its ident.i.ty behind me--for the carrying out of her treachery, whatever the object of it might be. But this opened a hundred questions not to be discussed, even in silent thought, in the presence of another.

'Did you see your mother, Charley?' I asked.

'No, I thought it better not to trouble her. They are going to-morrow.

Mary had persuaded her--why, I don't know--to return a day or two sooner than they had intended.'

'I hope Brotherton will not succeed in prejudicing them against me.'

'I wish that were possible,' he answered. 'But the time for prejudice is long gone by.'

I could not believe this to be the case in respect of Mary; for I could not but think her favourably inclined to me.

'Still,' I said, 'I should not like their bad opinion of me to be enlarged as well as strengthened by the belief that I had attempted to steal Sir Giles's property. You _must_ stand my friend there, Charley.'

'Then you _do_ doubt me, Wilfrid?'

'Not a bit, you foolish fellow.'

'You know, I can't enter that house again, and I don't care about writing to my mother, for my father is sure to see it; but I will follow my mother and Mary the moment they are out of the grounds to-morrow, and soon see whether they've got the story by the right end.'

The evening pa.s.sed with me in alternate fits of fierce indignation and profound depression, for, while I was clear to my own conscience in regard of my enemies, I had yet thrown myself bound at their feet by my foolish lie; and I all but made up my mind to leave the country, and only return after having achieved such a position--of what sort I had no more idea than the school-boy before he sets himself to build a new castle in the air--as would b.u.t.tress any a.s.sertion of the facts I might see fit to make in after-years.

When we had parted for the night, my brains began to go about, and the centre of their gyrations was not Mary now, but Clara. What could have induced her to play me false? All my vanity, of which I had enough, was insufficient to persuade me that it could be out of revenge for the gradual diminution of my attentions to her. She had seen me pay none to Mary, I thought, unless she had caught a glimpse from the next room of the little pa.s.sage of the ring, and that I did not believe. Neither did I believe she had ever cared enough about me to be jealous of whatever attentions I might pay to another. But in all my conjectures, I had to confess myself utterly foiled. I could imagine no motive. Two possibilities alone, both equally improbable, suggested themselves--the one, that she did it for pure love of mischief, which, false as she was to me, I could not believe; the other, which likewise I rejected, that she wanted to ingratiate herself with Brotherton. I had still, however, scarcely a doubt that she had laid the sword on my bed. Trying to imagine a connection between this possible action and Mary's mistake, I built up a conjectural form of conjectural facts to this effect--that Mary had seen her go into my room, had taken it for the room she was to share with her, and had followed her either at once--in which case I supposed Clara to have gone out by the stair to the roof to avoid being seen--or afterwards, from some accident, without a light in her hand.

But I do not care to set down more of my speculations, for none concerning this either were satisfactory to myself, and I remain almost as much in the dark to this day. In any case the fear remained that Clara must be ever on the borders of the discovery of Mary's secret, if indeed she did not know it already, which was a dreadful thought--more especially as I could place no confidence in her. I was glad to think, however, that they were to be parted so soon, and I had little fear of any correspondence between them.

The next morning Charley set out to waylay them at a certain point on their homeward journey. I did not propose to accompany him. I preferred having him speak for me first, not knowing how much they might have heard to my discredit, for it was far from probable the matter had been kept from them. After he had started, however, I could not rest, and for pure restlessness sent Styles to fetch my mare. The loss of my sword was a trifle to me now, but the proximity of the place where I should henceforth be regarded as what I hardly dared to realize, was almost unendurable. As if I had actually been guilty of what was laid to my charge, I longed to hide myself in some impenetrable depth, and kept looking out impatiently for Styles's return. At length I caught sight of my Lilith's head rising white from the hollow in which the farm lay, and ran up to my room to make a little change in my attire.

Just as I s.n.a.t.c.hed my riding-whip from a hook by the window, I spied a horseman approaching from the direction of the park gates. Once more it was Mr Coningham, riding hitherward from the windy trees. In no degree inclined to meet him, I hurried down the stair, and arriving at the very moment Styles drew up, sprung into the saddle, and would have galloped off in the opposite direction, confident that no horse of Mr Coningham's could overtake my Lilith. But the moment I was in the saddle, I remembered there was a pile of books on the window-sill of my uncle's room, belonging to the library at the Hall, and I stopped a moment to give Styles the direction to take them home at once, and, having asked a word of Miss Pease, to request her, with my kind regards, to see them safely deposited amongst the rest. In consequence of this delay, just as I set off at full speed from the door, Mr Coningham rode round the corner of the house.

'What a devil of a hurry you are in, Mr c.u.mbermede!' he cried. 'I was just coming to see you. Can't you spare me a word?'

I was forced to pull up, and reply as civilly as might be.

'I am only going for a ride,' I said, 'and will go part of your way with you if you like.'

'Thank you. That will suit me admirably, I am going Gastford way. Have you ever been there?'

'No,' I answered. 'I have only just heard the name of the village.'

'It is a pretty place. But there's the oddest old church you ever saw, within a couple of miles of it--alone in the middle of a forest--or at least it was a forest not long ago. It is mostly young trees now. There isn't a house within a mile of it, and the nearest stands as lonely as the church--quite a place to suit the fancy of a poet like you! Come along and see it. You may as well go one way as another, if you only want a ride.'

'How far is it?' I asked.

'Only seven or eight miles across country. I can take you all the way through lanes and fields.'

Perplexed or angry I was always disinclined for speech; and it was only after things had arranged themselves in my mind, or I had mastered my indignation, that I would begin to feel communicative. But something prudential inside warned me that I could not afford to lose any friend I had; and although I was not prepared to confide my wrongs to Mr Coningham, I felt I might some day be glad of his counsel.

CHAPTER XLV.

UMBERDEN CHURCH.

My companion chatted away, lauded my mare, asked if I had seen Clara lately, and how the library was getting on. I answered him carelessly, without even a hint at my troubles.

'You seem out of spirits, Mr c.u.mbermede?' he said. 'You've been taking too little exercise. Let's have a canter. It will do you good. Here's a nice bit of sward.'

I was only too ready to embrace the excuse for dropping a conversation towards which I was unable to contribute my share.

Having reached a small roadside inn, we gave our horses a little refreshment; after which, crossing a field or two by jumping the stiles, we entered the loveliest lane I had ever seen. It was so narrow that there was just room for horses to pa.s.s each other, and covered with the greenest sward rarely trodden. It ran through the midst of a wilderness of tall hazels. They stood up on both sides of it, straight and trim as walls, high above our heads as we sat on our horses; and the lane was so serpentine that we could never see further than a few yards ahead; while, towards the end, it kept turning so much in one direction that we seemed to be following the circ.u.mference of a little circle. It ceased at length at a small double-leaved gate of iron, to which we tied our horses before entering the churchyard. But instead of a neat burial-place, which the whole approach would have given us to expect, we found a desert. The gra.s.s was of extraordinary coa.r.s.eness, and mingled with quant.i.ties of vile-looking weeds. Several of the graves had not even a spot of green upon them, but were mere heaps of yellow earth in huge lumps, mixed with large stones. There was not above a score of graves in the whole place, two or three of which only had gravestones on them. One lay open, with the rough yellow lumps all about it, and completed the desolation. The church was nearly square--small, but shapeless, with but four latticed windows, two on one side, one in the other, and the fourth in the east end. It was built partly of bricks and partly of flint stones, the walls bowed and bent, and the roof waved and broken. Its old age had gathered none of the graces of age to soften its natural ugliness, or elevate its insignificance. Except a few lichens, there was not a mark of vegetation about it. Not a single ivy leaf grew on its spotted and wasted walls. It gave a hopeless, pagan expression to the whole landscape--for it stood on a rising ground, from which we had an extensive prospect of height and hollow, cornfield and pasture and wood, away to the dim blue horizon.

'You don't find it enlivening, do you--eh?' said my companion.

'I never saw such a frightfully desolate spot,' I said, 'to have yet the appearance of a place of Christian worship. It looks as if there were a curse upon it. Are all those the graves of suicides and murderers? It cannot surely be consecrated ground?'

'It's not nice,' he said. 'I didn't expect you to like it. I only said it was odd.'

'Is there any service held in it?' I asked.

'Yes--once a fortnight or so. The rector has another living a few miles off.'

'Where can the congregation come from?'

'Hardly from anywhere. There ain't generally more than five or six, I believe. Let's have a look at the inside of it.'