dark was falling as on my return i came within sound of the mill race. i thought i could make out a little group of people leaning over the stone balustrade of the bridge as i approached. such i found to be the case, and among them dr. crackenthorpe standing up gaunt in his long brown coat.
i was turning in at the yard, when this individual hailed me, and by doing so brought all the faces round in my direction. i walked up to him.
“well?” i said.
“these good folk are curious. it’s no affair of mine, but half a minute ago there came a yell out of the old cabin yonder fit to wake the dead.”
“well?” i said, again, with a mighty assumption of coolness i hardly felt.
“oh, don’t suppose i care. it only seemed to me that some day, perhaps, you’ll have the place stoned about your ears, if you don’t let a little more light in.”
a murmur went up from the half-dozen rustics and brainless idlers.
“we don’t warnt no drownding ghosteses in winton,” said a voice.
i went straight up to them.
“don’t you?” i said. “then you’d best keep out of reach of them that can make you that and something worse. i suppose some of you have cried out with the lumbago before now?”
“that warn’t no lumbago cry, master.”
“wasn’t it, now? have you ever had it?”
“no—i harsn’t.”
“i’ll give you a good imitation”—and i made a rush at the fellow who spoke. the crowd scattered, and the man, suddenly backing, toppled over with a crack that brought a yell out of him.
“see there!” i cried. “you scream before you are touched even. a pretty fool you, to gauge the meaning of any noise but your own gobbling over a slice of bread and bacon.”
this was to the humor of the others, who cackled hoarsely with laughter.
“if you want to ask questions,” i said, turning upon them, “put them to this doctor here, who sits every day in a room with a row of murderers’ heads looking down upon him.”
with that i walked off in a heat, and was going toward the house, when dr. crackenthorpe came after me with a stride and a furious menace.
“you’ll turn the tables, will you?” he said, in a suffocating voice. “some day, my friend—some day!”
i didn’t answer him or even look his way, but strode into the mill and banged the door in his face.
as i entered our sitting-room, i found jason standing motionless in the shadow a few feet from my father’s chair.
the old man welcomed me with an agonized cry of rapture, and endeavored to struggle to his feet, but dropped back again as if exhausted. i went and stood over him, and he clung to one of my hands, as a drowning man might.
“who cried out just now?” i asked, fiercely, of jason.
he gulped and cleared his throat, but could only point nervelessly at the cowering figure before him.
“father! what is the matter?”
“you wouldn’t come, renalt—you wouldn’t come! i prayed for you to come.”
“what has he been doing?”
“it was all the old horror over again. send him away! don’t let him come near me!”
i was falling distracted. i turned to jason once more.
“come! out with it!” i said. “what have you been doing?”
he strove to smile. his face was ghastly—pinched and lined.
“nothing,” he said at last, with a choking cluck in his throat. “i have done nothing.”
“don’t believe him,” moaned my father. “he wanted all; he wanted to sink me to ruin.”
“i wanted to ruin nobody!” cried my brother, finding his voice in a wail of despair. “i’m desperate, that’s all—desperate to escape—and he offers me little more than he’d give to a beggar.”
“i tell him i’m not far from one myself! he won’t believe it. he threatened me, renalt. he brought the hideous time back again.”
a light broke upon me, as from a furnace door snapped open.
“dad,” i said, gently, “will you go to your room and leave the rest to me?”
i helped him to his feet—across the room. his eyes watched the other all the time. it was pitiful to see his terror of him.
jason stood where he had planted himself, waiting my return with hanging head and fingers laced in front of him.
i led the old man to the foot of the stairs. then i returned to the room and stood before my brother.
“i understand it all now,” i said, in a straight, quiet voice. “the ‘some one else’ you suspected, or pretended to, was our father!”
no answer.
“while i was in london you traded upon this pretended knowledge to force money out of the old man.”
no answer.
“your silence will do. what can i say but that it was like you? to traffic upon a helpless man’s miserable apprehensions for your own sordid ends—and that man your father! to do this while holding a like threat over another’s head—your brother’s—still for your own pitiful ends. and all the time who knows but you may be the murderer?”
“i am not the murderer. you persist, and—and it’s too cruel.”
“cruel! to you? who killed modred?”
“i believe it was dad.”
“i believe upon my soul it’s a lie!”
“he thinks it himself, anyhow.”
“is it any good saying to you that a man of his habits, as he was then, might be driven to believe anything of himself?”
“why did he have the braces in his pocket, then?”
“he had carried the boy up-stairs—you know that. he had been bathing and his things were scattered.”
“it isn’t all. modred had discovered his secret.”
in spite of myself i started.
“what secret?” i said.
“where the coins were hidden.”
“what coins?”
for the first time he looked at me with a faint leer of cunning.
“i won’t condescend to prevaricate for any purpose,” i said. “i do know about the treasure, because he told me himself, but i swear i know to this day nothing about its hiding-place.”
he looked at me curiously.
“well,” he said, “modred had found it out, anyway.”
“how do you know?”
“didn’t he offer to give zyp something in exchange for a kiss that night we watched them out of the window?”
“go on.”
“it was gold. i saw it. he must have found his way to the store and stolen it. mayn’t it be, now, that dad discovered he had been robbed, and took the surest way to prevent it happening again?”
“no—a thousand times!” i spoke stanchly, but my heart felt sick within me.
he was silent.
“so,” i said, in a high-strung voice, “this was your manner of business during my absence; that the way to the means that helped you up to london? a miserable discovery for you—for i gather from your words you, too, found out about the hiding-place. you had better have left it alone—a million times you had better.”
still he was silent.
“did zyp know, too?”
“no—not from my telling. i can’t answer for what she may have found out for herself. she sees in the dark.”
“how much did you have, from first to last? but i suppose you helped yourself whenever you needed it?”
“i didn’t—i swear i didn’t! i never put finger on the stuff till dad handed it over to me. what right had he to keep us without a penny all those years, when riches were there for the taking?”
“he could do what he liked with his own, i conclude. at any rate, the end justified the means. a pretty use you made of your vile extortion—a bloody vengeance is the price you pay for it!”
at that he gave a sudden cry.
“i’m lost—i know it! help me to escape. renny, help me to escape.”
“do you think you deserve that of me, jason?”
he dropped upon his knees, an abject, wailing figure.
“i don’t—i don’t! but you’re generous—renalt, i always thought you good and generous, when i laughed at you most. save me from that terror! he strikes at me in the dark—i never know where his hideous face will show next. he follows me—haunts me—tries to poison me, to torture me to death! oh, renny, help me!”
“answer me truly first. for how long were you robbing the old man?”
“i may have had small sums of him for a year—nothing much. when zyp and i made up our minds to go, i bid for a larger, and he gave it me.”
“he didn’t know you were married?”
“he wouldn’t hear of it—it’s the truth. he meant her for you, i think, and the worst threats i could use never shook him from his refusal to countenance us.”
“brave old man!”
“renny—help me!”
“for zyp’s sake,” i said, sternly—“yes. were it not for her appeal, i tell you plainly you might perish for me.”
he looked so base kneeling there in his craven degradation that i could not forbear the stroke.
“my father provides the means,” i said. “i went to london to-day to realize it. here it is, and make the most of it.”
he took it from me with trembling hands.
“ten pounds,” he said, blankly. “no more?”
“isn’t it enough?”
“enough to get away with, not enough to find a living on across the water.”
“it’s all you’ll get—that’s final. remember now that i stand here by my father. always remember that when your fingers itch for hush money—and remember who it was that was once my friend.”
he rose and crept to the door with bowed head. some old vein of tenderer feeling gushed warm in me.
“jason,” i cried, “i forgive you for all you have done to me.”
he turned and came back to me, seized me by the wrist—and his eyes were moist with tears.
“for pity’s sake come a little way with me, renny. you don’t know what i suffer.”
“a little way on your road, do you mean?”
“yes. i daren’t go by train. he might be there. i must walk; and i dread—renny, supposing i should meet him on the way?”
“why, that’s nonsense. haven’t you just come alone?”
“i was driven by the thought of what i was seeking, then. it was bad enough. but, now i’ve got it, all nerve seems shaken out of me. i’m afraid of the dark.”
was this the stuff that villains are made of? almost i could find it in me to soothe and comfort the poor, terrified creature.
“very well,” i said. “i will walk part of the way with you.”
his wan cheek flushed with gratitude. i got my hat and stick, and ran up to my father to tell him whither i was off.
as i came downstairs again jason was disappearing into the loft, where the stones were, that stood opposite the sitting-room. the wheel underneath was booming as usual and the great disks revolved softly with a rubbing noise. i saw him go to the dim window, that stood out as if hung up in the black atmosphere of the room, a square of latticed gray. it was evidently his intention to reconnoiter before starting, for the window looked upon the bridge and the now lonely tail of the high street.
suddenly a sort of stifled rushing noise issued from his lips, and he stole back on tiptoe to the passage without the room. there, in the weak lamplight, he fell against the wall, and his face was the color of straw paper and his lips were ashen.
“he’s there,” he said, in a dreadful whisper. “he’s standing on the bridge waiting for me.”
