morning had come at length, and, so far as ethel hargrave could judge, arnold rent appeared to be none the worse for his adventure. he had been brought back the night before by grey, who did not wait to afford any information, but merely said that he had found the sick man wandering at large. mrs. rent was satisfied with this explanation, being only too glad to have her son back again. it would be a lesson to ethel in future. as to the rest, the unfortunate lady decided that she would look after her son, at any rate, between the hour of his return and daybreak. all through the night arnold rent slept with the fatigue of a man who is physically exhausted. when he awoke he did not appear to have the smallest idea of the commotion he had caused on the previous evening. ethel crept into the room, anxious to see what she could do to wipe out her failure of the night before. mrs. rent smiled at her indulgently.
"i think i can leave him to you," she whispered. "i don't suppose you'll be so careless again."
"indeed i won't," ethel said earnestly. "you can trust me, i am sure. go downstairs and get some breakfast and then lie down. does he seem to be any better?"
mrs. rent shook her head sadly.
"not in the least," she murmured. "he is in the same sullen mood. he seems still anxious over some trouble worrying him. my dear child, we made a great mistake in coming here at all. at any rate, we ought to have left at once and taken arnold with us. he would have been far better at our quiet house in devonshire. all i can hope and pray for now is that his memory will be quickly restored. and yet there are moments when it seems to me that we are better off as we are. i begin to dread the future. i am in hourly fear of some shocking exposure. i do not know what it is, but i am sure that we are all going to suffer before many days pass."
ethel said nothing. she was not without the same dread herself. and, moreover, she had information of which mrs. rent knew nothing. it was impossible to hide from herself that the shadow of disgrace hung heavily over the house of rent. with a vivid recollection of last night's scenes she could not delude herself with the feeling that all was going right. what had rent been doing in that silent and secretive way under the roof of the man upon whom he had inflicted such a deadly injury? possibly he had not intended to do john charlock the slightest harm. he may have been actuated by the highest and most honourable intentions. but the facts pointed in another direction. moreover, why had he gone off in his madness to the house of the man who should be his worst enemy? it might be argued that the whole thing had happened in a moment of frenzy, but there was no getting away from the fact that there was a good deal of method behind it. and it was impossible, also, to pretend that arnold rent's present mode and manner did not lack a shadow of guilt or a suggestion of fear. the man was palpably frightened about something. he acted very like a criminal who expects at any moment to feel the grip of the law upon his shoulder. ethel tried to put these gloomy thoughts out of her mind. she spoke cheerfully to her patient, who was already dressed and seated in an armchair, looking into the fire.
"do you feel better this morning?"
"there is nothing whatever the matter with me," rent said moodily. "i feel as well and fit for work as you do. since i have been up i have thought out a whole train of new experiments. i remember all that happened to a certain point, and then for a few days everything is blank. there is something i ought to do, something that i have left undone which i dare not neglect any longer. if i could only think of it! oh, if i could only think of it, what a relief it would be!"
the words came from rent in a tone of positive anguish. he paced up and down the room with his hands locked behind his back. ethel could see how drawn and contracted his brows were. beads of perspiration stood on his forehead, his lips quivered, his whole body shook.
"you must try to put it out of your mind," the girl said. "you cannot hope to get better as long as you distress yourself in this fashion. and, besides, i don't suppose it is of any importance. if it is business, somebody is bound to remind you sooner or later."
rent laughed in a hollow fashion.
"oh, it isn't business," he explained. "it is worse than that. it is something that i am desperately afraid of, though i can't tell why. do you know what i feel like?"
the speaker paused abruptly in his walk and came to a standstill in front of ethel. he grasped her hands in his and pressed them with a certain passion which filled her with pain.
"i feel like a man who has committed murder," he said. "i am like one who has made away with a fellow-creature and hidden the body hurriedly till i could find time to dispose of it. it is like some hideous nightmare, some chapter from a weird novel. imagine a man who has killed a fellow-creature. imagine that nobody knows who this fellow-creature is. try to think of a person who, once got rid of, no one would be any the wiser for the loss. you may say the woman came to my house late at night, if you like, after everybody had gone to bed.... and then she dies and is laid in a quiet spot, which is not so quiet but that people go there sometimes. the murderer dare not proceed further at present, but in the morning he promises himself that he will sink the body in a deep pool and then he will have no more anxiety on the matter. and when he wakes up on the morrow he has forgotten what he has done with the body. don't laugh at me."
"i am not," ethel said, trembling from head to foot with a fear she could not repress. "i swear i am not laughing at you. but why let your mind dwell upon such morbid subjects? you are the last man in the world who is likely to be mixed up in a terrible thing like that. try to compose yourself."
but rent was not to be turned so lightly aside.
"i don't know," he said. "there are thousands of cases on record of sudden lapses of memory. haven't you read of people whose minds suddenly become blank as they are walking along the street? why, i am a case in point. what is the meaning of this extraordinary lapse? and why do i feel this hideous impulse to go out and hide something? why am i haunted by the terror that i have brought myself within reach of the law? oh, the whole thing is ghastly, almost unbearable."
rent broke off suddenly and flung himself headlong into his chair. there was a change to sullenness in his manner. he waved ethel aside with the curt intimation that he wanted to be alone. involuntarily he had placed his hand in the breast-pocket of his coat and drawn thence what appeared to be a packet of letters tied up with string. the packet seemed to start some train of thought, for a bright light shone in his eyes now, and he seemed on the point of grasping something which had eluded him.
"can i do anything for you?" ethel asked.
"leave me alone," rent said hoarsely. "where did i get these things? how did they come into my possession? i thought they had been destroyed long ago. now, why don't you do as i tell you? why are you standing there gaping? i beg your pardon if i seem to be rude. but i am hardly accountable for what i am saying. now please go."
there was nothing for it but to obey, and ethel went off to her own room, the door of which she left open. nothing unusual could happen so long as she kept watch and ward and listened to what was taking place in the opposite room. she had plenty to occupy her thoughts. she felt incapable of sitting down to read or write. she could not forget what rent had been saying. she could not dismiss his burning words. she began to wonder if he were mad, after all, or if, perhaps, there was some dreadful chapter in his life which was still left unfinished and which might sooner or later bring him into some serious trouble. and he had not spoken like a madman, either, but rather like one who was consumed with remorse, terror and anxiety. for the moment it seemed as if he had torn aside the veil and allowed ethel a glimpse into the past. for a long time the girl sat deep in her own troubled thoughts and anxious speculations.
an hour or two passed, then she felt the need of society, the necessity for human companionship. probably mrs. rent was down by this time. she looked into arnold's room as she passed. she saw that he was lying back in his chair, fast asleep. he had untied the bundle of letters, which seemed to have slipped off his knee and had fallen in a heap on the floor. mechanically, ethel stooped to pick them up, her action dictated simply by love of tidiness. then a word or two caught her eye, and before she knew what she was doing she was reading the letters.... when she crept down the stairs, presently, her face was pale, her eyes were dazed as if the light were too strong for them. she did not go into mrs. rent's sitting-room. on the contrary, she put on her hat and jacket mechanically and turned out of the house towards john charlock's residence.
