the shock communicated to george dallas by his stepfather's letter was violent and terrible in proportion to the resolutions which had been growing up in his mind, and gaining strength and fixedness with each day's absence from the old accustomed scenes of dissipation and sources of temptation. like all persons of similar temperament, he was easily overcome by agitation, and his eager nature led him to anticipate evil as readily as it caused him to enjoy good thoroughly. he was a strong man physically, but a sickening, weak shudder, such as might have shaken a woman, shook him as he read the few formal lines which conveyed to him so much more than their writer had known or intended. was it all to be in vain? was the golden time, the precious opportunity, gone by for ever? was she to die, or die to him at least, and never to know that his repentance had been real, that the lesson had been effectual, that the reform had been inaugurated?
the terms in which mr. carruthers had written to his stepson were as vague as they were formal, and the uncertainty to which the letter condemned him was as agonizing as the misery which it produced. where was she? he did not know; he had no means of knowing. how great were her sufferings? how imminent was her danger? these points were beyond the reach of his investigation. he knew that he was to blame for his mother's illness; he saw all things now in a new and clear light, and though his was no miraculous reformation, no sudden transformation from sinner to saint, but rather an evidence of mental growth and refinement under the influence of a new order of feelings, working on a singularly pliable temperament, george dallas was so different to what he had been, that he shrank not only with disgust, but with wonder, from the contemplation of the perverse folly which had led to such results. he had always been dissipated, worthless, and ungrateful, he thought; why had he never realized the guilt of being so before? why, indeed! having been blind, now he saw; having been foolish, he had become wise. the ordinary experience, after all, but which every man and woman believes in his or her case exceptional, had come to this young man, but had come laden with exceedingly bitter grief. with swift, sudden fear, too, and stinging self-distrust; for if his mother were indeed lost to him, the great motive, a real one, however tardily acknowledged, would be lost too, and then, how should he, how could he, answer for himself? just then, in the first keenness of his suffering, in the first thrill of fear which the sense of impending punishment sent through him, he did not think of his love, he drew no strength, no counsel, no consolation from it; the only image before his mind was that of his mother, long bowed down, and now broken, under the accumulated load of grief and disappointment which he had laid upon her. mr. carruthers had acted characteristically, george thought, in writing to him, as he had done, merely telling him of his mother's illness and removal, but giving him no address, affording him no opportunity of writing to her. so much he had done for his own conscience' and credit's sake, not actuated by any sympathy for him. the old anger towards his stepfather, the old temptation to lay the blame of all his own ill-conduct on mr. carruthers, to regard his banishment from poynings as cause rather than effect, arose fiercely in george's heart, as he read the curt sentences of the letter over and over again; but they were met and conquered by a sudden softened remembrance of his mother's appeal to him for a just judgment of her husband, whom she loved, and the better nature of the young man, newly and strongly aroused, got the victory.
"no, no," he said impetuously and aloud, "he's not to blame; the fault is mine, and if i am never to have the chance of telling her the truth, i'll tell it to myself at all events."
george's resolution to go to england was soon taken. he must know more than mr. carruthers had told him, and only at poynings could he learn it. it never occurred to him that mrs. brookes might have accompanied his mother abroad. his impulsive nature rarely permitted him to foresee any obstacle in the way of a design or a desire, and he acted in this instance with his usual headlong precipitation.
when george dallas reached london, he found he would have just sufficient time to go to south molten-street and see routh or harriet for a few minutes, before he could catch a train for amherst. arrived at routh's former residence, he was surprised to observe, as he got out of a hansom, that a card, displayed in the parlour window, announced "a drawing-room floor to let." the hall-door was opened at his summons with unusual alacrity, and in reply to his inquiry, the servant, a newly-engaged one who had never seen him before, informed him that mr. and mrs. routh had "left," and were to be found at queen-street, mayfair. george stood, for a moment, irresolute in surprise, and the servant repeated the address, fancying he had not heard her. his face was towards the open door, and he turned his head sharply round, as a boy's voice said, in a peculiar pert tone which had an odd indefinite familiarity for his ear:
"any letters for mr. routh to-day, mary jane? 'cos, if so, hand 'em over."
the speaker was mr. james swain, who had come up behind george dallas unperceived, and who, when he saw the young man's face, gave an involuntary start, and dropped his saucy manner on the instant.
"yes, there's three letters and a circ'lar for mr. routh," replied mary jane, in a sulky tone; "and missis says as she hopes mr. routh will put his address in the paper or something, for people is always a comin' and makin' us think as they're lodgers." then with a glance at george, which seemed to imply that he might not have been considered ineligible in that capacity, mary jane went to get the letters, and dallas addressed jim swain. "are you going back to mr. routh's direct?" he asked. "yes, sir," answered jim. "i come every day, since they've been gone, to see after letters and messages."
"then you can take a message from me," said george, pointing the observation with a sixpence. "tell mr. routh mr. dallas has come to london, having heard bad news, and has gone to his mother's house. you won't forget?"
"no, sir, i won't forget," said jim, in a tone of satisfactory assurance.
"say i expect to get back to-morrow, and will come to see him at once. mr. dallas--that's my name, remember."
george then jumped into the hansom again, and was driven away to the railway station.
"mr. dallas," said jim swain to himself as he walked slowly down the street, carrying the letters confided to him by mary jane--"that's your name, is it? i wonder wot you've bin up to, and where you've bin up to it? i shall tell her the gent's message--not him."
the night had fallen upon the woods and fields of poynings, and no light gleamed from the stately old house, save one ray, which shone through the open window of the housekeeper's room. by the casement sat george dallas, his arm upon the window-sill, his head leaning against his hand, the cool fresh air of the summer night coming gratefully to his flushed and heated face. opposite, and close to him, sat mrs. brookes, still wearing, though their conference had lasted many hours, the look of agitation beyond the strength to bear it which is so painful to see on the faces of the aged. all had been explained between the old woman and the prodigal son of her beloved mistress, and the worst of her fears had been dispelled. george had not the guilt of murder on his soul. the chain of circumstances was indeed as strong as ever, but the old woman did not retain the smallest fear. his word had reassured her--indeed, the first glance at his face, in the midst of the terror and surprise of their meeting, had at once and for ever put her apprehensions to flight. innocence of that, at least, was in his face, in his hurried agitated greeting, in the bewilderment with which he heard her allusion to her letter, in his total unconsciousness of the various emotions which tore her heart among them. she saw, she foresaw, no explanation of the circumstances which had led to the fatal mistake she had made; she saw only that her boy was innocent, and the vastness, the intensity, of the relief sufficed, in the first moments of their meeting, to deprive it of the horror and bitterness with which, had she had any anticipation of such an event, she would have regarded it. but the first relief and the full explanation--all that george had to tell her, all she had to tell him--could not change the facts as regarded mrs. carruthers, could not alter the irrevocable, the miserable past.
when the first confusion, excitement, and incoherent mutual questioning had given way to a more settled and satisfactory conversation, mrs. brookes told george all that had occurred--the visit of the official gentleman from london, the servants' version of his business, the interview between mr. carruthers and evans, and the suspicion and fear, only too reasonable, to which all the unfortunate circumstances had given rise.
it was with the utmost difficulty that george arrived at a clear understanding of the old woman's narrative, and came to realize how overwhelming was the presumption against him. by degrees he began to recall the circumstances which had immediately preceded and followed his clandestine visit to poynings. he recalled the remarks he had heard at the mercury office; he remembered that there had been some talk of a murder, and that he had paid no attention to it, but had gone away as soon as possible, and never given the matter another thought. to find himself implicated in a crime of so terrible a nature, to find that circumstances had brought him in contact with such a deed, filled him with horror and stupefaction; to know that his mother had been forced to conceive such a suspicion was, even without the horrible addition of the effect produced on her, suffering far greater than any he had ever known. he felt giddy, sick, and bewildered, and could but look piteously at his faithful old friend, with a white face and wild haggard eyes.
"she believed it?" he said again and again.
"no, george, no; she only feared it, and she could not bear the fear; no wonder, for i could hardly bear it, and i am stronger than she is, and not your mother, after all. but just think, george. you bought the coat from evans, and the man who wore that coat was seen in the company of the murdered man the last time he was seen alive. i knew there must be some dreadful mistake. i knew you never lifted your hand against any man's life, and that some one else must have got possession of the coat; but your mother said no, that you had worn it when she saw you at amherst, and nothing could remove the impression. george, what did you do with the coat you bought at evans's?"
"i had it down here, sure enough," answered george, "and i did wear it when she last saw me. i left it at mr. routh's afterwards, by mistake, and took one of his abroad with me; but this is a horrid mystery altogether. who is the man who has been murdered? what is the motive?"
"i cannot tell you that, george," said mrs. brookes; "but i will give you the papers, and then you will know all, and you will understand how much she suffered."
the old woman left george alone for a few minutes, while she went to her bedroom to get the newspapers which she locked securely away at the bottom of a trunk. during her absence the young man strode about the room distractedly, trying in vain to collect his thoughts and set them down steadily to the solution of the terrible mystery which surrounded him.
"here they are, george," said ellen, as she entered the room and handed him a roll of newspapers. "sit down here, by the window, and try to read them quietly. i must leave you now, and tell the servants who you are, and that you are going to stay here to-night--there must be no concealment now; thank god, it's not wanted any longer. perhaps out of all this evil good may come, my boy."
he had sat down by the window, and was eagerly opening the roll of paper, and seeking the account of the murder. mrs. brookes paused by his side for a moment, laid her withered hand gently on his hair, and then left him. a moment after he started up from his chair, and cried out:
"good god! the man was deane!"
the shock of this discovery was extreme. wholly unable as he had been to account for the coincidence which mrs. brookes's imperfect story (for, like most persons of her class, she was an unskilful narrator of facts) had unfolded to him, he had never supposed his connection with it real, and now he saw it all, and in a moment perceived the gravity of his situation. the nameless man whom he had seen so often, and yet known so slightly; concerning whom he had speculated often and carelessly; whom no one had recognized; whose singular dress the waiter at the tavern had described in his evidence; the date; all was conclusive. the man murdered was deane. but who was the murderer? how was it that no one had recognized the body? with all his mysterious ways, in spite of the callous selfishness which had rendered him indifferent to companionship save in the mere pursuit of his pleasures, it seemed wonderful that no one should have been able to identify him.
"there's routh, now," said george to himself, "he must have heard of the finding of the body, he must have read the description of the dress; he may have seen the man's fur coat before, though i never did. to be sure, he did not dine with us that day, but he knew where deane dined and with whom. what can routh have been about?"
these and a thousand questions of a similar nature george dallas put to himself, without finding any answer to them, without stilling the tumult in his mind. he tried to arrange the circumstances in their order of occurrence, and to think them out, but in vain; he could not do so yet: all was confusion and vague horror. he had not liked this man. theirs had been the mere casual association of convenience and amusement--an association, perhaps, the foremost of all those which he was firmly determined never to renew; and yet he could not regard its dreadful ending with indifference. the life which had perverted george had not hardened him, and he could not readily throw off the impression created by the discovery that the man with whom he had joined in the pursuit of reckless and degrading pleasure had died a violent death within so short a time of their last meeting. when mrs. brookes came into the room again, the expression of the young man's face terrified her afresh.
"ellen," he said, "this is a dreadful business, apart from my unhappy complication with it, and what it has cost my dear mother. i knew this unhappy man; he was a mr. deane. i dined with him at that tavern in the strand. i did wear that coat. all the circumstances are correct, though all the inferences are false. i begin to understand it all now; but who can have murdered him, and for what motive, i cannot conceive. the most natural thing in the world was that they would suspect me, as the man who wore the coat. mr. evans will recognize me, no doubt, as he told mr. carruthers."
"no, no, george; the poor old man is dead," interrupted mrs. brookes.
"dead?" said george. "well, he seemed an honest fellow, and i am sorry for it; but it makes no difference in my position. when i communicate with the police, i will admit all he could prove."
"must you do that, george?" asked mrs. brookes, wistfully. she had a natural dread of the law in the abstract.
"of course i must, nurse; i can tell them who the unfortunate man was, and account for him up to a very late hour on the night of the seventeenth of april."
"take care, george," said the old woman. "if you can't account for yourself afterwards, you can't clear yourself."
the observation was shrewd and sensible. george felt it so, and said, "never mind that. i am innocent, and when the time comes i shall have no difficulty in proving myself innocent."
"you know best, george," said the old woman, with a resigned sigh; "but tell me, who was this poor man?"
"sit down and i will tell you all about it."
then george seated his old friend close beside him, and told her the whole story of his intercourse with stewart routh, of his knowledge of deane, his last meeting with him, their dinner together, the adjournment to the billiard-rooms, the money won by dallas from deane, and his leaving town early the next morning for amherst.
"that was the day they found the body, was it not?" asked mrs. brookes.
"let me see," said george; and he again referred to the newspapers.
"yes, it was on wednesday the eighteenth--in the evening. i was down at amherst then, nurse; that was the day i saw my mother last."
he sighed, but a smile stole over his face also. a cherished memory of that day abode in his heart.
then mrs. brookes questioned george concerning routh and his wife, and told him of harriet's visit, and all the emotion and fear which it had caused her. george was touched and grateful.
"that was like her," he said; "she is the truest of friends, a treasure among women. i wonder she did not write to me, though, when she sent on mr. carruthers's letter."
the observation passed unnoticed by mrs. brookes. had she asked when the letter had reached george, a discovery, dangerous to the interests of harriet and routh, might have been made; but she had very dim notions of continental places and distances, and the time consumed in postal transmission.
"they knew this poor man; did they not know that he was the murdered person?"
"no," said george, "they had no notion of it. how shocked they will be when i tell them of it! routh will be the best person in the world to tell me how to go about communicating with the police authorities. but now, ellen, tell me about my mother."
time went over, and the night fell, and the old woman and the young man still talked together, and she tried to comfort him, and make him believe that all would be well. but george was slow to take such comfort--full of remorse and self-condemnation, of gloom and foreboding. the mercurial temperament of the young man made him a bad subject for such suspense and self-reproach, and though he had no shadow of fear of any trouble to come to him from the evidence on the inquest, there was a dull brooding sense of apprehension over him, against which he had no power, no heart, to strive. so he listened to the story of his mother's illness and departure, the physicians' opinions, and mr. carruthers's plans for her benefit and comfort, and darker and darker fell the shadow upon his heart.
"we have had no news since they left paris," said mrs. brookes, in conclusion, "but i expect to see miss carruthers to-morrow. she will have a letter from her uncle."
"miss carruthers!" said george, lifting up his head with renewed animation. "has she not gone abroad with them?"
"no," said mrs. brookes; "she is staying at the sycamores, sir thomas boldero's place. sir thomas is her uncle on the mother's side. she rides over very often to see me, and i expect her tomorrow."
"at what hour does she generally come?" asked george,
"in the afternoon; after lunch."
"well, i shall be in london by that time, nurse; so there is no danger of my incurring my stepfather's wrath this time by an encounter with the heiress."
there was a momentary touch of bitterness in george's voice, but his slow sad smile contradicted it.
"ah, george!" said the old woman. "take heart. all will be well, and the time will come when you will be welcome here."
"perhaps so, nurse. in the mean time, you will let me know what news miss carruthers brings, and especially where my mother is, and their next move."
that night george dallas slept for the first time under the roof of the old house at poynings; but an early hour in the morning found him on his way back to town.
when clare carruthers, mounted on sir lancelot and escorted by c?sar, arrived at poynings on the following afternoon, she was surprised to find mrs. brookes looking well and cheerful. the girl had brought good news. mrs. carruthers had borne the journey well, and it was proposed that she should leave paris and proceed to the south of france after the interval of a week. clare roamed over the house and gardens as usual. she was beautiful as ever, but with a new and graver beauty than of old. there was no observant eye to mark the change, no kindred spirit to note and share the girl's trouble. she was quite alone. when she returned from her ramble, and while her horse was being brought round, she went to mrs. brookes's room to bid her good-bye. the old woman took two letters out of her desk, and said: "do you remember these letters, miss carruthers? you brought them to me when mrs. carruthers was first taken ill."
"yes, i remember. what of them?" clare answered, carelessly.
"will you have the kindness to enclose them in a large envelope, and direct them to mr. george dallas for me?"
"certainly," said clare; but she looked a little surprised, for mrs. brookes wrote remarkably well for a person of her class.
"i wrote to him lately," said mrs. brookes, "and the letter did not reach him; so i suppose i directed it indistinctly."
clare sat down at the table, and in a large bold hand wrote the address which harriet had given upon the envelope.
"you are sending mr. dallas these letters that he may read them, as his mother is unable?" asked clare, to whom the forbidden subject of mrs. carruthers's son always offered more or less temptation.
"yes, ma'am," replied the old woman; "i am pretty sure they come from mr. felton, and ought to be seen to."
"and who is mr. felton?" said clare, rising and laying down her pen. "i'll post them as i pass through the village," she added.
"mr. felton is mrs. carruthers's brother," said mrs. brookes. "he has been in america many years, but she said something lately about his coming home."
clare said no more, but took her leave, and went away. she posted the packet for george dallas at the village, and, as she rode on, her fair face bore the impress of a painful recollection. she was thinking of the morning on which she had ventured to send the warning to him who was so unworthy of the fancies she had cherished--him of whom she could not think without a shudder, of whom she hardly dared to think at all. when the post was delivered the following morning at the sycamores, a large packet was placed before miss carruthers. it was directed to her, and contained two numbers of the piccadilly, with two instalments of george's serial story, and on the fly leaf of one were the words, "from paul ward."
