geoffrey went slowly downstairs, reciting to himself exactly all he knew. one point was salient: mr. francis had certainly seen the broken sluice. and he entered the hall.
mr. francis had taken off his waterproof, and was sitting comfortably in a chair. he looked up with his cheery smile when geoffrey came in.
"ah! my dear boy," he said, "you were quite right not to come out. the weather was odious; i have never seen such rain. but one feels better, after all, for a breath of air."
"i preferred the house," said geoffrey. "was the water in the lake very high?"
"yes, it was a good deal swollen. in fact, it has carried away a considerable portion of the sluice. it must be seen to."
"a dangerous moment," observed geoffrey, picking up a magazine and turning over the pages.
"yes, i wish i had seen it go. a fine sight it must have been, six feet of water in that narrow channel. but we were on the way to the farm,[pg 303] i suppose, when it happened. i must talk—i must talk to harry about it this evening. it will want mending at once."
at this moment geoffrey heard harry's foot on the stairs just outside the hall. though he knew nothing of psychology, he believed this to be a psychological moment.
"is he out still?" he asked, seeing out of the corner of his eye that he was even now entering the hall.
"i suppose so," said mr. francis. "he left me on the way up to the farm."
harry had now entered the hall, and his step was noiseless on the thick carpet. mr. francis, with his chair facing the fire, could not see him, but another half-dozen paces would bring him close.
"you are wrong," said geoffrey slowly, "for he seems to have come in. this is he, is it not? or his ghost?"
mr. francis, contrary to the doctor's orders, made an exceedingly brisk movement, springing to his feet and facing about. he saw harry; he cast one brief look at geoffrey, to which fear and a devilish enmity contributed largely, and turned to his nephew again in perfect control of himself and without further hesitation. geoffrey had scarce time to tell himself that there was an awkward choice he had to make.
"ah! my dear boy," he cried, "so you are all right. i felt sure you would be. but for a moment, for one moment, i was anxious, when i[pg 304] came back from the farm with the men and we found the sluice broken."
geoffrey stared in sheer astonishment at the man's glibness.
"with the men?" he asked. "surely not."
"dear fellow," said mr. francis, with the most natural manner, "how pedantically exact you are! i must be exact, too, it seems. i was a little ahead of them, for i ran back from the farm, being just a little uneasy about the weight of water that i knew must be pressing on the sluice. i thought, indeed, that when harry made his first attempt to pull it up, it was a little unsafe for any one to stand there."
suddenly all his doubts and certainties surged up in geoffrey's mind.
"did you warn him?" he asked.
geoffrey saw harry's eyebrows knit themselves together in a frown of perplexity which he could not decipher. but mr. francis turned to him with the eagerness of a boy anxious to confess.
"i did not," he said, "and all the time that i was going to the farm the thing weighed on me. i ought to have—i ought to have given way to my old-maid feeling of insecurity. but i was afraid—yes, dear lad, i was afraid harry would laugh at me. ah, how i repented my silence when i came back and found the sluice gone—gone!" he repeated.
"yes, it went," said harry. "i went too."
mr. francis looked at him a moment with[pg 305] eyes of horror diminishing to a pin point; then he gave a little low cry and sank down in his chair again.
"what do you say? what do you say?" he murmured. "you were there; you were——"
"oh, the sluice broke as i was standing on it, having another pull at the wooden gate, as you suggested, and down i went," said harry. "the flood took me right under the bridge, rather a difficult matter, and a quarter of a mile farther down. then i got out."
mr. francis lifted up his hands in a weary, uncertain manner.
"under the bridge—under the bridge!" he said hoarsely.
"it would not take him over," remarked geoffrey.
mr. francis seemed not to hear this comment.
"what can i say?" he cried. "what can i say or do? and to think that it was my fault! i ought to have warned you; i ought to have been on the safe side. i did not with my reasonable mind think that there was any danger, but i was uneasy. harry, do not blame me too much: i remember advising you one day last winter when you came in wet from shooting, to go and change, and indeed, my dear boy, you did not receive my advice very patiently. i thought of that; i thought i would not weary you with my meddling misgivings."
"i don't blame you in the least, uncle francis," said harry. "you didn't think the sluice[pg 306] looked sufficiently unsafe to make it better that you should warn me. i also did not realize that it was in a dangerous condition. there is no harm done."
"i can not forgive myself," said mr. francis.
harry laughed.
"ah! there i can not help you," he said. "for my own part i can only assure you that there is nothing to forgive. there, that's all right," he added rather gruffly, desiring to have no scene.
geoffrey had listened to this with a look of pleased attention, as a man may regard a little scene in a play, which he knows well. mr. francis had been through his part with great dexterity: here another actor—himself—should appear.
"and now for your story, mr. francis," he said very cheerfully, "as harry will not give us curdling details. let me see: you went to the farm, and ran back again, and i saw you go to the sluice. you found it gone. dear, dear, how terrible for you! so you came quietly back to the house and sat yourself down in front of the fire, where i found you ten minutes ago."
mr. francis looked up with a scared eye.
"i hoped and trusted no accident had happened to him," he said. "i came to the house to make sure that he was safe. ah! i can not talk of it, i can not talk of it," he cried suddenly.
"but ten minutes ago you told me that you supposed that harry was still out," persisted geoffrey. "what a strange thing is the human[pg 307] mind! here, for instance, i do not follow your thoughts at all. you were uneasy for harry's safety, for fear of the sluice giving way, and as soon as you saw for certain that it had given way, you felt no further anxiety. you sat here in front of the fire, though, as you told me, you supposed harry was out still."
mr. francis rose from his chair in great agitation.
"what do you mean? what are you saying?" he cried in a high, tremulous voice. "do you know what your words mean?"
"my words mean exactly what they appear to mean," said geoffrey quietly, feeling that the signal had been given and the time was come. "hear me: how curious a thing, i said, is the human mind! the sluice you thought looked a little unsafe, and you were uneasy for harry's safety as you went to the farm, for he was making at your suggestion an attempt to raise the wooden gate. you come back, and find symptoms of the confirmation of your fears: the sluice is broken. harry is not there. then you walk quietly back to the house, and tell me you suppose that harry is out still. i repeat that i do not follow your train of thought. it is curious.—harry, does not this seem to you also to be curious?"
harry looked from one to the other a moment, puzzled and bewildered. geoffrey spoke so quietly and collectedly that it was impossible not to listen calmly to what he said, impossible also not to understand what he meant. on the[pg 308] other hand, he was saying things that were absolutely incredible. from geoffrey he looked to mr. francis, who was standing between them. the old man's mouth quivered, his agitation was momentarily increasing. then suddenly he recollected the doctor's warning that all agitation was bad for him, and he was his uncle, his friend, and an old man.
"stop, geoffrey!" he cried; "don't speak.—uncle francis, don't listen to him: he doesn't mean what you think he means. there is some ghastly misunderstanding.—geoff, you damned idiot!"
mr. francis's face grew paler and more mottled, his breathing was growing short and laboured, and harry was in an agony of terror that another of those awful seizures would come upon him. but in a moment he spoke, slowly, and with little pauses for breath.
"harry," he said, "either your friend—apologizes unreservedly for—what he has said—or one of us—leaves the house—now, this evening. it will be for you—to decide—which of us leaves it."
at these words another terror seized harry—the terror of the precipice at the edge of which all three of them stood. whatever happened now, it seemed to him, a catastrophe must be: one friend or the other (and as he thought of the two, his mind veered backward and forward like a shifting weathercock) must go. but the primary necessity was, by any means in his power, to stop further words just now, for he feared each moment[pg 309] that mr. francis would be seized as he stood.
"uncle francis, come away," he said, taking his arm, "you are agitated; so is geoffrey; so am i. it is no use talking about a thing in heat. wait, just wait.—geoffrey, if you say another word i'll knock your silly head off!"
but mr. francis regarded his nephew no more than he regarded the fly that buzzed in the pane.
"what do you mean?" he said, coming closer to geoffrey and shaking off harry's hand; "what do you mean by what you have just said? apologize for it instantly; do you hear? indeed, it seems to me that i am very good-natured to be willing to accept an apology."
harry put in a word he knew to be hopeless.
"go on, geoff," he said, impatiently, anxious for the moment only about his uncle. "uncle francis has understood what you said in some different way from what you meant. i don't know what it's all about, but let's have no more nonsense."
geoffrey turned on that eager face but an absent and staring eye, hardly hearing his words, for they called up nothing whatever in his mind which answered to them—only collecting himself to speak fully and without excitement. he hardly gave a thought to how harry might take it, so large and immediate was the need of speaking, so tremendous the part in this horrible nightmare inevitably his.
"i do not apologize," he said, "not only because[pg 310] i do not wish to, but because i am simply unable. i indorse every word i have said. i have also more to say. will you hear it, harry? i should prefer to tell you alone, but i suppose that is impossible."
"quite impossible, i assure you, you young viper!" said mr. francis, in a voice so cool and self-contained that harry looked at him in utter surprise. the bursting agitation of a few minutes ago had passed; his voice, horrid and cold, was the faithful index of his face. and at his words harry suddenly saw the futility of trying to interfere. the thing was gone beyond his reach; it was as impossible now to stop what was coming as it would have been to stop that hustling flood from the lake by a word to it. he waited, frozen almost to numbness with dread and nauseous misgiving for what should follow, till geoffrey, in response to mr. francis's assurance, spoke.
"your uncle," he said, "has for months past been plotting and scheming against you, your happiness, your life. he tried in the first place, by every means in his power, to prevent your marriage with miss aylwin. on the sunday last june when she was down here they walked in the wood together, and saw——"
"i know all about that," said harry.
"i doubt it. do you know, for instance, that mr. francis tried to persuade miss aylwin to overlook the fact that she had seen you walking with a dairymaid? do you know that he never suggested to her that the supposed 'you' might[pg 311] be jim, that he told her that all 'your previous little foolishness'—the exact phrase—had been quite innocent? i think you did not know that."
the whole scene still seemed utterly unreal to harry; he could not believe that it was going on. he turned to his uncle.
"well?" he said.
"ah, i am on my trial then!" said mr. francis, very evilly. "harry, my dear boy, it is only because this fellow has been your friend that i stop and listen to these monstrous insinuations. i am asked, i believe, what i have to say to this. well, what has been said is literally true. i mistook the groom for you. so did miss aylwin. we both made a mistake. as for 'previous little foolishnesses,' that of course is a pure invention on the part of some imaginative person."
"miss aylwin told lady oxted; lady oxted told me," said geoffrey, as quietly as if he was giving a reference to some small point of business.
mr. francis just shrugged his shoulders.
"i remember last winter," he said, "that we used to play a very diverting game called russian scandal."
"the next move you know, harry," continued geoffrey, still taking the smallest notice of mr. francis. "he wrote to tell you that miss aylwin was already engaged."
harry wore an inscrutable face.
"go on," he said.
"that also did not come off," said geoffrey, "and you were engaged. ten days ago we came[pg 312] down here. on the first morning you asked mr. francis which of the two houses on the knoll was the ice house and which the summerhouse——"
"ah, you have broken your word to me!" cried harry. "you promised to keep that secret from my uncle."
a violent trembling had seized mr. francis.
"what! what!" he murmured, half rising from his chair.
"i have broken my word to you," said geoffrey, still seemingly unconscious of the presence of a third person. "i am sorry, but i can not help it. you followed the directions he gave you, and nearly met your death. we came back together, and found him playing the flute in the garden, dancing to it as he played. then you went into the house. i remained outside and watched him. he went up the knoll to the two houses, and tried the door of the ice house. he found it locked, opened the summerhouse and looked in. try to reconstruct what was in his mind. he made no allusion to his mistake. had he already forgotten that he had given you a direction that nearly sent you to your death? or was the mistake yours? he told you to go to the left hand of the two houses, so you said to me. is that the case?"
harry did not at once reply; he looked eagerly, imploringly at his friend, but he could find no words to express a feeling he could not comprehend; he did not know, ever so vaguely, what[pg 313] he thought. in despair and utter perplexity he faced quickly round to his uncle. mr. francis was sitting with half-closed eyes; his hands, like the hands of a blind man, groped and picked at the buttons in the arm of his chair, stricken, helpless. suddenly, as if with a drowning effort, he threw his head back and saw harry.
"no, no," he said, "not the left hand, not the left hand! i never said that. oh, the luck, the cursed, cursed luck! i could not—indeed, i could not have said the left hand. 'do not go to the left hand by mistake'; i can hear myself saying the words now. oh, weary, weary day! but you went there, you went to the ice house instead of the summerhouse; you went from the brightness of god's sunshine into the dark—to that edge—to the edge of the well. o my god! my god! eli! eli!" and the cry was wrung from him like water from a twisted cloth.
the old man buried his face in his hands, collapsing like a broken doll. he regarded neither harry nor his accuser; the anguish of his spirit covered him like a choking wave, and into it he went down without a struggle, but only that moaning sob, a sight and a sound to stagger the unbelief of an infidel. and harry—no infidel, but a lad of kindly heart and generous impulse, quick to believe good, a laggard to impute harm—could not but be moved.
geoffrey neither looked at the bowed figure nor wavered, and his face was flint. but though that moaning cry, that passionate incoherence did[pg 314] not move him, yet the sight of harry's face, with its bewilderment of perplexity and compassionate trouble, filled him with a sudden fear. to himself, that bent and venerable head was a mockery of grief, a fraud finished and exquisite, and he was more afraid of harry's divided mind, on which mr. francis played as on an instrument of music, than he had been of the evil and hunted face that had come down from the gun room, as he stood behind the curtain, in those dead hours ten days ago.
mr. francis sat huddled in his chair, his face invisible, his fingers clasped in his white head, and long, dry sobs lifted and relaxed his figure, like the pulsation of a wave. and though geoffrey, so few minutes ago, had turned himself to steel, he could not go on speaking with that silent stricken figure in front of him. the low, heart-broken murmuring, the silent sobs, filched resolution from him. once and twice he began to speak, but no sentence would come. as many times he told himself that he must go on, that he knew that this feigned anguish was a thing to awake horror or laughter, but never pity. yet it affected him as a scene in the play affects the stalls. it was all unreal, he knew it was unreal, yet he could not immediately speak. suddenly, and long before—it seemed while he was still cursing his infirmity of purpose—harry came to his side.
"go away, geoff; go away," he whispered. "leave me with him. whatever you have to[pg 315] say, you can not and must not say it now. look there and judge! it may kill him. go away, there's a good fellow!"
he got up at once: that was enough. harry was still willing to hear him, now or at another time, it did not matter. all he wanted was that harry should hear him to the end, and then his part was done. exposure—there was no pleasure in the act of it; he only wanted that it should be there. truly the man was vile, and an enemy, but he did not covet the post of executioner as such. by him, it is true, justice was done, the murderer was put out of a world with the welfare of which his presence was incompatible, and a man to do it there must be, but who did not shudder at the shadow of the hangman? that dry, inarticulate sobbing, which he had no need to tell himself was but a counterfeit grief, yet wore the respectable semblance of woe. what, again, if remorse had at length touched mr. francis? what if the imminence of his exposure had at last revealed to him his immeasurable enormity? if such a possibility was within the range of the most distant horizon, how contemptible would be his own part in trampling in a truth that was realized! all that was generous within him, and there was nothing that was not, revolted from so despicable a r?le.
but against that possibility how large and near loomed the probability that these grovelling pangs were but of the same texture as the rest! no, he was not taken in; he registered privately[pg 316] the unalterable conviction that mr. francis was mr. francis still, for no opprobrious word conveyed to him half the horror of all which that canonized name implied. yet harry was by him, asking him, not bidding him to go. that was sufficient; and even as he told himself it was sufficient, back swung the balance again. what duty could be more obvious, more staring than to finish now, at once, with that ineffable old man? yet he sat there sobbing. and without another word geoffrey turned and went, leaving uncle and nephew together.
it was not long before harry joined him in the smoking room.
"uncle francis has gone to his room," he said. "he is quieter now; i could leave him safely. but i have telegraphed for the doctor; i daren't take the responsibility of not sending for him. he kept asking me one question, geoff; he kept repeating and repeating it: which of you two is to go. he says he will not stop here another night if you remain here. god knows whether i have decided right!"
"it is i who go, you mean?" said geoffrey.
"yes, it is you."
harry sat down wearily, as if tired out; that, too, was his prevailing feeling; body and mind were dead beat. geoffrey rose.
"since that is so," he said, "i ask you, before i go, to hear the rest of my story—indeed, i must tell it you. then i shall have done all i can. oh, it will not take long," he added, with a sudden[pg 317] inexpressible bitterness. "in half an hour i shall be gone!"
harry sprung up as if he had been stung.
"i do not deserve that from you, geoff," he said. "do you think i want to get rid of you? do you think it is fine fun for me to tell you to go? i am not conscious of any great pleasure in it."
"no, i am sorry," said geoffrey. "i had no business to say that or to think that. but—o harry, before i go, for the dear lord's sake, hear me! i have not been speaking idly. do you think, in turn, that it is fine fun for me to get up and bring these awful accusations against mr. francis?"
"of course i don't. but the whole thing i have to put on one side for the present. uncle francis will not stop in the house while you are here, geoff, and i can not let him go, whatever the truth may be, while he is like this. i dreaded every moment that a seizure might come on him again. besides, he is an old man; he is my uncle. for the present, then, i am like this: i neither believe what you have told me nor do i disbelieve it; i put it aside; though, before long, when my uncle is recovered, i shall have to do the one or the other. either i shall believe, be convinced you are right, and then god knows what i shall do, or i shall think your accusations wild and incredible, and, i warn you, too infinitely base for words. and then, too," he added, suddenly, "god knows what i shall do! but at present, as[pg 318] i tell you, there is no question of that. my certain and immediate duty is to look after uncle francis."
"i ask you then, before i go," said geoffrey, "to hear the remainder of what i have to say."
"certainly; but whatever you tell me, i shall not attempt to judge of it now. you had just spoken about the confusion which came in somewhere between the ice house and the summerhouse."
so geoffrey told him of the loop of cotton he had found round the post of the gun rack; of mr. francis's visit to the gun room, and finally of his own finding him in the afternoon, after the breaking of the sluice, sitting before the fire in the hall "supposing" that harry had not yet come in. and harry heard in silence and without comment.
"that is all?" he asked, when geoffrey had finished. "you are sure there is nothing more? you are sure, also, you have been exact throughout?"
"that is all," said geoffrey, "and i have been exact."
"then, dear old boy," said harry, "let us for the present put it from our minds. your carriage will be round in ten minutes; i told them to pack for you. and tell me that you agree with me when i have to ask you to go. i feel—i know—that i can not do otherwise."
"yes, you are right, and god guard you!" said geoffrey.
[pg 319]
then suddenly the whole flood of fears and suspicions and certainties surged in his mind together and overflowed it. he was leaving harry alone with that hellish man. who knew what he might not attempt next? every fibre in his being cried aloud to him that danger of subtle and deadly sort hung suspended over harry, imminent to fall so long as that white-haired old man was under the same roof. but what could he do? he could not force harry to see the clearness of that which was so clear to him; he could not even make him exercise his judgment upon it. and his anxiety for him broke bounds.
"yes, you are right," he said. "but i can not persuade myself that i am right to go. o harry! i ask you once again, do you tell me to go?"
harry got up and leaned his head on the chimney-piece.
"don't make it harder for me, geoff," he said.
here was a ray of hope.
"i will make it as hard as i can," said geoffrey. "i appeal to anything that will move you. we are old friends, harry. wiser and better friends you will find, but none more faithful. you are doing a cruel thing."
harry turned round suddenly.
"stop," he said. "i tell you to go. o geoff! who is doing the cruel thing? you know—o my god! won't this nightmare cease?"
geoffrey saw his lips quivering; his own also[pg 320] were not steady. he came close to him, and laid his hands on his shoulders.
"what have we done, harry," he said, "that this should happen to us? you have answered me. but promise me one thing. i insist on that."
"i will promise you anything you think right to ask me, geoff," said he, "and you know it, provided only it does not make me cancel what i have said, and what i have decided to do."
"it does not. it is simply this: three times within the last ten days you have been in imminent danger. god knows what it all means, but it is certain that many dangers surround you on all sides. i ask you to promise to be careful. i don't ask you to consider all i have told you now; you must do that when you feel that you can. you promise me this?"
"willingly."
"and let it be soon that you consider what i have said. judge the thing as you would judge for another, and god send you the right judgment! that is all i want."
"amen to that," said harry.
