Wyllard's Weird

For the last year it had been his custom to receive the sacrament on the first Sunday of the month. He had risen early, and had walked across the dewy fields to the old parish church, and had knelt among the people who knew him, and had felt himself all the better for that mystic office, even when things were going far from well with him. There was much that was blameworthy in his life; yet he had not felt himself too base a creature to kneel among his fellow-sinners at the altar of the Sinner's Friend.

It was a shock, therefore, to receive a letter from the Rector on the last day of August, requesting him to absent himself from the communion service on the following Sunday, lest his presence before that altar should be a scandal to the other communicants.

"God forbid that I should condemn any man unheard," wrote the Rector; "but you can hardly be unaware of the terrible scandal attaching to your name. You have not come to me, as I hoped you would come, to explain the conduct which has given rise to that scandal. You have taken no step to set yourself right before your fellow-men. Can you wonder that your own silence has been in somewise your condemnation? My duty to my flock compels me to warn you that, until you have taken some steps to free your character from the shadow that now darkens it, you must not approach the altar of your parish church.

"If you will come to me, and open your heart to me, as the sinner should to his priest, I may be able to counsel and to help you. If you can clear yourself to me, I will be your advocate with your fellow-parishioners. – Always your friend,

"JOHN MONKHOUSE."

"He did wisely to write," said Bothwell, crushing the letter in his clenched fist. "If he had spoken such words as those to me, I believe I should have knocked him down, priest though he is."

He answered the Rector's letter within an hour after receiving it.

"I have nothing to confess," he wrote, "and that is why I have not gone to your confessional. The difficulties and perplexities of my life are such as could only be understood by a man of my own age and surroundings. They would be darker than Sanscrit to clerical gray hairs.

"Because I did not choose to answer questions which I could not answer without betraying the confidence of a friend, my wise fellow-parishioners have agreed to suspect me of murdering a girl whose face I never saw till after her death.

"I shall attend to receive the sacrament at the eight-o'clock service next Sunday, and I dare you to refuse to administer it. – I have the honour to be, yours, &c.

BOTHWELL GRAHAME."

He walked to Bodmin and delivered his letter at the Rectory door. He would not run the risk of an hour's delay. On his way home he overtook Hilda, near the gates of The Spaniards. She was very pale when they met, and she grew still paler as they shook hands.

After a word or two of greeting, they walked on side by side in silence.

"I wonder that you can consent to be seen with me," said Bothwell presently, after a farmer's wife had driven past them on her way from market. "You must have heard by this time what people think about me – your brother foremost among them, I believe, for he has given me the cut direct more than once since the inquest."

"I am sorry that he should be so ready to believe a lie," said Hilda, "for I know that this terrible slander is a lie."

"God bless you for those straight, strong words, Hilda!" exclaimed Bothwell fervently. "Yes, it is a lie. I am not a good man. I have taken one false step in my life, and the consequences of that mistake have been very heavy upon me. But I am not capable of the kind of wickedness which my Bodmin friends put down to me. I have not risen to the sublimer heights of crime. I am not up to throwing a fellow-creature out of a railway-carriage."

"Why did you not answer that man's questions at the inquest?" asked Hilda urgently, forgetting that she had hardly the right to demand his confidence. "That refusal of yours is the cause of all this misery. It seems such a foolish, obstinate act on your part."

"I daresay it does. But I could not do more or less than I did. To have answered that inquisitive cur's prying questions categorically would have been to injure a lady. As a man of honour, I was bound to run all risks rather than do that."

"I begin to understand," said Hilda, blushing crimson.

Why had she not guessed his secret long before this? she asked herself. The mystery that surrounded him was the mystery of some fatal love-affair. She was only a secondary person in his life. There was another who had been more to him than she, Hilda, could ever be – another to whom he was bound, for whom he was willing to sacrifice his own character. She felt a jealous pang at the mere thought of that unknown one.

"No, you can never understand," exclaimed Bothwell passionately. "You can never imagine the misery of a man who has bound himself by a fatal tie which chains him to one woman, long after his heart has gone out to another. I gave away my liberty while I was in India, Hilda: pledged myself to one who could give me but little in return for my faith and devotion. I dare not tell you the circumstances of that bondage – the fatality which led to that accursed engagement. I am desperate enough to break the tie, now that it is too late, now that I dare not offer myself to the girl I love, now that my name is blasted for ever. Yes, for ever. I know these narrow-minded rustics, and that to the end of my life I shall in their sight bear the brand of Cain. Here is a fine example of liberal feeling, Hilda."

He handed her the Rector's letter, crumpled in his angry grasp.

She read it slowly, tears welling up to her eyes as she read. How hardly the world was using this poor Bothwell! and the harder he was used the more she loved him.

"What are you going to do?" she asked.

"I shall kneel before the altar of my God, as I have knelt before."

"There will at least be one communicant there who will not shrink from you," said Hilda softly. "We will kneel side by side, if you like."

"God bless you, my darling. God help me to clear my name from this foul stain which fools have cast upon it; and then a day may come when you and I may kneel before that altar, side by side, and I may be thrice blest in winning you for my wife."

There was a brief silence before Hilda murmured, "You have told me that you are bound to another."

"Yes, and I have told you that I will break through that bondage."

"Can you do so with honour?"

"Yes. It will be more honourable to cancel my vow than to keep it; and when I am a free man – when this shadow has been cleared from my name – will you take me for your husband, Hilda – a man with his way to make in the world, but needing only such an inducement as your love to undertake the labours of a modern Hercules? Will you have me, Hilda, when I am my own man again?"

"I will," answered Hilda softly, yet with a firm faith that thrilled him. "I shall have to brave my brother's anger, perhaps; but I will not wait till your name is cleared from this slander. Of what use is fair-weather love? It is in storm and cloud that a woman's faith should be firmest. When you have freed yourself from that old tie which has grown a weariness to you, when you can come to me in all truth and honour, my heart shall answer frankly and fully, Bothwell. And then you can tell all our friends that we are engaged. It may be a very long engagement, perhaps. I shall not be of age till two years hence, you know; but that does not matter. People will know at least that I do not suspect you of a crime."

"My noble girl!" he cried, beside himself with joy.

Never had he thought to find any woman so frank, so generous, so brave. He would have caught her in his arms, pressed her to his passionately beating heart, but she drew herself away from him with a decisive gesture.

"Not until you are free, Bothwell; not until you can tell me that the old tie is broken. Till then we can be only friends."

"Be it so," he answered submissively. "Your friendship is worth more to me than the love of other women. Will you walk to Penmorval with me? Dora has been wondering at your desertion."

"Not to-day. Please tell Dora that I have not been very well. I will go to see her to-morrow. Good-bye, Bothwell."

"Good-bye, my beloved."

They parted at the gate of The Spaniards.

CHAPTER VII.

A RAPID CONVERSION

Three days after that compact between Bothwell and Hilda, an officious friend went out of his way to inform Mr. Heathcote that his sister and Mr. Grahame had been seen together several times of late, and that their manner indicated a more than ordinary degree of intimacy. They had been observed together at the early service on Sunday morning; they had sat in the same pew; they had walked away from the church side by side – indeed, Mr. Heathcote's friend believed they had actually walked to The Spaniards together.

"It is a shame that such a man as Grahame should be allowed to be on intimate terms with an innocent girl," said the worthy rustic, in conclusion.

"My dear Badderly, I hope I am able to take care of my sister without the help of all Bodmin," retorted Heathcote shortly. "Everybody is in great haste to condemn Mr. Grahame; but you must not forget that my sister and I have been intimate with him and his family for years. We cannot be expected to turn our backs upon him all at once, because his conduct happens to appear somewhat mysterious."

Notwithstanding which kindly word for Bothwell, Edward Heathcote went straight home and questioned his sister as to her dealings with that gentleman.

Hilda admitted that she had seen Mr. Grahame two or three times within the last week, and that she had allowed him to walk home with her after the early service.

"Do you think it wise or womanly to advertise your friendship with a man who is suspected of a most abominable crime?" asked her brother severely.

"I think it wise and womanly to be true to my friends in misfortune – in unmerited misfortune," she answered firmly.

"You are very strong in your faith. And pray what do you expect will be the end of all this?"

"I expect – I hope – that some day I shall be Bothwell's wife. I shall not be impatient of your control, Edward. I am only nineteen. I hope during the next two years you will find good reason to change your opinion about Bothwell, and to give your consent to our marriage – "

"And if I do not?"

"If you do not, I must take advantage of my liberty, when I come of age, and marry him without your consent."

"You have changed your tune, Hilda. A week ago you told me that you and Bothwell would never be married. Now, you boldly announce your betrothal to him."

"We are not betrothed – yet."

"O, there is a preliminary stage, is there? A kind of purgatory which precedes the heaven of betrothal. Hilda, you are doing a most ill-advised and unwomanly thing in giving encouragement to this man, in spite of your brother's warning."

"Am I to be unjust because my brother condemns a friend unheard? Believe me, Edward, my instinct is wiser than your experience. Why do you not question Bothwell? He will answer you as frankly as he answered me. He will tell you his reasons for refusing to satisfy that London lawyer's curiosity. O Edward, how can you be so cruel as to doubt him, to harden your heart against him and against me?"

"Not against you, my darling," her brother answered tenderly. "If I thought your happiness were really at stake, that your heart were really engaged, I would do much: but I can but think you are carried away by a mistaken enthusiasm. You would never have cared for Grahame if the world had not been against him; if he had not appeared to you as a martyr."

"You are wrong there, Edward," she answered shyly, her fingers playing nervously with the collar of his coat, the darkly-fringed eyelids drooping over the lovely gray eyes. "I have liked him for a long time. Last winter we used to hunt together a good deal, you know – "

"I did not know, or I should have taken care to prevent it," said Heathcote.

"O, it was always accidental, of course," she apologised. "But in a hunting country, the fast-goers generally get together, don't they?"

"In your case there was some very fast-going, evidently."

"I used to think then that Bothwell cared for me – just a little. And then there came a change. But I know the reason of that change now; and I know that he really loves me."

"O, you are monstrous wise, child, and monstrous self-willed for nineteen years old," said her brother, in those deep grave tones of his, a voice which gave weight and power to lightest words, "and you would take your own road in life without counting the cost. Well, Hilda, for your sake I will try to get at the root of this mystery. I will try to fathom your lover's secret; and God grant I may discover that it is a far less guilty secret than I have deemed."

He kissed Hilda's downcast brow and left her. She was crying; but her tears were less bitter than they had been, for she felt that her brother was now on her side; and Edward Heathcote's championship was a tower of strength.

Once having pledged himself to anything, even against his own convictions, Heathcote was the last man to go from his word; but if he needed a stronger inducement than his sister's sorrowful pleading, that inducement was offered.

He received a note from Dora Wyllard within a few hours of his conversation with Hilda.

"Dear Mr. Heathcote, – My husband and I have both been wondering at your desertion of us. For my own part I want much to see you, and to talk to you upon a very painful subject. Will you call at Penmorval after your ride to-morrow afternoon, and let me have a few words with you alone?

"Always faithfully yours,

"DOROTHEA WYLLARD."

He kissed the little note before he laid it carefully in a drawer of his writing-table. It was a foolish thing to do, but the act was quite involuntary and half unconscious. The sight of that handwriting brought back the feeling of that old time when a letter from Dora meant so much for him. He had trained himself to think of her as another man's wife – to consider himself her friend, and her friend only. He felt himself bound in honour so to think; all the more because he was admitted to her home, because she was not afraid to call him friend. Yet there were moments when the old feeling came over him with irresistible force.

He did not ride that afternoon, but walked across the fields, and presented himself at Penmorval between four and five o'clock. Mrs. Wyllard was alone in her morning-room, a room in which everything seemed part of herself – her favourite books, her piano, her easel – all the signs of those pursuits which he remembered as the delight of her girlhood.

"You paint still, I see," he said, glancing at the easel, on which there was an unfinished picture of a beloved Blenheim spaniel; "you have not forgotten your old taste for animals."

"I have so much leisure," she answered somewhat sadly; and then he remembered her childless home.

She was very pale, and he thought she had a careworn look, as of one who had spent anxious days and sleepless nights. He took the chair to which she motioned him, and they sat opposite each other for some moments in silence, she looking down and playing nervously with a massive ivory paper-knife which was lying on the table at which she had been writing when he entered. Suddenly she lifted her eyes to his face – pathetic eyes which had looked at him once before in his life with just that appealing look.

"It is very cruel of you to believe my cousin guilty of murder," she said, coming straight to the point. "You knew my mother. Surely you must know our race well enough to know that it does not produce murderers."

"Who told you that I believed such a thing?"

"Your own actions have told me. Bothwell has been cut by the people about here; and you, who should have been his staunch friend and champion, you have kept away from Penmorval as if this house were infected, in order to avoid meeting my cousin."

"I cannot tell you a lie, Mrs. Wyllard, even to spare your feelings," replied Heathcote, deeply moved, "and yet I think you must know that I would do much to save you pain. Yes, I must admit that it has seemed to me that circumstances pointed to your cousin, as having been directly or indirectly concerned in that girl's death. His conduct became so strange at that date – so difficult to account for upon any other hypothesis."

"Has your experience of life never made you acquainted with strange coincidences?" asked Dora. "Is it impossible, or even improbable, that Bothwell should have some trouble upon his mind – a trouble which arose just about the time of that girl's death? Everything must have a date; and his anxieties happen to date from that time. I know his frank open nature, and how heavily any secret would weigh upon him."

"You believe, then, that he has a secret?"

"Yes – there is something – some entanglement which prevented his answering Mr. Distin's very impertinent questions."

"Has he confided his trouble to you? Has he convinced you of his innocence?"

"He had no occasion to do that. I never believed him guilty – I never could believe him guilty of such a diabolical crime."

Tears came into her eyes as she spoke, but she dried them hastily.

"Mr. Heathcote, you are a lawyer, a man of the world, a man of talent and leisure. You have been one of the first to do my kinsman a cruel wrong. Cannot you do something towards righting him? I am making this appeal on my own account – without Bothwell's knowledge. I come to you as the oldest friend I have – the one friend outside my own home in whom I can fully confide."

"You know that I would give my life in your service," he answered, with suppressed fervour. He dared not trust himself to say much. "Yes, you have but to command me. I will do all that human intelligence can do. But this is a difficult case. The only evidence against your cousin is of so vague a nature that it could not condemn him before a jury; and yet that evidence is strong enough to brand him as a possible murderer in the opinion of those who saw him under Distin's examination. He can never be thoroughly rehabilitated until the mystery of that girl's death has been fathomed, and I doubt if that will ever be. Where Joseph Distin has failed, with all the detective-police of London at his command, how can any amateur investigator hope to succeed?"

"Friendship may succeed where mere professional cleverness has been baffled," argued Dora. "I do not think that Mr. Distin's heart was in this case. At least that is the impression I derived from a few words which I heard him say to my husband just before he left us."

"Indeed! Can you recall those words?"

"Very nearly. He said he had done his best in the matter, and should not attempt to go further. And then with his cynical air he added, 'Let sleeping dogs lie, Wyllard. That is a good old saying.'"

"Don't you think that sounds rather as if he suspected your kinsman, and feared to bring trouble on your family by any further investigation?"

"It never struck me in that light," exclaimed Dora, with a distressed look. "Good heavens! is all the world so keen to suspect an innocent man? If you only knew Bothwell as I know him, you would be the first to laugh this cruel slander to scorn."

"For your sake I will try and believe in him as firmly as you do," answered Heathcote, "and as Wyllard does, no doubt."

Her countenance fell, and she was silent.

"Your husband knows of this cloud upon your cousin's name, I suppose?" interrogated Heathcote, after a pause.

"Yes, I told him how Bothwell had been treated by his Bodmin acquaintance."

"And he was as indignant as you were, I conclude?"

"He said very little," answered Dora, with a pained expression. "My regard for Bothwell is the only subject upon which Julian and I have ever differed. He has been somewhat harsh in his judgment of my cousin ever since his return from India. He disapproved of his leaving the army, and he has been inclined to take a gloomy view of his prospects from the very first."

"I see. He has not a high opinion of Bothwell's moral character?"

"I would hardly say that. But he is inclined to judge my cousin's errors harshly, and he does not understand his noble qualities as I do. I should not have been constrained to ask for your help, if Julian had been as heartily with me in this matter as he has been, in all other things."

Edward Heathcote's bronzed cheek blanched ever so little at this speech. It moved him deeply to think that in this one anxiety of her loving heart he could be more to Dora Wyllard than her husband, that she could turn to him in this trouble, with boundless confidence in his friendship. What would he not do to merit such confidence, to show himself worthy of such trust? Already he was prepared to be Bothwell's champion; he was angry with himself for ever having suspected him.

"I had another motive for appealing to you," continued Dora shyly. "I have reason to think that Bothwell is very fond of Hilda, and the dearest wish of my life is to see those two united."

"A wish which is in a fair way of being gratified," answered Heathcote. "My sister announced to me only yesterday that there is some kind of contingent engagement between her and Mr. Grahame; and that, he being free to wed her, she means to marry him when she comes of age, with or without my consent."

"My noble Hilda!" exclaimed Dora; "yes, it is just like her to accept him now when all the world is against him."

"Say that it is just like a woman," said Heathcote. "There is a leaven of Quixotism in all your sex, from the Queen to the wife-beater's victim in Seven Dials. Well, dear Mrs. Wyllard, for your sake and for Hilda's, I will be Quixotic. I will make it the business of my life to discover the mystery of that unknown girl's fate. I will pledge myself to think of nothing else, to undertake no other work or duty until I have exhausted all possible means of discovery."

"God bless you for the promise," she answered fervently. "I knew that I had one friend in the world."

A sob almost choked her utterance of those last words. She was deeply wounded by her husband's coldness in this matter of Bothwell's position. She had expected him to be as indignant as she was, to be ready to take up arms against all the world for her cousin; and he had been cold, silent, and gloomy when she tried to discuss the burning question with him. His manner had implied that he, too, suspected Bothwell, though he would not go so far as to give utterance to his suspicion.

And now to have won over this strong advocate, this brave, true-hearted champion, was a relief to her mind that almost overcame her feelings; here, where she had ever sought to preserve the calm dignity of manner which became her as Julian Wyllard's wife.

"I thank you with all my heart," she faltered, "and I am sure that my husband will be as rejoiced as I shall, if you can clear Bothwell's name from this stigma."

Heathcote rose to take leave. He felt that the business of his visit was accomplished, that he had no right to linger in Dora Wyllard's sanctum. It was the first time he had ever been admitted to her own particular nest, the one room in which she was secure from the possibility of interruption.

"Tell Hilda to come and see me," she said, as they shook hands. "She has deserted me most cruelly of late."

"Perhaps it is better for her not to be here until her engagement to your cousin is on a more definite footing."

"Ah, there is the secret in Bothwell's life – some entanglement which he half admitted to me the other day. He said that he was bound to one woman while he loved another. I guessed that Hilda was the one he loved. But who can the other be? I know of no one."

"Some lady whom he met in India, no doubt. The very air of the East is charged with complications of that kind. If your cousin is a man of honour, and if we can unriddle the railway mystery, all may yet come right. Pray do not be too anxious. Good-bye."

And so they parted, they two, who once were to have spent their lives together. Edward Heathcote walked away from Penmorval loving his old love as dearly as ever he had loved her in his passionate youth. He was young enough to love with youthful fervour even yet, although he had schooled himself to believe that youth was past for him. He was only thirty-six; Julian Wyllard's junior by nearly ten years.