Part 39 (1/2)

His companion regarded him with astonishment.

”Yes, Rayner's gone, poor fellow! It's very sad! This sudden bad news will be terrible for his wife. I didn't think you knew him though?”

added Mark interrogatively. ”I'm just on my way to break the news to her if I can muster up courage. I've been watching by him all night--he pa.s.sed away at dawn.”

”G.o.d bless you for that,” murmured Mr. Morpeth, his face quivering.

”Cheveril, there's no need to keep the secret any longer. I was wrong to keep it at all. It was the ruin of him. He was my only son--Alfred.”

Then in reply to Mark's silent start, he added, ”Yes, that was his mother's portrait you and his wife came on that afternoon. The incident struck me at the time. I would I had spoken even then.”

”Rayner--your son? It's hardly believable,” stammered Mark, suddenly recalling the incident of his first evening in Madras, when Rayner in the mail-phaeton had, it seemed to him, almost deliberately set himself to trample down the old man on whose cheek the tears were now running down in sorrow for his loss. ”He did not know this, of course--he never knew it?” burst forth Mark, in an almost pleading tone.

”Yes, Alfred did know he was my son--but not in time--not till lately,”

the father acknowledged in a faltering voice. ”I should like to tell you all about it, Cheveril. And from you, who have stood by his dying bed, there is much I want to hear.”

Mark a.s.sented, and tightening his arm on Mr. Morpeth's, he led him to a quiet comer of the big station, where they could carry on a conversation without interruption. He would fain have suggested that he should take the old man to the peace of his own library, but he felt his first duty was to her who had been the beloved and sheltered one of Pinkthorpe Rectory, and who was now alone and forlorn in this alien land.

In broken words David Morpeth told his tale of many-sided pain. Mark Cheveril's sympathetic heart read its import even more completely than the speaker guessed, though his words were few. After a little silence, he glanced at the clock, saying:

”I was on my way to Clive's Road to tell her. Do you think----”

”Ah, yes, it is for me to take that duty,” said Mr. Morpeth, starting up from the bench where they were sitting. ”I've s.h.i.+rked my responsibilities too long. I see it now when it is too late. I shall go to that sweet child whom I have loved for her own sake as my daughter.”

The proposal was eagerly hailed by Mark, who now began to consider whether he would share Zynool's communication with the stricken father, but decided that before doing so he would seek fuller information, and arranged to meet Mr. Morpeth at his house an hour or two later. He was desirous of returning to Puranapore as soon as possible, not only on account of his arrears of work, but also that he might through Zynool even in prison ascertain the charge that was brought against Rayner, which, on his own acknowledgment, had made him a fugitive in disguise.

After seeing Mr. Morpeth into his little victoria, Mark drove to the Club, having much food for thought as he pondered over the tragical story to which he had listened; and which, as he linked on certain incidents which sprang to his memory with painful vividness, obliged him to acknowledge the utter baseness of Hester's husband.

When Mr. Morpeth alighted from his carriage at Clive's Road and walked up the broad steps, he caught sight of Hester seated in the verandah, looking like a ghost of her former self.

”The poor child must have heard already,” he said to himself, as he went forward. Even the sound of the carriage wheels seemed to have struck terror into Hester's heart. She clung to the arms of her chair as she essayed to rise, and looked at her visitor with scared, questioning eyes.

”You know already, then?” murmured Mr. Morpeth, taking her hand and gazing pitifully into her face.

”Oh, have they caught him? Is he in prison?” she cried, the blood rus.h.i.+ng into her pale cheeks. ”Oh, I can't bear it!”

”In prison, my dear? What do you mean?” asked Mr. Morpeth in a bewildered tone. ”No, Hester, death is not prison! Pray that in spite of all it may be the Gate of Life.”

”'Death'! Have you come to tell me that my husband is dead?” she asked with startled air.

Mr. Morpeth briefly narrated to her the events of which Mark Cheveril had put him in possession at the station. Hester listened, dry-eyed, as one spell-bound.

”And Hester,” he added slowly, ”I prayed that I might bring this news to you because I am Alfred's father----”

”You are? Then it _was_ true!” cried Hester, as if awakening from a dream. ”But oh, why did not poor Alfred have all the good a father like you might have been to him? I thought these women who told me were only gossiping, but I even wished that it _were_ true. Why did you ever lose hold of your son?” asked Hester, looking reproachfully on the worn, grey face.

So it happened, that for the second time that morning, David Morpeth, with aching heart, had to take up the tangled skein of the past. And Hester, as she listened, with her quick perception easily filled up the gaps in the narration.

”Oh, the loss to him!” she murmured. ”If he had been brought up by one good and true like you he might have been different, instead of being embittered, reckless, mad.”

In her turn, she had to unfold to the father the story of his son's crime and the fear of its consequences, which had driven him from his home, a fugitive from justice.