Part 24 (1/2)

But he was not the only person on the road at this time. A few minutes previously they had pa.s.sed another man walking in the same direction. As Mr. Sutherland mused over this he found himself peering through the small window at the back of the buggy, striving to catch another glimpse of the two men plodding behind him. He could see them both, his son's form throwing its long shadow over the moonlit road, followed only too closely by the man whose ungainly shape he feared to acknowledge to himself was growing only too familiar in his eyes.

Falling into a troubled reverie, he beheld the well-known houses, and the great trees under whose shadow he had grown from youth to manhood, flit by him like phantoms in a dream. But suddenly one house and one place drew his attention with a force that startled him again into an erect att.i.tude, and seizing with one hand the arm of the driver, he pointed with the other at the door of the cottage they were pa.s.sing, saying in choked tones:

”See! see! Something dreadful has happened since we pa.s.sed by here this morning. That is c.r.a.pe, Samuel, c.r.a.pe, hanging from the doorpost yonder!”

”Yes, it is c.r.a.pe,” answered the driver, jumping out and running up the path to look. ”Philemon must be dead; the good Philemon.”

Here was a fresh blow. Mr. Sutherland bowed before it for a moment, then he rose hurriedly and stepped down into the road beside the driver.

”Get in again,” said he, ”and drive on. Ride a half-mile, then come back for me. I must see the widow Jones.”

The driver, awed both by the occasion and the feeling it had called up in Mr. Sutherland, did as he was bid and drove away. Mr. Sutherland, with a glance back at the road he had just traversed, walked painfully up the path to Mrs. Jones's door.

A moment's conversation with the woman who answered his summons proved the driver's supposition to be correct. Philemon had pa.s.sed away. He had never rallied from the shock he had received. He had joined his beloved Agatha on the day of her burial, and the long tragedy of their mutual life was over.

”It is a mercy that no inheritor of their misfortune remains,” quoth the good woman, as she saw the affliction her tidings caused in this much-revered friend.

The a.s.sent Mr. Sutherland gave was mechanical. He was anxiously studying the road leading toward Portchester.

Suddenly he stepped hastily into the house.

”Will you be so good as to let me sit down in your parlour for a few minutes?” he asked. ”I should like to rest there for an instant alone.

This final blow has upset me.”

The good woman bowed. Mr. Sutherland's word was law in that town. She did not even dare to protest against the ALONE which he had so pointedly emphasised, but left him after making him, as she said, comfortable, and went back to her duties in the room above.

It was fortunate she was so amenable to his wishes, for no sooner had her steps ceased to be heard than Mr. Sutherland rose from the easy-chair in which he had been seated, and, putting out the lamp widow Jones had insisted on lighting, pa.s.sed directly to the window, through which he began to peer with looks of the deepest anxiety.

A man was coming up the road, a young man, Frederick. As Mr. Sutherland recognised him he leaned forward with increased anxiety, till at the appearance of his son in front his scrutiny grew so strained and penetrating that it seemed to exercise a magnetic influence upon Frederick, causing him to look up.

The glance he gave the house was but momentary, but in that glance the father saw all that he had secretly dreaded. As his son's eye fell on that fluttering bit of c.r.a.pe, testifying to another death in this already much-bereaved community, he staggered wildly, then in a pause of doubt drew nearer and nearer till his fingers grasped this symbol of mourning and clung there. Next moment he was far down the road, plunging toward home in a state of great mental disorder.

A half-hour afterwards Mr. Sutherland reached home. He had not overtaken Frederick again, or even his accompanying shadow. Ascertaining at his own door that his son had not yet come in, but had been seen going farther up the hill, he turned back again into the road and proceeded after him on foot.

The next place to his own was occupied by Mr. Halliday. As he approached it he caught sight of a man standing half in and half out of the honeysuckle porch, whom he at first thought to be Frederick. But he soon saw that it was the fellow who had been following his son all the way from Portchester, and, controlling his first movement of dislike, he stepped up to him and quietly said:

”Sweet.w.a.ter, is this you?”

The young man fell back and showed a most extraordinary agitation, quickly suppressed, however. ”Yes, sir, it is no one else. Do you know what I am doing here?”

”I fear I do. You have been to Portchester. You have seen my son--”

Sweet.w.a.ter made a hurried, almost an entreating, gesture.

”Never mind that, Mr. Sutherland. I had rather you wouldn't say anything about that. I am as much broken up by what I have seen as you are. I never suspected him of having any direct connection with this murder; only the girl to whom he has so unfortunately attached himself. But after what I have seen, what am I to think? what am I to do? I honour you; I would not grieve you; but--but--oh, sir, perhaps you can help me out of the maze into which I have stumbled. Perhaps you can a.s.sure me that Mr. Frederick did not leave the ball at the time she did. I missed him from among the dancers. I did not see him between twelve and three, but perhaps you did; and--and--”

His voice broke. He was almost as profoundly agitated as Mr. Sutherland.

As for the latter, who found himself unable to rea.s.sure the other on this very vital point, having no remembrance himself of having seen Frederick among his guests during those fatal hours, he stood speechless, lost in abysses, the depth and horror of which only a father can appreciate. Sweet.w.a.ter respected his anguish and for a moment was silent himself. Then he burst out:

”I had rather never lived to see this day than be the cause of shame or suffering to you. Tell me what to do. Shall I be deaf, dumb--”

Here Mr. Sutherland found voice.