Part 34 (1/2)

HOME AGAIN

On his way to the depot, Sweet.w.a.ter went into the Herald office and bought a morning paper. At the station he opened it. There was one column devoted to the wreck of the Hesper, and a whole half-page to the proceedings of the third day's inquiry into the cause and manner of Agatha Webb's death. Merely noting that his name was mentioned among the lost, in the first article, he began to read the latter with justifiable eagerness. The a.s.surance given in Captain Wattles's letter was true. No direct suspicion had as yet fallen on Frederick. As the lover of Amabel Page, his name was necessarily mentioned, but neither in the account of the inquest nor in the editorials on the subject could he find any proof that either the public or police had got hold of the great idea that he was the man who had preceded Amabel to Agatha's cottage. Relieved on this score, Sweet.w.a.ter entered more fully into the particulars, and found that though the jury had sat three days, very little more had come to light than was known on the morning he made that bold dash into the Hesper. Most of the witnesses had given in their testimony, Amabel's being the chief, and though no open accusation had been made, it was evident from the trend of the questions put to the latter that Amabel's connection with the affair was looked upon as criminal and as placing her in a very suspicious light. Her replies, however, as once before, under a similar but less formal examination, failed to convey any recognition on her part either of this suspicion or of her own position; yet they were not exactly frank, and Sweet.w.a.ter saw, or thought he saw (naturally failing to have a key to the situation), that she was still working upon her old plan of saving both herself and Frederick, by throwing whatever suspicion her words might raise upon the deceased Zabel. He did not know, and perhaps it was just as well that he did not at this especial juncture, that she was only biding her time--now very nearly at hand--and that instead of loving Frederick, she hated him, and was determined upon his destruction. Reading, as a final clause, that Mr. Sutherland was expected to testify soon in explanation of his position as executor of Mrs. Webb's will, Sweet.w.a.ter grew very serious, and, while no change took place in his mind as to his present duty, he decided that his return must be as un.o.btrusive as possible, and his only too timely reappearance on the scene of the inquiry kept secret till Mr.

Sutherland had given his evidence and retired from under the eyes of his excited fellow-citizens.

”The sight of me might unnerve him,” was Sweet.w.a.ter's thought, ”precipitating the very catastrophe we dread. One look, one word on his part indicative of his inner apprehensions that his son had a hand in the crime which has so benefited him, and nothing can save Frederick from the charge of murder. Not Knapp's skill, my silence, or Amabel's finesse. The young man will be lost.”

He did not know, as we do, that Amabel's finesse was devoted to winning a husband for herself, and that, in the event of failure, the action she threatened against her quondam lover would be precipitated that very day at the moment when the clock struck twelve.

Sweet.w.a.ter arrived home by the way of Portchester. He had seen one or two persons he knew, but, so far, had himself escaped recognition. The morning light was dimly breaking when he strode into the outskirts of Sutherlandtown and began to descend the hill. As he pa.s.sed Mr.

Halliday's house he looked up, and was astonished to see a light burning in one deeply embowered window. Alas! he did not know how early one anxious heart woke during those troublous days. The Sutherland house was dark, but as he crept very close under its overhanging eaves he heard a deep sigh uttered over his head, and knew that someone was up here also in anxious expectation of a day that was destined to hold more than even he antic.i.p.ated.

Meanwhile, the sea grew rosy, and the mother's cottage was as yet far off. Hurrying on, he came at last under the eye of more than one of the early risers of Sutherlandtown.

”What, Sweet.w.a.ter! Alive and well!”

”Hey, Sweet.w.a.ter, we thought you were lost on the Hesper!”

”Halloo! Home in time to see the pretty Amabel arrested?” Phrases like these met him at more than one corner; but he eluded them all, stopping only to put one hesitating question. Was his mother well?

Home fears had made themselves felt with his near approach to that humble cottage door.

BOOK III

HAD BATSY LIVED!

x.x.x

WHAT FOLLOWED THE STRIKING OF THE CLOCK

It was the last day of the inquest, and to many it bade fair to be the least interesting. All the witnesses who had anything to say had long ago given in their testimony, and when at or near noon Sweet.w.a.ter slid into the inconspicuous seat he had succeeded in obtaining near the coroner, it was to find in two faces only any signs of the eagerness and expectancy which filled his own breast to suffocation. But as these faces were those of Agnes Halliday and Amabel Page, he soon recognised that his own judgment was not at fault, and that notwithstanding outward appearances and the languid interest shown in the now lagging proceedings, the moment presaged an event full of unseen but vital consequence.

Frederick was not visible in the great hall; but that he was near at hand soon became evident from the change Sweet.w.a.ter now saw in Amabel.

For while she had hitherto sat under the universal gaze with only the faint smile of conscious beauty on her inscrutable features, she roused as the hands of the clock moved toward noon, and glanced at the great door of entrance with an evil expectancy that startled even Sweet.w.a.ter, so little had he really understood the nature of the pa.s.sions labouring in that venomous breast.

Next moment the door opened, and Frederick and his father came in. The air of triumphant satisfaction with which Amabel sank back into her seat was as marked in its character as her previous suspense. What did it mean? Sweet.w.a.ter, noting it, and the vivid contrast it offered to Frederick's air of depression, felt that his return had been well timed.

Mr. Sutherland was looking very feeble. As he took the chair offered him, the change in his appearance was apparent to all who knew him, and there were few there who did not know him. And, startled by these evidences of suffering which they could not understand and feared to interpret even to themselves, more than one devoted friend stole uneasy glances at Frederick to see if he too were under the cloud which seemed to envelop his father almost beyond recognition.

But Frederick was looking at Amabel, and his erect head and determined aspect made him a conspicuous figure in the room. She who had called up this expression, and alone comprehended it fully, smiled as she met his eye, with that curious slow dipping of her dimples which had more than once confounded the coroner, and rendered her at once the admiration and abhorrence of the crowd who for so long a time had had the opportunity of watching her.

Frederick, to whom this smile conveyed a last hope as well as a last threat, looked away as soon as possible, but not before her eyes had fallen in their old inquiring way to his hands, from which he had removed the ring which up to this hour he had invariably worn on his third finger. In this glance of hers and this action of his began the struggle that was to make that day memorable in many hearts.

After the first stir occasioned by the entrance of two such important persons the crowd settled back into its old quietude under the coroner's hand. A tedious witness was having his slow say, and to him a full attention was being given in the hope that some real enlightenment would come at last to settle the questions which had been raised by Amabel's incomplete and unsatisfactory testimony. But no man can furnish what he does not possess, and the few final minutes before noon pa.s.sed by without any addition being made to the facts which had already been presented for general consideration.

As the witness sat down the clock began to strike. As the slow, hesitating strokes rang out, Sweet.w.a.ter saw Frederick yield to a sudden but most profound emotion. The old fear, which we understand, if Sweet.w.a.ter did not, had again seized the victim of Amabel's ambition, and under her eye, which was blazing full upon him now with a fell and steady purpose, he found his right hand stealing toward the left in the significant action she expected. Better to yield than fall headlong into the pit one word of hers would open. He had not meant to yield, but now that the moment had come, now that he must at once and forever choose between a course that led simply to personal unhappiness and one that involved not only himself, but those dearest to him, in disgrace and sorrow, he felt himself weaken to the point of clutching at whatever would save him from the consequences of confession. Moral strength and that tenacity of purpose which only comes from years of self-control were too lately awakened in his breast to sustain him now. As stroke after stroke fell on the ear, he felt himself yielding beyond recovery, and had almost touched his finger in the significant action of a.s.sent which Amabel awaited with breathless expectation, when--was it miracle or only the suggestion of his better nature?--the memory of a face full of holy pleading rose from the past before his eyes and with an inner cry of ”Mother!” he flung his hand out and clutched his father's arm in a way to break the charm of his own dread and end forever the effects of the intolerable fascination that was working upon him. Next minute the last stroke of noon rang out, and the hour was up which Amabel had set as the limit of her silence.