Part 26 (1/2)

”I have not the time to listen,” said he, wrenching his arm free as he flung himself into the thick of the crowd. I kept close upon his heels, however, which he perceived, and drawing into a corner he suddenly turned round upon me.

”Your horse is dead,” said he. ”I very much regret it; but I will pay you, for I have but now come into an inheritance. I will pay you for it to-morrow.”

”I did not follow you to speak of the horse, or to Mr. Featherstone at all, but to Mr. Cullen Mayle.”

”You know me?” he exclaimed, looking about him lest the name should have been overheard.

”And have news for you,” I added. ”Will you follow me to the 'Dolphin?'”

I went back to the inn, secured from my host a room where we could be private, and went out to the door. Cullen Mayle was waiting; he followed me quickly in, hiding his face so that no one could recognise him, and when the door was shut--

”How in the world did you come to know of my name?” said he. ”I cannot think, but I shall be obliged if you will keep it secret for a day or so, for I am not sure but what I may have some inconvenient friends among these islands.”

”Those inconvenient friends are all gone but one,” said I.

”You know that too,” he exclaimed. ”Indeed, Mr. Berkeley, you seem to be very well acquainted with my affairs; but I cannot regret it, since you give me such comforting news. Only one of my inconvenient friends left! Why, I am a match for one--I think I may say so without vaunting--so it seems I can come to Tresco and take up my inheritance.”

With that he began briskly to unhook the cotton dress which he had put on over his ordinary clothes.

”Inheritance!” said I. ”You mentioned the word before. I do not understand.”

”Oh,” said he, ”it is a long story and a melancholy. My father drove me from the house, and bequeathed his fortune to an adopted daughter.”

”Yes,” said I quickly, ”I know that too.”

”Indeed!” and he stopped his toilette to stare at me. ”Perhaps you are aware then that Helen Mayle, conscious of my father's injustice, bequeathed it again to me.”

”Yes, but--but--you spoke of an immediate inheritance.”

”Ah,” said he, coolly, ”there is something, then, I can inform you of.

Helen Mayle is dead.”

”What's that?” I cried, and started to my feet. I did not understand.

I was like a man struck by a bullet, aware dimly that some hurt has come to him, but not yet conscious of the pain, not yet sensible of the wound.

”Hus.h.!.+” said Cullen Mayle, and untying a string at his waist he let his dress fall about his feet. ”It is most sad. Not for the world would I have come into this inheritance at such a cost. You knew Helen Mayle, perhaps?” he asked, with a shrewd glance at me. ”A girl very staunch, very true, who would never forget a _friend_.” He emphasised that word ”friend” and made it of a greater significance. ”Indeed, I am not sure, but I must think it was because she could not forget a--friend that, alas! she died.”

I was standing stupefied. I heard the words he spoke, but gave them at this moment no meaning. I was trying to understand the one all-important fact.

”Dead!” I babbled. ”Helen Mayle--dead!”

”Yes, and in the strangest, pitiful way. I cannot think of it, without the tears come into my eyes. The news came to me but lately, and you will perhaps excuse me on that account.” His voice broke as he spoke; there were tears, too, in his eyes. I wondered, in a dull way, whether after all he had really cared for her. ”But how comes it that you knew her?” he asked.

I sat down upon a chair and told him--of d.i.c.k Parmiter's coming to London, of my journey into the West. I told him how I had come to recognise him at the inn; and as I spoke the comprehension of Helen's death crept slowly into my mind, so that I came to a stop and could speak no more.

”You were on your way to Tresco,” said he, ”when we first met. Then you know that she is dead?”

”No,” I answered. ”When did she die?”

”On the sixth of October,” said he.