Part 25 (1/2)

”I am afraid your nature is not wholly free from deceit, Terence,” says Miss Priscilla, sadly. ”This hesitation on your part speaks volumes; and such unnecessary deceit, too. Neither your aunt Penelope nor I have any objection to your borrowing a gun if you find such a dangerous weapon needful to your happiness. But why not confide in us?”

”Is it possible she would not be really angry if she knew?” thinks Monica, breathlessly. I regret to say that both Kit and Terence take another view of Miss Blake's speech, and believe it an artful dodge to extract confession.

”I--” says Terence, to gain time, and because speech of some kind at this moment is absolutely necessary--”I didn't think----”

”Of _course_ you didn't think, Terence, or you would not have recorded your poor aunts, in your secret thoughts, as hard-hearted and ungenerous. If you had told us openly that Mitson, the coast-guard, had lent you a gun (as I strongly suspect, and indeed felt sure from the first moment was the case), we should not have been at all angry, only naturally anxious that you should use an instrument of death with caution. But you have no confidence in us, Terence.”

Intense relief fills the b.r.e.a.s.t.s of the three Beresfords. Remorse that the trusting nature of the old ladies should be so abused touches Monica keenly, but of the other two I must again declare with grief that they feel nothing but a sense of delivery from peril, and no contrition at all for their past suspicions.

”I thought you might be angry, aunt,” says Terence. He is looking very dirty indeed, and his hands are grimy, and altogether even Monica cannot bring herself to feel proud of him. There is, too, a covert desire for laughter about him that exasperates her terribly.

”Not angry, my dear; only nervous. I hope you know how to load, and that. I remember a cousin of ours blowing off his first finger and thumb with a powder-horn.”

”This is a breech-loader, auntie,” says Monica, softly.

”Eh? One of those new-fangled things I have read of. Oh, well, my dear boy, I daresay there is more need for circ.u.mspection. Let me look at it.

Ah! very handsome, indeed! I had no idea coast-guards were so well supplied; and yet I cling to the old guns that your grandfather used to use.”

”Did you shoot anything?” asks Miss Penelope, who has grown quite interested, and regards Terence with a glance of pride.

”Only one thrush,” says Terence, drawing the dilapidated corpse from his pocket, ”and a sparrow, and one rabbit I fired at and wounded mortally, I know, but it got away into its hole and I lost it.”

”Rabbits!” says Miss Priscilla. ”Am I to understand--nay, I hope I am _not_ to understand--that you crossed the stile into Coole?”

”There are plenty of rabbits in our own wood,” says Terence; ”more than I could shoot. I am glad you don't object to my having the gun, auntie.”

”I don't, my dear; but I wish you had been more ingenuous with us. Why now, Terence, _why_ do you steal along a field with your back bent as though desirous of avoiding our observation, and with your gun _under_ your coat, as if there was a policeman or a bailiff after you?”

”I was only trying to steal upon a crow, aunt.”

”Well, that _may be_, my dear, but there are ways of doing things. And why put your gun _under_ your coat? I can't think such a fraudulent proceeding necessary even with a crow. Now look here, Terence,”

ill.u.s.trating his walk and surrept.i.tious manner of concealing his gun beneath his coat, ”_does_ this look nice?”

”If I do it like _you_, auntie, it looks _very_ nice,” says Terence, innocently, but with a malevolent intention.

”What a pity you missed the rabbit, Terry!” says Monica, hurriedly.

”Oh, he is dead _now_, I'm certain; but I should have liked to bring him home. His leg was broken, and I chased him right through the rushes down below in the furze brake at Coole.”

Sensation!

It is too late to redeem his error. ”Murder wol out, that see we day by day,” says Chaucer, and now, indeed, all the fat is in the fire. The two old ladies draw back from him and turn mute eyes of grief upon each other, while Kit and Monica stare with heavy reproach upon their guilty brother.

The guilty brother returns their glance with interest, and then Miss Priscilla speaks.

”So you went into Coole, after all,” she says. ”Oh, Terence!”

”I couldn't help it,” says Terence, wrathfully. ”I wasn't going to let the rabbit go for the sake of a mere whim.”