Anne Hereford. Mrs. Henry Wood

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СКАЧАТЬ of George Heneage. The feeling between them had not been good, she testified, and there used to be bickering and disputes. "What about?" asked the jury; but Miss Delves only answered that she "could not say." The fact was, Mr. Edwin Barley in his stern way had ordered her not to bring in his wife's name.

      While the inquest was sitting I stayed in Selina's room. She seemed very restless, turning about in bed continually, and telling me to listen how it was "going on." But I could hear nothing, though I went often on the stairs to try.

      "What was that stir just now, Anne?" she asked, when it was late.

      "They called from the dining-room to have the chandelier lighted. John went in and did it."

      "Is it dark, Anne?"

      "Not dark. It is getting dark."

      Dark it appeared to be in the chamber, for the crimson silk curtains were drawn before the large, deep bay-window, and also partially round the bed. You could distinguish the outline of objects, and that was all. I went close up to the bed and looked at her; she was buried in the pillows: that she was very ill I knew, for a physician from Nettleby had come that morning with Mr. Lowe.

      "I think it must be over," she said, as a bustle was heard below. "Go and see, dear."

      I went half-way down the stairs in the dark. Nobody had thought to light the hall-lamp. Sure enough, they were pouring out of the room, a crowd of dark figures, talking as they came, and slowly making for the hall-door. Suddenly I distinguished Mr. Edwin Barley coming towards the stairs.

      To his study, as I thought, and back went I, not caring to encounter him. Added to my childish dislike and fear of Mr. Edwin Barley, since Saturday night another impulse to avoid him had been added: a dread, which I could not divest myself of, that he might question me as to that meeting at the summer-house, and to the subsequent interview with George Heneage. Selina had ordered me to be silent; but if he found anything out and questioned me, what could I do? I know that the fear was upon me then and for a long time afterwards.

      I crept swiftly back again up the stairs, and into my aunt's room. Surely he was not coming to it! Those were his footsteps, and they drew nearer: he could not have turned into his study! No, they came on. In the impulse of the moment, I pushed behind the heavy window-curtain. It was drawn straight across from wall to wall, leaving a space between it and the bow of the window nearly as large as a small room. There were three chairs there, one in the middle of the window and at the two sides. I sat down on one of them, and, pulling the white blind slightly aside, looked out at the dark figures who were then sauntering down the avenue.

      "Well, it's over," said Mr. Edwin Barley to his wife, as he came in and shut the door. "And now all the work will be to find him."

      "How has it ended?" she asked.

      "Wilful murder. The coroner was about to clear the room, but the jury intimated that they required no deliberation, and returned their verdict at once."

      "Wilful murder against whom?"

      "Against George Heneage. Did you suppose it was against you or me?"

      There was a pause. I felt in miserable indecision, knowing that I ought, in honour, to go out and show myself, but not daring to do it. Selina resumed, speaking as emphatically as her inflamed throat permitted.

      "I cannot believe--I never will believe--that George Heneage was capable of committing murder. His whole nature would rise up against it: as his father said in this room a few hours ago. If the shot did come from his gun, it must have been fired inadvertently."

      "The shot did come from his gun," returned Mr. Edwin Barley. "There's no 'if' in the question."

      "I am aware you say so; but it was passing strange that you, also with your gun, should have been upon the spot. Now, stay!--don't put yourself in a passion. I cannot help saying it. I think all this suspense and uncertainty are killing me!"

      Mr. Edwin Barley dragged a chair to the side of the bed, anger in the very sound. I felt ready to drop, lest he should see me through the slit in the curtain.

      "We will have this out, Selina. It is not the first time you have given utterance to hints that you ought to be ashamed of. Do you suspect that I shot Philip King?"

      His tone was so stern that, perhaps, she did not like to say "yes" outright, and tampered with the question.

      "Not exactly that. But there's only your word to prove that it was George Heneage. And you know how incensed you have latterly been against him!"

      "Who caused me to be incensed? Why, you."

      "There was no real cause. Were it the last words I had to speak, Edwin"--and she burst into tears--"were I dying, I would assert it. I never cared for George Heneage in the way you fancy."

      "I fancy! Had I fancied that, I should have flung George Heneage out of my house long ago," was his rejoinder, spoken calmly. "But now, hear me, Selina. It has been your pleasure to declare so much to me. On my part, I declare to you that Heneage, and Heneage only, killed Philip King. Dispossess your mind of all dark folly. You must be insane, I think, to take it up against your husband."

      "Did you see Heneage fire?" she asked, after a silence.

      "No. I should have known pretty surely that it could only be Heneage, had there been no proof against him; but there were Philip's dying words. Still, I did not see Heneage at the place, and I have never said I did. I was pushing home through the wood, and halted a second, thinking I heard voices: it must have been Philip talking to the child: at that very moment a shot was fired close to me--close, mind you--not two yards off; but the trees are thick just there, and whoever fired it was hid from my view. I was turning to search, when Philip King's awful scream rang out, and I pushed my head beyond the trees and saw him in the act of falling to the ground. I hastened to him, and the other escaped. This is the entire truth, so far as I am cognizant of it."

      It might have been the truth; and, again, it might not. It was just one of those things that depend upon the credibility of the utterer. What little corroboration there was, certainly was on Mr. Edwin Barley's side: only that he had asserted more than was true of the dying words of Philip King. If these were the simple facts, the truth, why have added falsehood to them?

      "Heneage could have had no motive to take the life of Philip King," argued Mrs. Edwin Barley. "That he would have caned him, or given him some other sound chastisement, I grant you--and richly he deserved it, for he was the cause of all the ill-feeling that had arisen in the house--but, to kill him! No, no!"

      "And yet you would deem me capable of it!"

      "I am not accusing you. But when you come to speak of motives, I cannot help seeing that George Heneage could have had none."

      "You have just observed that the author of the mischief, the bad feeling which had sprung up in the house, was Philip King; but you are wrong. The author was you, Selina."

      No answer. She put up one of her hot hands, and shaded her eyes.

      "I forgive you," he continued. "I am willing to bury the past in silence: never to recur to it--never henceforth to allude to it, though the boy was my relative and ward, and I liked him. But I would recommend you to bear this tragical ending in mind, as a warning for the future. I will not tolerate further folly in my wife; and your own sense ought to tell you that had I been ambitious of putting somebody СКАЧАТЬ