CHAPTER II.
I AM HANGED--AND DONE FOR.
So soon as I could get my eyes away from that thing that swung horriblyabove the table, I forced them to find the window. But even then I couldnot move. It was as though my limbs were frozen with the sheer horror ofthis business into which I had blundered. You will own that I had hadenough of sensations for that day; I wonder now that I was able to getback to sane thoughts at all. I stood there, with my teeth chattering,and my hands clutching at the grey coat I wore, striving to pull myselftogether, and to decide what was best to be done. To add to the horrorof the thing, the man who lay half across the table began to stir, andpresently sat up slowly, like one waking from a long and heavy sleep. Hesat for some moments, staring in front of him, with his hands spread outpalms downwards on the table. He did not seem to see me at all. Iwatched him, wondering what he would do when presently he should lookround and catch sight of me; wondering, for my part, whether, if hecried out with the shock of seeing me, I should grapple with him, ormake for the window and dash out into the darkness.
He did a surprising thing at last. He raised his eyes slowly, until theyrested upon what gyrated and swung above him, and then, as his eyestravelled upwards to the face, he smiled very slowly and very gently;and almost on the instant turned his head, perhaps at some noise I made,and looked squarely at me.
"Good evening, sir!" he said in a low tone.
Think of it! To be calmly greeted in that fashion, in a room into whichI had blundered, clad grotesquely as I was, and with that dead thinghanging above us! Idiotically enough I tried to get out an answer to theman, but I found my tongue staggering about among my teeth and doingnothing in the way of shaping words. So I stared at him with, I suppose,a very white face, and pointed to that which hung above us.
"He's very quiet, sir," said the old man, getting to his feet slowly. "Iwas afraid at first--I didn't understand. I was afraid of him. Think ofthat!" He laughed again with a laughter that was ghastly.
"Cut--cut him down!" I stammered in a whisper, holding on to the edge ofthe mantelshelf and beginning to feel a horrible nausea stealing overme.
He shook his head. "I can't touch him--I'm afraid again," said the oldman, and backed away into a corner.
What I should have done within a minute or two I do not really know, ifby chance I could have kept my reason at all, but I heard someone movingin the house, and coming towards the room in which I stood. I did notthink of my danger; everything was so far removed from the ordinary thatit was as though I moved and walked in some dream, from which presently,with a shudder and a sigh of relief, I should awake. Therefore, evenwhen I heard footsteps coming towards the room I did not move, nor didit seem strange that whoever came seemed to step with something of ajaunty air, singing loudly as he moved, with a rather fine baritonevoice. In just such a fashion a man flung open the door and marchedstraight into the room, and stopped there, surveying the picture wemade, the three of us--one dead and two alive--with a pair of verybright, keen eyes.
He was a tall, thin man, with sleek black hair gone grey at the temples.He had a cleanly-shaven face, much lined and wrinkled at the corners ofthe eyes and of the mouth; and when he presently spoke I discovered thathis lips parted quickly, showing the line of his white teeth, and yetwith nothing of a smile. It was as though the lips moved mechanically insome still strong mask; only the eyes were very much alive. And afterhis first glance round the room I saw that his eyes rested only on me.
"Who are you? What do you want?" he demanded sharply.
I did not answer his question; I pointed weakly to the hanging man."Aren't you going--going to do anything with him?" I blurted out.
He shrugged his shoulders. "He's dead; and the other one,"--he let hiseyes rest for a moment on the old man--"the other one is as good as deadfor anything he understands. The matter is between us, and perhaps I'dbetter hear you first."
"I can't--not with that in the room!" I whispered, striving to steady myvoice.
He shrugged his shoulders again, and drew from his pocket a knife.Keeping his eyes fixed on the swaying figure above him, he mounted to achair, and so to the table, deftly and strongly lifted the dead man uponone shoulder while he severed the rope above his head. Then he steppeddown, first to the chair and then to the floor, and laid the thing, notungently, on a couch in the corner. I was able now to avert my eyes fromit.
"Does that please you?" he asked, with something of a sneer. "Getforward into the light a little; I want to see you."
I stepped forward, and he looked me up and down; then he nodded slowly,and showed that white gleam of his teeth. "I see--a convict," he said."From what prison?"
"Many miles from here," I answered him. "I escaped early this morning;someone brought me as far as this on a motor-car. I broke in--because Iwanted food and a change of clothing. I was desperate."
"I see--I see," he said, in his smooth voice. "A change of clothing, andfood. Perhaps we may be able to provide you with both."
"You mean you'll promise to do so, while you communicate with thepolice, I suppose?" I answered sullenly.
He smiled, and shook his head. "That is not my way of doing things atall," he said. "You are desperate, you tell me, and I have no particularinterest in your recapture. If it comes to that, I have trouble enoughof my own." He glanced for a moment at the body behind him. "I shouldlike to know how it comes about that you are a convict--for whatparticular crime, I mean?"
I told him, as briefly as I could, the whole story, not painting myselftoo black, you may be sure. He listened with deep attention until I hadfinished, and then for a minute or two he stood still, with his armsfolded, evidently considering some point deeply. I waited, forgetful ofall else but the man before me, for he seemed to hold my fate in hishands. All this time the old man I had found in the room stood in acorner, smiling foolishly, and nibbing his hands one over the other. Theother man who dominated the situation took not the faintest notice ofhim.
"How long have you been hanging about this place, waiting to break in?"demanded the man who had come into the room last. "Speak the truth."
"I don't exactly know," I answered. "I fell asleep while I lay in thegrounds, and lost count of time. But I saw him,"--I nodded my headtowards that prone figure on the couch--"I saw him in the grounds."
"Alone?" He jerked the word out at me.
"No, there was a lady."
"Since you know that, you may as well know the rest," he replied. "Thisyoung man has had a most unhappy attachment for a young lady in thishouse, who is my ward. He has persecuted her with his attentions; he hascome here under cover of the darkness, over and over again, against mywishes. She liked him----"
"I heard her say that," I broke in, incautiously.
"Then you only confirm my words," he said, after a sharp glance at me."Perhaps you may imagine my feelings when to-night I discovered that theunhappy boy had absolutely taken his revenge upon me, and upon her, byhanging himself in this very room. So far I have been able to keep theknowledge from my ward,--I think there's a possibility that I may beable to keep it from her altogether."
I did not understand the drift of his thought then, nor did I see inwhat way I was to be concerned in the matter. He came a little nearer tome, and seated himself on the table, and bent his keen glance on mebefore going on again. I think I muttered something, for my own part,about being sorry, but it was a feeble mutter at the best.
"Perhaps you may wonder why I have not sent at once, in the ordinarycourse, for a doctor," he went on. "That is quite easily explained whenI tell you that I am a doctor myself. The situation is absurd, ofcourse. Perhaps I had better introduce myself. I am Dr. Bardolph Just."He paused, as though expecting that I should supply information on myside.
"My name is Norton Hyde," I said brusquely.
"And you speak like a gentleman, which is a passport at once to myfavour," he assured me, with a bow. "Now, let us get to business. Ayoung man comes here to-night and hangs himself in my house. I have ade
ep respect and liking for that young man, although I am opposed to theidea of his aspiring to the hand of my ward. He hangs himself, and atonce scandal springs up, bell-mouthed, to shout the thing to the world.The name of an innocent girl is dragged in; my name is dragged in;innocent people suffer for the foolish act of a thoughtless boy. Thequestion in my mind at once is: Can the penalty be averted from us?"
I must own the man fascinated me. I began to feel that I would do muchto help him, and to help the girl I had seen that night in the groundsof the house. Fool that I was then, I did not understand and did notknow what deep game he was playing; indeed, had I known, how could Ihave stood against him?
"I am, I trust, always a friend to the friendless and the helpless," hewent on. "You are friendless, I take it, and very helpless, and althoughI am no opponent of the law, I have yet the instinct which tells me thatI should help a fugitive. Now let us understand one another."
At this point we were interrupted, horribly enough, by a cry from theold man in the corner--a cry like nothing earthly. He advanced a fewsteps towards where we stood, and looked from one to the other of us,with his hands plucking nervously at his lips.
"I don't understand, gentlemen--I don't understand," he said, in afeeble voice. "He was alive and well and strong this morning; he clappedme on the shoulder, and said--what was it that he said?" The man putone hand to his head and looked at me in a lost fashion. "I forget whatit was; something seems to have gone here!" He struck his foreheadsharply with his knuckles, and again looked at us with that feeblesmile.
"Get out of the way!" said Dr. Just fiercely. "Take no notice of him,"he added to me. "He babbles about things he doesn't understand."
The old man slunk away, and sat down on a chair in the corner anddropped his forehead in his hands. And from that time he did not moveuntil my strange interview with Dr. Just was over.
"Now, what I suggest is this," the doctor said, leaning towards me andimpressing his points upon me by stabbing one white forefinger into thepalm of his other hand. "We will say that you have suffered for a crimewhich was not morally a crime at all. We will put it that you, by allthe laws of humanity, had a right to escape from the hideous doom towhich you had been consigned. You have escaped, and by the strangestchance you have found a friend at the very outset."
He smiled at me, if that quick baring of his teeth could be called asmile, and I tried to thank him with broken words. Then he went onagain--
"Before you can enter the world again it is necessary that you shouldhave clothing which does not brand you as that dress does," he said."Therefore I want for a moment to put a case clearly to you--to let yousee what is in my mind. Suppose that this convict, fleeing from pursuit,haunted by the thought that he may be recaptured, and may have to servea yet longer period for his escapade--starving, and fainting, andhopeless; suppose this convict enters a house, and, finding the meansready to his hand, puts an end to the business once for all, and throwsup the sponge. In other words, suppose that convict hangs himself, andso gets the laugh of those who are hunting him down. Do you follow me?"
I was so far from following him that I shook my head feebly, and glancedfirst at my own clothes and then at the man who had hanged himself, andwho now lay on the couch. Then I shook my head again.
The doctor seemed to lose patience. "I'm afraid you haven't a very quickbrain," he exclaimed testily. "Let me make myself more clear. A youngman of good family and good standing in the world, comes in hereto-night and commits suicide; soon after an outcast, flying fromjustice, follows him, and breaks in also. In appearance the two aresomething alike; both are tall, and strong, and dark; each man--the onefrom compulsion--has closely cropped dark hair. Suppose I suggest that,to avoid a scandal, it is the convict who has hanged himself, and thatthe other man has not been here at all. In other words, as you need achange of clothing, I propose you change with that!"
I gasped at the mere horror of the idea; I shuddered as I looked at thedead man. "I couldn't--I couldn't!" I whispered. "Besides, what wouldbecome of me?"
"I don't ask you to take the place of the other man; that would be toorisky, and would, in fact, be impossible," he said quietly. "I am merelyasking you to assist me to cover up this unfortunate business and at thesame time to save yourself."
There was no time for me to think; I was like a rat in a trap.Nevertheless, on an impulse, I refused to have anything to do with somad a notion. "I won't do it; it's impossible!" I said.
"Very good, my friend!" He shrugged his shoulders and moved quietlyacross the room towards the bell. "Then my duty is clear--I give you upto those who must be anxious concerning your safety. I've given you yourchance, and you refuse to take it."
His hand was on the bell when I called to him, "Stop! is there no otherway?"
He shook his head. "No other way at all," he replied. "Come, bereasonable; I'm not going to land you into a trap. Put the matterclearly to yourself. You are a pariah, outside the pale of civilisedthings; I offer you a fresh start. Mr. Norton Hyde, the convict, commitssuicide--I pledge my word to you that the fraud shall not be discovered.A certain young girl is saved from much trouble, and sorrow, andanxiety; I also am saved from the consequences of a very rash act,committed by our dead friend here. So far as you are concerned, you canstart afresh, with your record wiped out. Come--yes or no?
"I don't trust you," I said. "What do you want to do with me? whatpurpose have you in this, apart from the hushing up of a scandal?"
He became thoughtful at that; presently, looking up, he answered me withwhat seemed to be a charming frankness, "You have the right to ask, andalthough I might refuse to reply, I want to treat you fairly," he said."In a certain business in which I am interested--a certain scheme I haveon hand--I want help. You will be a man who has thrown everything, as itwere, into the melting-pot of life: you will have everything to win, andnothing to lose. In other words, you are just the creature I want--theman ready to my hand, to do anything I may suggest. You haven't answeredme yet; is it to be yes or no?"
I said, "No!" quickly, and he moved towards the bell with an impatientfrown. He had only three steps to take, but in that brief moment I had avision of myself handcuffed and going back to my prison; I could notbear it. He was within an inch of the bell, when I cried out the wordthat was to change all my life, and was to set me upon the mostdesperate venture I had yet had anything to do with. I cried out, "Yes."
He smiled, and came back to me. "You should learn to make up your mindmore quickly," he said. "Now, let us see what we have to do. You'venothing to be afraid of, and you need take no notice of that creature inthe corner there; he knows nothing, and will remember nothing. Stripyourself to the skin."
As I began to undress, I glanced at the old man in the corner; he sat inthe same attitude, with his head sunk in his hands. "What is wrong withhim?" I asked.
Dr. Bardolph Just was bending over the body of the man on the couch; hedid not look round. "Something snapped in his brain a little time ago,"he answered me. "It is as though you had snapped the mainspring of awatch; the brain in him died at that moment."
"What caused it?" I asked, still shedding my clothes.
"Shock. Get your clothes off, and don't talk so much," he snapped.
He tossed certain garments to me one by one, and I flung him my own inreturn. So the change was made, and I presently stood up and looked downat myself, and saw myself as that young man who had stood in the gardenand had talked to the girl. For, indeed, I was something like him infigure, and height, and appearance. When the doctor moved away from thecouch I gasped, for there I lay, in the dress I had worn for a year,branded and numbered--and dead. It was not a pretty sight; I turned awayfrom it, shuddering.
But the doctor laughed softly. "It is not given to every man to seehimself as he will one day be," he said.
"What was his name?" I whispered.
"Gregory Pennington," he answered, looking at the body. "So you see atone stroke we get rid of Gregory Pennington, and of a certainunfortunate c
onvict, named Norton Hyde. So far as your furtherchristening is concerned, we must arrange that later, for this mattermust be taken with a certain boldness, or weak spots may be discoveredin it. I think you said you were hungry, and I daresay you've had enoughof this room for the present."
"More than enough," I replied.
"Then come along, and let us see if we can find something to put bettercourage into you," he said. And gratefully enough I followed him fromthe room in that new disguise.
The house was a very large one. We traversed a number of corridorsbefore coming to a room which seemed to be half-study and half-surgery.I should not have known as to the latter half of it, but for the factthat the doctor, who did not seem to care to summon any servants theremay have been, left me there while he went in search of food. I peepedbehind a screen at one end of the room, and saw an array of bottles, andtest tubes in stands, and other paraphernalia. At the further end of theroom were great book cases reaching to the ceiling, and a big desk witha reading-lamp upon it. But even here, though the furniture washandsome, the room had a neglected appearance, as, indeed, I afterwardsfound every room in that house had.
Bardolph Just came back in a little while, carrying food and a decanter.After he had set the food out on a table, and I had fallen to with arelish, he laughed softly, and said that, after all, he had forgottento bring me a glass. He declared, however, that that was a matter soonremedied, and he went behind the screen, and came out with a tallmeasuring-glass in his hand. It seemed an uncanny thing to drink wineout of; but I had no choice.
He presently pulled open a drawer in the desk, and took out a cigar, andlighted it; as I had finished my meal, he tossed one to me, and Igratefully began to smoke. The man was evidently still turning over somematter in his mind, for he said nothing while he sat twisting the cigarround between his lips and looking at me. His back was turned towardsthe door of the room, and presently in that house of horror I saw thedoor begin slowly to open.
I suppose I ought to have cried out, but once again I was fascinated bywhat might happen at any moment, and perhaps in sheer wonder as to whatwas coming in. It was nothing worse, as it turned out, than the little,old grey-haired man I had seen in the further room, and who hadevidently followed us. He crept in now, step by step, with that curioussmile upon his face, and when he was fairly in the room closed thedoor--I noticed that it closed with a sharp little click, as though ithad a spring lock.
Dr. Bardolph Just did a curious thing. As the lock clicked he suddenlysat rigid, gripping the arms of his chair, and staring at me as thoughfrom my face he would learn what was behind him. Seeing, I suppose,nothing in my expression to guide him, he suddenly swung sharply roundand faced the little old man; and I thought at that moment that a quicksigh broke from him, as of relief. I wondered what he had expected tosee.
"What the devil do you want?" he demanded, in a voice raised but littleabove a whisper. "Why do you follow me about?"
The old man spread out his hands in a deprecating fashion, and shook hishead. "Nothing, sir," he said, "nothing at all. But he won't speak tome--and he has never been like that before. I don't understand it. Iknelt beside him just now, and his dress was different--and--and--" Isaw his hands go up to his lips, and pluck at them in that strangefashion--"and he won't speak to me."
The doctor turned from him to me, and shrugged his shoulders. "This is anice apparition to be following a man about," he said petulantly. "Ican't make him out at all."
"Who is he?" I ventured to ask in a whisper.
"The servant of the dead man--one of those faithful old fools thatattach themselves to you, and won't be shaken off, I suppose. He camehere to-night, following his unfortunate master. What the deuce am I todo with him?"
"He seems harmless enough," I whispered. "But isn't it rather dangerousto have him about here, after the fraud that has been committed. Won'the speak? Won't he say that this dead man is not the escaped convict,but his master?"
"There's no fear of that," replied the other. "I tell you something hassnapped in his brain; he doesn't understand. If I turned him out intothe world now, he would remember nothing, and would have no story totell, even if he were questioned. But I don't want to turn him out--andyet he haunts me."
"You say he changed in a moment?" I asked.
Dr. Just nodded. "When he saw his master dead, he simply cried out, andafterwards remained as you see him now. I must dispose of him for thenight, at least," he said, getting to his feet, and approaching the oldman. "Come, Capper, I want you."
The little old man looked round at him as he said that name, and I saw afaint fear come into his eyes. He shrank away a little, but the doctorgrasped his arm quickly, and drew him towards the door. He went out inthat grasp passively enough, and I was left alone again.
I had almost fallen asleep, worn out with the excitements of the day,when the doctor came back again. I started to my feet drowsily, andfaced him.
"Good-night!" he said, and held out his hand to me--a cold hand, butfirm and strong in its touch. "You may see and hear strange things inthis house," he added, "but it is not your business to take any noticeof them. You will be, I hope, properly grateful to me--the man who hassaved you, and given you a new lease of life."
"Yes, I shall be grateful," I promised him.
He conducted me to a room in what seemed to be an outlying wing of thehouse, and left me to my own reflections. In truth, I was too tired togive much time to thought. I slipped off my clothes and got into bed,and was asleep in five minutes.
But I was not destined to sleep well, after all. In the first place, Iwas troubled most unaccountably by dreams, in which I saw myself goingthrough the most extraordinary adventures, and finally hanging to whatseemed to be the roof of Penthouse Prison, with the little old man ofthe grey hair grinning up at me from the ground below. And through mydreams there appeared always to go the light, quick figure of that girlI had seen in the grounds of the house; and always she went searchingfor someone. I dreamed at last that she came straight to me, and took meby the arms, and stared at me, and cried out that she had found the manshe wanted. And so I sat up in bed in the darkness, struggling withsomeone very real, who was gripping me.
I almost shrieked, as I rolled out of bed, and tried to disengage myselffrom the arms of a man who was clinging to me. I contrived to drag himtowards the window, where, by the faint light of the stars outside, Isaw that it was the man Capper--that seemingly half-witted creature whohad been the servant of the dead man.
"What do you want?" I ejaculated.
"I've been dreaming," said Capper.
"Well, what of that?" I demanded testily, "I've been dreaming, too."
"Yes, but not dreams like mine," whispered the old man, lookingfearfully over his shoulder. "Tell me, do you think they'll come true?"
"I don't know what they were," I reminded him.
He clutched me by the arm, and stared up in my face. There seemed almosta light of madness in his eyes. "I dreamed that it happened a long timeago--before my head went wrong. I dreamed of a blow struck in the dark;I thought someone (it might have been myself, but I'm not sure even ofthat)--I dreamed that someone screamed, 'Murder!'"
In a growing excitement he had raised his voice almost to a scream; Iclapped my hand over his lips as he got out the dreadful word. I felt myhair stirring on my scalp. I wondered if by chance something dreadfulhad happened in that house, of which this old man knew, and the memoryof which was locked away in that closed brain of his.
"Let me stay here to-night," he pleaded, clinging to me. "I'll be stillas a mouse; I'll lie in this corner on the floor."
So I let him lie there, and I went back to my bed. For a long time Ilay awake, watching him and thinking about him; but gradually towardsthe morning I fell asleep, and slept heavily. When I awoke at last, withthe sun shining in at my window, the man was gone, and my door stoodopen.
That was to be a day of happenings. Even now my mind holds but aconfused memory of them, in which I seem to be now my
self, and now someother man; now living on hope, and now sunk into the depths of fear anddespair. For what I have to tell seems so incredible, that only by someknowledge of the man who carried the plot boldly through can any idea ofhow the business was arranged be arrived at.
Dr. Bardolph Just acted with promptness and decision that day. Amessenger flew down towards London to summon the police; and a telegramsped over the wires back to Penthouse Prison. The missing convict hadbeen found; all the world might come to the house of Dr. Bardolph Just,and see this thing for themselves. At the last, when we actuallyexpected the enemy to arrive at our gates, as it were, I nervouslyplucked the doctor's sleeve, and whispered a question.
"What about his hair? They'll be sure to notice that."
He smiled a little pityingly, I thought; but then, to the very end theman retained some contempt for me. "Come and see for yourself," he said.
So I went back with him into that room where we had left the dead man,and there I saw a miracle. For while I slept the doctor had been atwork, and the head of poor Gregory Pennington was cropped as closely asmy own. I shuddered and turned away.
"How you ever contrived to escape puzzles me," said Bardolph Just. "Youhaven't half my courage."
The man was certainly amazing. He met everything blandly; he was firm,and quiet, and dignified with this official and with that. He told meafterwards all that he did, and I had no reason to disbelieve him. Formy own part, of course, I had to keep out of the way, and I spent mostof my time in the spacious grounds surrounding the house. There was anold ruined summer-house at one corner, under a high wall; and there,fortified with a few of the doctor's cigars, I awaited quietly the turnof events. According to the doctor's description to me afterwards, whathappened was this:
In the first place, the puzzle fitted so neatly together that there wasno feeling of suspicion. A tall, well-built, dark-haired man, in theclothes of a convict, was roaming over the country; by a miracle a mananswering that description, and dressed in those clothes, and having thenecessary number upon him, had got to this house on the northern heightsabove London, and there, in despair of escaping further, had hangedhimself. Dr. Bardolph Just was a man of standing in the scientificworld--a man who had made discoveries; there was no thought of callinghis word in question. This dead man was undoubtedly the escapedconvict--Norton Hyde.
A very necessary inquest was held, and twelve good men and true settledthat matter once and for all. There had been one curious point in theevidence, but even that was a point that had been miraculouslyexplained. The doctor spoke of it airily, and I wondered a little why hedid not explain the matter with more exactitude.
"It seems," he said, "that they discovered on the head of theunfortunate man the mark of a blow--a blow which had undoubtedly stunnedhim--or so, at least, they thought. It's impossible for me to say howthe unfortunate Gregory Pennington came by such an injury, but at allevents even that was accounted for in the case of Norton Hyde."
"How?" I asked.
Dr. Just laughed. "A certain motorist put in an appearance, and franklyexplained that he had picked you up on the roadside near PenthousePrison, and had given you a lift as far as this very house. Then therewas an accident, and he and his passenger were both pitched out; he wasconvinced that in that way you got your injury. The thing was as simpleas possible--you had recovered consciousness before he did, and hadscrambled over the fence here."
"But did they swallow the story of my being in the house--of my breakingin?" I asked.
"I had thought of that," said the doctor. "So my tale was that you hadhanged yourself from a beam in an outhouse--probably because you failedin your purpose of breaking into my dwelling. As a doctor, the moment Idiscovered you I cut you down, and carried you in, and did my best torestore animation, but in vain. You will like to know, Mr. Norton Hyde,that my humanity was warmly commended by the jury and coroner."
I laughed in a sickly fashion. "But I am not Norton Hyde any longer," Ireminded him.
"True--and I have thought of a name for you that shall, in a fashion,mark your entry into another phase of existence. A nice name, and ashort one. What do you say to the title of John New, a personal friendof my own?"
I told him that any name would suit me that was not the old one, and sothat matter was settled.
He displayed so great an anxiety to see the matter ended, and wasaltogether so sympathetic with that poor convict who in his despair hadhanged himself, that he even attended the funeral. Which is to say,that he carried the fraud so far as to go to Penthouse Prison, what timethat disguised body of Godfrey Pennington was carried there, and to seeit interred with all due solemnity within the prison precincts; Ibelieve he lunched with the governor of the prison on that occasion,and, altogether, played his part very well.
It is left to me to record here one other happening of that time, andone which made a deep impression upon me. On the night of that strangefinishing of the fraud, when Dr. Bardolph Just returned, I was sittingsmoking in the summer-house, and enjoying the evening air, when I heardwhat seemed to be the quick, half-strangled cry of a woman. I tossedaside my cigar and started to my feet and came out of the summer-house.It was very dark in that corner of the grounds, and the summer-house inparticular had great deep shadows inside it.
There came towards me, flying among the trees, and looking back in ascared fashion over her shoulder, the girl I had seen with GregoryPennington--the girl he had called Debora. She came straight at me, notseeing me; and in the distance I saw Bardolph Just running, and heardhim calling to her. On an instinct I caught at her, and laid a finger onmy lips, and thrust her into the summer-house. Bardolph Just camerunning up a moment later, and stopped a little foolishly on seeing me.And by that time I was stretching my arms and yawning.
He made some casual remark, and turned back towards the house. When hehad gone I called to the girl, and she came out; she was white-faced andtrembling, and there were tears in her eyes. I felt that I hatedBardolph Just, with a hatred that was altogether unreasonable.
"I saw you here yesterday," she said, looking at me earnestly. "I needfriends badly--and you have a good, kind face. Will you be my friend?"
I do not know what words I said; I only know that there, in the darkgarden, as I bent over her little hands and put them to my lips, I vowedmyself in my heart to her service.