CHAPTER IX.
The lane was still again, save for the unwonted sounds coming from thegroups which had gathered round the two women, and were now movingbeside them along the village street a hundred yards ahead.
Marcella stood in a horror of memory--seeing Hurd's figure cross themoonlit avenue from dark to dark. Where was he? Had he escaped? Suddenlyshe set off running, stung by the thought of what might have alreadyhappened under the eyes of that unhappy wife, those wretched children.
As she entered the village, a young fellow ran up to her in breathlessexcitement. "They've got 'im, miss. He'd come straight home--'adn't madeno attempt to run. As soon as Jenkins" (Jenkins was the policeman)"heared of it, ee went straight across to 'is house, an' caught 'im. Eewor goin' to make off--'is wife 'ad been persuadin' ov 'im all night.But they've got him, miss, sure enough!"
The lad's exultation was horrible. Marcella waved him aside and ran on.A man on horseback appeared on the road in front of her leading fromWidrington to the village. She recognised Aldous Raeburn, who hadchecked his horse in sudden amazement as he saw her talking to the boy.
"My darling! what are you here for? Oh! go home--go _home_!--out ofthis horrible business. They have sent for me as a magistrate. Dynes isalive--I _beg_ you!--go home!"
She shook her head, out of breath and speechless with running. At thesame moment she and he, looking to the right, caught sight of the crowdstanding in front of Hurd's cottage.
A man ran out from it, seeing the horse and its rider.
"Muster Raeburn! Muster Raeburn! They've cotched 'im; Jenkins has got'im."
"Ah!" said Aldous, drawing a long, stern breath; "he didn't try to getoff then? Marcella!--you are not going there--to that house!"
He spoke in a tone of the strongest remonstrance. Her soul rose in angeragainst it.
"I am going to _her_" she said panting;--"don't wait."
And she left him and hurried on.
As soon as the crowd round the cottage saw her coming, they divided tolet her pass.
"She's quiet now, miss," said a woman to her significantly, noddingtowards the hovel. "Just after Jenkins got in you could hear her cryingout pitiful."
"That was when they wor a-handcuffin' him," said a man beside her.
Marcella shuddered.
"Will they let me in?" she asked.
"They won't let none ov _us_ in," said the man. "There's Hurd's sister,"and he pointed to a weeping woman supported by two others. "They've kep'her out. But here's the inspector, miss; you ask him."
The inspector, a shrewd officer of long experience, fetched in hastefrom a mile's distance, galloped up, and gave his horse to a boy.
Marcella went up to him.
He looked at her with sharp interrogation. "You are Miss Boyce? MissBoyce of Mellor?"
"Yes, I want to go to the wife; I will promise not to get in your way."
He nodded. The crowd let them pass. The inspector knocked at the door,which was cautiously unlocked by Jenkins, and the two went in together.
"She's a queer one," said a thin, weasel-eyed man in the crowd to hisneighbour. "To think o' her bein' in it--at this time o' day. You couldsee Muster Raeburn was a tellin' of her to go 'ome. But she's alluspampered them Hurds."
The speaker was Ned Patton, old Patton's son, and Hurd's companion onmany a profitable night-walk. It was barely a week since he had been outwith Hurd on another ferreting expedition, some of the proceeds of whichwere still hidden in Patton's outhouse. But at the present moment he wasone of the keenest of the crowd, watching eagerly for the moment when heshould see his old comrade come out, trapped and checkmated, boundsafely and surely to the gallows. The natural love of incident andchange which keeps life healthy had been starved in him by hislabourer's condition. This sudden excitement had made a brute of him.
The man next him grimaced, and took his pipe out of his mouth a moment.
"_She_ won't be able to do nothin' for 'im! There isn't a man nor boyin this 'ere place as didn't know as ee hated Westall like pison, andwould be as like as not to do for 'im some day. That'll count agen 'imnow terrible strong! Ee wor allus one to blab, ee wor."
"Well, an' Westall said jus' as much!" struck in another voice; "theerwor sure to be a fight iv ever Westall got at 'im--on the job. Yousee--they may bring it in manslarter after all."
"'Ow does any one know ee wor there at all? who seed him?" inquired awhite-haired elderly man, raising a loud quavering voice from the middleof the crowd.
"Charlie Dynes seed 'im," cried several together.
"How do yer know ee seed 'im?"
From the babel of voices which followed the white-haired man slowlygathered the beginnings of the matter. Charlie Dynes, Westall'sassistant, had been first discovered by a horsekeeper in Farmer Wellin'semployment as he was going to his work. The lad had been found under ahedge, bleeding and frightfully injured, but still alive. Close besidehim was the dead body of Westall with shot-wounds in the head. On beingtaken to the farm and given brandy, Dynes was asked if he had recognisedanybody. He had said there were five of them, "town chaps"; and then hehad named Hurd quite plainly--whether anybody else, nobody knew. It wassaid he would die, and that Mr. Raeburn had gone to take his deposition.
"An' them town chaps got off, eh?" said the elderly man.
"Clean!" said Patton, refilling his pipe. "Trust them!"
Meanwhile, inside this poor cottage Marcella was putting out all thepowers of the soul. As the door closed behind her and the inspector, shesaw Hurd sitting handcuffed in the middle of the kitchen, watched by aman whom Jenkins, the local policeman, had got in to help him, till somemore police should arrive. Jenkins was now upstairs searching thebedroom. The little bronchitic boy sat on the fender, in front of theuntidy fireless grate, shivering, his emaciated face like a yellowishwhite mask, his eyes fixed immovably on his father. Every now and thenhe was shaken with coughing, but still he looked--with the dumb devotedattention of some watching animal.
Hurd, too, was sitting silent. His eyes, which seemed wider open andmore brilliant than usual, wandered restlessly from thing to thing aboutthe room; his great earth-stained hands in their fetters twitched everynow and then on his knee. Haggard and dirty as he was, there was acertain aloofness, a dignity even, about the misshapen figure whichstruck Marcella strangely. Both criminal and victim may have it--thisdignity. It means that a man feels himself set apart from his kind.
Hurd started at sight of Marcella. "I want to speak to her," he saidhoarsely, as the inspector approached him--"to that lady"--noddingtowards her.
"Very well," said the inspector; "only it is my duty to warn you thatanything you say now will be taken down and used as evidence at theinquest."
Marcella came near. As she stood in front of him, one trembling unglovedhand crossed over the other, the diamond in her engagement ringcatching the light from the window sparkled brightly, diverting even forthe moment the eyes of the little fellow against whom her skirts werebrushing.
"Ee might ha' killed me just as well as I killed 'im," said Hurd,bending over to her and speaking with difficulty from the dryness of hismouth. "I didn't mean nothink o' what happened. He and Charlie came onus round Disley Wood. He didn't take no notice o' them. It was they asbeat Charlie. But he came straight on at me--all in a fury--ablackguardin' ov me, with his stick up. I thought he was for beatin' mybrains out, an' I up with my gun and fired. He was so close--that washow he got it all in the head. But ee might 'a' killed me just as well."
He paused, staring at her with a certain anguished intensity, as thoughhe were watching to see how she took it--nay, trying its effect both onher and himself. He did not look afraid or cast down--nay, there was acurious buoyancy and steadiness about his manner for the moment whichastonished her. She could almost have fancied that he was more alive,more of a _man_ than she had ever seen him--mind and body better fused,more at command.
"Is there anything more you wish to say to me?" she asked him, afterwaiting.
Then sudd
enly his manner changed. Their eyes met. Hers, with all theirsubtle inheritance of various expression, their realised character, asit were, searched his, tried to understand them--those peasant eyes, sopiercing to her strained sense in their animal urgency and shame. _Why_had he done this awful thing?--deceived her--wrecked his wife?--that waswhat her look asked. It seemed to her too _childish_--too _stupid_ to bebelieved.
"I haven't made nobbut a poor return to _you_, miss," he said in ashambling way, as though the words were dragged out of him. Then hethrew up his head again. "But I didn't mean nothink o' what happened,"he repeated, doggedly going off again into a rapid yet, on the whole,vivid and consecutive account of Westall's attack, to which Marcellalistened, trying to remember every word.
"Keep that for your solicitor," the inspector said at last, interruptinghim; "you are only giving pain to Miss Boyce. You had better let her goto your wife."
Hurd looked steadily once more at Marcella. "It be a bad end I'm cometo," he said, after a moment. "But I thank you kindly all the same._They'll_ want seein' after." He jerked his head towards the boy, thentowards the outhouse or scullery where his wife was. "She takes itterr'ble hard. She wanted me to run. But I said, 'No, I'll stan' itout.' Mr. Brown at the Court'll give you the bit wages he owes me. Butthey'll have to go on the Union. Everybody'll turn their backs on themnow."
"I will look after them," said Marcella, "and I will do the best I canfor you. Now I will go to Mrs. Hurd."
Minta Hurd was sitting in a corner of the outhouse on the clay floor,her head leaning against the wall. The face was turned upward, the eyesshut, the mouth helplessly open. When Marcella saw her, she knew thatthe unhappy woman had already wept so much in the hours since herhusband came back to her that she could weep no more. The two littlegirls in the scantiest of clothing, half-fastened, sat on the floorbeside her, shivering and begrimed--watching her. They had been cryingat the tops of their voices, but were now only whimpering miserably, andtrying at intervals to dry their tear-stained cheeks with the skirts oftheir frocks. The baby, wrapped in an old shawl, lay on its mother'sknee, asleep and unheeded. The little lean-to place, full of odds andends of rubbish, and darkened overhead by a string of damp clothes--wasintolerably cold in the damp February dawn. The children were blue; themother felt like ice as Marcella stooped to touch her. Outcast miserycould go no further.
The mother moaned as she felt Marcella's hand, then started wildlyforward, straining her thin neck and swollen eyes that she might seethrough the two open doors of the kitchen and the outhouse.
"They're not taking him away?" she said fiercely. "Jenkins swore to methey'd give me notice."
"No, he's still there," said Marcella, her voice shaking. "Theinspector's come. You shall have notice."
Mrs. Hurd recognised her voice, and looked up at her in amazement.
"You must put this on," said Marcella, taking off the short fur cape shewore. "You are perished. Give me the baby, and wrap yourself in it."
But Mrs. Hurd put it away from her with a vehement hand.
"I'm not cold, miss--I'm burning hot. He made me come in here. He saidhe'd do better if the children and I ud go away a bit. An' I couldn't goupstairs, because--because--" she hid her face on her knees.
Marcella had a sudden sick vision of the horrors this poor creature musthave gone through since her husband had appeared to her, splashed withthe blood of his enemy, under that same marvellous moon which--
Her mind repelled its own memories with haste. Moreover, she was awareof the inspector standing at the kitchen door and beckoning to her. Shestole across to him so softly that Mrs. Hurd did not hear her.
"We have found all we want," he said in his official tone, but under hisbreath--"the clothes anyway. We must now look for the gun. Jenkins isfirst going to take him off to Widrington. The inquest will be heldto-morrow here, at 'The Green Man.' We shall bring him over." Then headded in another voice, touching his hat, "I don't like leaving you,miss, in this place. Shall Jenkins go and fetch somebody to look afterthat poor thing? They'll be all swarming in here as soon as we've gone."
"No, I'll stay for a while. I'll look after her. They won't come in ifI'm here. Except his sister--Mrs. Mullins--she may come in, of course,if she wants."
The inspector hesitated.
"I'm going now to meet Mr. Raeburn, miss. I'll tell him that you'rehere."
"He knows," said Marcella, briefly. "Now are you ready?"
He signed assent, and Marcella went back to the wife.
"Mrs. Hurd," she said, kneeling on the ground beside her, "they'regoing."
The wife sprang up with a cry and ran into the kitchen, where Hurd wasalready on his feet between Jenkins and another policeman, who were toconvey him to the gaol at Widrington. But when she came face to facewith her husband something--perhaps the nervous appeal in his strainedeyes--checked her, and she controlled herself piteously. She did noteven attempt to kiss him. With her eyes on the ground, she put her handon his arm. "They'll let me come and see you, Jim?" she said, trembling.
"Yes; you can find out the rules," he said shortly. "Don't let themchildren cry. They want their breakfast to warm them. There's plenty ofcoal. I brought a sack home from Jellaby's last night myself. Good-bye."
"Now, march," said the inspector, sternly, pushing the wife back.
Marcella put her arm round the shaking woman. The door opened; andbeyond the three figures as they passed out, her eye passed to thewaiting crowd, then to the misty expanse of common and the dark woodsbehind, still wrapped in fog.
When Mrs. Hurd saw the rows of people waiting within a stone's throw ofthe door she shrank back. Perhaps it struck her, as it struck Marcella,that every face was the face of a foe. Marcella ran to the door as theinspector stepped out, and locked it after him. Mrs. Hurd, hidingherself behind a bit of baize curtain, watched the two policemen mountwith Hurd into the fly that was waiting, and then followed it with hereyes along the bit of straight road, uttering sounds the while of lowanguish, which wrung the heart in Marcella's breast. Looking back inafter days it always seemed to her that for this poor soul the trueparting, the true wrench between life and life, came at this moment.
She went up to her, her own tears running over.
"You must come and lie down," she said, recovering herself as quickly aspossible. "You and the children are both starved, and you will want yourstrength if you are to help him. I will see to things."
She put the helpless woman on the wooden settle by the fireplace,rolling up her cloak to make a pillow.
"Now, Willie, you sit by your mother. Daisy, where's the cradle? Put thebaby down and come and help me make the fire."
The dazed children did exactly as they were told, and the mother laylike a log on the settle. Marcella found coal and wood under Daisy'sguidance, and soon lit the fire, piling on the fuel with a lavish hand.Daisy brought her water, and she filled the kettle and set it on toboil, while the little girl, still sobbing at intervals like some littleweeping automaton, laid the breakfast. Then the children all crouchedround the warmth, while Marcella rubbed their cold hands and feet, and"mothered" them. Shaken as she was with emotion and horror, she was yetfull of a passionate joy that this pity, this tendance was allowed toher. The crushing weight of self-contempt had lifted. She felt morallyfree and at ease.
Already she was revolving what she could do for Hurd. It was as clearas daylight to her that there had been no murder but a free fight--aneven chance between him and Westall. The violence of a hard andtyrannous man had provoked his own destruction--so it stood, for herpassionate protesting sense. That at any rate must be the defence, andsome able man must be found to press it. She thought she would write tothe Cravens and consult them. Her thoughts carefully avoided the namesboth of Aldous Raeburn and of Wharton.
She was about to make the tea when some one knocked at the door. Itproved to be Hurd's sister, a helpless woman, with a face swollen bycrying, who seemed to be afraid to come into the cottage, and afraid togo near her sister-in-law. Ma
rcella gave her money, and sent her forsome eggs to the neighbouring shop, then told her to come back in halfan hour and take charge. She was an incapable, but there was nothingbetter to be done. "Where is Miss Harden?" she asked the woman. Theanswer was that ever since the news came to the village the rector andhis sister had been with Mrs. Westall and Charlie Dyne's mother. Mrs.Westall had gone into fit after fit; it had taken two to hold her, andCharlie's mother, who was in bed recovering from pneumonia, had alsobeen very bad.
Again Marcella's heart contracted with rage rather than pity. Such wrackand waste of human life, moral and physical! for what? For theprotection of a hateful sport which demoralised the rich and theiragents, no less than it tempted and provoked the poor!
When she had fed and physically comforted the children, she went andknelt down beside Mrs. Hurd, who still lay with closed eyes inheavy-breathing stupor.
"Dear Mrs. Hurd," she said, "I want you to drink this tea and eatsomething."
The half-stupefied woman signed refusal. But Marcella insisted.
"You have got to fight for your husband's life," she said firmly, "andto look after your children. I must go in a very short time, and beforeI go you must tell me all that you can of this business. Hurd would tellyou to do it. He knows and you know that I am to be trusted. I want tosave him. I shall get a good lawyer to help him. But first you must takethis--and then you must talk to me."
The habit of obedience to a "lady," established long ago in years ofdomestic service, held. The miserable wife submitted to be fed, lookedwith forlorn wonder at the children round the fire, and then sank backwith a groan. In her tension of feeling Marcella for an impatient momentthought her a poor creature. Then with quick remorse she put her armstenderly round her, raised the dishevelled grey-streaked head on hershoulder, and stooping, kissed the marred face, her own lips quivering.
"You are not alone," said the girl with her whole soul. "You shall neverbe alone while I live. Now tell me."
She made the white and gasping woman sit up in a corner of the settle,and she herself got a stool and established herself a little way off,frowning, self-contained, and determined to make out the truth.
"Shall I send the children upstairs?" she asked.
"No!" said the boy, suddenly, in his husky voice, shaking his head withenergy, "I'm not a-going."
"Oh! he's safe--is Willie," said Mrs. Hurd, looking at him, butstrangely, and as it were from a long distance, "and the others is toolittle."
Then gradually Marcella got the story out of her--first, the misery ofalarm and anxiety in which she had lived ever since the Tudley End raid,owing first to her knowledge of Hurd's connection with it, and with thegang that had carried it out; then to her appreciation of the quick andghastly growth of the hatred between him and Westall; lastly, to hersense of ingratitude towards those who had been kind to them.
"I knew we was acting bad towards you. I told Jim so. I couldn't hardlybear to see you come in. But there, miss,--I couldn't do anything. Itried, oh! the Lord knows I tried! There was never no happiness betweenus at last, I talked so. But I don't believe he could help himself--he'snot made like other folks, isn't Jim--"
Her features became convulsed again with the struggle for speech.Marcella reached out for the toil-disfigured hand that was fingering andclutching at the edge of the settle, and held it close. Gradually shemade out that although Hurd had not been able of course to conceal hisnight absences from his wife, he had kept his connection with the Oxfordgang absolutely dark from her, till, in his wild exultation overWestall's discomfiture in the Tudley End raid, he had said things in hisrestless snatches of sleep which had enabled her to get the whole truthout of him by degrees. Her reproaches, her fears, had merely angered andestranged him; her nature had had somehow to accommodate itself to his,lest affection should lose its miserable all.
As to this last fatal attack on the Maxwell coverts, it was clear toMarcella, as she questioned and listened, that the wife hadlong foreseen it, and that she now knew much more about itthan--suddenly--she would allow herself to say. For in the midst of herout-pourings she drew herself together, tried to collect and calmherself, looked at Marcella with an agonised, suspicious eye, and fellsilent.
"I don't know nothing about it, miss," she stubbornly declared at last,with an inconsequent absurdity which smote Marcella's pity afresh. "Howam I to know? There was seven o' them Oxford fellows at Tudley End--thatI know. Who's to say as Jim was with 'em at all last night? Who's to sayas it wasn't them as--"
She stopped, shivering. Marcella held her reluctant hand.
"You don't know," she said quietly, "that I saw your husband in here fora minute before I came in to you, and that he told me, as he had alreadytold Jenkins, that it was in a struggle with him that Westall was shot,but that he had fired in self-defence because Westall was attacking him.You don't know, too, that Charlie Dynes is alive, and says he sawHurd--"
"Charlie Dynes!" Mrs. Hurd gave a shriek, and then fell to weeping andtrembling again, so that Marcella had need of patience.
"If you can't help me more," she said at last in despair, "I don't knowwhat we shall do. Listen to me. Your husband will be charged withWestall's murder. That I am sure of. He says it was not murder--that ithappened in a fight. I believe it. I want to get a lawyer to prove it. Iam your friend--you know I am. But if you are not going to help me bytelling me what you know of last night I may as well go home--and getyour sister-in-law to look after you and the children."
She rose as she spoke. Mrs. Hurd clutched at her.
"Oh, my God!" she said, looking straight before her vacantly at thechildren, who at once began to cry again. "_Oh, my God_! Look here,miss"--her voice dropped, her swollen eyes fixed themselves onMarcella--the words came out in a low, hurried stream--"It was justafter four o'clock I heard that door turn; I got up in my nightgown andran down, and there was Jim. 'Put that light out,' he says to me, sharplike. 'Oh, Jim,' says I, 'wherever have you been? You'll be the death o'me and them poor children!' 'You go to bed,' says he to me, 'and I'llcome presently.' But I could see him, 'cos of the moon, almost as plainas day, an' I couldn't take my eyes off him. And he went about thekitchen so strange like, puttin' down his hat and takin' it up again,an' I saw he hadn't got his gun. So I went up and caught holt on him.An' he gave me a push back. 'Can't you let me alone?' he says; 'you'llknow soon enough.' An' then I looked at my sleeve where I'd touchedhim--oh, my God! my God!"
Marcella, white to the lips and shuddering too, held her tight. She hadthe _seeing_ faculty which goes with such quick, nervous natures, andshe saw the scene as though she had been there--the moonlit cottage, themiserable husband and wife, the life-blood on the woman's sleeve.
Mrs. Hurd went on in a torrent of half-finished sentences and fragmentsof remembered talk. She told her husband's story of the encounter withthe keepers as he had told it to her, of course with additions andmodifications already struck out by the agony of inventive pain; shedescribed how she had made him take his blood-stained clothes and hidethem in a hole in the roof; then how she had urged him to strike acrosscountry at once and get a few hours start before the ghastly businesswas known. But the more he talked to her the more confident he became ofhis own story, and the more determined to stay and brave it out.Besides, he was shrewd enough to see that escape for a man of hisdeformity was impossible, and he tried to make her understand it so. Butshe was mad and blind with fear, and at last, just as the light wascoming in, he told her roughly, to end their long wrestle, that heshould go to bed and get some sleep. She would make a fool of him, andhe should want all his wits. She followed him up the steep ladder totheir room, weeping. And there was little Willie sitting up in bed,choking with the phlegm in his throat, and half dead of fright becauseof the voices below.
"And when Hurd see him, he went and cuddled him up, and rubbed his legsand feet to warm them, an' I could hear him groanin'. And I says to him,'Jim, if you won't go for my sake, will you go for the boy's?' For yousee, miss, there was a bit of money in
the house, an' I thought he'dhide himself by day and walk by night, and so get to Liverpool perhaps,and off to the States. An' it seemed as though my head would burst withlistening for people comin', and him taken up there like a rat in atrap, an' no way of provin' the truth, and everybody agen him, becauseof the things he'd said. And he burst out a-cryin', an' Willie cried.An' I came an' entreated of him. An' he kissed me; an' at last he saidhe'd go. An' I made haste, the light was getting so terrible strong; an'just as he'd got to the foot of the stairs, an' I was holding littleWillie in my arms an' saying good-bye to him--"
She let her head sink against the settle. There was no more to say, andMarcella asked no more questions--she sat thinking. Willie stood, awasted, worn figure, by his mother, stroking her face; his hoarsebreathing was for the time the only sound in the cottage.
Then Marcella heard a loud knock at the door. She got up and lookedthrough the casement window. The crowd had mostly dispersed, but a fewpeople stood about on the green, and a policeman was stationed outsidethe cottage. On the steps stood Aldous Raeburn, his horse held behindhim by a boy.
She went and opened the door.
"I will come," she said at once. "There--I see Mrs. Mullins crossing thecommon. Now I can leave her."
Aldous, taking off his hat, closed the door behind him and stood withhis hand on Marcella's arm, looking at the huddled woman on the settle,at the pale children. There was a solemnity in his expression, a mixtureof judgment and pity which showed that the emotion of other scenesalso--scenes through which he had just passed--was entering into it.
"Poor unhappy souls," he said slowly, under his breath. "You say thatyou have got some one to see after her. She looks as though it mightkill her, too."
Marcella nodded. Now that her task, for the moment, was nearly over, shecould hardly restrain herself nervously or keep herself from crying.Aldous observed her with disquiet as she put on her hat. His heart wasdeeply stirred. She had chosen more nobly for herself than he would havechosen for her, in thus daring an awful experience for the sake ofmercy. His moral sense, exalted and awed by the sight of death,approved, worshipped her. His man's impatience pined to get her away, tocherish and comfort hen Why, she could hardly have slept three hourssince they parted on the steps of the Court, amidst the crowd ofcarriages!
Mrs. Mullins came in still scared and weeping, and dropping frightenedcurtseys to "Muster Raeburn." Marcella spoke to her a little in awhisper, gave some counsels which filled Aldous with admiration for thegirl's practical sense and thoughtfulness, and promised to come againlater. Mrs. Hurd neither moved nor opened her eyes.
"Can you walk?" said Aldous, bending over her, as they stood outside thecottage. "I can see that you are worn out. Could you sit my horse if Iled him?"
"No, let us walk."
They went on together, followed by the eyes of the village, the boyleading the horse some distance behind.
"Where have you been?" said Marcella, when they had passed the village."Oh, _please_ don't think of my being tired! I had so much rather knowit all. I must know it all."
She was deathly pale, but her black eyes flashed impatience andexcitement. She even drew her hand out of the arm where Aldous wastenderly holding it, and walked on erect by herself.
"I have been with poor Dynes," said Aldous, sadly; "we had to take hisdeposition. He died while I was there."
"He died?"
"Yes. The fiends who killed him had left small doubt of that. But helived long enough, thank God, to give the information which will, Ithink, bring them to justice!"
The tone of the magistrate and the magnate goaded Marcella's quiveringnerves.
"What is justice?" she cried; "the system that wastes human lives inprotecting your tame pheasants?"
A cloud came over the stern clearness of his look. He gave a bittersigh--the sigh of the man to whom his own position in life had been, asit were, one long scruple.
"You may well ask that!" he said. "You cannot imagine that I did notask it of myself a hundred times as I stood by that poor fellow'sbedside."
They walked on in silence. She was hardly appeased. There was a deep,inner excitement in her urging her towards difference, towards attack.At last he resumed:
"But whatever the merits of our present game system may be, the presentcase is surely clear--horribly clear. Six men, with at least three gunsamong them, probably more, go out on a pheasant-stealing expedition.They come across two keepers, one a lad of seventeen, who have nothingbut a light stick apiece. The boy is beaten to death, the keeper shotdead at the first brush by a man who has been his life-long enemy, andthreatened several times in public to 'do for him.' If that is notbrutal and deliberate murder, it is difficult to say what is!"
Marcella stood still in the misty road trying to command herself.
"It was _not_ deliberate," she said at last with difficulty; "not inHurd's case. I have heard it all from his own mouth. It was a_struggle_--he might have been killed instead of Westall--Westallattacked, Hurd defended himself."
Aldous shook his head.
"Of course Hurd would tell you so," he said sadly, "and his poor wife.He is not a bad or vicious fellow, like the rest of the rascally pack.Probably when he came to himself, after the moment of rage, he could notsimply believe what he had done. But that makes no difference. It wasmurder; no judge or jury could possibly take any other view. Dynes'sevidence is clear, and the proof of motive is overwhelming."
Then, as he saw her pallor and trembling, he broke off in deep distress."My dear one, if I could but have kept you out of this!"
They were alone in the misty road. The boy with the horse was out ofsight. He would fain have put his arm round her, have consoled andsupported her. But she would not let him.
"Please understand," she said in a sort of gasp, as she drew herselfaway, "that I do _not_ believe Hurd is guilty--that I shall do my veryutmost to defend him. He is to me the victim of unjust, abominable laws!If _you_ will not help me to protect him--then I must look to some oneelse."
Aldous felt a sudden stab of suspicion--presentiment.
"Of course he will be well defended; he will have every chance; that youmay be sure of," he said slowly.
Marcella controlled herself, and they walked on. As they entered thedrive of Mellor, Aldous thought passionately of those divine moments inhis sitting-room, hardly yet nine hours old. And now--_now_!--she walkedbeside him as an enemy.
The sound of a step on the gravel in front of them made them look up.Past, present, and future met in the girl's bewildered and stormy senseas she recognised Wharton.