Roddy Homfray, having left Elma, was strolling slowly home full of thoughts of the slim and charming girl who had bewitched him, and yet whose station was so far above his own.
Through the sharp frosty night he walked for some distance along the broad highway, until he came to the cross roads, where he stopped to gossip with the village chemist. Then, after ten minutes or so, he walked on, crossed a stile and took a short cut across a field and up the hill to the woods at the back of the Rectory.
The night had now grown very dark, and as he entered the wood, he saw a figure skirting it. Whether man or woman he could not distinguish. He found the path more difficult than he expected, but he knew that way well, and by the aid of his pocket torch he was able to keep to the path, a rather crooked one, which led to the boundary of the Rectory lawn.
Suddenly, as he passed, his footsteps rustling among the dead leaves, he thought he heard a curious sound, like a groan. He halted, quickly alert.
Again the sound was repeated somewhere to his left – a low groan as though of someone in great pain.
He stepped from the path, examining the ground with its many tree trunks by the aid of his torch.
A third time the groan was repeated, but fainter than before, therefore he began to search in the direction whence the cry came, until, to his surprise, he discovered lying upon the ground at a short distance from the wire fence which divided the wood from the Rectory property, a female form in a neat navy-blue costume, with a small red hat lying a short distance away.
She was in a crouching position, and as the young man shone his light upon her, she again drew a deep sigh and groaned faintly.
“What is the matter?” he cried in alarm, dropping upon his knees and raising the fair head of a young and pretty girl.
She tried to speak, but her white lips refused to utter a sound. At last, by dint of desperate effort, she whispered in piteous appeal:
“Save me! Oh! —save me – do!”
Then next second she drew a deep breath, a shiver ran through her body, and she fell inert into the young fellow’s arms!
Chapter Three
Which Contains Another Mystery
Roddy Homfray, with the aid of his flash-lamp, gazed in breathless eagerness, his strong jaw set, at the girl’s blanched countenance.
As he brushed back the soft hair from the brow, he noted how very beautiful she was.
“Speak!” he urged eagerly. “Tell me what has happened?”
But her heart seemed to have ceased beating; he could detect no sign of life. Was he speaking to the dead?
So sudden had it all been that for some moments he did not realise the tragic truth. Then, in a flash, he became horrified. The girl’s piteous appeal made it only too plain that in that dark wood she had been the victim of foul play.
She had begged him to save her. From what? From whom?
There had been a struggle, for he saw that the sleeve of her coat had been torn from the shoulder, and her hat lying near was also evidence that she had been attacked, probably suddenly, and before she had been aware of danger. The trees were numerous at that spot, and behind any of their great, lichen-covered trunks a man could easily hide.
But who was she? What was she doing in Welling Wood, just off the beaten path, at that hour?
Again he stroked the hair from her brow and gazed upon her half-open but sightless eyes, as she lay heavy and inert in his arms. He listened intently in order to satisfy himself that she no longer breathed. There seemed no sign of respiration and the muscles of her face and hands seemed to have become rigid.
In astonishment and horror the young man rose to his feet, and placing his flash-lamp, still switched on, upon the ground, started off by a short cut to the Rectory by a path which he knew even in the darkness. He was eager to raise the alarm regarding the unexpected discovery, and every moment of delay might mean the escape of whoever was responsible for the crime.
The village police inspector lived not far from the Rectory, and it was his intention first to inform his father, and then run on to the police.
But this intention was never carried out, because of a strange and bewildering circumstance.
Indeed, till long past midnight the Reverend Norton Homfray sat in his rather shabby little study reflecting upon the unwelcome visit of that woman Freda Crisp, and wondering what it portended. Her threatening attitude was the reverse of reassuring. Nevertheless, the rector felt that if Gray and his unscrupulous accomplice really meant mischief, then he, after all, held the trump card which he had so long hesitated to play.
The clock ticked on. The time passed unnoticed, and at last he dozed. It was not until nearly three o’clock in the morning that he suddenly awakened to the lateness of the hour, and the curious fact that Roddy had not been in since he had left church.
The old man rose, and ascending to his son’s room, believing that Roddy might have come in and retired while he slept, found to his surprise that the bed had not been occupied. He walked round the house with the aid of his electric torch. The front door was still unlocked, and it was quite evident that his son had not yet returned.
“This is a night of strange incidents!” he said aloud to himself as he stood upon the staircase. “First that man Gordon Gray rises as though from the tomb, then Freda Crisp visits me, and now Roddy is missing! Strange indeed – very strange!”
He returned to his study, and lighting his green-shaded reading-lamp upon the writing-table, sat down to attend to some letters. He was too wakeful now to retire to rest. Besides, Roddy was out, and he had decided to remain up until his son returned.
Why Roddy should be out all night puzzled the old man greatly. His only intimate friend was the village doctor, Hubert Denton, and perhaps the doctor being called to a patient early in the evening Roddy had gone out in the car with him. Such seemed the only explanation of his absence.
“That woman!” remarked the old rector angrily, as he took some writing paper from a drawer. “That woman intends mischief! If she or Gray attempts to harm me – then I will retaliate!”
And he drew a long breath, his dark, deep-set eyes being fixed straight before him.
“Yet, after all, ought I to do so?” he went on at length. “I have sinned, and I have repented. I am no better than any other man, though I strive to do right and to live up to the teaching of the Prince of Peace. ‘Love your enemies. Do good to those who hate you.’ Ah! it is so hard to carry out that principle of forgiveness – so very hard!”
And again he lapsed into silence.
“What if Roddy knew – what if those fiends told him? Ah! what would he think of the other side of his father’s life? No!” he cried again in anguish some minutes later, his voice sounding weirdly in the old-world little room. “No! I could not bear it! I – I would rather die than my son should know!”
Presently, however, he became calmer. As rector of Little Farncombe he was beloved by all, for few men, even ministers of religion, were so upright and pious or set such an example to their fellow-men.
Old Mr Purcell Sandys had been to church on two successive Sunday mornings, and had acknowledged himself greatly impressed by Mr
