Bothwell’s countenance and manner were so charged with secret trouble, that his was the arm which thrust that poor girl to her untimely death. Yet the Coroner found himself dwelling upon this wild fancy, painful as it was to him to harbour any evil thought of Dora Wyllard’s kinsman.
There were several points which forced themselves upon his consideration. First, Bothwell’s changed manner today—his avowal of a troubled night—his evident wish to be alone—his incivility, as of one whose mind was set on edge by painful thoughts. Then came the fact of his journey to Plymouth yesterday—a journey undertaken suddenly, without any explanation offered to his cousin—seemingly purposeless, since he had given no reason for absenting himself, stated no business in the town. He had gone and returned within a few hours, and his journey had been a surprise to his cousin and her husband. Thirdly, there was his clumsy attempt to explain the girl’s death just now, in front of the inn door; his unwillingness to admit the idea of foul play. He who excuses himself accuses himself, says the proverb. Bothwell had tried to account for the catastrophe on the line, and in so doing had awakened the Coroner’s suspicions.
After all, these links in a chain of evidence were of the slightest; but Edward Heathcote had set himself to unravel the mystery of the nameless dead, and he was determined not to overlook the slenderest thread in that dark web.
“Wyllard seemed to have quite recovered from the shock of yesterday evening,” he said presently. “I never saw him looking better than he looked this afternoon.”
“Wyllard is a man made of iron,” answered Bothwell carelessly. “I sometimes think there is only one soft spot in his heart, and that is his love for my cousin. In that he is distinctly human. I never saw a more devoted husband. I never knew a happier couple.”
Bothwell sighed, as if this mention of the happiness of others recalled the thought of his own misery. At least, it was thus that Edward Heathcote interpreted the sigh.
Completely absorbed in his own cares, Bothwell had forgotten for the moment that he was talking to the man whom his cousin had jilted in order to marry Julian Wyllard. The courtship and the marriage had happened while Bothwell was in the East. It had never been more to him than a tradition; and the tradition was not in his mind when he talked of his cousin’s wedded happiness.
“I am glad that it is so, very glad,” said Heathcote earnestly.
He spoke in all good faith. He had loved with so unselfish a love that the welfare of his idol had been ever of more account to him than his own bliss. He had renounced her without a struggle, since her happiness demanded the sacrifice. And she was happy. That was the grand point. He had paid the price, and he had won the reward. He had loved with all his heart and strength; he had never ceased so to love. That wedded life, which to the outside world had seemed a life of domestic happiness, had been on his part only a life of resignation. He had married a friendless girl who loved him—who had betrayed the secret of her love for him unawares, in very innocence of inexperienced girlhood. He had taken a helpless girl to his heart and home, because there seemed upon this earth no other available shelter for her; and he had done his best to make her happy. He had succeeded so well that she never knew that this thoughtful kindness which wrapt her round as with a balmy atmosphere, this boundless benevolence which shone upon her like the sun, was not love. She was one of the happiest of women, and one of the proudest wives in the west country; and she died blessing him who had made her life blessed.
And now the gossips were all full of pity for the widower’s loss and loneliness—a poor bereaved creature living in a lonely old Grange, with a young sister, the twin daughters, just four years old, and an ancient maiden lady who looked after the sister, the children, the house, and the servants, and in her own person represented the genius of thrift, propriety, prudence, wisdom, and all the domestic virtues. People in the neighbourhood of Bodmin, and his old friends at Plymouth, all thought and talked of Mr. Heathcote as borne down by the weight of his bereavement, and all hoped that he would soon marry again.
The Spaniards lay in a valley between Bodmin Road station and Penmorval. It lay on Bothwell’s road to his cousin’s house, and he had thus no excuse for parting company with the Coroner, had he been so inclined. The old wrought-iron gate between gray granite pillars, each crowned with the escutcheon of the Heathcotes, stood wide open, and the rose and myrtle curtained cottage by the gate had as sleepy an air in the summer evening as if it had stood by the gate of the Sleeping Beauty’s enchanted domain. Even the old trees, the great Spanish chestnuts, with their masses of foliage, had a look of having outgrown all reason in a century of repose. No prodigal son had laid the spendthrift’s axe to the good old trees around the birthplace of the Heathcotes. There was only the extent of a wide paddock and a lawn between the hall-door and that grand old gateway, and the house, though substantial and capacious, hardly pretended to the dignity of a mansion. It was long and low and rambling—a house of many small rooms, queer winding passages, innumerable doors and windows, and low heavily-timbered ceilings; a house in which strange visitors and their servants were given to seeing ghosts and hearing unearthly noises of funereal significance—albeit the family had jogged on quietly enough from generation to generation, without any interference from the spirit world. People coming from brand-new houses in Earl’s Court or Turnham Green protested that The Spaniards must be haunted; and shuddered every time the mice scampered behind the panelling, or the wind sighed amidst the branches of those leafy towers that girdled lawn and meadow.
Bothwell thought that Mr. Heathcote would leave him at the gate of The Spaniards.
“Good-night,” he said somewhat shortly.
“I’ll go on to Penmorval with you, and hear what impression the inquest made upon Wyllard,” said the other. “It’s not half-past seven yet—your cousin will be able to spare me a few minutes before dinner.”
Bothwell walked on without a word. Ten minutes brought them to the gates of Penmorval, by far the lordlier domain, with a history that was rich in aristocratic traditions. But that ancient race for which Penmorval had been built, for whose sons and daughters it had grown in grandeur and dignity as the centuries rolled along—of these there remained no more than the echo of a vanished renown. They were gone, verily like a tale that is told; and the parvenu financier, the man who had grown rich by his own intellect and his own industry—naturally a very inferior personage—reigned in their stead.
Penmorval seemed not quite so dead asleep as Heathcote Grange, alias The Spaniards. In the sweet stillness of the summer evening, Bothwell and his companion heard voices—women’s voices—familiar and pleasant to the ears of both.
Mrs. Wyllard was strolling in the avenue, with a young lady by her side, a girl in a white gown and a large leghorn hat; tall, slight, graceful of form, and fair of face—a girl who gave a little cry of pleased surprise at seeing Heathcote.
“I was just rushing home, Edward,” she said, “for fear I should keep you waiting for dinner.”
“Indeed, Hilda! Then I can only say that your idea of rushing is my idea of sauntering,” her brother answered, smiling at the girlish face, as he shook hands with Mrs. Wyllard.
“What did Mr. Wyllard think of the inquest?” he asked. “You have seen him, I suppose?”
“Only for a minute as he drove by to the house, while Hilda and I were walking in the avenue. Why, Bothwell, how fagged and ill you look!” exclaimed Dora to her cousin.
“Only bored,” answered Bothwell, which was not complimentary to the companion of his long walk.
“But you look positively exhausted, poor fellow,” pursued Dora pityingly. “Why didn’t you come back in the dog-cart? There was room for you.”
“I
