her brother, with indignant eyes. “What suspicion? How dare any one suspect him?”
“Unhappily, circumstances are his worst accusers. His own lips, his own manner, have given rise to the conviction which has taken hold of men’s minds. When the idea that Bothwell Grahame was the murderer of that helpless girl first arose in my own mind, I struggled against the hideous notion. I told myself that I was a madman to imagine such a possibility. But when I found that the same facts had made exactly the same impression upon other minds——”
“You could think such a thing, Edward!” exclaimed Hilda, pale with horror. “You, who have known Bothwell for years, who knew him when he was a boy, you who have called yourself his friend, seen him day after day! You, a lawyer, a man of the world! You can harbour such a thought as this! I could not have believed it of you.”
“Perhaps it is because I am a man of the world, and have seen life on the seamy side, and know too well to what dark gulfs men can go down when the tempter urges them. Perhaps it is because of my experience that I suspect Bothwell Grahame.”
“O, it is too horrible!” cried Hilda passionately. “I feel as if I must be mad myself, or in company with a madman. Bothwell Grahame—Bothwell, whom I remember when I was a child, the frank, generous-hearted lad, who went away to India to fight for his country, and who fought so well, and won such praise from his commanding officer——”
“Yes, Hilda,” interrupted her brother, “and who, just when he seemed on the high road to fortune, threw up his chances, and abandoned his profession, to become an idler at home. That same Bothwell Grahame who, when he was asked what he did with himself during a long day at Plymouth, could give no account of his time. That same Bothwell, whose manner, from the hour of that catastrophe on the line, became gloomy and sullen—altered so completely that he seemed a new man. That same Bothwell, whom everybody in the neighbourhood of Bodmin suspects of a foul crime. That is the man whom I do not wish my sister to marry; albeit he is of the same flesh and blood as the woman whom I respect above all other women upon earth.”
“I am glad you have remembered that—at last,” said Hilda bitterly. “I am glad you have not quite forgotten that this murderer is Dora Wyllard’s first cousin—brought up with her, taught by the same teachers, reared in the same way of thinking.”
“God grant I may see reason to alter my opinion, Hilda,” replied her brother. “Do you suppose that this suspicion of mine is not a source of pain and grief? But while I think as I do, can you wonder that I forbid any suggestion of a marriage, between my sister and Bothwell Grahame?”
“I have told you that I shall never be his wife,” said Hilda. “Pray do not let us ever speak his name again.”
They were at the entrance to The Spaniards by this time—not the great iron gates by the lodge, but a little wooden gate opening into the fine old garden, second only in beauty to the Penmorval parterres and terraces.
“Will you mind if I don’t appear at dinner, Edward?” asked Hilda presently, as they went into the house. “I have a racking headache.”
“Poor little girl!” said her brother tenderly. “You are looking the picture of misery. I am very sorry for you, my dear. I am very sorry for us all; for I fear there is calamity ahead for some of us. If Bothwell is wise he will go to the other end of the world, and take himself as far as possible out of the ken of his countrymen. If he should ask you for counsel, Hilda, that is the best advice you can give him.”
“If he should ask me, that is just the very last counsel he would ever hear from my lips,” answered Hilda indignantly. “I would entreat him to stand his ground—to live down this vile calumny—to wait the day when Providence will clear his name from this dark cloud. Such a day will come, I am sure of that.”
She went to her own room, and shut herself up for the rest of the evening. The convenient excuse of a headache answered very well with the servants. She declined all refreshment—would not have this or that brought up on a tray to oblige Glossop, her own maid, who was deeply concerned at her young mistress’s indisposition.
“I have a very bad headache,” she said, “and all I want is to be left alone till tomorrow morning. Don’t come near me, please, till you bring me my early cup of tea.”
Glossop sighed and submitted. It was not often that Miss Heathcote was so wilful. Glossop was the coachman’s daughter, had been born and brought up at The Spaniards, in old Squire Heathcote’s time. She was a buxom young woman of five-and-thirty, and counted herself almost one of the family.
At last Hilda was alone. She locked her door, and began to pace her room, up and down, up and down, with her hands clasped upon her forehead, trying to think out her perplexities.
It was a fine spacious old bedroom, lighted by old-fashioned casement windows, looking two ways—one to the garden, one to that timber-belted lawn which might almost take rank as a park. There was a sitting-room adjoining, which was Hilda’s own particular apartment, containing her books and piano, and the little table on which she painted china cups and saucers. Hilda had spent many a happy hour in these rooms, practising, studying, painting, dreaming over high-art needlework. But this evening she felt as if she could never again be happy, here or anywhere. A dense cloud of trouble had spread itself around her, enfolding her as a mantle of darkness, shutting out all the light of life.
The sun was sinking behind the tall chestnuts, in a sea of red and gold. Every leaflet of rose or myrtle that framed the casements showed distinct against that clear evening sky. Such a pretty room within, such a lovely landscape and sky without; and yet that young soul was full of darkness.
She had defended her lover with indignant firmness just now. She had protested his innocence—declared that this thing could not be true; and now in solitude she looked in the face of that cruel slander, and her faith began to waver.
What could be stranger or more suspicious than Bothwell’s conduct this evening? With one breath he had avowed his love; with the next he had told her that he was unworthy to be her lover—that they two could never be man and wife.
Yes, it was true that he had changed of late—that he had become gloomy, despondent, fitful. His manner had been that of a man bowed down by the burden of some secret trouble. But was he for this reason to be suspected of a horrible crime? It was abominable of people to suspect him—most of all cruel and unworthy in her brother, who had known him from boyhood.
And then came the hideous suggestion, as if whispered in her ear by the fiend himself, “What if my brother should be right?” Her own experience of the world was of the slightest. Her chief knowledge of life was derived from the novels she had read. She had read of darkest deeds, of strange contradictions in human nature, mysterious workings of the human heart. Hitherto she had considered these lurid lights, these black shadows, as the figments of the romancer’s fancy. Now she began to ask herself if they might not find their counterpart in fact.
She had read of gentlemanlike murderers—assassins of good bearing and polished manners—Eugene Aram, Count Fosco, and many more of the same school. What if Bothwell Grahame were such as these, hiding behind his frank and easy manner the violent passions of the criminal?
No, she would not believe it. She laughed the foul fiend to scorn. Her woman’s instinct was truer than her brother’s legal acumen, she told herself; and as for those Bodmin busybodies, she weighed their wisdom as lighter than thistledown.
“I would marry him tomorrow, if he asked me to be his wife,” she said to herself. “I would stand beside him at the altar, before the face of all his slanderers. I should be proud
