Life at Penmorval had drifted by as calmly as an infant’s sleep, in those four weeks of soft summer weather. There had been no visitors staying in the house, for both Julian Wyllard and his wife loved a studious repose, and there were long intervals in which they lived almost alone. Penmorval would be full by and by, in October, when the pheasant-shooting began; and in the mean time it was pleasant to Dora Wyllard to be able to ride and drive with her husband—to be the companion of his walks, to read the books he read, and to waste long evenings in inexhaustible talk. They always had so much to say to each other. The sympathy between them was so complete.
Hilda Heathcote was at Penmorval nearly every day. She ranked almost as one of the family. She came to Mrs. Wyllard for counsel and instruction upon all manner of subjects—sometimes for a gardening lesson, sometimes for a lesson in crewel-work, in French, German, Italian. Dora was in advance of her young friend in all these subjects; but the pupil was so bright and quick that it was a pleasure to teach her. Between them Mrs. Wyllard and Miss Heathcote achieved marvels in the way of art-needlework—piano-backs which were as beautiful as pictures, portières worthy to rank with the highest examples of Gobelin tapestry, counterpanes that ought to have been exhibited at South Kensington. The calm leisure of country life lent itself to such slow and elaborate labours.
Mrs. Wyllard had a big box of foreign books once a month from Rolandi’s library, and she meted out to Hilda such volumes as were fit for a young English lady’s perusal; and then they met to talk over the books, sometimes alone, sometimes with Bothwell as a third. Bothwell was very scornful of all the sentimental books, laughed at the super-refined heroines of French novels, the dreamy heroes of German romance; but he read all the books that Hilda read, and he seemed to enjoy talking about them at that protracted function of afternoon tea from which he rarely absented himself.
The weather was peerless during this month of August, and Mrs. Wyllard’s afternoon tea-table was set out in an arbour of clipped yew, at the end of the Italian garden, a point from which there was a fine view of the moors, and the great brown hills beyond.
Bothwell’s sullen gloom had passed away soon after Mr. Distin’s departure. He seemed to Hilda to have become once again the old Bothwell—gay, and cheery, and kind, and frank. But he did not commit himself by any of those delicate little attentions to Hilda which had made him such an agreeable person half a year ago. That particular phase of his character was a thing of the past.
A month had gone since the close of the inquest at the Vital Spark, but Bodmin people had not forgotten the strange death of the nameless girl, and had not left off talking about it. They talked about Bothwell, too, and of his refusal to give a plain answer to a plain question; and towards the end of that month Bothwell Grahame woke up all at once to the consciousness that he was under a cloud. He discovered that he was being cut by his old acquaintances, so far as they dared cut a man of his standing and temperament. They were not uncivil; they gave him good-day if they met him in the street; they would even deign to discuss the state of the weather, the results of the harvest. But Bothwell felt nevertheless that he was living under a cloud; there was a tacit avoidance of him, a desire to get off with as slight a greeting as civility would permit. Hands were no longer held out to him in friendship; salutations were no longer loud and cheery. No one asked him to stop and play billiards at the chief inn, as people had been wont to do, waylaying him when he wanted to get home. Now he could pursue his walk without let or hindrance. He had even seen one of his most familiar friends stroll dreamily round a corner to avoid meeting him.
During the whole of those four weeks he had not received a single invitation to play lawn-tennis, he for whose presence tennis-parties used to compete. There were two or three engagements outstanding at the time of the inquest. He had kept these, and had played his best, struggling against a coldness in the atmosphere. It had seemed to him that everybody was out of sorts. There was an all-pervading dulness. Nobody could find anything pleasant to talk about. He had been very slow to perceive that cloud which hung over him: but by the end of the month the fact had become too palpable, and Bothwell Grahame understood that he had been sent to Coventry.
“What does it all mean?” he asked himself, aghast with indignant wonder. “What can they have to say against me? Can any one have found out——?”
Bothwell’s cheek paled as he thought of that one transaction of his life which he would least like to see recorded against him. But he told himself, after a few minutes’ reflection, that nobody in Bodmin could possibly know anything about that particular episode in a young man’s history.
He puzzled himself sorely about this change in the manner of his acquaintance; and on trying back he discovered that the change dated from the day of the adjourned inquest. He recalled too the curious manner in which everybody had avoided the subject of the inquest; how when any mention of the dead girl had been made in his presence the conversation had been changed instantly, as if the subject must needs be tabooed before him.
“Upon my soul,” said Bothwell, “I begin to think they suspect me of having thrown that girl out of the carriage. Because I refused to answer that insolent ruffian’s questions, these village wiseacres have made up their minds that I am a murderer.”
He went back to Penmorval in a white heat of indignation. A week ago he had made up his mind to start for Peru. He had found out all about the steamer which was to carry him. He had obtained letters of introduction to the proprietor of a newspaper, and to some of the local aristocracy. He was ready to set forth upon his quest of fortune in the land of gold and jewels. But now he told himself that wild horses should not drag him away from Penmorval. He would stand his ground until he had humiliated those fools and rascals whom he had once called his friends. He would make them taste of the cup of their own folly.
He was much too hot-headed to keep the secret of his wrongs from that cousin who had been to him as a sister. He went straight to Dora, and told her of the foul suspicion that had arisen in men’s minds against him.
She had read the report of the inquest, and although she had wondered at his refusal to answer Mr. Distin’s questions, she had been able to understand that his pride might revolt against being so catechised, and that he might choose to persist in that refusal as a point of personal dignity.
“Any one who can suspect you for such a reason—any one who could suspect you for any reason—must be an idiot, Bothwell,” she exclaimed. “There is no use in being angry with such people.”
“But I am angry with them. I am rabid with anger.”
“Why did you not answer that question, Bothwell?” asked his cousin thoughtfully.
“Because I did not choose.”
“Yet it would have prevented all possibility of misapprehension if you had given a straight answer. And it would have been so easy,” argued Dora.
“It would not have been easy. It was not possible to answer that question.”
“Why not?”
“Because I could not answer it without injuring some one I—esteem,” replied Bothwell, relapsing into that curious, sullen manner which Mr. Heathcote had observed on the day of the inquest.
“O Bothwell, you have secrets, then—a secret from me, your adopted sister!”
“Yes, I have my secrets.”
“I am so sorry. I used to hope that I should have a share in the planning of your life; and now I begin to fear——”
“That my life is wrecked already. You are right, Dora. My life was wrecked three years before I left India, but I did not know then
