THE HAMPSTEAD MYSTERY.

The Hampstead Mystery.

A Novel.

BY
FLORENCE MARRYAT,
AUTHOR OF ‘LOVE’S CONFLICT,’ ‘VÉRONIQUE,’ ‘MY OWN CHILD,’ ‘MY SISTER THE ACTRESS,’ ‘HOW LIKE A WOMAN,’ ‘PARSON JONES,’ ETC., ETC.

IN THREE VOLUMES.
VOL. II.

LONDON:
F. V. WHITE & CO.,
14 BEDFORD STREET, STRAND, W.C.

1894.

CONTENTS.

THE HAMPSTEAD MYSTERY.

The Hampstead Mystery.

CHAPTER I.

In a few seconds the door opened again, to admit Frederick Walcheren, leaning on the arm of his cousin, Philip. At first the jury wished the latter to withdraw, but he refused to do so.

‘Is it not sufficient,’ he cried, ‘for you to look at this unfortunate man, to see what he is suffering, and that he is incapable of confronting you alone? I refuse to leave him; if you insist upon it, we will both withdraw. This is a court of inquiry, not of justice; how dare you treat this gentleman as if he were a criminal?’

‘I am not aware that the jury were doing so, Mr Walcheren,’ retorted Mr Procter. ‘However, as he seems ill, and you insist upon remaining by his side, let it be so. It is not, however, the usual thing for a witness to be examined in the presence of another person.’

‘I don’t care if it is the custom or not,’ replied Philip firmly. ‘You may commit me for contempt of court, if you like, but my cousin is too ill to stand by himself, and I refuse to leave him.’

‘Very well, sir, very well!’ replied the coroner tartly, ‘if Mr Frederick Walcheren answers the questions put to him, nothing more will be said about it.’

Frederick did indeed look more like a criminal than anything else. His dark hair, which he wore rather long for the general fashion, was dull and damp with the sweat which agony had forced from him. His features were pinched and his eyes sunk, whilst his clear olive complexion had assumed a yellow, waxen hue. The whole man seemed to have collapsed under the force of his grief. He did not raise his eyes to the faces of his inquisitors, but sat leaning back in his chair, with his gaze fixed on the ground, and his hands clasped together between his knees.

‘Rouse yourself, if you please, sir,’ commenced the coroner, ‘and let us have as succinct an account as you can of all you know concerning this distressing affair. Do you recognise the deceased, Jane Emily Walcheren, as your late wife?’

‘Yes!’ answered Frederick in a low voice.

‘Speak up, if you please! The jury cannot hear your replies. When did you see the deceased lady last?’

‘On Saturday morning.’

‘Well, well, what more?’ cried Mr Procter, impatiently; ‘tell us all about it. Where did you see her, and when did you part with her, and what did you do in the interim? We want the whole story, and can’t go dragging it from you piecemeal.’

‘Say all you know, Frederick,’ whispered Philip, ‘it will be so much the sooner over and done with.’

The unhappy young man made a visible effort, and said,—

‘I saw her last alive on Saturday morning at the Castle Warden Hotel at about half-past eleven or twelve o’clock. We had just finished breakfast, and I left her to have a swim. I never saw her again until I came—here.’

‘How long were you away from the hotel?’

‘I did not return till nearly three. That hour was fixed for our luncheon.’

‘Three hours is a long time to be taking a swim. What were you doing for the rest of the time?’

‘I was occupied in the water, all, or nearly, all the time,’ replied Frederick.

But Mr Procter, who had never indulged in a bath but once in his life, and that was the day before his wedding, when he caught such a cold that he had never ventured into the water since, was not to be taken in by so transparent an untruth.

‘In the water for three hours, sir! Do you expect the jury to believe that?’

‘I was in the sea for the best part of the time, swimming and doing feats of skill. Some part of it must be allowed for dressing and undressing myself. But the day was fine, and I did not care to come out sooner than was necessary.’

‘I believe I am right, Mr Walcheren, in saying that you were only married to the deceased on the Friday previous?’

‘That is the case.’

‘Is it usual for a bridegroom to leave his bride alone for three hours the day after their wedding in order that he may have a swim?’

‘I don’t know,’ said Frederick, wearily; ‘but I did.’

‘Well, when you came back at three o’clock you found your wife was gone?’

‘I did.’

‘Was it not rather strange, considering that you had gone to the beach, that she did not go to the beach also, in order to find you?’

‘At first I thought she must have done so, but I searched the beach and the town, and, finally, the cliffs, without finding any trace of her.’

‘And then you returned to the hotel! At what time might that have been?’

‘I am not sure. At about five, or half-past, I think.’

‘With the exception, then, of a run home for a few minutes, you were absent from the Castle Warden from half-past eleven to half-past five—six hours? And all that time you were bathing or looking for your wife?’

‘I have already told you so,’ answered Frederick.

‘Who saw you during that time, Mr Walcheren? What witnesses can you bring forward to testify that it was spent as you tell us?’

‘Witnesses!’ reiterated Frederick, with a stare. ‘How can I bring witnesses from a place where I am utterly unknown? I have never been in Dover to stay a night before now. Nobody in the town knows me. I have not spoken to an individual, excepting a young man who accosted me whilst swimming, and a girl whom I asked if she had seen—had seen—my—my—wife.’

‘That is unfortunate,’ remarked the coroner, drily. ‘Now, Mr Walcheren, am I right in supposing that your marriage was not conducted very regularly—that it was undertaken, in fact, entirely against, and in opposition to, the wishes of the parents of the deceased?’

‘I don’t know what the devil business that is of yours!’ exclaimed Frederick, roused from his lethargic condition by the impertinence of the question.

‘Everything is my business, sir, in the pursuit of my duty, and, if you address me again in that manner, I shall commit you for contempt of court. I understand, further, that not only was your marriage with the deceased an irregular one, but that you took a false oath in order to procure a licence for it, by stating the deceased to be of age, when she wanted a year of that time.’

‘I did, if you will have it so!’ said the young man, sullenly.

‘Are you aware, Mr Walcheren, that in consequence of your behaviour in the matter, your father-in-law, Mr Crampton, altered his will and cut his daughter’s name out of it?’

‘Of course I knew it.’

‘Who told you of it?’

‘I forget. My wife, I suppose!’

‘Mr Crampton never informed you of the fact himself?’

‘Not that I remember.’

‘You did not hear of it, in fact, until after your unfortunate marriage had taken place beyond recall. Can you deny it, sir?’

‘I don’t know if I did or did not. I cannot remember. My head is so dazed by the events that have taken place since that I cannot trust my memory in anything.’

‘Perhaps I can jog it for you. You took a false oath in order to enable you to marry the deceased, whom you believed to be an heiress, and it was not until you had brought her down here that you found out your mistake. Your wife told you of the fact, and you probably had a few words on the matter, before you left her so suddenly in the hotel.’

‘It’s a lie!’ cried Frederick vehemently, as he sprang up from his chair, an action which caused the coroner to dodge behind two of the jury in case his witness might prove dangerous. ‘It’s a lie, I tell you, we never had a word of misunderstanding between us, and if you dare to mention her in that way to me again, I will knock your dirty head against the wall for you.’

He would have sprung at the coroner in reality, if his cousin had not restrained him.

‘Frederick! Frederick! for her sake, restrain yourself. You would not mix up her name or memory with a low row.’

‘Gentlemen of the jury!’ exclaimed the coroner, ‘another such insult on the part of that witness and I will put him in arrest for assault. You have heard him threaten me. The whole case is one of suspicion, in my opinion. This man runs away with a lady under age, whom he believes to be an heiress, and the very day he finds out his mistake she is found thrown over the cliffs, under every appearance of there having been foul play. The witness would have us believe that he, a bridegroom not two days married, left his young wife for six mortal hours to indulge in swimming—that when she was missed, he made every effort to find her, that he even went along the cliffs where she lay dead, and never saw her body.’

‘But the body lay under the cliffs,’ interposed a juror; ‘and the gentleman walked along them. He couldn’t have found her unless he had descended to the beach.’

‘That’s right, Mr Colly,’ said Procter, spitefully; ‘always interrupt at the most important moments. The witness has eyes in his head. I suppose he could have looked over—if he had been very energetic in his search he would have looked over. And what was he doing all that time? And is it likely the deceased would have ascended the cliffs by herself, in a place where she had never been before. You have heard the witness of the landlord and waiters of the hotel, to the effect that they never saw the deceased leave the hotel after her husband—that she must have been gone almost as long as he was, for another witness, Mr Hindes, called twice with the view of seeing her, and each time she was out. Now, where was she all that time, if she were not, as is most probable, with her husband? Dr M’Coll gave us his opinion that the deceased might have been thrown over the cliffs, or she might have fallen over, or she might have thrown herself over on purpose. Now, it seems to me highly improbable that a young woman of twenty should tumble over such a place by mistake—still less that she should have committed suicide the very day after her marriage; but words lead to quarrels, gentlemen, and quarrels lead to pushing sometimes, and a hasty push is a very dangerous thing, you know, when near a steep cliff. I don’t wish to bias your decision in this matter in any degree. If you find the deceased came by her death by misadventure you will give your verdict to that effect, but if you think the circumstances are such as to demand a stricter inquiry, you will say so. I leave the case in your hands now, and I feel sure you will do it justice!’

The jury shambled out of the room, and Frederick looked up into his cousin’s face with open eyes that were half mystified and half alarmed.

‘Philip! what does that man mean? He cannot—no! it would be too gross—too impossible!—he cannot mean us to understand that he suspects me—me of having had any hand in this misfortune?’

‘Hush! Fred; hush!’ replied Philip, laying his hand soothingly on the other’s arm; ‘never mind what he says or thinks. He is a cad—any one can see that—in mind as well as breeding. Let the brute think what he likes. He cannot make others agree with him, and all your friends will know that you are innocent in the matter as far as the poor girl’s death is concerned.’

‘But to be suspected, and by a creature like that—I, who would have given my worthless life for hers a thousand times over. My God! it is hard!’

Philip squeezed his hand.

‘I know it! It is part of the trial, but it will soon be over now! Here are the jury! They have not been long in coming to a decision.’

‘Well, gentlemen, and what is your verdict?’ demanded Mr Procter, with an unctuous smack of his lips, as if he longed to hear them say they considered that there had been foul play in the matter.

‘Our verdict, sir,’ replied the spokesman; ‘is that the deceased came by her death from a fall over the cliffs, but whether she was thrown over or fell over by accident there is not sufficient evidence to show!’

‘It is unsatisfactory that your verdict should be undecided,’ said the coroner; ‘had you not better reconsider it?’

‘We are quite unanimous on the subject, sir; and we would like to add a rider to the effect that some sort of fence should be put along the edge of the cliffs to prevent accidents in future.’

‘Very well, if you are agreed, it is no use detaining you any longer,’ said Procter, with an aggrieved air, for he had quite made up his own mind that Frederick Walcheren had killed his wife; ‘you have only to sign the papers and end the proceedings.’

As soon as they were set at liberty, Philip hurried his cousin out of the room, for Frederick was in that reckless condition that he dreaded what he might say or do to the coroner. Here they found that the body of poor Jenny had already been moved to an upper chamber by the orders of Mr Crampton, and was being prepared by women’s hands for its last receptacle. That she should have been touched without his authority made her husband furious.

‘Who has dared to do this?’ he exclaimed wrathfully, as he glared at Mr Crampton and Henry Hindes.

‘I have dared, sir,’ replied the father, determinedly. ‘You stole my living daughter from me, but you shall not have her now that she is dead! I have ordered, or rather my kind friend Hindes here has ordered, every preparation to be made for the conveyance of her precious remains to Hampstead, where I shall take her by train to-morrow, and there our connection ends. You have done me all the injury in your power, and I never wish to see your face again, either in this world or the next.’

‘But you shall not have her, I say,’ cried Frederick in a fury, ‘she was my wife, and I defy you to take her from me, dead or alive! I shall take her myself to my brother’s place in Northampton and see her laid in the family vault of the Walcherens’. That is the only place where my wife shall lie.’

‘She was not your wife,’ exclaimed the old man; ‘you married her under false pretences, and if you attempt to cross me in my purpose I will appeal to the law to see me righted, and give me back all that your villainy has left me of my child.’

‘By Heaven you sha’n’t!’ said the younger man, as he made a rush forward as if he would have seized Mr Crampton by the throat; ‘if you persist in your intention I will fight you inch by inch, old man as you are, for the possession of her remains.’

‘Frederick!’ interposed Philip, restraining him, ‘think what you are saying and doing. Is such wrangling seemly in the very presence of the dead? You know what this gentleman says is the truth. You did rob him of his daughter, and by a fraud. In strictest justice, therefore, she belongs to him now, as she did whilst alive. But even were it not so, cannot you make up your mind to yield your wishes to his? Think of all he has lost, of how little he has remaining, and don’t deny him this sad consolation of laying his daughter to rest where he can see her grave. It is really of so little consequence when you come to think of it! And if it is a sacrifice on your part, cannot you make it as a little expiation for what has gone before, an atonement which Heaven may accept for the wrong you did them both. Be reasonable, Fred! After to-day neither you nor her father will ever see her in this world again. Why deny him the sorry comfort of taking her body home for her poor mother to weep over? Come, my dear fellow, yield this little point gracefully. I fancy your dear young wife, could we ask her, would rather choose to lie at Hampstead amongst the flowers than in our musty old vault at Northampton, where you never go.’

Frederick gave a tremendous gulp.

‘Perhaps so,’ he answered, ‘perhaps so.’ Then to Mr Crampton, ‘Take her, sir, then, take my angel back to her own people, but let me bid her a last farewell before she is carried away from me.’

‘Certainly, certainly,’ said Mr Crampton, shamed out of his brawling manner by the other’s submission, ‘and I thank you for yielding the point, but I feel it is my right—the only right, unfortunately, which you have left me.’

Philip drew Frederick upstairs. He felt the less these two men met in the future the better. The room where Jenny now lay was already set to rights, and she was stretched upon the bed, clad in fair, fresh raiment, with her hands crossed meekly on her breast. She looked very different, poor child, from the saucy, merry, wilful girl who had run away with her lover, without giving a single thought to the consequences. The women had smoothed her hair upon her forehead, her eyes were sunk, her mouth pathetically closed and rigid. The little perfect nose, her lover had so much admired, was drawn and pinched almost out of all likeness to itself, and the inside of the hands were turning purple. Her unhappy husband prostrated himself with a cry of anguish by the side of the bed, and Philip withdrew and left him for a little while, whilst he made arrangements for their departure for London. He felt that Frederick could have no possible desire to remain in Dover when Jenny’s body had been removed thence, and that the sooner he left it the better.

Mr Crampton and Henry Hindes had decided to remain there till the following day, when the sad preparations for their return to Hampstead would be completed, and Philip Walcheren was glad to see them leave the ‘Bottle and Spurs’ for a hotel, where they had arranged to pass the night. He accompanied them to the town, and, when the coast was clear, he secured a close carriage and returned to the public-house for his unfortunate cousin.

‘Come, dear Frederick,’ he said, as he re-entered the room where the body lay; ‘let me take you away from here. I have settled your bill at the Castle Warden, and your portmanteau is waiting us at the station. The—the other things there, I have arranged with Mr Crampton to take away. It is best that we should return to London at once.’

‘And is this the last—last time that I shall ever see her?’ asked Frederick, in a tone of unutterable woe.

‘On this earth, my dear cousin, yes,’ replied Philip, ‘and it is just as well. The sight can only increase your misery. In a very short time the undertakers will be here to do their work. Why not spare yourself the extra pain of watching them. And after they are gone, what will there be for you to gaze upon? A box of wood! Be a man, my dear fellow, and say good-bye to her.’

‘Oh! Philip, Philip, if you only knew what that word costs me. It is like dragging my very entrails out to pronounce it.’

‘I do know it, but it must be done. Better now than before strangers.’

‘Good-bye, good-bye, my angel,’ cried the young man, as he kissed the corpse from head to feet. ‘Don’t forget your wretched husband in the land you have gone to, but remember he has but one wish left on earth—to join you there. Good-bye, my only love! No other woman can ever take your place with me. I dedicate the rest of my unhappy life to your sweet memory. Oh, Philip, how can I tear myself away from her!’

‘You have forgotten to take this, Frederick,’ said his cousin, drawing off poor Jenny’s fatal wedding-ring and holding it out to him. ‘It is yours by right to keep for her till you meet again.’

‘Sacred and inviolate!’ exclaimed Frederick, as he pressed the pledge of their married love to his lips. ‘My God, hear me swear that this ring shall keep me faithful to my darling’s memory for ever, that with it I pledge myself to fidelity and virtue as long as my life may last.’

‘And God has heard the oath,’ said Philip, solemnly. ‘Come, Frederick, the carriage is waiting at the door. Do not prolong this trying scene any more.’

‘Shall I see anybody?’ asked his cousin in a fearful manner, as they gained the outside of the door at last; ‘shall we encounter either of those men again, Crampton or Hindes, I mean, or those dreadful creatures who wanted to accuse me—My God, Philip,’ he continued, stopping short, ‘of what was it they wanted to accuse me?’

‘Of nothing, nothing, Frederick,’ replied Philip, soothingly, ‘you must not think of it again. It is the business of a jury to make everything look as black as possible, and they never think of the pain they may inflict by their unworthy suspicions. Try and forget it, with all the other incidents of this most trying day. You will meet no one, unless it be the people of the house. You may take my word for that! Just put yourself in my hands and I will manage everything for us both.’

Frederick was only too thankful to be relieved of all responsibility, for he was utterly worn-out with grief, and incapable of thinking or acting for himself, so he clung to the arm of his cousin, who hurried him into the carriage and off to the railway station before he hardly knew where they were going. But as they neared London, he roused himself sufficiently to ask their destination.

‘I intend to take you to my house first,’ replied Philip, cheerfully, ‘for you are not fit in your present condition to look after yourself, nor would I allow you to go back alone to your flat in Nevern Mansions. In our house you shall have a couple of rooms to yourself, and Marion will take care that you are undisturbed. When you are better, you shall decide what to do. At present you must resign yourself into my hands.’

Frederick pressed his cousin’s hand and murmured ‘Thank you,’ without making the slightest objection to the plan.

He was, indeed, too intensely miserable and worn-out to care about anything, and when their journey came to an end, he allowed Philip to do with him exactly as he chose.

CHAPTER II.

A telegraphic message, early in the day, had told Mrs Walcheren the time to expect them, and warned her to keep herself and the children out of the way, so that, when the travellers arrived in Kensington Gardens Square, they encountered no one but the servant who opened the door to them, and Frederick was conveyed to his apartments, without meeting another soul. Two rooms, adjoining one another, had been prepared for his reception, and, as he cast himself languidly upon a couch, he stretched out his hand to his cousin.

‘What you have done for me yesterday and to-day, Philip, I shall never forget, and can never repay. I think you have saved my reason. God bless you for it!’

‘To hear you say that, my dear Frederick, is more than sufficient to repay me for any trouble I may have taken on your behalf. But now, will you not try to take a little refreshment and rest? Have a warm bath! It is ready for you in the next room.’

‘Yes! I should like to have a bath,’ said Frederick, with a distorted smile; ‘although that beast Procter did seem to imagine it was impossible that I should care to go into the water. Water is about the only luxury I could never dispense with. And I feel so dirty,’ with a heavy sigh.

‘All right, then, go at once,’ replied his cousin; ‘everything is prepared for you, and don’t be afraid of meeting anybody. You are as much alone on this floor as if you were in your own flat. No one will come near you unless you ring, and for to-night I shall wait on you myself.’

‘How good you are to me!’ said Frederick, as he went into the bathroom.

When he came out again, with the taint of death, as it were, washed off him, he found a tray awaiting him, with a basin of strong soup, and a decanter of sherry, and Philip insisted upon his taking some refreshment before he dressed himself anew. His portmanteau had been unstrapped, and a fresh suit of grey tweed laid out for him to put on, but, unfortunately, it was the one which he had worn on Saturday morning, and the sight of it made him break down weakly again, as people will after having sustained a prolonged nervous strain.

‘My darling! my darling!’ he sobbed, ‘how little I thought, when I left you on that fatal morning, that I should never see you again, except—except—’

‘Come, Frederick, take your soup and drink a glass of sherry. You needn’t be afraid of two or three glasses, for it is the oldest in my cellar, and you know I am rather a connoisseur in wine. Never mind dressing yourself again; there is no occasion. Your dressing-gown will be far more suitable, and then you can lie down comfortably on the sofa. You must be sadly in want of rest.’

‘Yes, I do feel rather tired,’ replied Frederick, as he drank several glasses of the generous wine, and lay down as his cousin directed him; ‘and I almost think that I could sleep a little. I suppose one does go on sleeping and eating as long as one lives, even if one has lost everything one cared for in the world,’ he added, with a wintry smile.

‘Well, then I will leave you for a little while, and see my wife and children,’ said Philip, taking no notice of his remark. ‘Try and compose yourself. Rest will do you more good than anything else; and I will be with you again in an hour, sooner if you care to have me, and will ring your bell.’

‘No, no! go to Marion,’ said Frederick, in a drowsy voice. ‘I have been trouble enough to you already.’ And Philip, seeing that he was really inclined to rest, left him to himself.

Of course his wife had much to hear, and he to tell, of the unhappy scenes he had passed through, and an hour slipped away before he went up to his cousin’s room again. He opened the door softly and peeped in. Frederick was still lying on the couch in an attitude of extreme exhaustion. He was breathing heavily, and catching his breath in his sleep, sobbingly, as children do; whilst, ever and anon, a half-muttered word, showed how grief pursued him, even in his dreams. Philip watched him for a few moments and then withdrew, and left him to his slumbers. Heavy, as he knew the awakening must be, Frederick needed strength above all other things, in order to bear what lay before him. Physically he had never been a very strong man, and his dissipated life had further tended to undermine his constitution, so that his cousin had feared for the effect of so violent a grief upon his health. When he descended to his family again he found the party augmented by the arrival of Father Tasker, who had come to hear what news Marion had received from Dover. Philip welcomed him warmly.

‘You have come in the very nick of time,’ he exclaimed. ‘But I felt your good angel would direct your footsteps hither. Frederick is far more resigned than I hoped to see him, but then, he is so exhausted at the present moment that one can hardly judge. I left him asleep on the sofa in his room. It is the first time he has closed his eyes since this terrible calamity overtook him—’

‘Say, rather, my son, since this great blessing was vouchsafed him, for I fully believe that this visitation, dreadful as it appears at first sight, is simply the voice of God calling to His unhappy child to repent and be saved.’

‘I believe you are right, father,’ said Philip. ‘For his sorrow has already made a great change in Frederick. He swore before me, on his dead wife’s wedding-ring, to pledge himself to virtue and fidelity for the rest of his life. I am sure he regards her death as a species of punishment for his former sins.’

‘May he continue to do so,’ replied the priest. ‘But such feelings are but too often evanescent. If we are to take advantage of this softening on his part, Philip, it must be while his memory is still fresh—his feelings yet lacerated. We must strike whilst the iron is hot, or with time and forgetfulness his heart may harden, as did the heart of Pharaoh, and this salutary lesson be lost.’

‘I do not think his sorrow for her loss will soon pass, father. I never remember to have seen Frederick so prostrated with grief before. I believe this poor girl must have been, as he says, the one love of his life.’

‘To the exclusion of the Church and his religious duties, my son. Yes, perhaps so, but those are the very loves that the Lord is jealous of—that He will not permit, and so cuts off, in order that we may find our joy in Him alone.’

‘Stay to dinner with us, father,’ said Philip eagerly. ‘Poor Frederick may be glad to see you, later on, and you can direct his thoughts to these great truths. Marion, my dear, the father will stay with us, I know. Let the servants know that he will do so.’

Philip peeped once more into his cousin’s apartments before he descended to the dining-room, only to find him still sleeping, though brokenly, and it was not until dinner was concluded, that he ventured upstairs again. But then his worst fears were realised. Frederick had woke up with strength renewed by his temporary relief, to the full horror of his bereaved position. His cousin found him prostrated on the couch in an agony of suffering, during which he was calling upon the Almighty to put an end to his existence, or to give him back that of which He had so cruelly robbed him.

‘Frederick! this is blasphemy!’ cried Philip in a tone of horror, ‘God’s will is not to be altered by man’s ravings. Your wife is in His keeping. Has that thought no power to calm your transports? Would you have her back again, even if you could, in this world of pain and disappointment?’

‘Yes, I would, I would!’ returned the young man, ‘a thousand times over. Do you suppose that my darling can enjoy even heaven without me, whom she loved so tenderly? No, no! She is weeping for me, as I weep for her. You told me yourself that you did not believe that she was happy. Oh, my love—my love, would God I might have died for you, or with you.’

‘Frederick, Father Tasker is below. Would you like him to come up and speak to you? He can make the reason of such things clearer to you than I can.’

‘Father Tasker!’ exclaimed Frederick, ‘No. He will only talk to me of submission and obedience to God’s will, and make me more miserable. I can’t submit; it’s no use telling me to do so, and I can’t see God’s love in the matter, either. I can only see hard-heartedness and cruelty, and utter indifference to my trouble. I have only one wish left—to die too, and join my darling, wherever she may be!’

‘If you were sure of joining her, certainly that would be the easiest plan out of it all. But, Frederick, Father Tasker will tell you the best way—the only way—by which you can hope to join your wife when your time comes. Believe me, he has no intention or desire to wound you by any allusion to your trouble, unless you desire it. He has come to see you only as a friend who deeply sympathises with your pain.’

‘Let him come up, then,’ replied Frederick in a muffled voice, and in another minute the priest entered the room, whilst Philip discreetly remained downstairs. Father Tasker went up to the couch where the stricken man still lay, and kindly laid his hand on his.

‘God bless you, my son, and comfort you,’ he said.

‘How can God comfort me?’ demanded Frederick. ‘He will not give me my lost wife back again.’

‘Not in this world; but is this world all we live for? At the best we are here but for a few short years, whilst the next will last for all eternity. Had you the choice of fifty years spent with your late wife, Frederick, or fifty thousand, which would you prefer?’

‘How can you ask me, when you know she was the life of my life! Father, you have heard so much of my loose style of living, that you may think my love for her was like the rest, but it was no more to be compared to them than light to darkness. I loved her—I loved her—all the other feelings I have ever experienced for women look like horrible nightmare dreams, or flimsy shadows, beside the strong, deep passion she evoked in me. I should have become a better man for her sake. Perhaps even religious, like Philip,—who knows? The possession of her—the knowledge of her love for me—made me feel so grateful, that I might have ended by loving God in very gratitude for what He had given me in her. And now—now, it is all over.’

‘It is not all over, my son. It has but just begun.’

Frederick raised his swollen features to gaze with astonishment in the priest’s face.

‘I mean what I say! Love cannot die! Your wife is gone from your mortal gaze, but she still exists and her love exists with her. And now is the time for you to show the world if you did love her or not. I am not questioning your passion for her earthly body. I understand she was very beautiful, and such things take a great hold on men’s fancies. But her body is no longer here for you to lavish your affection upon. What are you going to do for her soul?’

‘Were I a good man, I would pray for it; but who would hear the prayers of such a sinner as I am? Besides, my darling was infinitely purer and better than myself! She can have no need of my prayers.’

‘That is to say, then, that she was not mortal, for all mortals have need of each other’s help. Besides, if she had no need of your prayers, have you none of your own?’

‘Ah! father, you touch me on the raw there. I have felt, even since I comprehended what the awful news they brought me meant, as if it were a judgment upon me for my sins—as if the Lord had taken my innocent darling in His exceeding wrath at my past wickedness.’

‘In His love, not His wrath,’ interposed the priest gently; but Frederick did not heed him.

‘Ever since I lost her,’ he went on, with the tears streaming down his cheeks, ‘I have done nothing but think of Rhoda Berry, and that girl down at Southampton, and other certain black marks on my unhappy life. But is God so hard as that? Can He have stricken down my angel by so cruel a death, just as she was happy with me, because I have made a beast of myself? Why her, and not me? I was the sinner. I should have been the sufferer.’

‘And you are suffering greatly, my son; but it is a suffering which may result in exceeding joy. Why did the Almighty not take you, instead of your wife—the girl whom you led to fly in the face of her parents and to err greatly on that account. I think I can tell you. He was too gracious to cut you off in the midst of your sins, without giving you a chance of reparation, and, by taking her instead, he has left you behind to pray for the salvation of her soul. Frederick, that poor child is even now holding out her pale hands to you, through the gates of purgatory, and saying, “Husband! it was you who led me astray; it is to you I look to release me from these purgatorial fires. Show your great love for me, by dedicating the rest of your life to this pious purpose, so that, when I have risen, I may join my prayers to yours, and requite your goodness by praying for you.” This poor girl was not of our faith; she was a heretic, so much the more does it behove all those who loved her to entreat the Blessed Mother of God to use her interest with her Son in order to gain her salvation. If you love her, Frederick, as you say you do, now is the time to prove it. Come back to the Church you have deserted, and spend your future life so as you may meet your wife again, when your time comes to leave this world.’

‘You mean,’ said Frederick, ‘that I shall give up my fortune to the Church, as my godfather intended I should do. Well, if you will use it in masses for the repose of my poor darling’s soul, you may have it. It is worth nothing to me now. My life, to all intents and purposes, is over.’

‘I do not mean only that,’ replied the priest; ‘I do not think that the Church would accept your money without yourself. But you must not forget, Frederick, what was your sainted mother’s wish and aim. She designed you, her favourite son, for the service of the Church—she educated you for that purpose, but, as soon as you were left without her counsel and guidance, you abandoned your studies and elected to go your own way. But the Church has never given you up. She considers you still as her child and disciple, and is ready at any time to welcome you back into her ranks. A very few more months of study would fit you to pass the necessary examination for ordination as a priest. Is it no inducement to you to know that, in that capacity, you might offer the Mass, every time you celebrated it, for the repose of your wife’s soul—that you would live, as it were, in the presence of God, pleading for her, and for your eternal re-union? If you really desire her everlasting salvation—if you long to meet her again, and in a state of bliss—if you regret your past life and desire to lead a purer one in the future, you will take it up where you dropped it at your mother’s death, and fit yourself for eternity.’

‘I do wish all that you say,’ cried Frederick, whose body was sorely weakened, and whose mental calibre had never been too strong (for his love of vicious courses in the past, proved the weakness of his moral character). ‘I care nothing more for money, or the pleasures that money bring, and I have but one desire—to be assured of my darling’s happiness, and that we shall meet again hereafter. Oh! father, if these things are to be gained by my entering the Church, let me do so as quickly as I may, for if you do not find me occupation and distraction, I shall go mad.’

‘The Holy Church will take care of you, my son,’ said Father Tasker, as he rose to leave the room. ‘She will envelop you with her arms like a loving mother, and soothe all your sorrows and your fears to rest upon her holy breast. And the Blessed Mother of God, who is weeping tear for tear with you every moment, will rejoice so exceedingly to regain her lost child, that she will do her utmost to reward you by the salvation of your wife, whom she will accept as her child too, because of her great love for you. You could not have chosen a truer means to ensure the happiness of both. You will live, my son, to call this sad time the most blessed of all your life.’

‘But, meantime, I must live without her!’ cried Frederick, relapsing into a storm of grief.

‘Not without her,’ replied the priest, ‘but with her, in spirit, every hour. This is where our blessed faith comforts us exceedingly over those of less favoured people. They talk of the Communion of Saints, but act as though the dead, once removed from our sight, had no more part nor lot with mortal flesh. But we know that this doctrine is erroneous, else what would become of our many instances of saints and angels appearing to men after their demise? The dead, so-called, are not beyond the reach of our prayers and our tears. They hear us and see us and pray for us. And it is our blessed privilege to ask their prayers, as in the case of your sainted mother (who has, doubtless, wearied the throne of God with her entreaties on your behalf—now about to be so mercifully and almost miraculously answered); or to give them ours, as in the case of your young wife, who will, in after years, rise up and call you blessed for what you have done for her, as you have cause to call your dear mother.’

‘I am hers and the Church’s for evermore,’ exclaimed Frederick, in a fervour of exaltation, as he stretched forth his hands and clasped those of the father; ‘only tell me what to do and I will do it!’

‘Take a day or two to think over the idea, my son, and then, if you are still of the same mind, I will speak to my old friend, Canon Bulfil, on the subject, and see if he cannot receive you into his college, until you are ready to pass for Holy Orders. I am persuaded that a few months’ study is all you will require to regain what you may have lost.’

‘And then—and then,’ exclaimed Frederick, with raised eyes and clasped hands, ‘I shall offer the blessed Mass for the repose of her soul every day, five and six times a day, if they will let me do so. I shall tell them that they cannot give me too much work. If it kills me, so much the better. It will send me all the sooner to her.’

He remained in this mingled state of despair and hope for many days to come, and it was whilst in this condition that Philip Walcheren and the priest took advantage of him, and persuaded him to give himself and his fortune to the Church. Not that they entertained the slightest idea of fraud or chicanery in doing so. On the contrary, they honestly rejoiced in their success, believing that they were securing the salvation of his soul, and the commendation of their superiors in the faith. They were both good men in their way, and earnest to promote the cause of the Catholic Church and their religion.

We judge our fellow creatures too hardly in this world, on the supposition that what is good for Tom and Dick, must, necessarily, be good for Harry. A Protestant can see nothing but idolatry in the worship paid by a Catholic to the image of his patron, but he is quite blind to the fact that, when he exclaims with horror if one stands on a ginger-bread covered bible in order to increase one’s stature, he practises the same idolatry in another form. The Catholic regards the Protestant as a heretic, because he does not bow his head at the elevation of the Mass; but when the Catholic Church forbids her children to kneel in prayer with their Protestant brethren, she is as openly contemptuous of their faith as she believes them to be of hers. Such extremes are folly, and go far to make one disbelieve in the uses of religion at all, except as a plea for fighting. Intolerance has caused more people to forsake the ordinances of their childhood than anything else, and those who set the faction going and the flame alight, will have much to answer for, if the day of judgment, which they foretell, ever comes to pass.

Both Catholics and Protestants may do many things which appear intolerant to outsiders, and yet act in the most perfect faith and desire to serve God. This was how Philip Walcheren and Father Tasker acted with regard to Frederick. They wanted to help him save his soul—they thought they saw a way of doing it—and they brought all their arguments to bear upon that way.

And Frederick was as tinder in their hands. His whole mind was absorbed with the idea that his sins had, in a measure, brought this awful calamity upon him, and that the loss of Jenny was due to himself alone. He loathed the thought of his past life with its licentiousness and folly. He wanted to put it right out of his head—to forget it had ever been—to lose sight of anything that should remind him of it. The idea of a cloister and hard study, strange to say, held no horror, at that moment, for this man of the world, who had lived his life on race-courses, and behind the scenes of theatres. All he longed for was oblivion, and he hoped to find it in the exercise of religion. Have we not all felt so at times, when the hopes of earth were shattered at our feet, and we could turn nowhere in the world for comfort? It is then, and especially when death has removed what we loved best from our sight, that we feel as if we must make the heaven for ourselves, in which we only half believe.

That is well enough. It is the cry of the human heart for the love of God, without which it cannot exist. If it could be followed by a realisation of the presence of God, the soul would be satisfied and all life changed. The burdens of earth would roll off our shoulders as Christian’s bundle rolled off his back in the Pilgrim’s Progress, and, instead of despairing mortals, reviling our fate and the Almighty’s ordinances, we should be contented, grateful children, waiting patiently till our Father saw fit to call us home!

But the mistake is, to suppose that religious ceremonies, designed of men, will heal our wounds, unless God’s balm has dropped upon them first. Church-going is all very well for those who like it, but it should never be made a superstition, as so many people make it, since it was only instituted to do honour to God (which mission it too often sadly fails in), and God is everywhere ready to be done honour to.

Yet we are too apt to fly to it in our sorrow, and believe, as Frederick Walcheren believed, that, by making a great sacrifice of all his pleasures, and making a great sweep of all his sins at one and the same time, he would be pleasing God and securing his own happiness.

CHAPTER III.

Of all the people who suffered, and were destined to suffer, from Jenny Walcheren’s death, the heart that bled the most has been mentioned the least, because it bled so silently and unobtrusively. Poor Mrs Crampton! Who can estimate the depth and length and breadth of a mother’s love?

Whilst Mr Crampton had been noisily giving way to his indignation and suspicions down at Dover, and Frederick Walcheren had been lapped in despair, and Henry Hindes had been compelled to hide his dastardly dread under an assumption of friendly concern, she had been bowed beneath the weight of her sorrow at home. It was so hard to believe it. Her Jenny!—whom she had never parted from since she was a little baby at her breast. She sat passive, silent and incredulous, in her darkened room, trying to realise that Jenny would never come home again, except in her coffin. Her husband had wired her to say that he and Mr Hindes would return on the Tuesday evening, bringing that with him, which was all that was left of their daughter. The poor, stricken mother could not believe it. She tried to make herself do so. She kept on talking to Aunt Clem about Jenny, of her childhood, her wilfulness, and her beauty, but still the tears would not come, and the poor heart was unrelieved.

‘I wish I could cry, Clem,’ she said pathetically, ‘I wish I could cry; but, whenever I think it is coming, a great, hard lump seems to rise in my throat and drive it back again. I fancy I should feel better in my head if I could cry. Talk to me, Clem, of when she was a little girl.’

‘She was a sweet little girl,’ said poor Aunt Clem, mendaciously, ‘a little fond of her own way, perhaps, but very loving and obedient.’

‘Oh! no, Clem, not obedient, I think,’ replied Mrs Crampton, ‘but always loving. I remember, when she was a baby, how I used to look at her and wonder if she would ever grow up to be a woman. I had lost so many of them, you see, Clem—five darlings buried, one after another—until I was quite afraid to grow fond of a baby for fear it should be taken from me. I can never forget those burials. They used to tear my heart in two, and bury a piece of it every time. I went to see the two first buried,—those were little John and Edmund, you know, Clem; but, afterwards, I couldn’t bear the sight. It seemed so hopeless my having any children, until my Jenny came, so different from all the others, who had been sickly little creatures; but she was so fat and bonny that the doctor said to me, “Well, you’ve got a thriving child this time, Mrs Crampton.” And yet it was many years, Clem, before I dared to spend my whole love on her. I felt as if she were to go too—that I must die. And yet you see she has gone, and I can sit and talk about it to you, and do not even cry. It is very strange; I am afraid there must be something wrong with my head,’ and she passed her hand in a puzzled manner over her forehead as she spoke.

‘Oh! my dear sister,’ exclaimed Aunt Clem, whose own features were almost indistinguishable from the effect of her tears, ‘do try and cry. I am sure it would do you good.’

‘It has not done you any good, Clem,’ replied the poor mother. ‘Besides, we may expect her home at any moment now, and John has never been very patient of my tears. I should not like to meet them—I mean him—with my eyelids swollen. It might upset him. For we must be very quiet over it, you know, Clem. It is a very solemn occasion. Is everything ready for her reception?’

‘Yes, dear; I have arranged they shall carry her into your boudoir. It will make the room more dear to you afterwards, Ellen. Bradshaw helped me to remove the ornaments and drape the tables in white, and decorate the room with flowers. I think you will like it when you see it, dear. At least, I have done my best.’

‘I remember,’ said the mother, in a monotone, ‘how averse I was to call her Jane. John would have it so, because his sister Jane had only died a month before her birth, but I thought it such a plain name. I had set my heart upon calling her Ethel, after the heroine in Thackeray’s story of the Newcomes, but her father said it was romantic nonsense on my part, and he would have her nothing but plain “Jane.” But Mrs Sellon stood godmother to her, so she was called Emily, also, after her. Ah, well,’ with a heavy, deep-drawn out sigh, ‘it doesn’t signify now, does it?’

‘Hark!’ exclaimed Miss Bostock, changing colour, as the sound of carriage wheels was heard slowly advancing up the drive. ‘What is that?’

Mrs Crampton rose, trembling. They both knew but too well. It was the funeral coaches which they heard, coming back from the station where they had been ordered to await the nine o’clock train.

‘Let me go!’ cried Mrs Crampton wildly, rousing herself from her apparent apathy for the first time, ‘let me go to my child, my Jenny. I must be there to meet her.’

But Miss Bostock held her back.

‘Dear, dear Ellen,’ she said, ‘pray don’t go down stairs till John has come to fetch you; there is so much to be done yet. Stay here quietly, there’s a dear, till the arrangements are complete. Bradshaw promised to meet John and tell him where they were to carry her. Don’t make a scene in the hall. You know how he objects to any publicity.’

‘A scene in the hall, Clem,’ said Mrs Crampton, in a voice of surprise. ‘And when I am going to meet my own child and welcome her home? I don’t understand you! Let me see, though. Isn’t she married? Didn’t she marry that Mr Walcheren, or is it a mistake? It must be a mistake, Clem, or why should she come back to us? My pretty Jenny, the beauty of Hampstead, as they call her! How glad I shall be to have her home again.’

‘Good God!’ cried Miss Bostock, in an agony of terror, ‘her brain is going. John, John!’ she called out over the banisters, ‘come here quick to Ellen, she is very ill!’

The mournful cortège had, by this time, entered the house, and deposited their burden on the white-draped table in the boudoir on the ground floor. The coffin had been temporarily closed, but the undertakers, who had met it at the station, unclosed it again, and Jenny Walcheren lay revealed, placid and immovable, under her father’s roof. Mr Crampton, hearing his sister-in-law’s appeal, and thinking his wife had fainted, ran upstairs at once, but was surprised to meet her on the landing with a strange look in her eyes, but an unmoved countenance, as she extended her hand to him.

‘John!’ she said, in a muffled voice, ‘our Jenny has come home. I heard her enter the house. Take me down to see her without delay.’

‘Oh, John!’ whispered the terrified Aunt Clem, ‘it will kill her. Ought she to see her? I believe she is going out of her mind with grief.’

‘Poor soul! and well she may,’ replied Mr Crampton, as he looked into his wife’s staring eyes. ‘But let her come; the sight can’t make her worse than she is. Come, Ellen,’ he added, affectionately, ‘come and see your lamb, then. God has taken her from us, Nelly, but there is no help for it, and railing won’t bring her back again. Come and see how peacefully she sleeps.’

He led the bereaved mother downstairs and into the boudoir as he spoke. The servants, who had been gazing tearfully on the remains of their young mistress, withdrew respectfully, as they saw the approach of their employers; and, as they entered the room, Mr Crampton closed the door behind them. The most expensive coffins that Dover could produce had been procured to convey poor Jenny’s remains to Hampstead, and there she lay in a white satin-lined shell, enclosed in a polished oak sarcophagus, heavily clamped and ornamented with brass. Mrs Crampton had had her Jenny before her mental eyes all day, dead indeed, but plump and filled-out as when she had parted with her. She was prepared to see a corpse, but a corpse that was only a marble likeness of her child, and when her husband reverently and solemnly lifted the cambric cloth that hid the features of the deceased, and she perceived a little, shrunken and fallen-in body with a pallid face, looking half the size it used to be, and flattened hands with purple nails and palms, she drew one gasping breath, and gave a scream that echoed and re-echoed through the mansion.

‘That my Jenny?’ she exclaimed; ‘that my child—my daughter? Oh, God! be merciful, be merciful!’ and dropped upon the floor in a dead faint.

Miss Bostock, who was sobbing at the sad sight before her as if her heart would break, flung herself down in terror beside her prostrate sister.

‘John, John,’ she cried, ‘it has killed her. I told you it would.’

‘Don’t say that, Clem,’ exclaimed the unhappy man, ‘for, if I lose her as well, I shall have nothing left to live for. Go and send William for Dr Sewell at once.’

‘Where is Mr Hindes?’ said Miss Bostock. ‘Did he not travel with you?’

‘Yes, but he would not enter the Cedars. There was no need, and he feared to intrude on our sorrow at this sad home-coming. But he did everything for me whilst at Dover, and worked night and day in my behalf to save me trouble. I can never repay him for all his goodness. But send for Sewell, Clem, and tell Bradshaw to come here and help me carry poor Nelly to her room. She must not come back to her senses here.’

Mrs Bradshaw, who was the house-keeper, appearing at that moment, they lifted the poor mother between them and conveyed her upstairs, and, when she came to herself again and remembered what had occurred, a violent burst of weeping relieved her overcharged brain and rendered her grief more natural, and, consequently, less acute.

The sad days which succeeded, until that of the funeral arrived, were spent in silence and gloom, in a darkened house, where meals were prepared as usual, but never touched, and even the domestics spoke with bated breath, and went about their work with red-rimmed eyes. The preparations for the interment went on, and were conducted without the slightest regard to expenditure. Mr Crampton felt a melancholy pleasure in determining that it should be the most magnificent funeral that had ever taken place in Hampstead, and be succeeded by the most magnificent monument that had ever been erected over so young and insignificant a girl. He would have an inscription on it, he said to himself, that should hand down her cruel story to posterity, and be a standing shame against Frederick Walcheren forever more. And all Hampstead sympathised in his ambition. If Jenny had not been an universal favourite during her lifetime, she became so upon her death. The girls who had been jealous of her unusual beauty, and the admiration which it excited, were shocked at her sudden removal from amongst them, and the young men were as deeply moved. Everyone sympathised with the unfortunate parents who had lost the hope of their old age, and, when the day of the funeral arrived, there was hardly a household in Hampstead who did not send a wreath of flowers to place upon the bier, and a representative to swell the crowd about the grave.

Mr Crampton’s city friends, too, turned out in large numbers to pay their last token of respect to his daughter, so that the line of carriages seemed unlimited, and the cemetery was filled with spectators. Mr Crampton had purchased a large plot of ground in the principal avenue, with the intention of making a garden round the grave, and here assembled, on that beautiful August afternoon, old and young, rich and poor, friends and strangers, to see his lovely daughter laid to rest in the warm bosom of her Mother Earth—all but the man who, humanly speaking, had caused all the trouble, but who was about to expiate it by a sacrifice greater than anyone else would have thought of dedicating to Jenny’s memory.

Amongst the chief mourners, and standing next to old Mr Crampton, was Henry Hindes, clad in a suit of the deepest black, and with a face the colour of ashes. The bystanders, even those least well acquainted with the principal performers in the tragedy, remarked that he seemed to suffer as much, if not more, than the father did.

‘He did not weep so openly, as poor Mr Crampton,’ said a woman who had stood near him, ‘but he shook so violently that I could see him do it. And, when the clergyman came to the part of “Dust to dust, and ashes to ashes,” Mr Hindes swayed as if he was going to fall into the grave. I was quite frightened. I thought every moment that he would faint.’

‘Ah! well,’ replied her companion, ‘he is one of the firm, you see, and a great friend of the family; I daresay he has known the poor girl ever since she was born! I wonder who the Cramptons will leave their money to now! Some one told me that this is the last of their family, and the sixth child they have lost, and they have no heir left. It’ll be a nice pot of money for whoever gets it! They are reported to be as rich as Crœsus.’

Mr Crampton said something of the same thing to Henry Hindes that evening, as they sat together in the library at The Cedars. The old man had insisted upon his friend accompanying him home, and the latter had not known how to refuse with any grace.

‘Why I want to speak to you, my dear Hindes, is this,’ said Mr Crampton as they sat in the gloaming together. ‘You see it behoves me now to make a new will! Everything I had was to have gone to my poor girl—that is, after her mother’s death—but that’s all over now; in fact, everything is over for me, and I don’t fancy I shall last long myself.’

‘You mustn’t say that, my dear friend,’ replied Hindes, in the strange, muffled voice he had adopted of late, and which he attributed to a bad sore throat, ‘you are hale and hearty, and have many years of life, I hope, before you yet, and—when this—this terrible event has somewhat faded from your memory—of enjoyment also.’

‘No, Hindes, no! I am too old a man to forget so easily. You see it is not as if it were the first nor the second, and it has given me my death-blow, I am certain of that. We men don’t make so much noise about our troubles as the women do, poor things; not that they don’t feel as keenly, perhaps, but their tears are their salvation. Now people, to have heard me talk over this business, might have thought, maybe, that all I cared for was my revenge on the scoundrel who stole my pretty one from me. But it isn’t so—only the other feeling lies too deep for words. But, I am sure of one thing—and that is, that my wife there will outlive me, and that it won’t be so long, either, before she’s a widow. Now, of course, she’ll be provided for amply, and her sister into the bargain; but two women of such quiet tastes and habits can never use one half of the money I have to leave behind me; and who are they to leave it to, when they die? They stand alone in the world. Of course I had meant—I had intended—to leave my Jenny more than half of it—that’s what I’ve been working for all these years—but as it is—’

Here the old man stopped, and, leaning his head on his hand, pressed the burning eyeballs which refused to shed tears, but let his dry heart feed upon itself.

‘My dear friend,’ interposed Hindes, ‘do not pursue this torturing subject to-night, I entreat you. Think of the trial you have already gone through, and have some pity on yourself.’

‘No, Hindes, I wish to say what I have to say to-night, and I am quite equal to it. I must see Throgmorton, my solicitor, about my will to-morrow, without fail, for the next day I intend taking my wife and her sister to Scotland for a change. But I will be as brief as I can. I mean, therefore, to alter my will with respect to the names, but not to disposition of property. To my wife and her sister, I shall leave, for their lifetimes, the half of my fortune, and the other half—my poor Jenny’s share—to you.’

‘To me,’ exclaimed Henry Hindes, starting from his chair. ‘No, no, it is impossible. The very idea is horrible to me. I will not take it.’

Mr Crampton gazed at this sudden eruption in mute surprise.

‘But why not you, my dear Hindes?’ he said, after a pause. ‘You are the best—I may say—the nearest and dearest friend I possess; and now that she’s gone, your children are the only ones in whom I feel any interest. I can never thank nor repay you for all you have done for me during this sad time. I do not mean to offer you my fortune as a requital, only to show you how deeply I have felt your goodness to me, and how truly I value your friendship and the love you felt for my poor girl.’

‘I cannot take it—it is impossible,’ gasped Hindes, as he nervously swept his brow, over and over again, with his handkerchief.

‘I know you are rich enough for every ordinary purpose, my dear fellow, but wealth is never unwelcome. Even with our combined fortunes, you will not be a Rothschild. And, even if you were, you have three children to spend it on, and may have more. If you absolutely refuse to be my heir, I will make little Walter so. You will not refuse to let me benefit your child, to pass on to him that which was intended for my own.’

‘I would rather not indeed!’ repeated Hindes. ‘Walter will have plenty. The idea of his being your heir is painful to me. Surely there are members amongst your own or your wife’s family who would be thankful to be remembered by you, and need your kindness more than my children do.’

Mr Crampton looked puzzled and a little vexed. He had wished to show his appreciation of the Hindes’s affection for his dead daughter, and his partner’s determined refusal of his offer wounded him. It is not pleasant to have an intended kindness thrown back in one’s face. But all he said was,—

‘You have disappointed me!’

‘I am sorry,’ said Hindes, spasmodically, ‘but it took me by surprise. It is more than I deserve at your hands—I feel as if I had no right to accept your bounty. People might think it strange—they might begin to question—’

‘What could they question? What right would they have to think it strange?’ demanded Mr Crampton, querulously. ‘Have I not a right to dispose of my money in my own way? Come, Hindes, if it is not to be you, it must be your son, so I give you fair warning, and you can divide your own money amongst your children as you choose. But little Walter will be my heir—will take the place of my poor murdered Jenny, whether you like it or no. I will give Throgmorton the necessary directions to-morrow.’

‘My God, my God!’ groaned Hindes, below his breath.

‘My poor friend, I know you are feeling this trouble almost as much as myself,’ continued Mr Crampton, ‘that is what has endeared you so to me since it occurred. I wonder what that fellow Walcheren, who has been the cause of it all, is thinking of at the present moment. If he has a conscience, by Jove! I don’t envy him the possession of it. Say what you will, Hindes, I shall always look upon him as her murderer. If he didn’t push her over the cliff, which I am half inclined sometimes to believe, his carelessness was the real cause of it. Why did he leave her alone, such a wild, thoughtless, heedless creature as she was—plucky to a fault, and ready to dare anything. Why wasn’t he by her side, either to defend her against the villain who assaulted her, or to save her from her own wilfulness?’

‘Oh! sir, pray do not discuss the matter any more, at least to-night,’ said Hindes, in a voice of abject entreaty. ‘Suppose you found out the truth, how could it alter matters now? Try to think that no one was to blame—that it was the will of Heaven—and that—’

‘No! no! Hindes, I cannot think that!’ replied the old man. ‘Her death may always be shrouded in mystery, but God never designed so young and beautiful a creature to die so foully. There is some villainy at the bottom of it, and I have not done with it yet, for, if ever I can discover the real author of the mischief, I will kill him with my own hand. I will, if he proves to be a prince of the blood royal.’

Henry Hindes did not answer for a few minutes, and then he said in a low voice,—

‘Have I your permission to go home, Mr Crampton? I am not well, and this conversation has upset me. It is all too new, too fresh, my dear friend; it will not bear discussion yet. If you can do without me, I should be thankful to try and procure a little rest at home. We have to be early at the office to-morrow.’

‘Go then, Hindes, by all means. I am afraid I am sadly selfish, but it is a relief in such cases to have a friend to unbosom oneself to. God bless you for all you have done for me. I could never have gone through that ceremony to-day if you had not stood by my side. I will go up to my poor wife now, and see what I can do or say to comfort her.’

He grasped Hindes’ hand as he spoke, and the two men separated for the night. Hannah was anxiously expecting her husband’s return. She knew his emotional nature, and how he suffered after any trial to his feelings. She had been suffering through the day very much herself. In Jenny Walcheren, she had lost the female friend whose society she had enjoyed the most, and her sympathy with the bereaved and heart-broken parents was extreme. She wept more for their sakes than for her own, and she knew that her husband felt for them, equally with herself. But, as he entered her presence, she was shocked to see the ravages of grief upon his countenance. It seemed unnatural to her that he should mourn so deeply as this—as if, too, something more than grief mingled with his feelings—if it had not seemed derogatory to his manhood, she would have said he must have become superstitious since Jenny’s death, for he seemed to have grown frightened of shadows, and to glance about him with a startled air, as if he expected to see something that was not there. She was a sweet, placid-tempered woman herself, with a strong sense of religion, who would never have been alarmed at the idea of any supernatural appearances; who did not believe in them in the first place, and, if she had done so, would have said they came of God, and therefore could never harm those who believed and trusted in Him.

She could not, therefore, account for her husband’s altered appearance, unless, indeed, there was something in his constitution which unfitted him for resisting the attacks of sorrow. And she had always been aware that he loved the dead girl equally with herself.

‘My dearest!’ she said, as soon as they were alone, and he had cast himself upon a sofa, ‘you must not give way like this, you must not indeed. You will make yourself ill if you fret so continuously, and you have your work to do, remember.’

‘Do leave me alone,’ he answered sulkily; ‘it’s all very well to preach, but everybody’s not so cold-blooded as yourself.’

‘Cold-blooded! Henry,’ she exclaimed. ‘Oh, don’t say I am that with regard to our darling Jenny. I think I mourn her loss as much as you do. But you frighten me, my dear. You can have no idea how altered you have become in these few days. You are like a wreck of your former self.’

‘It’s enough to make a man a wreck, to pass through such trying scenes as I have been doing. You seem to forget that everything has fallen to my share. From that terrible inquest, to this afternoon’s ceremony, Mr Crampton has depended on me for every mortal detail. You would feel like a wreck if you had done as much.’

‘Yes, yes, dear,’ she answered, soothingly, ‘for without having seen it all, I cannot get it out of my head. I have been trying so hard this afternoon to picture darling Jenny to myself, as she used to be—as I have seen her, a thousand times and more—with her bright, merry face and her saucy smile, driving those cobs of hers at such a rate through the town, without a fear or a care. But I can’t. I can only see that little, mournful, pale face which I looked on in her coffin, with its sunken eyes and closed lips, and—’

‘Damn it all!’ cried Hindes, furiously, as he leapt from the couch, ‘you have the most ingenious faculty of any woman I ever knew for torturing a man. Why on earth can’t you leave these harrowing details alone? What good does it serve to rake them up ad nauseam? Is that the way to make one forget? I cannot stand it any longer, I shall go to bed.’

And without another word, he rushed from the room.

Hannah was in dismay. She did not know what she had said to make her husband so angry with her. His irritation raised her suspicions. Had there been more in Henry’s affection for Jenny Crampton than she had ever thought of? She was not a prying or curious woman by nature, but Hindes’ behaviour was enough to make anyone suspicious. The mere idea was a revelation to her. Never in the whole course of their married life, now extending to eight years, had she conceived the slightest notion but that her husband cared for herself alone. He had never been very demonstrative, but, on the other hand, he had never been unkind. And yet, when she remembered how very lovely the dead girl was, she wondered she had never seen danger in Henry’s familiar intercourse with her. She could not feel jealous of poor little Jenny now, lying so meekly, with her hands crossed upon her breast, out in the cemetery, but Hannah did feel very sorry for herself, and less effusive than usual towards her husband. Yet, after all, as she told herself, it was only a supposition—it might turn out to be a delusion on her part—but she would watch Henry carefully, and find out the truth for herself.

CHAPTER IV.

Henry Hindes had passed through the fearful ordeals of the inquest and bringing home and funeral of Jenny Walcheren with surprising boldness and equanimity, never having been betrayed into displaying more emotion than was considered becoming under the circumstances; but, now that all possible danger was over—that all inquiries had ceased—and that the dead girl was laid in her grave, safe from prying curiosity, his nerve forsook him, and he was haunted by his own memory.

The dread which had oppressed him, ever since that fatal moment on the cliff, was set at rest. There was no chance that Jenny would bear witness against him from her grave. The world had accepted what appeared to be the most natural version of the tragedy that had befallen her, and no tongue would reveal the truth, until the judgment day.

He was safe—his children’s good name was safe—he might sit down securely amongst his Lares and Penates, and comment on the shocking number of murders, that were reported in the newspapers, with impunity.

Why, then, did his native audacity take that opportunity to desert him, and leave him a prey to his doubts and remorse? During the suspense and fear he had endured, he had never given a thought to anything but his possible danger; he had had no time, as it were, to grieve over the loss of the girl he loved; but, now that the danger was past, he could think of nothing else but Jenny, done to death by his own hand.

Had he been a better man, the terrible deed would never have been committed, and, had he been a worse man, he would have sat down at this juncture, congratulating himself that all had ended so well for him, and banished the thought of her thenceforward. But Henry Hindes was neither a villain nor a hero. He was common clay, like the rest of us. And he had loved Jenny Crampton very dearly. He had not realised how much he loved her, nor how much he had longed to possess her, until the fatal truth was revealed to him by her marriage with Frederick Walcheren. He had seen her blossom into a bonny maiden day by day, and knew that her presence pleased and excited him; but he had not dreamt that his affection for her came between him and his duty to Hannah, until her lover came on the scene and she resented all interference between them. Then he realised what his true feeling for his partner’s lovely daughter was; but subsequent events had caused him to think of nothing but the awful risk he ran. But now, the worst was over—the high tension to which his nerves had been strung for the last few days was relaxed—and he had leisure to dwell upon what had occurred, and to recognise what his love for the murdered girl really was, and to feel that he would give his miserable life a thousand times over, if the sacrifice could only bring back hers.

He saw her, as well as Hannah, but in a dozen shifting moods. Now, she was flourishing her whip at him, as she drove clattering down the principal street of Hampstead, and then she was laughing at some funny story, or teasing her parents or himself, or pouting her pretty lips because they thwarted her, or thanking him with those lovely eyes of hers for the American candies, or the illustrated papers, or the hot-house flowers, he had brought her from town. But the picture, however fascinating, always changed to give place to that in which she stood at the edge of the cliff on the last day of her young life, defying him with the contemptuous words,—‘I hate you! I hate you!’ He would go through the scene again and again; would hear her mocking voice—see her indignant, flashing eyes—give the fatal push that snuffed out her bright being like the flame of a candle—and then stand gazing at the empty space where she had been but a moment before, and which now was void and silent.

In fancy, the wretched man would see what he’d never seen in reality—her slender body falling down the steep declivity, dashing against the pointed crags and projections of chalk every instant, and then arriving with a dull thump at the bottom, and lying on the rough shingles, without life or sense or motion. In fancy, he would cast himself down beside her and entreat her forgiveness, by every means of speech in his power—would tell her how passionately, how truly, how devotedly he loved her—that he hated and cursed himself for having given way to the impulse that prompted him to touch her, and would die a million deaths to restore her bright beauty to life and strength again. This was the state of mind into which Henry Hindes fell as soon as Jenny Walcheren was buried.

He went up to his bed that night, a shivering craven. He had always professed to disbelieve in ghosts or anything supernatural, and to condemn those who credited the possibility of their appearance as fools or madmen.

But now he glanced around him as he entered his own apartment, as if he feared to meet the wraith of Jenny Walcheren lurking in the corner, ready to confront and accuse him.

The Hindes had always adopted the foreign plan of occupying separate rooms, so that he was alone, although his wife slept next him, with a door between them. Hindes wished that night that it were not so, for the sense of solitude bore in upon him very heavily, yet he did not like to propose seeking her companionship for fear she should guess the agony he was undergoing. So he crept into his own bed, and lay there, sleepless, and staring vaguely into the darkness, as if he dared not close his eyes, lest a ghostly hand might be placed upon his shoulder, or a ghostly voice whisper in his ear. Hannah, following her husband upstairs, about an hour after, peeped into his room, to see if he required anything.

‘What, still awake, Henry!’ she exclaimed, seeing his eyelids quiver as the light of her candle fell upon them; ‘are you in pain? Shall I get you anything?’

‘No! no! I am all right! All I want is rest and quiet!’

‘Well, I will leave you! But you forgot your usual visit to the bairns this evening. I’ve just come from the nursery. You must have infected Wally with your wakefulness, for I found him sitting up in bed and crying for his dada.’

‘Wally wants me!’ exclaimed Hindes, springing out of bed; ‘give me my dressing-gown. I will go to him!’

‘He is quiet now, my dear. You need not disturb yourself,’ said Hannah.

But her husband was already out of the room and on his way up to the nursery.

‘My Wally, my Wally,’ he thought, as he sat with the little boy closely folded in his arms, ‘if anything should happen to him! If God should be revenged on me, by taking my child—I couldn’t bear it! I couldn’t; it would kill me!’

Then he remembered that his friends had more than once said the same thing in his presence, and Jenny seemed to be standing on the opposite side of the carved cot, and whispering, ‘As you killed me! as you killed me!’ and he laid little Wally hastily down again.

‘Dada’s boy will go to sleep now,’ he said to him, with a kiss.

But Master Wally liked better lying in his father’s arms, and was quite cunning enough to know how to get his own way.

‘No; Wally wants dada,’ he replied fretfully, and but half-awake. ‘Wicked peoples come out of corners and frighten poor Wally.’

‘Wicked peoples! What do you mean, Wally?’ demanded Hindes, the perspiration breaking out immediately upon his face with apprehension. ‘There is no one here to frighten my Wally! Only Elsie and Laurie sleeping like good little girls in their beds, and nursie in the next room, with the door wide open.’

‘Oh, yes; there is,’ replied the little boy, oracularly; ‘peoples with black faces and white faces, and ladies with ribbons—’

‘Good God!’ exclaimed his father, with unnecessary fervour, ‘what ladies, Wally? Not a pretty lady, with curling hair—’

‘Oh, yes,’ cried the child, delighted to have found a theme to build his fables on; a ‘boo-ful young lady with long hair, just like Jenny that used to love me and bring me sugar plums. Dada, where is my Jenny? She hasn’t been to see Wally for a long, long time.’

So he was babbling on in his childish ignorance and cunning combined, when Hindes suddenly left his side and called the nurse from the adjoining room.

‘Rosa, you must get up and attend to Master Wally. He is very restless to-night, and cannot sleep. Come at once.’ And then, with a hasty kiss to the child, he said, ‘Nurse is coming, darling. She will stay with you. Dada must go now,’ and bolted from the nursery.

Was it possible that Jenny had appeared to the boy? Would her coming portend good or evil? Surely she could never have the heart to harm the little child, on whom all his hopes were set. ‘As you harmed me! as you harmed me!’ he seemed to hear whispered through the darkness.

Had the man been in his sober senses, he would have recalled how many times Master Wally had invented the most marvellous stories of things which he declared he had heard and seen, in order to detain his parents by his side—things which, they both knew, existed only in their little son’s imagination. But to-night the childish fibs assumed gigantic proportions in the eyes of his craven-hearted father. He lay in his own bed trembling, as he recalled how fond Jenny had always seemed of Wally above the other children—how often she spent her money on toys for him—and how eagerly the little fellow used to welcome her appearance. Was it true she had visited his bedside, and had she come in love or anger?

He found it more and more impossible to sleep after this exciting incident, so he crept out of bed softly, that his wife should not hear him, and took a dose of the morphia which he had used before for the same purpose. He wished, as he drank it, that he had the courage to take the whole contents of the bottle, and so end his perplexities and regrets at once. But he had not the courage for that. Life was not yet a sufficiently heavy burden to him. The world had condoned his offence, and there were, doubtless, many years of peace and prosperity before him. And, for the sake of Wally and the others, it was his duty to live on and struggle to forget. So he only took a rather full dose of the narcotic, and, after many moans and groans and restless turnings and tossings on his bed, nature succumbed to its influence and he fell asleep.

When he first woke in the morning, he thought he was all right again. His long sleep had removed his lassitude, and his mind was in a dreamy condition from the effects of the morphia, so that he was not in a fit state to worry himself by idle fears or expectations.

‘Come! come!’ he thought as he was dressing, ‘this is better! I was sure my nerves were unnaturally upset last night. If the feeling returns, all I need do is to have recourse to my little friend here. The worry I have gone through is enough to make any man ill. To make him exaggerate matters into the bargain, and see everything in its worst light. It was an accident, which might have happened to scores of people who have not troubled themselves about the matter. I am not even sure, at this date, if I really caused the disaster! I put out my hand, I know, but I could not swear that I touched her. She stepped backwards, most likely of her own accord, and so fell over, without any aid from me! I believe it was so; it is best I should believe it, for all our sakes. I shall mourn her loss none the less, dear, darling girl, because I persuade myself that it was Heaven’s will and not my hasty temper that caused it.’

His wife was surprised to see the placid humour in which he descended to the breakfast-table. He did not eat much, it is true, but all his appearance of despair had vanished, until she began to think she must have been mistaken, and that his mood of the night before had been due to the cause to which he had ascribed it—over-fatigue and worry. Mr Crampton being about to start for the Highlands that evening, there was a good deal to arrange before they parted, so Henry Hindes went off in good time to the city, and for the rest of the morning was immersed in business. The appearance of the poor father in his deep sables, and with his lowered tones and depressed air, did prick his conscience a little, but the influence of the morphia was still upon him, and a few glasses of wine soon dispersed the feeling. The first thing which renewed the discomfort of the night before, was the fact of Mr Crampton leaving the office, to seek that of his solicitor, Mr Throgmorton. Henry Hindes knew what he was going for, and tried to prevent him.

‘My dear friend,’ he said, in an expostulating voice, ‘I hope you are not thinking of putting the idea you mooted to me yesterday into execution. You must not, indeed. You will give me great pain if you do, for I neither deserve it, nor desire it.’

But the old man would not listen to him.

‘My dear Hindes, I shall tell you nothing about my intentions. They are locked in my own breast. I do not know but that I shall not take your advice after all. My wife, as you reminded me, has many needy relatives who will be thankful to be remembered in my will. But you acknowledge the necessity for an alteration. You will come and see us off from Euston, at eight o’clock this evening, won’t you? I know that my wife and Miss Bostock would be grieved to leave without shaking hands with you.’

‘I will be there, without fail,’ replied Hindes, as he walked to the office door with his partner.

‘What a terrible change in Mr Crampton, sir,’ remarked the clerk, who was waiting to speak to him on his return.

‘Do you think so, Mr Davidson?’ said Hindes, mechanically.

‘Think so, sir? Why! it’s the talk of the whole office. There’s death marked in the poor gentleman’s face. He won’t be with us long, sir, I feel sure of that.’

‘I trust you are mistaken, Davidson. Mr Crampton’s going away for change to Scotland to-night, and will not return to business until his health is quite restored.’

‘I hope it may be, sir; I hope, I’m sure, with all my heart, that it may be, for Mr Crampton’s been very good to all of us; but if you ask me my opinion, I don’t believe he’ll ever come back at all.’

‘Well, I didn’t ask your opinion, Davidson,’ replied Mr Hindes, fretfully; ‘and as Mr Crampton has the very best of advice, I think we may safely leave him in the hands of his doctor.’

‘Oh! yes, sir, of course; and I hope I haven’t said too much. But he does look very bad indeed—not like the same gentleman,’ repeated the clerk, as he went back to his work.

This little conversation disconcerted Henry Hindes, and his uneasy condition was augmented by the entrance of an old friend, a Colonel Brinsley, whom he had known for years.

‘My dear Hindes,’ exclaimed the colonel, as he threw himself in an arm-chair, ‘you might knock me down with a feather. I was on my way here, when I met poor Mr Crampton. Never saw such a change in any man in my life. Why, he’s the shadow of his former self. Of course I’ve heard about the sad loss he has sustained, but, hang it all! Hindes, although it is a terrible thing to lose a child, it doesn’t as a rule shrivel a man up to half his usual size. He is a mere skeleton. His clothes hang upon him in bags. I never was more shocked in my life.’

‘She was his only child, and he cared for her very much,’ replied Hindes, in a low voice, as he played nervously with a paper-knife.

‘Ah! yes! yes! doubtless, and he lost her by some terrible accident or other, didn’t he? What was it? Some people say she committed suicide, but that doesn’t seem likely to me. Only, the young people of the present day think no more of taking their lives than of threading a needle. How did it happen?’

‘It was an accident—a pure accident,’ said Hindes; ‘she fell over the cliffs at Dover.’

‘Very dreadful! No wonder the poor old fellow feels it! She was very pretty, was she not? The beauty of Hampstead, so they tell me. And only married a few days. How sad! Is it true that it was a runaway match?’

‘It was, but I think my partner would rather the matter were forgotten now that she is gone,’ replied Hindes.

‘God bless my soul, Hindes, you look very ill too, now I come to look at you!’ exclaimed the colonel; ‘have you taken it to heart as much as that?’

‘It has been a trying time for everyone concerned, naturally,’ replied his companion, ‘but I rather fancy my looks may be attributable to my having had a bad faceache lately, and been obliged to take morphia to induce sleep. It always leaves me feeling more ill than before. But it is impossible to keep a head for business without rest.’

‘True, but why don’t you try opium by inhalation? That’s the stuff to make you feel jolly! My wife says I shall ruin my health by it, but, as I’ve practised it now for twenty years and am none the worse, I fancy I shall continue it till I die. But only now and then, you know, only now and then. I contracted the habit whilst I was in China, where I suffered terribly from ague and fever, and it has never quite left me, so when I feel a fit coming on, out comes my hookah and, by Jove! in a quarter of an hour I’m ready to dance a jig.’

‘It must be wonderful stuff,’ said Henry Hindes, musingly.

‘It’s magical in its effects—perfectly magical,’ returned the colonel, enthusiastically. ‘I don’t care if it’s injurious, or not. I shall never part with my hookah till I die. You try it next time you have the toothache, my boy, and you’ll thank me evermore.’

‘But where is it to be procured?’ demanded Hindes. ‘I thought the sale of opium was prohibited in England.’

‘So are the sale of several other articles that are in general use,’ said Colonel Brinsley, laughing, ‘but where’s a will, there’s a way, you know, Hindes.’

And thereupon he gave him all the necessary information for purchasing the deadly narcotic and using it as an anæsthetic, and took his leave, fully persuaded that he had done his friend Hindes an inestimable benefit.

CHAPTER V.

Mr Crampton’s prognostications, with regard to himself, proved to be but too true. He had intended to take his wife and sister-in-law to a lovely place called Fochabers, in the Highlands of Scotland, but, on the way thither, he was taken so ill, that it was thought advisable they should stop at Aberdeen for the sake of medical advice, within a month of which time the old man had an apoplectic fit, and died without recovering consciousness. The news of this disaster was a fresh blow to Henry Hindes, but the intimation of it was accompanied by such an earnest appeal from the widow that he would go to them and help them in this calamity, as he had done in the last, that he was obliged to pack his portmanteau at once and start for Aberdeen, to go through the same painful scenes he had done before.

Mr Crampton’s last wish was that he should be carried back to Hampstead and laid by Jenny’s side. So the same melancholy preparations had to be made, the same melancholy coming-home to be gone through, and the same melancholy funeral rites to be solemnised, till Mr Hindes almost thought the former misery must have been a dream, and that Jenny Walcheren was only now being laid in her untimely grave.

No wonder that he looked ill and distracted, people said. The high estimation in which he had been held by the dead man was proved by the fact that he had left him half his fortune. No! not to him, perhaps, but to his son, which amounted to the same thing. For what Henry Hindes had dreaded and tried to prevent had indeed come to pass. His late partner’s will left half his fortune, which was to remain in the business, to Walter James Henry Hindes, the son of his best friend, Henry Hindes; the other half to be his wife’s for her lifetime, and, after her death, her sister’s, on the same terms; and, when both were deceased, it was to be divided between the child or children of his best friend aforesaid, Henry Hindes. So he was forced to take it; to benefit by Jenny’s death; to see his offspring in the enjoyment of that wealth which her father had accumulated for her; and which, but for himself, she might have lived half a century to take advantage of.

Hannah was naturally delighted that their old friend had remembered her little son in his will, and could not understand why her husband would not hear the subject alluded to. However unhappy he may have been made by Jenny’s death, still, as the dear girl was gone beyond recall, she could not see why their darling Wally, who surely must be more to his father than any friend, however missed and mourned, should not benefit by Mr Crampton’s generosity.

The elaborate monument which Mr Crampton had designed for his daughter’s grave, and had set in hand before he left for Scotland, was now complete and ready to be erected. This task also fell to Mr Hindes, for the widow was incapable of acting for herself, and looked to him for everything. It was a massive column of red granite, lettered in gold. It stood twenty feet high, and could be seen over all the monuments in the cemetery. A second inscription had been added to commemorate the father’s death, and, a few weeks after Mr Crampton’s funeral, the masons having sent Hindes word that their work was completed and the monument placed in the cemetery, he walked down by himself to see if the orders given had been properly carried out, before payment was made. He dreaded the task beyond everything. He had been alternately fortifying his courage during the last few weeks by doses of morphia, pipes of opium, and glasses of brandy, until he had made himself physically, as well as mentally, ill. But he must go through this trial once, he said to himself, once and for all, for he had left off going to church lately. He was too great a coward to pass by the spot where she lay, twice every Sunday. But Mrs Crampton had commissioned him to see that the monument to her husband and daughter was properly erected, so he was compelled to do so. He could not afford to neglect the wishes of the widow of the man who had so greatly benefited his son. That cursed legacy would bind him her slave for life.

He entered the cemetery with folded arms, and his eyes cast on the ground. The plot of earth surrounding Jenny’s grave had already been made beautiful by cartloads of flowering geraniums and other plants, transferred from the garden at The Cedars, and in the centre of them now reared the head of the red granite column. Henry Hindes knew the inscription by heart. He had seen it glaring at him through the darkness of the night, and had repeated it to himself until it seemed to be written in letters of fire on the tablets of his memory. But he had not calculated what it would look like, revealed in the glaring light of day, calling out, as it were, by its golden letters, to all men to come and read of his infamy. He looked up at it, and it seemed to blind his eyes. Something floated before them like a mist that prevented his seeing distinctly, and yet the very stones seemed to cry out the words:

‘Sacred to the memory of Jane Emily Crampton, the only child of John Crampton, Esq., of this parish, who was killed by a fall over the Dover cliffs on the 14th of August, 1875, in the twentieth year of her age. “Thou God knowest.”’ After which was written: ‘Also to the memory of John William Crampton, her father, who survived her loss only five weeks. “Vengeance is mine! I will repay, saith the Lord.”’