Lawrence Clavering

faced with bricks, and all too big for the room, into which a man could walk and wherein he could sit too, were he so disposed, upon a chilly night, and smo

ew back instinctively. I stopped as though the step had been a liberty; and neither of us had a word to say. Once she untied the ribands of her hood, for she must be doing something; but the moment she was aware of what it was she did, she tied them again with hasty uncertain fingers, and then reddened and paled

aten nothing since the morning;" and I walked to

a shiver; "one of your servants will come;" and then she checked herself and added, with her fingers plucking at her gown in

itchens. As a rule, the noise of women's voices was incessant in that quarter of the house, but to-day not a sound, not so much as the clatter of a dish-cover! I

and I saw my horse at the bottom of the steps tethered by the rein to a knob of the stone balustrade. I walked down the steps, loosed it, and led it round to the stables. There was a boy or two in the stable-yard, and I remember putting to them a number of aimless questions which I was at great pains to think of, but did not listen to the answers; until their fidgeting made me sensible of the cowardice of my delay and drove me back to the house. Then I remembered why I had left the parlour, and going to the pantry, I got together some food upon a tray and brought it with a decanter of Burgundy into the parlour. Mrs. Herbert was standing where I had last seen her. I set out

e in the house

ne,"

ange," she s

ert at the table running her fingers along the hem of my fine tablecloth and her throat working as though she was swallowing her tears. I knew by some instinct of what she was thinking. She was thinking of her poor furniture in her lodging at Keswick. It was hers, you see, won by her husband's toil, and maybe she had a passing thought, too, of Sir Godfrey Knel

she

he air of one that has come upon an outlet when all outlets seemed barred. "It was kind of you," she said, "to show m

did not want the urgent appeal of her eyes to ta

u," I replied; and I turned me to the win

you!" s

ng fool I was, must need

journey into Ke

ops her eyes. "I had not thought of that

r but the sight of it, and the sight of her husband in it--for he loved her--and, well, it needed no magician to foreca

t be just No! it is not possible;" and at that the tears cam

. "He shall know. I myself wil

asked, suddenly

ay find means to

nd a timorous smile dawning through her tears. "But no!" and the hope died out of h

seemed to me it was not so much the woman who spoke, but th

e payment fall

ced at m

plete change of voice, "

d. "That I found you by the

t have you say that. It must be

was familiar to me, and there was a word curiously misspelled--"wateing" for "waiting." Somewhere I had seen that word misspelled precisely in that way before,

you by the lake, on th

that I was not returning to Blackladies until night The let

the more ne

and from his manner I gathered that he was considering which of the passages giving upon the hall he should choose. It was for no more than a second that he stood thus, but that second gave me time enough to do the stup

ried, spitting

of my action, and l

tant setting ou

be true, and my voice took a trembling indecision f

Otherwise you would no

ame, his limbs quivered with his wrath, and now and again his

d you in the gard

garden?"

the movement his cloak slipped from his left shoulder, and I noticed that he w

say to you," said I, "h

ve some business with you, it is true, but that business comes second, and

come when it will," said I, "but these

still too many," he bro

e you pass this door." I

ied. "You overrate my credulity

t. This is

shelters

sent me to

ds, that I might enforce their truth upon him. But they

f the scabbard and the point of it pricking my breast. "If she

that mistake, I mus

I set a hand upon each side of the door

the wall to must," and he leaned

pulled open from within; I staggered back into the room. Herbert sprang through the opening after

ep in pursuit of you; and it was Mrs. Herbert who set me on the task. Oh, believe that too! It was no doing of mine; it was she sent

melt into--was it forgiveness? I do not know, for Mrs. Herbert shifted her position; his eyes wandered from her face and fell upon the table. The note which she had show

let him believe I wrote that note, and he would be the more likely to attribute the blame where it was

r hand?" I k

growing menace of his voice, and still kept silence. B

fetch me--a cunning afterthought when the first excuse had missed its mark. A very likely story, to be sure, but enough to hoodwi

xclaimed in despair. "

elf would become a lie if you had the uttering of it! Believe you! Why, every trickster keeps his excuses r

ith an indescribable fury and

answer for it

ll," I answe

out at arm's length before him, and turned it to and fro with his wrist

each word he flashed the sword, and with each wor

se and droop, and she slipped on to her knees. Herbert shook her hand from his arm, kicked open the window, and crossed the terrace. I went into the hall to fetch my sword. As I crossed the threshold of the room, I heard the iron gates clang at the top of the terrace steps as though he had flung them to behind him. While I picked up m

her hands in her entreaty. "Say you wil

strange and needless

the point. One holds the sword too by the pommel, I belie

oken somewhile since, drummed in my ears to the exclusion of her present speech, and the import

et flowers of the parterre took from it a tint of grey. And underneath this cloud, from end to end, from side to side, the garden seemed to me to be waiting--waiting consciously in a sinister quietude for this payment to be made. The fantastic figures into which the box-trees were shaped, bears,

ure, here showing plain against the grotto, or the grass, there confounded with the flowers. He held his sword in his hand--at that dis

wife still clung to me in her misplaced fear. "I could not harm him if I

he moment after I heard them, I staggered forward with a groan, and stood leanin

fted my head; the garden again floated into view. Anthony Herbert was marching through the long grass of the Wilderness, with never a look backwards. In a moment he reached the fringe of trees. The trees were sparse at the border, and I knew that he would not stop there, but would rather advance until he arrived at some little dingle closely wooded about from view of the house. In and out amongst the boles of the trees I saw him wind. Then for a second he disappeared and came to sight again upon a little patch of unshadowed grass. I remembe

ndow. Mrs. Herbert star

though the idea became yet more inco

only the pretence of one;" and while my head was

no more than that but I saw a wisp of blue smoke float upwards ab

I would run across the terrace towards him. But or ever I could move,

priming. Maybe he is wounded I must go to him;" and I seized Mrs. Herbert's hand at the wrist and sought to drag it awa

nderstand," she said, "

en her lips were white--and her eyes shone from it sunken and black; I was reminded of them afterwards by the sight of a black tarn set in a moor of snow, whi

ng her head at me in a queer, matter-of-fact way, which, joined with the

aggered back against the framework of the window. I felt her

you not see? His walk grew slow, his head drooped--drooped. He was tired, you see, so tired;" and she uttered a low, mirthless laugh while her eyes burned into me. It was a

believe that. I'll not believe it;" and once or twice I thru

s an ague caught from you. You do believe it. We know, you and I--guilt binds us in knowledge. We heard this morning. He told us, he warned us. If his wife proved false, he would not count it worth his while to punish t

oken--all the more assured for the very quietude of his voice. Yes, those trees, motionless under a leaden sky, in a leaden silence, were the

t yet, not without m

do you stay here. There is

y step we must go together. And so it will be always. You will see, you and I are fettere

id, "I will

ng cry and recoiled into the room. "What if he came striding from the thicket across the grass to where I waited here! N

. I dared not leave her. There was no choice for me; between the dead

wait?" s

it is

a solid roof, The hillsides darkened, the bed of the valley grew black--it seemed to me with the shadow of the wings of death. Here a tree shivered; from another there, the birds of a sudden chattered noisily. I turned and gazed across to Eagle Crag. The dale of Langstrath sloped upwards, fa

open," said Mrs. Herbe

oved back again to the fireplace. "It is cold," she said with a shiver. I set fire to the wood upon th

of the drive--galloping up to the house, and in a little galloping away from it. But what with the beating of the rain and the turmoil of the wind I could no

as she spoke was very soft. Her face, too, softened, as I could see from the glow of the fire, and I k

erself. "It was I that plagued him. He

fire. I dared not rouse her, though the forgetfulness struck me as horrible, but once, I know, I shifted restively upon my seat, and she looked at me suddenly as though she had forgotten that I was there, as though, inde

ether. A line of moonlight shot into the room and lay upon the carpet like a silver rod. The room became

from my seat; she

e said, and we went