The fact has entirely escaped Mr. Carlyle's memory in his conversation with Afy, or he would not have failed to point out the discrepancy, and to inquire how she could reconcile it. Yet her assertion to him had been most positive and solemn. There were difficulties in the matter which he could not reconcile.
"Now that I have got over my passion for Afy, I can see her faults, Mr. Carlyle. She'd no more tell an untruth than I should stick--"
A most awful thundering at the room door--loud enough to bring the very house down. No officers of justice, searching for a fugitive, ever made a louder. Richard Hare, his face turned to chalk, his eyes starting, and his own light hair bristling up with horror, struggled into his wet smock-frock after a fashion, the tails up about his ears and the sleeves hanging, forced on his hat and his false whiskers, looked round in a bewildered manner for some cupboard or mouse-hole into which he might creep, and, seeing none, rushed to the fireplace and placed his foot on the fender. That he purposed an attempt at chimney-climbing was evident, though how the fire would have agreed with his pantaloons, not to speak of what they contained, poor Dick appeared completely to ignore. Mr. Carlyle drew him back, keeping his calm, powerful hand upon his shoulder, while certain sounds in an angry voice were jerked through the keyhole.
"Richard, be a man, put aside this weakness, this fear. Have I not told you that harm shall not come near you in my house?"
"It may be that officer from London; he may have brought half a dozen more with him!" gasped the unhappy Richard. "I said they might have dodged me all the way here."
"Nonsense. Sit you down, and be at rest, it is only Cornelia; and she will be as anxious to shield you from danger as I can be."
"Is it?" cried the relieved Richard. "Can't you make her keep out?" he continued, his teeth still chattering.
"No, that I can't, if she has a mind to come in," was the candid answer. "You remember what she was, Richard; she is not altered."
Knowing that to speak on this side the door to his sister, when she was in one of her resolute moods, would be of no use, Mr. Carlyle opened the door, dexterously swung himself through it, and shut it after him. There she stood; in a towering passion, too.
It had struck Miss Carlyle, while undressing, that certain sounds, as of talking, proceeded from the room underneath, which she had just quitted. She possessed a remarkably keen sense of hearing, did Miss Carlyle; though, indeed, none of her faculties lacked the quality of keenness. The servants, Joyce and Peter excepted, would not be convinced but that she must "listen;" but, in that, they did her injustice. First of all, she believed her brother must be reading aloud to himself; but she soon decided otherwise. "Who on earth has he got in there with him?" quoth Miss Carlyle.
She rang her bell; Joyce answered it.
"Who is it that is with your master?"
"Nobody, ma'am."
"But I say there is. I can hear him talking."
"I don't think anybody can be with him," persisted Joyce. "And the walls of this house are too well built, ma'am, for sounds from the down stairs rooms to penetrate here."
"That's all you know about it," cried Miss Carlyle. "When talking goes on in that room, there's a certain sound given out which does penetrate here, and which my ears have grown accustomed to. Go and see who it is. I believe I left my handkerchief on the table; you can bring it up."
Joyce departed, and Miss Carlyle proceeded to take off her things; her dress first, her silk petticoat next. She had arrived as far as the flannel petticoat when Joyce returned.
"Yes, ma'am, some one is talking with master. I could not go in, for the door was bolted, and master called out that he was busy."
Food for Miss Carlyle. She, feeling sure that no visitor had come to the house, ran her thoughts rapidly over the members of the household, and came to the conclusion that it must be the governess, Miss Manning, who had dared to closet herself with Mr. Carlyle. This unlucky governess was pretty, and Miss Carlyle had been cautious to keep her and her prettiness very much out of her brother's sight; she knew the attraction he would present to her visions, or to those of any other unprovided-for governess. Oh, yes; it was Miss Manning; she had stolen in; believing she, Miss Carlyle, was safe for the night; but she'd just unearth my lady. And what in the world could possess Archibald--to lock the door!
Looking round for something warm to throw over her shoulders, and catching up an article that looked as much like a green baize table- cover as anything else, and throwing it on, down stalked Miss Carlyle. And in this trim Mr. Carlyle beheld her when he came out.
The figure presented by Miss Carlyle to her brother's eyes was certainly ridiculous enough. She gave him no time to comment upon it, however, but instantly and curtly asked,--
"Who have you got in that room?"
"It is some one on business," was his prompt reply. "Cornelia, you cannot go in."
She very nearly laughed. "Not go in?"
"Indeed it is much better that you should not. Pray go back. You will make your cold worse, standing here.
"Now, I want to know whether you are not ashamed of yourself?" she deliberately pursued. "You! A married man, with children in your house! I'd rather have believed anything downright wicked of myself, than of you, Archibald."
Mr. Carlyle stared considerably.
"Come; I'll have her out. And out of this house she tramps to-morrow morning. A couple of audacious ones, to be in there with the door locked, the moment you thought you had got rid of me! Stand aside, I say, Archibald, I will enter."
Mr. Carlyle never felt more inclined to laugh. And, to Miss Carlyle's exceeding discomposure she, at this juncture, saw the governess emerge from the gray parlor, glance at the hall clock, and retire again.
"Why! She's there," she uttered. "I thought she was with you."
"Miss Manning, locked in with me! Is that the mare's nest, Cornelia? I think your cold must have obscured your reason."
"Well, I shall go in, all the same. I tell you, Archibald, that I will see who is there."
"If you persist in going in, you must go. But allow me to warn you that you will find tragedy in that room, not comedy. There is no woman in it, but there is a man; a man who came in through the window, like a hunted stag; a man upon whom a ban is set, who fears the police are upon his track. Can you guess his name?"
It was Miss Carlyle's turn to stare now. She opened her dry lips to speak, but they closed again.
"It is Richard Hare, your kinsman. There's not a roof in the wide world open to him this bitter night."
She said nothing. A long pause of dismay, and then she motioned to have the door opened.
"You will not show yourself--in--in that guise?"
"Not show myself in this guise to Richard Hare--whom I have whipped-- when he was a child--ten times a day! Stand on ceremony with /him/! I dare say he looks no better than I do. But it's nothing short of madness, Archibald, for him to come here."
He left her to enter, telling her to lock the door as soon as she was inside, and went himself into the adjoining room, the one which, by another door, opened to the one Richard was in. Then he rang the bell. It was answered by a footman.
"Send Peter to me."
"Lay supper here, Peter, for two," began Mr. Carlyle, when the old servant appeared. "A person is with me on business. What have you in the house?"
"There's the spiced beef, sir; and there are some home-made raised pork pies."
"That will do," said Mr. Carlyle. "Put a quart of ale on the table, and everything likely to be wanted. And then the household can go to bed; we may be late, and the things can be removed in the morning. Oh --and Peter--none of you must come near the room, this or the next, under any pretence whatever, unless I ring, for I shall be too busy to be disturbed."
"Very well, sir. Shall I serve the ham also?"
"The ham?"
"I beg pardon, sir; I guessed it might be Mr. Dill, and he is so fond of our hams."
"Ah, you were always a shrewd guesser, Peter," smiled his master. "He is fond of ham I know; yes, you may put it on the table. Don't forget the small kettle."
The consequence of which little finesse on Mr. Carlyle's part was, that Peter announced in the kitchen that Mr. Dill had arrived, and supper was to be served for two. "But what a night for the old gentleman to have trudged through on foot!" exclaimed he.
"And what a trudge he'll have of it back again, for it'll be worse then!" chimed in one of the maids.
When Mr. Carlyle got back in the other room, his sister and Richard Hare had scarcely finished staring at each other.
"Please lock the door, Miss Cornelia," began poor shivering Dick.
"The door's locked," snapped she. "But what on earth brought you here, Richard? You must be worse than mad."
"The Bow-street officers were after me in London," he meekly responded, unconsciously using a term which had been familiar to his boyish years. "I had to cut away without a thing belonging to me, without so much as a clean shirt."
"They must be polite officers, not to have been after you before," was the consolatory remark of Miss Carlyle. "Are you going to dance a hornpipe through the streets of West Lynne to-morrow, and show yourself openly?"
"Not if I can help it," replied Richard.
"You might just as well do that, if you come to West Lynne at all; for you can't be here now without being found out. There was a bother about your having been here the last time: I should like to know how it got abroad."
"The life I lead is dreadful!" cried Richard. "I might make up my mind to toil, though that's hard, after being reared a gentleman; but to be an exile, banned, disgraced, afraid to show my face in broad daylight amidst my fellowmen, in dread every hour that the sword may fall! I would almost as soon be dead as continue to live it."
"Well, you have got nobody to grumble at; you brought it upon yourself," philosophically returned Miss Carlyle, as she opened the door to admit her brother. "You would go hunting after that brazen hussy, Afy, you know, in defiance of all that could be said to you."
"That would not have brought it upon me," said Richard. "It was through that fiend's having killed Hallijohn; that was what brought the ban upon me."
"It's a most extraordinary thing, if anybody else /did/ kill him, that the facts can't be brought to light," retorted Miss Carlyle. "Here you tell a cock-and-bull story of some man's having done it, some Thorn; but nobody ever saw or heard of him, at the time or since. It looks like a made-up story, Mr. Dick, to whiten yourself."
"Made up!" panted Richard, in agitation, for it seemed cruel to him, especially in his present frame of mind, to have a doubt cast upon his tale. "It is Thorn who is setting the officers upon me. I have seen him three or four times within the last fortnight."
"And why did you not turn the tables, and set the officers upon him?" demanded Miss Carlyle.
"Because it would lead to no good. Where's the proof, save my bare word, that he committed the murder?"
Miss Carlyle rubbed her nose. "Dick Hare," said she.
"Well?"
"You know you always were the greatest natural idiot that ever was let loose out of leading strings."
"I know I always was told so."
"And it's what you always will be. If I were accused of committing a crime, which I knew another had committed and not myself, should I be such an idiot as not to give that other into custody if I got the chance? If you were not in such a cold, shivery, shaky state, I would treat you to a bit of my mind, you may rely upon that."
"He was in league with Afy, at that period," pursued Richard; "a deceitful, bad man; and he carries it in his countenance. And he must be in league with her still, if she asserts that he was in her company at the moment the murder was committed. Mr. Carlyle says she does; that she told him so the other day, when she was here. He never was; and it was he, and no other, who did the murder."
"Yes," burst forth Miss Carlyle, for the topic was sure to agitate her, "that Jezebel of brass did presume to come here! She chose her time well, and may thank her lucky stars I was not at home. Archibald, he's a fool too, quite as bad a you are, Dick Hare, in some things-- actually suffered her to lodge here for two days! A vain, ill- conducted hussy, given to nothing but finery and folly!"
"Afy said that she knew nothing of Thorn's movements now, Richard, and had not for some time," interposed Mr. Carlyle, allowing his sister's compliments to pass in silence. "She heard a rumor, she thought, that he had gone abroad with his regiment."
"So much the better for her, if she does know nothing of him, sir," was Richard's comment. "I can answer for it that he is not abroad, but in England."
"And where are you going to lodge to-night?" abruptly spoke Miss Carlyle, confronting Richard.
"I don't know," was the broken-spirited answer, sighed forth. "If I lay myself down in a snowdrift, and am found frozen in the morning, it won't be of much moment."
"Was that what you thought of doing?" returned Miss Carlyle.
"No," he mildly said. "What I thought of doing was to ask Mr. Carlyle for the loan of a few shillings, and then I can get a bed. I know a place where I shall be in safety, two or three miles from here."
"Richard, I would not turn a dog out to go two or three miles on such a night as this," impulsively uttered Mr. Carlyle. "You must stop here."
"Indeed I don't see how he is to get up to a bedroom, or how a room is to be made ready for him, for the matter of that, without betraying his presence to the servants," snapped Miss Carlyle. And poor Richard laid his aching head upon his hands.
But now Miss Carlyle's manner was more in fault than her heart. Will it be believed that, before speaking the above ungracious words, before Mr. Carlyle had touched upon the subject, she had been casting about in her busy mind for the best plan of keeping Richard--how it could be accomplished.
