the anger had melted out of jeffray’s heart from the moment that he had helped to lift his cousin’s body and bear it with beaty and wilson to the coach. the reaction was but the recoiling of a sensitive nature from the violence that had brought a strong man in anguish to the ground. he stood watching the coach as it rolled along between the trees casting up a cloud of summer dust that drifted idly over the long grass.
wilson, understanding something of the regret that had seized upon his friend’s mind, laid his hand upon jeffray’s shoulder.
“it was no fault of yours, richard,” he said, looking earnestly into jeffray’s face.
the younger man hung his head and sighed.
“he forced the quarrel on me, dick.”
“and what is more, sir, he had no intention of showing you much mercy. you cannot blame yourself for the poor devil’s fury.”
jeffray turned at last and remembered bess. he had almost forgotten her in the fierce emotions of the moment, and in the vision of lot lying bleeding on the grass. she was still kneeling on the stone bench at the end of the terrace, her elbows on the balustrading, her face between her hands. wilson’s eyes were also fixed upon this solitary figure, suggesting in its bleak aloofness some tragic influence working silently upon the unfolding of the play. the painter glanced inquiringly at jeffray, nor was the significance of the look lost upon his friend.
“i can trust you, dick,” he said.
“i hope so, sir. i have seen something of the world.”
“wait for me in the library.”
wilson nodded.
“i will be with you in an hour.”
jeffray, his shirt stained with lancelot’s blood, passed back down the stairway to the lawn, and took his coat from the sundial where he had left it. bess followed him from the terrace, wondering what had caused the quarrel between richard and the big man with the red face.
“thank god, you are safe,” she said, proud of him in her woman’s way. “why did you fight? tell me; i do not understand.”
jeffray stooped and picked up the sword that lay on the grass where he had thrown it when lot fell.
“do you know who that man was?” he asked her.
“no.”
“lancelot hardacre.”
“sir peter’s son?”
“yes.”
“why did he come to quarrel with you?”
“because i had refused to marry his sister.”
they stood silent a moment, looking at each other, each knowing by intuition what was passing in the other’s mind. a great weight of doubt had been lifted from jeffray’s heart. life had taken a simpler meaning for him now that lot hardacre’s blood had set the seal of enmity upon the past. the action of an hour had sundered him irretrievably from jilian and brought him nearer to this child of the woods.
“bess,” he said, holding his sword between his hands, “i never loved this woman. do you believe me when i tell you that?”
she colored, and her eyes flashed up to his.
“yes, i believe it.”
“it is you whom i love, bess. now, before god, i have told you the truth.”
he set the sword by the point in the grass, reached out and took her hands.
“i want to do what is best for you,” he said.
“i know—i know—”
“we have come to life’s crossways, dear; give me a night to see my way.”
she looked up fearlessly into his face.
“i trust you,” she said, simply. “i trust you with all i have.”
he led her across the terrace to the house, and into the blue parlor beyond the dining-room. there he left her by the open window with the scent of thyme and woodbine floating in upon the air.
crossing the hall, jeffray went into the great salon that had been of old the prior’s parlor, and rang the bell for peter gladden. the butler, curious behind his respectful suavity, entered, to stare inquisitively at his master’s white and determined face. the sword that had pierced lot’s body lay naked upon the table.
“gladden.”
the butler bowed.
“tell your wife to prepare the best bedroom. see that everything is in order.”
“your servant, sir.”
“mrs. elizabeth grimshaw is to be my guest. your wife must wait on her in person. let her meals be served her in her bedroom. your wife, gladden, must sleep in the dressing-room that opens from mrs. grimshaw’s room. understand me in this, gladden, that every command must be obeyed.”
the butler, astonished, but too well disciplined to betray the feeling, bowed again to his master and appeared all deference and submission.
“gladden.”
“yes, sir.”
“let one single piece of disrespect be shown to this lady, and you and your wife are dismissed from my service instantly.”
jeffray found dick wilson sitting smoking at the open window of the library with his feet resting on the sill. he dropped his fat calves when richard entered, and looked at him a little uneasily over his shoulder. both men remembered the night of the hardacre ball, when wilson had confessed the truth of his old love affair with miss jilian. jeffray felt that he could trust the painter, and he was in the spirit to treat him as a friend. drawing up a chair beside dick wilson’s, he sat himself down before the open window.
“you saw the girl on the terrace, dick?” he asked.
wilson turned restlessly in his chair, his chin sunk upon his shabby green waistcoat.
“i did,” he said, quietly.
“do you remember where you saw her before?”
the painter shook his head and frowned as though mystified.
“you remember the day we drove to thorney chapel?”
wilson cocked one shrewd blue eye at jeffray, and removed his pipe-stem from between his lips.
“you have set me thinking, sir,” he said, suddenly.
“the girl on the terrace—”
“and the rebellious bride—”
“you realize the identity.”
simply and with no choosing of words, no rounding of sentences, jeffray told wilson the tale of bess of the woods, how she had been forced to marry dan, and of the mystery that appeared to surround her birth. the painter sat hunched up in his chair, sucking at his pipe, and blowing out clouds of smoke. his rugged face was grave and sympathetically attentive; he grunted expressively from time to time, watching jeffray with his keen and humorous blue eyes. the lad had developed, strengthened marvellously in these few weeks. wilson had not yet escaped from the astonishment with which he had watched lot hardacre go down before jeffray’s rapid passes.
there was a short silence at the end of jeffray’s confessional. wilson sat motionless in his chair, pulling at his pipe and staring out of the window.
“well, sir, well?” he said at last.
jeffray sprang up and began to pace the room. the telling of bess’s story seemed to have rendered the past more vivid and real to him, the passion of the present more flowing and tumultuous.
“you are wondering what i am going to do?” he asked.
“exactly, sir, exactly,” said wilson, bluntly, yet without cynicism.
jeffray stayed his striding from wall to wall, and stood with one hand gripping the back of the painter’s chair.
“the woman’s life is in danger,” he said.
wilson nodded reflectively.
“her husband has to be considered. she shall not go back to him.”
dick wilson swung himself up out of his chair, and stood staring at jeffray with a frown upon his face. the two men looked each other in the eyes without flinching.
“doubtless you think me mad, dick,” said jeffray, quietly.
wilson bowed down his head and half turned towards the window. he laid his pipe upon the sill, thrust his hands into his breeches-pockets, and stood with sloped shoulders, the attitude of a man bowed down by thought. he appeared almost afraid of facing jeffray. there was so much grimness in the dénouement that he flinched for the moment from hazarding an opinion.
“a grave step, sir,” he said at last.
“grave for us both, dick.”
“how much does the girl know?”
“she knows everything.”
“is she ready to be advised by you?”
“we have taken a night to search our hearts.”
wilson was not one of those creatures who carry their prejudices and opinions about with them like samples of snuff and insist on presenting them to friends and acquaintances. he was not a moral person in the ecclesiastical sense. a man of the world, he knew the thousand entanglements that are cast about those who dare to depart from the paths of propriety.
“have you thought the matter over, sir?” he said at last, laying his hand with a look of affection on jeffray’s shoulder.
“i am ready to face it, dick,” he answered.
“it is a great lottery, sir—a great lottery.”
jeffray’s lips twitched, but his face never lost its determination.
“i love this woman, dick,” he said, simply; “i would risk my immortal soul for her. how can i send her back to this brute of a husband? what have i to lose in sussex? if poor lot dies, i cannot rest here with his blood upon my hands. the girl’s life, too, is in danger. they meant to shoot her, dick—shoot her—by heaven, that they shall not! how can i turn her away at such an hour?”
wilson shook his head and stared sadly through the open window.
“it is a great lottery, lad,” he said—“a great lottery.”
jeffray drew close to him and held out his hand.
“then, dick,” he said, “i can take my destiny like a brave man. better to stand for the truth—than shirk it for a lie. may i call you still my friend?”
wilson turned with something between a snort and a sigh.
“egad, sir, i will remain your friend despite all the women in christendom.”
and the two men shook hands.
jeffray, remembering what had happened at the parsonage, and realizing that the grimshaws of pevensel were desperate men, determined to remain on the watch all night with pistols and a drawn sword on the table before him. bess was alone in the great bedroom, sleeping in the very bed, with its carved pillars and red silk canopy, in which jeffray had been born. wilson stumped off to his room about midnight, after talking over with jeffray the events of the day, and listening for the twelfth time to richard’s passionate assertion that bess had not come of a peasant stock.
when wilson had taken his candle and gone to bed, jeffray settled himself in the library, unlocked the bureau, and prepared for the composing of several letters. he wrote to the lady letitia at the wells, informing her of the result of his quarrel with the hardacres. he wrote also to jilian a single letter, expressing his sorrow that he should have spilled her brother’s blood.
feverish with the ever-flowing current of his thoughts, he went and seated himself before the open window of the library. the night was calm and windless, blessed by the faces of a thousand stars. the trees slumbered about the house; the scent of roses and of honeysuckle hung heavy on the air.
jeffray turned and looked round the shadowy room. the candles on the table where the pistols lay were burning steadily towards their silver sockets. the books ranged close along the walls seemed to recall unnumbered memories of the past. there were the books he had loved and leaned over as a boy—mandeville’s travels, old froissart, chaucer’s tales, shakespeare, milton, and the book of martyrs. there on the bureau lay the brown-covered thomas à kempis that had been daily in his dead father’s hands. jeffray seemed to see the old man’s figure moving dimly in the dusk, with roger, his black spaniel, at his heels. poor roger lay in the rose garden under a red rose-tree. the bent but stately figure in its black coat, white ruffles, and cravat, with the heavy peruke falling on either side of the pale and courtly face, had vanished hardly a year ago from the old house. jeffray wondered like a child whether his father could see him still, whether he was grieved by his son’s madness.
as jeffray watched on the dawn began to creep up into the eastern sky. the trees about the house, still wrapped in the mystery of the night, stood outlined against a broadening sheet of gold. the chanting of birds flooded up from the thickets; wild life began to wake; the stars sank back behind the deepening blue of day. rabbits scurried over the dew-drenched grass-land of the park and came and went amid the bracken. blackbirds bustled and chattered in the garden. the woods flashed and kindled. vapors of rose flushed the opalescent bosoms of the clouds.
jeffray leaned his elbows on the window-sill and watched the deepening of the dawn. it was mysteriously strange to him, instinct with a new and prophetic beauty. how still the whole world seemed save for the singing of the birds! the garden, with its many colors of gold and scarlet, azure, purple, and white, spread itself like some rich tapestry for the coming of the daughters of the dawn. the great cedars still seemed asleep. the cypresses and yews were webbed with gold.
jeffray started suddenly, and half turned in his chair. some one was stirring in the silent house; he heard a door open, swift footsteps upon the stairs. they came down and down into the half darkness of the hall like light descending into some ancient tower. jeffray sprang up and went towards the door. a flood of light streamed down through one of the traceried windows of the hall. it fell upon the stairway and the polished woodwork of the floor, making the black timber seem like glistening water.
down the stairs came bess. her black hair was gathered up in masses about her pale and wistful face. her eyes, that looked like the eyes of one who had been long awake, were turned yearningly towards him.
“bess.”
she came more slowly down the last few steps, the sunlight falling on her face, her lips apart, her eyes shining.
“i could not sleep.”
she stood before him, breathing deeply, and gazing in his face.
“i could not sleep, and i felt that i must come to you. you told me that you would watch till the morning.”
jeffray’s face was in the shadow, but there was no mistaking the expression thereon.
“i have made up my mind, bess,” he said.
she looked at him, gave a low cry, and stretched out her hands.
“you will not send me back to him!”
“no.”
“let me be your servant—anything; do not send me away. i will go with you anywhere. i will go with you to the end of the world.”
so the dawn came for them, while in pevensel dan and old isaac had been toiling through the night. they had taken the treasure-chest from the monk’s grave and buried it deep in the woods towards holy cross. they knew that bess had fled to rodenham, for solomon had followed her through the woods, and had met a carter on the road who had passed the girl on the heath. a laborer had seen a woman climb the palings of the park, and solomon had tramped home to his brother with the news. isaac had sworn that dan’s wife should be recovered, but first they had buried the treasure in a place unknown to bess.
