ephraim judd's deathbed confession naturally divided itself into two parts in clement hazeldine's afterthoughts, of which the first had reference exclusively to john brancker, while the second, which in clem's eyes far exceeded the other in importance, concerned almost wholly his brother and himself. the horror with which he had listened to the latter portion of ephraim's narrative toned itself down by degrees to a feeling of doubt, and from that, by an easy transition, to one of absolute incredulity. his father commit suicide! the bare idea of such a thing, to anyone who had known the man, was utterly preposterous. but supposing for a moment that the case had been as ephraim implied, there still remained the robbery of the safe, which had been a concomitant incident of mr. hazeldine's death, to be accounted for. the truth was that the sick man's mind had wandered in the course of the previous night, and he had imagined circumstances which had never really happened. during illness the boundary line which divides the realm of fancy from that of fact is easily overpassed, and the weakened mind of the patient is unable to distinguish between the two. that such was the explanation in ephraim's case it seemed impossible to doubt.
"yet, if the latter part of his confession has no basis of fact, why assume that the first part had any more valid claim to credence?" clem asked himself this question more than once, but was unable to answer it to his satisfaction. he could not but admit that that part of the confession which related to john brancker seemed to bear upon it the stamp of truth; the facts, if facts they were, as told by ephraim, might very easily have happened; there was nothing intrinsically improbable about them, as there was about that other statement which had reference to mr. hazeldine.
most of us have an easy habit of trying to persuade ourselves that things are as we wish them to be, and this was what clement strove to do in the present instance, but not altogether successfully. the first portion of ephraim's confession might be true, and probably was so, he told himself; but the second part was almost as surely fictitious--a vision conjured up by the disordered brain of a sick man.
clement was anxious to see his brother at the earliest possible moment, and unburthen his mind to him; but it was not till the day after ephraim's death that he found time to go over to beecham. on arriving at the brewery he walked straight into his brother's office feeling pretty sure that he should find him there. nor was he mistaken. edward, who was busy writing a letter as he entered, looked up and nodded, and with that clem sat down to wait till he should be at liberty.
"glad to see you," said edward, as he applied the blotting-paper to his letter. "but, you look a bit worried. anything the matter?"
"ned," said the younger brother, leaning forward a little, and fixing his eyes intently on the other's face, "have you ever had any cause or reason to suspect that our father, instead of meeting his death at the hand of another, as everyone believed he did, committed suicide?"
on the instant every vestige of color fled from edward hazeldine's face; he drew a deep breath that was almost a gasp, and set his teeth hard.
"great heavens! edward, you do know, or suspect something of the sort!" cried clement, staring at his brother's white face and drawn mouth, and feeling for the moment as if the foundations of his life were crumbling under him.
"yes, i do know," said edward, after a space of silence, speaking in cold, and, as it seemed, half-defiant tones. "i have known it all along. james hazeldine was not murdered. he died by his own hand, in order to avert disgrace and ruin from himself and those belonging to him."
then, before clement could find a word to say, he rose, and crossing to a safe imbedded in the wall, he unlocked it, and from one of the drawers drew forth his father's letter.
"read and believe," he said with stern brevity, as he pushed the letter across the table to clem.
he had been so taken by surprise; the question so abruptly put to him, had afforded him no clue as to how much or how little of the truth was known to his brother, that for the moment his presence of mind had deserted him, and before he had time to recover himself, clem had challenged the truth.
"well, he has got the truth now, and much good may it do him," said edward, grimly, to himself. "why should he not share it with me? the burthen has been a bitter one to bear. it has led me to do things such as at one time i would have believed no power on earth could have forced me into doing. yes, let clem take his share. he is a grown man; why should we not halve the secret? i am not sorry that it has come about as it has. but how and from whom did he obtain the clue?"
clem read the letter twice over, the first time quickly, and then slowly and deliberately, so that the pith and almost the exact words of each sentence burned themselves indelibly into his memory. then he refolded it and passed it back to his brother, and then the two sat and looked at each other for a little while in sorrowful silence. clement was the first to speak.
"you have known this all along, and yet you never told me," he said, with an accent of reproach.
"where was the need? what good end would it have served? it was enough that one of us should have to carry such a secret about with him. i was the elder, and the burden devolved of right upon me. besides, my father evidently relied upon my telling no one--not even you."
"it was my duty and my right to have shared it with you. in any case, i am glad--if, indeed, one can be glad about anything in connection with so terrible a secret--that the knowledge has come to me now instead of later on."
"could i have had my way, it would never have come to you. but before we discuss the matter further, tell me what led you to put that question to me which you flung at my head, as it were, with such startling suddenness."
thereupon clement proceeded to enlighten his brother as to all that had passed between himself and ephraim judd.
"it is a strange story," said edward, when he had finished; "but i see no reason for doubting its credibility. all along i have been possessed by a sort of intuitive certainty that one day the truth would leap to light in a way the least expected, and now it has done so. after all, it will be a relief to have someone to share the secret with."
"you should have shared it with me from the first. but the question now is, what ought to be done next?"
"i scarcely follow you."
"i mean, as regards john brancker. ought he not to be told?"
"told what?"
"what ephraim judd told me. it was the last wish of the dying man, as expressed by him to me, that such reparation should be made as was still possible."
"just so! you would tell john brancker all about the blood-smears, and also reveal to him the fact that judd saw him quit the bank five minutes after he had entered it, although at the trial he swore to the contrary. this you would tell, leaving brancker to deal with the statement in whatever way might seem most advisable to him."
"that is precisely what i have thought of doing. so far everything seems perfectly clear. but, as regards the latter portion of the confession--supplemented as it is by our father's letter--that concerns john brancker infinitely more than all the rest."
for the second time the eyes of the brothers met in a long, steady gaze.
"john brancker was tried for a crime of which he was innocent, and was acquitted," said edward, in a hard, cold voice. "to-day he is a free man--as free as you or i."
"but is that all? you know as well as i that it is not. think of all he has suffered and gone through. consider----"
"i have considered--for i can foresee all you would urge. i have thought it over long ago from every possible point of view. it is for you to consider and to realize that there is an altogether different way of looking at the affair from the one you have chosen to adopt, one, too, which concerns you and me very nearly. with your good leave, i will proceed to make clear to you what i mean."
he got up, and crossing to a side table, poured out for himself a glass of water.
"it was within a couple of hours of hearing of my father's death," resumed edward, "that i read the letter which you have seen to-day for the first time. the news had been broken to me by the very man we have been talking of--i mean by judd--and i had just come back from the bank after viewing my father's body. i will leave you to imagine the effect the letter had on me at such a time. knowing what i did, no one could have been more surprised than i at the turn taken by the affair at the inquest, when one little piece of circumstantial evidence after another cropped up, all tending to bring home the crime to john brancker, and it was a great shock to me when he was committed for trial. had you been in my place, rather than let him go to prison, in all probability you would have made public the facts embodied in your father's letter."
"i certainly should have done so," said clement, gravely.
"i preferred to hold on, taking care, meanwhile, to secure an eminent advocate for the defense. there were many weak links in the chain of evidence, and it seemed to me that no jury would convict the prisoner without something stronger to go upon. the event proved that i was right in my belief. john brancker was acquitted."
"truly so; but can you even faintly realize the mental torture he must have suffered meanwhile? can you----"
edward held up his hand. "my dear fellow, i hope you do not for one moment imagine that i did not feel keenly for brancker. my heart bled for him many and many a time. i seemed to myself to have added ten years to my age during those weeks that he lay in prison. i would willingly have given half of all i had in the world if by so doing i could have reversed the verdict of the coroner's jury. but all that belongs to the past. what i want you to do now is to realize for yourself what would have been the effect on the fortunes of those he left behind him had i made known the contents of my father's letter. in the first place, your mother and sister would have been reduced to pauperism, or next door to it."
"how could that have come about?" demanded clem, with a startled look.
"because, had it become known that my father committed suicide deliberately and intentionally, and without any mitigating plea of mental derangement, his life policy of twelve thousand pounds would have been forfeited; and that, as you are aware, forms nearly the sole resource of your mother and sister."
"i had not thought of that," responded clem. neither had he. he had been so shocked at finding that the manner of his father's death had been known to edward from the first, and that he had chosen to hush it up, that for the time being his mind had failed to grasp any of the consequences, near or remote, on which his brother had based his action in the affair.
"that would have been bad enough in all conscience," resumed edward, "but worse, much worse, would have followed. had my father's case been one of simple suicide, that might have been got over, painful though it would have been; but his letter has told you what there was in the background. one would have been only a misfortune, such as might happen in any family, but the other meant disgrace and social ruin to everyone connected with him. could either you or i have ever held up our heads again in ashdown? i am quite sure that i could not. i should have had to give up my position and all my prospects in life, and go away to some place where the name of hazeldine had no taint of disgrace attached to it. then, again, think what it would have meant to my mother and fanny. they, too, would have had to seek some distant home, with poverty for their abiding companion. it would have gone far towards breaking my mother's heart, if it did not altogether do so, and who would knowingly marry the daughter of a man who----? but, surely, not another word is needed."
"it is a terrible picture that you have drawn," said clement, with an involuntary catching of his breath. in one brief half-hour he felt as if he had taken leave of his youth forever.
"is it in any one respect an overcharged picture? you cannot conscientiously say that it is."
