Roger Trewinion Part 39

"I am at your service for a few minutes," he said stiffly; "but our interview must be short, for I have much to do."

"And I have much to speak to you about," I said, still confused as to the issues of our interview, but dimly feeling that he was in some way responsible for Ruth's death.

"I am ignorant as to what it can be," he said, looking at me curiously, "for certainly I do not remember ever seeing you before."

"You do not remember," I said, "but you have nevertheless seen me."

"Yes?" he said, still questioningly.

"Yes!" I replied. "I am at present travelling like that ancient G.o.d of night whom men call Nemesis. I was for years lost to the earth, now I am come back, if not to restore the righteous to their true position, at any rate to punish betrayers and oppressors, and you are both a betrayer and an oppressor."

"Do you know to whom you are speaking?"

"Yes."

"Then I will call a servant and see that you are shown off the premises."

"No, you will not."

He looked at me strangely. "A friend of the Trewinions," he murmured, "surely he must be mad."

"Yes, I am nearly mad," I replied, "but I am sane enough to know that Ruth Morton was not fairly treated, and although there is nothing but darkness for me in the world, and although every deed I do leads me further into the thick darkness, it shall be my work to unmask villainy."

"Unmask villainy?" he said, as if in surprise, and then made a movement towards the door.

"No," I said. "Think one minute before you call a servant. Let your mind go back a few years. Remember a dark, wild night many years ago, when you and your mistress were s.h.i.+pwrecked upon a rock on the northern coast. Think of who saved you."

"It cannot be!" he said, staring amazedly at me.

"You did not like him, did you?" I said. "You cared more for the younger brother, and played on the elder's trusting nature and helped to get him away. You swore that a body which was washed on the sh.o.r.e was his, although in your heart you knew it was not. You persecuted your mistress by constantly trying to make her marry the man she did not love, and on the tenth anniversary of his departure you appeared armed with her father's will and drove her to the promise which killed her."

He grew as pale as a sheet.

"You are Roger!" he gasped.

"I am Roger," I said.

"But what will you do?" he said, his face ashy pale.

"Do?" I cried. "I will destroy Ruth's destroyers, and then destroy myself. I will sift your dealings to the bottom and then----"

"Stop, Roger," he cried; "stop! I have sinned, but I have also been sinned against. I loved Ruth, ay, loved her like my own child; but Wilfred got me into his power, and then, like the devil he was, he made me do his will. Oh, I have suffered as well as you, more than you! He found out the one weak place in my life, as he found out everything else, and then he held me fast. Oh, I have waded through the blackest slime for him. But for his power over me I should have scorned to do what I did; I would have died before I would have taken advantage of her loyalty to her father's slightest wish; and now----"

"Now, because you had no mercy on her or on me, I shall have no mercy on you," I said. "Everything shall be made known, all your deeds shall be dragged into the light of day."

"No, no, Roger; she would not have done that. She forgave me everything, for at the last I confessed to her all that had been done.

She suffered terribly at your departure, and more, I believe at the thought of wedding Wilfred, and yet she forgave me. Oh, I wish you had seen her at the last, so calm, so patient, and so beautiful. She loved you to the last, Roger, and one thought that cheered her in the hour of death was that she would soon see you again."

"Did she think I was dead?"

"She believed you died soon after you left home," he replied. But I did not believe him.

"And she loved me; did she confess it?"

"Not to me, but to the maid who was with her; her whole life and being seemed to be gone over to you; and thus it was that the thought of obeying her father's will killed her."

And I had been away from her all these years; I had been robbed of what was most dear. I was glad I had been revenged on Wilfred now, and the gladness was fiendish. This man, too, should reap as he had sown; as he had helped to make me suffer I would make him suffer. I knew that sooner or later my struggle with Wilfred would be made known, and that I should be suspected of his death; but I did not care, madness was in my heart again.

I burst forth with expressions of hatred and determinations of revenge, the old man still cowering meanwhile before me. Then he spoke.

"Roger, who are you that you should seek revenge? Is your life wholly pure and free from stain? Think, you, if you ruin my life by bringing me to disgrace, or if you destroy your brother Wilfred, that Ruth could welcome you to Heaven, if G.o.d should even allow you to go there? She died with the look of a glorified angel on her face; I wish you had seen her, you would not talk of revenge."

All the time I had been living as in a dream. A vague feeling of darkness and revenge possessed me. I felt drawn on by unknown influences--whither, I could not say.

These words of the old steward and friend to the Morton family aroused me. Who was I, indeed, that I should seek revenge? I was the murderer of my brother, I had yielded to as low impulses as they, and yet I talked of myself as Nemesis. How, indeed, should I dare to meet Ruth again with such a sin on my soul?

Without a word I left the house, Mr. Inch staring amazedly after me. I strode down the drive towards the park gates, and had gone, perhaps, half the distance, when I was chained to the earth by the memory of the old man's words:--"She died with the look of a glorified angel on her face; I wish you had seen her."

No sooner had these sounded in my memory than another voice seemed to speak.

"Go and see her," it said. "Visit her tomb."

At first I was almost stunned by the thought. To see my Ruth again would indeed be ecstasy, but even as I so thought I heard another voice speaking in cruel mockery. That which I should see would not be Ruth, she would be far away, where I might never go. Yet the idea still haunted me. I would go. It might ease the terrible madness of my soul if I could see even in death the lips that had confessed their love for me.

How should I accomplish my object? I remembered Bill Tregargus's words, "She was buried in the vault under the Communion." To the church then I would go, and I would see her face again, although it was the face of the dead.

My first work was to go to the village s.e.xton and get the church keys, so when I arrived at the village I enquired for his house. I discovered that he was a bachelor, and lived alone on the outskirts of the village. I quickly made my way thither, and, on arriving, found the door locked. Evidently he was out. On making further enquiries, I found that he had that day gone to the nearest market town, and probably would not be home until dark. It was now about noon, and, faint and hungry, I found my way to the village alehouse, where, after having had something to eat, I tried to think.

Since yesterday, I had lived a lifetime. Yesterday at that time I had not arrived home, I had not seen Bill Tregargus, I knew nothing of what had occurred. Now I was branded with the brand of a murderer. The wild deeds I had done when I sailed the seas as a pirate scarcely weighed on my conscience at all; but this deed, though I did not repent, and though my hatred remained unabated, made life unendurable.

Hour after hour I sat in the parlour of the village inn, thinking, wondering and fearing. Would the landlord be so obliging, I wondered, if he knew what I had done; would he not loathe my presence, and deliver me to the justice of man?

Yet who are the murderers of the world? Are they to be found among those only who do actual murder, or are murderers a cla.s.s of people who are capable of murder? Is not every man who is not filled with Divine love capable of murder, and are not many free from the stain of murderous deeds merely because they have never been provoked, tempted?

Who shall judge as to who are real murderers? None but G.o.d alone!

Night drew on at length, and full of the thought which became dearer each hour, I found again my way to the s.e.xton's house. This time he was at home. He stared at me in astonishment when I told him what I wanted.

"Want to go in th' oul church after dark!" he said. "You must be mazed."

"Why?"

"Why! You cudden git more'n two people in the parish to do it. Me and the pa.s.sen be the only two that be'ant afraid."

"But I don't want you to go with me," I said. "I simply want you to lend me the keys, and I'll bring them back to you again."

"And you we'ant want me to go in the churchyard nuther?"

"No."