The weather had suddenly changed; the east was already clear and over the west, where the sun was setting in a fiery mist, the huge clouds were banked up against the bright sky, fringed with red and purple, but no longer threatening rain or snow. The air was sharp and the plentiful mud in the roads was already crusted with a brittle casing of ice.

The squire took leave of Mr. Ambrose at the turning where the road led into the village and then walked back to the cottage. Even his solid nerves were a little unsettled at the prospect of the interview before him; but he kept a stout heart and asked for Mrs. Goddard in his usual quiet voice. Martha told him that Mrs. Goddard had a bad headache, but on inquiry found that she would see the squire. He entered the drawing-room softly and went forward to greet her; she was sitting in a deep chair propped by cushions.

Mary Goddard had spent a miserable day. The grey morning light seemed to reveal her troubles and fears in a new and more terrible aspect. During the long hours of darkness it seemed as though those things were mercifully hidden which the strong glare of day must inevitably reveal, and when the night was fairly past she thought all the world must surely know that Walter Goddard had escaped and that his wife had seen him. Hourly she expected a ringing at the bell, announcing the visit of a party of detectives on his track; every sound startled her and her nerves were strung to such a pitch that she heard with supernatural acuteness. She had indeed two separate causes for fear. The one was due to her anxiety for Goddard's safety; the other to her apprehensions for Nellie. She had long determined that at all hazards the child must be kept from the knowledge of her father's disgrace, by being made to believe in his death. It was a falsehood indeed, but such a falsehood as may surely be forgiven to a woman as unhappy as Mary Goddard. It seemed monstrous that the innocent child, who seemed not even to have inherited her father's looks or temper, should be brought up with the perpetual sense of her disgrace before her, should be forced to listen to explanations of her father's crimes and tutored to the comprehension of an inherited shame. From the first Mary Goddard had concealed the whole matter from the little girl, and when Walter was at last convicted, she had told her that her father was dead. Dead he might be, she thought, before twelve years were out, and Nellie would be none the wiser. In twelve years from the time of his conviction Nellie would be in her twenty-first year; if it were ever necessary to tell her, it would be time enough then, for the girl would have at least enjoyed her youth, free of care and of the horrible consciousness of a great crime hanging over her head. No child could grow up in such a state as that implied. No mind could develop healthily under the perpetual pressure of so hideous a secret; from her earliest childhood her impressions would be warped, her imagination darkened and her mental growth stunted. It would be a great cruelty to tell her the truth; it was a great mercy to tell her the falsehood. It was no selfish timidity which had prompted Mary Goddard, but a carefully weighed consideration for the welfare of her child.

If now, within these twenty-four hours, Nellie should discover who the poor tramp was, who had frightened her so much on the previous evening, all this would be at an end. The child's life would be made desolate for ever. She would never recover from the shock, and to injure lovely Nellie so bitterly would be worse to Mary Goddard than to be obliged to bear the sharpest suffering herself. For, from the day when she had waked to a comprehension of her husband's baseness, the love for her child had taken in her breast the place of the love for Walter.

She did not think connectedly; she did not realise her fears; she was almost wholly unstrung. But she had procured the fifty pounds her husband required and she waited for the night with a dull hope that all might yet be well—as well as anything so horrible could be. If only her husband were not caught in Billingsfield it would not be so bad, perhaps. And yet it may be that her wisest course would have been to betray him that very night. Many just men would have said so; but there are few women who would do it. There are few indeed, so stonyhearted as to betray a man once loved in such a case; and Mary Goddard in her wildest fear never dreamed of giving up the fugitive. She sat all day in her chair, wishing that the day were over, praying that she might be spared any further suffering or that at least it might be spared to her child whom she so loved. She had sent Nellie down to the vicarage with Martha. Mrs. Ambrose loved Nellie better than she loved Nellie's mother, and there was a standing invitation for her to spend the afternoons at the vicarage. Nellie said her mother had a terrible headache and wanted to be alone.

But when the squire came Mrs. Goddard thought it wiser to see him. She had, of course, no intention of confiding to him an account of the events of the previous night, but she felt that if she could talk to him for half an hour she would be stronger. He was himself so strong and honest that he inspired her with courage. She knew, also, that if she were driven to the extremity of confiding in any one she would choose Mr. Juxon rather than Mr. Ambrose. The vicar had been her first friend and she owed him much; but the squire had won her confidence by his noble generosity after she had told him her story. She said to herself that he was more of a man than the vicar. And now he had come to her at the time of her greatest distress, and she was glad to see him.

Mr. Juxon entered the room softly, feeling that he was in the presence of a sick person. Mrs. Goddard turned her pathetic face towards him and held out her hand.

"I am so glad to see you," she said, trying to seem cheerful.

"I fear you are ill, Mrs. Goddard," answered the squire, looking at her anxiously and then seating himself by her side. "Martha told me you had a headache—I hope it is not serious."

"Oh no—not serious. Only a headache," she said with a smile so unlike her own that Mr. Juxon began to feel nervous. His resolution to tell her his errand began to waver; it seemed cruel, he thought, to disturb a person who was evidently so ill with a matter so serious. He remembered that she had almost fainted on a previous occasion when she had spoken to him of her husband. She had not been ill then; there was no knowing what the effect of a shock to her nerves might be at present. He sat still in silence for some moments, twisting his hat upon his knee.

"Do not be disturbed about me," said Mrs. Goddard presently. "It will pass very quickly. I shall be quite well to-morrow—I hope," she added with a shudder.

"I am very much disturbed about you," returned Mr. Juxon in an unusually grave tone. Mrs. Goddard looked at him quickly, and was surprised when she saw the expression on his face. He looked sad, and at the same time perplexed.

"Oh, pray don't be!" she exclaimed as though deprecating further remark upon her ill health.

"I wish I knew," said the squire with some hesitation, "whether—whether you are really very ill. I mean, of course, I know you have a bad headache, a very bad headache, as I can see. But—indeed, Mrs. Goddard, I have something of importance to say."

"Something of importance?" she repeated, staring hard at him.

"Yes—but it will keep till to-morrow, if you would rather not hear it now," he replied, looking at her doubtfully.

"I would rather hear it now," she answered after some seconds of silence. Her heart beat fast.

"You were good enough some time ago to tell me about—Mr. Goddard," began Mr. Juxon in woeful trepidation.

"Yes," answered his companion under her breath. Her hands were clasped tightly together upon her knees and her eyes sought the squire's anxiously and then looked away again in fear.

"Well, it is about him," continued Mr. Juxon in a gentle voice. "Would you rather put it off? It is—well, rather startling."

Mrs. Goddard closed her eyes, like a person expecting to suffer some terrible pain. She thought Mr. Juxon was going to tell her that Walter had been captured in the village.

"Mr. Goddard has escaped," said the squire, making a bold plunge with the whole truth. The sick lady trembled violently, and unclasping her hands laid them upon the arms of her chair as though to steady herself to bear the worse shock to come. But Mr. Juxon was silent. He had told her all he knew.

"Yes," she said faintly. "Is there anything—anything more?" Her voice was barely audible in the still and dusky room.

"No—except that, of course, there are orders out for his arrest, all over the country."

"He has not been arrested yet?" asked Mrs. Goddard. She had expected to hear that he was caught; she thought the squire was trying to break the shock of the news. Her courage rose a little now.

"No, he is not arrested—but I have no doubt he soon will be," added Mr. Juxon in a tone intended to convey encouragement.

"How did you hear this?"

"Gall the policeman, told me this morning. I—I am afraid I have something else to confess to you, Mrs. Goddard, I trust you will not—"

"What?" she asked so suddenly as to startle him. Walter might have been heard of in the neighbourhood, perhaps.

"I think I was right," continued Mr. Juxon. "I hope you will forgive me. It does not seem quite loyal, but I did not know what to do. I consulted the vicar as to whether we should tell you."

"The vicar? What did he say?" Again Mrs. Goddard felt relieved.

"He quite agreed with me," answered the squire. "You see we feared that Mr. Goddard might find his way here and come upon you suddenly. We thought you would be terribly pained and startled."

Mrs. Goddard could almost have laughed at that moment. The excellent man had taken all this trouble in order to save her from the very thing which had already occurred on the previous night. There was a bitter humour in the situation, in the squire's kind-hearted way of breaking to her that news which she already knew so well, in his willingness to put off telling her until the morrow. What would Mr. Juxon say, could he guess that she had herself already spoken with her husband and had promised to see him again that very night! Forgetting that his last words required an answer, she leaned back in her chair and again folded her hands before her. Her eyes were half closed and from beneath the drooping lids she gazed through the gathering gloom at the squire's anxious face.

"I hope you think I did right," said the latter in considerable doubt.

"Quite right. I think you were both very kind to think of me as you did," said she.

"I am sure, I always think of you," answered Mr. Juxon simply. "I hope that this thing will have no further consequences. Of course, until we know of Mr. Goddard's whereabouts we shall feel very anxious. It seems probable that if he can get here unobserved he will do so. He will probably ask you for some money."

"Do you really think he could get here at all?" asked Mrs. Goddard. She wanted to hear what he would say, for she thought she might judge from his words whether her husband ran any great risk.

"Oh no," replied the squire. "I think it is very improbable. I fear this news has sadly disturbed you, Mrs. Goddard, but let us hope all may turn out for the best." Indeed he thought she showed very little surprise, though she had evidently been much moved. Perhaps she had been accustomed to expect that her husband might one day escape. She was ill, too, and her nerves were unstrung, he supposed.

She had really passed through a very violent emotion, but it had not been caused by her surprise, but by her momentary fear for the fugitive, instantly allayed by Mr. Juxon's explanation. She felt that for to-day at least Walter was safe, and by to-morrow he would be safe out of the neighbourhood. But she reflected that it was necessary to say something; that if she appeared to receive the news too indifferently the squire's suspicions might be aroused with fatal results.

"It is a terrible thing," she said presently. "You see I am not at all myself."

It was not easy for her to act a part. The words were commonplace.

"No," said Mr. Juxon, "I see you are not." He on his part, instead of looking for a stronger expression of fear or astonishment, was now only too glad that she should be so calm.

"Would you advise me to do anything?" she asked presently.

"There is nothing to be done," he answered quickly, glad of a chance to relieve the embarrassment of the situation. "Of course we might put you under the protection of the police but—what is the matter, Mrs. Goddard?" She had started as though in pain.

"Only this dreadful headache," she said. "Go on please."

"Well, we might set Gall the policeman to watch your house; but that would be very unpleasant for you. It would be like telling him and all the village people of your situation—"

"Oh don't! Please don't!"

"No, certainly not. I think it very unwise. Besides—" he stopped short. He was about to say that he felt much better able to watch over Mrs. Goddard himself than Gall the constable could possibly be; but he checked himself in time.

"Besides—what?" she asked.

"Nothing—Gall is not much of a policeman, that is all. I do not believe you would be any the safer for his protection. But you must promise me, my dear Mrs. Goddard, that if anything occurs you will let me know. I may be of some assistance."

"Thank you, so much," said she. "You are always so kind!"

"Not at all. I am very glad if you think I was right to tell you about it."

"Oh, quite right," she answered. "And now, Mr. Juxon, I am really not at all well. All this has quite unnerved me—"

"You want me to go?" said the squire smiling kindly as he rose. "Yes, I understand. Well, good-bye, my dear friend—I hope everything will clear up."

"Good-bye. Thank you again. You always do understand me," she answered giving him her small cold hand. "Don't think me ungrateful," she added, looking up into his eyes.

"No indeed—not that there is anything to be grateful for."

In a moment more he was gone, feeling that he had done his duty like a man, and that it had not been so hard after all. He was glad it was done, however, and he felt that he could face the vicar with a bold front at their next meeting. He went quickly down the path and crossed the road to his own gate with a light step. As he entered the park he was not aware of a wretched-looking tramp who slouched along the quickset hedge and watched his retreating figure far up the avenue, till he was out of sight among the leafless trees. If Stamboul had been with the squire the tramp would certainly not have passed unnoticed; but for some days the roads had been so muddy that Stamboul had been left behind when Mr. Juxon made his visits to the cottage, lest the great hound should track the mud into the spotless precincts of the passage. The tramp stood still and looked after the squire so long as he could see him, and then slunk off across the wet meadows, where the standing water was now skimmed with ice.

Walter Goddard had spent the day in watching for the squire and he had seen him at last. He had seen him go down the road with the vicar till they were both out of sight, and he had seen him come back and enter the cottage. This proceeding, he argued, betrayed that the squire did not wish to be seen going into Mary's house by the vicar. The tortuous intelligences of bad men easily impute to others courses which they themselves would naturally pursue. Three words on the previous evening had sufficed to rouse the convict's jealousy. What he saw to-day confirmed his suspicions. The gentleman in knickerbockers could be no other than the squire himself, of course. He was evidently in the habit of visiting Mary Goddard and he did not wish his visits to be observed by the clergyman, who was of course the vicar or rector of the parish. That proved conclusively in the fugitive's mind that there was something wrong. He ground his teeth together and said to himself that it would be worth while to run some risk in order to stop that little game, as he expressed it. He had, as he himself had confessed to his wife, murdered one man in escaping; a man, he reflected, could only hang once, and if he had not been taken in the streets of London he was not likely to be caught in the high street of Billingsfield, Essex. It would be a great satisfaction to knock the squire on the head before he went any farther. Moreover he had found a wonderfully safe retreat in the disused vault at the back of the church. He discovered loose stones inside the place which he could pile up against the low hole which served for an entrance. Probably no one knew that there was any entrance at all—the very existence of the vault was most likely forgotten. It was not a cheerful place, but Goddard's nerves were excited to a pitch far beyond the reach of supernatural fears. Whatever he might be condemned to feel in the future, his conscience troubled him very little in the present. The vault was comparatively dry and was in every way preferable, as a resting-place for one night, to the interior of a mouldy haystack in the open fields. He did not dare show himself again at the "Feathers" inn, lest he should be held to do the day's work he had promised in payment for his night in the barn. All that morning and afternoon he had lain hidden in the quickset hedge near the park gate, within sight of the cottage, and he had been rewarded. The food he had taken with him the night before had sufficed him and he had quenched his thirst with rain-water from the ditch. Having seen that the squire went back towards the Hall, Goddard slunk away to his hiding-place to wait for the night. He lay down as best he might, and listened for the hours and half-hours as the church clock tolled them out from the lofty tower above.

Mary Goddard had told him to come later than before, and it was after half-past ten when he tapped upon the shutter of the little drawing-room. All was dark within, and he held his breath as he stood among the wet creepers, listening intently for the sound of his wife's coming. Presently the glass window inside was opened.

"Is that you?" asked Mary's voice in a tremulous whisper.

"Yes," he answered. "Let me in." Then the shutter was cautiously unfastened and opened a little and in the dim starlight Goddard recognised his wife's pale face. Her hand went out to him, with something in it.

"There is the money," she whispered. "Go as quickly as you can. They are looking for you—there are orders out to arrest you."

Goddard seized her fingers and took the money. She would have withdrawn her hand but he held it firmly.

"Who told you that they were after me?" he asked in a fierce whisper.

"Mr. Juxon—let me go."

"Mr. Juxon!" The convict uttered a rough oath. "Your friend Mr. Juxon, eh? He is after me, is he? Tell him—"

"Hush, hush!" she whispered. "He has no idea you are here—"

"I should think not," muttered Walter. "He would not be sneaking in here on the sly to see you if he knew I were about!"

"What do you mean?" asked Mary. "Oh, Walter, let me go—you hurt me so!" He held her fingers as in a vice.

"Hurt you! I wish I could strangle you and him too! Ha, you thought I was not looking this afternoon when he came! He went to the corner of the road with the parson, and when the parson was out of sight he came back! I saw you!"

"You saw nothing!" answered his wife desperately. "How can you say so! If you knew how kind he has been, what a loyal gentleman he is, you would not dare to say such things."

"You used to say I was a loyal gentleman, Mary," retorted the convict. "I daresay he is of the same stamp as I. Look here, Mary, if I catch this loyal gentleman coming here any more I will cut his throat—so look out!"

"You do not mean to say you are going to remain here any longer, in danger of your life?" said Mary in great alarm.

"Well—a man can only hang once. Give me some more of that bread and cheese, Mary. It was exceedingly good."

"Then let me go," said his wife, trembling with horror at the threat she had just heard.

"Oh yes. I will let you go. But I will just hold the window open in case you don't come back soon enough. Look sharp!"

There was no need to hurry the unfortunate woman. In less than three minutes she returned, bringing a "quartern" loaf and a large piece of cheese. She thrust them out upon the window-sill and withdrew her hand before he could catch it. But he held the window open.

"Now go!" she said. "I cannot do more for you—for God's sake go!"

"You seem very anxious to see the last of me," he whispered. "I daresay if I am hanged you will get a ticket to see me turned off. Yes—we mention those things rather freely up in town. Don't be alarmed. I will come back to-morrow night—you had better listen. If you had shown a little more heart, I would have been satisfied, but you are so stony that I think I would like another fifty pounds to-morrow night. Those notes are so deliciously crisp—"

"Listen, Walter!" said Mary. "Unless you promise to go I will raise an alarm at once. I can face shame again well enough. I will have you—hush! For God's sake—hush! There is somebody coming!"

The convict's quick ear had caught the sound. Instantly he knelt and then lay down at full length upon the ground below the window. It was a fine night and the conscientious Mr. Gall was walking his beat. The steady tramp of his heavy shoes had something ominous in it which struck terror into the heart of the wretched fugitive. With measured tread he came from the direction of the village. Reaching the cottage he paused and dimly in the starlight Mrs. Goddard could distinguish his glazed hat—the provincial constabulary still wore hats in those days. Mr. Gall stood not fifteen yards from the cottage, failed to observe that a window was open on the lower floor, nodded to himself as though satisfied with his inspection and walked on. Little by little the sound of his steps grew fainter in the distance. Walter slowly raised himself again from the ground, and put his head in at the window.

"You see it would not be hard to have you caught," whispered his wife, still breathless with the passing excitement. "That was the policeman. If I had called him, it would have been all over with you. I tell you if you try to come again I will give you up."

"Oh, that's the way you treat me, is it?" said the convict with another oath. "Then you had better look out for your dear Mr. Juxon, that's all."

Without another word, Goddard glided away from the window, let himself out by the wicket gate and disappeared across the road.

Mary Goddard was in that moment less horrified by her husband's threat than by his base ingratitude to herself and by the accusation he seemed to make against her. Worn out with the emotions of fear and anxiety, she had barely the strength to close and fasten the window. Then she sank into the first chair she could find in the dark and stared into the blackness around her. It seemed indeed more than she could bear. She was placed in the terrible position of being obliged to betray her fugitive husband, or of living in constant fear lest he should murder the best friend she had in the world.



CHAPTER XVI.

On the morning after the events last described Mr. Ambrose sat at breakfast opposite his wife. The early post had just arrived, bringing the usual newspaper and two letters.

"Any news, my dear?" inquired Mrs. Ambrose with great suavity, as she rinsed her teacup in the bowl preparatory to repeating the dose. "Is not it time that we should hear from John?"

"There is a letter from him, strange to say. Wait a minute—my dear, the Tripos is over and he wants to know if he may stop here—"

"The Tripos over already! How has he done? Do tell me, Augustin!"

"He does not know," returned the vicar, quickly looking over the contents of the letter. "The lists are not out—he thinks he has done very well—he has had a hint that he is high up—wants to know whether he may stop on his way to London—he is going to see his father—"

"Of course he shall come," said Mrs. Ambrose with enthusiasm. "He must stop here till the lists are published and then we shall know—anything else?"

"The other is a note from a tutor of his side—my old friend Brown—he is very enthusiastic; says it is an open secret that John will be at the head of the list—begins to congratulate. Well, my dear, this is very satisfactory, very flattering."

"One might say very delightful, Augustin."

"Delightful, yes quite delightful," replied the vicar, burying his long nose in his teacup.

"I only hope it may be true. I was afraid that perhaps John had done himself harm by coming here at Christmas. Young men are so very light-headed, are they not, Augustin?" added Mrs. Ambrose with a prim smile. On rare occasions she had alluded to John's unfortunate passion for Mrs. Goddard, and when she spoke of the subject she had a tendency to assume something of the stiffness she affected towards strangers. As has been seen she had ceased to blame Mrs. Goddard. Generally speaking the absent are in the wrong in such matters; she could not refer to John's conduct without a touch of severity. But the Reverend Augustin bent his shaggy brows; John was now successful, probably senior classic—it was evidently no time to censure his behaviour.

"You must be charitable, my dear," he said, looking sharply at his wife. "We have all been young once you know."

"Augustin, I am surprised at you!" said Mrs. Ambrose sternly.

"For saying that I once was young?" inquired her husband. "Strange and paradoxical as such a statement must appear, I was once a baby."

"I think your merriment very unseemly," objected Mrs. Ambrose in a tone of censure. "Because you were once a baby it does not follow that you ever acted in such a very foolish way about a—"

"My dear," interrupted the vicar, handing his cup across the table, "I wish you would leave John alone, and give me another cup of tea. John will be here to-morrow. Let us receive him as we should. He has done us credit."

"He will never be received otherwise in this house, Augustin," replied Mrs. Ambrose, "whether you allow me to speak my mind or not. I am aware that Short has done us credit, as you express it. I only hope he always may do us credit in the future. I am sure, I was like a mother to him. He ought never to forget it. Why, my dear, cannot you remember how I always had his buttons looked to and gave him globules when he wanted them? I think he might show some gratitude."

"I do not think he has failed to show it," retorted the vicar.

"Oh, well, Augustin, if you are going to talk like that it is not possible to argue with you; but he shall be welcome, if he comes. I hope, however, that he will not go to the cottage—"

"My dear, I have a funeral this morning. I wish you would not disturb my mind with these trifles."

"Trifles! Who is dead? You did not tell me."

"Poor Judd's baby, of course. We have spoken of it often enough, I am sure."

"Oh yes, of course. Poor Tom Judd!" exclaimed Mrs. Ambrose with genuine sympathy. "It seems to me you are always burying his babies, Augustin! It is very sad."

"Not always, my dear. Frequently," said the vicar correcting her. "It is very sad, as you say. Very sad. You took so much trouble to help them this time, too."

"Trouble!" Mrs. Ambrose cast up her eyes. "You don't know how much trouble. But I am quite sure it was the fault of that brazen-faced doctor. I cannot bear the sight of him! That comes of answering advertisements in the newspapers."

The present doctor had bought the practice abandoned by Mrs. Ambrose's son-in-law. He had paid well for it, but his religious principles had not formed a part of the bargain.

"It is of no use to cry over spilt milk, my dear."

"I do not mean to. No, I never do. But it is very unpleasant to have such people about. I really hope Tom Judd will not lose his next baby. When is John coming?"

"To-morrow. My dear, if I forget it this morning, will you remember to speak to Reynolds about the calf?"

"Certainly, Augustin," said his wife. Therewith the good vicar left her and went to bury Tom Judd's baby, divided in his mind between rejoicing over his favourite pupil's success and lamenting, as he sincerely did, the misfortunes which befell his parishioners. When he left the churchyard an hour later he was met by Martha, who came from the cottage with a message begging that the vicar would come to Mrs. Goddard as soon as possible. Martha believed her mistress was ill, she wanted to see Mr. Ambrose at once. Without returning to the vicarage he turned to the left towards the cottage.

Mrs. Goddard had slept that night, being exhausted and almost broken down with fatigue. But she woke only to a sense of the utmost pain and distress, realising that to-day's anxiety was harder to bear than yesterday's, and that to-morrow might bring forth even worse disasters than those which had gone before. Her position was one of extreme doubt and peril. To tell any one that her husband was in the neighbourhood seemed to be equivalent to rooting out the very last remnant of consideration for him which remained in her heart, the very last trace of what had once been the chief joy and delight of her life. She hesitated long. There is perhaps nothing in human nature more enduring than the love of man and wife; or perhaps one should rather say than the love of a woman for her husband. There appear to be some men capable of being so completely estranged from their wives that there positively does not remain in them even the faintest recollection of what they have once felt, nor the possibility of feeling the least pity for what the women they once loved so well may suffer. There is no woman, I believe, who having once loved her husband truly, could see him in pain or distress, or in danger of his life, without earnestly endeavouring to help him. A woman may cease to love her husband; in some cases she is right in forgetting her love, but it would be hard to find a case where, were he the worst criminal alive, had he deceived her a thousand times, she would not at least help him to escape from his pursuers or give him a crust to save him from starvation.

Mary Goddard had done her best for the wretch who had claimed her assistance. She had fed him, provided him with money, refused to betray him. But if it were to be a question of giving him up to the law, or of allowing her best friend to be murdered by him, or even seriously injured, she felt that pity must be at an end. It would be doubtless a very horrible thing to give him up, and she had gathered from what he had said that if he were taken he would pay the last penalty of the law. It was so awful a thing that she groaned when she thought of it. But she remembered his ghastly face in the starlight and the threat he had hissed out against the squire; he was a desperate man, with blood already on his hands. It was more than likely that he would do the deed he had threatened to do. What could be easier than to watch the squire on one of those evenings when he went up the park alone, to fall upon him and take his life? Of late Mr. Juxon did not even take his dog with him. The savage bloodhound would be a good protector; but even when he took Stamboul with him by day, he never brought him at night. It was too long for the beast to wait, he used to say, from six to nine or half past; he was so savage that he did not care to leave him out of his sight; he brought mud into the cottage, or into the vicarage as the case might be—if Stamboul had been an ordinary dog it would have been different. Those Russian bloodhounds were not to be trifled with. But the squire must be warned of his danger before another night came on.

It was a difficult question. Mrs. Goddard at first thought of telling him herself; but she shrank from the thought, for she was exhausted and overwrought. A few days ago she would have been brave enough to say anything if necessary, but now she had no longer the courage nor the strength. It seemed so hard to face the squire with such a warning; it seemed as though she were doing something which would make her seem ungrateful in his eyes, though she hardly knew why it seemed so. She turned more naturally to the vicar, to whom she had originally come in her first great distress; she had only once consulted him, but that one occasion seemed to establish a precedent in her mind, the precedent of a thing familiar. It would certainly be easier. After much thought and inward debate, she determined to send for Mr. Ambrose.

The fatigue and anxiety she had undergone during the last two days had wrought great changes in her face. A girl of eighteen or twenty years may gain delicacy and even beauty from the physical effects of grief, but a woman over thirty years old gains neither. Mrs. Goddard's complexion, naturally pale, had taken a livid hue; her lips, which were never very red, were almost white; heavy purple shadows darkened her eyes; the two or three lines that were hardly noticeable, but which were the natural result of a sad expression in her face, had in two days become distinctly visible and had almost assumed the proportions of veritable wrinkles. Her features were drawn and pinched—she looked ten years older than she was. Nothing remained of her beauty but her soft waving brown hair and her deep, pathetic, violet eyes. Even her small hands seemed to have grown thin and looked unnaturally white and transparent.

She was sitting in her favourite chair by the fire, when the vicar arrived. She had not been willing to seem ill, in spite of what Martha had said, and she had refused to put cushions in the chair. She was making an effort, and even a little sense of physical discomfort helped to make the effort seem easier. She was so much exhausted that she felt she must not for one moment relax the tension she imposed upon herself lest her whole remaining strength should suddenly collapse and leave her at the mercy of events. But Mr. Ambrose was startled when he saw her and feared that she was very ill.

"My dear Mrs. Goddard," he said, "what is the matter? Are you ill? Has anything happened?"

As he spoke he changed the form of his question, suddenly recollecting that Mr. Juxon had probably on the previous afternoon told her of her husband's escape, as he had meant to do. This might be the cause of her indisposition.

"Yes," she said in a voice that did not sound like her own, "I have asked you to come because I am in great trouble—in desperate trouble."

"Dear me," said the vicar, "I hope not!"

"Not desperate? Perhaps not. Dear Mr. Ambrose, you have always been so kind to me—I am sure you can help me now." Her voice trembled.

"Indeed I will do my best," said the vicar who judged from so unusual an outburst that there must be really something wrong. "If you could tell me what it is—" he suggested.

"That is the hardest part of it," said the unhappy woman. She paused a moment as though to collect her strength. "You know," she began again, "that my husband has escaped?"

"A terrible business!" exclaimed the good man, nodding, however, in affirmation to the question she asked.

"I have seen him," said Mary Goddard very faintly, looking down at her thin hands. The vicar started in astonishment.

"My dear friend—dear me! Dear, dear, how very painful!"

"Indeed, you do not know what I have suffered. It is most dreadful, Mr. Ambrose. You cannot imagine what a struggle it was. I am quite worn out."

She spoke with such evident pain that the vicar was moved. He felt that she had more to tell, but he had hardly recovered from his surprise.

"But, you know," he said, "that was the whole object of warning you. We did not really believe that he would come here. We were so much afraid that he would startle you. Of course Mr. Juxon told you he consulted me—"

"Of course," answered Mrs. Goddard. "It was too late. I had seen him the night before."

"Why, that was the very night we were here!" exclaimed Mr. Ambrose, more and more amazed. Mrs. Goddard nodded. She seemed hardly able to speak.

"He came and knocked at that window," she said, very faintly. "He came again last night."

"Dear me—I will send for Gall at once; he will have no difficulty in arresting him—"

"Oh please!" interrupted Mrs. Goddard in hysterical tones. "Please, please, dear Mr. Ambrose, don't!"

The vicar was silent. He rose unceremoniously from his chair and walked to the window, as he generally did when in any great doubt. He realised at once and very vividly the awful position in which the poor lady was placed.

"Pray do not think I am very bad," said she, almost sobbing with fear and emotion. "Of course it must seem dreadful to you that I should wish him to escape!"

The vicar came slowly back and stood beside her leaning against the chimney-piece. It did not take him long to make up his mind. Kind-hearted people are generally impulsive.

"I do not, my dear lady. I assure you I fully understand your position. The fact is, I was too much surprised and I am too anxious for your safety not to think immediately of securing that—ahem—that unfortunate man."

"Oh, it is not my safety! It is not only my safety—"

"I understand—yes—of course you are anxious about him. But it is doubtless not our business to aid the law in its course, provided we do not oppose it."

"It is something else," murmured Mrs. Goddard. "Oh! how shall I tell you," she moaned turning her pale cheek to the back of the chair.

The vicar looked at her and began to think it was perhaps some strange case of conscience with which he had to deal. He had very little experience of such things save in the rude form they take among the labouring classes. But he reflected that it was likely to be something of the kind; in such a case Mrs. Goddard would naturally enough have sent for him, more as her clergyman than as her friend. She looked like a person suffering from some great mental strain. He sat down beside her and took her passive hand. He was moved, and felt as though he might have been her father.

"My dear," he said kindly, almost as though he were speaking to a child, "have you anything upon your mind, anything which distresses you? Do you wish to tell me? If so I will do my very best to help you."

Mrs. Goddard's fingers pressed his hand a little, but her face was still turned away.

"It is Mr. Juxon," she almost whispered. If she had been watching the vicar she would have noticed the strange air of perplexity which came over his face when he heard the squire's name.

"Yes—Mr. Juxon," she moaned. Then the choked-down horror rose in her throat. "Walter means to murder him!" she almost screamed. "Oh, my God, my God, what shall I do!" she cried aloud clasping her hands suddenly over her face and rocking herself to and fro.

The vicar was horror-struck; he could hardly believe his ears, and believing them his senses swam. In his wildest dreams—and the good man's dreams were rarely wild—he had never thought that such things could come near him. Being a very good man and, moreover, a wise man when he had plenty of time for reflection, he folded his hands quietly and bent his head, praying fervently for the poor tortured woman who moaned and tossed herself beside him. It was a terrible moment. Suddenly she controlled herself and grasping one of the arms of the chair looked round at her silent companion.

"You must save him," she said in agonised tones, "you must save them both! Do not tell me you cannot—oh, do not tell me that!"

It was a passionate and heart-broken appeal, such a one as few men would or could resist, coming as it did from a helpless and miserably unhappy woman. Whether the vicar was wise in giving the answer he did, it would be hard to say: but he was a man who honestly tried to do his best.

"I will try, my dear lady," he said, making a great resolution. Mrs. Goddard took his hand and pressed it in both of hers, and the long restrained tears flowed fast and softly over her worn cheeks. For some moments neither spoke.

"If you cannot save both—you must save—Mr. Juxon," she said at last, breathing the words rather than speaking them.

The vicar knew or guessed what it must cost her to hint that her husband might be captured. He recognised that the only way in which he could contribute towards the escape of the convict was by not revealing his hiding-place, and he accordingly refrained from asking where he was concealed. He shuddered as he thought that Goddard might be lying hidden in the cottage itself, for all he could tell, but he was quite sure that he ought not to know it. So long as he did not know where the forger was, it was easy to hold his peace; but if once he knew, the vicar was not capable of denying the knowledge. He had never told a lie in his life.

"I will try," he repeated; and growing calmer, he added, "You are quite sure this was not an empty threat, my dear friend? Was there any reason—a—I mean to say, had this unfortunate man ever known Mr. Juxon?"

"Oh no!" answered Mrs. Goddard, sinking back into her chair. "He never knew him." Her tears were still flowing but she no longer sobbed aloud; it had been a relief to her overwrought and sensitive temperament to give way to the fit of weeping. She actually felt better, though ten minutes earlier she would not have believed it possible.

"Then—why?" asked Mr. Ambrose, hesitating.

"My poor husband was a very jealous man," she answered. "I accidentally told him that the cottage belonged to Mr. Juxon and yesterday—do you remember? You walked on with Mr. Juxon beyond the turning, and then he came back to see me—to tell me of my husband's escape. Walter saw that and—and he thought, I suppose—that Mr. Juxon did not want you to see him coming here."

"But Mr. Juxon had just promised me to go and see you," said the honest vicar.

"Yes," said poor Mrs. Goddard, beginning to sob again, "but Walter—my husband—thinks that I—I care for Mr. Juxon—he is so jealous," cried she, again covering her face with her hands. The starting tears trickled through her fingers and fell upon her black dress. She was ashamed, this time, for she hated even to speak of such a possibility.

"I understand," answered Mr. Ambrose gravely. It certainly did not strike him that it might be true, and his knowledge of such characters as Walter Goddard was got chiefly from the newspapers. He had often noticed in reports of trials and detailed descriptions of crimes that criminals seem to become entirely irrational after a certain length of time, and it was one of the arguments he best understood for demonstrating that bad men either are originally, or ultimately become mad. To men like the vicar, almost the only possible theory of crime is the theory of insanity. It is positively impossible for a man who has passed thirty or forty years in a quiet country parish to comprehend the motives or the actions of great criminals. He naturally says they must be crazy or they would not do such things. If Goddard were crazy enough to commit a forgery, he was crazy enough for anything, even to the extent of suspecting that his wife loved the squire.

"I think," said Mr. Ambrose, "that if you agree with me it will be best to warn Mr. Juxon of his danger."

"Of course," murmured Mrs. Goddard. "You must warn him at once!"

"I will go to the Hall now," said the vicar bravely. "But—I am very sorry to have to dwell on the subject, my dear lady, but, without wishing in the least to know where the—your husband is, could you tell me anything about his appearance? For instance, if you understand what I mean, supposing that Mr. Juxon knew how he looked and should happen to meet him, knowing that he wished to kill him—he might perhaps avoid him, if you understand me?"

The vicar's English was a little disturbed by his extreme desire not to hurt Mrs. Goddard's feelings. If the squire and his dog chanced to meet Walter Goddard they would probably not avoid him as the vicar expressed it; that was a point Mr. Ambrose was willing to leave to Mrs. Goddard's imagination.

"Yes—must you know?" she asked anxiously.

"We must know that," returned the vicar.

"He is disguised as a poor tramp," she said sorrowfully. "He wears a smock-frock and an old hat I think. He is pale—oh, poor, poor Walter!" she cried again bursting into tears.

Mr. Ambrose could say nothing. There was nothing to be said. He rose and took his hat—the old tall hat he wore to his parishioners' funerals. They were very primitive people in Billingsfield.

"I will go at once," he said. "Believe me, you have all my sympathy—I will do all I can."

Mary Goddard thanked him more by her looks than with any words she was able to speak. But she was none the less truly grateful for his sympathy and aid. She had a kind of blind reliance on him which made her feel that since she had once confided her trouble and danger nothing more could possibly be done. When he was gone, she sobbed with relief, as before she had wept for fear; she was hysterical, unstrung, utterly unlike herself.

But as the vicar went up towards the Hall he felt that he had his hands full, and he felt moreover an uneasy sensation which he could not have explained. He was certainly no coward, but he had never been in such a position before and he did not like it; there was an air of danger about, an atmosphere which gave him a peculiarly unpleasant thrill from time to time. He was not engaged upon an agreeable errand, and he had a vague feeling, due, the scientists would have told him, to unconscious ratiocination, which seemed to tell him that something was going to happen. People who are very often in danger know that singular uneasiness which warns them that all is not well; it is not like anything else that can be felt. No one really knows its cause, unless it be true that the mind sometimes reasons for itself without the consciousness of the body, and communicates to the latter a spasmodic warning, the result of its cogitations.

To say to the sturdy squire, "Beware of a man in a smock-frock, one Goddard the forger, who means to murder you," seemed of itself simple enough. But for the squire to distinguish this same Goddard from all other men in smock-frocks was a less easy matter. The vicar, indeed, could tell a strange face at a hundred yards, for he knew every man, woman and child in his parish; but the squire's acquaintance was more limited. Obviously, said Mr. Ambrose to himself, the squire's best course would be to stay quietly at home until the danger was passed, and to pass word to Policeman Gall to lay hands on any particularly seedy-looking tramps he happened to see in the village. It was Gall's duty to do so in any case, as he had been warned to be on the look-out. Mr. Ambrose inwardly wondered where the man could be hiding. Billingsfield was not, he believed, an easy place to hide in, for every ploughman knew his fellow, and a new face was always an object of suspicion. Not a gipsy tinker entered the village but what every one heard of it, and though tramps came through from time to time, it would be a difficult matter for one of them to remain two days in the place without attracting a great deal of attention. It was possible that Walter Goddard might have been concealed for one night in his wife's house, but even there he could not have remained hidden for two days without being seen by Mrs. Goddard's two women servants. The vicar walked rapidly through the park, looking about him suspiciously as he went. Goddard might at that very moment be lurking behind any one of those oaks; it would be most unpleasant if he mistook the vicar for the squire. But that, the vicar reflected, was impossible on account of his clerical dress. He reached the Hall in safety and stood looking down among the leafless trees, waiting for the door to be opened.



CHAPTER XVII.

Mr. Juxon received the vicar in the library as he had received him on the previous day; but on the present occasion Mr. Ambrose had not been sent for and the squire's face wore an expression of inquiry. He supposed his friend had come to ask him the result of the interview with Mrs. Goddard, and as he himself was on the point of going towards the cottage he wished the vicar had come at a later or an earlier hour.

"I have a message to give you," said Mr. Ambrose, "a very important message."

"Indeed?" answered the squire, observing his serious face.

"Yes. I had better tell you at once. Mrs. Goddard sent for me this morning. She has actually seen her husband, who must be hiding in the neighbourhood. He came to her drawing-room window last night and the night before."

"Dear me!" exclaimed Mr. Juxon. "You don't tell me so!"

"That is not the worst of the matter," continued the vicar, looking very grave and fixing his eyes on the squire's face. "This villainous fellow has been threatening to take your life, Mr. Juxon."

Mr. Juxon stared at the vicar for a moment in surprise, and then broke into a hearty laugh.

"My life!" he cried. "Upon my word, the fellow does not know what he is talking about! Do you mean to say that this escaped convict, who can be arrested at sight wherever he is found, imagines that he could attack me in broad daylight without being caught?"

"Well, no, I suppose not—but you often walk home at night, Mr. Juxon—alone through the park."

"I think that dog of mine could manage Mr. Goddard," remarked the squire calmly. "And pray, Mr. Ambrose, now that we know that the man is in the neighbourhood, what is to prevent us from finding him?"

"We do not know where he is," replied the vicar, thanking the inspiration which had prevented him from asking Mrs. Goddard more questions. He had promised to save Goddard, too, or at least not to facilitate his capture. But though he was glad to be able to say honestly that he did not know where he was, he began to doubt whether in the eyes of the law he was acting rightly.

"You do not know?" asked the squire.

"No; and besides I think—perhaps—we ought to consider poor Mrs. Goddard's position."

"Mrs. Goddard's position!" exclaimed Mr. Juxon almost angrily. "And who should consider her position more than I, Mr. Ambrose? My dear sir, I consider her position before all things—of course I do. But nothing could be of greater advantage to her position than the certainty that her husband is safely lodged in prison. I cannot imagine how he contrived to escape—can you?"

"No, I cannot," answered Mr. Ambrose, thrusting his hands into his pockets and biting his long upper lip.

"By the bye, did the fellow happen to say why he meant to lay violent hands on me?" inquired Mr. Juxon.

"Since you ask—he did. It appears that he saw you going into the cottage, and immediately became jealous—"

"Of me?" Mr. Juxon coloured a little beneath his bronzed complexion, and grew more angry. "Well, upon my word! But if that is true I am much obliged for your warning. Fellows of that sort never reason—he will very likely attack me as you say. It will be quite the last time he attacks anybody—the devil shall have his own, Mr. Ambrose, if I can help him to it—"

"Dear me! Mr. Juxon—you surprise me," said the vicar, who had never heard his friend use such strong language before.

"It is enough to surprise anybody," remarked the squire. "I trust we shall surprise Mr. Goddard before night. Excuse me, but when did he express his amiable intentions towards me?"

"Last night, I believe," replied Mr. Ambrose, reluctantly.

"And when did he see me going into the cottage?"

"Yesterday afternoon, I believe." The vicar felt as though he were beginning to break his promise of shielding the fugitive, but he could not refuse to answer a direct question.

"Then, when he saw me, he was either in the cottage or in the park. There was no one in the road, I am quite sure."

"I do not know," said the vicar, delighted at being able to say so. He was such a simple man that Mr. Juxon noticed the tone of relief in which he denied any knowledge of Goddard's whereabouts on the previous day as compared with his reluctance to answer upon those points of which he was certain.

"You are not anxious that Goddard should be caught," said the squire rather sharply.

"Frankly," returned the vicar, "I do not wish to be instrumental in his capture—not that I am likely to be."

"That is none of my business, Mr. Ambrose. I will try and catch him alone. But it would be better that he should be taken alive and quietly—"

"Surely," cried the vicar in great alarm, "you would not kill him?"

"Oh no, certainly not. But my dog might, Mr. Ambrose. They are ugly dogs when they are angry, and they have a remarkable faculty for finding people who are lost. They used to use them in Russia for tracking fugitive serfs and convicts who escaped from Siberia."

Mr. Ambrose shuddered. The honest squire seemed almost as bloodthirsty in his eyes as the convict Goddard. He felt that he did not understand Mr. Juxon. The idea of hunting people with bloodhounds seemed utterly foreign to his English nature, and he could not understand how his English friend could entertain such a thought; he probably forgot that a few generations earlier the hunting of all kinds of men, papists, dissenters, covenanters and rebels, with dogs, had been a favourite English sport.

"Really, Mr. Juxon," he said in an agitated tone, "I think you would do much better to protect yourself with the means provided by the law. Considerations of humanity—"

"Considerations of humanity, sir, are at an end when one man threatens the life of another. You admit yourself that I am not safe unless Goddard is caught, and yet you object to my method of catching him. That is illogical."

The vicar felt that this was to some extent true; but he was not willing to admit it. He knew also that if he could dissuade the squire from his barbarous scheme, Goddard would have a far better chance of escape.

"I think that with the assistance of Gall and a London detective—" he began.

"Gall is an old woman, Mr. Ambrose, and it will take twenty-four hours to get a detective from town. In twenty-four hours this man may have attacked me."

"He will hardly attempt to force his way into your house, Mr. Juxon."

"So then, I am to stay at home to suit his convenience? I will not do any such thing. Besides, in twenty-four hours Goddard may have changed his mind and may have taken himself off. For the rest of her life Mrs. Goddard will then be exposed to the possibility of every kind of annoyance."

"He would never come back, I am sure," objected the vicar.

"Why not? Every time he comes she will give him money. The more money she gives him the more often he will come, unless we put an end to his coming altogether."

"You seem to forget," urged Mr. Ambrose, "that there will be a vigorous search made for him. Why not telegraph to the governor of Portland?"

"I thought you wanted to save Mrs. Goddard from needless scandal; did you not?" returned the squire. "The governor of Portland would send down a squad of police who would publish the whole affair. He would have done so as soon as the man escaped had he known that Mrs. Goddard lived here."

"I wonder how Goddard himself knew it," remarked Mr. Ambrose.

"I don't know. Perhaps she told him she was coming here, at their last interview. Or perhaps she wrote to him in prison and the governor overlooked the letter. Anything like that would account for it."

"But if you catch him—alive," hesitated the vicar, "it will all be known at once. I do not see how you can prevent that."

"If I catch him alive, I will take him out of Billingsfield without any one's knowledge. I do not mean to hurt him. I only want to get him back to prison. Believe me, I am much more anxious than you can possibly be to save Mrs. Goddard from harm."

"Very well. I have done my errand," said Mr. Ambrose, with a sort of sigh of relief. "I confess, I am in great anxiety of mind, both on your account and on hers. I never dreamed that such things could happen in Billingsfield."

"You are certainly not responsible for them," answered Mr. Juxon. "It is not your fault—"

"Not altogether, perhaps. But I was perhaps wrong in letting her come here—no, I am sure I was not," he added impulsively, as though ashamed of having said anything so unkind.

"Certainly not. You were quite right, Mr. Ambrose, quite right, I assure you."

"Well, I hope all may yet be for the best," said the vicar.

"Let us hope so," replied Mr. Juxon gravely. "By all means, let us hope that all may be for the best."

Whether the squire doubted the possibility of so happy an issue to events or not, is uncertain. He felt almost more sorry for the vicar than for himself; the vicar was such a good man, so unused to the violent deeds of violent people, of which the squire in his wanderings had seen more than was necessary to convince him that all was not always for the best in this best of all possible worlds.

Mr. Ambrose left his friend and as he retraced his steps through the park was more disturbed than ever. That Goddard should contemplate killing the squire was bad enough, in all conscience, but that the squire should deliberately purpose to hunt down Goddard with his bloodhound seemed somehow even worse. The vicar had indeed promised Mrs. Goddard that he would not help to capture her husband, but he would have been as glad as any one to hear that the convict was once more lodged in his prison. There lurked in his mind, nevertheless, an impression that even a convict should have a fair chance. The idea was not expressed, but existed in him. Everybody, he would have said, ought to have a fair chance, and as the law of nations forbids the use of explosive bullets in warfare, the laws of humanity seemed to forbid the use of bloodhounds in the pursuit of criminals. He had a very great respect for the squire's character and principles, but the cold-blooded way in which Mr. Juxon had spoken of catching and probably killing Walter Goddard, had shaken the good vicar's belief in his friend. He doubted whether he were not now bound to return to Mrs. Goddard and to warn her in his turn of her husband's danger, whether he ought not to do something to save the wretched convict from his fate. It seemed hideous to think that in peaceful Billingsfield, in his own lonely parish, a human being should be exposed to such peril. But at this point the vicar's continuity forsook him. He had not the heart to tell the tale of his interview with Mr. Juxon to the unhappy lady he had left that morning. It was extremely improbable, he thought, that she should be able to communicate with her husband during the day, and the squire's language led him to think that the day would not pass without some attempt to discover Walter Goddard's hiding-place. Besides, the vicar's mind was altogether more disturbed than it had been in thirty years, and he was no longer able to account to himself with absolute accuracy for what he did. At all events, he felt that it was better not to tell Mrs. Goddard what the squire had said.

When he was gone, Mr. Juxon paced his library alone in the greatest uncertainty. He had told the vicar in his anger that he would find Goddard with the help of Stamboul. That the hound was able to accomplish the feat in the present weather, and if Goddard had actually stood some time at the cottage window on the previous night, he did not doubt for a moment. The vicar had mentioned the window to him when he told him that Mrs. Goddard had seen her husband. He had probably been at the window as late as midnight, and the scent, renewed by his visit, would not be twelve hours old. Stamboul could find the man, unless he had got into a cart, which was improbable. But a new and startling consideration presented itself to the squire's mind when the vicar was gone and his anger had subsided; a consideration which made him hesitate what course to pursue.

That he would be justified in using any means in his power to catch the criminal seemed certain. It would be for the public good that he should be delivered up to justice as soon as possible. So long as Goddard was at large the squire's own life was not safe, and Mrs. Goddard was liable to all kinds of annoyances at any moment. There was every reason why the fellow should be captured. But to capture him, safe and sound, was one thing; to expose him to the jaws of Stamboul was quite another. Mr. Juxon had a lively recollection of the day in the Belgrade forest when the great hound had pulled down one of his assailants, making his fangs meet through flesh and bone. If Stamboul were set upon Goddard's track, the convict could hardly escape with his life. In the first flush of the squire's anger this seemed of little importance. But on mature reflection the thing appeared in a different light.

He loved Mrs. Goddard in his own way, which was a very honourable way, if not very passionate. He had asked her to marry him. She had expressed a wish that she were a widow, implying perhaps that if she had been free she would have accepted him. If the obstacle of her living husband were removed, it was not improbable that she would look favourably upon the squire's suit; to bring Goddard to an untimely end would undoubtedly be to clear the way for the squire. It was not then, a legitimate desire for justice which made him wish to catch the convict and almost to wish that Stamboul might worry him to death; it was the secret hope that Goddard might be killed and that he, Charles James Juxon, might have the chance to marry his widow. "In other words," he said to himself, "I really want to murder Goddard and take his wife."

It was not easy to see where legitimate severity ended and unlawful and murderous selfishness began. The temptation was a terrible one. The very uncertainty which there was, tempted the squire to disregard the possibility of Goddard's death as compared with the importance of his capture. It was quite likely, he unconsciously argued, that the bloodhound would not kill him after all; it was even possible that he might not find him; but it would be worth while to make the attempt, for the results to be obtained by catching the fugitive were very great—Mrs. Goddard's peace was to be considered before all things. But still before the squire's eyes arose the picture of Stamboul tearing the throat of the man he had killed in the Belgrade forest. If he killed the felon, Juxon would know that to all intents and purposes he had himself done the deed in order to marry Mrs. Goddard. But still the thought remained with him and would not leave him.

The fellow had threatened his own life. It was then a fair fight, for a man cannot be blamed if he tries to get the better of one who is going about to kill him. On one of his many voyages, he had once shot a man in order to quell a mutiny; he had not killed him it is true, but he had disabled him for the time—he had handled many a rough customer in his day. The case, he thought, was similar, for it was the case of self-defence. The law, even, would say he was justified. But to slay a man in self-defence and then to marry his widow, though justifiable in law, is a very delicate case for the conscience; and in spite of the wandering life he had led, Mr. Juxon's conscience was sensitive. He was an honest man and a gentleman, he had tried all his life to do right as he saw it, and did not mean to turn murderer now, no matter how easy it would be for him to defend his action.

At the end of an hour he had decided that it would be murder, and no less, to let Stamboul track Goddard to his hiding-place. The hound might accompany him in his walks, and if anybody attacked him it would be so much the worse for his assailant. Murder or no murder, he was entitled to take any precautions he pleased against an assault. But he would not willingly put the bloodhound on the scent, and he knew well enough that the dog would not run upon a strange trail unless he were put to it. The squire went to his lunch, feeling that he had made a good resolution; but he ate little and soon afterwards began to feel the need of going down to see Mrs. Goddard. No day was complete without seeing her, and considering the circumstances which had occurred on the previous afternoon, it was natural that he should call to inquire after her state. In the hall, the gigantic beast which had played such an important part in his thoughts during the morning, came solemnly up to him, raising his great red eyes as though asking whether he were to accompany his master. The squire stood still and looked at him for a moment.

"Come along, Stamboul!" he said suddenly, as he put on his hat. The hound leaped up and laid his heavy paws on the squire's shoulders, trying to lick his face in his delight, then, almost upsetting the sturdy man he sprang back, slipped on the polished floor, recovered himself and with an enormous stride bounded past Mr. Juxon, out into the park. But Mr. Juxon quickly called him back, and presently he was following close at heel in his own stately way, looking neither to the right nor to the left. The squire felt nervous, and the sensation was new to him. He did not believe that Goddard would really attack him at all, certainly not that he would dare to attack him in broad daylight. But the knowledge of the threat the fellow had uttered made him watchful. He glanced to the right and left as he walked and gripped his heavy blackthorn stick firmly in his hand. He wished that if the man were to appear he would come quickly—it might be hard to hold Stamboul back if he were attacked unawares.

He reached the gate, crossed the road and rang the bell of the cottage. As he stood waiting, Stamboul smelled the ground, put up his head, smelled it again and with his nose down trotted slowly to the window on the left hand of the door. He smelled the ground, the wall and presently put both his fore paws upon the outer ledge of the window. Then he dropped again, and looked at his master. Martha was a long time in coming to the door.

"After him, Stamboul!" said the squire, almost unconsciously. The dog put his nose down and began to move slowly about. At that moment the door opened.

"Oh, sir," said Martha, "it's you, sir. I was to say, if you please, that if you called, Mrs. Goddard was poorly to-day, sir."

"Dear me!" said Mr. Juxon, "I hope she is not ill. Is it anything serious, Martha?"

"Well, sir, she's been down this mornin', but her head ached terrible bad and she went back to her room—oh, sir, your dog—he's a runnin' home."

As she spoke a sound rang in the air that made Martha start back. It was a deep, resounding, bell-like note, fierce and wild, rising and falling, low but full, with a horror indescribable in its echo—the sound which no man who has heard it ever forgets—the baying of a bloodhound on the track of a man.

The squire turned deadly pale, but he shouted with all his might, as he would have shouted to a man on the topsail yard in a gale at sea.

"Stamboul! Stamboul! Stamboul!" Again and again he yelled the dog's name.

Stamboul had not gone far. The quickset hedge had baffled the scent for a moment and he was not a dozen yards beyond it in the park when his master's cry stopped him. Instantly he turned, cleared the six-foot hedge and double ditch at a bound and came leaping back across the road. The squire breathed hard, for it had been a terrible moment. If he had not succeeded in calling the beast back, it might have been all over with Walter Goddard, wherever he was hidden.

"It is only his play," said Mr. Juxon, still very white and holding Stamboul by the collar. "Please tell Mrs. Goddard, Martha, that I am very sorry indeed to hear that she is ill, and that I will inquire this evening."

"Yes, sir," said Martha, who eyed the panting beast timidly and showed an evident desire to shut the door as soon as possible.

The squire felt more nervous than ever as he walked slowly along the road in the direction of the village, his hand still on the bloodhound's collar. He felt what a narrow escape Goddard had probably had, and the terrible sound of Stamboul's baying had brought back to him once again and very vividly the scene in the woods by the Bosphorus. He felt that for a few minutes at least he would rather not enter the park with the dog by him, and he naturally turned towards the vicarage, not with any intention of going in, but from sheer force of custom, as people under the influence of strong emotions often do things unconsciously which they are in the habit of doing. He walked slowly along, and had almost reached Mr. Ambrose's pretty old red brick house, when he found himself face to face with the vicar's wife. She presented an imposing appearance, as usual; her grey skirt, drawn up a little from the mud, revealed a bright red petticoat and those stout shoes which she regarded as so essential to health; she wore moreover a capacious sealskin jacket and a dark bonnet with certain jet flowers, which for many years had been regarded by the inhabitants of Billingsfield as the distinctive badge of a gentlewoman. Mrs. Ambrose was wont to smile and say that they were indestructible and would last as long as she did. She greeted Mr. Juxon cordially.

"How do you, Mr. Juxon—were you going to see us? I was just going for a walk—perhaps you will come with me?"

Mr. Juxon turned back and prepared to accompany her.

"Such good news this morning, from John Short," she said. "He has finished his examinations, and it seems almost certain that he will be senior classic. His tutor at Trinity has written already to congratulate my husband upon his success."

"I am sure, I am delighted, too," said the squire, who had regained his composure but kept his hold on Stamboul's collar. "He deserves all he gets, and more too," he continued. "I think he will be a remarkable man."

"I did not think you liked him so very much," said Mrs. Ambrose rather doubtfully, as she walked slowly by his side.

"Oh—I liked him very much. Indeed, I was going to ask him to stay with me for a few days at the Hall."

The inspiration was spontaneous. Mr. Juxon was in a frame of mind in which he felt that he ought to do something pleasant for somebody, to set off against the bloodthirsty designs which had passed through his mind in the morning. He knew that if he had not been over friendly to John, it had been John's own fault; but since he had found out that it was impossible to marry Mrs. Goddard, he had forgiven the young scholar his shortcomings and felt very charitably inclined towards him. It suddenly struck him that it would give John great pleasure to stop at the Hall for a few days, and that it would be no inconvenience to himself. The effect upon Mrs. Ambrose was greater even than he had expected. She was hospitable, good and kind, but she was also economical, as she had need to be. The squire was rich. If the squire would put up John during a part of his visit it would be a kindness to John himself, and an economy to the vicarage. Mr. Ambrose himself would not have gone to such a length; but then, as his wife said to herself in self-defence, Augustin did not pay the butcher's bills, and did not know how the money went. She did not say that Augustin was precisely what is called reckless, but he of course did not understand economy as she did. How should he, poor man, with all his sermons and his funerals and other occupations to take his mind off? Mrs. Ambrose was delighted at the squire's proposal.

"Really!" she exclaimed. "That would be too good of you, Mr. Juxon. And you do not know how it would quite delight him! He loves books so much, and then you know," she added in a confidential manner, "he has never stayed in a country house in his life, I am quite sure."

"And when is he coming down?" asked Mr. Juxon. "I should be very much pleased to have him."

"To-morrow, I think," said Mrs. Ambrose.

"Well—would you ask him from me to come up and stop a week? Can you spare him, Mrs. Ambrose? I know you are very fond of him, of course, but—"

"Oh very," said she warmly. "But I think it likely he will stay some time," she added in explanation of her willingness to let him go to the Hall.

The squire felt vaguely that the presence of a guest in his house would probably be a restraint upon him, and he felt that some restraint would be agreeable to him at the present time.

"Besides," added Mrs. Ambrose, "if you would like to have him first—there is a little repair necessary in his room at the vicarage—we have put it off too long—"

"By all means." said the squire, following out his own train of thought. "Send him up to me as soon as he comes. If I can manage it I will be down here to ask him myself."

"It is so good of you," said Mrs. Ambrose.

"Not at all. Are you going to the cottage?"

"Yes—why?"

"Nothing," said Mr. Juxon. "I did not know whether you would like to walk on a little farther with me. Good-bye, then. You will tell Short as soon as he comes, will you not?"

"Certainly," replied Mrs. Ambrose, still beaming upon him. "I will not let him unpack his things at the vicarage. Good-bye—so many thanks."



CHAPTER XVIII.

Mrs. Goddard's head ached "terrible bad" according to Martha, and when the vicar left her she went and lay down upon her bed, with a sensation that if the worst were not yet over she could bear no more. But she had an elastic temperament, and the fact of having consulted Mr. Ambrose that morning had been a greater relief than she herself suspected. She felt that he could be trusted to save Mr. Juxon from harm and Walter from capture, and having once confided to him the important secret which had so heavily weighed upon her mind she felt that the burthen of her troubles was lightened. Mr. Juxon could take any measures he pleased for his own safety; he would probably choose to stay at home until the danger was past. As for her husband, Mary Goddard did not believe that he would return a third time, for she thought that she had thoroughly frightened him. It was even likely that he had only thrown out his threat for the sake of terrifying his wife, and was now far beyond the limits of the parish. So great was the relief she felt after she had talked with the vicar that she almost ceased to believe there was any danger at all; looking at it in the light of her present mood, she almost wondered why she had thought it necessary to tell Mr. Ambrose—until suddenly a vision of her friend the squire, attacked and perhaps killed, in his own park, rose to her mental vision, and she remembered what agonies of fear she had felt for him until she had sent for the vicar. The latter indeed seemed to have been a sort of deus ex maohina by whom she suddenly obtained peace of mind and a sense of security in the hour of her greatest distress.

All that afternoon she lay upon her bed, while Nellie sat beside her and read to her, and stroked her hands; for Nellie was in reality passionately fond of her mother and suffered almost as much at the sight of her suffering as she could have done had she been in pain herself. Both Mrs. Goddard and the child started at the sound of Stamboul's baying, which was unlike anything they had ever heard before, and Nellie ran to the window.

"It is only Mr. Juxon and Stamboul having a game," said Nellie. "What a noise he made, though! Did not he?"

Poor Nellie—had she had any idea of what the "game" was from which the squire found it so hard to make his hound desist, she must have gone almost mad with horror. For the game was her own father, poor child. But she came back and sat beside her mother utterly unconscious of what might have happened if Stamboul had once got beyond earshot, galloping along the trail towards the disused vault at the back of the church. Mrs. Goddard had started at the sounds and had put her hand to her forehead, but Nellie's explanation was enough to quiet her, and she smiled faintly and closed her eyes again. Then, half an hour later, Mrs. Ambrose came, and would not be denied. She wanted to make Mrs. Goddard comfortable, she said, when she found she was ill, and she did her best, being a kind and motherly woman when not hardened by the presence of strangers. She told her that John was coming on the next day, speaking with vast pride of his success and omitting to look sternly at Mrs. Goddard as she had formerly been accustomed to do when she spoke of the young scholar. Then at last she went away, after exacting a promise from Mrs. Goddard to come and dine, bringing Nellie with her, on the following day, in case she should have recovered by that time from her headache.

But during all that night Mrs. Goddard lay awake, listening for the sound she so much dreaded, of a creeping footstep on the slated path outside and for the tapping at the window. Nothing came, however, and as the grey dawn began to creep in through the white curtains, she fell peacefully asleep. Nellie would not let her be waked, and breakfasted without her, enjoying with childish delight the state of being waited on by Martha alone.

Meanwhile, at an early hour, John arrived at the vicarage and was received with open arms by Mr. Ambrose and his wife. The latter seemed to forget, in the pleasure of seeing him again, that she had even once spoken doubtfully of him or hinted that he was anything short of perfection itself. And to prove how much she had done for him she communicated with great pride the squire's message, to the effect that he expected John at the Hall that very day.

John's heart leaped with delight at the idea. It was natural. He was indeed most sincerely attached to the Ambroses, and most heartily glad to be with them; but he had never in his life had an opportunity of staying in a "big" house, as he would have described it. It seemed as though he were already beginning to taste the sweet first-fruits of success after all his labour and all his privations; it was the first taste of another world, the first mouthful of the good things of life which had fallen to his lot. Instantly there rose before him delicious visions of hot-water cans brought by a real footman, of luxurious meals served by a real butler, of soft carpets perpetually beneath his feet, of liberty to lounge in magnificent chairs in the magnificent library; and last, though not least, there was a boyish feeling of delight in the thought that when he went to see Mrs. Goddard he would go from the Hall, that she would perhaps associate him henceforth with a different kind of existence, in a word, that he was sure to acquire importance in her eyes from the fact of his visit to the squire. Many a young fellow of one and twenty is as familiar with all that money can give and as tired of luxury as a broken-down hard liver of forty years; for this is an age of luxurious living. But poor John had hardly ever tasted the least of those things too familiar to the golden youth of the period to be even noticed. He had felt when he first entered the little drawing-room of the cottage that Mrs. Goddard herself belonged, or had belonged, to that delicious unknown world of ease where the question of expense was never considered, much less mentioned. In her own eyes she was indeed living in a state approaching to penury, but the spectacle of her pictures, her furniture and her bibelots had impressed John with a very different idea. The squire's invitation, asking him to spend a week at the Hall, seemed in a moment to put him upon the same level as the woman to whom he believed himself so devotedly attached. To his mind the ideal woman could not but be surrounded by a luxurious atmosphere of her own. To enter the charmed precincts of those surroundings seemed to John equivalent to being transported from the regions of the Theocritan to the level of the Anacreontic ode, from the pastoral, of which he had had too much, to the aristocratic, of which he felt that he could not have enough. It was a natural feeling in a very young man of his limited experience.

He stayed some hours at the vicarage. Both Mr. and Mrs. Ambrose thought him changed in the short time which had elapsed since they had seen him. He had grown more grave; he was certainly more of a man. The great contest he had just sustained with so much honour had left upon his young face its mark, an air of power which had not formerly been visible there; even his voice seemed to have grown deeper and rounder, and his words carried more weight. The good vicar, who had seen several generations of students, already distinguished in John Short the budding "don," and rubbed his hands with great satisfaction.

John asked few questions but found himself obliged to answer many concerning his recent efforts. He would have liked to say something about Mrs. Goddard, but he remembered with some awe and much aversion the circumstances in which he had last quitted the vicarage, and he held his peace; whereby he again rose in Mrs. Ambrose's estimation. He made up for his silence by speaking effusively of the squire's kindness in asking him to the Hall; forgetting perhaps the relief he had felt when he escaped from Billingsfield after Christmas without being again obliged to shake hands with Mr. Juxon. Things looked very differently now, however. He felt himself to be somebody in the world, and that distressing sense of inferiority which had perhaps been at the root of his jealousy against the squire was gone, swallowed in the sense of triumph. His face was pale, perhaps, from overwork, but there was a brilliancy in his eyes and an incisiveness in his speech which came from the confidence of victory. He now desired nothing more than to meet the squire, feeling sure that he should receive his congratulations, and though he stayed some hours in conversation with his old friends, in imagination he was already at the Hall. The squire had not come down to meet him, as he had proposed, but he had sent his outlandish American gig with his groom to fetch John. While he was at the vicarage the latter was probably too much occupied with conversation to notice that Mr. Ambrose seemed preoccupied and changed, and the vicar was to some extent recalled to his usual manner by the presence of his pupil. Mrs. Ambrose had taxed her husband with concealing something from her ever since the previous day, but the good man was obstinate and merely said that he felt unaccountably nervous and irritable, and begged her to excuse his mood. Mrs. Ambrose postponed her cross-examination until a more favourable opportunity should present itself.

John got into the gig and drove away. He was to return with the squire to dinner in the evening, and he fully expected that Mrs. Goddard and Nellie would be of the party—it seemed hardly likely that they should be omitted. Indeed, soon after John had left a note arrived at the vicarage explaining that Mrs. Goddard was much better and would certainly come, according to Mrs. Ambrose's very kind invitation.

It is unnecessary to dwell upon the meeting which took place between Mr. Juxon and John Short. The squire was hospitable in the extreme and expressed his great satisfaction at having John under his own roof at last. He was perhaps, like the vicar, a little nervous, but the young man did not notice it, being much absorbed by the enjoyment of his good fortune and of the mental rest he so greatly needed. Mr. Juxon congratulated him warmly and expressed a hope, amounting to certainty, that John might actually be at the head of the Tripos; to which John modestly replied that he would be quite satisfied to be in the first ten, knowing in his heart that he should be most bitterly disappointed if he were second to any one. He sat opposite to his host in a deep chair beside the fire in the library and revelled in comfort and ease, enjoying every trifle that fell in his way, feeling only a very slight diffidence in regard to himself for the present and none at all for the future. The squire was so cordial that he felt himself thoroughly at home. Indeed Mr. Juxon already rejoiced at his wisdom in asking John to the Hall. The lad was strong, hopeful, well-balanced in every respect and his presence was an admirable tonic to the almost morbid state of anxiety in which the squire had lived ever since his interview with Policeman Gall, two days before. In the sunshine of John's young personality, fears grew small and hope grew big. The ideas which had passed through Mr. Juxon's brain on the previous evening, just after Mr. Ambrose had warned him of Goddard's intentions, seemed now like the evil shadows of a nightmare. All apprehension lest the convict should attempt to execute his threats disappeared like darkness before daylight, and in the course of an hour or two the squire found himself laughing and chatting with his guest as though there were no such things as forgery or convicts in the world. The afternoon passed very pleasantly between the examination of Mr. Juxon's treasures and the conversation those objects elicited. For John, who was an accomplished scholar, had next to no knowledge of bibliology and took delight in seeing for the first time many a rare edition which he had heard mentioned or had read of in the course of his studies. He would not have believed that he could be now talking on such friendly terms with a man for whom he had once felt the strongest antipathy, and Mr. Juxon on his part felt that in their former meetings he had not done full justice to the young man's undoubted talents.

As they drove down to the vicarage that evening Mrs. Goddard's name was mentioned for the first time. John, with a fine affectation of indifference, asked how she was.

"She has not been very well lately," answered Mr. Juxon.

"What has been the matter?" inquired John, who could not see his companion's face in the dark shade of the trees.

"Headache, I believe," returned the squire laconically, and silence ensued for a few moments. "I should not wonder if it rained again this evening," he added presently as they passed through the park gate, out into the road. The sky was black and it was hard to see anything beyond the yellow streak of light which fell from the lamps and ran along the road before the gig.