"A Novel" (continued 7)

He felt that he must act. That was the only way to find oblivion and repose from the incessant thought which troubled him. He started off with the intention of wearying his muscles, so as to lie down that night and win the sleep to which he was often now a stranger.

His first intent was to go right up by the cliff path, by Uncle Luke’s, and over the hill by his own place, but if he went that way there was the possibility of finding Uncle Luke leaning over the wall, gazing out at the starlit sea, and probably he would stop and question him.

That night his one thought was of being alone, and he took the opposite direction, went down to the ferry, hunted out the man from the inn hard by, and had himself rowed across the harbour, so as to walk along the cliff eastwards, and then strike in north and round by the head of the estuary, where he could recross by the old stone bridge, and reach home—a walk of a dozen miles.

At the end of a couple of miles along the rugged pathway, where in places the greatest care was needed to avoid going over some precipitous spot to the shore below, Leslie stopped short to listen to the hollow moaning sound of the waves, and he seated himself close to the cliff edge, in a dark nook, which formed one of the sheltered lookouts used by the coastguard in bad weather.

The sea glittered as if the surface were of polished jet, strewn with diamonds, and, impressed by the similarity of the scene to that of the night on which the search had been carried on after Harry Vine, Leslie’s thoughts went back to the various scenes which repeated themselves before his mental gaze from the beginning to that terrible finale when the remains lay stark and disfigured in the inn shed, and the saturated cards proclaimed who the dead man was.

“Poor girl!” he said half aloud, “and with all that trouble fresh upon her, and the feeling that she and her family are disgraced for ever, I go to her to press forward my selfish, egotistical love. God forgive me! What weak creatures we men are.”

He sat thinking, taking off his hat for the cool, moist sea air to fan his feverish temples, when the solemn silence of the starry night seemed to bring to him rest and repose such as he had not enjoyed since the hour when Aunt Marguerite planted that sharp, poisoned barb in his breast.

“It is not that,” he said to himself, with a sigh full of satisfaction. “She never felt the full force of love yet for any man, but if ever her gentle young nature turned towards any one, it was towards me. And, knowing this, I, in my impatience and want of consideration, contrived my own downfall. No, not my downfall; there is hope yet, and a few words rightly spoken will remove the past.”

The feverish sensation was passing away swiftly. The calm serenity of the night beneath the glorious dome of stars was bringing with it restfulness, and hope rose strongly, as, far away in the east, he saw a glittering point of light rise above the sea slowly higher and higher, a veritable star of hope to him.

“What’s that?” he said to himself, as heard above the boom of the waves which struck below and then filled some hollow and fell back with an angry hiss, he fancied he heard a sob.

There was no mistake; a woman was talking in a low, moaning way, and then there came another sob.

He rose quickly.

“Is anything the matter?” he said sharply.

“Ah! Why, how you frightened me! Is that you, Master Leslie?”

“Yes. Who is it? Poll Perrow?”

“Yes, Master Leslie, it’s me.”

“Why, what are you doing here?” said Leslie, as cynical old Uncle Luke’s hints about the smuggling flashed across his mind.

“Nothing to do with smuggling,” she said, as if divining his thoughts.

“Indeed, old lady! Well, it looks very suspicious.”

“No, it don’t, sir. D’you think if I wanted to carry any landed goods I should take ’em along the coastguard path?”

“A man would not,” said Leslie, “but I should say it’s just what a cunning old woman’s brain would suggest, as being the surest way to throw the revenue men off the scent.”

“Dessay you’re right, Master Leslie, but you may search me if you like. I’ve got nothing to-night.”

“I’m not going to search you, old lady. I’ll leave that to the revenue men. But what’s the matter?”

“Matter, Master Leslie?”

“Yes; I heard you sobbing. Are you in trouble?”

“Of course I am, sir. Aren’t I a lone widow?”

“So you have been these fifteen years.”

“Fourteen and three-quarters, sir.”

“Ah, well, I was near enough. But what is it, old lady? Want a little money?”

“No, no, no, Master Leslie, sir; and that’s very kind of you, sir; and if I don’t bring you up half-a-dozen of the finest mack’rel that come in these next days, my name aren’t Perrow.”

“Thank you. There, I don’t want to be inquisitive, but it seems strange for a woman like you to be crying away here on the cliff two miles from home on a dark night.”

“And it seems strange for a young gen’leman like you to be up here all alone and three miles from home. You was watching me, Master Leslie.”

“You’ll take my word, Poll Perrow,” said Leslie quietly. “I did not know you were here.”

“Yes, I’ll believe you, Master Leslie, sir. But you was watching someone else?”

“No, I came for a walk, my good woman, that’s all.”

“Then I won’t stop you, sir. Good night, sir.”

“Good night,” said Leslie; and feeling more content, he took out his cigar case, and after selecting one by feeling he went back into the coastguard’s station and struck a match.

He looked along the cliff path as the match flashed, and caught sight faintly of the old woman.

“Watching me anyhow,” he said to himself, as he lit his cigar. “Now, what can that old girl be doing here? She’s fifty-five if she’s a day, but if she is not courting and had a quarrel with her youthful lover, I’m what that old lady says that Van Heldre is—a Dutchman.”

He turned back along the path feeling comparatively light-hearted and restful. The long, dark, weary walk to tire himself was forgotten, and he went slowly back along the coastguard path, turning a little from time to time to gaze over his left shoulder at the brilliant planet which rose higher and higher over the glistening sea.

“Hope!” he said half aloud. “What a glorious word that is, and what a weary world this would be if there were none! Yes, I will hope.”

He walked slowly on, wondering whether Poll Perrow was watching and following him. Then he forgot all about her, for his thoughts were fixed upon the granite house across the estuary, and the sweet sad face of Louise half in shadow, half lit by the soft glow of the shaded lamp.

“Mr Vine will be back by now,” he said. “I might call in and ask how Van Heldre is to-night. It would he sociable, and I should see her, and let my manner show my sorrow for having grieved her and given her pain; and, is it possible to let her see that I am full of patient, abiding hope, that some day she will speak differently to the way in which she spoke to-day? Yes, a woman would read all that, and I will be patient and guarded now.”

It was astonishing how eager Duncan Leslie felt now to see what news George Vine had brought from Van Heldre’s; and with the beautiful absurdity of young men in his position, he never allowed himself to think that when he crossed the ferry he would be within a stone’s throw of the merchant’s house, and that all he need do was to knock and ask old Crampton or Mrs Van Heldre for the latest bulletin, which would be gladly given.

It was so much easier to go on by the house, make for the path which led up the steep slope, and go right to the home on the shelf of the cliff, and ask there.

Meanwhile, Louise Vine had seated herself by the dining-room table, with the light of the shaded lamp falling athwart her glossy hair, and half throwing up her sweet pale face, just as Leslie had pictured it far away upon the cliff. Now and then her needle glittered, but only at rare intervals, for she was deep in thought.

At times her eyes closed, and as she sat there bending forward, it seemed as if she slept; but her lips moved, and a piteous sigh escaped her overladen breast.

The night seemed hot and oppressive, and she rose after a time and unhasped the casement window, beneath the old painted glass coat-of-arms; and, as she approached it, dimly-seen by the light cast from behind her, she shuddered, for it struck her there was a black stain across the painting, and a shadowy dark mark obliterated the proud words of the old family motto.

As she threw back the easement she stood leaning her head against the window, gazing out into the starlit space, and listening to the faint whisper of the coming tide.

While she listened it seemed to her that the faint boom and rush of the water obliterated every other sound, as she tried in vain to detect her father’s step slowly ascending the steep path.

“Too soon—too soon,” she said softly, and she returned to her seat to try and continue her work, but the attempt was vain. The light fell upon her motionless hands holding a piece of some black material, the thread was invisible, and only at times a keen thin gleam of light betrayed the whereabouts of the needle. Her sad eyes were fixed on the dark opening of the window, through which she could see a scarcely defined patch of starry sky, while the soft night air gave her a feeling of rest, such as had come to the man who had told her that he loved.

“Never more,” she sighed at last; “that is all passed. A foolish dream.”

Making an effort over herself, she resumed her work, drawing the needle through quickly for a few moments, and trying hard to dismiss Duncan Leslie from her thoughts. As she worked, she pictured her father seated by Van Heldre’s side; and a feeling of thankfulness came over her as she thought of the warm friendship between her elders, and of how firm and staunch Van Heldre seemed to be. Then she thought of the home troubles with her Aunt Marguerite, and her father’s patient forbearance under circumstances which were a heavy trial to his patience.

“Poor Aunt Marguerite!” she sighed, as her hands dropped with her work, and she sat gazing across the table straight out at the starry heavens. “How she loved poor Harry in her way; and yet how soon he seems to have passed out of her mind!”

She sighed as the past came back with her brothers wilfulness and folly; but, throwing these weaknesses into the shade, there were all his frank, good qualities, his tenderness to her before the troubles seemed to wrench them apart; the happy hours they had passed with Madelaine as boy and girls together; all happy days—gone for ever, but which seemed to stand out now as parts of Harry’s life which were to be remembered to the exclusion of all that was terrible and black.

“My brother!” she breathed, as she gazed straight out seaward, and a faint smile passed her lips; “he loved me, and I could always win him over to my side.”

The thought seemed frozen in her brain, her half-closed eyes opened widely, the pupils dilated, and her lips parted more and more, as she sat there fixed to her seat, the chilly drops gathering on her white brow, and a thrill of horror coursing through her veins. For as she looked she seemed to have conjured up the countenance of her brother, to gaze in there by the open casement—the face as she had seen it last—when he escaped from her bedroom, but not flushed and excited; it was now pale, the eyes hollow, and his hair clinging unkempt about his brow.

Was she awake, or was this some evolution of her imagination, or were those old stories true that at certain times the forms of those we loved did return to visit the scenes where they had passed their lives? This then was such a vision of the form of the brother whom she loved; and she gazed wildly, with her eyes starting, excited, more than fearing, in the strange exaltation which she felt.

Then she sank back in her chair with the chill of dread now emphasised, as she gazed fixedly at the ghastly face, for she saw the lips part as if to speak, and she uttered a low, gasping sound, for from the open window came in a quick hoarse whisper—“Louy, why don’t you speak? Are you alone?”

Chapter Forty Three.

For Liberty and Life.

Naturalists and students of animal life tell us that the hunted deer sheds tears in its agony and fear, and that the hare is ignorant of what is before it, for its eyes are strained back in its dread as it watches the stride of the pursuing hounds.

The reverse of the latter was the case with Harry Vine, who in his horror and shame could only see forward right into the future. For there before him was himself—handcuffed, in gaol, before the magistrates, taking his trial, sentenced, and then he, the scion of a good family, inflated by the false hopes placed before him by his aunt, dressed in the broad-arrow convict’s suit, drudging on in his debased and weary life—the shame, the disgrace of those who loved him, and whom, in those brief moments of agony, he knew he dearly loved.

“Better death!”

He muttered these words between his teeth, as in a mad fit of cowardice and despair, he turned suddenly at the end of the rock pier and plunged headlong into the eddying tide.

Whatever the will may wish at such a time, instinct always seems to make a frantic effort to combat this mad will, and the struggle for life begins.

It was so here, for the sudden plunge into the cold dark water produced its instantaneous effect. The nerves and muscles grew tense, and after being borne for some distance straight out to sea, Harry Vine rose to the surface, and in obedience to the natural instinct of a good swimmer, struck out and tried to regain the pier.

But as he turned he hesitated. There were the police waiting for him when he landed, and his people were on the shore waiting to see him disgraced—for he was, of course, in utter ignorance of the efforts that had been made to enable him to escape. And even as he hesitated he knew that such a proceeding was impossible. Had he been tenfold the swimmer he could not have reached that point, for the current, after coming from the west and striking full against the rocks, was bearing him seaward at a tremendous rate. The voices that had been in a clamour of excitement and the shouts and orders were growing distant; the lights that were flashing over the water seemed minute by minute more faint, and as, almost without effort, he floated on, he wondered at the feeling of calm, matter-of-fact reasoning which the cold plunge seemed to have aroused.

Always a clever swimmer from the days when the sturdy fisherman Perrow had tied a stout hake-line about his waist, and bid him leap into the sea from the lugger’s side, and taught him to feel confidence in the water, he had never felt so much at home as now. He was clothed, but the strong current bore him along, and the slightest movement of his limbs kept him with his nostrils clear of the golden-spangled water.

What should he do?

He looked seaward, and there, right off the harbour mouth, was a lantern. He could not make out the shape of the boat; but his guilty conscience suggested that it was one placed there by the police for his capture; shoreward he could see other moving lights, and he knew as well as if he were there that they were boat lanterns, and that people were putting off in pursuit.

It did not seem to occur to him that they would be essaying to save him; he had committed an offence against the law, and in his then frame of mind he could only admit one thought in connection with them into his brain, and that was that any boat’s crew which pushed off would have but one idea—to make every effort to capture him, and so he swam, letting the swift tide carry him where it would.

Shouts arose, sounding faint and strange as they came from where the lanterns gleamed faintly; and there was an answering hail from the light off the harbour—the light toward which he was being borne.

“They’ll see me,” he thought, and he made a few vigorous strokes to turn aside, but gave up directly, as he felt it possible that he might be carried by in the darkness.

To his horror, he found that he would be taken so close, that he could easily swim to and touch the boat. For one moment fear swayed him of another kind, and he felt that he must give up.

“Better be taken aboard to prison than drown,” he muttered; and he swam toward the boat.

“Better be drowned then taken off to prison,” he said the next moment; and then, “why should I drown?”

His confidence returned as he was borne nearer and nearer to the lugger riding here to its buoy; and he could hear the voices of the men on board talking eagerly as they gazed shoreward.

“Keep a bright look-out,” said a rough voice; and Harry ceased swimming after turning over on his back, and let the current bear him swiftly and silently along.

The spangled water seemed hardly disturbed by his presence as he neared the light, then saw it eclipsed by the boat’s hull, just as he felt that he must be seen. Then he was past the boat, and in a few seconds the light reappeared from the other side, shining full upon his white face, but the men were looking in the other direction and he was not seen.

Once more the horror of drowning came upon him, and he turned on his face to swim back. It was only a momentary sensation, and as he swam and felt his power in the water he closed the lips firmly that had parted to hail, and swam on.

The shouts came and were answered from time to time, he could hear the regular rattle and beat of an oar, and then the blue light flashed out brilliantly, and as he raised himself at each long steady stroke he could see quite a crowd of figures had gathered on the pier, and he was startled to see how far he was from the shore. And all this time there upon his left was the bright red harbour-light, glaring at him like an eye, which seemed to be watching him and waiting to see him drown. At times it looked to be so lifelike that it appeared to blink at him, and as he swam on he ceased to gaze at the dull yellow light of the moving lanterns, and kept on watching that redder eye-like lamp.

The blue light blazed for a time like a brilliant star and then died out; the shouts of the men in the boat floated to him, and the lights of the town grew farther away as he still swam steadily on with a sea of stars above him, and another concave of stars apparently below; on his right the open sea, and on his left, where the dull land was, arose a jagged black line against the starry sky showing the surface of the cliff.

“What shall I do?” he said to himself, as he looked back at light after light moving slowly on the water, but all far behind him, for he was, as he well knew, in one of the swiftest currents running due east of the quay, and for a distance from that point due south. It was a hard question to answer. He might swim on for an hour—he felt as if he could swim for two—and what then?

He could not tell, but all the time the tide was bearing him beyond the reach of pursuit so fast that the hails grew more faint, and every minute now the roar of the surf grew plainer.

Should he swim ashore—land—and escape?

Where to? “Hah!”

He uttered a faint cry, for just then his hand touched something cold and slimy, and for the moment he felt paralysed, as he recalled how often a shark had come in with the tide. For the object he had touched seemed to glide by him, and what felt like a slimy moving fin swept over his hand. He struck out now with all his strength, blindly, and moved solely by one impulse—that of escaping from a death so hideous—a chill of horror ran through him, and for the moment he felt half paralysed. The sensation was agonising, and the strokes he gave were quick, spasmodic, and of the kind given by a drowning man; but as he swam on and the moments passed without his being seized, the waning courage began to return strongly once more, he recovered his nerve, and ceasing his frantic efforts swam slowly on.

The efforts he had made had exhausted him, however, and he turned over on his back to rest, and lie paddling gently, gazing straight up at the glorious stars which burned so brilliantly overhead. The change was restful, and conscious that the current swept him still swiftly along, he turned once more and began to swim.

That fit of excitement, probably from touching some old weed-grown piece of timber, must have lasted longer than he thought, for he had toiled on heedless of which direction he took, and this direction had been shoreward, the current had done the rest; and now that he swam it was into one of the back tidal eddies, and the regular dull roar and rush and the darkness ahead taught him that he was only a few hundred yards from the cliffs. He rose up as he swam and looked sharply from side to side, to see a faint lambent light where the phosphorescent waves broke, and before him the black jagged line which seemed to terminate the golden-spangled heavens, where the stars dipped down behind the shore.

He hesitated for a few moments—not for long. It was madness to strike out again into the swift current, when in a short time he could land or, if not, reach one of the detached masses of rock, and rest there till the tide went down. But what to do then? Those who searched for him would be certain to hunt along the shore, and to land and strike inland was, in his drenched condition, to invite capture.

He shuddered at the thought, and awaking now to the fact that he was rapidly growing exhausted, he swam on into the black band that seemed to stretch beneath the cliffs.

He was weaker than he realised, and, familiar as he was with this part of the coast, it now in the darkness assumed a weird, horrifying aspect; the sounds grew, in his strangely excited state, appalling, and there were moments when he felt as if the end had come. For as he swam on it was every now and then into some moving mass of anchored wrack, whose slimy fronds wrapped round and clung to his limbs, hampering his movements and calling forth a desperate struggle before he could get clear.

Then, as he reached the broken water, in spite of the lambent glare he struck himself severely again and again upon some piece of jagged rock, once so heavily that he uttered a moan of pain, and floated helplessly and half unnerved, listening to the hissing rush and hollow gasping of the waves as they plunged in and out among the cavities and hollows of the rocks. A hundred yards out the sea was perfectly smooth, but here in shore, as the tidal swell encountered the cliffs, the tide raced in and out through the chaos of fallen blocks like some shoal of mad creatures checked in their career and frightened in their frantic efforts to escape.

Then every now and then came a low hollow moan like a faint and distant explosion, followed by the rattling of stones, and a strange whispering, more than enough to appal the stoutest swimmer cast there in the darkness of the night.

Three times over was the fugitive thrown across a mass of slimy rock, to which, losing heart now, he frantically clung, but only to be swept off again, confused, blinded by the spray and with the water thundering in his ears. Once his feet touched bottom, and he essayed to stand for a moment to try and wade across, but he only stepped directly into a deep chasm, plunging over his head, to rise beating the waves wildly, half strangled, and in the strange numbed feeling of confusion which came over him, his efforts grew more feeble, his strokes more aimless, and as once more he went under and rose with the clinging weeds about his neck, the fight seemed to be over, and he threw back his head gasping for breath.

Rush! A wave curled right over, swept him from among the clammy weed, and the next moment his head was driven against a mass of rock.

What followed seemed to take place in a feverish dream. He had some recollection afterwards of trying to clamber up the rough limpet-bossed rock, and of sinking down with the water plunging about his eyes and leaping at intervals right up his chest, but some time elapsed before he thoroughly realised his position, and dazed and half helpless climbed higher up to lie where the rock was dry, listening with a shudder to the strange sounds of the hurrying tide, and gazing up from time to time at the watching stars.

Chapter Forty Four.

A Place of Refuge.

If ever miserable wretch prayed for the light of returning day that wretch was Harry Vine. It seemed hours of agony during which the water hissed and surged all round him, as if in search of the victim who has escaped before the faint light in the east began to give promise of the morn.

Two or three times over he had noted a lantern far out toward the distant harbour, but to all appearances the search had ceased for the night, and he was too cold and mentally stunned to heed that now.

He had some idea of where he must be—some three miles from the little harbour, but he could not be sure, and the curve outward of the land hid the distant light.

Once or twice he must have slept and dreamed in a fevered way, for he started into wakefulness with a cry of horror, to sit chilled and helpless for the rest of the night, trying to think out his future, but in a confused, dreamy way that left him where he had started at the first.

As the day broke he knew exactly where he was, recollecting the rock as one to which he had before now rowed with one of the fishermen, the deep chasms at its base being a favourite resort of conger. Hard by were the two zorns to which they had made the excursion that day, and searched for specimens for his father’s hobby—that day when he had overbalanced himself and fallen in.

Those zorns! either of those caves would form a hiding place.

“That is certain to be seen,” he said bitterly, and with the feeling upon him that even then some glass might be directed toward the isolated rock on which he sat, a hundred yards from the cliff, in a part where the shore was never bared even at the lowest tides, he began to lower himself into the deep water to swim ashore and climb up the face of the cliff in search of some hiding place.

He was bitterly cold and longing for the sunshine, so that he might gain a little warmth for his chilled limbs, and under the circumstances it seemed in his half-dried condition painful in the extreme to plunge into the water again.

Half in he held on by the side of the barnacle-covered rock, and scanned the face of the cliff, nearly perpendicular facing there, and seeming to offer poor foothold unless he were daring in the extreme.

He was too weak and weary to attempt it, and he turned his eyes to the right with no better success.

“Better give up,” he said bitterly. “I couldn’t do it now.”

As he gazed to his left the rock, however, seemed more practicable. There was a chasm there, up which it would certainly be possible to climb, and, feeling more hopeful, he was about to make the attempt, when a flush of excitement ran though him. There in full view, not fifty yards to the left, was the zig-zag water-way up which they had sent the boat that day toward the narrow hole at the foot of the cliff, the little entrance to the cavern into which he had swum, and there sat for his own amusement, startling the occupants of the boat.

“The very place!” he thought. “No one would find me there.”

His heart began to throb, and a warm glow seemed to run through his chilled limbs as carefully picking his time, he swam amongst the waving seaweed to the narrow channel, and then in and out, as he had gone on that bright sunny day which seemed to him now as if it was far away in the past, when he was a careless, thoughtless boy, before he had become a wretched, hunted man.

The sun, little by little, rose above the sea and flooded the face of the rocks; the black water became amethystine and golden, and the mysterious gasping and moaning sounds of the current were once more the playful splashings of the waves as they leaped up the empurpled rocks and fell in glittering cascades. It was morning, glorious morning once again, and the black, frowning cliffs of the terrible night were now hope-inspiring in their hanging wreaths of clustering ivy and golden stars.

The swell bore him on, and he rode easily to the mouth of the cave, a low rift now that was nearly hidden when a wave ran up, and when it retired not more than a yard high. And as he recalled the day when he swam in his hopes rose higher, for even if careful search were made it was not likely that any one would venture into such a place as that. Then, as he held on by a piece of rock at the mouth, he hesitated, for strange whispering sounds and solemn gurgling came out as he peered in. Where he clung, with his shoulders above the water, all was now bright sunshine; beneath that rough arch all was weird and dark, and it was not until he had felt how possible it was that he might be seen that he gave a frightened glance in the direction of the harbour, and then, drawing a long breath, waited for the coming of a wave, lowering himself down at the right moment, and allowing the water to bear him in.

He must have glided in, riding, as it were, on that wave some twenty or thirty yards, when, after a hissing, splashing, and hollow echoing noise, as a heavy breath of pent-up air, like the expiration of some creature struck upon his face, he felt that he was being drawn back.

The rugged sides of the place, after his hands had glided over the clinging sea-anemones for a few moments, gave him a firm hold, and as the wave passed out he found bottom beneath his feet, and waded on in the darkness with a faint shadow thrown by the light at the mouth before him.

The place opened out right and left, and as his eyes grew more used to the gloom he found himself in a rugged chamber rising many feet above his head, and continuing in a narrow rift right on into the darkness. Where he stood the water was about three feet deep, and his feet rested on soft sand, while, as he continually groped along sidewise, he found the water shallowed. Then another wave rushed in, darkening the place slightly, and it seemed to pass him, and to go on and on into the depths of the narrow rift onward, and return. The tide he knew was falling, so that some hours must elapse before there was any danger of his being shut in and deprived of air, while there was the possibility of the cavern being secure in that respect, and remaining always sufficiently open for him to breathe. But there were other dangers. There might be enough air, but too much water, and at the next tide he might be shut in and drowned. Then there was starvation staring him in the face. But on the other side there was a balance to counteract all this; he had found sanctuary, and as long as he liked to make this place his refuge he felt that he would be safe.

The waves came and went, always pursuing their way along a rift-like channel inward, while he cautiously groped his way along to the left into the darkness, with the water shallowing, and his hands as he went on, bent nearly double, splashing in the water or feeling the rough, rocky wall, which at times he could not reach, on account of the masses projecting at the foot.

The place was evidently fairly spacious, and minute by minute, as more of the outer sunshine penetrated, and his eyes grew accustomed to the place, it became filled with a dim greenish light, just sufficient to show him the dripping roof about ten feet above him, while all below was black.

All at once, as he waded in with the water now to his knees, his hands touched something wet, cold, and yielding, and he started back in horror, with the splashing noise he made echoing strangely from the roof.

For the moment his imagination conjured up the form of some hideous sea-monster, which must make the zorn its home, but once more sense and experience of the coast told him that the creature he had touched must be a seal, and that the animal, probably more frightened than he was himself, had escaped now out into the open water.

A couple of yards farther and he was on dry sand, while, on feeling about, he found that the side of the cave had been reached, and that he could climb up over piled-up rocks heaped with sand till he could touch the roof.

For some few minutes, as he stood there with the water streaming from him, he could not make out whether the heaped-up sand which filled in the rifts among the rocks was thoroughly dry or only lately left by the tide, but at last, feeling convinced that no water, save such as might have dripped from the roof, could have touched it, he carefully explored it with his hands till he found a suitable place, where he could sit down and rest.

He was so near the roof that the sandy spot he selected seemed to be more suitable for reclining than sitting, and, lying down, chilled to the very marrow, he tried to think, but could only get his thoughts to dwell upon the rushing in of the waves as he watched them coming along what seemed to be a broad beam of light, and go on and on past where he lay right into a dimly-seen rift to his left.

He was cold, hungry, and wretched. A feeling of utter hopelessness and despair seemed to rob him of the power to act and think. His wet clothes clung to him, and it was not till he had lain there some time that the thought occurred to him to try and wring out some of the water. This he at last did, and then lay down to think once more.

He had not so much difficulty in making out the shape of the place now, but it presented few differences from the many rifts in the rocks which he had examined when boating. There were dimly-seen shell-fish on the sides, scarce specimens such as would at one time have gladdened his father’s heart, just visible by the opening, which grew brighter and brighter as the tide went down, and the entrance broadened till a new dread assailed him, and that was that the place would be so easy of access that he would be sought for and found.

The bitter, chilled sensation seemed to abate somewhat now, but he was tortured by hunger and thirst. Every louder lap or splash of the waves made him start and try to make out the shadow of a coming boat, but these frights passed off, leaving him trying still to think of the future and what he should do.

How beautiful the water seemed! That glistening band where the light fell, and cut on either side by a band of inky blackness, while the light was thrown from the water in curious reflections on the glistening rock, which seemed to be covered with a frosted metal of a dazzling golden green.

He could think of that, and of the amethystine water which ran on through what was evidently a deep channel, into the far depths of the cave, along which, in imagination, he followed it on and on right into the very bowels of the earth, a long, strange journey of curve and zig-zag, with the water ever rushing and gurgling on, and the noise growing fainter and fainter till it was just a whisper, then the merest breath, and then utter darkness and utter silence.

The excitement and exhaustion of the past night were playing their part now, and Harry Vine lay utterly unconscious of everything around.

Chapter Forty Five.

The Horror in the Zorn.

“Yes! What is it? Aunt Marguerite ill?”

Harry Vine started up, listening.

“Did any one call?”

There was no reply, and he sat there listening, still with the impression strong upon him that he had heard someone knock at his bedroom door and call him by name.

Then a curious sense of confusion came over him as he tried to make out what it meant. His head was hot, but his hands were cold, and he felt that he ought to know something which constantly eluded his mental grasp.

Land—rock—water running, gurgling, and splashing, and utter darkness. Where was he? What did it all mean?

For along time the past was a blank. Then, as he sat with his hands pressed to his head, staring wildly before him, it all came back like a flash—his trouble, the escape, the long swim, and his taking refuge in this cave.

Then he must have slept all day, and it was now night, or else the tide had risen above the mouth of the entrance and the water was slowly rising to strangle him, and Heaven have mercy upon him, there was no escape!

He began to creep down slowly toward the water, determined to swim with the next retiring wave, and try to reach the shore. Even if he drowned in the effort, it would be better than sitting there in that horrible cave, waiting for a certain death.

But he found that comparatively he had to descend some distance before he could feel the water, and as he touched it with his extended hand, he fancied that he could detect a gleam of light.

For a long time he could not convince himself that it was not fancy, but at last he was sure that there was a faint reflection as from a star whose light struck obliquely in. Then the month of the cave was open still and he could swim out if he wished. But did he wish?

He felt about, and in a short time could distinguish by the sense of touch now high the tide had risen, and that it had not been within a couple of feet of where he had lain, where the sand was quite warm still. He too was dry, and therefore it must be night, and he had been plunged in a state of stupor for many hours. Suddenly a thought struck him.

He had a match-box in his pocket, a little tight-fitting, silver match-box, which held a few cigar lights. That match-box was inside his cigar case, and both fitted so lightly that the water might have been kept out. A light, if only for a few moments, would convince him of his position, and then there were his cigars. He was ravenously hungry now, and if he smoked that would perhaps dull the sensation.

He drew out his cigar case and opened it, and took out a cigar. This was dry comparatively; and as with trembling fingers he felt the little silver case, he wondered whether it closed tightly enough to keep out the water.

He took out a match. It felt dry, and the box was quite warm, but when he gave the match one rub on the sand-faced end, he obtained nothing but a faint line of light. He tried again and again, but in vain; and hesitated about testing another match till some hours had passed.

He could not resist the temptation, and taking another of the frail waxen tapers, he struck it sharply, and to his great delight it emitted a sharp, crackling sound. Another stroke and it flashed out, and there beamed steadily a tiny clear flame which lit up the place, revealing that it was just such a zorn as his touch and imagination had painted, while the water was about a couple of feet below where he knelt on the sand, and—

The young man uttered a wild cry of horror, the nearly extinct match fell from his fingers, and burned out sputtering on the wet sands at his feet.

His first effort was to crawl right away as high up as possible, and there, shuddering and confused, he sat, or, rather, crouched, gazing down beyond where the match had fallen.

At times he could see a tiny, wandering point of light in the water, which gradually faded out, and after this seemed to reappear farther away, but otherwise all was black and horrible once more. More than once he was tempted to walk down into the water and swim out, but in his half-delirious, fevered state he shrank from doing this, and waited there in the darkness, suffering agonies till, after what seemed to be an interminable time, there was a faint, pearly light in the place which gradually grew and grew till it became opalescent, then growing, and he knew that the sun had risen over the sea.

Half frantic with horror, a sudden resolve came upon him. There was so strong a light now in the cavern that he could dimly see the object which had caused him so much dread, an object which he had touched when he first waded in, and imagined to be a seal.

Trembling with excitement, he crept down to the water’s edge, waded in to his knees, and in haste, forcing himself now to act, he drew from where it lay entangled among the rocks, the body of a drowned man, the remains of one of the brave fellows who had been lost at the wreck of Van Heldre’s vessel. The body was but slightly wedged in just as it had been floated in by a higher tide than usual, and left on the far side of some piece of rock when the water fell, but had not since risen high enough to float it out.

The horrifying object yielded easily enough as he drew it away along the surface, and he was about to wade and swim with it to the mouth, when he stopped short, for a sudden thought occurred to him.

It was a horrible thought, but in his excitement he did not think of that, for in the dim light he could see enough to show him that it was the body of a young man of about his own physique, still clothed and wearing a rough pea-jacket.

Disguise—a means of evading justice—the opportunity for commencing anew and existing till his crime had been forgotten, and then some day making himself known to those who thought him dead.

“They think me dead now,” he muttered excitedly. “They must. They shall.”

Without pausing for further thought, and without feeling now the loathsome nature of the task, he quickly stripped the pea-jacket and rough vest from the dead form, and trembling with excitement now in place of fear, tore off his own upper garments, pausing for a few moments to take out pocket-book and case and cigars, but only to empty out the latter, thrust the book and case back, and at the end of a few minutes he was standing in shirt and trousers, the rough jacket and vest lying on the sands, and the form of the drowned sailor tightly buttoned in the dry garments just put on.

Harry stood trembling for a few minutes, shrinking from achieving his task. Then with the full knowledge that the body if borne out of the cave would be swept here and there by the current, perhaps for days, and finally cast ashore not many miles away, he softly waded into the water, drew the waif of the sea along after him, right away to the mouth of the cave, where he cautiously peered out, and made well sure that no fishermen were in sight before swimming with his ghastly burden along the zig-zag channel, out beyond the rocks, where after a final thrust, he saw the current bear it slowly away before he returned shuddering into the cave, and then landed on the dry sand to crawl up and crouch there.

“They think me dead,” he said in a husky whisper, “let them find that, and be sure.”

He was silent for a time, and then as the thoughts of the past flooded his soul, he burst into a wild fit of sobbing.

“Home—sister—Madelaine,” he moaned, “gone, gone for ever! Better that I had died; better that I was dead?”

But the horror was no longer there, and in a short time he roused up from his prostrate condition half wild and faint with hunger.

After a few minutes’ search he found a couple of his cigars lying where he had thrown them on the sand, and lighting one, he tried to dull the agony of famine by smoking hard.

The effect was little, and he rose from where he was seated and began to feel about the shelves of the rock for limpets, a few of which he scraped from their conical shells and ate with disgust; but they did something towards alleviating his hunger, and seemed to drive away the strange half-delirious feeling which came over him from time to time, making him look wildly round, and wonder whether this was all some dreadful dream.

About mid-day he heard voices and the beating of oars, when, wading towards the opening, he stood listening, and was not long in convincing himself that the party was in search of him, while a word or two that he heard spoken made him think that the party must have picked up the body of the drowned sailor.

The voices and the sound of the oars died away, and in the midst of the deep silence he crept nearer and peered out, to be aware that a couple of boats were passing about a quarter of a mile out, while from their hailing some one, it seemed that a third boat, invisible to the fugitive, was coming along nearer in.

He crept back into the semi-darkness and listened with his ear close to the water, till, after a time, as he began to conclude that this last boat must have gone back, and he wondered again and again whether the drifting body had been found, he heard voices once more, every word coming now with marvellous clearness.

“No, sir, only a bit of a crevice.”

“Does it go far in?”

“Far in, Mr Leslie, sir? Oh, no. Should waste time by going up there. You can see right up to the mouth, and there’s nothing.”

“But the current sets in there.”

“Yes, sir, and comes out round that big rock yonder. Deal more likely place for him to ha’ been washed up farther on.”

“Leslie, and in search of me,” said Harry to himself as the boat passed by. “Yes; they do believe I’m dead.”

That day dragged wearily on with the occupant of the cave, tossed by indecision from side to side till the shadow began to deepen, when, unable to bear his sufferings longer, he crept out of the opening with the full intent of climbing the cliff, and throwing himself on the mercy of one of the cottagers, if he could find no other means of getting food.

The tide was low, and he was standing hesitating as to which way to go, when he turned cold with horror, for all at once he became aware of the fact that not fifty yards away there was a figure stooping down with a hand resting on the rock, peering into an opening as if in search of of him.

His first instinct was to dart back into the cavern, but in the dread that the slightest movement or sound would attract attention, he remained fixed to the spot, while the figure waded knee deep to another place, and seemed to be searching there, for an arm was plunged deeply into the water, a rope raised, and after a good deal of hauling, a dripping basket was drawn out and a door opened at the side, and flapping its tail loudly, a good-sized lobster was brought out and deposited in the basket the figure bore upon her back.

“Mother Perrow!” exclaimed Harry beneath his breath, and then an excited mental debate took place. “Dare he trust her, or would she betray him?”

Fear was mastering famine, when Poll Perrow, after rebaiting her lobster pot, was about to throw it back into deep water, but dropped it with a splash, and stood staring hard at the shivering man.

“Master Harry!” she exclaimed, and, basket on back, she came through water and over rock toward him with wonderful agility for a woman of her age. “Why, my dear lad,” she cried in a voice full of sympathy, “is it you?”

“Yes, Poll,” he said tremulously, “it is I.”

“And here have I been trying to find you among the rocks while I looked at my crab pots. For I said to myself, ‘If Master Harry’s washed up anywhere along the coast, there’s nobody more like to find him than me.’ And you’re not dead after all.”

“No, Poll Perrow,” he said agitatedly, “I’m not dead.”

“Come on back home,” she cried. “I am glad I found you. Master Vine and Miss Louise, oh, they will be glad!”

“Hush, woman!” he gasped, “not a word. No one must know you have seen me.”

“Lor’, and I forget all about that,” she said in a whisper. “More I mustn’t. There’s the police and Master Leslie, and everybody been out in boats trying to find you washed up, you know.”

“And now you’ve found me, and will go and get the reward,” he said bitterly.

“I don’t know nothing about no reward,” said the woman staring hard at him. “Why, where’s your jacket and weskut? Aren’t you cold?”

“Cold? I’m starving,” he cried. “You look it. Here, what shall I do? Go and get you something to eat?”

“Yes—no!” he cried bitterly. “You’ll go and tell the police.”

“Well, I am ashamed o’ you, Master Harry, that I am.”

“But it was all a misfortune, Poll Perrow, an accident. I am not guilty. I’m not indeed.”

“I warn’t talking about that,” said the woman surlily, “but ’bout you saying I should tell the police. It’s likely, aren’t it?”

“Then you will not tell—you will not betray me?”

“Yah! are it likely, Master Harry? Did I tell the pleece ’bout Mark Nackley when he was in trouble over the smuggling and hid away?”

“But I am innocent; I am indeed.”

“All right, my lad, all right, Master Harry. If you says so, that’s ’nough for me. Here, I’ll go and tell Master Vine I’ve found you.”

“No, no; he thinks I’m dead.”

“Well, everybody does; and I said it was a pity such a nice, handsome young lad should be drowned like that. I told my Liza so.”

“My father must not know.”

“Miss Louy then?”

“No, no. You must keep it a secret from everybody, unless you want to see me put in prison.”

“Now is that likely, my lad? Here, I’ve got it. I’ll go and tell Master Luke Vine.”

“Worst of all. No; not a word to a soul.”

“All right, Master Harry; I can keep my mouth shut when I try. But what are you going to do?”

“I don’t know yet. I’m hiding yonder.”

“What! in the little seal zorn?”

“Yes. Don’t betray me, woman, pray!”

“Betray you, Master Harry? You know I won’t.”

“You will not tell a soul?”

“You tell me not to tell nobody, and I won’t say a word even to my Liza. But they’re seeking for you everywhere—dead. Oh! My dear lad, shake hands. I am glad you warn’t drowned.”

The warm grasp of the rough woman’s coarse hand and the genuine sympathy in her eyes were too much for Harry Vine. Weak from mental trouble—more weak from hunger—manhood, self-respect, everything passed from him as he sank upon one of the hard pieces of weedy rock; and as the woman bent over him and laid her hands upon his shoulder, he flung his arms about her, let his head sink upon her breast, and cried like a child.

“Why, my poor, poor boy!” she said tenderly, with her hard wooden stay busk creaking in front, and her maund basket creaking behind, “don’t—don’t cry like that, or—or—or—there, I knew I should,” she sobbed, as her tears came fast, and her voice sounded broken and hoarse.

“There, what an old fool I am! Now, look here; you want to hide for a bit, just as if it was brandy or a bit o’ lace.”

“Yes, Poll; yes.”

“Then wait till it’s dark, and then come on to my cottage.”

“No, no,” he groaned; “I dare not.”

“And you that cold and hungry?”

“I’ve tasted nothing but the limpets since that night.”

“Limpets!” she cried, with a tone of contempt in her voice, “why they ain’t even good for bait. And there are no mussels here. Look here, my dear lad, I’ve got a lobster. No, no; it’s raw. Look here; you go back to where you hide, and I’ll go and get you something to eat, and be back as soon as I can.”

“You will?” he said pitifully.

“Course I will.”

“And you’ll keep my secret?”

“Now don’t you say that again, my lad, because it aggravates me. There, you go back and wait, and if I don’t come again this side of ten o’clock Poll Perrow’s dead!”

She bent down, kissed his cold forehead, and hurried back among the rocks, splashing and climbing, till he saw her begin to ascend the narrow rift in the cliff; and in a few minutes the square basket, which looked like some strange crustacean of monstrous size creeping out of the sea and up the rocks, disappeared in the gathering gloom; and Harry Vine, half-delirious from hunger, crept slowly back into the cave, half wondering whether it was not all a dream.

Chapter Forty Six.

The Friend of Adversity.

It was a dream from which he was aroused three hours later—a wild dream of a banquet served in barbaric splendour, but whose viands seemed to be snatched from his grasp each time he tried to satisfy the pangs which seemed to gnaw him within. He had fallen into a deep sleep, in which he had remained conscious of his hunger, though in perfect ignorance of what had taken place around.

His first thought was of capture, for his head was clear now, and he saw a rough hand as he gazed up wildly at a dim horn lantern.

The dread was but momentary, for a rough voice full of sympathy said:—

“There, that’s right. Sit up, my dear, and keep the blankets round you. They’re only wet at one corner. I did that bringing them in. There, drink that!”

He snatched at the bottle held to him, and drank with avidity till it was drawn away.

“That’ll put some life into you, my dear; it’s milk, and brandy too. Now eat that. It’s only bread and hake, but it was all I could manage now. To-morrow I’ll bring you something better, or I’ll know the reason why.”

Grilled fish still warm, and pleasant home-made bread. It was a feast to the starving man; and he sat there with a couple of blankets sending warmth into his chilled limbs, while the old fish-woman sat and talked after she had placed the lantern upon the sand.

“Let them go on thinking so,” said Harry at last. “Better that I should be dead to every one I know.”

“Now, Master Harry, don’t you talk like that. You don’t know what may happen next. You’re talking in the dark now. When you wake up in the sunshine to-morrow morning you’ll think quite different to this.”

“No,” he said, “I must go right away; but I shall stay in hiding here for a few days first. Will you bring me a little food from time to times unknown to any one?”

“Why of course I will, dear lad. But why don’t you put on your pea-jacket and weskit. They is dry now.”

Harry shuddered as he glanced at the rough garments the woman was turning over.

“Throw them here on the dry sand,” he said hastily. “I don’t want them now.”

“There you are then, dear lad,” said the old woman, spreading out the drowned man’s clothes; “p’r’aps they are a bit damp yet. And now I must go. There’s what’s left in the bottle, and there’s a fried mack’rel and the rest of the loaf. That’ll keep you from starving, and to-morrow night I’ll see if I can’t bring you something better.”

“And you’ll be true to me?”

“Don’t you be afraid of that,” said the old woman quietly, as Harry clasped her arm.

“Why, you are quite wet,” he said.

“Wet! Well, if you’ll tell me how to get in there with the tide pretty high and not be wet I should like to know it. Why, I had hard work to keep the basket out of the water, and one corner did go in.”

“And you’ll have to wade out,” said Harry thoughtfully.

“Well, what of that? How many times have I done the same to get alongside of a lugger after fish? Drop o’ salt water won’t hurt me, Master Harry; I’m too well tanned for that.”

“I seem to cause trouble and pain to all I know,” he said mournfully.

“What’s a drop o’ water?” said the old woman with a laugh. “Here, you keep that lantern up in the corner, so as nobody sees the light. There’s another candle there, and a box o’ matches: and now I’m going. Good-bye, dear lad.”

“Good-bye,” he said; with a shudder; “I trust you, mind.”

“Trust me! Why, of course you do. Good night.”

“One moment,” said Harry. “What is the time?”

“Lor’, how particular people are about the time when they’ve got naught to do. Getting on for twelve, I should say. There, good night. Don’t you come and get wet, too.”

She stepped boldly into the water, and waded on with the depth increasing till it was to her shoulders, and then Harry Vine watched her till she disappeared, and the yellow light of the lantern shone on the softly heaving surface, glittering with bubbles, which broke and flashed. Then, by degrees, the rushing sound made by the water died out, and the lit-up place seemed more terrible than the darkness of the nights before.

The time glided on; now it was day, now it was night; but day or night, that time seemed to Harry Vine one long and terrible punishment. He heard the voices of searchers in boats and along the cliffs overhead, and sat trembling with dread lest he should be discovered: and with but one thought pressing ever—that as soon as Poll Perrow could tell him that the heat of the search was over, he must escape to France, not in search of the family estates, but to live in hiding, an exile, till he could purge his crime.

After a while he got over the terrible repugnance, and put on the rough pea-jacket and vest which had lain upon a dry piece of the rock, for the place was chilly, and in his inert state he was glad of the warmth; while as the days slowly crept by, his sole change was the coming of the old fish-woman with her basket punctually, almost to the moment, night by night.

He asked her no questions as to where she obtained the provender she brought for him, but took everything mechanically, and in a listless fashion, never even wondering how she could find him in delicacies as well as in freshly-cooked fish and home-made bread. Wine and brandy he had, too, as much as he wished; and when there was none for him, it was Poll Perrow who bemoaned the absence, not he.

“Poor boy!” she said to herself, “he wants it all badly enough, and he shall have what he wants somehow, and if my Liza don’t be a bit more lib’ral, I’ll go and help myself. It won’t be stealing.”

Several times over she had so much difficulty in obtaining supplies that she determined to try Madelaine and the Van Heldres; but her success was not great.

“If he’d only let me tell ’em,” she said, “it would be as easy as easy.” But at the first hint of taking any one into their confidence, Harry broke out so fiercely in opposition that the old woman said no more.

“No,” he said; “I’m dead—they believe I’m dead. Let them think so still. Some day I may go to them and tell them the truth, but now let them think I’m dead.”

“Which they do now,” said the old woman.

“What do you mean?”

She hesitated to tell him what had taken place, but he pressed her fiercely, and at last he sat trembling with horror, and with great drops bedewing his brow as she told him of the finding of the body and what had followed.

It was only what he had planned and looked for, but the fruition seemed too horrible to bear, and at last a piteous groan escaped from his breast.

That night, after the old woman had gone, the food she had obtained from his old home remained untouched, and he lay there upon the sand listening to the sighing wind and the moaning and working of the waves, picturing the whole scene vividly—the finding of the body, the inquest, and the funeral.

“Yes,” he groaned again and again, “I am dead. I pray God that I may escape now, forgotten and alone, to begin a new life.”

He pressed his clasped hands to his rugged brow, and thought over his wasted opportunities, the rejected happiness of his past youth, and there were moments when he was ready to curse the weak old woman who had encouraged him in the chimerical notions of wealth and title. But all that passed off.

“I ought to have known better,” he said bitterly. “Poor weak old piece of vanity! Poor Louise! My sweet, true sister! Father!” he groaned, “my indulgent, patient father! Poor old honest, manly Van Heldre! Madelaine! my lost love!” And then, rising to his knees for the first time since his taking refuge in the cave, he bowed himself down in body and spirit in a genuine heartfelt prayer of repentance, and for the forgiveness of his sin.

One long, long communing in the gloom of that solemn place with his God. The hours glided on, and he still prayed, not in mere words, but in thought, in deep agony of spirit, for help and guidance in the future, and that he might live, and years hence return to those who had loved him and loved his memory, another man.

The soft, pearly light of the dawn was stealing in through the narrow opening, and the faint querulous cry of the gull fell upon his ear, and seemed to arouse him to the knowledge that it was once more day—a day he spent in thinking out what he should do.

Time glided slowly on, and a hundred plans had been conceived and rejected. Poll Perrow came and went, never once complaining of the difficulties she experienced in supplying him and herself, and daily did her best to supply him with everything but money. That was beyond her.

And that was the real necessary now. He must have money to enable him to reach London, and then France. So long a time had elapsed, and there had been so terrible a finale to the episode, that he knew he might endeavour to escape unchallenged; and at last, after a long hesitancy and shrinking, and after feeling that there was only one to whom he could go and confide in, and who would furnish him with help, he finally made up his mind.

It was a long process, a constant fight of many hours of a spirit weakened by suffering, till it was swayed by every coward dread which arose. He tried to start a dozen times, but the heavier beat of a wave, the fall of a stone from the cliff, the splash made by a fish, was sufficient to send him shivering back; but at last he strung himself lip to the effort, feeling that if he delayed longer he would grow worse, and that night poor old Poll Perrow reached the hiding place after endless difficulties, to sit down broken-hearted and ready to sob wildly, as she felt that she must have been watched, and that in spite of all her care and secrecy her “poor boy” had been taken away.

Chapter Forty Seven.

Brother—Lover.

Trembling, her eyes dilated with horror, Louise Vine stood watching the dimly-seen pleading face for some moments before her lips could form words, and her reason tell her that it was rank folly and superstition to stand trembling there.

“Harry!” she whispered, “alone? yes.”

“Hah!” he ejaculated, and thrusting in his hands he climbed into the room.

Louise gazed wildly at the rough-looking figure in sea-stained old pea-jacket and damaged cap, hair unkempt, and a hollow look in eye and cheek that, joined with the ghastly colourless skin, was quite enough to foster the idea that this was one risen from the grave.

“Don’t be scared,” he said harshly, “I’m not dead after all.”

“Harry! my darling brother.”

That was all in words, but with a low, moaning cry Louise had thrown her soft arms about his neck and covered his damp cold face with her kisses, while the tears streamed down her cheeks.

“Then there is some one left to—My darling sis!”

He began in a half-cynical way, but the genuine embrace was contagious, and clasping her to his breast, he had to fight hard to keep back his own tears and sobs as he returned her kisses.

Then the fugitive’s dread of the law and of discovery reasserted itself, and pushing her back, he said quickly:—

“Where is father?”

“At Mr Van Heldre’s. Let me—”

“Hush! answer my questions. Where is Aunt Marguerite?”

“Gone to bed, dear.”

“And the servants?”

“In the kitchen. They will not come without I ring. But Harry—brother—we thought you dead—we thought you dead.”

“Hush! Louy, for heaven’s sake! You’ll ruin me,” he whispered as she burst into a fit of uncontrollable sobbing, so violent at times that he grew alarmed.

“We thought you dead—we thought you dead.”

It was all she could say as she clung to him, and looking wildly from door to window and back.

“Louy!” he whispered at last passionately, “I must escape. Be quiet or you will be heard.”

By a tremendous effort she mastered her emotion, and tightening her grasp upon him, she set her teeth hard, compressed her lips, and stood with contracted brow gazing in his eyes.

“Now!” he said, “can you listen?”

She nodded her head, and her wild eyes seemed so questioning, that he said quickly—

“I can’t tell you much. You know I can swim well.”

She nodded silently.

“Well, I rose after my dive and let the current carry me away till I swam ashore three miles away, and I’ve been in hiding in one of the zorns.”

“Oh, my brother?” she answered.

“Waiting till it was safe to come out.”

“But Harry!” she paused; “we—my father—we all believed you dead. How could you be so—”

She stopped.

“Cruel?” he said firmly. “Wouldn’t it have been more cruel to be dragged off to prison and disgrace you more?”

“But—”

“Hush! I tell you I have been in hiding. They think me dead?”

“Yes; they found you—”

“Hush, I tell you. I have no time to explain. Let them go on thinking me dead.”

“But Harry?” she cried; “my poor broken-hearted father—Madelaine.”

“Hold your tongue!” he said in a broken voice, “unless you want to drive me mad.”

He paused, for his face was working; but at last with a stamp he controlled his emotion.

“Look here,” he said hoarsely. “I had no one to come to but you. Will you help me?”

“Harry?” she whispered reproachfully, as she clung to him more firmly.

“Hah! that’s better,” he said. “Now don’t talk, only listen. But are you sure that we shall not be overheard?”

“Quite, dear, we are alone.”

“Then listen. I have thought all this out. I’ve been a blackguard; I did knock old Van Heldre down.”

Louise moaned.

“But once more I tell you I’m not a thief. I did not rob him, and I did not go to rob him. I swear it.”

“I believe you, Harry,” she whispered.

“Well, I’ll tell you what I’m going to do.”

She nodded again, unable to speak, but clung to him spasmodically, for everything seemed to swim round before her eyes.

“I am penniless. There, that proves to you I did not rob poor old Van. I want money—enough to escape over to France—to get to London first. Then I shall change my name. Don’t be alarmed,” he said tremblingly, as he felt Louise start. “I shall give up the name of Vine, but I’m not going to call myself des Vignes, or any of that cursed folly.”

“Harry!”

“All right, dear. It made me mad to think of it all. I’ve come to my senses now, and I’m going over the channel to make a fresh start and to try and prove myself a man. Some day when I’ve done this father shall know that I am alive, and perhaps then he may take me by the hand and forgive me.”

“Harry, let me send for him—let me tell him now.”

“No,” said the young man sternly.

“He loves you! He will forgive you and bless God for restoring you once more, as I do, my darling. Oh, Harry, Harry! My mother!”

“Hush,” he whispered with his voice trembling as he held her to him and stroked her face. “Hush, sis, hush!”

“Then I may send for him?”

“No, no, no?” he cried fiercely. “I am little better than a convict. He must not, he shall not know I am alive.”

“But Harry, dearest—”

“Silence!” he whispered angrily, “I came to you, my sister, for help. No, no, dear, I’m not cross; but you talk like a woman. The dear old dad would forgive me, God bless him! I know he would, just as you have, and fall on my neck and kiss me as—as—as—Ah! Lou, Lou, Lou, my girl,” he cried, fighting against his emotion, “the law will not be like your love. You must help me to escape, at all events for a time.”

“And may I tell him where you are gone—my father and Maddy?”

“Hush!” he cried, in so wild and strange a voice that she shrank from him. “Do you want to unman me when I have planned my future, and then see me handcuffed and taken to gaol? No; Harry Vine is dead. Some day another man will come and ask the forgiveness he needs.”

“Harry!”

“But not this shivering, cowardly cur—a man, a true blameless man, whom it will take years to make. Now, then, once more, will you help me, and keep my secret?”

Louise was silent for a few moments.

“Well, never mind, you must keep my secret, for after I am gone if you said you had seen me, people would tell you that you were mad.”

“I will help you, Harry, and keep your secret, dear—even,” she added to herself, “if it breaks my heart.”

“That’s right. We’ve wasted too much time in talking as it is, and—”

“But Harry—Madelaine—she loves you.”

He wrested himself from her violently, and stood with his hands pressed to his head. A few moments before he had been firm and determined, but the agonised thought of Madelaine and of giving her up for ever had ended the fictitious strength which had enabled him to go so far.

It was the result of his long agony shut up in that cave; and though he struggled hard he could do no more, but completely unnerved, trembling violently, and glancing wildly from time to time at the door and window, he sank at his sister’s feet and clutched her knees.

“Harry, Harry!” she whispered—she, the stronger now—“for Heaven’s sake don’t give way like that.”

“It’s all over now. I’m dead beat; I can do no more.”

“Then let me go for father; let me fetch him from Van Heldre’s.”

“Yes,” he moaned; “and while you are gone I’ll go down to the end of the point and jump in. This time I shall be too weak to swim.”

“Harry, don’t talk like that!” she cried, embracing him, as she saw with horror the pitiable, trembling state in which he was.

“I can’t help it,” he whispered as he clung to her now like a frightened child, and looked wildly at the door. “You don’t know what I’ve suffered, buried alive like, in that cave, and expecting the sea to come in and drown me. It has been one long horror.”

“But, Harry, dear, you are safe now.”

“Safe?” he groaned; “yes, to be taken by the first policeman I meet, and locked up in gaol.”

“But, Harry!” she cried, his agitation growing contagious, “I have promised. I will help you now. I’ll keep it a secret, if you think it best, dear. Harry, for Heaven’s sake be a man.”

“It’s all over now,” he groaned, “so better end it all. I wish I was dead. I wish I was dead.”

“But, Harry, dear,” she whispered, trembling now as much as he, “tell me what to do.”

“I can’t now,” he said; “I’m too weak and broken. All this has been so maddening that I’m like some poor wretch half-killed by drink. It’s too late now.”

“No, no, Harry, dear. It shall be our secret then. Up, and be a man, my brave, true brother, and you shall go and redeem yourself. Yes, I’ll suffer it all hopefully, for the future shall make amends, dear. You shall go across to France, and I will study my father’s comfort, and pray nightly for you.”

“Too late,” he moaned—“too late!”

She looked at him wildly. The long strain upon his nerves had been too great, and he was white as a sheet, and shaking violently.

“Harry, dear, tell me what to do.”

“Let them take me,” he said weakly. “It’s of no use.”

“Hush?” she said, full now of a wild desire to save him from disgrace and to aid him in his efforts to redeem the past. “Let me think. Yes; you want money.”

Full of the recollection of his former appeal, she took out her keys, opened a drawer, while he half knelt, half crouched upon the carpet. She had not much there, and, whispering to him to wait, she left the room, locking him in, and ran up to her chamber.

Harry started as he heard the snap made by the lock; but he subsided again in a helpless state, and with the disease that had been hanging about waiting to make its grand attack, gradually sapping its way.

In five minutes Louise was back.

“I have not much money,” she whispered hastily; “but here are my watch, two chains, and all the jewels I have, dear. They are worth a great deal.”

“Too late!” he moaned as he gazed up at her piteously, and for the moment he was delirious, as a sudden flush of fever suffused his cheeks.

“It is not too late,” she said firmly. “Take them. Now tell me what next to do.”

“What next?” he said vacantly.

“Yes. You must not stay here. My father may return at any time. Brother—Harry—shall I get you some clothes?”

“No—no,” he said mournfully. “I shall want no more clothes.”

“Harry!” she cried, taking his face between her hands, and drawing it round so that the light fell upon it; “are you ill?”

“Ill? yes,” he said feebly. “I’ve felt it before—in the wet cave—fever, I suppose. Lou, dear, is it very hard to die?”

“Oh, what shall I do?” cried the agitated girl, half frantic now. “Harry, you are not very ill?”

“Only sometimes,” he said slowly, as he looked round. “I seem to lose my head a bit, and then something seems to hold me back.”

“Harry!”

“Yes,” he cried, starting up; “who called? You, Louy, money—give me some money.”

“I gave you all I had, dear, and my jewels.”

“Yes, I forgot,” he said huskily, as in a moment his whole manner had changed, and with feverish energy he felt for the trinkets she had given him.

“You are ill, dear,” she whispered tenderly. “Would it not be better to let me fetch our father?”

“I’d sooner die,” he cried, catching her wrist. “No. He shall not know. There, I can see clearly now. That horrible weakness is always taking me now, and when it’s on I feel as if I should kill myself.”

“Harry!”

“Hush! I know now. We must go before he comes back.”

“We?” she said aghast.

“Yes, we. I’m not fit to be alone. You must come with me, Lou, and help me. If I go alone I shall go mad.”

“Oh, Harry! my darling brother.”

“Yes,” he cried in a hoarse whisper; “I know I shall. It’s too horrible to live alone, as I’ve been living. You must come with me and save me—from myself—from everybody. Why do you look at me like that?”

He caught her by the shoulder, and glared at her with a long, fierce stare.

“I—I could not leave home, Harry,” she said faintly.

“You must, you shall,” he cried, “unless you want me to really die.”

“But my father, dear?”

“Quick! write!” he said with the feverish energy which frightened her; and dragging open the blotter on a side table, he pointed to a chair.

“He is mad—he is mad,” she wailed to herself, as in obedience to a will far stronger at that moment than her own, she sat down and took up pen and paper.

“Write,” he said hoarsely.

“Write, Harry?”

“Yes, quick!”

In a horror of dread as she read her brother’s wild looks, and took in his feverish semi-delirium, lest he should carry out a threat which chilled her, she dipped her pen and waited as, after an evident struggle with a clouding intellect, Harry said quickly:

“Dear father, I am forced by circumstances to leave home. Do not grieve for me, I am well and happy; and no matter what you hear do not attempt to follow me. If you do you will bring sorrow upon yourself, and ruin upon one I love. Good-bye; some day all will be cleared up. Till then, your loving daughter, Louise.”

“Harry!” she sobbed, as he laid down the pen, and gazed at the tear-blurred paper. “You cannot mean this. I dare not—I could not go.”

“Very well,” he said coldly. “I told you it was too late. It does not matter now.”

“Oh,” she panted, “you are not reasonable. I have given you money. Go as you said and hide somewhere. You are weak and ill now.”

“Yes,” he said, in a voice which wrung her heart. “I am weak and ill now.”

“A little rest, dear, and the knowledge that you have the means of escaping will make you more calm.”

He looked at her with his eyes so full of wild anger that she half shrank from him, but his face changed.

“Poor little sis!” he said tenderly; “I frighten you. Look at me. Am I fit to go away alone? I know—I feel that at any moment I may break down and go off my head among strangers.”

She looked at him wildly, and as she stood trembling there in a state of agitation which overset her generally calm balance, she read in his eyes that he was speaking the truth.

“Put that note in an envelope and direct it,” he said in a slow, measured way, and mechanically, and as if for the time being his will was again stronger than hers, she obeyed him, dropped the letter on the table, and then stood gazing from it to her brother and back again.

“It’s hard upon you,” he said, with his hand to his head, as if he could think more clearly then, “hard upon the poor old dad. But it seems my only chance, Lou, my girl.”

Father—brother—what should she do?

“I can feel it now,” he said drearily. “There, I’m cool now. It’s lying in that cold, wet cave, and the horrors I’ve gone through. I’ve got something coming on—had touches of it before—in the nights,” he went on slowly and heavily, “p’r’aps it’ll kill me—better if it does.”

“No, no, Harry. Stay and let me nurse you here. We could keep it a secret from every one, and—”

“Hold your tongue!” he said fiercely. “I might live—if I went away—where I could feel—I was safe. I can’t face the old man again. It would kill me. There, it’s too much to ask you—what’s that?”

Louise started to the door. Harry dashed to the window, and his manner was so wild and excited that she darted after him to draw him away.

“Nothing, dear, it is your fancy. There, listen, there is no one coming.”

He looked at her doubtingly, and listened as she drew him from the window.

“I thought I heard them coming,” he said. “Some one must have seen me crawl up here. Coming to take me—to gaol.”

“No, no, dear. You are ill, and fancy all this. Now come and listen to me. It would be so wild, so cruel if I were to leave my home like this. Harry! be reasonable, dear. Your alarm is magnified because you are ill. Let me—no, no, don’t be angry with me—let me speak to my father—take him into our confidence, and he will help you.”

“No,” he said sternly.

“Let me make him happy by the knowledge that you are alive.”

“And come upon him like a curse,” said Harry, as there was a tap at the door, which neither heard in the excitement of the moment, for, eager to help him, and trembling lest he should, in the excited state he was, go alone, Louise threw herself upon her knees at her brother’s feet.

“Be guided by me, dearest,” she sobbed, in a low, pained voice. “You know how I love you, how I would die if it were necessary to save you from suffering; but don’t—pray don’t ask me to go away from poor father in such a way as this.”

As she spoke a burst of hysteric sobbing accompanied her words, and then, as she raised her tear-blinded eyes, she saw that which filled her with horror. Uttering a faint cry, she threw herself before her brother, as if to shield him from arrest.

Duncan Leslie was standing in the open doorway, and at her action, he took a stride fiercely into the room.

Harry’s back was half turned toward him, but he caught a glimpse of the figure in the broad mirror of an old dressoir, and with one sweep of his arm dashed the light over upon the floor.

The heavy lamp fell with a crash of broken glass, and as Louise stood clinging to her brother, there was a dead silence as well as darkness in the room.

Chapter Forty Eight.

The Plant Aunt Marguerite Grew.

As Duncan Leslie walked up the steep path leading to the old granite house he could not help thinking of the absurdity of his act, and wondering whether Louise Vine and her father would see how much easier it would have been for him to call at Van Heldre’s.

“Can’t help it,” he said. “The old man must think what he likes. Laugh at me in his sleeve? Well, let him. I shan’t be the first man in love who has been laughed at.”

“In love, man, in love! How stupid it sounds; and I suppose I am weak.”

“Human nature!” he said after a pause; and he walked very fast.

Then he began to walk very slowly, as a feeling of hesitation came over him, and he asked himself whether the Vines would not feel his coming as an intrusion, and be annoyed.

“She can’t be annoyed,” he said half aloud. “She may think it unfortunate, but she knows I love her, and she is too true and sweet a woman to be hard upon me.”

With the full intention of going boldly to the house, and trying to act in a frank, manly way, letting Louise see that he was going to be patient and earnest, he again strode on rapidly, but only to hesitate again and stop by one of the great masses of rock, which occurred here and there along the shelf-like slope cut from the side of the towering hill.

Here he rested his arms upon the shaggy stone, and stood gazing out to sea, the darkness looking wonderfully transparent and pure. From where he stood the harbour was at his feet, and he could see a spark-like light here and there in cottage or boat, and a dull glow from some open doorway on the opposite side of the estuary.

The red light at the end of the east pier sent a ruddy stain out to sea, and there was another light farther out just rocking gently to and fro, and as it caught his eye he shuddered, for it shone out softly, as did the light of the lugger on the night when Harry Vine took that terrible leap.

“Poor weak boy,” said Leslie to himself. And then, “The more need for her to have one in whom she can confide; only I must be patient—patient.”

He turned with a sigh, and began to walk back, for in his indecision the feeling was in him strong now that a call would be an intrusion, and that he must be content to wait. By the time he was fifty yards down the path the desire to see Louise again was stronger than ever, and he walked back to the stone, leaned over it, and stood thinking. After a few minutes he turned sharply round and looked, for he heard a heavy step as of a man approaching; but directly after, as he remained quiescent, he just made out that it was not a man’s step, but that of a sturdy fisherwoman, who seemed in the gloom to resemble Poll Perrow, but he could not be sure, and forgot the incident as soon as she passed. By the time the steps had died out, Duncan Leslie’s mind was fully made up; and, following the woman, he walked firmly up to the gateway, entered, and, reaching the hall door, which stood open, he rang. He waited for some time listening to a low murmur of voices in the dining-room, and then rang again. There was no reply, consequent upon the fact that Liza was at the back gate, to which she had been summoned by her mother, who had come up in trouble, and was asking her questions whose bearing she could not understand.

Leslie’s courage and patience began to fail, but he still waited, and then at last changed colour, feeling the blood rush to his cheeks, for there was a peculiarity in the conversation going on in the dining-room, and it seemed to him that some one was agitated and in pain.

He turned away so as to force himself not to hear, feeling that he was an interloper, and then, in spite of himself, he returned to find that the sounds had grown louder, and as if involuntarily agitated and troubled more than he would have cared to own, he rang again and then entered the hall.

He hesitated for a few moments, and then certain from the voices that there was something strange, and divining wrongly or rightly from the tones of one of the voices—a voice which thrilled him as he stood there trembling with excitement, that the woman he loved needed help, he threw aside all hesitation, and turned the handle of the door.

The words which fell upon his ear, the scene he saw of Louise kneeling at some strange rough-looking man’s feet, sent the blood surging up to his brain, rendering him incapable of calm thought, and turned the ordinarily patient deliberative man into a being wrought almost to a pitch of madness.

It did not occur to him that he was an intruder, and that he had no right to make such a demand, but taking a stride forward, he exclaimed—

“Louise! Who is this man?” as the lamp was swept from the table, and they were in darkness.

For a few moments no one spoke, and Louise stood clinging to her brother, trembling violently and at her wits’ end to know what to do.

The simple way out of the difficulty would have been to take Duncan Leslie into their confidence at once; but in her agitation, Louise shrank from that. She knew his stern integrity; she had often heard of his firmness with his mine people; and she feared that in his surprise and disgust, at what seemed to her now little better than a trick played by her brother to deceive them, Leslie would turn against him and refuse to keep the secret.

On the other hand, Harry, suffering from a fresh access of dread, but now strung up and excited, placed his lips to her ear and bade her be silent on her life.

The silence was for a few moments terrible, and then Harry’s breath could be heard coming and going as if he had been hunted, while Louise, in her agony of excitement, sought vainly for words that should put an end to the painful encounter.

No one moved; and in the midst of the nervous strain a sharp puff of wind came sweeping up from the sea, like the avant-garde of a storm, and the casement window was blown to with a loud clang.

Harry started as if he had felt that his retreat was cut off, but he kept his face averted, and dragged his rough hat down over his eyes, though the action was unnecessary, for the darkness was too great for him to be recognised.

As he started Louise clung to him, and for the moment he struggled to escape from her, but he clung to her the next instant, and quivered with fear as the silence was broken by Leslie’s voice, so cold, deep, and harsh that it seemed as if a stranger was speaking.

“I suppose I have no right to interfere,” he said; “but there are times when a man forgets or puts aside etiquette, and there are reasons here why I should speak. Miss Vine, where is your father?”

Louise made an effort to reply, but there was only a spasmodic catching of her breath.

“Send him away. Tell him to go,” whispered Harry.

“I said, where is your father, Miss Vine?” said Leslie again more coldly.

“At—at Mr Van Heldre’s,” she murmured at last. “Mr Leslie—pray—”

“I am your father’s friend, and I should not be doing my duty—Ah! my duty—to myself,” he cried angrily, “if I did not speak plainly. Does Mr Vine know that this gentleman is here?”

“No,” said Louise, in an almost inaudible voice, and in the contagion of her brother’s fear she seemed to see him once more hunted down by the officers of justice; and the terrible scene on the pier danced before her eyes.

“So I suppose,” said Leslie coldly.

“Send him away,” whispered Harry hoarsely.

“It is not in Miss Louise Vine’s power to send me away, sir,” cried Leslie fiercely; and the poor trembling girl felt her brother start once more.

“You, sir, are here, by her confession, clandestinely. You are a scoundrel and a cur, who dare not show your face or you would not have dashed out that light.”

Harry made a harsh guttural sound, such as might be uttered by a beast at bay.

“Who are you? I need not ask your object in coming here. I could not help hearing.”

“Tell him to go away,” said Harry sharply, speaking in French to disguise his voice.

“Mr Leslie, pray, pray go. This is a private visit. I beg you will go.”