Paul"s eyes wandered vacantly. His nervous fingers twitched at the ulster that he wore.
"What"s this?" he said, and glanced down at his altered dress.
"When you were insensible they stripped you of your clothes and put others on you," said Mercy.
"Whose clothes are these?"
"Mr. Drayton"s."
Paul Ritson rose to his feet.
"Where are the men?" he said, in a husky voice.
"Gone."
"Where?"
"To the station--that was all I heard."
Paul gazed about with hazy eyes. Mercy flung herself at his feet and wept bitterly.
"Forgive me! oh, forgive me!"
He looked down at her with a confused expression. His brain was benumbed. He drew one arm across his face as though struggling to recover some lost link of memory.
"Why, my good la.s.s, what"s this?" he said, and then smiled faintly and made an attempt to raise her up.
"Who is at the convent at Westminster?" she asked.
Then all his manner changed.
"Why?--what of that?" he said.
"Mrs. Drayton was sent there in a cab to tell Mrs. Ritson to be at St.
Pancras Station at midnight to meet her husband and return to c.u.mberland."
The face that had been pale became suddenly old and ghastly. There was an awful silence.
"Is this the truth?" he asked.
"Yes, yes," cried the girl.
"I think I see it all now--I think I understand," he faltered.
"Forgive me!" cried the girl.
He seemed hardly to see her.
"I have been left in this room insensible, and the impostor who resembles me--where is he now?"
He struggled with the sickness that was mastering him. His brain reeled.
The palms of his hands became damp. He staggered and leaned against the wall.
"Rest ye a bit, my lad," said Gubblum. "You"ll be gitten stanch agen soon."
He recovered his feet. His face was charged with new anger.
"And the wicked woman who trapped me to this house is still here," he said, in a voice thick with wrath.
"Forgive me! forgive me!" wept the girl at his feet.
He took her firmly by the shoulders, raised her to her knees, and turned her face upward till her eyes met his.
"Let me look at her," he said, hoa.r.s.ely. "Who would have believed it?"
"Forgive me! forgive me!" cried the girl.
"Woman, woman! what had I done to you--what, what?"
The girl"s sobs alone made answer.
In his rage he took her by the throat. A fearful purpose was written in his face.
"And this is the woman who bowed down the head of her old father nigh to the grave," he said, bitterly, and flung her from him.
Then he staggered back. His little strength had left him. There was silence. Only the girl"s weeping could be heard.
The next instant, strangely calm, without a tear in his sad eyes, he stepped to her side and raised her to her feet.
"I was wrong," he said; "surely I was wrong. You could not lie to me like that, and know it. No, no, no!"
"They told me what I told you," said the girl.
"And I blamed you for it all, poor girl."
"Then you forgive me?" she said, lifting her eyes timidly.
"Forgive you?--ask G.o.d to forgive you, girl. I am only a man, and you have wrecked my life."
There was a foot on the ladder, and Jabez, the boy, stepped up, a candle in his hand. He had been waiting for the landlady, when he heard voices overhead.
"The varra man!" shouted Gubblum. "Didsta see owt of thy master down-stairs?"
Jabez grinned, and glanced up at Paul Ritson.
"Hark ye, laal man, didsta see two men leaving the house a matter of fifteen minutes ago?"
"Belike I did," said Jabez. "And to be sure it were the gentleman that come here afore--and another one."