"And what of him? Nothing serious can have happened since I saw him,"
said Lady Rose, at first with a swift, anxious glance; then she smiled at her own fright; for half an hour before she had seen Hurst walking upon the terrace.
"Lady Rose, have you seen Sir Noel this morning?"
"Sir Noel! Why, no. He breakfasted earlier than the rest, or in his room."
"That is it. He is in trouble, and would not let you see it in his face."
"In trouble! Sir Noel!"
"He has heard bad news."
"Bad news! How? Where did it come from?"
"I took it to him, lady. It has been a burden on my conscience too long. The murder of a man is no light thing to bear."
"The murder of a man!" repeated Lady Rose, horrified.
"I speak of William Jessup, whom we buried yesterday, and who was murdered in the park, one night, by Walton Hurst." Storms spoke with slow impressiveness, while Lady Rose stood before him with blanched lips and widely distended eyes.
"Murdered in the park by Walton Hurst! Man, are you mad?"
"Lady, I saw the shot fired. I saw the gun twisted from the murderer"s hands, and the stock hurled at his head before the old man fell. He was found lying across the path lifeless, the brain contused, while Jessup lay shot through the lungs a little way off, where he had dropped after that one spasm of strength."
"You saw all this with your own eyes?"
"I saw it all, but would never have spoken, had the old man lived. Now that he is dead--"
"You would have another life--his life!"
"Do not tremble so, lady! Do not look upon me as if a wild beast were creeping toward you. I want no man"s life--"
"Ah!"
"Though the young master up yonder has wronged me."
"Wronged you? Walton Hurst wronged you? Impossible!"
"Yes, me! I was engaged to wed old Jessup"s daughter. It was a settled thing. She loved me!"
"Well?"
"But the young master stepped in!"
"I do not believe it," cried the lady, with a disdainful lift of the head, though all the color had faded from her face. "No person on earth could make me believe it."
Storms allowed this outburst to pa.s.s by him, quietly, while he stood before the lady, hat in hand.
Then he spoke:
"Lady, it was this that caused the murder. The young master was in the cottage, as he had been many a time before that night, but this time Jessup was away in London. I was going there myself; saw him and her through the window, and turned back, not caring to go in, while he was there, though I thought no great harm of it--"
"There was no harm. I will stake my word, my life, my very soul; there was no harm in it," cried Lady Rose. "If an honorable man lives, it is Walton Hurst."
"It may be, lady. I do not dispute it. But perhaps old Jessup thought otherwise. I do not know. There must have been hard words when he came in and found those two in company, for in a few minutes the young gentleman came dashing through the porch with a gun in his hand. He may have been out shooting and stopped at the cottage on his way home.
I cannot tell that; but he came out with a gun in his hand; then Jessup followed, muttering to himself, and overtook the young master just as he got under the shadow of the great cedar of Lebanon. Some hot words pa.s.sed there. I could not hear them distinctly, for they were m.u.f.fled with rage; but I came up just in time to see Walton Hurst level his gun and fire. Then Jessup leaped out from the shadows, wrenched the gun from the hand that had fired it, and, turning it like a club, knocked Hurst down with it. This was done in the moonlight. I saw it all. Then Jessup dropped the gun, staggered backward into the darkness of the cedar, and fell. They were found so--one lying in the blackness cast down by the cedar branches, the other with his face to the sky, as he had been thrown across the path where the moonlight shone."
"Ah, yes, I remember--I remember," moaned Lady Rose. "He looked so white and cold; we thought he was dead."
"She was there. She went to the young man first. I marked that. Her father lay in the shadows bleeding to death, but she went to the young man first."
"She did. I remember it," flashed through the brain of Lady Rose. But she said, bravely, "It was nothing. He lay in the light, and she saw him first. It was natural."
"I thought so afterward. She was my sweetheart, lady, and I was glad to believe it," answered Storms, who had no wish to excite the lady"s jealousy beyond a certain point; "but after that, she grew cold to me.
How could I help thinking it was because his kindness had turned her head a little?"
"Kindness! Perhaps so. We have all been kind to Ruth. It is well you charge my guardian"s son with nothing but kindness. Anything else would have been dishonor, you know, and it would offend me if you charged that upon him."
"Lady, I charge him with nothing, save the murder of William Jessup."
"But that is impossible. You can make no one believe it. I wonder you will insist on the wild story."
It was true Lady Rose really could not take in this idea of murder--it was too horrible for reality. She put it aside as an incomprehensible dream.
"I saw it," persisted Storms, staggered by her persistent unbelief.
"Oh, I have dreamed such things, and they seemed very real," answered the lady, with a slight wave of the hand.
CHAPTER LXIII.
THE PRICE OF A LIFE.
"Lady, I have other proof. Read that. Perhaps you have seen William Jessup"s writing. Read that."
Lady Rose took the letter and read it. Now, indeed, her cheek did blanch, and her blue eyes widened with horror.
"This is strange," she said, growing whiter and whiter. "Strange, but impossible--quite impossible!"
"Coupled with my evidence, it is enough to hang any man in England,"
said Storms, reaching out his hand for the paper, which she returned to him in a dazed sort of dream.
"What do you want, young man? How do you mean to use this letter?"
"I have told Sir Noel what I mean, Lady Rose. I am a poor man, he is a rich one. I only asked a little of his wealth in exchange for his son"s life."