He shook his head without any further response. I choked back the tears from my eyes.
"There is some mystery, here," I cried. "We are all enveloped in it. What does it mean? Why did we come here?"
"We came here by pure accident," my father answered. "We came here because the curacy was offered to me; and I was glad to take anything which relieved me of my duties at Belchester."
"It was fate!--a cruel fate!" I moaned.
"It was the will of G.o.d," he answered, sternly.
Then there was a silence between us, unbroken for many minutes. My father waited by my side--waited for my answer. The despair in my heart grew deeper.
"I cannot live here," I said, "and remain ignorant."
"You must give me your promise, child," he said. "I have no power to tell you anything. You are young, and for you the terror of this thing will fade away."
I answered him then with a sinking heart.
"I promise," I said, faintly. "Only--I shall have to go away. I cannot live here. It would drive me mad."
His cold lips touched mine as he rose.
"You must do," he said, gravely, "what seems best to you. You are old enough to be the moulder of your own life. If you would be happier away, you must go. Only there is this to be remembered--I can understand that this particular place may have become distasteful to you. We are not going to live here any longer. You will find life at Eastminster larger and more absorbing. I shall be able to do more for you than I have ever done before."
"It is not that," I interrupted, wearily. "You know that it is not that. It is between us two."
He was silent. A sudden change stole into his face. His lips quivered. An inexpressible sorrow gleamed for a moment in his dark eyes. He bent his head. Was that a tear that fell? I fancied so.
I took his hand and soothed it.
"Father, you will tell me, won"t you?" I whispered. "I shall not mind. I will be brave, whatever dreadful things I may have to know. Let me share the burden."
For a moment I thought that he was yielding. He covered his face with his hands and remained silent. But when he looked up I saw that the moment of weakness had pa.s.sed. He rose to his feet.
"Good night, Kate," he said, quietly. "Thank you for your promise."
My heart sank. I returned his kiss coldly. He left me without another word.
CHAPTER XII
MR. BERDENSTEIN"S SISTER
Three days after that memorable conversation with my father a fly drove up to the door, and from where I was sitting in our little drawing room I heard a woman"s anxious voice inquiring for Mr. Ffolliot. A moment or two later the maid knocked at my door.
"There is a young lady here, miss, inquiring for the Vicar. I told her that Mr. Ffolliot would not be in for an hour or two, and she asked if she could speak to any other member of the family."
"Do you know what she wants, Mary?" I asked.
The girl shook her head.
"No, miss. She would not say what her business was. She just wants to see one of you, she said."
"You had better tell her that I am at home, and show her in here if she wishes to see me," I directed.
She ushered in a young lady, short, dark, and thin. Her eyes were swollen as though with weeping, and her whole appearance seemed to indicate that she was in trouble. She sank into the chair to which I motioned her, and burst into tears.
"You must please forgive me," she exclaimed, in a voice broken with sobs. "I have just come from abroad, and I have had a terrible shock."
Some instinct seemed to tell me the truth.
My heart stood still.
"Are you any relation of the gentleman who was--who died here last week?" I asked, quickly.
She nodded.
"I have just been to the police station," she said. "It is his watch--the one I gave him--and his pocket book, with a half-written letter to me in it. They have shown me his photograph. It is my brother, Stephen Berdenstein. He was the only relative I had left in the world."
I was really shocked, and I looked at her pitifully. "I am so sorry,"
I said. "It must be terrible for you."
She commenced to sob again, and I feared she would have hysterics. She was evidently very nervous, and very much overwrought. I was never particularly good at administering consolation, and I could think of nothing better to do than to ring the bell and order some tea.
"He was to have joined me in Paris on Sat.u.r.day," she continued after a minute or two. "He did not come and he sent a message. When Monday morning came and there was no letter from him, I felt sure that something had happened. I bought the English papers, and by chance I read about the murder. It seemed absurd to connect it with Stephen, especially as he told me he was going to be in London, but the description was so like him that I could not rest. I telegraphed to his bankers, and they replied that he had gone down into the country, but had left no address. So I crossed at once, and when I found that he had not been heard of at his club in London or anywhere else for more than ten days, I came down here. I went straight to the police station, and--and----"
She burst into tears again. I came over to her side and tried my best to be sympathetic. I am afraid that it was not a very successful attempt, for my thoughts were wholly engrossed in another direction. However, I murmured a few plat.i.tudes, and presently she became more coherent. She even accepted some tea, and bathed her face with some eau de Cologne, which I fetched from my room.
"Have you any idea," I asked her presently, "why your brother came to this part of the country at all. He was staying at Lady Naselton"s, was he not? Was she an old friend?"
She shook her head.
"I never heard him speak of her in my life. He wrote me of a young Mr. Naselton who had visited him in Rio, but even in his last letter from Southampton he did not say a word about visiting them. He would have come straight to me, he said, but for a little urgent business in London."
"And yet he seems to have accepted a casual invitation, and came down here within a day or two of his arrival in England," I remarked.
"I cannot understand it!" she exclaimed, pa.s.sionately. "Stephen and I have not met for many years--he has been living in South America, and I have been in Paris--but he wrote to me constantly, and in every letter he repeated how eagerly he was looking forward to seeing me again. I cannot think that he would have come down here just as an ordinary visit of civility before coming to me, or sending for me to come to him. There must be something behind it--something of which I do not know."
"You know, of course, that Naselton Hall is shut up and that the Naseltons have gone to Italy?" I asked her.
"They told me so at the police station," she answered. "I have sent Lady Naselton a telegram. It is a long time since I saw Stephen, and one does not tell everything in letters. He may have formed great friendships of which I have never heard."
"Or great enmities," I suggested, softly.
"Or enmities," she repeated, thoughtfully. "Yes; he may have made enemies. That is possible. He was pa.s.sionate, and he was wilful. He was the sort of a man who made enemies."
She was quite calm now, and I had a good look at her. She was certainly plain. Her face was sharp and thin, and her eyes were a dull, dark color. She was undersized and ungraceful, in addition to which she was dressed much too richly for traveling, and in questionable taste. So far as I could recollect there was not the slightest resemblance between her and the dead man.