He shook his head.
"It is useless," he said, quietly; "it must come sooner or later--better now perhaps. Let us wait, I have left word that she is to be shown in here."
There was a brief silence. Then we heard steps in the hall, the rustling of a woman"s gown, and the door was opened and closed. She came forward to the edge of the little circle of light thrown around us by my father"s reading lamp. There she stood with a great red spot burning in her cheeks, and a fierce light in her eyes.
"At last, then, the mystery is solved," she cried, triumphantly. "I was a fool or I should have guessed it long ago! Have you forgotten me, Philip Maltabar?"
My father rose to his feet. He was serene, but grave.
"No, I have not forgotten you, Olive Berdenstein," he said, slowly. "Yours is not a name to be forgotten by me. Say what you have come to say, please, and go away."
She looked at him in surprise, and laughed shortly.
"Oh, you need not fear," she answered, "I have not come to stay. I recognized you in the cathedral, and I should have been on my way to the police station by now, but first I promised myself the pleasure of this visit. Your daughter and I are such friends, you know."
My father took up some writing paper and dipped his pen in the ink as though about to commence a letter.
"I think," he said, "that you had better go now. The police station closes early here, and you will have to hurry as it is--that is, if you wish to get a warrant to-night."
She looked at him fixedly. He certainly had no fear. My heart beat fast with the admiration one has always for a brave man. The girl was being cheated of her triumph.
"You are right," she said, "I must hurry; I am going to them and I shall say I know now who was my brother"s murderer! It was Philip Maltabar, the man who calls himself Canon Ffolliot. But though he may be a very holy man, I can prove him to be a murderer!"
"This is rather a hard word," my father remarked, with a faint smile at the corners of his lips.
"It is a true one," she cried, fiercely. "You killed him. You cannot deny it."
"I do not deny it," he answered, quietly. "It is quite true that I killed your brother--or rather that in a struggle between us I struck him a blow from the effects of which he died."
For a long time I had felt that it must be so. Yet to hear him confess it so calmly, and without even the most ordinary emotion, was a shock to me.
"It is the same thing," she said, scornfully, "you killed him!"
"In the eyes of the law it is not the same thing," he answered; "but let that pa.s.s. I had warned your brother most solemnly that if he took a certain course I should meet him as man to man, and I should show him no mercy. Yet he persisted in that course. He came to my home! I had warned him not to come. Even then I forbore. His errand was fruitless. He had only become a horror in the eyes of the woman whom he had deceived. She would not see him, she wished never to look upon his face again. He persisted in seeking to force his way into her presence. On that day I met him. I argued and reasoned with him, but in vain. Then the first blow was struck, and only the merest chance intervened, or the situation would have been reversed. Your brother was a coward then, Olive Berdenstein, as he had been all his life. He struck at me treacherously with a knife. Look here!"
He threw open his waistcoat, and she started back with horror. There was a terrible wound underneath the bandage which he removed.
"It was a blow for a blow," he said, gravely. "From my wound I shall in all likelihood die. Your brother"s knife touched my lung, and I am always in danger of internal bleeding. The blow I struck him, I struck with his knife at my heart. That is not murder."
"We shall see," she muttered between her lips.
"As soon as you will," he answered. "There is one thing more which you may as well know. My unhappy meeting with your brother on that Sunday afternoon was not our first meeting since his return to England. On the very night of his arrival I met him in London by appointment. I warned him that if he persisted in a certain course I should forget my cloth, and remember only that I was a man and that he was an enemy. He listened in silence, and when I turned to leave he made a cowardly attempt upon my life. He deliberately attempted to murder me. Nothing but an accident saved my life. But I am not telling you these things to gain your pity. Only you have found me out, and you are his sister. It is right that you should know the truth. I have told you the whole story. Will you go now?"
She looked at him, and for a moment she hesitated. Then her eyes met mine, and her face hardened.
"Yes, I will go," she declared. "I do not care whether you have told me the truth or not. I am going to let the world know who Canon Ffolliot is."
"You will do as seems best to you," my father said, quietly.
He had risen to his feet, and stood with his hand at his side, breathing heavily, in an att.i.tude now familiar to me, although I had never fully understood its cause. His pale lips were twitching with pain, and there were dark rims under his eyes. She looked at him and laughed brutally.
"Your daughter is an excellent actress," she said, looking back over her shoulder as she moved towards the door. "I have no doubt but that the art is inherited. We shall see!"
Obeying my father"s gesture, I rang the bell. We heard the front door open and close after her. Then I threw my arms around his neck in a pa.s.sionate abandonment of grief.
"It is all my fault," I sobbed--"my fault! But for me she would have forgiven."
My father smiled a faint, absent smile. He was smoothing my hair gently with one hand and gazing steadfastly into the fire. His face was serene, almost happy. Yet the blow had fallen.
CHAPTER x.x.x
THE MASTER OF COLVILLE HALL
I believe that I took off my clothes and made some pretence of going to bed, but in my memory those long hours between the time when I left father in the study and the dawn seems like one interminable nightmare. Yet towards morning I must have slept, for my room was full of sunlight when a soft knocking at the door awakened me. Our trim little housemaid entered with a note; the address was in my father"s handwriting. I sat up in bed and tore open the envelope eagerly. Something seemed to tell me even before I glanced at its contents that the thing I dreaded was coming to pa.s.s. This is what I read:
"Forgive me, child, if I have left you with only a written farewell. The little strength I have left I have need of, and I shrank from seeing you again lest the sorrow of it should sap my purpose; should make me weak when I need to be strong. The girl will tell her story, and at the best my career of usefulness here is over; so I leave Eastminster this morning forever. I have written to Alice and to the Bishop. To him I have sent a brief memoir of my life. I do not think that he will be a stern judge, especially as the culprit stands already with one foot in the grave.
"And now, child, I have a final confession to make to you. For many years there has been a side to my life of which you and Alice have been ignorant. Even now I am not going to tell you about it. The time is too short for me to enter thoroughly into my motives and into the gradual development of what was at first only a very small thing. But of this I am anxious to a.s.sure you, it is not a disgraceful side! It is not anything of which I am ashamed, although there have been potent reasons for keeping all record of it within my own breast. Had I known to what it was destined to grow I should have acted differently from the commencement, but of that it is purposeless now to speak. The little remnant of life which is still mine I have dedicated to it. Even if my career here were not so clearly over, my conscience tells me that I am doing right in abandoning it. It is possible that we may never meet again. Farewell! If what you hinted at last night comes really to pa.s.s it is good. Bruce Deville has been no friend of mine, but he is as worthy of you as any man could be. And above all, remember this, my fervent prayer: Forgive me the wrong which I have done you and the trouble which I have brought into your life. Think of me if you can only as your most affectionate father, Horace Ffolliot."
When I had finished my father"s letter I dressed in haste. There was no doubt in my mind as to where he had gone. I would follow him at once. I would be by his side wherever he was and in whatever condition when the end came. I rang for a time-table and looked out the morning trains for London. Then Alice knocked at my door and came to me with white, scared face, and an open letter in her hand. She found me all ready to start.
"Do you understand it? What does it mean, Kate?" she asked, fearfully.
"I do not know," I answered. "He has gone to London, and he is not fit to leave his bed. I am going to follow him."
"But you do not know whereabouts to look. You will never find him."
"I must trust to fate," I answered, desperately. "Somehow or other I shall find him. Goodbye. I have only a few minutes to catch the train."
She came to the door with me.
"And you?" I asked, upon the step.
"I shall remain here," she answered, firmly. "I shall not leave until it is perfectly certain that this is not all some hideous mistake. I can"t realize it, Kate."
"Yes," I cried, lingering impatiently upon the step.
"Do you think that he is mad?"
I shook my head. "I am certain that he is not," I answered. "I will write to you; perhaps to-night. I may have news."
I walked across the close, where as yet not a soul was stirring. The ground beneath my feet was hard with a white frost, and the air was keen and bright. The sunlight was flashing upon the cathedral windows, the h.o.a.r-covered ivy front of the deanery gleamed like silver, and a little group of tame pigeons lit at my feet and scarcely troubled to get out of the way of my hasty footsteps. A magnificent serenity reigned over the little place. It seemed as though the touch of tragedy could scarcely penetrate here. Yet as I turned into the main street of the still sleeping town my heart gave a great leap and then died away within me. A few yards ahead was the familiar fur-coated little figure, also wending her way towards the station.
She turned round at the ringing sound of my footsteps, and her lips parted in a dark, malicious smile. She waited for me, and then walked on by my side.