CHAPTER XXVIII.
Freda watched her father’s retreating figure for some moments, without daring to look at John Thurley’s face. When at last she found the courage to throw a shy, frightened glance in his direction, she saw on his countenance an expression of deep pain and surprise as he gazed steadily at Captain Mulgrave.
“It is—my father,” she faltered out, in pleading tones, while her great brown eyes were full of entreaty.
“I know, I know,” he answered hastily, without looking at her.
And he began to pace up and down the choir, with his eyes on the long rough grass at his feet, and his hands behind his back. Freda felt the very faint hope she had entertained of moving him by her entreaties melt utterly away as she watched him. The whole face of the man—the steadfast eyes, square jaw, resolute mouth—all indicated strength of purpose, and a will difficult to turn. The trouble and anxiety which now clouded his face gave it no gentler character, but rather added sternness. After considering him in silence for a few minutes, during which he seemed intent on his own thoughts even to forgetfulness of her presence, she stole away down the nave, and getting through the window to the north side of the church, crossed the meadow towards the road.
As she approached the wall which separated the meadow from the road, Freda was startled by a man who sprang up suddenly on the other side. Already unstrung by the events of the preceding twenty minutes, she could scarcely repress a cry of alarm. The man, who had evidently expected some one else, touched his hat and said:
“Beg pardon, miss. Sorry if I frightened you. I was expecting to meet a friend here by appointment. I am afraid I startled you.”
Freda wondered who he was. Already she knew enough of the Yorkshire types and the Yorkshire accent to be sure that he was not a native of this part of the country; and there was a sort of trimness and smartness about him in spite of the rough suit of clothes he wore, and a precision in his manner, which made her think he was some sort of official. She wondered whether it was John Thurley he was waiting for, and if so, what his business with him was.
Going back to the ruins, she had got into the shadow of the east end when she again came face to face with Thurley. The expression of his countenance had changed; instead of the frown of anxiety he had worn a few minutes before, care of another kind, far less stern, but scarcely less disquieting to the young girl, was stamped upon his somewhat rough features. Yet she could not have explained the feeling which caused her to start and blush, and to hope that he would let her pass without speaking.
But that was far from being his intention. He started forward at sight of her, and his face flushed.
“Ah, I was looking for you; I have something to say to you.”
He turned to walk beside her, but went a few paces without saying anything further. When they reached the angle of the ruin he stopped and, looking down upon her rather shyly, said abruptly:
“Give me your arm. We are friends enough for that, aren’t we?”
Freda shyly complied, and they turned and walked back under the shadow of the eastern wall of the ancient church.
“You are not afraid of me, are you?”
“No-o.”
“No-o! Why No-o? You are not afraid of me, you know you are not. Then why, lately, have you always avoided me?”
There was a long silence. Then Freda said, in a weak little voice:
“I expect you know.”
“You think I know too much about—about certain very disagreeable occurrences?”
The girl answered by a long sob of terror. He patted her arm kindly:
“Come, come, my knowledge shall never hurt you, little one. That is what I wanted to tell you. At least, it’s part of it.” Another pause. “Don’t you want to hear the rest?”
“No, I don’t think I do.”
“But you must. First, I want to tell you that I know who saved my life and had me brought to the Abbey that night when I was attacked by those ruffians——”
“Ruffians!” Freda turned upon him quickly. “There was only one. My father wasn’t——”
She stopped, and drew a deep breath.
“I know, I know,” said Thurley.
“It was he who ordered that you were to be brought here—to the house.”
“I know all about that,” said he quietly.
By his tone Freda knew that he must have heard more than at the time had seemed possible.
“And I know who nursed me——”
“Mrs. Staynes.”
“And who watched over me——”
“Mrs. Bean.”
“And took care that I should come to no harm, although she knew all the time that it would be better for those she cared about if I did come to harm.” Freda tried to protest, but he silenced her peremptorily. “And the little girl does care for those who belong to her, no matter how she has been treated by them. But now,” he continued in a different tone, “I want you to forget all that for the present, though I never can. I want you to think of the day when I first met you, a poor, tired, cold, hungry little girl; and to remember how you gave me your confidence, and chattered to me, and told me I was very kind.”
“And so you were,” cried Freda eagerly.
“Ah, but I had a motive: I had fallen in love with you.”
Freda wriggled her arm out of his, and looked up at him in astonishment. Indeed John Thurley’s tone was so robust, matter-of-fact, and dogmatic that this statement was the last she had expected.
“In love with me! Oh!”
And she began to laugh timidly.
“But this is no laughing matter—to me at least,” said John Thurley, in a tone more earnest still, and less matter-of-fact. “I tell you I fell in love with you. I suppose you know what that means?”
“Not very well,” Freda admitted.
This answer seemed rather to take him aback.
“Why,” said he, looking out to sea and frowning with perplexity, “I thought all girls knew that.”
“I don’t,” said Freda shaking her head. “I don’t understand it at all. It seems ridiculous to like a person very much, fall in love as you call it, when you have only seen that person once, and can’t be sure at all what that person is really like.”
“Perhaps one can be surer than you think. At any rate I felt sure enough about you to make up my mind at once that you were the girl I should like to make my wife.”
“Wife!” echoed Freda in astonishment and even horror, “me! a cripple!”
“Yes, you, just as you are, little crutch and all. Now, child, will you have me? You don’t love me yet, but you will very soon, for I love you deeply, and you are loving. You trust me, I know, although you have avoided me lately. There is trouble coming upon this part of the world, and I will take you away from it, and keep you safe for all your life. Won’t you let me?”
But Freda grew white and began to tremble. Before she could attempt any answer, however, he broke in again.
“I tell you you are not safe here; this place is infested with desperate characters, who have access to the house by all sorts of secret ways. Only this morning, as I was sitting in the library, a man suddenly appeared before me, who seemed to spring out of the wall itself.”
In an instant Freda became flushed and full of passionate interest.
“What was he like?” she asked breathlessly.
“He was a young man, with a thin, wolfish face, with light eyes I think; dressed in an old brown shooting jacket. He looked half starved.”
The girl’s face quivered with distress, and the tears sprang to her eyes and rolled down her cheeks.
“Half starved!” she repeated in a heartbroken voice. “Oh, Dick!”
John Thurley stared at her in attentive silence for a few moments. Then he said drily:
“You are sure you don’t know what falling in love is?”
Freda blushed, and began to dry her eyes.
“I know what it is,” she answered meekly, “to be sorry for a starving man.”
“And you haven’t a word for the man who is starving for the love of you?”
There was some passion in his voice now. Freda’s breath came quickly; she bent her head in deep thought, and presently raised it to show a face full of excitement, doubt, and entreaty.
“Do you love me enough to do something for my sake? something great, something difficult?”
John Thurley was a practical man, who liked to keep fact and sentiment well apart. A shade of caution came into his tone at once.
“Well, what is it? Let us hear.”
“Will you promise”—her voice trembled with passionate eagerness, “not to make any inquiries, not to give any information, about the murder of the man Blewitt?”
She hissed out the last words below her breath.
But John Thurley shook his head at once and decidedly.
“I couldn’t allow sentiment to interfere with my duty even for you, my dear,” he said in a tone which precluded all hope of his softening. “Besides,” he continued decisively, “as a matter-of-fact, I gave all the information I had to the police long since.”
Without uttering another word or giving him time for one, Freda fled away as if she had been struck. Running round the angle of the wall, and under one of the clustered arches at the south side of the choir, she stumbled, not seeing where she trod, against a heap of grass-grown masonry, and fell to the ground.
Before she could rise, she heard the voice of the man who had frightened her by jumping up behind the wall of the meadow.
“Beg pardon, Mr. Thurley,” said the voice, “but I’ve come to tell you it’s all right. We’ve followed up the clue you sent, and I’ve been sent down here to make the arrest. By to-morrow we shall have John Blewitt’s murderer safe in quod.”