"What have you done?" The voice that asked the question was not Cyril's. It was that of the girl, who had followed him to the house, and her tone was loud and very angry. "Tell me again," she demanded. "I must hear it in your own words again."
"I will tell yer. Oh, I will! Have mercy, father!" wailed the unhappy man. "I wanted money so much, father, so very much. I'd lost a wager—a hundred pounds—to some men at Iron Mountain, who said they would duck me in a pond if I did not pay them it. And I begged yer on my knees, but yer wouldn't give me any. So I thought I'd help myself. I knew yer hid your money in a hole under the flooring 'ere, and was looking for it when yer came to me. I shouldn't 'ave killed yer if yer 'adn't angered me with bad words. Then I was that put to, it seemed as if I killed yer before I knew what I was doing."
"And Mr. Gerald? What did he do?"
"Oh, 'e knew nothing about it. I guess I blamed 'im to get the blame off myself. Now I've told yer all," the wretched man whimpered. "I've told yer all. Mercy! Mercy, I beg!" Lifting up his hands, he cried still louder for mercy.
"Begone, then!" exclaimed the girl. "Begone this moment! No, not that way. Out of the door at the back of the house, and then fly southwards. If you ever return it will be at your own risk—your own risk!"
"I never will, father! I never will!" The wretched man fled through the house, out of the back door into the snow, running against trees and stumbling over drifts in his hurry to be gone.
The girl leaned against the window-frame, looking extremely pale.
"What does it mean?" asked Cyril. "What does it all mean?"
"Mean?" she said, and now once more she spoke in her natural voice—the one she had been using to the man was shrill and hard. "Mean? Why, just this. There is an old saying, 'Conscience makes cowards of us all.' 'Tis true in this case. His guilty conscience made a coward of yon man. His father, a rich old miser, who lived in this house, was killed six months ago—it was supposed for his money. Yon wretch accused a hunter, who had been lodging with them, of the crime. His name was Gerald; he was a nice man, a real gentleman, though very poor. Appearances seemed against him and he fled. 'Twas the worst thing he could do. Everyone, nearly, thought he must be guilty then. The house has been considered haunted by the old man's ghost ever since. It is lonely enough. And yon wretch, returning to find the money which he had not got after all, saw you, and being half blind—if it's true he has snow-blindness[[1]] coming on—and frightened almost out of his wits, he thought you were his father. But," she changed her voice, "we must now return to your father. We shall have to get him here the best way we can."
[[1]] Snow-blindness is rather common in those parts.—E.C.K.