Learmont paused as he said,—
“Now, if I thought there was no chance of being known, I would call upon the savage smith, and at once ascertain the cause of this broken appointment. Let me consider—I have not seen him for a week—perchance he is ill—perchance dead. The latter would be a blessed release, if Jacob Gray preceded him, and he left no damning evidence behind, a matter in which I have always had my doubts as regarded Britton. Surely none at this low pot-house can know me? I think I may venture—the stake I have in hand is worth the risk. Yes, I will make inquiry, for if Jacob Gray dies not to-night, I shall have another night of misery—oh! I shall sleep well when I am assured that he sleeps never again to awaken.”
Learmont, however, still lingered, ere he could make up his mind to call upon the drunken smith, at the Chequers, for he was most fearful that such an act, trifling as it was, might form a link in the chain of evidence against him, should any accidental circumstances occur to fix suspicion upon him, after Gray’s murder should have been achieved.
“And yet,” he reasoned, “what can I do? Stay, a thought strikes me—I can send some one with an inquiry, and then shape my own conduct by the answer. Ah, yon poor beggar-woman, with her squalid children, will, for the promise of an alms, do my errand.”
He walked up to a miserable looking object, who was shivering upon a door-step, with some wretched-looking children around her. The moment he showed an intention of speaking to her, she commenced a piteous appeal for charity.
“Oh, sir—kind sir,” she said, “bestow a trifle upon a starving widow, and her wretched children—my husband was a waterman, sir, he was murdered on the Bishop’s walk, at Lambeth, and since then, we have been starving.”
Learmont reeled from the woman as she spoke, and he felt that him she spoke of was the man who had met so cruel a death from his hand.
“Not her—not her;” he muttered. “I must go myself—a cursed chance to meet her—now I shall dream of that, too, I suppose—curse on the dreams—methinks I hear that man’s gasping screams, as he fell upon the snow, after I had run him through; but I must not torture myself thus—I will go to the Chequers—a sudden faintness has come over my heart—I will take a cup of wine there, and make my inquires cautiously.”
The woman’s voice sunk into a low wail of anguish and despair, as she saw Learmont turn away, and then bursting into tears, she sobbed over her famishing children, in all the bitterness of a mother’s grief.
“God help us—God help us,” she cried, “and Heaven have mercy on your father’s murderer.”