Not a touch of pity stirred their hearts for Eva, thus cruelly banished from the only home she had ever known, to seek refuge with an unknown father, from whom her very existence had heretofore been carefully concealed. They remembered nothing but their spiteful jealousy because she had always been her grandfather’s pet, and because of her aversion to Terry that she had but vainly tried to conquer or conceal. They thought they were only paying off old scores by the terrible silence that was staining with dishonor both the living and the dead.
It was blackest treachery to keep still over the dread mistake that had sent two promising young men to bloody graves, and an innocent young girl into cruel exile, when a word from their lips could have cleared Ludington’s fame, and recalled the victim of circumstances from her martyrdom.
But those two young girls, barely nineteen years old, were hard and cruel at heart. They did not choose to save Eva, and bear the blame that must fall on them if they confessed their malevolent scheme to send old Doctor Binks to their cousin’s bedside, when the romantic young girl was expecting a vision of her future husband.
They put a seal on their lips, they hardened their hearts, they did not even take the spinster, their whilom ally, into their confidence, fearing lest a certain sense of rugged justice inherent in her nature might lead her to censure them for their silence. They justified themselves by saying to each other that Eva was the same as Terry’s slayer, since her lover had murdered him.
Soon the sympathizing neighbors from roundabout farms came in to help and to sympathize, and the men took a turn with the sick man; but as for those two lying stark and ghastly nothing could be done but to wait for the inquest.
The news had been quickly carried to Fernside, Doctor Ludington’s home, and it was whispered about that nothing like it had ever been seen—the grief and rage of the old doctor, when they told him his son lay dead in his enemy’s house.
His son, his only boy, the prop of his house, his idol—for his older children were both girls, and long ago gone from Fernside to the distant homes of their husbands. It was well that the mother was absent on a visit to them, or the sudden shock of Rupert’s terrible death must have broken her fond heart.
The stricken father could not believe the tale the dying Terry told—that his noble son had clandestinely met a neighbor’s daughter and brought shame upon himself.
“It is a foul lie,” he swore. “There has been some terrible mistake. Rupert never spoke a word to Eva Somerville, old Groves’ granddaughter, in all his honorable life! Have I not seen them pass each other with averted eyes or looks of scorn? They inherited the hatred of their ancestors. Go, bring him home to me, my murdered son! Let him not lie beneath my foeman’s roof!”
When they told him that his son’s body must not be removed till after the inquest his rage was terrible to witness. He flung himself with his face to the ground, raving like a madman that he himself would go and drag Rupert away.