“How was it ended?” asked she of Mr. Ball, who, being a bachelor, was ever regarded with much graciousness by Afy, for she kept her eyes open to contingencies; although Mr. Joe Jiffin was held in reserve.
“They are both committed for wilful murder—off to Lynneborough within an hour!”
Afy’s color rose. “What a shame! To commit two innocent men upon such a charge.”
“I can tell you what, Miss Afy, the sooner you disabuse your mind of that prejudice, the better. Levison has been as good as proved guilty to-day; but if proof were wanting, he and Bethel have criminated each other. ‘When rogues fall out, honest men get their own.’ Not that I can quite fathom Bethel’s share in the exploit, though I can pretty well guess at it. And, in proving themselves guilty they have proved the innocence of Richard Hare.”
Afy’s face was changing to whiteness; her confident air to one of dread; her vanity to humiliation.
“It—can’t—be—true!” she gasped.
“It’s true enough. The part you have hitherto ascribed to Thorn, was enacted by Richard Hare. He heard the shot from his place in the wood, and saw Thorn run, ghastly, trembling, horrified, from his wicked work. Believe me, it was Thorn who killed your father.”
Afy grew cold as she listened. That one awful moment, when conviction that his words were true, forced itself upon her, was enough to sober her for a whole lifetime. Thorn! Her sight failed; her head reeled; her very heart turned to sickness. One struggling cry of pain; and, for the second time that day, Afy Hallijohn fell forward in a fainting fit.
Shouts, hisses, execrations, yells! The prisoners were being brought forth, to be conveyed to Lynneborough. A whole posse of constables was necessary to protect them against the outbreak of the mob, which outbreak was not directed against Otway Bethel, but against Sir Francis Levison. Cowering like the guilty culprit that he was, shivered he, hiding his white face—wondering whether it would be a repetition of Justice Hare’s green pond, or tearing him asunder piecemeal—and cursing the earth because it did not open and let him in!