"God knows I have," replied Jane, feebly.
Mr. Linchmore went slowly from the cottage, scarcely heeding Mrs. Marks' curtseys and parting words, and struck across the fields towards the wood.
It was a sinful, grievous tale, the one he had just heard, and a bitter trial to him, not only to listen to it, but to know that from his lips must come the words to denounce his mother,—proclaim her guilt. It went bitterly against him, although he had no loving reverence for his parent; still, it must be done, his misery must make another's happiness, must restore the son to his mother. He hesitated not, but walked firmly on, perhaps angrily.
At the corner of the wood he met Marks, but his heart was too full for words with any one, and he merely acknowledged the passing touch of his hat, as he turned off into one of the by-paths, a nearer cut to Mrs. Grey's cottage. Just as he was about to emerge again into the broad beaten path, scarcely a dozen yards from the cottage, he stopped for a moment to collect his thoughts. A slight rustle in the bushes near attracted his attention. He looked up, and saw a man, gun in hand, creeping cautiously out of the underwood.
At another time Mr. Linchmore would have confronted him at once, but now he allowed him to pass on unmolested. The man crossed the path, reached the opposite side, and was about plunging again into the bushes, when Robert Vavasour's hand arrested his footsteps.
"What do you here with that gun, my man?" he asked.
It was growing dusk, almost twilight in the wood; still, as the man suddenly turned his face full on Vavasour, the latter exclaimed,
"Ah! it is you, is it? You villain! you don't escape me this time."
A short quick scuffle, a bright flash, a loud report, and Robert Vavasour dropped to the ground.
With a great oath, the man sprang up, but ere he could stir one step, Mr. Linchmore's hand was upon him. A desperate struggle ensued; but a stronger arm, a more powerful frame, contended with him now, and in a few moments he lay prostrate, but still struggling, on the ground.