The meaning was evidently not to be found there. Dr. Dale said he could tell us no more than he had told, if he talked till night—that Francis Radcliffe was taken out by his brother. Stephen paid all charges at the time, and they went away together.
“And of course, Johnny, he is to be believed,” quoth the pater, turning himself round and round on the grass-plot, as we were going away, like a teetotum. “Dale would not deceive us: he could have no object in doing that. What in the world does it all mean?—and where is Francis? Ste Radcliffe can’t have shipped him off to Canada with the wheelbarrows!”
How the Squire whirled straight off to the train, finding one on the point of starting, and got down home again, there’s no space to tell of. It was between eight and nine, as the station clock told him, but he was in too much excitement to let the matter rest.
“Come along, Johnny. I’ll have it out with Stephen before I sleep.”
And they had it out in that same gloomy parlour at the Torr, where Tod and I had been a night or two before; frightfully gloomy to-night, for the dusk was drawing on, and hardly a bit of light came in. The Squire and Stephen, sitting opposite each other, could not see the outline of one another’s faces. Ste brazened it out.
“You’re making a hullabaloo for nothing,” said he, doggedly. “No, it’s true he didn’t die at the mad-house; he died within a week of coming out of it. Why didn’t I tell the truth about it? Why, because I knew I should get a heap o’ blame thrown back at me for taking him out—and I wished I hadn’t took him out; but ’twas no good wishing then. How was I to know that the very self-same hour he’d got his liberty, he would begin drinking again?—and drink himself into a furious fever, and die of it? Could I bring him to life again, do you suppose?”
“What was the meaning of that letter you brought to me, purporting to come from Dr. Dale? Answer that, Stephen Radcliffe.”
“I didn’t bring you a letter from Dr. Dale. ’Twas from Pitt; Dr. Dale’s head man. You read it yourself. When I found that Frank was getting unmanageable at the lodgings, I sent to Pitt, asking if he’d be good enough to come and see to him—I knew no other doctor up there; and Pitt was the best I could have, as he understood his case. Pitt came and took the charge; and I left Frank under him. I couldn’t afford to stay up there, with my grass waiting to be cut, and all the fine weather wasting itself away. Pitt stayed with him; and he died in Pitt’s arms; and it was Pitt that wrote the letter to tell me of it. You should ha’ gone up with me, Squire,” added Stephen, with a kind of sneer, “and then you’d have seen where he was for yourself, and known as much as I did.”
“It was an infamous deceit to put upon me, Stephen Radcliffe.”
“It did no harm. The deceit only lay in letting you think he died in the mad-house instead of out of it. If I’d not thought he was well enough to come out, I shouldn’t have moved him. ’Twas his fault,” sullenly added Stephen. “He prayed me to take him away from the place; not to go away without him.”