There was a distinct pause in Abel's mind. The others were not conscious of it; but to him it seemed as distinct a pause as that which falls upon a criminal when he has to say Guilty or Not guilty. A choice seemed to be thrust upon him—truth or falsehood, good or evil. And yet the blood had begun to hurry so wildly through his veins, the mad heart-piston to thump so loudly, that nothing but a confusion and giddy darkness was round him, through which his voice came not like his own voice, as if some one else spoke. "There are many of the name," he said; "it is not an unusual one. You don't remember his college? Had you done so all would have been easy enough."
"No, I don't remember the college," said the vicar, gravely. He sat staring at the young man with his dim eyes, studying him in every feature. "He was a handsome lad, dark and handsome like the rest of his family. I saw his mother selling her butter the last Saturday I was about before my illness, and I told her how satisfied we were. He is a credit to the parish. We have never had a prodigy before that I'm aware of. And son of a poor woman, that sells her butter (and very good butter it is) in the market at Waterside, it's a great credit to him to have done so well. Strange, now, when I think of it, in this light, there's a great resemblance——"
Mechanically Abel turned his head to the light, but there was nothing but giddy darkness in his own eyes. The room swam round him, a pale mist full of inquisitive faces. "By Jove! that will be the brother of the pretty girl in the village—the Lily of Waterside, as they call her. I had forgotten her brother. I wonder what was his college?" said Charley, carelessly. He spoke lightly, meaning little as he was in the habit of speaking—when all at once his eyes caught his friend's agitated colourless face. In a moment Charley stopped short; his countenance changed, his under lip dropped, he stared at Murray with a face of blank dismay.
They were all looking at him now, every eye fixed upon him—the vicar peering with contracted eyelids, for he was short-sighted. Abel's lips were so dry that he could scarcely speak. The harsh laugh, which he could not restrain when he was excited, broke from him in spite of himself—"The college! yes, that seems the essential point," he said.
How they all stared. God help him! unhappy wretch! He stood up unawares, feeling as if he hung suspended by some waving thread of chance over an abyss. Now he was falling in wild vertigo, misery, and shame. "My lad," said the vicar, very pitifully, yet authoritatively, in the way in which it was natural to address Elizabeth Murray's son, "I hope there's no intention to deceive in what you've done. Why should you try to conceal what all can see—that you are Abel Murray yourself?"
He gave one wild glance round him. They were all staring at him, the room turning round, the light changed to darkness, nothing but a mist of terrible, upbraiding, wondering faces. Then he became sensible of one which was an embodied insult, a sneer, a smile, a look which spoke enjoyment of his misery. That drove him out of himself: he struck a blind blow towards the insulting face, and with a cry, half moan, half yell, half laugh of despair and madness, turned and dashed through the circle. Who might be in his way he knew not, and how he got out of the room he knew not. He turned his back upon them all, and dashed wildly out of the house.
CHAPTER VIII.
Abel fled from the presence of those who seemed to him his enemies and persecutors in a state of mind impossible to describe. The excitement in him had risen beyond the bounds of endurance. All power of resistance was over, along with all possibility of making a stand against evil fortune. He was not bad enough for his rôle. He could lie by concealment, and by inference, but not directly and in so many words; and the utter self-abandonment and unspeakable humiliation of his flight meant more than mere discovery: it meant complete moral ruin and downfall. Nothing but the entire giving in and relinquishment of every hope, the sense that he had no further step to take, no expedient, no way of escape, could have overwhelmed all his powers so dismally and so completely. For one moment only he had stood at bay, seeing as through a mist the sudden lightening and darkening of the faces round him—lightening of understanding, darkening of disapproval: he felt both to his very heart with a horrible anguish beyond all experience. He had been ashamed of his low condition, of his peasant birth, of his homely family, and this shame had made him do ignoble things; but he was not all ignoble. A strong perception, when too late, of the simple truth which might have saved him, contended in his mind with the bitterness of his shame and the rage of his despair. No possibility of anything which could be done to sot him right suggested itself to his frantic soul. It was all over: there was no longer any way of repentance, any rehabilitation for him. The weakness of his nature had found him out. Farewell everything—love, friendship, honour, credit! He would live no longer among the people who had found him out; he would not look them in the face again. He darted into the woods, running at full speed, not knowing where he went; anywhere, only to escape from them, only to avoid the look of them. Oh, cruel judges! oh, terrible tribunal! could he ever flee far enough to escape from it, to forget the look in their cruel eyes?
These harsh judges from whom Abel fled had let him go in the first shock, obeying that impulse of indignation which is so natural at the moment of a discovery, but so often repented of afterwards. Mary had stood aghast in her surprise, incapable of a word, and it was only when he was gone that compunctions woke in her.
"Oh, Roger! go after him," she cried, "go after him. Do you remember that he saved your life?"