"And it happened," said Beaufort, "on Thursday—on the day I arrived?" He drew a long breath to relieve his breast, then waved his hand. "Yes; if that is all, Erskine told me of it," he said.
"You have something to do with them also, old fellow," said Millefleurs, patting him on the shoulder. "I knew there was something. Come along and walk with me. I must see it out; but perhaps we had better not meet again just now—Erskine and I, don't you know. Perhaps I was rude. Come along; it is your duty to get me out of harm's way. Was there anything remarkable, by the way, in the fact that this happened just when you arrived?"
Beaufort made no reply; he scarcely heard, so violently were his pulses beating in his ears, so high was the tide of new life rising in his veins. Who can think of the perplexities, even the dangers, of another, when something unparalleled, something that stirs up his very being, has happened to himself? But he allowed himself to be led out into the open air, which was a relief—to the road leading to Lindores, from which they soon came in sight of Tinto dominating the country round from its platform. Millefleurs stopped at the point where this first came in view, to point out how high it rose above the river, and how the path ascended through the overhanging woods. The Scaur itself was visible like a red streak on the face of the height. "You can see for yourself that horse or man who plunged over that would have little hope," Millefleurs said. But Beaufort did not hear him. He stood and gazed, with a sense of freedom and possibility which went to his head like wine. Even the ordinary bonds of nature did not seem to hold him. His mind seemed to expand and float away over the wide country. Of all people in the world he was the last who could cross that distance actually, who could present himself to the lady there—the widow—the woman who had married Torrance. He could not offer his services or his sympathy to Carry; he alone of all the world was absolutely shut out from her, more than a stranger: and yet he stood gazing at the place where she was, feeling himself go out upon the air, upon the empty space, towards her. The sensation dizzied his brain and bewildered all his faculties. Millefleurs flowed on, making a hundred remarks and guesses, but Beaufort did not hear him. He would have said afterwards, that as he never spoke, it was impossible he could have betrayed himself. But he betrayed himself completely, and something more than himself, to the keen little eyes of Millefleurs.
The day passed as days full of agitation pass—looking long, protracted, endless—blank hours of suspense following the moment of excitement. Sir James Montgomery had gone away shaking his good grey head. He had not believed John Erskine's story—that is, he believed that there was something suppressed. He had listened with the profoundest interest up to a certain point, but after that he had shaken his head. "You would have done better to tell me everything," he said, as he went away. "It would have been more wise—more wise." He shook his head; the very truth of the story went against it. There was so much that fitted into the hypothesis of the country-side. But then there came that suppressio veri which took all the value from the statement. Sir James went away fully determined to repeat the story in the most favourable way—to give the best representation of it possible; but he was not satisfied. It was with a most serious face that he mounted his horse and rode away, shaking his head from time to time. "No, no," he said to himself, "that will never hold water—that will never hold water!" When this interview was over, John went back to his library and sat down in his usual chair with a sense of exhaustion and hopelessness which it would be difficult to describe. He had told his story as best he could, searching his memory for every detail; but he had not been believed. He had gone on, growing impassioned in his self-defence—growing indignant, feeling himself powerless in face of that blank wall of incredulity, that steady incapacity to believe. "Why should I tell you a lie?" he cried, at last. "Do not you see? Have you not said that it was for my interest to tell you the truth?" "I am not saying you have told a lie," Sir James said, always shaking his head. "No, no—no lie. You will never be accused of that." When he went away, he had laid his heavy old hand on John's shoulder. "My poor lad, if you had only had the courage to open your heart all the way!" he said. John felt like a victim in the hands of the Inquisition. What did they want him to confess? Half maddened, he felt as if a little more pressure, a few more twists of the screw, would make him accuse himself of anything, and confess all that they might require.
He did not know how long he sat there, silent, doing nothing, not even thinking anything, alone with himself and the cloud that hung over his life, with a consciousness that all his movements were watched, that even this would be something against him, a proof of that remorse which belongs to guilt. And thus the slow moments, every one slower than the other, more full of oppression, rolled over him. Beaufort had disappeared, and did not return till late in the afternoon, when the twilight was falling. A few words only passed between them, and these related solely to Beaufort's thoughts, not to Erskine's.
"It is her husband who has been killed," Beaufort said; "you never told me."
"I could not tell you. It was too extraordinary; it was an impiety," John said.
But neither did he ask himself what he meant, nor did Beaufort ask him. They said nothing more to each other, except such civilities as are indispensable when men eat together,—for they dined all the same, notwithstanding the circumstances. In every crisis men must still dine; it is the only thing that is inevitable, in trouble or in joy.
And then the night followed. Night is horrible, yet it is consolatory to those who are in suspense. John could not suppose that his trials were over, that nothing was to follow; but by ten o'clock or so he said to himself, with relief, that nothing could happen to-night. Rolls, too, had evidently arrived at the same conclusion. He was heard to close and bolt the door ostentatiously while it was still early, and there was something in the very noise he made which proclaimed the satisfaction with which he did it. But after this there was a long black evening still, and hours of darkness, to follow, which John did not know how to get through. Almost he had made up his mind to step out of the window at midnight, as Rolls had suggested, and withdraw from all this alarm and unjust suspicion. He did go out, and felt the cool freshness of the night caress him, hot and weary as he was, and thought with a sigh of distant places far away, where he might be safe from all these frets and passions. But he knew, if he did so, that his cause would be lost for ever—that nothing could save him or his reputation. Perhaps in no case could anything save him: but if he fled, his ruin was certain. "What did it matter," he thought, with bitterness, "that he had no witnesses to produce, that nobody would believe him? And if he were condemned, what would any one care? His mother, indeed, would feel the shame, but more the shame than anything else; and her name was not Erskine, nor that of any of her family. There was no one who actually belonged to him in the wide world, to whom his living or dying could be of any consequence." As he stood alone with these bitter thoughts, on the terrace, looking out upon the night, feeling the wind blow upon him from the fields of sleep, but no other trace in the darkness of the great wide landscape which he knew lay stretched out like a map under cover of the clouds, something breathed another name in his ear. Ah! how did he know if she would care? Sometimes he had thought so, hoped so, vaguely, with a tremor of alarmed delight. But if this shadow of crime came over him, would Edith stoop under it to say a word of consolation?—would she? could she? He stood still for a long time on the terrace, with the lighted window and common life behind him, and all the secrets of the hidden night before, and asked himself what she would do. What would she do? That question, and not the other, was, after all, the great one in life.
Next morning John awoke with the sense of a coming trial, which made his heart jump in his breast the moment he opened his eyes, though it was some time before he recollected what it was. But he did so at last, and accepted the certainty with outward calm. He came down-stairs with a steady conviction of what was about to happen. To make up his mind to it was something. He sat down at the breakfast-table opposite to Beaufort—who was restless and uncomfortable—with a calm which he felt to be fictitious, but which nevertheless was calm.