The Loudwater Tragedy

by T. W. Speight

Suddenly Fanny became as rigid as a statue. Her quick ears had caught a faint sound, as it might be of the crunching of gravel beneath someone's footsteps. Scarcely breathing, she listened. Yes, there it was again, nearer than before. Evidently someone was approaching in the direction where she was. Her first impulse was to hide herself. In a little trepidation she glanced around. Ah! there, close by her, was the well-house, as it was called. It was the one sheltered spot in the garden. A few swift noiseless strides and her form was lost among its shadows.

The old well was said to be coeval with the building of Loudwater House, to the inmates of which it had been the sole source of water supply for several generations. Of late years, however, that is to say, since the establishment of the Merehampton waterworks, it had fallen into the desuetude and neglect which become the portion of all things which outlast their uses. Nowadays its water was used for two purposes only. One was to supply the dowager Mrs. Melray's tea-kettle (there was no water anywhere, in that lady's opinion, equal to that of the old well for expressing the hidden virtues of Souchong or Bohea). The other purpose to which it was put was the irrigation of the garden. The well itself was covered in by a conical overhanging red-tiled roof, supported by thick oaken beams, with other beams inside, forming, with the windlass-rope and bucket, the needful apparatus for bringing the water to the surface. Even on a moonlight night like the present it was a home of dense shadow.

Fanny drew the hood of her cloak about her and waited in mute expectancy, her eyes fixed on the point whence the sound had come. Nearer came the footsteps--only in the intense midnight quietude could they have been heard--and presently round a curve of the path advanced a female figure, also, like Fanny, darkly cloaked; but, for all that, one glance was enough to reveal to the latter the identity of the new-comer. It was impossible to mistake either figure or gait for those of anyone save Denia Melray.

Fanny, with an arm flung round one of the beams that supported the windlass and with her other hand pressed to her bosom, watched the lithe, graceful figure pass her hiding-place and disappear round a curve of the walk a little further on. Three or four seconds later came the sound of a low whistle, which was immediately responded to by another whistle. Then, as in a flash, Fanny recalled to mind that, among other knick-knacks suspended from a chatelaine which the young widow occasionally wore, was a tiny silver dog-whistle, which had struck her as being a somewhat incongruous ornament for a person to carry who acknowledged to never having owned a dog in her life. Now, in the direction which Denia had taken was the one door by which admittance could be had to the garden from the outside; consequently, when a peculiar grating sound presently made itself heard, Fanny at once came to the conclusion that Mrs. Melray was at that moment withdrawing the bolts of the door in question. Who was her midnight visitor? Fanny's heart beat painfully. On the threshold of what mystery had she unwittingly found herself?

Evidently a change of weather was impending. By this time a fine gauzy mist had overspread the upper reaches of the sky, through which the moon shone with a chastened lustre. The evergreens babbled softly to each other of the rain that was soon to come. Presently a sound of voices reached the ears of the waiting girl, those of a man and a woman talking together in low tones, and then, half a minute later, the speakers came round a turn of the path and so towards the well- house, he with an arm round her waist and with his other hand holding one of hers pressed close to his breast. Then, while the two were still some distance away, something in the man's walk, or figure, or his way of carrying himself, revealed his identity. "It is Richard Dyson!" exclaimed Fanny to herself, with a thrill that set every nerve tingling. "Oh, blind, blind that I have been!"

Phil had written her a brief account of what had passed at the interviews with Messrs. Noyes and Dunning, and she was aware that Dyson had been accorded a holiday on the plea of ill-health, Mr. Melray having mentioned the fact in her hearing in reply to his mother's question, "How is it that I have seen nothing of Richard for the last few days?" In all probability Dyson had only just returned, and his first thought, his first object had been to---- But when Fanny's thoughts had travelled thus far they veered suddenly round to his companion. "Oh, it is dreadful--dreadful!" she murmured under her breath. "Who would have thought it of her?--Who would have believed it possible?"

Meanwhile the two were slowly drawing nearer, talking earnestly together. The first words which reached Fanny distinctly were spoken by Denia.

"You are sure your holiday has done you good, and that you have come back better than you went?" she was saying.

"On that point I have no doubt whatever," was Dyson's low-voiced reply. "Only, darling, had you been with me I should have enjoyed my holiday infinitely more. But the day will come, and that before long, when you will be mine and I shall be yours, and no one in the wide world will have the right to come between us."

With that he bent his head and, unreproved, pressed his lips to hers.