"You're too late," I lied to him. "He's gone too." For I knew that at that time it would have been madness to let him go to the house in search of his brother.
He suddenly turned from me, with all the courage gone out of him as it seemed, and broke down utterly. He leant his arm against a tree, and his head on his arm, and wept as though his heart would break; I trembled to see how the great sobs shook and rent him. I stood wringing my hands, and pleading with him in whispers to be calm, even while at the same time I was so shaken myself that I could scarcely get out the words. When presently that fit of despair had passed, he spoke to me like a man suddenly grown old.
"I shall go to London to find her," he said slowly. "If he has harmed her, then by the mother that bore us both I'll kill him. Life can be nothing to me then, and I shall not mind what happens. Look at that hand, Tinman"—he stretched it out before him, and I saw that it was still and steady as a rock—"and take note that I do not speak in any boyish anger. If he has harmed her, it will be worse than if he had killed her, for he will have killed her soul; it'll be a small vengeance to kill his body. Don't try to stop me; I shall know where to find him in London."
He sprang out on to the road, and set off at a great pace towards the town. For a few moments I strove to keep up with him, trotting by his side, and pleading brokenly with him that he would at least take time to think. But he paid no heed to anything I said; he walked straight on, staring in front of him with that set deadly look in his eyes. And after a time I was compelled from sheer exhaustion to drop behind, and to see him go on steadily before me until he was lost to sight.
I walked on feebly for a little time, perhaps with some faint hope that he might repent of his purpose, and turn back. Presently on the road before me I saw a man standing, and for a moment the wild hope sprang up in my mind that this was Arnold Millard, already hesitating; as I ran up to him, however, I saw that it was Fanshawe, who had evidently run himself to a standstill. He was muttering to himself like one possessed, laughing and trembling, and standing still to look about him and to listen. As I went up to him he took me by the arm, and spoke again those mad words he had used in the grounds of the house.
"The dead come alive, Charlie," he whispered. "As I hope for Heaven, I saw the face—there—going past me like a face in a dream. I saw her, I tell you."
"Who?" I asked, with my mind full of something else.
"Barbara," he whispered. "Not the child—but your Barbara—my Barbara! She went past me like a spirit!"
Horrified at the mere thought, I clapped my hand upon his lips, and looked about me fearfully; for all at once it seemed almost possible that on that night of disaster the spirit of the dead woman might have come back, in the vain hope to save her child. I shuddered in the wintry wind that swept about us both on the deserted road; I peered into the shadows, awed and afraid.