"Only Fielding Thaneford himself can give it," replied Betty. "Here is his fully decoded statement, and I'll ask Chalmers to read it aloud. As I said a moment ago, we worked it out together that long day on the train. When we reached town we had the whole story, and knew what to expect. Except one thing: Would it be a cloudy day? But it turned out fair and hot, with only a faint suggestion of thunder in the air. There was a bad wreck on the Cape Charles route, and anyhow we had missed the connection for the morning train. So we hired a car, threw away the speedometer, and made to strike the 'Hundred' by midday. We couldn't quite do it, but the tide of chance had turned at last, and it didn't matter. Now go on, Chalmers."
Warriner ruffled the dozen or more sheets of paper between his fingers and began:
Chapter XXII
The Grapes of Wrath
Thane Court, August third, eighteen-ninety-two. Now that a son is born to me, Fielding Thaneford of King William county, Maryland, it is fitting that I set down in order the form and measure of my vengeance upon the traitor Yardley Hildebrand; also upon those who may come after him until the end of time.
Back in 1854 I was a young man of nine-and-twenty. Yardley Hildebrand was some twenty years my senior, yet we were close friends owing to our common interest in scientific studies, he as a chemist and I as a physicist, specializing in optics. Then Evelyn Mansfield came and stood between us.
It was his wealth which turned the scale. Not that Evelyn was mercenary, but financial disaster had overtaken the Mansfields, and Yardley Hildebrand had promised to play the part of a ministering angel in rehabilitating the family fortunes, the inexorable condition being that Evelyn should favor his suit. And I was a comparatively poor man.
They were married in 1855, she a slip of a girl of barely nineteen years, and he a mature man of fifty. It is hardly necessary to say that he kept none of his lavish promises. I cared nothing about that, but when he began to mistreat his wife, to the extent of using personal violence, my half-formed plans started to take definite shape.
Evelyn died suddenly in the late summer of 1860, the same year that Yardley Hildebrand succeeded his father in the ownership of the "Hundred." As S. Saviour's was then undergoing repairs, the funeral had to take place from the house. I stood by her coffin, set up in state in the long ballroom; and, snatching a favorable opportunity, I pushed back the loose sleeve of her gown, and saw with my own eyes the blue and purple marks of his hands on her delicate flesh. Whereupon, I made oath that both Yardley himself and his heirs forever should pay in their own bodies for all that Evelyn had suffered and endured. Perhaps I was a little mad then; it may be that I am still of a disordered brain, and so not fully responsible for the things which I have done in making up the tale of my revenge. Whatever the legal aspects of the case, be sure of this: I am neither sorry nor ashamed.