"Darkness, indeed! O my poor Hugh!"
"He expressed great surprise, and said; 'Well, this will be the first and only secret affecting either of us which John has ever kept from me. Wilmot hinted that some one had been at work who was not friendly to me; but I told him I didn't believe I had an enemy: and I don't and won't believe it now.' Then I asked him if he wouldn't like to see you, and I think in his heart he would; but he seemed to hesitate, and at last said: 'No, it is best not, best for us both--at least until after this,'--meaning the inquest--'is over.'"
The first secret! No, not the first, Hugh, not the first; but the other could never have divided us, could never have raised one shadow between us, I had buried it deep down in its lonely grave, and laid its ghost by the might of my strong love for you, my friend and brother!
The house in Wimpole street looked gloomy enough, with its close-shut blinds and the two policemen keeping guard on either side the door, suggestive of death--of murder! There was a small crowd collected round; not such a crowd as had assembled before the police-station, but something like. Street-children, errand-boys, stray costermongers with their barrows, passing tradesmen with their carts or baskets, and women--slatterns from neighboring alleys and back-streets, Irish women from the Marylebone courts and slums; and each arrival caused fresh agitation and excitement amidst that crowd of upturned eager faces gathered there, waiting for the verdict.
"That's him," cried a voice as our cab drove up to the door--"that's Corrinder Javies!"' "No, it an't, bless yer innercence! the corrinder wears a scarlet gownd and a gold-laced 'at." "Tell ye he don't; he wears a black un, and ers got it in his bag." "Yah!--the lawyer, the nevy's lawyer!" followed by a yell of imprecations. The nearest gamin on the door-step had heard Merrivale give his name to the policemen and demand admission, and had handed it down to his fellows. So, with the sounds of the brutal mob ringing in our ears, we passed the threshold of the murdered man's house. A cold shudder seized me as I stood in the hall, and I seemed to feel as if the spirit of the dead were hovering about in disquiet, and unable to rest. A superintendent of the police received us in the hall, and we asked him if we could go up to see the body. After some demur he went up-stairs with us, and unlocked the chamber of death. There in his shell lay all that remained of Gilbert Thorneley, he whose name and fame had been world-wide. Fame, for what? For amassing wealth; for grinding down the poor; for toiling, slaving, wearing himself out in the busy march of life, with no thought but for that life which perishes heaping up riches which must be relinquished on the grave's brink; which could bring him no comfort nor solace in the valley of the shadow; which perchance, in the inscrutable designs of providence, had been used as an instrument of retribution against him. I looked at his worn face--seamed with the lines of care, furrowed with the struggles that had brought so little reward--and remembered that last evening when I had seen and spoken with him--of the secret he had confided to me, of what he had so darkly hinted at; and I fancied I could read in his unplacid face that death had visited him in all its intensity of bitterness, that the bodily suffering had been nothing compared to the ocean of remorse which had swept over his soul. He rested from his weary labors, and the fruits of them had not followed him. God alone knew the complete history of his life; God only could supply what had been wanting from the treasures of his mercy; God only could tell whether that last flood of remorseful anguish had been the sorrow that could be accepted for the sake of One who had died for him.
Whilst we yet stood gazing on the corpse, word was brought us that the coroner had arrived, and was going to open proceedings. The superintendent once more turned the key upon the dead; and we descended to the first-floor.
"I must divide you, gentlemen, now," said he. "You, sir," to Merrivale, "will please to come with me to the inquest-room; and you, Mr. Kavanagh, must wait in this back drawing-room until we send for you. I thought you'd prefer being alone, to going along with the other witnesses."
"Yes," I said; "I should much prefer it."