The Devil's Garden

by W. B. Maxwell

After the funeral he began to grow calmer, and soon he was able to believe during long periods of each day that the most considerable risks were now over.

Then came news of the legacy to Mavis—the cursed money that he hated, that threw him back into the earlier distress concerning his wife's shame, that restored vividness to the thoughts which had faded in presence of the one overpowering thought of his own imminent peril.

But here again he was governed by what he had set before himself as his unfailing guide-post—the necessity to conceal any motive for an act of vengeance. What would people think if he refused the money? It was a question not easy to answer, and the guide-post seemed to point in two opposite directions. He was harassed by terrible doubt until he and Mavis went to see the solicitor at Old Manninglea. During the conversation over there he assured himself that the solicitor saw nothing odd in the legacy, and made no guess at there having been an intrigue between Mavis and the benefactor; and further he ascertained that this was only one of several similar legacies. All was clear then: the guide-post pointed one way now: they must take the money.

But this necessity shook Dale badly again. It seemed as if the man so tightly put away in his lead coffin and stone vault was not done with yet. It was as if one could never be free from his influence, as if, dead or alive, he exercised power over one. Dale resisted such superstitious fancies in vain. They upset him; and the fear returned, bigger than before.

It was irrational, bone-crumbling fear—something that defied argument, that nothing could allay. It was like the elemental passion felt by the hunted animal—not fear of death, but the anguish of the live thing which must perforce struggle to escape death, although prolonged flight is worse than that from which it flies.

Dale had no real fear of death—nor even fear of the gallows. If the worst came, he could face death bravely. He was quite sure of that. Then, as he told himself thousands of times, it was absurd to be so shaken by terror. Terror of what? And he thought, "It is because of the uncertainty. But there too, how absurdly fullish I am; for there is no real uncertainty. My crime can not and will not be discovered. If I were to go now and accuse myself, people would not credit me."

He thought also, in intervals between the paroxysms, "I suppose what I've been feeling is what all murderers feel. It is this that makes men go and give themselves up to the police after they have got off scot free. They are safe, but they never can believe they're safe; they can't stand the strain, and if they didn't stop it, they'd go mad. So they give themselves up—just go get a bit o' quiet. And that is what I shall do, if this goes on much longer. I'd sooner be turned off short and sharp with a broken neck than die of exhaustion in a padded cell."

Then suddenly chance gave the hateful money an immense value, converted it into a means of escape from the outer life whose monotony and narrowness were assisting the cruelly wide inner life to drive him mad.

He went to Vine-Pits, and the strangeness of his surroundings, the difficulties, the hard work, produced a salutary effect upon him; but most of all he drew strength and courage from the renewal of love between Mavis and himself. That was most wonderful—like a new birth, rather than a reanimation. They loved each other as a freshly married couple, as a boy and girl who have just returned from their honeymoon, and who say, "We shall feel just the same when the time comes to keep our silver wedding."

So he toiled comfortably, almost happily. Mavis was perfectly happy, and he found increasing solace in the knowledge of this fact.