Produced by Al Haines [Frontispiece: map of Sable Island] MAID OF THE MIST BY JOHN OXENHAM HODDER AND STOUGHTON PUBLISHERS LONDON _Printed in 1917_ TO MY FRIEND FREDERICK CÆSAR de SUMICHRAST Professor Emeritus of French Literature at Harvard University in HIGHEST ESTEEM and MOST AFFECTIONATE REGARD. CONTENTS BOOK I For a Woman's Sake BOOK II No Man's Land BOOK III Bone of Contention BOOK IV Love in a Mist BOOK V Garden of Eden BOOK I FOR A WOMAN'S SAKE I At sight of where the chase was leading, most of the riders reined in their panting horses and sat watching those in front with anxious faces. The Old Roman Road--so called, though with possibly somewhat doubtful claim to antiquity so remote--had an evil reputation. At best of times it was dangerous. More than one of them had sacrificed a horse to it at some time or other. Some had come near to sacrificing more. After several hours in the field, wound up by a fast five-and-twenty minutes' run which had led round Endsley Wood and the coppices almost to Wynn Hall, and then back through Dursel Bottom, and up Whin Hill, it was too much to ask of any horse. Besides, it meant the end of the run in any case, for that old fox, if he failed to shake them off elsewhere, always made for the Roman Road and always managed it there. The hedge on this side was as thick and matted a quickset as ever grew. The sunk road had no doubt originally been a covered way from the old fort up above. It was indeed more of a trench than a road, with a sheer descent from the quickset of ten good feet, a width of about as much, and a grass slope on the other side at a somewhat lower level. The leap was therefore by no means impossible if your horse could rise to the hedge and cover the distance and the extra bit for a footing. But what was the good? The bottom of the old road was always a muddy dribble from the fields above, and up and down it went several flocks of sheep whenever they changed pasture. And the wily old fox knew the effect of these things on scent as well as any hound or huntsman. So, when it was his day, and he had had enough of them, he made for the Old Roman Road, and then went home with a curl in his lip and a laugh in his eye. But there were riders among them to whom a ride was nothing without a risk in it, and the Roman Road a standing test and temptation. It was two such that the rest who had got that length stood watching, some with tightened faces, none without anxiety. For a leap that is good sport when one's horse is fresh may mean disaster at the end of the run. Even old Job, the huntsman, and young Job, his son, who acted as whipper-in, watched with pinched faces and panted oaths between their teeth. Pasley Carew, the Master, lifted his foam-flecked black to the hedge, and the dull crash of his fall came up to them, horribly clear on the still autumn air. Wulfrey Dale, the Doctor, on his big bay, cleared hedge and road with feet to spare, flung himself off as soon as he could pull up, and ran back to help. It was as bad as it could be. Carew lay in the road, smothered in mud and obviously damaged. His horse had just rolled off him, and the Doctor saw at a glance that one of its forelegs was broken. It was kicking out wildly with its heels, flailing clods out of the steep bank and floundering in vain attempts to rise. Carew, on one elbow, was cursing it with every oath he could lay tongue to, and with the pointed bone handle of his crop in the other hand was hammering the poor brute's head to pulp. "Stop it, Carew!" shouted Wulfrey, sickened at the sight, as he jumped down the bank. "Damn it, man, it wasn't her fault!" "---- her! She's broken my back." "You shouldn't have tried it. I told you you were too heavy for her. Stop it, I say!" and he wrenched the crop, all dripping with hair and blood, out of the other's hand, and with difficulty bit off the hot words that surged in his throat. For the man was broken and hardly responsible. It was a hard age and given to forceful language. But never in any age are there lacking some to whom brutality to the dumb beast appeals as keenly as ill-treatment of their fellows. Wulfrey Dale was of these, and a great lover of horses besides, and Carew's maltreatment of his broken beast cut him to the quick. With another quick look at the useless leg, and a bitter word which he could not keep in, at the horror of the mauled head, he drew from his pocket a long knife, which had seen service on many a field, opened it, pressed down the blinded tumbling head with one hand, and with the other deftly inserted the blade at the base of the skull behind the ears and drove it home with all his force, severing the spinal cord. "Poor old girl!" he said, as, with a quick sigh of relief, the great black body lay still. Then he turned to Carew and knelt down to examine into his injuries. "No need," said the broken man. "Curse it all! Get a gate. My back's gone. I've no legs,"--and the others, having found their roundabout ways, came flocking up, while the dogs still nosed eagerly up and down the road but got no satisfaction. Young Job plied his whip and his tongue and carried them away. His father looked at Carew, then at the Doctor, who nodded, and the old man turned and hurried away to get what long experience of such matters told him was needed. "Take a pull at this, Carew," said the Doctor, handing him a flask. And as he drank deeply, as though to deaden the pain or the thought of it, Dale beckoned to one of the group which stood a little aloof lest the broken man should take their anxiety for morbid curiosity. "Barclay, will you ride on and break it to Mrs. Carew?" "Is it bad?" "Yes, his back's broken." "Good God!" and he stumbled off to his horse, and with a word to the rest, mounted and rode away. Old Job came back in a minute or two with a hurdle he had rooted up from the sheep-fold, and they lifted the Master on to it and carried him slowly and heavily home. II Carew was on the front door steps as they came up the drive. The Doctor went on in advance to speak to her. "Dead?" she jerked breathlessly, as he strode up. "Not dead. Badly broken. He may live," and her tightened lips pinched a trifle tighter. She was a slight, extremely pretty woman of three and twenty, white-faced at the moment with the sudden shock; in her blue eyes a curious startled look--anxiety?--expectancy? Even Dale, who had known her all his life, could not have said. All he knew was that it was not quite the look one found in some wives' faces in similar circumstances, and this was not the first he had seen. She looked scarcely more than a girl, though she had been married five years. That was due largely to the slim grace of her figure. Her face was thinner than he had known it, less eloquent of her feelings, somewhat tense and repressed, and her eyes seemed larger; and all that, he knew, was due to the fact that it was to Pasley Carew to whom she had been married for five years, for he had seen these changes come upon her gradually. They had played together as boy and girl, when he was just little Wulf Dale, the Doctor's son, and she Elinor Baynard, living with her mother at Glynne. As youth and maiden they had flirted and even sweet-hearted for a time. But Mrs Baynard of Glynne had no intention of letting her pretty girl throw herself away on a mere country doctor's son, however highly she might esteem both father and son personally. Wulf had at that time still to prove himself, and even if he did so, and eventually succeeded his father in the practice, it meant no more than a good living at the cost of constant hard work. Elinor, she was sure, had been gifted by Nature with that face and figure for some better portion in life than that of a country doctor's wife, and so she saw to it that the feelings of the young people should not get too deeply entangled before it was too late. As for Elinor herself she was very fond of Wulf. She liked him indeed almost well enough to sacrifice everything for him. But not quite. If he had only been in the position and possessions of Pasley Carew of the Hall, now, she would have married him without a moment's hesitation, and she would undoubtedly have had much greater chance of happiness than was vouchsafed her. If, indeed, Wulf had ardently pushed his suit he might possibly have prevailed on her to marry him in spite of her mother, though whether Wulf without the possessions would have satisfied her eventually may be doubted. But Wulf, two years older than herself, had no intention of marrying at twenty, even if his father would have heard of it. He was a gay, good-looking fellow, with the cheerfullest of humours, and on the best of terms with every man, woman and child, over all the country-side. Moreover he was an excellent shot, a fearless rider, good company at table, an acceptable and much-sought-after guest,--whenever circumstances and cases permitted of temporary release from duties with which no social engagements were ever allowed to interfere. Marrying and settling down were for the years to come. As his father's assistant he had proved his capabilities. And when the old man died, Wulf stepped up into the vacant saddle and filled it with perfect acceptation to all concerned. His ready sympathy, and his particular interest in and devotion to everyone who claimed his services, endeared him to his patients. They vowed that the sight of him did them as much good as his medicines, but he made them take the medicines all the same. He had also lately been appointed Deputy-Coroner for the district, in order, in case of need, to relieve Dr Tamplin--old Tom Tamplin who lived at Aldersley, ten miles away. So that matters were prospering with him all round. All men spoke well of him, and the women still better. A practitioner from the outside, with a London degree and much assurance, had indeed hung out his large new brass plate in the village about a year before, and lived on there in hope which showed no sign of fulfilment. For everyone knew and liked Wulf Dale, and Dr Newman, M.B., clever though he might be and full worthy of his London degree, was still an outsider and an unknown quantity, and the way of the medical outsider in a country district is apt to be as hard as the way of the transgressor. So Elinor Baynard, for the sake of her bodily comfort and her own and her mother's worldly ambitions, married Pasley Carew and became Mistress of Croome, and learned all too soon that it is possible to pay too high a price even for bodily comfort and the realisation of worldly ambition. Worldly ambition may, indeed, be made to appear successfully attained, to the outside world; but bodily comfort, being dependent more or less on peace of mind, is not to be secured when heart and mind are sorely exercised and bruised. Jealous Jade Rumour even went the length of whispering that it was not heart and mind alone that had on occasion suffered bruising in this case. For Carew was notoriously quick-tempered and easily upset--and notoriously many other things also. His grooms and boys knew the feel of his hunting-crop better than his reasons for using it at times--though doubtless occasion was not lacking. As to his language!--it was said that the very horses in his stables lashed out when he began, as though they believed that, by much kicking, curses might be pulverised in mid-air and rendered innocuous. Now a wife cannot--Elinor at all events could not--kick even to that extent under the application of sulphur or riding-whip. Nor can she legally, except in the extremest case, throw up her situation, as the stable-boys could, but did not. For the pay in both cases was good, and for the sake of it the one and the other put up with the discomforts appertaining to their positions. Pasley Carew's redeeming characteristics were a large estate and rent-roll, sporting instincts, and extreme openhandedness in everything that ministered to his own pleasures. He ran the hounds and was a fine rider, though over-hard on his horses, with whom he was never on terms of intimate friendship. He esteemed them solely for their carrying capacities. He preserved, was a good shot, and free with his invitations to the less-happily situated. He was a jovial host and a hard drinker as was the fashion. He enjoyed seeing his friends at his table and under it. He was not a hard landlord, and this, and his generosity in the matter of compensation for hunt-damage, secured him the good-will of the country-side and palliated all else. Morals were slack in those days, and no one would have thought for a moment of affronting Carew by calling him a moral man. On the whole, Elinor paid a somewhat high price for the bodily comfort from which--according to the Jealous Jade--sulphurous language and an occasional blow were not lacking, and for the satisfaction of a worldly ambition which, if the gradual shadowing of her pretty face was anything to go by, had not brought her any great peace of mind. III Wulfrey Dale was a very general favourite. With men and women alike, quite irrespective of their station in life, his manner was irresistibly frank and charming. With the women it might be said to be almost unfortunately so. He was so absolutely and unaffectedly sympathetic, so exclusively and devotedly interested in every woman he met, that it is hardly matter for wonder that in many quarters impressionable hearts beat high at his coming, and thought tenderly and hopefully of him when he had gone. That, too, in spite of the fact that their owners knew perfectly well that it was simply Wulf's way, as it had been his father's before him, and that neither of them could change his nature any more than he could change his skin or the colour of his eyes. He took a deep and genuine human interest in every man, woman and child with whom he came into contact, and showed it. With men and children it made for good-fellowship and extraordinary confidence. The older folk all trusted young Wulfrey as they had all their lives trusted the old Doctor. The children would talk to him as between man and man, and with an artlessness and candour which as a rule obtained only among themselves. With the women it led in some cases to little affections of the heart--flutterings and burnings and barely-self-confessed disappointments, for which their owners, if honest in their searchings after truth, had to acknowledge that the blame lay entirely with themselves. It was a time of hard drinking, hard riding, and quite superfluously strong language, but none the less, among the women-folk, of a sentiment which in these days of wider outlook and opportunity we should denominate as sickly. The blame was not all theirs. So far Wulf had shown exceptional interest or favour in no direction, that is to say in all, and so none could claim to say with any certainty in which way the wind blew, or even if it blew at all. Not a few held that Elinor Baynard's marriage with Pasley Carew had so wounded his affections that it was probable he would never marry, unless----. And therein lay strictly private grounds for hope in many a heart. For a heart-broken man, however, Wulfrey managed to maintain an extremely cheerful face, and his manner to Elinor, whenever they met, was just the same as to other women. If it had in fact been somewhat different it would not have been very surprising. For it needed no professional acumen to recognise that her marriage with Pasley had not fulfilled her expectations. She was, indeed, Mrs Carew of Croome, mistress of the Hall and all such amenities--and otherwise--and luxuries of living as appertained to so exalted a position, winner of the prize so many had coveted, and--wife of Pasley Carew. And sometimes it is possible she wished she were none of these things because of the last. For Carew made no pretence of perfection, or even of modest impeccability, never had done so since the day he was born, never would till the day he must die, would have scorned the very idea. Was he not a man,--rich and hot-blooded, able and accustomed all his life to have his own way in all things, easy enough to get on with when he got it, otherwise when thwarted? And Wulfrey Dale had seen the freshness of the maiden-bloom fade out of Elinor's pretty face, in these five years of her attainment, had seen it stiffen in self-repression, and even harden somewhat. Her eyes had seemed to grow larger, and there were sometimes dark shadows under them. Without doubt she had not found any too large measure of the comfort and happiness she had looked for. At times, mind acting on body, her health was not of the best, and then she sent for Wulfrey to minister to her bodily necessities, and found that he could do it best by allowing her to relieve her mind of some of its burdens. They had always been on such friendly terms that she could, and did, talk to him as to no other. Her mother was worse than useless as a burden-sharer. Her only counsel was not to be too thin-skinned, and above all to present a placid face to the world. Which, as medicine to a sorely-tried soul, was easier to give than to take, and proved quite ineffective. Wulfrey, on the other hand, gave her tonics, and, to the fullest limits of his duty to Carew, his deepest sympathy in her troubles and vexations, and his friendly advice towards encouragement and hope of better times, when Pasley's hot blood would begin to cool and he would settle down to less objectionable courses. At times, under stress and suffering from some more than usually immoderate outbreak on her husband's part, she would let herself go in a way that pained and surprised him, both as friend and doctor. He doubted if she always told him all, even at such times. More than once she had seemed on the point of still wilder outbreak, and it was all he could do to soothe her and bring her back to a more reasonable frame of mind. On one occasion she openly threatened to take her life, since it was no longer worth living, and it took Wulfrey a good hour to wring from her a solemn promise not to do so without first consulting him. So over-wrought and alternately excited and depressed was she that there were times when, in spite of her promise, he would not have been greatly surprised by a sudden summons to the Hall with the news that its mistress had made a summary end of her troubles. His mind was sorely exercised on her account, but it was only the effects that came within his province. The root of the trouble was beyond his tackling. He did, indeed, after much debate within himself, bring himself to the point of discussing the matter, in strictest confidence, with the parson, one night. But he, jovial sportsman and recipient of many bounties from Pasley, including the privilege of subsiding under his table whenever invitation offered, genially but flatly refused to interfere between man and wife. "No good ever comes of it, Doctor. You know that as well as any man. It's only the intruder suffers. They both turn and rend him like boars of the wood and wild beasts of the field. Take my advice and leave 'em alone. These things always straighten themselves out in time--one way or the other. Deuce take the women! They're not blind kittens when they marry. They've got to take the rough with the smooth. Another glass of punch before you go!"--was the irreverent Reverend's final word on the matter. And Wulfrey could do no more in that direction. IV It was under such circumstances that they carried Pasley Carew home to Croome on the hurdle; under such circumstances that Elinor met them on the steps and asked Wulfrey, with that curious, startled look in her eyes which might be anxiety and might be expectancy.-- "Dead?" And Wulfrey, subconsciously wondering whether she really had got the length of hoping for her husband's death, and subconsciously feeling that if it were so it was not much to be wondered at, though undoubtedly greatly to be deplored, had answered her, somewhat sternly, "Not dead. Badly broken. He may live,"--for the shock of the whole matter, and the extreme discomfort of having had to sever that poor Blackbird's spinal cord, were still heavy on him. Elinor shot one sharp, searching glance at his face, and turned and went on before the bearers to show them the way. The staircase at Croome was a somewhat notable one, wide enough to accommodate hurdle and bearers with room to spare, so they carried the Master right up to his own bedroom and as gently as possible transferred him to his bed. The explosive fury of his outbreak against Fate and Blackbird, in the first shock of his fall, had been simply a case of vehement passion disregarding, and momentarily overcoming, the frailty of the flesh. Exhaustion and collapse followed, and as they carried him home he lay still and barely conscious. He came to himself again as they placed him on the bed, and after lying for a moment, as though recalling what had happened, murmured in a bitter whisper, "Damnation! Damnation! Damnation!" and his eyes screwed up tightly, and his face warped and pinched in agony of mind or body, or both. As Wulfrey bent over him, and with gentle hands assured himself of the damage, Carew looked up at him out of the depths; horror, desperation, furious revolt, hopelessness, all mingled in the wild gleam that detected and scorched the pity in Wulfrey's own eyes, and gave him warning of dangers to come. "---- it all! It's no good, Dale," he growled hoarsely. "I'm done. ---- that horse! Give me something that'll end it quick!" "Don't talk that way, man! You know I can't do that. We'll pull you through." "To lie like a log for the rest of my life! I won't, I tell you. ---- it, man, can't you understand I'd liefer go at once?" "I'll bring you up a draught and you'll get some rest," said Dale soothingly. "Rest! Rest! A dose of poison is all I want, ---- you! Don't look at me like that, ---- _you_!" to his wife, who stood watching with her hands tightly clasped as though to hold in her emotions. She walked away to the window and stood looking out. "Carew, you--must--be--quiet. You're doing yourself harm," said the Doctor authoritatively. "Man, I'm in hell. Poison me, and make an end!" "Not till tomorrow, anyway. I'll run down and get that draught. We'll see about the other in the morning." Mrs Carew turned as he left the room, and followed him out, and the sick man sank back with a groan and a curse. "Will he die?" she asked quickly, as she closed the door behind them. "Not necessarily. But if he lives he'll be crippled for life." "He would sooner die than live like that." "We can't help that. It's my business to keep him alive. I'll run down and mix him a draught which may give him some rest. You'll need assistance. He may go off his head. He's a bad patient. I'll send you someone up----" "Not Jane Pinniger then. I won't have her." He knitted his brows at her. "It was Jane I was thinking of. She's an excellent nurse, both brains and brawn, and he may get violent in the night." "I won't have her here," said Elinor obstinately, and he remembered that gossip had, not so very long ago, been busy with the names of Pasley and Jane, as she had at other times occupied herself with Pasley and many another. Undoubtedly Elinor had had much to bear. "All right! If I can find anyone else----" he began. "I won't have Jane Pinniger here,"--and he went off at speed to get the draught and find a substitute for Jane if that were possible. His doubts on that head were justified. He sent his boy up with the draught, and started on the search for a nurse who should combine a modicum of intelligence with the necessary strength of mind and body. But his choice was very limited. Old crones there were, satisfactory enough in their own special line and in a labourer's cottage, but useless for a job such as this. There was nothing for it at last but to go back to the Hall and tell Mrs Carew that it was Jane or nobody. "Nobody then," said she decisively. "I will manage with one of the girls from downstairs, and young Job to help." "Young Job is all very well with the dogs----" "He will do very well for this too. We may not require him, but he can be at hand in case of need," and he had to leave it at that. V Carew suffered much, more in mind even than in body. The thought of lying there like a damned log, as he put it, for the rest of his days filled him with most passionate resentment, and drove him into paroxysms of raging fury. He cursed everything under the sun and everyone who came near him, with a completeness and finality of invective which, if it had taken effect or come home to roost, would have blighted himself and all his surroundings off the face of the earth. Even his wife, and the maid who took turns with her to sit within call, accustomed as they were to his outbreaks, quailed before the storm. Young Job alone suffered it without turning a hair, and paid no more heed to it all, even when directed against himself, than he would to the yelping of his dogs. Wulfrey Dale came in for his share, chiefly by reason of his quiet inattention to the sufferer's impossible demands for extinction. But he found his visits to the sick-room trying even to his seasoned nerves. What it must all mean to the tortured wife he hardly dared to imagine. Once when he was there, Carew hurled a tumbler at her which missed her head by a hair's-breadth. Dale got her out of the room, and turned and gave his patient a sound verbal drubbing, and Carew cursed him high and low till his breath gave out. "Has he done that before?" the Doctor asked the white-faced wife, when he had followed her downstairs. "Oh, yes. But I'm generally on the look-out. I was off my guard because you were there. Oh, I wish he would die and leave us in peace." "He'll kill himself if he goes on like this." "He'll kill some of us first. He's wanting to die. It would be the best thing for him--and for us. Can't you let him die?" and a tiny spark shot through the shadowy suffering of her eyes as she glanced up at him. "You know I can't. Don't talk like that!" he said brusquely, and then, to atone for the brusqueness, "I am sorely distressed for you, but there is nothing to be done but bear it as bravely as you can. What about your mother? Couldn't you----" "It would only make him worse still, if that is possible. Pasley detests her. Oh, I wish I were dead myself. I cannot bear it," and she broke into hysterical weeping, and swayed blindly, and would have fallen if he had not caught her. A woman's grief and tears always drew the whole of Wulf's sympathy. And he and she had been almost as brother and sister all their lives--till she married Carew. "Don't, Elinor! Don't!" he said soothingly, as with her shaking head against his breast she sobbed as though her heart were broken. Mollie, the maid, came hastily in, without so much as a knock, her red face mottled with white fear. "He's going on that awful, Ma'am, I vow I daresn't stop in there alone with him. It's as much as one's life's worth when he's in his tantrums." "Get your mistress a glass of wine, Mollie, and then find young Job and send him up. I'll go up and wait with Mr Carew till he comes." He led Mrs Carew to the couch and made her lie down there, and explained matters to the girl by asking her, "Does he throw things at you too?" "La, yes, Doctor, at all of us, if we don't keep 'em out of his reach. He do boil up so at nothing at all," and she went off in search of young Job, who was passing a peaceful holiday hour in the company of thirty couple of yelping hounds. VI Dale was confronted with the problem with which every medical man comes face to face during his career. Here was a man who, both for his own sake and still more for the sake of those about him, would be very much better dead than living; who wanted to die, and, as he believed, make an end; who begged constantly for the relief of death;--and yet, against his own equally strong feeling of what would be best for all concerned, his doctor must do his very utmost to keep his patient alive and all about him in torment. Wulfrey wished, as devoutly as the more immediate sufferers, that he would die. He wished it more ardently each time he saw Mrs Carew, and wholly and entirely on her account. Her white face, which grew more deathly white each day, and her woful eyes, which grew ever more despairing in their shadowy rings, were sure indexes of what she was passing through. Dale wondered how much longer she would be able to stand it. He gave her tonics, and his most helpful sympathy and encouragement. And at the same time, by the irony of circumstance and the claims of his profession, he must do everything in his power to perpetuate the burden under which she was breaking. But the whole matter came to a sudden and unlooked for end, on the seventh day after the accident. Wulfrey was hastening up to the Hall to clear this, the unpleasantest item, out of his day's work, when he met young Job coming down the drive with a straw in his mouth and three couples of young hounds at his heels. "Wur comen fur you, Doctor," said young Job. "He's dead." "Dead?" jerked the Doctor in very great surprise, for his patient had been more venomously alive than ever the night before. "Ay--dead. An' a good thing too, say I, and so too says everyone that's heard it." "But what took him, Job? He was going on all right last night." "'Twere the Devil I expecs, Doctor, if you ask me straight. He were getten too strampageous to live. Th' air were so full o' fire and brimstone with his curses, it weren't safe. 'Twere like bein' under a tree wi' th' leeghtnin' playin' all round." "And Mrs Carew? ... Who was with him when he died? Tell me all you know about it," as they hurried along. "I come up at ten o'clock as ushal, an' the missus met me at door wi' her finger to her lips. 'He's sleeping, Job,' she says, an' glad I was to hear it. 'I'll go an' lie down, Job, for I'm very tired,' she says, and she looked it, poor thing. 'Knock on my door if you need me, Job,' she says, and she went away. He were lying quiet and all tucked up, an' I sat down an' waited for him to wake up and start again. But he never woke, and when the missus came in this morning she went and looked at him, and she says, 'Why, Job, I do believe he's dead,' and I went and looked at him, and, God's truth, he looked as if he might be. But I couldn't be sure, not liking to touch him, and I says, 'No such luck, ma'am, _I_'m afraid,'--polite like, for we all knows the time she's had wi' him, and she says, 'Go and fetch Dr Dale.' So I just loosed these three couple o' young uns--they're all achin' for a run,--an' I'm wondering who'll work th' pack now he's gone, if so be as he's really gone, which I'm none too sure of. Th' Hunt were best thing he ever did, but he were terrible hard on his horses." Dale hurried into the house and up the stair, and into the sick-room, the windows of which were opened to their widest, as though to cleanse the room of the fire and brimstone which had seemed over-strong even to such a pachyderm as young Job. Carew lay there on the bed, at rest at last, as far as this world was concerned, startlingly quiet after the storm-furies of the last seven days and nights. Dale was still standing looking down at him, full of that ever-recurring wonder at the quiet dignity which Death sometimes imparts even to those whose lives have not been dignified; full too of anxious desire to learn how it had come about. The tightly-clenched hands and livid rigidity of the body suggested a startling possibility. He was bending down to the dead man to investigate more closely when a sound behind him caused him to look round, and he found Mrs Carew standing there. Her face was whiter, her eyes heavier and more shadowy, than he had ever seen them. "He is dead," she said quietly. "One can only look upon it as a merciful release--for all of you. How was it?" "He wanted to die," she began, in the dull level tone of a child repeating an obnoxious lesson. Then the self-repression she had prescribed for herself gave way somewhat. Her hands gripped one another fiercely and she hurried on with a touch of rising hysteria, but still speaking in little more than a whisper. "You know how he wanted to die. He was asking you all the time to give him something to end it. But you could not. I know--I quite understand--being a doctor, of course you could not. But there was something he kept--for the rats, you know, in the stables. And he told me where it was and told me to get some. So I got it and gave it him in his sleeping-draught, and----" "Good God! Elinor!..." he gasped. "... You never did that!" "Yes, I did. Why not? He wished it. We all wished it. It is much better so," and she pointed at the dead man on the bed. "It is better for him ... and for all of us. I only did what he told me." He stood staring at her in blankest amazement, and found himself unconsciously searching her face and eyes for signs of aberration. Her face was wan-white still, but had lost the broken, beaten look it had worn of late. The shadow-ringed eyes were perfectly steady and had in them a curious wistful look, like that of a child expecting and deprecating a scolding. "Do you know what it means?" he asked at last, in a hoarse whisper. "It means release for us all," she said quickly, and then more quickly still, "Oh, Wulfrey, I couldn't help thinking--hoping that--sometime--not for a long time, of course,--but sometime--when we have forgotten all this--you might--you and I might----" "Stop!" he said sternly. "Were you thinking that when you did this?" and he pointed to the bed. "Not then--at least--no, I think not. I just did what he told me to do. But when I saw he was really dead----" He stopped her again with a gesture, and broke out with brusque vehemence, "Is it possible you don't understand what you have done? Do you know what the law will call it?"---- "The law? No one needs to know anything about it but you and me----" "The law will want to know how this man died----" "But you can tell them all that is necessary. It was Blackbird falling at the old road that killed him. If he hadn't broken his back he wouldn't have been lying here, and if he hadn't----" "He might have lived for twenty years," he said, breaking her off short again with an abrupt gesture. "The law requires of me the exact truth. Do you understand you are asking me to swear to a lie? I would not do it to save my own life." "He took it himself----" "He could not get it himself, and the law will hold you responsible for supplying it." "Oh--Wulfrey! ... You won't let them hang me?"--and he saw that at last she understood clearly enough the peril in which she stood if the whole truth of the matter became known. Hang her they most certainly would if the facts got out, or coop her for life in a mad-house, which would be infinitely worse than hanging. And the thought of either dreadful ending to her spoiled life was very terrible to him. She stood before him, little more than a girl still, woful, wistful, with terror now in her white face and shadowy eyes, and he remembered their bygone days together. "Go back to your room, and rest, if you can. And say nothing of all this to anyone. You understand?--not a word to anyone. I must think what can be done," he said, and she turned and went without a word. VII Wulfrey Dale thought hard and deep. He must save her if he could. How? For a moment--inevitably--he weighed in his mind the question of his own honour versus this woman's life. With a few strokes of the pen he could probably bury the whole matter safely out of sight along with Carew's dead body. But those few strokes of the pen, certifying that this man died as the result of his accident, were as impossible to him as would have been the administration of the poisoned draught itself. Moreover--though that weighed nothing with him compared with the other--there was in them always the possibility of disaster, should rumour or tittle-tattle cast the shadow of doubt upon his statement; and an idle word from Mollie or young Job might easily do that. The neighbours also had made constant enquiry after Pasley since his accident, and had been given to understand that he was progressing as well as could be expected. His sudden death might well cause comment. Indeed, it would be strange if it did not. That might lead to investigation, and that must inevitably disclose the fact that he died from strychnine poisoning. The Dales had never been wealthy, but their standards had been high, and Wulfrey had never done anything to lower them. He could not sell his honour even for this woman's life. He pitied her profoundly. He understood her better probably than any other. He knew how terribly she had suffered, and could comprehend, quite clearly, just how she had fallen into this horrible pit. But cast his honour to the dogs for her, he could not. Then how? And, pondering heavily all possibilities, he saw the only feasible way out. It meant almost certain ruin to himself and his prospects, but, if it came, it would be clean ruin and he would feel no smirch. It involved a false statement of fact, it is true, but of a very different cast and calibre from the other, and one that he himself felt to be no stain upon his honour. As a matter of pure ethics a lie is a lie, and of course indefensible. I simply tell you what this man did and felt himself untarnished in the doing. And the very first thing he did was to go straight home to the little dispensary which opened off his consulting-room, and alter the positions of some of the bottles on the shelves; and from one of them he withdrew a measured dose which he tossed out of the window into the garden. Then he sat down at his desk and quietly wrote out a certificate of the death of Pasley Carew, of Croome Hall, Gentleman, through the administration of a dose of strychnine in mistake for distilled water, in a sleeping-draught compounded by Dr Wulfrey Dale. And he thought, as he wrote the word, of the awful pandemonium Pasley Carew, Gentleman, had created in his own household these last seven days. He enclosed this in a covering letter to Dr Tamplin, the coroner, in which he explained more fully how the mistake had occurred. The bottles containing the strychnine and the distilled water stood side by side on his shelf. He had come in tired from a long country round. Had remembered the draught to be sent up to the Hall. As to the rest, he could not tell how he came to make such a mistake. But there it was, and he only was to blame. He could only express his profound regret and accept the consequences. Then, having completed his documents, instead of galloping off to see his waiting patients, he sat down before the fire and let his thoughts play gloomily over the whole matter. His man was off delivering medicines, and would not be back till midday. Time enough if Tamplin got his letter during the afternoon. As to his own patients, he had run rapidly over them in his own mind, and saw that there was no one vitally demanding his attention. He could not go his rounds and say nothing, and the thought of carrying the news of his own default was too much for him. As soon as the matter got bruited about, he thought grimly, there would probably be a run on Dr Newman's services, which would greatly astonish and delight that gentleman and would compensate him for all his months of weary waiting. It was a good thing for Elinor, he thought, as he sat staring into the fire, that he was not married. If he had had a wife and children, they must have gone into the scale against her, and she must certainly have been hanged. Quite impossible to bring it in as an accident on her part. That he had seen at a glance. The jury would be composed of neighbours, and in spite of the placid face she had turned to the world, it was well enough known that she and Pasley had not lived happily together. And though the fault of that was not imputed to her, every man's thought would inevitably jump to the worst, and condemn her even before she did it out of her own mouth, which she most certainly would do the moment she opened it to explain matters. No, this was the only possible way. If the cost was heavy, he was more capable of bearing it than she. In any case he could not hand her over to the hangman. That was out of the question. He could pretty well forecast the consequences. His practice would be ruined, for who would trust a doctor capable of so fatal a mistake? He would have to go away and start life afresh elsewhere. It would have to be somewhere where he was quite unknown, or this thing would dog him all his life. Some new country perhaps,--say Canada or the States. Gad, it was a heavy price to pay for a foolish woman's lapse! He would not be penniless, of course. His father had laid by a considerable sum in the course of his long and busy life. If necessary he could live in quiet comfort, without working, for the rest of his days. But it was hard to break away like this from all that had so far constituted his life. A heavy price to pay for mere sentiment--but not too heavy for a woman's life! There was no doubt of his having to go. The question was whether he should go at once, or wait till there was nothing left to wait for. It would be dismal and weary work waiting. But going would feel like bolting, and he had never run from trouble in his life. As a matter of fact he had never until now had any serious trouble to face, but now that it had come he found himself in anything but a running humour. If there had been anything to fight he would have rejoiced in the mêlée and plunged into it with ardour. But here was nothing to be fought. By his own deliberate act he was labelling himself untrustworthy, and no uttermost striving on his part could rehabilitate him. For the essence of healing is faith, and a doctor who has forfeited one's confidence is worse than no doctor at all. VIII In the afternoon he sent off his man on horseback with the letter to Dr Tamplin, and towards evening he came galloping back with this very characteristic reply: "MY DEAR WULFREY, Shocking business and I'm sorely grieved about whole matter. Humanum est errare, but a doctor's not supposed to. Good thing for us we're not always found out. Could you not bring yourself to certify death as result of the accident? I consider it a mistake to admit the possibility of such a thing, so d--d damaging to the profession. And have you considered the matter from your own point of view? Cannot fail to have bad effect. Perhaps give that new fellow just the chance he's been waiting for. ---- him! Think it over again, my boy, from all points, and be wise. I return certificate. Your man will tell you all about my fall. My cob stumbled over a stone last night and broke me a leg and two ribs. I'm too heavy for that kind of thing and he's a ---- fool! But it was very dark and we're neither of us as young as we were. For all our sakes I hope you'll come through this all right. We can't spare you. And it might come to that. Remember what silly sheep folks are. Yours truly, THOMAS TAMPLIN." Just like the dear, easy-going old boy, fall and all, thought Wulfrey, and the advice tendered and the course suggested did not greatly surprise him. But he had to make allowances for the old man's age and easy-goingness, and his lack of detailed knowledge of all the circumstances of the case,--how almost impossible it would be to ascribe Carew's death to the accident, even if he could have brought himself to do so. The old man's own shelving would add greatly to the unpleasantness of the situation, for, as deputy-coroner, he would have to call a jury himself, and submit the matter to their consideration and himself to their verdict. However, there was no way out of that, so he set to work at once and sent out his summonses, calling the inquest for ten o'clock the next morning, at the Hall; and to relieve Elinor as much as possible, he gave orders to the undertaker at Brentham to do all that was necessary, and sent her word that he had done so. Early next morning, before he was up, young Job was knocking on his front door, with half the pack yelping and leaping outside the gate. "Well, Job? What's it now?" he asked, from his bedroom window. "That gal Mollie says you better come up and see th' missus----" "Why? What's wrong with her?" "_I_ d'n know, n' more don't Mollie. _She_ thinks she's had a stroke." "Wait five minutes and I'll go back with you,"
{'title': 'Maid of the Mist by John Oxenham', 'source': 'Project Gutenberg', 'lang': 'en'}