“Two miles,” replied Avice.
“Can you go there now?” he asked.
“I thought of doing so,” she answered.
“Come along, then,” said Brereton. “We’ll go together. If she objects to my presence I’ll leave you with her and wait about for you. Of course, she wants to tell you something relating to your father.”
“You think so?” said Avice. “I only hope it is!”
“Certain to be,” he replied. “What else could it be?”
“There are so many strange things to tell about, just now,” she remarked. “Besides, if old Mrs. Hamthwaite knows anything, why hasn’t she let me know until tonight?”
“Oh, there’s no accounting for that!” said Brereton. “Old women have their own way of doing things. By the by,” he continued, as they turned out of the road and began to climb a path which led to the first ridge of the moors outside the town, “I haven’t seen you today—you’ve heard of this Stoner affair?”
“Mr. Northrop told me this afternoon,” she replied. “What do you think about it?”
Brereton walked on a little way without replying. He was asking a serious question of himself. Should he tell all he knew to Avice Harborough?
XIX
A Tall Man in Grey Clothes
That question remained unanswered, and Brereton remained silent, until he and Avice had reached the top of the path and had come out on the edge of the wide stretch of moorland above the little town. He paused for a moment and looked back on the roofs and gables of Highmarket, shining and glittering in the moonlight; the girl paused too, wondering at his silence. And with a curious abruptness he suddenly turned, laid a hand on her arm, and gave it a firm, quick pressure.
“Look here!” he said. “I’m going to trust you. I’m going to say to you what I haven’t said to a soul in that town!—not even to Tallington, who’s a man of the law, nor to Bent, who’s my old friend. I want to say something to somebody whom I can trust. I can trust you!”
“Thank you,” she answered quietly. “I—I think I understand. And you’ll understand, too, won’t you, when I say—you can!”
“That’s all right,” he said, cheerfully. “Of course! Now we understand each other. Come on, then—you know the way—act as guide, and I’ll tell you as we go along.”
Avice turned off into what appeared to be no more than a sheep-track across the heather. Within a few minutes they were not only quite alone, but out of sight of any human habitation. It seemed to Brereton that they were suddenly shut into a world of their own, as utterly apart from the little world they had just left as one star is from another. But even as he thought this he saw, far away across the rising and falling of the heather-clad undulations, the moving lights of a train that was speeding southward along the coastline from Norcaster, and presently the long scream of a whistle from its engine came on the light breeze that blew inland from the hidden sea, and the sight and sound recalled him to the stern realities of life.
“Listen, then, carefully,” he began. “And bear in mind that I’m putting what I believe to be safety of other men in your hands. It’s this way. …”
Avice Harborough listened in absolute silence as Brereton told her his carefully arranged story. They walked slowly across the moor as he told it; now dipping into a valley, now rising above the ridge of a low hill; sometimes pausing altogether as he impressed some particular point upon her. In the moonlight he could see that she was listening eagerly and intently, but she never interrupted him and never asked a question. And at last, just as they came in sight of a light that burned in the window of a little moorland cottage, snugly planted in a hollow beneath the ridge which they were then traversing, he brought his story to an end and turned inquiringly to her.
“There!” he said. “That’s all. Now try to consider it without prejudice—if you can. How does it appear to you?”
Instead of replying directly the girl walked on in silence for a moment or two, and suddenly turned to Brereton with an impulsive movement.
“You’ve given me your confidence and I’ll give you mine!” she exclaimed. “Perhaps I ought to have given it before—to you or to Mr. Tallington—but—I didn’t like. I’ve wondered about Mallalieu! Wondered if—if he did kill that old man. And wondered if he tried to put the blame on my father out of revenge!”
“Revenge!” exclaimed Brereton. “What do you mean?”
“My father offended him—not so very long ago, either,” she answered. “Last year—I’ll tell you it all, plainly—Mr. Mallalieu began coming to our cottage at times. First he came to see my father about killing the rats which had got into his outbuildings. Then he made excuses—he used to come, anyway—at night. He began to come when my father was out, as he often was. He would sit down and smoke and talk. I didn’t like it—I don’t like him. Then he used to meet me in the wood in the Shawl, as I came home from the Northrops’. I complained to my father about it and one night my father came in and found him here. My father, Mr. Brereton, is a very queer man and a very plainspoken man. He told Mr. Mallalieu that neither of us desired his company and told him to go away. And Mr. Mallalieu lost his temper and said angry things.”
“And your father?” said Brereton. “Did he lose his temper, too?”
“No!” replied Avice. “He has a temper—but he kept it that night. He never spoke to Mr. Mallalieu in return. He let him say his say—until he’d got across the threshold, and then he just shut the door on him. But—I know how angry Mr. Mallalieu was.”
Brereton stood silently considering matters for a moment. Then he pointed to the light in
