“I didn’t know it.”
“And that I cannot rush into the house as an old friend any more than you can. Certainly I have the privileges of a distant relationship, whatever they may be.”
Knight let down the window, and looked ahead. “There are a great many people at the station,” he said. “They seem all to be on the lookout for us.”
When the train stopped, the half-estranged friends could perceive by the lamplight that the assemblage of idlers enclosed as a kernel a group of men in black cloaks. A side gate in the platform railing was open, and outside this stood a dark vehicle, which they could not at first characterize. Then Knight saw on its upper part forms against the sky like cedars by night, and knew the vehicle to be a hearse. Few people were at the carriage doors to meet the passengers—the majority had congregated at this upper end. Knight and Stephen alighted, and turned for a moment in the same direction.
The sombre van, which had accompanied them all day from London, now began to reveal that their destination was also its own. It had been drawn up exactly opposite the open gate. The bystanders all fell back, forming a clear lane from the gateway to the van, and the men in cloaks entered the latter conveyance.
“They are labourers, I fancy,” said Stephen. “Ah, it is strange; but I recognize three of them as Endelstow men. Rather remarkable this.”
Presently they began to come out, two and two; and under the rays of the lamp they were seen to bear between them a light-coloured coffin of satinwood, brightly polished, and without a nail. The eight men took the burden upon their shoulders, and slowly crossed with it over to the gate.
Knight and Stephen went outside, and came close to the procession as it moved off. A carriage belonging to the cortege turned round close to a lamp. The rays shone in upon the face of the vicar of Endelstow, Mr. Swancourt—looking many years older than when they had last seen him. Knight and Stephen involuntarily drew back.
Knight spoke to a bystander. “What has Mr. Swancourt to do with that funeral?”
“He is the lady’s father,” said the bystander.
“What lady’s father?” said Knight, in a voice so hollow that the man stared at him.
“The father of the lady in the coffin. She died in London, you know, and has been brought here by this train. She is to be taken home tonight, and buried tomorrow.”
Knight stood staring blindly at where the hearse had been; as if he saw it, or someone, there. Then he turned, and beheld the lithe form of Stephen bowed down like that of an old man. He took his young friend’s arm, and led him away from the light.
XL
“Welcome, proud lady.”
Half an hour has passed. Two miserable men are wandering in the darkness up the miles of road from Camelton to Endelstow.
“Has she broken her heart?” said Henry Knight. “Can it be that I have killed her? I was bitter with her, Stephen, and she has died! And may God have no mercy upon me!”
“How can you have killed her more than I?”
“Why, I went away from her—stole away almost—and didn’t tell her I should not come again; and at that last meeting I did not kiss her once, but let her miserably go. I have been a fool—a fool! I wish the most abject confession of it before crowds of my countrymen could in any way make amends to my darling for the intense cruelty I have shown her!”
“Your darling!” said Stephen, with a sort of laugh. “Any man can say that, I suppose; any man can. I know this, she was my darling before she was yours; and after too. If anybody has a right to call her his own, it is I.”
“You talk like a man in the dark; which is what you are. Did she ever do anything for you? Risk her name, for instance, for you?”
“Yes, she did,” said Stephen emphatically.
“Not entirely. Did she ever live for you—prove she could not live without you—laugh and weep for you?”
“Yes.”
“Never! Did she ever risk her life for you—no! My darling did for me.”
“Then it was in kindness only. When did she risk her life for you?”
“To save mine on the cliff yonder. The poor child was with me looking at the approach of the Puffin steamboat, and I slipped down. We both had a narrow escape. I wish we had died there!”
“Ah, but wait,” Stephen pleaded with wet eyes. “She went on that cliff to see me arrive home: she had promised it. She told me she would months before. And would she have gone there if she had not cared for me at all?”
“You have an idea that Elfride died for you, no doubt,” said Knight, with a mournful sarcasm too nerveless to support itself.
“Never mind. If we find that—that she died yours, I’ll say no more ever.”
“And if we find she died yours, I’ll say no more.”
“Very well—so it shall be.”
The dark clouds into which the sun had sunk had begun to drop rain in an increasing volume.
“Can we wait somewhere here till this shower is over?” said Stephen desultorily.
“As you will. But it is not worth while. We’ll hear the particulars, and return. Don’t let people know who we are. I am not much now.”
They had reached a point at which the road branched into two—just outside the west village, one fork of the diverging routes passing into the latter place, the other stretching on to East Endelstow. Having come some of the distance by the footpath, they now found that the hearse was only a little in advance of them.
“I fancy it has turned off to East Endelstow. Can you see?”
“I cannot. You must be mistaken.”
Knight and Stephen
