Close at their heels came another man, without overcoat or umbrella, and with a parcel under his arm.
“A wet evening,” he said to the two friends, and passed by them. They stood in the outer penthouse, but the man went in to the fire.
The smith ceased his blowing, and began talking to the man who had entered.
“I have walked all the way from Camelton,” said the latter. “Was obliged to come tonight, you know.”
He held the parcel, which was a flat one, towards the firelight, to learn if the rain had penetrated it. Resting it edgewise on the forge, he supported it perpendicularly with one hand, wiping his face with the handkerchief he held in the other.
“I suppose you know what I’ve got here?” he observed to the smith.
“No, I don’t,” said the smith, pausing again on his bellows.
“As the rain’s not over, I’ll show you,” said the bearer.
He laid the thin and broad package, which had acute angles in different directions, flat upon the anvil, and the smith blew up the fire to give him more light. First, after untying the package, a sheet of brown paper was removed: this was laid flat. Then he unfolded a piece of baize: this also he spread flat on the paper. The third covering was a wrapper of tissue paper, which was spread out in its turn. The enclosure was revealed, and he held it up for the smith’s inspection.
“Oh—I see!” said the smith, kindling with a chastened interest, and drawing close. “Poor young lady—ah, terrible melancholy thing—so soon too!”
Knight and Stephen turned their heads and looked.
“And what’s that?” continued the smith.
“That’s the coronet—beautifully finished, isn’t it? Ah, that cost some money!”
“ ’Tis as fine a bit of metal work as ever I see—that ’tis.”
“It came from the same people as the coffin, you know, but was not ready soon enough to be sent round to the house in London yesterday. I’ve got to fix it on this very night.”
The carefully-packed articles were a coffin-plate and coronet.
Knight and Stephen came forward. The undertaker’s man, on seeing them look for the inscription, civilly turned it round towards them, and each read, almost at one moment, by the ruddy light of the coals:
Elfride,
Wife of Spenser Hugo Luxellian,
Fifteenth Baron Luxellian:
Died February 10, 18—.
They read it, and read it, and read it again—Stephen and Knight—as if animated by one soul. Then Stephen put his hand upon Knight’s arm, and they retired from the yellow glow, further, further, till the chill darkness enclosed them round, and the quiet sky asserted its presence overhead as a dim grey sheet of blank monotony.
“Where shall we go?” said Stephen.
“I don’t know.”
A long silence ensued. … “Elfride married!” said Stephen then in a thin whisper, as if he feared to let the assertion loose on the world.
“False,” whispered Knight.
“And dead. Denied us both. I hate ‘false’—I hate it!”
Knight made no answer.
Nothing was heard by them now save the slow measurement of time by their beating pulses, the soft touch of the dribbling rain upon their clothes, and the low purr of the blacksmith’s bellows hard by.
“Shall we follow Elfie any further?” Stephen said.
“No: let us leave her alone. She is beyond our love, and let her be beyond our reproach. Since we don’t know half the reasons that made her do as she did, Stephen, how can we say, even now, that she was not pure and true in heart?” Knight’s voice had now become mild and gentle as a child’s. He went on: “Can we call her ambitious? No. Circumstance has, as usual, overpowered her purposes—fragile and delicate as she—liable to be overthrown in a moment by the coarse elements of accident. I know that’s it—don’t you?”
“It may be—it must be. Let us go on.”
They began to bend their steps towards Castle Boterel, whither they had sent their bags from Camelton. They wandered on in silence for many minutes. Stephen then paused, and lightly put his hand within Knight’s arm.
“I wonder how she came to die,” he said in a broken whisper. “Shall we return and learn a little more?”
They turned back again, and entering Endelstow a second time, came to a door which was standing open. It was that of an inn called the Welcome Home, and the house appeared to have been recently repaired and entirely modernized. The name too was not that of the same landlord as formerly, but Martin Cannister’s.
Knight and Smith entered. The inn was quite silent, and they followed the passage till they reached the kitchen, where a huge fire was burning, which roared up the chimney, and sent over the floor, ceiling, and newly-whitened walls a glare so intense as to make the candle quite a secondary light. A woman in a white apron and black gown was standing there alone behind a cleanly-scrubbed deal table. Stephen first, and Knight afterwards, recognized her as Unity, who had been parlourmaid at the vicarage and young lady’s-maid at the Crags.
“Unity,” said Stephen softly, “don’t you know me?”
She looked inquiringly a moment, and her face cleared up.
“Mr. Smith—ay, that it is!” she said. “And that’s Mr. Knight. I beg you to sit down. Perhaps you know that since I saw you last I have married Martin Cannister.”
“How long have you been married?”
“About five months. We were married the same day that my dear Miss Elfie became Lady Luxellian.” Tears appeared in Unity’s eyes, and filled them, and fell down her cheek, in spite of efforts to the contrary.
The pain of the two men in resolutely controlling themselves when thus exampled to admit relief of the same kind was distressing. They both turned their backs and walked a few steps away.
Then Unity said, “Will you go into the parlour, gentlemen?”
“Let us stay here with
