He shivered. In all this morass of doubt and wilderness of evil—a wilderness wherein innocent men had obviously committed crimes they had nothing to do with, where everyone was sure except Anthony Ruthven Gethryn—he felt alone. Not even the golden-dark background to his thoughts which was the perpetual image of the Lady of the Sandal could compensate for the blackness of bewilderment—the blackness through which he could see light but not yet the way to light.
Then his thoughts turned to Deacon, his cheerfulness, his ease of manner, his courage which surely masked a hell of distress. Suddenly the admiration which he felt somehow cheered him. His step quickened.
“By God!” he muttered, “that’s a man and a half—” and broke off sharply. He had collided with something softly hard. A girl, running. A girl with wild, red-rimmed eyes and hatless, dishevelled, golden head.
Before he could voice apology; almost before he was aware of the collision, she had passed him and was stumbling down the uneven little road with its splashes of crimson painted by the dying sun. From a doorway a slatternly woman peered out, curious with the brutal, impersonal curiosity of the yokel.
Anthony struggled to adjust his memory. Ah, yes! It was the sister. Her sister. Dora Masterson. He turned; caught up with four long strides; laid a hand upon the girl’s shoulder. She shook it off, turning to him a face disfigured by desire for more tears, tears that would not come.
“You were going to the police-station, Miss Masterson?” Anthony asked.
She nodded.
“You mustn’t—not like this.” He took her gently by the arm. “You could do nothing—and you’d make him feel as if things were unbearable.”
“I must see him.” She spoke dully, an unnatural pause between each word.
“Not now,” said Anthony firmly. “Not when I want your help.” He wondered if the lie showed through his words; cursed that he should have to hamper himself with an hysterical girl.
She swallowed the bait. “Help you?” she asked eagerly. “About—about Archie? How can I do that?”
“I can’t tell you here. You must come up to the inn.” He led her back up the hill.
XIII
Irons in the Fire
I
Up in his little, low-ceilinged, oak-panelled sitting-room in the Bear and Key, Anthony sat the girl in the one armchair. She refused whisky so pleadingly that he ordered tea. When it had come and the bearer departed, he sat on the table and watched her drink.
“Now,” he said, “suppose you tell me all about it,” and was immediately smitten with very fragrant memories of another occasion when he had used that phrase.
Dora Masterson said simply: “I was frightened. Oh, so horribly, horribly frightened!”
Anthony was puzzled. “But why just now? Surely you must have felt like this as soon as you heard?”
“N-no. Of course it was—terrible! But Lucia told me what you said, Mr. Gethryn—and she—she seemed to so absolutely believe that you would make everything all right that I—I tried to believe too.”
Anthony’s heart gave a leap that startled him.
The girl went on, struggling for control. “But—but it was when I heard about the end of the inquest—that he was actually in—Oh, it’s too awful! It’s too terrible!” She swayed about in the big chair, hands hiding her face, the slim shoulders twisting as if her pain were bodily.
Again was Anthony puzzled. Something in the tone told him that here was something he had not heard of. And this tendency to hysteria must be stopped.
“What d’you mean? Explain!” he said sharply.
She sat upright at that, her face working. “I mean that—that—if only I hadn’t been a senseless, vicious little fool; if—if only I hadn’t be-behaved like a b-beastly schoolgirl, Archie wouldn’t—wouldn’t be in that awful place! Oh! why was I ever born!” She pressed her hands to her face and doubled up in the chair until her forehead rested on her knees.
“I’m afraid I don’t understand yet,” said Anthony.
She raised her head. “Weren’t you at the inquest?” she asked, dabbing at her swollen eyes with the back of a hand like the schoolgirl she had named herself.
“Not exactly,” said Anthony, and wondered how many more times he would have to answer this question.
“Why, then you—you don’t know that—that Archie s-said he went out for a walk during the time when the—the Thing must have been done. And the beasts d-don’t believe him because nobody at all saw him while he was out!”
“I still don’t—”
She broke in on his sentence with a flood of speech, springing to her feet.
“Oh, you fool, you fool!” she cried. “I ought to have seen him! I, I, I! I was to have met him down there on the bank, this side, by the bridge. We’d arranged a walk! And then because I thought I was someone; because I thought he had been rude to me that afternoon, I must needs think I would punish him! And I didn’t go! I didn’t meet him! I stayed at home! Christ help me, I stayed at home!”
Anthony was shocked into sympathy. “My dear chap,” he said. “My dear chap!” He went to her and dropped a hand on her shoulder. “You poor child!”
Wearily, she sank against him. The reddish-golden head fell on his shoulder. But she made no sound. She was past tears.
For a moment they stood thus, while he patted the slim shoulder. Then she drew herself upright and away from him.
“You must sit down,” he said.
She looked up at him. “Please forgive me,” she said. “I didn’t mean to—to make such a fool of myself. And I was very rude.” She sat down.
Anthony waved aside apology. “What we’ve got to do,” he said, smiling down at her, “is to do something.”
“Yes, yes, I know. But what, what? Oh, you said I could help, but I believe
