CHAPTER X.

THE WAGES OF SIN.

It was a dark night when Henderson slunk home after his accursed deed; dark and late, yet his mother was waiting up for him and anxiously listening for his return. She heard him turn the latch-key in the door, and went out into the hall to meet him.

"You are late, Tom," she said.

He started violently when he saw her.

"You up!" he said, hoarsely.

"Yes, I waited to say good-night. Why, Tom," she added the next minute, lifting her lighted candle higher, "whatever is the matter with your coat? Where did you get that stain?"

A shudder ran through his strong stalwart frame as she asked the question, and his guilty eyes fell on the red stain on his coat sleeve.

"I stumbled and fell; it is nothing," he said, yet more hoarsely; "good-night, mother," and without another word he turned and hurried up the unlighted staircase, leaving his mother looking after him in absolute astonishment.

He always smoked before he went to bed, and usually he drank some whisky, and therefore she could not account for his conduct. She grew anxious about him, and after she had retired to her own bedroom she thought she would go quietly to his room-door and see after him. As she approached it she thought she felt a faint smell of burning. She was afraid to go into his room, for he was spoilt and wayward and did not care to be interfered with, so she knelt quietly down and peered through the key-hole.

A strange sight met her startled gaze. Her son was standing by the fireplace, without his shirt on, and he was burning it by degrees in the grate! She saw him cut out one sleeve and then the other and burn them, adding matches to the flaming linen to make it consume more quickly. The coat that he had worn during the evening--a light cloth summer one--was lying on a chair near. Presently he took this up, and shuddered as he did so. Then he cut off the lower part of one sleeve--and consigned this also to the flames. He watched it burn, and then rolled up the coat, and put it into the drawer of his wardrobe and locked the drawer. After this, he put on a dressing-gown and approached the door of the room from which his mother had scarcely time to fly, when he opened it and came out on the landing with a lighted candle in his hand.

Mrs. Henderson had hurried unseen into an empty room next door, and she now watched her son descend the staircase, and could see that he was ghastly pale, his whole appearance denoting great agitation. A great terror crept over the poor woman's heart, and a nameless dread took possession of her mind. She dare not follow him, but stood hidden in the shadow, and in a few minutes she heard him returning up the stairs. This time he was carrying a bottle of whisky and a glass, and Mrs. Henderson saw his hands were trembling as he did so.

He entered his bedroom and at once began drinking the whisky. He drank glass after glass, though he was by no means in the habit of doing so, and at last flung himself, half-undressed, stupefied, on the bed, and speedily fell into a heavy slumber.

But Mrs. Henderson herself could not sleep for thinking of him. Something had happened, at all events, greatly to disturb him, and Mrs. Henderson felt ill at ease.

The next morning he did not come down to breakfast at the usual time, and finally his mother went up to his room-door and rapped.

"It's late, Tom; are you not well?" she called.

"I've a beastly headache. I'll be down directly," he answered, and when he did appear Mrs. Henderson was quite shocked at his appearance. He looked ill, haggard, and nervous, and ate nothing, drinking his tea, in sullen silence.

All the rest of the morning it was the same thing. He did not go out, but seemed in a state of restless excitement that he could not suppress. Then about twelve o'clock a rumor reached Stourton Grange that a murder had been committed in Fern Dene. The gardener heard it outside and hurried into the kitchen to tell his news. It was not known at first who it was. A woman's body had been found in the Dene, that was all, and when Mrs. Henderson went into her larder to inspect its contents and order the dinner, her cook followed her and told her mistress what she had heard.

Mrs. Henderson turned actually faint as she listened. Tom's strange conduct instantly recurred to her mind. But no, what folly, she told herself the next minute. But, nevertheless, she went into the breakfast-room where Tom was sitting pretending to read the newspapers, with trembling footsteps.

"Tom," she said, "they say something dreadful has happened in Fern Dene--"

She was looking at her son's face as she spoke, and the ghastly pallor that at once spread over it filled her own heart with terror.

"What has happened?" he asked, hoarsely.

"They--say a murder," answered Mrs. Henderson in a faltering voice.

"A murder! What folly!" repeated Tom, and he rose hastily and flung the newspaper on the floor as he did so. His whole manner indicated extreme agitation, and his mother grew pale as she watched him.

"What cock-and-bull story have you got hold of now, I wonder?" he went on harshly, a few moments later.

"They say a woman's body has been found in the Dene," answered Mrs. Henderson, slowly, and Tom Henderson visibly started as she spoke.

"I don't believe it," he said, abruptly, and a moment later he hastily left the room, leaving his mother greatly agitated.

Henderson had not left the house the whole morning, but after pacing up and down his own bedroom for some minutes an extreme restlessness came over him, and he went toward the stables, and in the stable yard he found Jack Reid, the groom, rubbing down a horse.

The man did not look around as his master approached him, but went on with his task, while Henderson stood a moment or two looking on without speaking.

"Billy looks very fresh this morning," he said, presently, with affected carelessness, and the groom, still without looking around, only nodded his head in answer to his master's remark.

Henderson moved uneasily, and then, after another pause and in an uneven voice, he said:

"What's this story, Jack, my mother's been telling me about some woman or other being found in Fern Dene?"

Then Jack did look around, and Henderson's eyes shifted and fell as he did so.

"It's Miss Wray," he said, in a sullen tone; "she's been found dead in the Dene."

"Miss Wray! Dead!--impossible!" exclaimed Henderson.

"It's true enough, though," answered Jack, roughly.

"How do you know? Who found her?" queried Henderson.

"Miss Churchill, from Woodside Farm, they say, and she ran and met the young squire from the Hall. Anyhow, she's dead--she's been shot, and they say an inquest will be held on her to-morrow."

Henderson turned absolutely livid as he listened to Jack's information. He took two or three hasty strides down the stable yard, and then he once more returned to the groom's side.

"Jack," he began, and then hesitated.

"Well," asked Jack, not over-respectfully.

"You remember," went on Henderson, forcing himself to speak, "taking a note to her from me?"

Jack laconically nodded his head.

"That note," went on Henderson, desperately, "was to ask her to meet me in Fern Dene, but I changed my mind and did not go. She had got some folly into her head about marrying me, and so I thought afterward it was better not to go. But she may have gone--do you see, Jack? Yes, to be sure she may have gone," continued Henderson, wiping his dark brow.

"And, Jack, about that note? Did anyone see you give it to her?" he went on.

"Yes, there were some fellows sitting at the bar saw me," answered Jack, coolly.

"That's a pity--but it can't be helped," said Henderson, in increasing agitation. "But--did anyone hear the answer she sent me?"

"Yes, she walked straight back into the bar with your letter in her hand after she had read it, and her eyes were just blazing in her head. 'Tell him I will be there,' she said, and the fellows heard it as well as me."

Again Henderson wiped his brow.

"She may have gone--I can't say anything about it, you know. I never went near, but that note may get me into some trouble. Jack, I'll make it worth your while to hold your tongue--to say nothing about the note, as only you knew it was from me."

"I knew," answered Jack, doggedly.

"Yes, of course you knew, but you must not mention this to anyone. I'll give you as much as five pounds--"

"Ten would suit me better."

"Well, I'll make it ten, then. If anyone asks who gave you the note, say a stranger you met on the road gave you a shilling to deliver it to Miss Wray. Do you understand? Put it on a stranger, and you shall have ten pounds, for I do not wish to be mixed up in this matter at all."

"I can well understand that."

"You see, Jack, she may have gone to meet me, and when she found I was not there she may have shot herself. She is shot, you say?"

"Yes, dead as a herring."

"It's a shocking affair; really a shocking affair," continued Henderson, hastily; "poor girl!"

"Ay, poor lass!"

"It might have happened so--in her disappointment, you know, she may have shot herself, that is if she had anything to shoot herself with?"

"They say her father's revolver was lying nigh her."

"Then I fear it has happened so. Don't you think so, Jack? How lucky for me that I did not go near."

"Quite a close shave."

"Yes, quite a close shave indeed. Well, Jack, now we've arranged it, I'll go into the house and get you the ten pounds--but remember you were to say a stranger--that a stranger gave you the note."

Jack nodded and Henderson hastily returned to the house, and speedily reappeared with two crisp five-pound bank notes in his pocket, which he soon placed in Jack's horny hand, who at once deposited them in his corduroys. But when they were safely there, he looked up with his shrewd brown eyes in his master's face.

"About that note," he said. "Maybe the poor lass left it behind her, and it was in yer writing."

Henderson's face fell.

"The devil it was!" he muttered.

"And maybe she's other letters, put by that ye wrote? I've taken other letters, perhaps, signed by yer name. No, master, the story about the stranger giving it to me won't wash. It would only make me out a big liar, and not help ye. You'll ha' to face the letters, and stick to the story that you did not go to meet the poor lass when she met her death."

"Of course, I did not go. After I wrote the letter, I got afraid to meet her," said Henderson, in great agitation.

"Stick to that; ye got afraid to go, and the poor lass must ha' shot herself because ye broke yer word; ye may make them believe that, not the other, for lots o' folks knew what was between ye and poor Elsie."

Henderson's teeth almost chattered in his head.

"You think so?" he said, tremblingly.

"I'm sure; Alice the barmaid knew and others. Stick to the story that ye did not go."

Jack's manner as he said this was very determined, and Henderson begun to see the prudence of his advice.

"Perhaps you are right," he said, after thinking a moment or two. "The