Part 10

"Do you carry them about with you, Meredith? I mean"--noticing the surprise in the other's face--"is it wise--safe, do you think, to go about these lonely places with all that--" breaking off, and hurriedly adding: "But, of course, we can't let you go to-night. You must put up with what we have to offer, until the morning at any rate." A sudden thought had crossed his mind. Might it not be possible to appeal to Meredith for a loan? "What a quarter of that money would do for me just now! If I could only open my heart to him, as Madge says. Pshaw! Easy enough for girls, such as she, to open their hearts. She wouldn't have been so ready to advise me to do that, had she known all."

"Mr. Meredith would, perhaps, prefer the inn in the town, Laurence; he might find it more comfortable," put in his sister, a little puzzled by the change in his tone; but, supposing it might be only to keep up appearances, she went on: "There will be a moon, and----"

"Oh, nonsense!" hurriedly interrupted her brother. "You will not mind roughing it for one night, eh, Meredith? Of course you must stay."

"I hope so, indeed," said Mrs. Verschoyle, to whom her daughter had had no time to give the hint her brother bade her give. "I trust you will accept our poor hospitality, Mr. Meredith."

"There, that settles it, Meredith. You can't refuse my mother, now; or she will be lamenting the little we have to offer."

"It is not little to me," replied Meredith, in all sincerity. The chance of spending a few hours in the society of Margaret Verschoyle was, indeed, beginning to mean a great deal to him. He had not, before, met any woman who interested him in this way; and, already, he knew that none other ever would. She said very little now; having, he noticed, become more silent and abstracted as her brother grew effusive, apparently in the endeavour to make up for his previous lack of courtesy.

"This is our only drawing-room, Mr. Meredith," she presently said, as she and her mother rose from the table and went towards the window. "You must please try to imagine we are not here."

"I would rather not do that, Miss Verschoyle," he replied, rising to join them.

"But won't you----? You would not find this claret so bad," said Laurence, adding, as the other declined: "Well, then, a cigar on the terrace, if we can dignify it by that name."

"Not now, thank you. Later on, perhaps, if you will join me."

"Then, I will look after your bag. At the station, didn't you say? We might send Sally's brother, eh, Madge?" hurriedly quitting the room.

Meredith remained with the ladies in the oriel window, whilst the rough-looking maid-servant awkwardly cleared the dinner table, assisted now and again by a smiling word from her young mistress.

"You have a good view from here, Mrs. Verschoyle."

"It is good to me, Mr. Meredith. Fortunately, the brickfields are on the other side; and, seen from here, the part of the ruin, and the old garden and orchard, have a charm of their own for me. But one misses the old elms that used to hide the town, which my daughter thinks looks best when you don't see it," with a smile at the young girl.

"And so do you, dear. Being romantic, you prefer it when there is a mist over it, and you have to imagine what is behind the veil, don't you?" replied her daughter, with pretty defiance. "A serious thing to have a romantic mother, is it not. Mr. Meredith? In these days, too--romance! She had need have a matter-of-fact daughter, had she not?"

He smilingly kept up the same tone, his admiration deepening for the brave heart that could make a jest of her difficulties. How well the mother and daughter seemed to understand each other in making the best of their colourless lives. He soon found they could talk about something besides the narrow experiences of their everyday world. They were accustomed to think intelligently, and were not without a spice of humour, as well as a romance to cast a glamour over their surroundings. Good listeners, too; showing a desire to hear what was going on in the world of thought; and, now and again, asking questions which kept his wits at work for a reply--a not unpleasant exercise to Allan Meredith, accustomed to use them.

An hour passed quickly away. It was only the uneasy glances the young girl was beginning to cast towards the door which reminded him that Verschoyle had left them so long. When he re-entered the room, Meredith noticed that the sister's eyes turned anxiously towards him.

"I made sure about your bag by seeing after it myself, Meredith," he began. "Remembered the mistakes Sally's brother is apt to make, you know, Madge; and thought he might demand the post bag, or something of that sort."

He appeared more desirous now of making conversation, reminding Meredith of some of their Oxford experiences, inquiring about mutual friends, and what not. But his gaiety did not sit quite naturally upon him, and there was an under-current of excitement in his tone and manner. One there saw that his gaiety was only on the surface, and that he eyed Meredith closely and speculatively when he thought himself unobserved.

"Two thousand pounds! Two thousand!--and a quarter of that would save me," he was thinking. Were the notes in that wallet of which he could trace the outline in the breast pocket of the other's coat? His eyes were turned again and again, as if fascinated, to that breast pocket, while he talked on _àpropos_ of anything that suggested itself. Presently, in reply to some remark of his mother's with reference to the rising moon, and the ghostly way in which its beams seemed to steal about the ruin, he said: "Do you know that we can boast of having a ghost, Meredith?"

"Our very own, who watches over the fortunes of the house," said his sister. "At least, that is the tradition. When last heard of, he was wandering about, with his hand uplifted as if in warning. Not very original, is it? And not of much use, unless he will tell us what we are being warned against."

"Have you seen him, Miss Verschoyle?"

"Oh, no. Even he seems to have deserted us now."

"Speak for yourself, Madge," said her brother, stealing a side glance towards Meredith.

"Have you, then, Laurence?" she ejaculated, turning quickly towards him. "I thought you were inclined to make a jest of the monk."

"I am inclined to do that no longer, perhaps."

"Do you mean that you _have_ seen him? You told me nothing about it, Laurence."

"When I knew what a fright it gave you only to imagine you saw him?"

"But I was only ten years old then, you know. I was frightened, Mr. Meredith," she said, turning to him with a smile. "But even then I was quite as curious as frightened; for though I fell upon my knees and hid my face, I begged him not to go until I got sufficiently used to him to be able to ask what I wanted to know."

"Had he not the grace to do that, Miss Verschoyle?"

"Well, it was only an old military cloak of my father's, which Laurence had hung over a broom in a corner of the school-room to try my courage."

"I wonder what questions you would ask now?"

"Oh, there are so many things one would like to know," the sweet face shadowing, and the eyes taking an anxious expression.

"Is the monk supposed to have a predilection for any particular chamber?" asked Meredith. "Ghosts are uncertain visitors, I know; but it would be something to pass a night where one might be expected."

"You might find it no jest if he came," said Laurence.

"Oh, I should take him seriously enough. In fact, I have something of Miss Verschoyle's feeling. There are so many questions one would like to ask."

She was glancing curiously towards her brother. "Why did he take that tone--he that, until now, had been as ready as the rest to jest at the ghost?" But she had no time to speculate as to what was in his mind. Now that he had returned, she might consider herself off duty in the matter of doing her share towards entertaining; and she had to help Sally to prepare a room for the guest, her invalid mother to attend to, and to contrive a fitting breakfast for the morrow.

The two young men passed out on to the grass terrace before the window, lighted their cigars, and strolled to and fro in the moonlight. There was very little interchange of thought. Allan Meredith was speculating as to how best he could set about helping Margaret Verschoyle's brother; and beginning to fear it would be very difficult to do so, unless he were more inclined than he now appeared to put his shoulder to the wheel. He had little sympathy for a nature such as Verschoyle's; and, unconsciously perhaps to himself, the few words he uttered conveyed what was in his mind to the other, who was quick to resent it.

"Put me in the way of earning money, indeed! No use asking him for a loan; he would be putting all sorts of awkward questions," thought Verschoyle, with the uneasy consciousness that he would find it difficult to explain without incriminating himself. "No, I won't try it! It must be the other way--there's no help for it now. Once out of this hole, I'll put my shoulder to the wheel, and pay him back with the first money I earn. He isn't likely to want the money if I took all instead of a quarter, and I won't take a penny more than that. It will only be a loan after all, which, if he were like anyone else, I could openly ask him for. Yes, I'll do it! If he sees through the trick, it will be easy to say it was only a jest done to try him. But I think I can manage it so quietly that he won't wake, and then I am safe."

On re-entering the room they had quitted--the only habitable sitting-room the Priory could now boast--they found it untenanted, the mother and daughter having retired for the night. The two men sat in desultory conversation, maintained with some effort, until, in reply to a question from Laurence, Meredith admitted that he had had a long day and was inclined for bed. They went up together, and Laurence showed the other into a large, barely-furnished, and somewhat desolate-looking room, with two doors and one high, narrow, iron-barred window.

"Sorry we have no better quarters to offer you, Meredith."

"I am no sybarite, Verschoyle. You'll say that when you see my room at home. My housekeeper is always bewailing my lack of appreciation of what she calls comfort"--taking out his pocket-book as he spoke, and putting it on to the dressing-table before removing his coat.

Laurence took quick note of the position of the book upon the table. "Well, good-night, old fellow"; adding, with an elaborate assumption of carelessness: "Oh, by the way, I'd nearly forgotten: there's a key in that door--the one belonging to this must be lost, I fancy; but it seems hermetically sealed. You can't open it, you see," turning and pulling at the handle; "and you are safely barred in at the window," with a little laugh.

"All right, Verschoyle. A barred window and a locked door ought to be enough. Good-night," telling himself they must talk over things in the morning. Too late to enter upon what he wanted to say, just then. In the morning Verschoyle should be made to see that here was a friend who was not to be put off; they must go into matters together. Verschoyle must be induced to set to work, and in the meantime it must be so contrived that the mother and daughter should be better cared for. "Tell him that I have taken a great fancy to this old place; and, between ourselves, give him a few thousands for it, perhaps--to be settled on them--yes, certainly settled on them."

Once in his own room, Verschoyle sank into a seat and buried his face in his hands. "If there were but any other way than this! If only the man had not gone there bragging about his thousands!" trying to persuade himself that there had been bragging, and almost hating Meredith for the wrong he was about to do him. "He would not do it! Let the worst come to the worst--he would not!" springing to his feet again, and fiercely shaking his fist as against some unseen tempter.

The clock in a distant church tower chimed twelve. One vibrated on the night air: it would soon be too late! Morning would dawn, and the opportunity be gone! Shivering with the remembrance of what the morning might bring--ruin, disgrace, his whole life blighted--he once more decided there must be no drawing back. With set teeth and determined eyes he went towards a chair upon which lay a folded garment. He shook it out--a long, dark, military cloak--and proceeded, in awkward but tolerably efficient fashion, to pin the cape so as to, as nearly as possible, resemble a monk's hood. Changing his boots for slippers, he enveloped himself in the cloak, drawing the hood well forward so as to cover nearly the whole of his face; then softly opened the room door, and stood listening with bated breath.

No sound broke the stillness. He stole noiselessly forth, and entered a small room, the door of which was ajar, as he himself had placed it a couple of hours previously. This room opened into the larger one in which was Allan Meredith. Laurence stole silently to the communicating door, locked, and with the key outside. It had been well oiled; but this notwithstanding, there was a slight sound, like thunder to his guilty ears, as he turned the key in the lock.

He waited breathlessly for a few moments again, then, hearing no sound from within, softly pushed open the door and looked in. His eyes were, at once, directed towards the bed. Yes, Meredith was, apparently, fast asleep. To make quite sure, he stood silent and motionless, listening intently. The quiet, even breathing of one in deep slumber reached him. He moved softly towards the dressing-table, his eyes still turned upon the bed; then stood motionless again, a tall black figure in the semi-darkness.

Why did he hesitate? What was it that suddenly impelled him to tell the truth, and cast himself upon the mercy of the man lying there--his good angel battling for him? The scales trembled in the balance for a moment, and then it was as though he had chosen--"Evil, be thou my good"; and the way was, at once, made easy for him.

His eyes lighted on a dark object, which he knew at once must be what he was in search of, lying on the white toilet cover of the dressing-table. His hand closed over it, his eyes turning once more towards the bed. Not a movement, not a sound!

Pocket-book in hand, he noiselessly crept out, locked the door on the outside again, and sped back to his own room.

Half the danger was over. He had now but to abstract the money he wanted, and replace the book where he had found it. He put the book on the table, and sat down.

"What was that? A sigh--a whispered word? Or was it coward conscience?" He sat back aghast for a moment; then, with a resolute face, bent forward, laying his hand upon the book. Suddenly he paused, raising his head again. A sound--a movement? Surely he heard something! He hurriedly blew out the light, and sat with all his senses on the alert. Again! Something or someone was in the room!

Meredith! Had Meredith seen and followed him--had the time come to act the part of jester? Unconsciously, he was gazing straight before him into the dressing glass, faintly reflecting, in the pale, grey light of the summer night, the objects around. Again a slight movement, hardly displacement, of the air; but sufficient to intimate a presence there.

Should he break into a laugh, and challenge Meredith--should he----Great heavens! Mirrored in the glass, he saw a shadowy form moving silently towards him--a form draped in cowl and gown. The monk!

Laurence Verschoyle fell back in his chair, his eyes fastened upon the figure faintly outlined in the dim light, the left hand raised, as if in solemn warning, and the right stretched forth towards--the pocket-book!

He saw it taken from the table, then everything faded from his vision, and he lost consciousness.

When, at length, he came to himself, it was a little confusedly; and it was some time before he remembered where he was and what had happened. The pocket-book! His eyes went hurriedly over the table. Gone! It had been no dream, then--no trick of the senses. He flung out his arms upon the table and buried his face upon them. Suddenly a faint hope sprang up in his heart. It must have been Meredith! His own fears, and the dim, uncertain light, had imparted the spectral, shadowy appearance, and exaggerated the whole effect. Meredith must have imagined--as in case of emergency he was to have been induced to imagine--that a jest was being played off upon him, and had determined to return it in kind, managing somehow to get himself up for the rôle. Had they not been talking about the monk and his gesture of warning? Yes; Meredith, of course!--beginning to recover his nerve. He had been caught, and Meredith had not been caught; that was all, and he had only to treat the whole thing as a jest.

But all this notwithstanding, there was an under-current of something very like fear in his mind which caused him to watch the slowly broadening light of day with feverish impatience for the time when he could enter Meredith's room. It would not do to go too early, lest his very anxiety should arouse the other's suspicions. Everything now depended upon his being able to treat the whole thing as a jest. He threw off his disguise, washed and dressed, and then sat listening for the usual sounds of Sally's movements about the house.

When the clock struck six he could contain himself no longer, and made his way to Meredith's room, going to the door which opened into the corridor. Meredith, in response to his knock, unlocked the door and admitted him.

"Up already, Meredith?"

"Yes, I am accustomed to rise early."

As he advanced into the room, Laurence darted a quick look towards the dressing-table. There lay the pocket-book! He had been right; it had appeared as a jest to Meredith, and he had played one off in return. "Had I only guessed and kept my wits about me, instead of making a fool of myself, by going off in a fainting fit, the jest might have been better kept up."

"I see you can make, as well as take, a jest, old fellow," he began, with an attempt at a laugh.

"I was too sleepy and lazy to do more than take it, Verschoyle. I saw what was done both times; but the restoration was managed best."

"Restoration?"

"The putting the book back."

Laurence Verschoyle dropped into a chair, gazing at the other with widely opened eyes. "Do you mean to say you did not? For Heaven's sake, tell me the truth, Meredith! You followed me to my room and brought the book back. I--I--saw you!"

"That you did not, and could not have done, Verschoyle. I did not rise from the bed after I lay down until six o'clock this morning, just before you came in."

"You must--either awake or asleep, you must have!" catching at a last hope that the other might have walked in his sleep.

"No; on my honour; I was tired, but I could not sleep. I saw the ghostly appearance each time: and I was struck by the difference in the second. It was a more ghostly affair altogether. I saw, in fact, only a hand and part of an arm."

Laurence went hurriedly to the door opposite that by which he had entered, and turned the handle: locked on the outside, as he had left it!

"The first came that way," said Meredith, who had followed him with his eyes; "but not the other."

"Meredith, it was I who came, and I came but once!" ejaculated Laurence, shudderingly.

He covered his face with his hands a few moments; then, in sudden desperation, confessed the whole truth. "I meant to rob you! I dressed up as the monk for the purpose. I took the book, intending to abstract five hundred pounds; and, if you woke and challenged me, was going to say that it was done to try your pluck. I had taken it to my room. It lay on the table before me, and I was about to open it, when a feeling I can't describe came over me. I knew I was not alone. I was sitting before the dressing-table, and, glancing into the glass, saw the reflection of a figure standing behind me--the figure of a monk! A deathlike hand was put forth. I saw the fingers close over the book, and then I suppose I lost consciousness, for I can remember no more."

"The monk!" Meredith gazed at the other, and became gravely silent again.

"I was in terrible straits," hurriedly went on Laurence. "I meant last night to appeal to you for a loan; but I fancied you seemed rather hard and stand-offish, and what I had to tell was not easy to tell. There was a prison before me, Meredith, unless I could get money, which there seemed no chance of my being able to get, and the knowledge that you had all those notes about you tempted me. I meant to take the five hundred, put the rest back, and trust to the chance of your not suspecting how it had gone. Of course, I cheated myself with the belief that if I could set myself straight this time, I would put my shoulder to the wheel and repay you somehow. I think I see myself as I am--now, and I know I shall not again try to retrieve my fortunes that way. You can't despise me more than I despise myself!"

"I am very sorry," said Meredith. "I did not imagine you were in such immediate necessity. I only wish you had told me last night, when all this might have been prevented"--still speaking a little abstractedly. Was it to be regretted, after all, that Verschoyle had been brought face to face with himself in this way, since it had brought about such a revulsion in his mind? He presently decided what course he would take, and went on:--

"Look here, Verschoyle. I intended last night to ask you to let me help you in some way, and only delayed until this morning because I wanted to reflect a little as to the best means of doing so. We will go into that later on. I will only say now that you need be under no anxiety as to the money. I have a good income--more, a great deal, than I desire to spend--and there is a large surplus lying idle at my banker's just now. Use it to set yourself straight with the world, old fellow"; then, as the other made a gesture of dissent: "Let me have my say. You shall repay me when you have made your way--as a man of your ability is sure to do. Nonsense, you have your mother and sister to consider, you know."

"My poor mother and Madge. Meredith, you could never imagine what my sister has been to us."

"Couldn't I?" thought Meredith.

"She has kept us going the last six months; and though the pressure was growing heavier and heavier, she never----What a selfish brute I have been!"

"Come, it's something to recognise that!" thought Meredith. "There's some hope for you, after all"; adding to the other: "We will get these bills settled at once, and then we can see what you are most inclined to turn to."

The two young men went down together, and found breakfast awaiting them--a more varied and bountiful repast than had been set before them the previous evening, Sally having run down to an adjacent farmhouse for supplies. The two breakfasted together alone. Mrs. Verschoyle kept her room till later in the day, and her daughter, who was superintending in the kitchen, had only time to look in with a morning greeting.

After breakfast the two young men held consultation together, then set off for the town, called at the lawyer's office there, and sent off sundry telegrams. When they returned to the Priory later in the day, it was explained that Meredith had been helping Laurence with his advice on business matters.

"He is the best old fellow in the world, Madge--acting with the noblest generosity! I think all our troubles will soon be over now," said Laurence to his sister when they were alone.

"Generosity! Oh, Laurence, you won't take his money?" she ejaculated, a ring of sharp pain in her voice. "Not his money!"