ST. CATHERINE'S EVE
I
"In this matter of the railway James Mottram has proved a false friend,a very traitor to me!"
Charles Nagle's brown eyes shone with anger; he looked loweringly at hiscompanions, and they, a beautiful young woman and an old man dressed inthe sober garb of a Catholic ecclesiastic of that day, glanced at oneanother apprehensively.
All England was then sharply divided into two camps, the one composed ofthose who welcomed with enthusiasm the wonderful new invention whichobliterated space, the other of those who dreaded and abhorred thecoming of the railroads.
Charles Nagle got up and walked to the end of the terrace. He stareddown into the wooded combe, or ravine, below, and noted with sullenanger the signs of stir and activity in the narrow strip of wood whichtill a few weeks before had been so still, so entirely remote fromeven the quiet human activities of 1835.
At last he turned round, pirouetting on his heel with a quick movement,and his good looks impressed anew each of the two who sat there withhim. Eighty years ago beauty of line and colour were allowed to tell inmasculine apparel, and this young Dorset squire delighted in fineclothes. Though November was far advanced it was a mild day, and CharlesNagle wore a bright blue coat, cut, as was then the fashion, to show offthe points of his elegant figure--of his slender waist and his broadshoulders; as for the elaborately frilled waistcoat, it terminated in anIndia muslin stock, wound many times round his neck. He looked a foppishLondoner rather than what he was--an honest country gentleman who hadnot journeyed to the capital for some six years, and then only to see agreat physician.
"'Twas a most unneighbourly act on the part of James--he knows it wellenough, for we hardly see him now!" He addressed his words moreparticularly to his wife, and he spoke more gently than before.
The old priest--his name was Dorriforth--looked uneasily from his hostto his hostess. He felt that both these young people, whom he had knownfrom childhood, and whom he loved well, had altered during the few weekswhich had gone by since he had last seen them. Rather--he mentallycorrected himself--it was the wife, Catherine, who was changed. CharlesNagle was much the same; poor Charles would never be other, for hebelonged to the mysterious company of those who, physically sound, arementally infirm, and shunned by their more fortunate fellows.
But Charles Nagle's wife, the sweet young woman who for so long had beencontent, nay glad, to share this pitiful exile, seemed now to haveescaped, if not in body then in mind, from the place where her sad,monotonous duty lay.
She did not at once answer her husband; but she looked at him fixedly,her hand smoothing nervously the skirt of her pretty gown.
Mrs. Nagle's dress also showed a care and research unusual in that ofthe country lady of those days. This was partly no doubt owing to herFrench blood--her grandparents had been _emigres_--and to the fact thatCharles liked to see her in light colours. The gown she was now wearingon this mild November day was a French flowered silk, the spoil of asmuggler who pursued his profitable calling on the coast hard by. Theshort, high bodice and puffed sleeves were draped with a scarf ofBuckinghamshire lace which left, as was the fashion of those days, thewearer's lovely shoulders bare.
"James Mottram," she said at last, and with a heightened colour,"believes in progress, Charles. It is the one thing concerning which youand your friend will never agree."
"Friend?" he repeated moodily. "Friend! James Mottram has shown himselfno friend of ours. And then I had rights in this matter--am I not hisheir-at-law? I could prevent my cousin from touching a stone, or fellinga tree, at the Eype. But 'tis his indifference to my feelings thatangers me so. Why, I trusted the fellow as if he had been my brother!"
"And James Mottram," said the old priest authoritatively, "has alwaysfelt the same to you, Charles. Never forget that! In all but name youare brothers. Were you not brought up together? Had I not the schoolingof you both as lads?" He spoke with a good deal of feeling; he hadnoticed--and the fact disturbed him--that Charles Nagle spoke in thepast tense when referring to his affection for the absent man.
"But surely, sir, you cannot approve that this iron monster shouldinvade our quiet neighbourhood?" exclaimed Charles impatiently.
Mrs. Nagle looked at the priest entreatingly. Did she by any chancesuppose that he would be able to modify her husband's violent feeling?
"If I am to say the truth, Charles," said Mr. Dorriforth mildly, "andyou would not have me conceal my sentiments, then I believe the timewill come when even you will be reconciled to this marvellous invention.Those who surely know declare that, thanks to these railroads, ourbeloved country will soon be all cultivated as is a garden. Nay, perhapsothers of our Faith, strangers, will settle here----"
"Strangers?" repeated Charles Nagle sombrely, "I wish no strangers here.Even now there are too many strangers about." He looked round as if heexpected those strangers of whom the priest had spoken to appearsuddenly from behind the yew hedges which stretched away, enclosingCatherine Nagle's charming garden, to the left of the plateau on whichstood the old manor-house.
"Nay, nay," he repeated, returning to his grievance, "never had Iexpected to find James Mottram a traitor to his order. As for the folkabout here, they're bewitched! They believe that this puffing devil willmake them all rich! I could tell them different; but, as you know, thereare reasons why I should not."
The priest bent his head gravely. The Catholic gentry of those days werenot on comfortable terms with their neighbours. In spite of the factthat legally they were now "emancipated," any malicious person couldstill make life intolerable to them. The railway mania was at itsbeginnings, and it would have been especially dangerous for CharlesNagle to take, in an active sense, the unpopular side.
In other parts of England, far from this Dorset countryside, railroadshad brought with them a revival of trade. It was hoped that the sameresult would follow here, and a long strip of James Mottram's estate hadbeen selected as being peculiarly suitable for the laying down of theiron track which was to connect the nearest town with the sea.
Unfortunately the land in question consisted of a wood which formed theboundary-line where Charles Nagle's property marched with that of hiskinsman and co-religionist, James Mottram; and Nagle had taken thematter very ill indeed. He was now still suffering, in a physicalsense, from the effects of the violent fit of passion which the matterhad induced, and which even his wife, Catherine, had not been able toallay....
As he started walking up and down with caged, impatient steps, shewatched him with an uneasy, anxious glance. He kept shaking his headwith a nervous movement, and he stared angrily across the ravine to theopposite hill, where against the skyline the large mass of Eype Castle,James Mottram's dwelling-place, stood four-square to the high windswhich swept up from the sea.
Suddenly he again strode over to the edge of the terrace: "I think I'llgo down and have a talk to those railroad fellows," he muttereduncertainly.
Charles knew well that this was among the forbidden things--the thingshe must not do; yet occasionally Catherine, who was, as the poor fellowdimly realized, his mentor and guardian, as well as his outwardlysubmissive wife, would allow him to do that which was forbidden.
But to-day such was not her humour. "Oh, no, Charles," she saiddecidedly, "you cannot go down to the wood! You must stay here and talkto Mr. Dorriforth."
"They were making hellish noises all last night; I had no rest at all,"Nagle went on inconsequently. "They were running their puffing devil upand down, 'The Bridport Wonder'--that's what they call it, reverendsir," he turned to the priest.
Catherine again looked up at her husband, and their old friend saw thatshe bit her lip as if checking herself in impatient speech. Was shelosing the sweetness of her temper, the evenness of disposition thepriest had ever admired in her, and even reverenced?
Mrs. Nagle knew that the steam-engine had been run over the line for thefirst time the night before, for James Mottram and she had arranged thatthe trial should take place then rather than
in the daytime. She alsoknew that Charles had slept through the long dark hours, those hoursduring which she had lain wide awake by his side listening to thestrange new sounds made by the Bridport Wonder. Doubtless one of theservants had spoken of the matter in his hearing.
She frowned, then felt ashamed. "Charles," she said gently, "would itnot be well for me to go down to the wood and discover when theserailroad men are going away? They say in the village that their work isnow done."
"Yes," he cried eagerly. "A good idea, love! And if they're going offat once, you might order that a barrel of good ale be sent down to them.I'm informed that that's what James has had done this very day. Now I'veno wish that James should appear more generous than I!"
Catherine Nagle smiled, the indulgent kindly smile which a woman bestowson a loved child who suddenly betrays a touch of that vanity which is,in a child, so pardonable.
She went into the house, and in a few moments returned with a pink scarfwound about her soft dark hair--hair dressed high, turned back from herforehead in the old pre-Revolution French mode, and not, as was then thefashion, arranged in stiff curls.
The two men watched her walking swiftly along the terrace till she sankout of their sight, for a row of stone steps led down to an orchardplanted with now leafless pear and apple trees, and surrounded with aquickset hedge. A wooden gate, with a strong lock to it, was set in thisclosely clipped hedge. It opened on a steep path which, after traversingtwo fields, terminated in the beech-wood where now ran the iron track ofthe new railroad.
Catherine Nagle unlocked the orchard gate, and went through on to thefield path. And then she slackened her steps.
For hours, nay, for days, she had been longing for solitude, and now,for a brief space, solitude was hers. But, instead of bringing herpeace, this respite from the companionship of Charles and of Mr.Dorriforth brought increased tumult and revolt.
She had ardently desired the visit of the old priest, but his presencehad bestowed, instead of solace, fret and discomfort. When he fixed onher his mild, penetrating eyes, she felt as if he were dragging into thelight certain secret things which had been so far closely hidden withinher heart, and concerning which she had successfully dulled her oncesensitive conscience.
The waking hours of the last two days had each been veined with torment.Her soul sickened as she thought of the morrow, St. Catherine's Day,that is, her feast-day. The _emigres_, Mrs. Nagle's own people, had inexile jealousy kept up their own customs, and to Charles Nagle's wifethe twenty-fifth day of November had always been a day of days, what herbirthday is to a happy Englishwoman. Even Charles always remembered thedate, and in concert with his faithful man-servant, Collins, sent toLondon each year for a pretty jewel. The housefolk, all of whom hadlearnt to love their mistress, and who helped her loyally in herdifficult, sometimes perilous, task, also made of the feast a holiday.
But now, on this St. Catherine's Eve, Mrs. Nagle told herself that shewas at the end of her strength. And yet only a month ago--so she nowreminded herself piteously--all had been well with her; she had beenstrangely, pathetically happy a month since; content with all theconditions of her singular and unnatural life....
Suddenly she stopped walking. As if in answer to a word spoken by aninvisible companion she turned aside, and, stooping, picked a weedgrowing by the path. She held it up for a moment to her cheek, and thenspoke aloud. "Were it not for James Mottram," she said slowly, and veryclearly, "I, too, should become mad."
Then she looked round in sudden fear. Catherine Nagle had never beforeuttered, or permitted another to utter aloud in her presence, that awfulword. But she knew that their neighbours were not so scrupulous. Onecruel enemy, and, what was especially untoward, a close relation, Mrs.Felwake, own sister to Charles Nagle's dead father, often uttered it.This lady desired her son to reign at Edgecombe; it was she who in thelast few years had spread abroad the notion that Charles Nagle, in thepublic interest, should be asylumed.
In his own house, and among his own tenants, the slander was angrilydenied. When Charles was stranger, more suspicious, moodier than usual,those about him would tell one another that "the squire was ill to-day,"or that "the master was ailing." That he had a mysterious illness wasadmitted. Had not a famous London doctor persuaded Mr. Nagle that itwould be dangerous for him to ride, even to walk outside the boundary ofhis small estate,--in brief, to run any risks which might affect hisheart? He had now got out of the way of wishing to go far afield;contentedly he would pace up and down for hours on the long terracewhich overhung the wood--talking, talking, talking, with Catherine onhis arm.
But he was unselfish--sometimes. "Take a walk, dear heart, with James,"he would say, and then Catherine Nagle and James Mottram would go outand make their way to some lonely farmhouse or cottage where Mottram hadestate business. Yet during these expeditions they never forgot Charles,so Catherine now reminded herself sorely,--nay, it was then that theytalked of him the most, discussing him kindly, tenderly, as theywent....
Catherine walked quickly on, her eyes on the ground. With a feeling ofoppressed pain she recalled the last time she and Mottram had been alonetogether. Bound for a distant spot on the coast, they had gone on and onfor miles, almost up to the cliffs below which lay the sea. Ah, howhappy, how innocent she had felt that day!
Then they had come to a stile--Mottram had helped her up, helped herdown, and for a moment her hand had lain and fluttered in his hand....
During the long walk back, each had been very silent; and Catherine--shecould not answer for her companion--when she had seen Charles waitingfor her patiently, had felt a pained, shamed beat of the heart. As forJames Mottram, he had gone home at once, scarce waiting for good-nights.
That evening--Catherine remembered it now with a certain comfort--shehad been very kind to Charles; she was ever kind, but she had then beenkinder than usual, and he had responded by becoming suddenly clearer inmind than she had known him to be for a long time. For some days he hadbeen the old Charles--tender, whimsical, gallant, the Charles with whom,at a time when every girl is in love with love, she had alack! fallen inlove. Then once more the cloud had come down, shadowing a dreary wasteof days--dark days of oppression and of silence, alternating with suddenbursts of unreasonable and unreasoning rage.
James Mottram had come, and come frequently, during that time of misery.But his manner had changed. He had become restrained, as if watchful ofhimself; he was no longer the free, the happy, the lively companion hehad used to be. Catherine scarcely saw him out of Charles's presence,and when they were by chance alone they talked of Charles, only ofCharles and of his unhappy condition, and of what could be done tobetter it.
And now James Mottram had given up coming to Edgecombe in the oldfamiliar way; or rather--and this galled Catherine shrewdly--he cameonly sufficiently often not to rouse remark among their servants andhumble neighbours.
* * * * *
Catherine Nagle was on the edge of the wood, and looking about her shesaw with surprise that the railway men she had come down to see hadfinished work for the day. There were signs of their immediateoccupation, a fire was still smouldering, and the door of one of theshanties they occupied was open. But complete stillness reigned in thiskingdom of high trees. To the right and left, as far as she could see,stretched the twin lines of rude iron rails laid down along what hadbeen a cart-track, as well as a short cut between Edgecombe Manor andEype Castle. A dun drift, to-day's harvest of dead leaves, had settledon the rails; even now it was difficult to follow their course.
As she stood there, about to turn and retrace her steps, Catherinesuddenly saw James Mottram advancing quickly towards her, and themingled revolt and sadness which had so wholly possessed her gave way toa sudden, overwhelming feeling of security and joy.
She moved from behind the little hut near which she had been standing,and a moment later they stood face to face.
James Mottram was as unlike Charles Nagle as two men of the same age, ofthe same breed, and of the
same breeding could well be. He was shorter,and of sturdier build, than his cousin; and he was plain, whereasCharles Nagle was strikingly handsome. Also his face was tanned byconstant exposure to sun, salt-wind, and rain; his hair was cut short,his face shaven.
The very clothes James Mottram wore were in almost ludicrous contrast tothose which Charles Nagle affected, for Mottram's were always ofserviceable homespun. But for the fact that they and he werescrupulously clean, the man now walking by Catherine Nagle's side mighthave been a prosperous farmer or bailiff instead of the owner of suchlarge property in those parts as made him, in spite of his unpopularfaith, lord of the little world about him.
On his plain face and strong, sturdy figure Catherine's beautiful eyesdwelt with unconscious relief. She was so weary of Charles's absorptionin his apparel, and of his interest in the hundred and one fal-lalswhich then delighted the cosmopolitan men of fashion.
A simple, almost childish gladness filled her heart. Conscience, butjust now so insistent and disturbing a familiar, vanished for a space,nay more, assumed the garb of a meddling busybody who seeks to discoverharm where no harm is.
Was not James Mottram Charles's friend, almost, as the old priest hadsaid, Charles's brother? Had she not herself deliberately chosen Charlesin place of James when both young men had been in ardent pursuit ofher--James's pursuit almost wordless, Charles's conducted with all theeloquence of the poet he had then set out to be?
Mottram, seeing her in the wood, uttered a word of surprise. Sheexplained her presence there. Their hands scarce touched in greeting,and then they started walking side by side up the field path.
Mottram carried a stout ash stick. Had the priest been there he wouldperchance have noticed that the man's hand twitched and moved restlesslyas he swung his stick about; but Catherine only became aware that hercompanion was preoccupied and uneasy after they had gone some way.
When, however, the fact of his unease seemed forced upon her notice, shefelt suddenly angered. There was a quality in Mrs. Nagle that made herever ready to rise to meet and conquer circumstance. She told herself,with heightened colour, that James Mottram should and must return to hisold ways--to his old familiar footing with her. Anything else would be,nay was, intolerable.
"James,"--she turned to him frankly--"why have you not come over to seeus lately as often as you did? Charles misses you sadly, and so do I.Prepare to find him in a bad mood to-day. But just now he distressedMr. Dorriforth by his unreasonableness touching the railroad." Shesmiled and went on lightly, "He said that you were a false friend tohim--a traitor!"
And then Catherine Nagle stopped and caught her breath. God! Why had shesaid that? But Mottram had evidently not caught the sinister word, andCatherine in haste drove back conscience into the lair whence consciencehad leapt so suddenly to her side.
"Maybe I ought, in this matter of the railroad," he said musingly, "tohave humoured Charles. I am now sorry I did not do so. After all,Charles may be right--and all we others wrong. The railroad may notbring us lasting good!"
Catherine looked at him surprised. James Mottram had always been so sureof himself in this matter; but now there was dejection, weariness in hisvoice; and he was walking quickly, more quickly up the steep inclinethan Mrs. Nagle found agreeable. But she also hastened her steps,telling herself, with wondering pain, that he was evidently in no moodfor her company.
"Mr. Dorriforth has already been here two days," she observedirrelevantly.
"Aye, I know that. It was to see him I came to-day; and I will ask youto spare him to me for two or three hours. Indeed, I propose that heshould walk back with me to the Eype. I wish him to witness my new will.And then I may as well go to confession, for it is well to be shrivenbefore a journey, though for my part I feel ever safer on sea thanland!"
Mottram looked straight before him as he spoke.
"A journey?" Catherine repeated the words in a low, questioning tone.There had come across her heart a feeling of such anguish that it was asthough her body instead of her soul were being wrenched asunder. In herextremity she called on pride--and pride, ever woman's most loyalfriend, flew to her aid.
"Yes," he repeated, still staring straight in front of him, "I leaveto-morrow for Plymouth. I have had letters from my agent in Jamaicawhich make it desirable that I should return there without delay." Hedug his stick into the soft earth as he spoke.
James Mottram was absorbed in himself, in his own desire to carryhimself well in his fierce determination to avoid betraying what hebelieved to be his secret. But Catherine Nagle knew nothing of this.She almost thought him indifferent.
They had come to a steep part of the incline, and Catherine suddenlyquickened her steps and passed him, so making it impossible that hecould see her face. She tried to speak, but the commonplace words shedesired to say were strangled, at birth, in her throat.
"Charles will not mind; he will not miss me as he would have missed mebefore this unhappy business of the railroad came between us," Mottramsaid lamely.
She still made no answer; instead she shook her head with an impatientgesture. Her silence made him sorry. After all, he had been a goodfriend to Catherine Nagle--so much he could tell himself without shame.He stepped aside on to the grass, and striding forward turned round andfaced her.
The tears were rolling down her cheeks; but she threw back her head andmet his gaze with a cold, almost a defiant look. "You startled megreatly," she said breathlessly, "and took me so by surprise, James! Iam grieved to think how Charles--nay, how we shall both--miss you. It isof Charles I think, James; it is for Charles I weep----"
As she uttered the lying words, she still looked proudly into his faceas if daring him to doubt her. "But I shall never forget--I shall everthink with gratitude of your great goodness to my poor Charles. Twoyears out of your life--that's what it's been, James. Too much--too muchby far!" She had regained control over her quivering heart, and it waswith a wan smile that she added, "But we shall miss you, dear, kindfriend."
Her smile stung him. "Catherine," he said sternly, "I go because Imust--because I dare not stay. You are a woman and a saint, I a man anda sinner. I've been a fool and worse than a fool. You say that Charlesto-day called me false friend, traitor! Catherine--Charles spoke moretruly than he knew."
His burning eyes held her fascinated. The tears had dried on her cheeks.She was thirstily absorbing the words as they fell now slowly, nowquickly, from his lips.
But what was this he was saying? "Catherine, do you wish me to go on?"Oh, cruel! Cruel to put this further weight on her conscience! But shemade a scarcely perceptible movement of assent--and again he spoke.
"Years ago I thought I loved you. I went away, as you know well, becauseof that love. You had chosen Charles--Charles in many ways the betterfellow of the two. I went away thinking myself sick with love of you,but it was false--only my pride had been hurt. I did not love you as Iloved myself. And when I got clear away, in a new place, among newpeople"--he hesitated and reddened darkly--"I forgot you! I vow thatwhen I came back I was cured--cured if ever a man was! It was ofCharles, not of you, Catherine, that I thought on my way home. To meCharles and you had become one. I swear it!" He repeated: "To me you andCharles were one."
He waited a long moment, and then, more slowly, he went on, as ifpleading with himself--with her: "You know what I found here in place ofwhat I had left? I found Charles a----"
Catherine Nagle shrank back. She put up her right hand to ward off theword, and Mottram, seizing her hand, held it in his with a convulsiveclasp. "'Twas not the old feeling that came back to me--that I againswear, Catherine. 'Twas something different--something infinitelystronger--something that at first I believed to be all noble----"
He stopped speaking, and Catherine Nagle uttered one word--a curiousword. "When?" she asked, and more urgently again she whispered, "When?"
"Long before I knew!" he said hoarsely. "At first I called the passionthat possessed me by the false name of 'friendship.' But that poorhypocrisy soon left me! A month
ago, Catherine, I found myselfwishing--I'll say this for myself, it was for the first time--thatCharles was dead. And then I knew for sure what I had already longsuspected--that the time had come for me to go----"
He dropped her hand, and stood before her, abased in his own eyes, butone who, if a criminal, had had the strength to be his own judge andpass heavy sentence on himself.
"And now, Catherine--now that you understand why I go, you will bid meGod-speed. Nay, more"--he looked at her, and smiled wryly--"if you arekind, as I know you to be kind, you will pray for me, for I go from youa melancholy, as well as a foolish man."
She smiled a strange little wavering smile, and Mottram was deeply movedby the gentleness with which Catherine Nagle had listened to his story.He had been prepared for an averted glance, for words of coldrebuke--such words as his own long-dead mother would surely haveuttered to a man who had come to her with such a tale.
* * * * *
They walked on for a while, and Catherine again broke the silence by aquestion which disturbed her companion. "Then your agent's letter wasnot really urgent, James?"
"The letters of an honest agent always call for the owner," he mutteredevasively.
They reached the orchard gate. Catherine held the key in her hand, butshe did not place it in the lock--instead she paused awhile. "Then thereis no special urgency?" she repeated. "And James--forgive me for askingit--are you, indeed, leaving England because of this--this matter ofwhich you have just told me?"
He bent his head in answer.
Then she said deliberately: "Your conscience, James, is too scrupulous.I do not think that there is any reason why you should not stay. WhenCharles and I were in Italy," she went on in a toneless, monotonousvoice, "I met some of those young noblemen who in times of pestilence godisguised to nurse the sick and bury the dead. It is that work ofcharity, dear friend, which you have been performing in our unhappyhouse. You have been nursing the sick--nay, more, you have beentending"--she waited, then in a low voice she added--"the dead--the deadthat are yet alive."
Mottram's soul leapt into his eyes. "Then you bid me stay?" he asked.
"For the present," she answered, "I beg you to stay. But only so if itis indeed true that your presence is not really required in Jamaica."
"I swear, Catherine, that all goes sufficiently well there." Again hefixed his honest, ardent eyes on her face.
And now James Mottram was filled with a great exultation of spirit. Hefelt that Catherine's soul, incapable of even the thought of evil,shamed and made unreal the temptation which had seemed till just now onewhich could only be resisted by flight. Catherine was right; he had beenover scrupulous.
There was proof of it in the blessed fact that even now, already, thepoison which had seemed to possess him, that terrible longing foranother man's wife, had left him, vanishing in that same wife's purepresence. It was when he was alone--alone in his great house on thehill, that the devil entered into him, whispering that it was an awfulthing such a woman as was Catherine, sensitive, intelligent, and in herbeauty so appealing, should be tied to such a being as was CharlesNagle--poor Charles, whom every one, excepting his wife and one loyalkinsman, called mad. And yet now it was for this very Charles thatCatherine asked him to stay, for the sake of that unhappy, distraughtman to whom he, James Mottram, recognized the duty of a brother.
"We will both forget what you have just told me," she said gently, andhe bowed his head in reverence.
They were now on the last step of the stone stairway leading to theterrace.
Mrs. Nagle turned to her companion; he saw that her eyes were verybright, and that the rose-red colour in her cheeks had deepened as ifshe had been standing before a great fire.
As they came within sight of Charles Nagle and of the old priest,Catherine put out her hand. She touched Mottram on the arm--it was afleeting touch, but it brought them both, with beating hearts, to astand. "James," she said, and then she stopped for a moment--a momentthat seemed to contain aeons of mingled rapture and pain--"one word aboutMr. Dorriforth." The commonplace words dropped them back to earth. "Didyou wish him to stay with you till to-morrow? That will scarcely bepossible, for to-morrow is St. Catherine's Day."
"Why, no," he said quickly. "I will not take him home with me to-night.All my plans are now changed. My will can wait"--he smiled at her--"andso can my confession."
"No, no!" she cried almost violently. "Your confession must not wait,James----"
"Aye, but it must," he said, and again he smiled. "I am in no mood forconfession, Catherine." He added in a lower tone, "you've purged me ofmy sin, my dear--I feel already shriven."
Shame of a very poignant quality suddenly seared Catherine Nagle's soul."Go on, you," she said breathlessly, though to his ears she seemed tospeak in her usual controlled and quiet tones, "I have some orders togive in the house. Join Charles and Mr. Dorriforth. I will come outpresently."
James Mottram obeyed her. He walked quickly forward. "Good news,Charles," he cried. "These railway men whose presence so offends you gofor good to-morrow! Reverend sir, accept my hearty greeting."
* * * * *
Catherine Nagle turned to the right and went into the house. Shehastened through the rooms in which, year in and year out, she spenther life, with Charles as her perpetual, her insistent companion. Shenow longed for a time of recollection and secret communion, and so sheinstinctively made for the one place where no one, not even Charles,would come and disturb her.
Walking across the square hall, she ran up the broad staircase leadingto the gallery, out of which opened the doors of her bedroom and of herhusband's dressing-room. But she went swiftly past these two closeddoors, and made her way along a short passage which terminated abruptlywith a faded red baize door giving access to the chapel.
Long, low-ceilinged and windowless, the chapel of Edgecombe Manor hadremained unaltered since the time when there were heavy penaltiesattached both to the celebration of the sacred rites and to the hearingof Mass. The chapel depended for what fresh air it had on a narrow dooropening straight on to ladder-like stairs leading down directly and outon to the terrace below. It was by this way that the small and scatteredcongregation gained access to the chapel when the presence of a priestpermitted of Mass being celebrated there.
Catherine went up close to the altar rails, and sat down on thearm-chair placed there for her sole use. She felt that now, when aboutto wrestle with her soul, she could not kneel and pray. Since she hadbeen last in the chapel, acting sacristan that same morning, life hadtaken a great stride forward, dragging her along in its triumphant wake,a cruel and yet a magnificent conqueror.
Hiding her face in her hands, she lived again each agonized andexquisite moment she had lived through as there had fallen on her earsthe words of James Mottram's shamed confession. Once more her heart wasmoved to an exultant sense of happiness that he should have said thesethings to her--of happiness and shrinking shame....
But soon other thoughts, other and sterner memories were thrust uponher. She told herself the bitter truth. Not only had she led JamesMottram into temptation, but she had put all her woman's wit to the taskof keeping him there. It was her woman's wit--but Catherine Nagle calledit by a harsher name--which had enabled her to make that perilous rockon which she and James Mottram now stood heart to heart together,appear, to him at least, a spot of sanctity and safety. It was she, notthe man who had gazed at her with so ardent a belief in her purity andhonour, who was playing traitor--and traitor to one at once confidingand defenceless....
Then, strangely, this evocation of Charles brought her burdenedconscience relief. Catherine found sudden comfort in remembering hercare, her tenderness for Charles. She reminded herself fiercely thatnever had she allowed anything to interfere with her wifely duty. Never?Alas! she remembered that there had come a day, at a time when JamesMottram's sudden defection had filled her heart with pain, when she hadbeen unkind to Charles. She recalled his look of bewilder
ed surprise,and how he, poor fellow, had tried to sulk--only a few hours later tocome to her, as might have done a repentant child, with the words, "HaveI offended you, dear love?" And she who now avoided his caresses hadkissed him of her own accord with tears, and cried, "No, no, Charles,you never offend me--you are always good to me!"
There had been a moment to-day, just before she had taunted JamesMottram with being over-scrupulous, when she had told herself that shecould be loyal to both of these men she loved and who loved her, givingto each a different part of her heart.
But that bargain with conscience had never been struck; whileconsidering it she had found herself longing for some convulsion of theearth which should throw her and Mottram in each other's arms.
James Mottram traitor? That was what she was about to make him be.Catherine forced herself to face the remorse, the horror, the loathingof himself which would ensue.
It was for Mottram's sake, far more than in response to the command laidon her by her own soul, that Catherine Nagle finally determined on theact of renunciation which she knew was being immediately required ofher.
* * * * *
When Mrs. Nagle came out on the terrace the three men roseceremoniously. She glanced at Charles, even now her first thought andher first care. His handsome face was overcast with the look of gloomypreoccupation which she had learnt to fear, though she knew that intruth it signified but little. At James Mottram she did not look, forshe wished to husband her strength for what she was about to do.
Making a sign to the others to sit down, she herself remained standingbehind Charles's chair. It was from there that she at last spoke,instinctively addressing her words to the old priest.
"I wonder," she said, "if James has told you of his approachingdeparture? He has heard from his agent in Jamaica that his presence isurgently required there."
Charles Nagle looked up eagerly. "This is news indeed!" he exclaimed."Lucky fellow! Why, you'll escape all the trouble that you've put on uswith regard to that puffing devil!" He spoke more cordially than he haddone for a long time to his cousin.
Mr. Dorriforth glanced for a moment up at Catherine's face. Then quicklyhe averted his eyes.
James Mottram rose to his feet. His limbs seemed to have aged. He gaveCatherine a long, probing look.
"Forgive me," he said deliberately. "You mistook my meaning. The matteris not as urgent, Catherine, as you thought." He turned to Charles, "Iwill not desert my friends--at any rate not for the present. I'll facethe puffing devil with those to whom I have helped to acquaint him!"
But Mrs. Nagle and the priest both knew that the brave words were a vainboast. Charles alone was deceived; and he showed no pleasure in thethought that the man who had been to him so kind and so patient acomrade and so trusty a friend was after all not leaving Englandimmediately.
"I must be going back to the Eype now." Mottram spoke heavily; again helooked at Mrs. Nagle with a strangely probing, pleading look. "But I'llcome over to-morrow morning--to Mass. I've not forgotten that to-morrowis St. Catherine's Day--that this is St. Catherine's Eve."
Charles seemed to wake out of a deep abstraction. "Yes, yes," he saidheartily. "To-morrow is the great day! And then, after we've hadbreakfast I shall be able to consult you, James, about a very importantmatter, that new well they're plaguing me to sink in the village."
For the moment the cloud had again lifted; Nagle looked at his cousinwith all his old confidence and affection, and in response JamesMottram's face worked with sudden emotion.
"I'll be quite at your service, Charles," he said, "quite at yourservice!"
Catherine stood by. "I will let you out by the orchard gate," she said."No need for you to go round by the road."
They walked, silently, side by side, along the terrace and down thestone steps. When in the leafless orchard, and close to where they wereto part, he spoke:
"You bid me go--at once?" Mottram asked the question in a low, eventone; but he did not look at Catherine, instead his eyes seemed to befollowing the movements of the stick he was digging into the ground attheir feet.
"I think, James, that would be best." Even to herself the words Mrs.Nagle uttered sounded very cold.
"Best for me?" he asked. Then he looked up, and with sudden passion,"Catherine!" he cried. "Believe me, I know that I can stay! Forget thewild and foolish things I said. No thought of mine shall wrongCharles--I swear it solemnly. Catherine!--do not bid me leave you.Cannot you trust my honour?" His eyes held hers, by turns they seemed tobecome beseeching and imperious.
Catherine Nagle suddenly threw out her hands with a piteous gesture."Ah! James," she said, "I cannot trust my own----" And as she thus madesurrender of her two most cherished possessions, her pride and herwomanly reticence, Mottram's face--the plain-featured face soexquisitely dear to her--became transfigured. He said no word, he madeno step forward, and yet Catherine felt as if the whole of his being wascalling her, drawing her to him....
Suddenly there rang through the still air a discordant cry: "Catherine!Catherine!"
Mrs. Nagle sighed, a long convulsive sigh. It was as though a deep pithad opened between herself and her companion. "That was Charles," shewhispered, "poor Charles calling me. I must not keep him waiting."
"God forgive me," Mottram said huskily, "and bless you, Catherine, forall your goodness to me." He took her hand in farewell, and she felt thefirm, kind grasp to be that of the kinsman and friend, not that of thelover.
Then came over her a sense of measureless and most woeful loss. Sherealized for the first time all that his going away would mean toher--of all that it would leave her bereft. He had been the one humanbeing to whom she had been able to bring herself to speak freely.Charles had been their common charge, the link as well as the barrierbetween them.
"You'll come to-morrow morning?" she said, and she tried to withdraw herhand from his. His impersonal touch hurt her.
"I'll come to-morrow, and rather early, Catherine. Then I'll be able toconfess before Mass." He was speaking in his usual voice, but he stillheld her hand, and she felt his grip on it tightening, bringing welcomehurt.
"And you'll leave----?"
"For Plymouth to-morrow afternoon," he said briefly. He dropped herhand, which now felt numbed and maimed, and passed through the gatewithout looking back.
She stood a moment watching him as he strode down the field path. It hadsuddenly become, from day, night,--high time for Charles to be indoors.
Forgetting to lock the gate, she turned and retraced her steps throughthe orchard, and so made her way up to where her husband and the oldpriest were standing awaiting her.
As she approached them, she became aware that something going on in thevalley below was absorbing their close attention. She felt glad thatthis was so.
"There it is!" cried Charles Nagle angrily. "I told you that they'dbegin their damned practice again to-night!"
Slowly through the stretch of open country which lay spread to theirright, the Bridport Wonder went puffing its way. Lanterns had been hungin front of the engine, and as it crawled sinuously along it looked likesome huge monster with myriad eyes. As it entered the wood below, thedark barrel-like body of the engine seemed to give a bound, a lurchforward, and the men that manned it laughed out suddenly and loudly. Thesound of their uncouth mirth floated upwards through the twilight.
"James's ale has made them merry!" exclaimed Charles, wagging his head."And he, going through the wood, will just have met the puffing devil. Iwish him the joy of the meeting!"
II
It was five hours later. Mrs. Nagle had bidden her reverend guest goodnight, and she was now moving about her large, barely furnishedbedchamber, waiting for her husband to come upstairs.
The hours which had followed James Mottram's departure had seemedintolerably long. Catherine felt as if she had gone through someterrible physical exertion which had left her worn out--stupefied. Andyet she could not rest. Even now her day was not over; Charles oftengrew restless and
talkative at night. He and Mr. Dorriforth were nodoubt still sitting talking together downstairs.
Mrs. Nagle could hear her husband's valet moving about in the next room,and the servant's proximity disturbed her.
She waited awhile and then went and opened the door of thedressing-room. "You need not sit up, Collins," she said.
The man looked vaguely disturbed. "I fear that Mr. Nagle, madam, hasgone out of doors," he said.
Catherine felt dismayed. The winter before Charles had once stayed outnearly all night.
"Go you to bed, Collins," she said. "I will wait up till Mr. Nagle comesin, and I will make it right with him."
He looked at her doubtingly. Was it possible that Mrs. Nagle was unawareof how much worse than usual his master had been the last few days?
"I fear Mr. Nagle is not well to-day," he ventured. "He seems muchdisturbed to-night."
"Your master is disturbed because Mr. Mottram is again leaving Englandfor the Indies." Catherine forced herself to say the words. She wasdully surprised to see how quietly news so momentous to her was receivedby her faithful servant.
"That may be it," said the man consideringly, "but I can't help thinkingthat the master is still much concerned about the railroad. I fear thathe has gone down to the wood to-night."
Catherine was startled. "Oh, surely he would not do that, Collins?" Sheadded in a lower tone, "I myself locked the orchard gate."
"If that is so," he answered, obviously relieved, "then with your leave,madam, I'll be off to bed."
Mrs. Nagle went back into her room, and sat down by the fire, and then,sooner than she had expected to do so, she heard a familiar sound. Itcame from the chapel, for Charles was fond of using that strange andsecret entry into his house.
She got up and quietly opened her bedroom door.
From the hall below was cast up the dim light of the oil-lamp whichalways burnt there at night, and suddenly Catherine saw her husbandemerge from the chapel passage, and begin walking slowly round theopposite side of the gallery. She watched him with languid curiosity.
Charles Nagle was treading softly, his head bent as if in thought.Suddenly he stayed his steps by a half-moon table on which stood a largeChinese bowl filled with pot-pourri; and into this he plunged his hands,seeming to lave them in the dry rose-leaves. Catherine felt no surprise,she was so used to his strange ways; and more than once he had hiddenthings--magpie fashion--in that great bowl. She turned and closed herdoor noiselessly; Charles much disliked being spied on.
At last she heard him go into his dressing-room. Then came the sounds ofcupboard doors being flung open, and the hurried pouring out ofwater.... But long before he could have had time to undress, she heardthe familiar knock.
She said feebly, "Come in," and the door opened.
It was as she had feared; her husband had no thought, no intention, ofgoing yet to bed. Not only was he fully dressed, but the white eveningwaistcoat he had been wearing had been changed by him within the lastfew moments for a waistcoat she had not seen before, though she hadheard of its arrival from London. It was of cashmere, the latest freakof fashion. She also saw with surprise that his nankeen trousers werestained, as if he had been kneeling on damp ground. He looked very hot,his wavy hair lay damply on his brow, and he appeared excited,oppressively alive.
"Catherine!" he exclaimed, hurrying up to the place where she wasstanding near the fire. "You will bear witness that I was always andmost positively averse to the railroad being brought here?" He did notwait for her to answer him. "Did I not always say that trouble wouldcome of it--trouble to us all? Yet sometimes it's an ill thing to beproved right."
"Indeed it is, Charles," she answered gently. "But let us talk of thisto-morrow. It's time for bed, my dear, and I am very weary."
He was now standing by her, staring down into the fire.
Suddenly he turned and seized her left arm. He brought her unresistingacross the room, then dragged aside the heavy yellow curtains which hadbeen drawn before the central window.
"Look over there, Catherine," he said meaningly. "Can you see the Eype?The moon gives but little light to-night, but the stars are bright. Ican see a glimmer at yon window. They must be still waiting for James tocome home."
"I see the glimmer you mean," she said dully. "No doubt they leave alamp burning all night, as we do. James must have got home hours ago,Charles." She saw that the cuff of her husband's coat was also coveredwith dark, damp stains, and again she wondered uneasily what he had beendoing out of doors.
"Catherine?" Charles Nagle turned her round, ungently, and forced her tolook up into his face. "Have you ever thought what 'twould be like tolive at the Eype?"
The question startled her. She roused herself to refute what she felt tobe an unworthy accusation. "No, Charles," she said, looking at himsteadily. "God is my witness that at no time did I think of living atthe Eype! Such a wish never came to me----"
"Nor to me!" he cried, "nor to me, Catherine! All the long years thatJames Mottram was in Jamaica the thought never once came to me that hemight die, and I survive him. After all we were much of an age, he hadbut two years the advantage of me. I always thought that the boy--myaunt's son, curse him!--would get it all. Then, had I thought of it--andI swear I never did think of it--I should have told myself that any dayJames might bring a wife to the Eype----"
He was staring through the leaded panes with an intent, eager gaze. "Itis a fine house, Catherine, and commodious. Larger, airier thanours--though perhaps colder," he added thoughtfully. "Cold I alwaysfound it in winter when I used to stay there as a boy--colder than thishouse. You prefer Edgecombe, Catherine? If you were given a choice, isit here that you would live?" He looked at her, as if impatient for ananswer.
"Every stone of Edgecombe, our home, is dear to me," she said solemnly."I have never admired the Eype. It is too large, too cold for my taste.It stands too much exposed to the wind."
"It does! it does!" There was a note of regret in his voice. He let thecurtain fall and looked about him rather wildly.
"And now, Charles," she said, "shall we not say our prayers and retireto rest."
"If I had only thought of it," he said, "I might have said my prayers inthe chapel. But there was much to do. I thought of calling you,Catherine, for you make a better sacristan than I. Then I rememberedBoney--poor little Boney crushed by the miller's dray--and how you criedall night, and that though I promised you a far finer, cleverer dog thanthat poor old friend had ever been. Collins said, 'Why, sir, you shouldhave hid the old dog's death from the mistress till the morning!' Aworthy fellow, Collins. He meant no disrespect to me. At that time,d'you remember, Collins had only been in my service a few months?"
* * * * *
It was an hour later. From where she lay in bed, Catherine Nagle withdry, aching eyes stared into the fire, watching the wood embers turnfrom red to grey. By her side, his hand in hers, Charles slept thedreamless, heavy slumber of a child.
Scarcely breathing, in her anxiety lest he should wake, she loosened herhand, and with a quick movement slipped out of bed. The fire was burninglow, but Catherine saw everything in the room very clearly, and shethrew over her night-dress a long cloak, and wound about her head thescarf which she had worn during her walk to the wood.
It was not the first time Mrs. Nagle had risen thus in the still nightand sought refuge from herself and from her thoughts in the chapel; andher husband had never missed her from his side.
As she crept round the dimly lit gallery she passed by the great bowl ofpot-pourri by which Charles Nagle had lingered, and there came to herthe thought that it might perchance be well for her to discover, beforethe servants should have a chance of doing so, what he had doubtlesshidden there.
Catherine plunged both her hands into the scented rose-leaves, and shegave a sudden cry of pain--for her fingers had closed on the sharp edgeof a steel blade. Then she drew out a narrow damascened knife, onewhich her husband, taken by its elegant shape, had purchased l
ongbefore in Italy.
Mrs. Nagle's brow furrowed in vexation--Collins should have put thedangerous toy out of his master's reach. Slipping the knife into thedeep pocket of her cloak, she hurried on into the unlit passage leadingto the chapel.
* * * * *
Save for the hanging lamp, which since Mr. Dorriforth had said Massthere that morning signified the presence of the Blessed Sacrament, thechapel should have been in darkness. But as Catherine passed through thedoor she saw, with sudden, uneasy amazement, the farther end of thechapel in a haze of brightness.
Below the altar, striking upwards from the floor of the sanctuary,gleamed a corona of light. Charles--she could not for a moment doubtthat it was Charles's doing--had moved the six high, heavy silvercandlesticks which always stood on either side of the altar, and hadplaced them on the ground.
There, in a circle, the wax candles blazed, standing sentinel-wise abouta dark, round object which was propped up on a pile of altar-linencarefully arranged to support it.
Fear clutched at Catherine's heart--such fear as even in the early daysof Charles's madness had never clutched it. She was filled with ahorrible dread, and a wild, incredulous dismay.
What was the Thing, at once so familiar and so terribly strange, thatCharles had brought out of the November night and placed with so muchcare below the altar?
But the thin flames of the candles, now shooting up, now guttering low,blown on by some invisible current of strong air, gave no steady light.
Staying still close to the door, she sank down on her knees, anddesiring to shut out, obliterate, the awful sight confronting her, shepressed both her hands to her eyes. But that availed her nothing.
Suddenly there rose up before Catherine Nagle a dreadful scene of thatgreat Revolution drama of which she had been so often told as a child.She saw, with terrible distinctness, the severed heads of men and womenborne high on iron pikes, and one of these blood-streaked, livid faceswas that of James Mottram--the wide-open, sightless eyes, his eyes....
There also came back to her as she knelt there, shivering with cold andanguish, the story of a French girl of noble birth who, having boughther lover's head from the executioner, had walked with it in her armsto the village near Paris where stood his deserted chateau.
Slowly she rose from her knees, and with her hands thrown out beforeher, she groped her way to the wall and there crept along, as if aprecipice lay on her other side.
At last she came to the narrow oak door which gave on to the staircaseleading into the open air. The door was ajar; it was from there thatblew the current of air which caused those thin, fantastic flames toflare and gutter in the awful stillness.
She drew the door to, and went on her way, so round to the altar. In thenow steadier light Catherine saw that the large missal lay open at theOffice for the Dead.
She laid her hands with a blind instinct upon the altar, and felt ahealing touch upon their palms. Henceforth--and Catherine Nagle wasfated to live many long years--she remained persuaded that it was thenthere had come to her a shaft of divine light piercing the dark recessesof her soul. For it was at that moment that there came to her theconviction, and one which never faltered, that Charles Nagle had done noinjury to James Mottram. And there also came to her then the swiftunderstanding of what others would believe, were there to be found inthe private chapel of Edgecombe Manor that which now lay on the groundbehind her, close to her feet.
So understanding, Catherine suddenly saw the way open before her, andthe dread thing which she must do if Charles were to be saved from aterrible suspicion--one which would undoubtedly lead to his being takenaway from her and from all that his poor, atrophied heart held dear, tobe asylumed.
With steps that did not falter, Catherine Nagle went behind the altarinto the little sacristy, there to seek in the darkness an altar-cloth.
Holding the cloth up before her face she went back into the lightedchapel, and kneeling down, she uncovered her face and threw the clothover what lay before her.
And then Catherine's teeth began to chatter, and a mortal chill overtookher. She was being faced by a new and to her a most dread enemy, fortill to-night she and that base physical fear which is the coward's foehad never met. Pressing her hands together, she whispered the short,simple prayer for the Faithful Departed that she had said so often and,she now felt, so unmeaningly. Even as she uttered the familiar words,base Fear slunk away, leaving in his place her soul's old companion,Courage, and his attendant, Peace.
She rose to her feet, and opening wide her eyes forced herself to thinkout what must be done by her in order that no trace of Charles'shandiwork should remain in the chapel.
Snuffing out the wicks, Catherine lifted the candlesticks from theground and put them back in their accustomed place upon the altar. Then,stooping, she forced herself to wrap up closely in the altar-cloth thatwhich must be her burden till she found James Mottram's headless bodywhere Charles had left it, and placing that same precious burden withinthe ample folds of her cloak, she held it with her left hand and armclosely pressed to her bosom....
With her right hand she gathered up the pile of stained altar-linen fromthe ground, and going once more into the sacristy she thrust it into theoak chest in which were kept the Lenten furnishings of the altar. Havingdone that, and walking slowly lest she should trip and fall, she madeher way to the narrow door Charles had left open to the air, and goingdown the steep stairway was soon out of doors in the dark and windynight.
Charles had been right, the moon gave but little light; enough, however,so she told herself, for the accomplishment of her task.
She sped swiftly along the terrace, keeping close under the house, andthen more slowly walked down the stone steps where last time she trodthem Mottram had been her companion, his living lips as silent as werehis dead lips now.
The orchard gate was wide open, and as she passed through there came toCatherine Nagle the knowledge why Charles on his way back from the woodhad not even latched it; he also, when passing through it, had beenbearing a burden....
She walked down the field path; and when she came to the steep placewhere Mottram had told her that he was going away, the tears for thefirst time began running down Catherine's face. She felt again thesharp, poignant pain which his then cold and measured words had dealther, and the blow this time fell on a bruised heart. With a convulsivegesture she pressed more closely that which she was holding to herdesolate breast.
At night the woodland is strangely, curiously alive. Catherine shudderedas she heard the stuffless sounds, the tiny rustlings and burrowings ofthose wild, shy creatures whose solitude had lately been so rudelyinvaded, and who now of man's night made their day. Their myriadpresence made her human loneliness more intense than it had been in theopen fields, and as she started walking by the side of the iron rails,her eyes fixed on the dark drift of dead leaves which dimly marked thepath, she felt solitary indeed, and beset with vague and fearsometerrors.
At last she found herself nearing the end of the wood. Soon would comethe place where what remained of the cart-track struck sharply to theleft, up the hill towards the Eype.
It was there, close to the open, that Catherine Nagle's quest ended; andthat she was able to accomplish the task she had set herself, of makingthat which Charles had rendered incomplete, complete as men, consideringthe flesh, count completeness.
Within but a few yards of safety, James Mottram had met with death; aswift, merciful death, due to the negligence of an engine-driver notonly new to his work but made blindly merry by Mottram's gift of ale.
* * * * *
Charles Nagle woke late on the morning of St. Catherine's Day, and thepale November sun fell on the fully dressed figures of his wife and Mr.Dorriforth standing by his bedside.
But Charles, absorbed as always in himself, saw nothing untoward intheir presence.
"I had a dream!" he exclaimed. "A most horrible and gory dream thisnight! I thought I was in th
e wood; James Mottram lay before me, doneto death by that puffing devil we saw slithering by so fast. His headnearly severed--_a la guillotine_, you understand, my love?--from hispoor body----" There was a curious, secretive smile on Charles Nagle'spale, handsome face.
Catherine Nagle gave a cry, a stifled shriek of horror.
The priest caught her by the arm and led her to the couch which stoodacross the end of the bed.
"Charles," he said sternly, "this is no light matter. Yourdream--there's not a doubt of it--was sent you in merciful preparationfor the awful truth. Your kinsman, your almost brother, Charles, wasfound this morning in the wood, dead as you saw him in your dream."
The face of the man sitting up in bed stiffened--was it with fear orgrief? "They found James Mottram dead?" he repeated with an uneasyglance in the direction of the couch where crouched his wife. "And hishead, most reverend sir--what of his head?"
"James Mottram's body was terribly mangled. But his head," answered thepriest solemnly, "was severed from his body, as you saw it in yourdream, Charles. A strangely clean cut, it seems----"
"Ay," said Charles Nagle. "That was in my dream too; if I said nearlysevered, I said wrong."
Catherine was now again standing by the priest's side.
"Charles," she said gravely, "you must now get up; Mr. Dorriforth isonly waiting for you, to say Mass for James's soul."
She made the sign of the cross, and then, with her right hand shadingher sunken eyes, she went on, "My dear, I entreat you to tell noone--not even faithful Collins--of this awful dream. We want no suchtale spread about the place----"
She looked at the old priest entreatingly, and he at once responded."Catherine is right, Charles. We of the Faith should be more carefulwith regard to such matters than are the ignorant and superstitious."
But he was surprised to hear the woman by his side say insistently,"Charles, if only to please me, vow that you will keep most secret thisdreadful dream. I fear that if it should come to your Aunt Felwake'sears----"
"That I swear it shall not," said Charles sullenly.
And he kept his word.
Studies in love and in terror Page 3
