M. said he knew him there ; also that “he'd make

him” —pay up!
Blackmail not inconsistent with
M.'s character, T
274 THE SHADOW ( ~ ROPE
Men have died as they deserve before to-day for threatening blackmail,
Possible Motive for Marriage Atonement of the Guilty to the Innocent.
As Langholm read and re-read these precise pro- nouncements, with something of the detachment and the mild surprise with which he occasionally dipped into his own earlier volumes, he congratulated him- self upon the evidentlv lucid interval which had pro- duced so much order from the chaos that had been his mind. Chaotic as its condition still was, that orderly array of impression, discovery, and surmise, bore the test of conscientious reconsideration, Anda there was nothing that Langholm felt moved to strike out in the train; but, o. the other hand, he saw the weakness of his case as it stood at present, and was helped to see it by the detective officer’s remark to him at Scotland Yard: “ You find one (old Australian) who carries ¢. revolver like this, and prove that he was in Chelsea on the night of the murder, with a motive for committing it, and we shall be glad of his name and address.” Lang- holm had found the old Australian who could be proved to have been in Chelsea, or thereabouts, on the night in question ; but the pistol he could not hope to find, and the motive was mere surmise.
y for
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ONE WHO «. As NOT BIDDEN 275
And yet, to the walls so hard
influence no one else, evidence before any tribu with Langholm himself than all the his note-book with so much pri
There was Rachel’s vain you want people to believe that I am not.” Why sheuld so natural a petition
have been made in vain, to a husband who after al] had shown some solicitude for his wife's honour, and who had the means to omploy the best detective talent in the world? Langholm could only conceive one reason: there was nothing for the husband to find out, but everything for him to hide.
Langholm remembered the wide-eyed way in which Steel had looked at his wife before replying, and the maa’s embarrassment 87ew autonnatically in his mind, His lips had indeed shut very tight, but unconscious xaggeration made them tremble first,
And then the fellow’s manner to teunts, his fina] challenge | Langholm was not sorry to remember the last; it relieved him from the moral incubus f the clandestine and the underhand ; it hid him go on and do his Worst ; it set his eyes upon the issue as between hi self and Steel, and it shut them to
ing the woman in the case,
himself, his defiant
the final Possibilities as touch
276 THE SHADOW OF THE ROPE
So Langholm came back from sultry London to a world of smoke and rain, with furnaces flaring through the blurred windows, and the soot laid with the dust in one of the grimiest towns in the island; but he soon shook both from his feet, and doubled back upon the local line to a rural station within a mile and a half of his cottage. This distance he walked by muddy ways, through the peculiarly humid atmosphere created by a sky that has rained itself out and an earth that can hold no more, and came finally to his dripping garden by the wicket at the back of the cottage. There he stood to inhale the fine earthy fragrance which atoned somewhat for a rather desolate scene, The roses were all washed away. William Allen Richardson clung here and there, in the shelter of the southern eaves, but he was far past his prime, and had better have perished with the exposed beauties on the tiny trees. The soaking fc .uge had a bluish tinge ; the glimpse of wooded upland, across the valley through the gap in the hedge of Penzance briars, lay colourless and indistinct as a faded print from an imperfect negative. crunched the wet gravel at Langholm’s back.
“Thank God you’ve got back, sir!” cried a York- shire voice in devout accents; and Langholm, turning, met the troubled face and tired eyes of the woman next door, who kept house for him while living in her own.
“My dear Mrs. Brunton,” he exclaimed, “ what on earth has happened? You didn’t expect me earlier,
pse of in the
stinct »tstep
Y ork- ring, oman ng in
at on arlier,
CNE WHO WAS NOT BIDDEN 277 did you? morning.”
“Oh, no, it isn’t that, sir, [ young gentleman—— ”
And her pron went to her eyes,
“ What young gentleman, Mrs. Brunton ;
“Him ‘at you saw j’ London an’ sent all this way fr change of air! He wasn’t fit to travel half the astance, I've been nursing of him all night and all day too,”
“A young gentleman, and sent by me?” Langholm’s face was blank until a harsh light broke Over it, “What's his name, Mrs, Brunton, ?”
“I can’t tell you, sir. He said he was a friend of yours, and that was all before he took ill. He's been
all day. And then we knew you'd soon be here tot. us,”
I wired you my train first thing this
t's—it’s the poor
“Well, I can’t say he did that was what I thought he meant. It was like this, sir,” continued Mrs, Brunton,
as they stood face to face on the wet gravel: “ just about this time yesterday
I was busy ironing, when my nephew, the lad you used to send with letters, who's here again for his summer holidays, comes to me an’ says, ‘ You're wanted.’ So I went, and there was ; young gentleman looking fit to drop, He'd a bag with him, and he’d walked all the
278 +$THE.SHADOW OF THE ROPE
way from Upthorpe station, same as I suppose you have now; but yesterday was the hottest day we've had, and I never did see living face so like the dead. He had hardly life enough to ask if this was where you lived ; and when I said it was, but you were away, he nodded and said he’d just seen you in London; and he was sure he might come in and rest a bit. Well, sir, I not only let him do that, but you never will lock up anything, so I gave him a good sup o’ your whisky too!”
“Quite right,” said Langholn—* and then ?”
“It seemed to pull him together a bit, and he began to talk. He wanted to know about all the grand folks round about, where they lived and how long they’d lived there. At last he made nic tell him the way to Normanthorpe House, after asking any amount of questions about Mr. and Mrs. Steel; it was hard work not to tell him what had just come out, but I remembered what you said before you went away, sir, and I left that to others.”
“Good!” said Langholm. “But did he go to Normanthorpe ?” =
“He started, though I begged him to sit still while we tried to get him a trap from the village; and his self-will nearly cost him his life, if it doesn't yet. He was hardly out of sight when we see him come stag- gering back with his handkerchief up to his mouth, and the blood dripping through his fingers into the road,”
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ONE WHO was NOT BIDDEN 979
“A hemorrhage !”
“Yes, sir, yon was the very word the doctor used, and he says if he has another it'll be all up. So you may think what a time I've had! If he’s a friend of yours, sir, I’m sure I don’t mind. In any case, poor gentleman -
“ He is a friend of mine,” interrupted Langholm, “and we must do all we can for him. I will help you, Mrs. Brunton. You shall have your sleep to-night. Did you put him into my room ?”
“No, sir, your bed wasn’t ready, so we Popped him straight into our own; and now he has everything nice and clean and comfortable as I could make it. If only we can pull him through, poor young gentleman, between us!”
“God bless you for a good woman,” said Lang- holm, from his heart ; “it will be His will and not your fault if we fail. Yes, I should like to see the poor fellow, if I may.”
“He is expecting you, sir. He told Dr. Sedley he must see you the moment you arrived, and the doctor said he might. No, he won’t know you're here yet, and he can’t have heard a word, for our room is at t'front 0” t’house,”
“Then I'll go up alone, Mrs. Brunton, if you won't mind.”
Severino was lying in a high square bed, his black locks tossed upon a spotless pillow no whiter than his face; a transparent hand came from under the
280 THE SHADOW OF THE ROPE —
bed-clothes to meet Langholm’s outstretched one, but it fell back upon the sick man’s breast instead.
“Do you forgive me?” he whispered, in a voice both hoarse and hollow.
“What for?” smiled Langholm. “You had a right to come where you liked; it is a free country, Severino.”
But I went to your hotel—behind your back !”
“That was quite fair, my good fellow. Come, I mean to shake hands, whether you like it or not.”
And the sound man took the sick one’s hand with womanly tenderness ; and so sat on the bed, looking far into the great dark sinks of fever that were human eyes; but the fever was of the brain, for the poor fellow’s hand was cool.
“You do not ask me why I did it,” came from the tremulous lips at last.
“ Perhaps I know.” .
‘‘T will tell you if you are right.”
“It was to see her again—your kindest friend—and mine,” said Langholm, gently.
“Yes! It was to see her again—before I die!”
And the black eyes blazed again.
“You are not going to die,” said Langholm, with the usual reassuring scorn.
“TI am. Quite soon. On your hands, I only fear. And I have not seen her yet!”
“You shall see her,” said Langholm, tenderly, gravely. He was rewarded with a slight pressure of
ONE WHO WAS NOT BIDDEN 281
the emaciated hand ; but for the first time he suspected that all the scrutiny was not upon one side—that the sick youth was trying to read him in his turn.
“T love her!” at last cried Severino, in rapt whispers, “Do you hear me? I love her! I love her! What does it matter now ?”
“It would matter to her if you told her,” rejoined Langholm. “It would make her very unhappy.”
“Then I need not tell her.”
You must not, indeed.”
“Very well, I will not. It isa promise, and I keep my promises ; it is only when I make none i:
“ That's all right,” said Langholm, smiling.
“Then you will bring her to me ?”
“TI shall have to see her first, and the doctor.”
“But you will do your best? That is why I am here, remember! I shall tell the doctor so myself,”
“T will do my best,” said Langholm, as he rose,
A last whisper followed him to the door,
“ Because I worship her!” were the words,