Aurora Floyd · Chapter 26 (2/2)

The inquest was terminated; the business was settled; and the mortal remains of James Conyers could be carried to the grave at the pleasure of his late employer. All was over. The mystery of death and the secrets of life would be buried peacefully in the grave of the murdered man; and John Mellish was free to carry his wife away with him whithersoever he would. Free, have I said? No; forever and forever the shadow of that bygone mystery would hang like a funeral pall between himself and the woman he loved. Forever and forever the recollection of that ghastly undiscovered problem would haunt him in sleeping and in waking, in the sunlight and in the darkness. His nobler nature, triumphing again and again over the subtle influences of damning suggestions and doubtful facts, was again and again shaken, although never quite defeated. He fought the battle bravely, though it was a very hard one, and it was to endure perhaps to the end of time. That voiceless argument was forever to be argued; the spirits of Faith and Infidelity were forever to be warring with each other in that tortured breast, until the end of life; until he died, perhaps, with his head lying upon his wife’s bosom, with his cheek fanned by her warm breath; but ignorant to the very last of the real nature of that dark something, that nameless and formless horror with which he had wrestled so patiently and so long.

“I’ll take her away with me,” he thought; “and when we are divided by a thousand miles of blue water from the scene of her secret, I will fall on my knees before her, and beseech her to confide in me.”

He passed by the north lodge with a shudder, and walked straight along the high road towards the principal entrance of the Park. He was close to the gates when he heard a voice, a strange suppressed voice, calling feebly to him to stop. He turned round and saw the “Softy” making his way towards him with a slow, shambling run. Of all human beings, except perhaps that one who now lay cold and motionless in the darkened chamber at the north lodge, this Steeve Hargraves was the last whom Mr. Mellish cared to see. He turned with an angry frown upon the “Softy,” who was wiping the perspiration from his pale face with the ragged end of his neck-handkerchief, and panting hoarsely.

“What is the matter?” asked John. “What do you want with me?”

“It’s th’ coroner,” gasped Stephen Hargraves⁠—“th’ coroner and Mr. Lofthouse, th’ parson. They want to speak to ye, sir, oop at the Loion.”

“What about?”

Steeve Hargraves gave a ghastly grin.

“I doan’t know, sir,” he whispered. “It’s hardly loikely they’d tell me. There’s summat oop, though, I’ll lay; for Mr. Lofthouse was as whoite as ashes, and seemed strangely oopset about summat. Would you be pleased to step oop and speak to ’un directly, sir?⁠—that was my message.”

“Yes, yes; I’ll go,” answered John absently.

He had taken his hat off, and was passing his hand over his hot forehead in a half-bewildered manner. He turned his back upon the “Softy,” and walked rapidly away, retracing his steps in the direction of the roadside inn.

Stephen Hargraves stood staring after him until he was out of sight, and then turned and walked on slowly towards the turnstile leading into the wood.

“I know what they’ve found,” he muttered; “and I know what they want with him. He’ll be some time oop there; so I’ll slip across the wood and tell her. Yes,”⁠—he paused, rubbing his hands, and laughing a slow voiceless laugh, which distorted his ugly face, and made him horrible to look upon⁠—“yes, it will be nuts for me to tell her.”