Next day but one, the Companion of St. Michael and St. George came in to Craighton with evil tidings. He had heard in the village that Sir Gilbert Gildersleeve was ill—very seriously ill. The judge had come home from the Holkers’ the other evening much upset by the arrival of Gwendoline’s telegram.
“Though why on earth should that upset him,” Mr. Clifford continued, screwing up his small face with a very wise air, “is more than I can conceive; for I’m sure the Gildersleeves angled hard enough in their time to catch young Kelmscott, by hook or by crook, for their gawky daughter; and now that young Kelmscott telegraphs over to say he’s coming home post haste to marry her, Miss Gwendoline faints away, if you please, as she reads the news, and the judge himself goes upstairs as soon as he gets home, and takes to his bed incontinently. But there, the ways of the world are really inscrutable! What reconciles me to life, every day I grow older, is that it’s so amusing—so intensely amusing! You never know what’s going to turn up next; and what you least expect is what most often happens.”
Elma, however, received his news with a very grave face.
“Is he really ill, do you think, papa?” she asked, somewhat anxiously; “or is he only—well—only frightened?”
Mr. Clifford stared at her with a blank leathery face of self-satisfied incomprehension.
“Frightened!” he repeated solemnly; “Sir Gilbert Gildersleeve frightened! And of Granville Kelmscott, too! That’s true wit, Elma; the juxtaposition of the incongruous. Why, what on earth has the man got to be frightened of, I should like to know? ... No, no; he’s really ill; very seriously ill. Humphreys says the case is a most peculiar one, and he’s telegraphed up to town for a specialist to come down this afternoon and consult with him.”
And indeed, Sir Gilbert was really very ill. This unexpected shock had wholly unmanned him. To say the truth, the judge had begun to look upon Guy Waring as practically lost, and upon the matter of Montague Nevitt’s death as closed for ever. Waring, no doubt, had gone to Africa—under a false name—and proceeded to the diamond fields direct, where he had probably been killed in a lucky quarrel with some brother digger, or stuck through with an assegai by some enterprising Zulu; and nobody had even taken the trouble to mention it.
It’s so easy for a man to get lost in the crowd in the Dark Continent! Why, there was Granville Kelmscott, even—a young fellow of means, and the heir of Tilgate, about whom Gwendoline was always moaning and groaning, poor girl, and wouldn’t be comforted—there was Granville Kelmscott gone out to Africa, and, hi, presto, disappeared into space without a vapour or a trace, like a conjurer’s shilling. It was all very queer; but, then, queer things are the way in Africa.
To be sure, Sir Gilbert had his qualms of conscience, too, over having thus sent off Guy Waring, as he believed, to his grave in Cape Colony. He was not at heart a bad man, though he was pushing, and selfish, and self-seeking, and to a certain extent even—of late—unscrupulous. He had his bad half-hours every now and again with his own moral consciousness. But he had learnt to stifle his doubts and to keep down his terrors. After all, he had told Guy no more than the truth; and if Guy in his panic-terror chose to run away and get killed in South Africa, that was no fault of HIS—he’d only tried to warn the fellow of an impending danger. All’s well that ends well; and, to-day, Guy Waring was lost or dead, while he himself was a judge, and a knight to boot, with all trace of his crime destroyed for ever.
So he said to himself, rejoicing, the very day Granville Kelmscott’s telegram arrived. But now that he stood face to face again with that pressing terror, his thoughts on the matter were very different. Strange to say, his first idea was this: what a disgraceful shame of that fellow Waring to come to life again thus suddenly on purpose to annoy him! He was really angry, nay, more, indignant. Such shuffling was inexcusable. If Waring meant to give himself up and stand his trial like a man, why the dickens didn’t he do it immediately after the—well, the accident? What did he mean by going off for eighteen months undiscovered, and leaving one to build up fresh plans in life, like this—and then coming home on a sudden just on purpose to upset them? It was simply disgraceful. Sir Gilbert felt injured; this man Waring was wronging him. Eighteen months before he was keenly aware that he was unjustly casting a vile and hideous suspicion on an innocent person. But in the intervening period his moral sense had got largely blunted. Familiarity with the hateful plot had warped his ideas about it. Their places were reversed. Sir Gilbert was really aggrieved now that Guy Waring should turn up again, and should venture to vindicate his deeply-wronged character.
The man was as good as dead. Well, and he ought to have stopped so; or else he ought never to have died at all. He ought to have kept himself continually in evidence. But to go away for eighteen months, unknown and unheard of, till one’s sense of security had had time to re-establish itself, and then to turn up again like this without one minute’s warning—oh, it was infamous, scandalous. The fellow must be devoid of all consideration for others. Sir Gilbert wiped his clammy brow with those ample hands. What on earth was he to do for his wife, and for Gwendoline?
And Gwendoline was so happy, too, over Granville Kelmscott’s return! How could he endure that Granville Kelmscott’s return should be the signal for discovering her father’s sin and shame to her! If only he could have married her off before it all came out! Or if only he could die before the man was tried!—Tried! Sir Gilbert’s eyes started from his head with horror. What was that Elma Clifford suggested the other night? Why—if the man was arrested, he would be arrested at Plymouth, the moment he landed, and would be tried for murder at the Western Assizes. And it was he himself, Sir Gilbert Gildersleeve, who was that term to take the Western Circuit.
He would be called upon to sit on the bench himself, and try Guy Waring for the murder he had himself committed!
No wonder that thought sent him ill to bed at once. He lay and tossed all night long in speechless agony and terror. It was an appalling night. Next morning he was found delirious with fever.
When the news reached Elma,............