Chapter 10

THE GREAT SECRET.

It was small wonder that Neil had decided to give Ruth up. For the first time he saw what he was--a miserable creature, who, in marrying, would be committing a deadly sin. It was not to be thought of; and he thanked Heaven that he had self-command sufficient to put temptation away from him. His renunciation of her was, to him, the least of his sorrows.

He found some comfort in the visits of Geoffrey Heron, who came almost every day and sat long with the unfortunate man, although he could not in the least understand his sufferings. But he strove to talk of general subjects which would draw his mind away from the one on which he was brooding. And in the main he succeeded, though when he had gone, Neil always relapsed into the torture of thought whence he had been drawn for the moment.

During these visits Neil observed his visitor closely, and very soon came to the conclusion that he was a right good fellow with vastly more heart than the general mass of humanity. Once or twice he found himself on the point of confiding in him and asking his advice: but a feeling of dread withheld him. He liked Heron he enjoyed his company; and he was afraid of losing him. So he tried to put himself aside, and insisted that he was not as ill as he looked. But the crisis came one evening when Geoffrey was with him. Neil had been very ill all day; and when the young squire entered shortly after eight o'clock, he found him lying on the sofa almost in a fainting condition. Geoffrey was alarmed.

"I tell you what, old chap, you should see a doctor," he said.

Neil shook his head. "Doctors can do no good; all their drugs cannot cure me. What is it Macbeth says, 'Thou canst not minister to a mind diseased.'"

"But your mind is not diseased."

"How do you know that?" He clenched his hands. "I have not told you my secret."

"No and I don't want to know it."

"What! You don't want to know why I gave Miss Cass up?"

"No; for then I should have to tell her--she would get it out of me in some way. You know what women are."

"I know what one woman is, at least; and she is a mother," murmured Neil. "No, you must not tell Ruth; it could do no good, and might do much harm."

"Then speak of something else. You are exciting yourself unnecessarily."

Even as he spoke, the nerve storm came on with unusual violence; the wretched man seemed possessed by seven demons which tore him in pieces; he rose from his seat and strode furiously about the room, trying to prevent himself from crying out. Finally, he dropped exhausted into a chair and sobbed violently. Geoffrey Heron, quite astonished at this outburst, hastily got a glass of water, but in seizing it, Webster broke it with the strength of his grasp. "I must tell you--I must!" he panted. "I must tell someone, or die. My mother is in prison--on a charge of murder; she was accused of killing--killing, I say--my father!" And he fell back weeping, trembling, completely crushed.

"Good Heavens cried Heron, stepping back. His pity for the poor young fellow was sincere; and now he felt he could understand in some degree what a torture his life had been to him. He could understand, moreover, why Neil had surrendered all claim to the hand of Ruth.

"You--you--won't tell her?"

"No; on my honour, I won't," said Geoffrey. "I wish you had not told me; but now that I do know, your secret is, at any rate, safe with me."

"The valerian," said Neil, nodding towards the sideboard, and while Heron got it, he loosened his collar and drenched himself with cold water. Then he mixed a stiff dose of the drug, and drank it it with a sigh of relief. Heron looked at him anxiously.

"I had better go now, hadn't I?" he said. "You must go to bed. To-morrow morning----"

"No--no. I shall be all right soon; the valerian will soothe me. I have told you so much that I must tell you all. I should have said nothing about it but for the nervous fit which came over me just now. Sit down."

Accordingly, Geoffrey waited, lighting a cigar the while. Now that the information had been imparted to him almost against Webster's will, he was anxious to hear the whole story; he determined that Ruth, at least, should never know it. Try as she might, she would never get it out of him. He made up his mind, too, that he would be a friend to the unfortunate creature who was so cruelly afflicted. Not only that, but he would give what advice and aid lay in his power to ameliorate the situation. But he doubted whether the position could be amended.

Neil thanked him by a look, and returned to his sofa in a quieter frame of mind; the fury of the attack had left him weak and faint, but he insisted on speaking, and as he did so, his strength gradually came back. To Geoffrey this sudden recuperation seemed little short of miraculous, for he was quite unaware of the power of the nerves to recover themselves.

"I had better begin by asking you a few questions," he began.

"But are you sure you are strong enough?"

"I shall be all right directly. The truth has to be told now; and, moreover, I want your advice."

"I'll do anything in my power," Heron said.

"You are a good fellow. How I have misunderstood you! Well, I will repay you by giving up Ruth to you; I shall never marry her, nor, indeed, anyone. Heaven help me!"

"Why not?" Geoffrey, asked.

"You have seen what I am. What sort of husband or father should I make? But this is beside the point. Hear what I have to tell, and advise me what to do. In the first place, do you know the Turnpike House?"

"Great Heavens! Are you talking about that murder?"

"Yes, I daresay you remember it."

"Remember it! I should think so. Why, nothing was talked about at Westham for months but that crime. A man was found in the house stabbed to the heart; his wife was accused of the murder; she was taken, with her child, while trying to escape."

"Yes," was the calm reply. "My father was the murdered man, my mother was the woman accused of the crime, and I the child."

"Then your name is Jenner?"

"Yes a name to be proud of, is it not? But I have not the courage to take it. Ugh!" He shuddered. "Think, if all that were known! How could I appear in public? People would come, not to hear me play, but to see a man who had been connected with a mysterious crime--whose mother was suffering punishment for that crime! I should kill myself if it were known."

"There will be no need to kill yourself. You are absolutely safe with me."

"But if Ruth should ask you?"

"Ruth shall never hear it from me. When I said just now that she might cajole we, I was thinking of trivial things; but this terrible story shall remain a secret for ever. You can speak to me as you would to a confessor. There are some things, Webster, which a man does not do; and this is one of them. I am glad you have told me."

"I am glad you know," sighed Neil. "It will ease my mind to tell you all. Now listen," and he recounted all the circumstances--his dream, and the causes which had led up to his identification as the son of the accused woman. Geoffrey was more startled than ever, especially when Mr. Cass's name was mentioned.

"And does he know all this?" he asked. Then, in reply to Neil's nod, he added: "No wonder he would not let you marry his daughter!"

"No wonder," said the young man, bitterly. "Touch pitch and defile yourself; but it was not he who stopped the marriage--it was myself. I would rather die than marry. See what I am--a mass of nerves; think of the terrible history of my parents. Then imagine me asking any woman to share my misery! Well, now that you know all, what do you say?"

Heron looked rather helplessly at him. "What can I say?" he remarked, hesitatingly. "It seems that your mother murdered your father under great provocation, and is now in prison. Well, I think it would be best for you to put the matter out of your head, and go abroad. It is not the slightest use you seeing her."

"I have already done so," Neil said, quietly.

Geoffrey started from his seat. "You visited her in prison?" he asked

"Yes; I learnt where she was from Mr. Cass, and I went to see her at once. For I loved my mother, as much as I hated my father. Poor mother! Her hair is white now, and her fact lined; but she was mad with joy at first on seeing me, and then very angry."

"Why was she angry?"

"Ah, that is the strangest part of the whole affair! I am now going to tell you something that no one else knows--not even Mr. Cass."

"Fire ahead!"

"When I went to the prison," Neil continued, "I did not believe that my mother was guilty. Cass had told me she was but I did not agree with him. Only from her own lips would I learn the truth, and to the prison I went in order to learn it. I saw the governor, and asked to see Mrs. Jenner, but did not give my real name; I merely said that I was a distant relative of hers, and wanted an interview. Well, I saw her--alone."

"Were you allowed to do that? I thought----"

"That a woman warder would be present? Well, one was, but she stayed outside the door, where she could hear little, if anything. We were practically alone."

"Did she recognise you?"

"At once. Ah Heron, you don't know what a mother's love is. Yes; she knew me, for I am the very image of what she was in youth. I have her fair hair and blue eyes; but not her good looks. She knew me, but she would only half admit it."

"Why was that?"

"Well, for one reason, because the warder was outside, and she did not wish our relationship known. Another was that she feared to give way altogether if she once said that I was her son. So all the time she addressed me as Mr. Webster; and she talked of her son to me."

"She must be a woman of wonderful self-command," said Geoffrey, now thoroughly interested. "A woman in a thousand, as you will admit before I have done. Ah, what a mother! Was there ever such a noble creature? Well, addressing me always as I have said, she said that her son had been taken away to be brought up by Mr. Cass in ignorance of his parentage; and that this had been done at her own special request. She did not want her son ever to know of her existence, or of her history, nor did she wish ever to see him. She was dead to him, and desired that he should regard her as dead also."

"A painful position for you."

"Heaven knows how painful!" He was sitting up now, and speaking rapidly. "I fell into her humour, for her eyes warned me to do that. Besides, she stood aloof, and refused to respond to my feelings. I accepted the situation, and told her that her son was a violinist and famous. I am afraid I talked a great deal too much about myself, and in a boastful vein too. But you will understand that, Heron. I wanted to give her all the joy I could. I wanted to prove to her that her sacrifice had not been in vain."

"Sacrifice? What on earth do you mean by that?"

"Ah! Now comes the most painful part of the story. I asked her if she were truly guilty, but she refused to answer. And I knew in my heart that she was innocent. I saw a look in her eyes which asked how I--her own son--could dare to doubt her innocence. But not a word did she say."

"And you--what did you say?"

"I told her--still in the character of a relative--that I did not believe she killed Jenner--for by that name I spoke of him--and I declared that I intended to devote my life to proving her innocence, and that I was about to re-open the case."

"What happened then?" asked Geoffrey, seeing, from the growing agitation of the young man, that he was coming to the crisis of his painful tale.

"She became angry, and was violently moved. After glancing at the door, she abandoned the attitude she had taken up, of treating me as a stranger, and forbade me to re-open the case; she commanded me to leave things as they were. I refused I swore that I would set her free. In a low voice she implored me to let the matter rest; again I refused, and in spite of all that she could say, I held to my purpose. By this time, as you will understand, we had abandoned our masks. At last she clapped her hands, and said that there was no help for it."

"No help for what?"

"I am about to tell you. She caught me by the hand, and bent forward to speak in a whisper; and these are her very words: 'Do nothing; I suffer for your sake.'"

"Great Heavens! Do you mean to say that she hinted that it was you who killed him?"

"She did more than hint. She said that I did. She told me that on that night she had gone away to get some money for my father; that while she was in another part of the house she heard a cry, and came back to the room to find me there standing beside the dead body of my father--the knife still in my hand. She was certain that I had done it, for earlier in the evening I had rushed at him with the same knife. Seeing that my hatred for him was in part her work, she determined to save me, and rushed away into the night and the mist with me in her arms. She was taken, and accused of the crime; for my sake, she held her tongue and suffered. No one knows this--not even Mr. Cass, to whom she gave me that I might be brought up by a good man. All this she told me in a low, hurried voice. Then she bade me leave matters as they were, or her curse would be upon me! I promised to do nothing-she made me promise--then I left her. Since then--oh, what a life mine has been!" and he flung himself on the sofa to bury his face in the cushions.

Heron pitied him sincerely. "Are you sure that this is true?" he asked. "For it seems to me that if you had really been guilty of killing your father, you would have remembered something about it."

"No, I do not think so; I am subject to trances; and on that night, agitated as I was by the sight of my father, I fell into one. I must have done the thing as in a dream; then passed at once into the fever which robbed me of my memory until it was revived by the dream. I can remember my childhood now, but I certainly remember nothing about the murder. My last memory is that of rushing at my father with the knife with which I afterwards killed him. It must be true; yes, I am a criminal!

"Nonsense! A boy of ten, and mad for the time being! You are not a criminal; no one could say so. If your mother had been wise, she would have told the truth so as to save herself."

"She preferred to save me; and if she had explained all this, who would have believed her? No one. She would simply have been accused of trying to prove me guilty in order to hide her own sin. But now that you know all, I want to have your advice. How am I to act?"

"Leave things as they are," Geoffrey said, promptly.

"But my mother is innocent."

"I know--if what she says is true."

"I believe it!" Neil cried. "I really believe it."

"Ah but will anyone else? To me, I confess, it seems a trifle far-fetched. Even if you came forward and accused yourself, the whole story rests on her evidence, and you will not be believed. No, Webster; leave the matter as it stands, and stick to the name you are known by. Your mother wishes it; and since she has done so much for you, it is only right you should obey her."

"I don't know what to do." Neil clasped his hands. "Shall I remain silent?"

"Take my advice, and remain silent," Heron replied, and he meant what he said. "And remember," he added, "that I am always your friend friend."