A Life's Secret

'Ah, well; let it go,' returned the horseman. 'Will you tell me your name? and something about yourself?'

'My name is Austin Clay. I have few relatives living, and they are distant ones, and I shall, I expect, have to make my own way in the world.'

'Are you in any profession? or business?'

'I am with Mr. Thornimett, of Ketterford: the builder and contractor.'

'Why, I am a builder myself!' cried the stranger, a pleasing accent of surprise in his tone. 'Shall you ever be visiting London?'

'I daresay I shall, sir. I should like to do so.'

'Then, when you do, mind you call upon me the first thing,' he rejoined, taking a card from a case in his pocket and handing it to Austin. Come to me should you ever be in want of a berth: I might help you to one. Will you promise?'

'Yes, sir; and thank you.'

'I fancy the thanks are due from the other side, Mr. Clay. Oblige me by not letting that Bess o' Bedlam obtain sight of my card. I might have her following me.'

'No fear,' said Austin, alluding to the caution.

'She must be lying there to regain the strength exhausted by passion, carelessly remarked the stranger. 'Poor thing! it is sad to be mad, though! She is getting up now, I see: I had better be away. That town beyond, in the distance, is Ketterford, is it not?'

'It is.'

'Fare you well, then. I must hasten to catch the twelve o'clock train. They have horse-boxes, I presume, at the station?'

'Oh, yes.'

'All right,' he nodded. 'I have received a summons to town, and cannot afford the time to ride Salem home. So we must both get conveyed by train, old fellow'—patting his horse, as he spoke to it. 'By the way, though—what is the lady's name?' he halted to ask.

'Gwinn. Miss Gwinn.'

'Gwinn? Gwinn?' Never heard the name in my life. Fare you well, in all gratitude.'

He rode away. Austin Clay looked at the card. It was a private visiting card—'Mr. Henry Hunter' with an address in the corner.

'He must be one of the great London building firm, "Hunter and Hunter,"' thought Austin, depositing the card in his pocket. 'First class people. And now for Miss Gwinn.'

For his humanity would not allow him to leave her unlooked-after, as the molested and angry man had done. She had risen to her feet, though slowly, as he stepped back across the short worn grass of the common. The fall had shaken her, without doing material damage.

'I hope you are not hurt?' said Austin, kindly.

'A ban light upon the horse!' she fiercely cried. 'At my age, it does not do to be thrown on the ground violently. I thought my bones were broken; I could not rise. And he has escaped! Boy! what did he say to you of me—of my affairs?'

'Not anything. I do not believe he knows you in the least. He says he does not.'

The crimson passion had faded from Miss Gwinn's face, leaving it wan and white. 'How dare you say you believe it?'

'Because I do believe it,' replied Austin. 'He declared that he never saw you in his life; and I think he spoke the truth. I can judge when a man tells truth, and when he tells a lie. Mr. Thornimett often says he wishes he could read faces—and people—as I can read them.'

Miss Gwinn gazed at him; contempt and pity blended in her countenance. 'Have you yet to learn that a bad man can assume the semblance of goodness?'

'Yes, I know that; and assume it so as to take in a saint,' hastily spoke Austin. 'You may be deceived in a bad man; but I do not think you can in a good one. Where a man possesses innate truth and honour, it shines out in his countenance, his voice, his manner; and there can be no mistake. When you are puzzled over a bad man, you say to yourself, "He may be telling the truth, he may be genuine;" but with a good man you know it to be so: that is, if you possess the gift of reading countenances. Miss Gwinn, I am sure there was truth in that stranger.'

'Listen, Austin Clay. That man, truthful as you deem him, is the very incarnation of deceit. I know as much of him as one human being can well know of another. It was he who wrought the terrible wrong upon my house; it was he who broke up my happy home. I'll find him now. Others said he must be dead; but I said, "No, he lives yet." And, you see he does live. I'll find him.'

Without another word she turned away, and went striding back in the direction of Ketterford—the same road which the stranger's horse had taken. Austin stood and looked after her, pondering over the strange events of the hour. Then he proceeded to the Lowland farm.

A pleasant day amidst pleasant friends spent he; rich Easter cheesecakes being the least of the seductions he did not withstand; and Ketterford clocks were striking half-past ten as he approached Mrs. Thornimett's. The moonlight walk was delightful; there was no foreboding of ill upon his spirit, and he turned in at the gate utterly unconscious of the news that was in store for him.

Conscious of the late hour—for they were early people—he was passing across the lawn with a hasty step, when the door was drawn silently open, as if some one stood there watching, and he saw Sarah, one of the two old maid-servants, come forth to meet him. Both had lived in the family for years; had scolded and ordered Austin about when a boy, to their heart's content, and for his own good.

'Why, Sarah, is it you?' was his gay greeting. 'Going to take a moonlight ramble?'

'Where have you stayed?' whispered the woman in evident excitement. 'To think you should be away this night of all others, Mr. Austin! Have you heard what has happened to the master?'

'No. What?' exclaimed Austin, his fears taking alarm.

'He fell down in a fit, over at the village where he went; and they brought him home, a-frightening us two and the missis almost into fits ourselves. Oh, Master Austin!' she concluded, bursting into tears, 'the doctors don't think he'll live till morning. Poor dear old master!'

Austin, half paralysed at the news, stood for a moment against the wall inside the hall. 'Can I go and see him?' he presently asked.

'Oh, you may go,' was the answer; 'the mistress has been asking for you, and nothing rouses him. It's a heavy blow; but it has its side of brightness. God never sends a blow but he sends mercy with it.'

'What is the mercy—the brightness?' Austin waited to ask, thinking she must allude to some symptom of hope. Sarah put her shrivelled old arm on his in solemnity, as she answered it.

'He was fit to be taken. He had lived for the next world while he was living in this. And those that do, Master Austin, never need shrink from sudden death.'

CHAPTER II.

CHANGES

To reflect upon the change death makes, even in the petty every-day affairs of life, must always impart a certain awe to the thoughtful mind. On the Easter Monday, spoken of in the last chapter, Richard Thornimett, his men, his contracts, and his business in progress, were all part of the life, the work, the bustle of the town of Ketterford. In a few weeks from that time, Richard Thornimett—who had not lived to see the morning light after his attack—was mouldering in the churchyard; and the business, the workshops, the artisans, all save the dwelling-house, which Mrs. Thornimett retained for herself, had passed into other hands. The name, Richard Thornimett, as one of the citizens of Ketterford, had ceased to be: all things were changed.

Mrs. Thornimett's friends and acquaintances had assembled to tender counsel, after the fashion of busybodies of the world. Some recommended her to continue the business; some, to give it up; some, to take in a gentleman as partner; some, to pay a handsome salary to an efficient manager. Mrs. Thornimett listened politely to all, without the least intention of acting upon anybody's opinion but her own. Her mind had been made up from the first. Mr. Thornimett had died fairly well off, and everything was left to her—half of the money to be hers for life, and then to go to different relatives; the other half was bequeathed to her absolutely, and was at her own disposal. Rumours were rife in the town, that, when things came to be realized, she would have about twelve thousand pounds in money, besides other property.

But before making known her decision abroad, she spoke to Austin Clay. They were sitting together one evening when she entered upon the subject, breaking the silence that reigned with some abruptness.

'Austin, I shall dispose of the business; everything as it stands. And the goodwill.'

'Shall you?' he exclaimed, taken by surprise, and his voice betraying a curious disappointment.

Mrs. Thornimett nodded in answer.

'I would have done my best to carry it on for you, Mrs. Thornimett. The foreman is a man of experience; one we may trust.'

'I do not doubt you, Austin; and I do not doubt him. You have got your head on your shoulders the right way, and you would be faithful and true. So well do I think of your abilities, that, were you in a position to pay down only half the purchase-money, I would give you the refusal of the business, and I am certain success would attend you. But you are not; so that is out of the question.'

'Quite out of the question,' assented Austin. 'If ever I get a business of my own, it must be by working for it. Have you quite resolved upon giving it up?'