第11章

Romayne took my arm when we were alone--we walked slowly from end to end of the Belvidere.The moon was, by this time, low in the heavens; but her mild mysterious light still streamed over the roof of the house and the high heathy ground round it.I looked attentively at Romayne.He was deadly pale; his hand shook as it rested on my arm--and that was all.Neither in look nor manner did he betray the faintest sign of mental derangement.He had perhaps needlessly alarmed the faithful old servant by something that he had said or done.I determined to clear up that doubt immediately.

"You left the table very suddenly," I said."Did you feel ill?""Not ill," he replied."I was frightened.Look at me--I'm frightened still.""What do you mean?"

Instead of answering, he repeated the strange question which he had put to me downstairs.

"Do you call it a quiet night?"

Considering the time of year, and the exposed situation of the house, the night was almost preternaturally quiet.Throughout the vast open country all round us, not even a breath of air could be heard.The night-birds were away, or were silent at the time.But one sound was audible, when we stood still and listened--the cool quiet bubble of a little stream, lost to view in the valley-ground to the south.

"I have told you already," I said."So still a night I never remember on this Yorkshire moor."He laid one hand heavily on my shoulder."What did the poor boy say of me, whose brother I killed?" he asked."What words did we hear through the dripping darkness of the mist?""I won't encourage you to think of them.I refuse to repeat the words."He pointed over the northward parapet.

"It doesn't matter whether you accept or refuse," he said, "Ihear the boy at this moment--there!"

He repeated the horrid words--marking the pauses in the utterance of them with his finger, as if they were sounds that he heard:

"Assassin! Assassin! where are you?"

"Good God!" I cried."You don't mean that you really _hear_ the voice?""Do you hear what I say? I hear the boy as plainly as you hear me.The voice screams at me through the clear moonlight, as it screamed at me through the sea-fog.Again and again.It's all round the house._That_ way now, where the light just touches on the tops of the heather.Tell the servants to have the horses ready the first thing in the morning.We leave Vange Abbey to-morrow."These were wild words.If he had spoken them wildly, I might have shared the butler's conclusion that his mind was deranged.There was no undue vehemence in his voice or his manner.He spoke with a melancholy resignation--he seemed like a prisoner submitting to a sentence that he had deserved.Remembering the cases of men suffering from nervous disease who had been haunted by apparitions, I asked if he saw any imaginary figure under the form of a boy.

"I see nothing," he said; "I only hear.Look yourself.It is in the last degree improbable--but let us make sure that nobody has followed me from Boulogne, and is playing me a trick."We made the circuit of the Belvidere.On its eastward side the house wall was built against one of the towers of the old Ab bey.

On the westward side, the ground sloped steeply down to a deep pool or tarn.Northward and southward, there was nothing to be seen but the open moor.Look where I might, with the moonlight to make the view plain to me, the solitude was as void of any living creature as if we had been surrounded by the awful dead world of the moon.

"Was it the boy's voice that you heard on the voyage across the Channel?" I asked.

"Yes, I heard it for the first time--down in the engine-room;rising and falling, rising and falling, like the sound of the engines themselves.""And when did you hear it again?"

"I feared to hear it in London.It left me, I should have told you, when we stepped ashore out of the steamboat.I was afraid that the noise of the traffic in the streets might bring it back to me.As you know, I passed a quiet night.I had the hope that my imagination had deceived me--that I was the victim of a delusion, as people say.It is no delusion.In the perfect tranquillity of this place the voice has come back to me.While we were at table I heard it again--behind me, in the library.Iheard it still, when the door was shut.I ran up here to try if it would follow me into the open air.It _has_ followed me.We may as well go down again into the hall.I know now that there is no escaping from it.My dear old home has become horrible to me.

Do you mind returning to London tomorrow?"What I felt and feared in this miserable state of things matters little.The one chance I could see for Romayne was to obtain the best medical advice.I sincerely encouraged his idea of going back to London the next day.

We had sat together by the hall fire for about ten minutes, when he took out his handkerchief, and wiped away the perspiration from his forehead, drawing a deep breath of relief."It has gone!" he said faintly.

"When you hear the boy's voice," I asked, "do you hear it continuously?""No, at intervals; sometimes longer, sometimes shorter.""And thus far, it comes to you suddenly, and leaves you suddenly?""Yes."

"Do my questions annoy you?"

"I make no complaint," he said sadly."You can see for yourself--I patiently suffer the punishment that I have deserved."I contradicted him at once."It is nothing of the sort! It's a nervous malady, which medical science can control and cure.Wait till we get to London."This expression of opinion produced no effect on him.

"I have taken the life of a fellow-creature," he said."I have closed the career of a young man who, but for me, might have lived long and happily and honorably.Say what you may, I am of the race of Cain._ He_ had the mark set on his brow.I have _my_ordeal.Delude yourself, if you like, with false hopes.I can endure--and hope for nothing.Good-night."