that the minds of these poor ladies were divided between pleasure in his society and fear to have him there. If he stayed a little longer than usual he saw that they became anxious, the mother breathless, with a desire to have him go away: and that even Agnes would accompany him down stairs with an eager alacrity as if she could not be comfortable till she had seen him out of the house. And yet they were always kind, liked him to come, looked for him, even would say a word which showed that they had noted his absence if for a week or so he did not appear: although while he was there they were ever watchful, starting at every sound, hurrying him away if he stayed beyond his time. The sight of a tall figure The sight of a tall figure lurching along the street, of some one fumbling with a latch-key, of which he was sometimes conscious as he went away, was scarcely necessary at last to make him aware what it was that occasioned this anxiety. Mrs. Surtees saw love dawning in the doctor's eyes. She would not shut out from her patient girl the chances of a happier lot but what if the doctor should meet Jim! see him coming home sodden and stupid, or noisy and gay. As Dr. Barrère became intimate they had spoken to him of Jim. He was studying hard, he was writing, he was always busy, he was not fond of society. There were so many reasons why he should never appear. And by and by the doctor, with a great ache of pity, had learned all these excuses by heart, and penetrated their secret, and misconstrued their actions and habits no more.

Finally the doctor made the acquaintance of Jim, and to his great surprise not only liked him, but understood why the mother and sister were not always miserable, how life varied with them from day to day, and how even Mrs. Surtees was often cheerful, though never unwatchful, never at ease. Dr. Barrère thought with justice that nothing could be more miserable, more inexcusable, than the life the young man was leading. In theory fate should have put into every honest hand a whip to scourge such a good-for-nothing. And sometimes the doctor felt a righteous wrath, a desire to scourge till the blood came: but it was not so much out of moral indignation as out of an exasperated liking, an intolerable pity. What might happen in the house in those awful moments when all was silent, and everybody at rest save the mother and sister watching for Jim's return at night, neither the doctor nor any one knew. But at other moments Dr. Barrère found it impossible to

resist, any more than the women did, the charm of a nature which had not lost its distinction even in the haunts where he had lost everything else. He even tried to attract and draw to himself the prodigal, entertaining visions on the subject and fancying how, if there were a man closely connected with the family, himself to wit, Arnold Barrère, and not merely women who wept and reproached and condoned and wept again, but never made a determined stand, nor struck a decisive blow, there might still be hope for Jim. It could not be said that this told as a motive in the fervour with which he offered himself to Agnes Surtees. The doctor was in love warmly and honestly, and as he made his declaration thought, as a lover ought, of nothing but Agnes. Yet when she hesitated and faltered, and after a moment broke the long silence and spoke to him openly of her brother, there was the warmth of a personal desire in the eagerness with which he met her confessions half way. "Jim is no drawback," he said eagerly" to me none. I can help you with Jim. If you will have me there shall be no question of depriving him of any love or care. He shall have me in addition to help him to better things." "Oh," Agnes had cried, giving him both her hands in the fervour of love and trust, "God bless you, Arnold, for speaking of better things for Jim." And it was on this holy ground that their contract was made. Henceforward there were no concealments from him.

Dr. Barrère was not a man to let the grass grow under his feet. There was no reason why his marriage should be delayed. He wanted to have his wife-a possession almost indispensable, he assured Mrs. Surtees, with a smile, to a medical man; and the mother, anxious to see one child's fate assured, and still more anxious, catching with feverish hope at the help so hopefully offered for the other, had no inclination to put obstacles in the way. The marriage day was settled, and all the preparations thereto begun, when the sudden horror which still envelopes the name of Surtees in Poolborough arose in a moment, and the following incidents occurred to Dr. Barrère.

CHAPTER II.

HE was going to visit a patient in a suburb one dark October night. But it could scarcely be called dark. There was a pallid moon somewhere among the clouds whitening the

heavy mist that lay over the half-built environs of the town-dismal blank spaces -fields which were no longer fields, streets which were not yet streets. The atmosphere was charged with vapour, which in its turn was made into a dim, confusing whiteness by the hidden moon. Everybody knows how dismal are these outskirts of a great city. A house built here and there stood out with a sinister solidity against the blank around. New roads and streets laid out with indications of pavement, cut across the ravaged fields. Here there was a mass of bricks, and there a pool of water. A piece of ragged hedgerow, a remnant of its earlier state, still bordered the highway here and there; a forlorn tree shedding its leaves at every breath of air stood at the corner where two ways met. Dr. Barrère was no ways timid, but he felt a chill of isolation and something like danger as he pushed his way towards one of the furthest points of the uncompleted road, where one house stood shivering in the vague damp and whiteness. He had to cross the other branching road, at the corner of which stood the shivering poplar, which shed its leaves as if with a perpetual shrinking of fear. There he was vaguely aware of something standing in the shade of the ragged hedgerow-a figure which moved as he passed, and seemed to make a step forward as if awaiting some one. To say that it was a figure he saw would be too distinct-he saw a movement, a something more solid than the mist, which detached itself as if with a suggestion of watchfulness, and immediately subsided again back into the shadows. Dr. Barrère, though he was not timid, felt the thrill as of a possible danger, the suggestion having something in it more moving than a distincter peril. But if there was a man lurking there waiting for some passer-by, it was not at least for him, and he walked quickly on, and presently in the interest of his patient, and in the many thoughts that hurry through every active brain, forgot the curious hint of mystery and danger which had for a moment excited his imagination.

When he approached the spot again on his return, even the suggestion had died out of his mind. His eyesight and all his faculties were keen, as befits his profession, and he saw, without being aware that he was seeing, everything that came within his range of vision. Accordingly he perceived without paying any attention, the vague figure of a man crossing the opening of the road where the poplar marked the corner, coming towards him. He saw the solid speck in the white mist approaching

then in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, this vague silhouette in the night became a sudden swift scene of pantomimic tragedy, all done and over in a moment. A sudden movement took place in the scene; another something, almost less than a shadow, suddenly came into it from behind the poplar. No, these words are too strong. What came into the night was the sound of a crashing blow and a fall, and another figure, in a different position, standing over something prostrate, raining down, as in a fit of frantic passion, blow on blow. Passion, murder, horror, came in a second into the still confusion of the

misty air. Then, swift as the sudden commotion, came a pause- -a wild cry of consternation, as if for the first time the actor in this terrible momentary tragedy had become aware what he was doing. The spectator's senses were so absorbed in the suddenness of the catastrophe that there was time enough for the whole drama to enact itself before he found voice. He had broken mechanically into a run, and thought that he called out. But it was not (it seemed to him in the hurried progression of ideas) his cry or the sound of his approach, but a sudden horror which had seized the man (was he a murderer?), who had in a moment come to himself. When the doctor at full speed, and calling out mechanically, automatically for Help! help! reached the spot where the prostrate figure was lying, the other had taken flight down the cross road and was already invisible in the distance. The doctor's first care was for the victim. He was not an avenger of blood, but a healer of men.

Presently there appeared around him two or three startled people-one from the nearest house carrying a small lamp, which made the strangest, weird appearance in the misty night; a passer-by on his way home; a vagrant from the deserted fields. They helped the doctor to turn over the murdered man, who was still living, but no more, and who, it was evident to Dr. Barrère's experienced eyes, was on the point of death and beyond all human help. The lamp had been placed on the ground close by, and sent up an odour of paraffin along with the yellow rays that proceeded from its globe of light, and the figures kneeling and bending over the inanimate thing in the midst looked more like a group of murderers than people bringing help and succour. Some time had elapsed before the means of transporting him even to the nearest house had been procured, and by that time there was no longer any question of what could be done on his behalf, and all that was possible was to carry away the

P

:

body. Dr. Barrère walked beside the melancholy convoy to the nearest police station, where he made his deposition and then he went home in all the tremor of excitement and mental commotion. He had fortunately no visits to pay that evening of any importance; but he was too much stirred and troubled to remain quietly at home, and after a while hurried out to Agnes, his natural confidant, to tell her all about the shock he had received. It struck him with surprise to see, when he entered the little drawingroom, that Jim was with his mother and sister. It was a thing that had very seldom happened before. He sat apart from them at the writing-table, where he was writing, or making believe to write, letters. The sight

of him struck Dr. Barrère with a certain surprise, but he could not have told why. There was no reason why he should not be found in his mother's drawing-room. It was true that he was rarely to be seen there, but yet sometimes he would make his appearance. This evening he had dressed for dinner, which was still more unusual: perhaps he was going out to some late evening party; perhaps some one had been expected to dinner. These thoughts flew vaguely through Dr. Barrère's mind, he could not have told why. There was no particular reason why he should thus desire to penetrate the motives of Jim Surtees' behaviour, or to explain to himself why the young man was there. The speculation passed through his head without thought, if such an expression may be used, without any volition of his, as half our thoughts do, like the chance flight of birds or butterflies across the air.

They did not detain him a moment as he came forward with his greetings, and met the pleased surprise of the reception which the ladies gave him. "I thought it was too late to look for you," his Agnes said, with a brightening of all the soft lines of her face, as if the sun had risen upon a landscape. And then, as it was cold, a chair was drawn for him near the fire. "You have been kept late on your round to-night," said Mrs. Surtees. "Have you any very anxious case?"

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It is no case that has kept me," said the doctor. "I have had a dreadful encounter in the road. You know that district up beyond St. George's-in-the-Fields-those halfbuilt, desolate villas and cottages. The roads are as lonely as if they were in the middle of a wood. A new quarter by night is as bad as a bare moor."

Agnes stood listening with her hand on the back of his chair, but still a smile upon her face-the smile of pleasure at his coming.

Mrs. Surtees had let her knitting fall upon her lap, and was looking at him, listening with pleased interest. They had not perceived the agitation which, indeed, until he began to speak, he had managed to suppress. "And what happened?" Mrs. Surtees said.

"I have been," he answered, his voice breaking in spite of himself, "the witness of a murder."

"Good heavens!" The ladies were too much startled to put another question except with their eager eyes. They drew closer to him; the hand of Agnes glided to his shoulder from the back of his chair. What she thought first was that his emotion did honour to him.

Then he described to them briefly what he had seen the lurking figure in the shadow which had alarmed himself as he passed first, but which he soon perceived had no hostile intentions towards him; the appearance of the man approaching from the opposite direction as he returned; the sudden assault; the rapid, breathless, horrible suddenness of the tragedy. The ladies hung upon his lips, making exclamations of horror. It was not till afterwards that Dr. Barrère became aware that the young man at the table behind made no sign, said not a word. He had told everything, and answered half a dozen hurried, faltering questions before Jim made any remark. Then he suddenly stirred behind backs (the group at the fireside having forgotten his presence) and asked "What are you talking about? What's happened?" in a deep halfgrowling voice, as of a man disturbed in his occupation by some fuss of which he did not grasp the meaning.

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Oh," said Mrs. Surtees wiping her moist eyes, did you not hear, Jim? The doctor has seen a murder committed. God preserve us! I feel as if I had seen it myself. dreadful thing like that coming so near us! It is as if we were mixed up in it," she said.

A

"A murder? Are you sure it was a murder? It might be nothing more than a quarrel-how could you tell in the dark?" said Jim, always in the same gruff, almost indignant voice.

"If you had seen it as I did you would have been in no doubt," said Dr. Barrère, turning half round, and catching a side view of the tall figure slouching with hands in his pockets, his face clouded with a scowl of displeasure, his shoulders up to his ears. This silhouette against the light gave him a thrill, he scarcely knew why. He paused a moment, and then added, "After all you may be right; it was murder to all intents and purposes-but whether it was intended to be so there may be a doubt."

"You are always so ready to come to tragical conclusions," said Jim in easier tones. "I dare say it will turn out to have been a quarrel, and no more."

'A quarrel in which one is killed is apt to look like murder."

These words gave them all a shivering sensation. Even Jim's shoulders went up to his ears as if he shared the involuntary shudder and Mrs. Surtees said again, drying her eyes, "It is as if we were mixed up in it. Poor man, poor man, cut off in a moment, without a thought!”

It appears he is a well known and very bad character," said Dr. Barrère. "I feel almost more sorry for the poor wretch that did it. The cry he gave when he saw what he had done still rings in my ears."

"Then you think he did not mean it, Arnold?"

"God knows! You would have said he meant everything that passion and rage could mean to see the blows; but that cry

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He repented, perhaps-when it was too late."

It was horror-it was consternation. It was the cry of a man who suddenly saw what he had done."

There was a pause of sympathetic horror and pity. Then Jim Surtees went back to the writing-table, and Dr. Barrère continued his conversation with the ladies, which, however they tried to break into other and happier subjects, returned again and again to the terrible scene from which he had just come. They spoke in low tones together over the fire--the doctor recounting over and over again the feelings with which he had contemplated the extraordinary, sudden tragedy, the rapidity with which all its incidents followed each other, leaving him scarcely time to cry out before all was over. He was naturally full of it, and could speak of nothing else, and his betrothed and her mother, always sympathetic, threw themselves entirely into the excitement which still possessed him. It was late when he rose to go away, soothed and calmed, and with a sense of having at last exhausted the incident. It startled him as he turned round, after taking leave of Mrs. Surtees, to see that Jim was still there. the aspect of the young man was sufficiently remarkable. The candles on the writingtable behind which he sat had burnt low. They had escaped from the little red shades which had been placed over them, and were flaring low, like a level sun in the evening, upon the figure behind, which, with his head bowed in his hands and shoulders up to his ears, seemed unconscious of all that was

And

passing. Jim neither saw nor heard the doctor move. He was absorbed in some allimportant matter of his own. Next day Dr. Barrère was still deeply occupied by the scene he had seen. He was summoned for the coroner's inquest, and he was, as was natural, questioned by everybody he met upon a subject which was in all men's mouths. It was equally natural that he should return next evening to bring the account of all the encounters he had gone through and all that was news on the subject to Agnes and her mother. Once more he noted with surprise that Jim was in the drawing-room. Was he turning over a new leaf? Had he seen the folly of his ways at last?

They were sitting as before over the fire, Dr. Barrère telling his story, the ladies listening with absorbed attention. The interest of this terrible tragedy which had taken place almost within their ken, which they were seeing though his eyes, was absorbing to them. They wanted to know everything, the most minute details, what questions had been asked him, and what he had replied. Jim was still behind backs at the writing-table with the two candles in their red shades, which did not betray his face, but threw a strange light upon his hands and the occupation in which he seemed to be absorbed. He was playing an old-fashioned game with small coloured glass balls on a round board, called solitaire in the days when it was in fashion. The little tinkle of the balls as he placed them in the necessary order came in during the pauses in the talk like a faint accompaniment. But no one looked at him : they were too much absorbed in Dr. Barrère's report.

"And are you the only witness, Arnold?" Agnes asked.

"The only one who saw the deed done," he said. "It is very rarely that there is even one witness to the actual fact of a murder. But there is other evidence than mine; the man is supposed to have been seen by various people, and there is a dumb witness of the first importance, the stick which he must have thrown away, or which dropped from his hand in the horror, as I shall always believe, of his discovery of what he had done."

At this point there was a ring as of the glass balls all tinkling together on the board. The doctor turned round, slightly startled in the high tension of his nerves, and saw that Jim had upset his plaything, and that the balls were rolling about the table. But this was far from being an unusual accident in the game, and neither Mrs. Surtees nor

Agnes took any notice, their nerves were not strained as Dr. Barrère's had been. The mother spoke low with a natural thrill of horror and pity. "And is it known," she said, "is it known to whom the stick belongs?"

Before Dr. Barrère could reply there came a knock to the door-a knock not at the door of the room in which they sat, but below at the street door, a thing unusual indeed at that hour, but not so startling in general as to excite or alarm them. But perhaps all their nerves were affected more or less. It was very sudden and sharp, and came into the calm domestic atmosphere with a scarcely comprehensible shock. They all turned round, and Jim, the doctor saw, had suddenly risen up, and stood with his face turned towards the door. The summons rang through the silence with an effect altogether out of keeping with its simplicity.

"Who can that be so late," said Mrs. Surtees. Jim, will you go and see?" "It must be some one for me," the doctor said.

"Poor Arnold! I hope it is some one near," said Agnes faltering for neither of them believed what they said. It was something terrible, something novel, some startling new event whatever it was. Jim, instead of doing as his mother wished, sat down again behind the writing-table, within the shelter of the red shades on the candles, and they all waited, scarcely venturing to draw breath. Presently the neat parlour-maid, pale too, and with a visible tremor, opened the door. She said, with a troubled look at her mistress, that, Please there was some one down stairs who wanted to speak to Mr. Jim. Mrs. Surtees was the last to be moved by the general agitation. She said " For Mr. Jim? But let him come up, Ellen. Jim, you had better ask your friend to come up stairs."

Once more there was a terrible, incomprehensible pause. Jim, who had fallen rather than re-seated himself on the sofa which stood behind the writing-table, said not a word; his face was not visible behind the shaded lights. Mrs. Surtees threw a glance round her—a troubled appeal for she knew not what enlightenment. Then she said breathlessly, "What has happened? What is the matter? Who is it? Ellen, you will show the gentleman up stairs."

Heavens! how they stood listening, panicstricken, not knowing what they were afraid of, nor what there was to fear. Mrs. Surtees still kept her seat tremulously, and Jim, lost in the corner of the sofa, suddenly

extinguished the candles---an act which they all seemed to approve and understand without knowing why. And then there came a heavy foot ascending the stairs. Mrs. Surtees did not know the man who came in-a tall soldierly man with a clear and healthful countenance. It even gave her a momentary sensation of comfort to see that Jim's "friend" was was no blear-eyed young rake, but a person so respectable. She rose to meet him with her old-fashioned courtesy. "Though I have not the pleasure of knowing you," she said with a smile, which was tremulous by reason of that causeless agitation, "my son's friends are always welcome." Oh heaven above! her son's friend! Dr. Barrère was the only one among them who knew the man. The sight of him cleared the whole matter in a moment, and shed a horrible light over everything to the doctor's eyes. He made a sudden sign to the newcomer, imploring silence.

"I know this gentleman, too, Mrs. Surtees," he said, "he is one of my friends, also. Would it be taking a great liberty if I were to ask you to leave us for a few minutes the use of this room? Agnes, it is a great intrusion-but-for God's sake take her away!" he said in his betrothed's ear.

Mrs. Surtees looked at him with some surprise and an air of gentle dignity not entirely without offence. "My dear," she said to Agnes," Dr. Barrère would not ask such a thing without good reason for it, so let us go." She was not a woman who had been accustomed to take the lead even in her own family, and she was glad, glad beyond description, to believe that the business, whatever it was, was Dr. Barrère's business, and not-anything else. She accepted it with a trembling sense of relief, yet a feeling that the doctor was perhaps taking a little too much upon him, turning her out of her