LITMIR.BIZ

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which was her station. The waiters at the Midland Hotel noticed his curious demeanour and his vacant eye. He wandered about the coffee-room muttering to himself, and although he ordered chops and tea he swallowed nothing but some brandy and soda. Next morning, August 21st, he took a ticket to Standwell and arrived there at half-past eleven. From Standwell Station to the Manor-house where Miss Groves resided with the old squire is two miles. There is an inn close to the station called “The Bull’s Head.” Vincent Parker called there and ordered some brandy. He then asked whether a note had been left for his, and seemed much disturbed upon hearing that there was none. Then, the time being about a quarter past twelve, he went off in the direction of the Manor-house.

      About two miles upon the other side of the Manor-house, and four miles from the Bull’s Head Inn, there is a thriving grammar school, the head master of which was a friend of the Groves family and had some slight acquaintance with Vincent Parker. The young man thought, therefore, that this would be the best place for him to apply for information, and he arrived at the school about half-past one. The head master was no doubt considerably astonished at the appearance of this dishevelled and brandy-smelling visitor, but he answered his questions with discretion and courtesy.

      ‘I have called upon you,’ said Parker, ‘as a friend of Miss Groves. I suppose you know that there is an engagement between us?’

      ‘I understood that there was an engagement, and that it had been broken off,’ said the master.

      ‘Yes,’ Parker answered. ‘she has written to me to break off the engagement and declines to see me. I want to know how matters stand.’

      ‘Anything I may know,’ said the master, ‘is in confidence, and so I cannot tell you.’

      ‘I will find it out sooner or later,’ said Parker, and then asked who the clergyman was who had been staying at the Manor-house. The master acknowledged that there had been one, but refused to give the name. Parker then asked whether Miss Groves was at the Manor-house and if any coercion was being used to her. The other answered that she was at the Manor-house and that no coercion was being used.

      ‘Sooner or later I must see her,’ said Parker. ‘I have written to release her from her engagement, but I must hear from her own lips that she gives me up. She is of age and must please herself. I know that I am not a good match, and I do not wish to stand in her way.’

      The master then remarked that it was time for school, but that he should be free again at half-past four if Parker had anything more to say to him, and Parker left, promising to return. It is not known how he spent the next two hours, but he may have found some country inn in which he obtained some luncheon. At half-past four he was back at the school, and asked the master for advice as to how to act. The master suggested that his best course was to write a note to Miss Groves and to make an appointment with her for next morning.

      ‘If you were to call at the house, perhaps Miss Groves would see you,’ said this sympathetic and most injudicious master.

      ‘I will do so and get it off my mind,’ said Vincent Parker.

      It was about five o’clock when he left the school, his manner at that time being perfectly calm and collected.

      It was forty minutes later when the discarded lover arrived at the house of his sweetheart. He knocked at the door and asked for Miss. Groves. She had probably seen him as he came down the drive, for she met him at the drawing-room door as he came in, and she invited him to come with her into the garden. Her heart was in her mouth, no doubt, lest her grandfather should see him and a scene ensue. It was safer to have him in the garden than in the house. They walked out, therefore, and half an hour later they were seen chatting quietly upon one of the benches. A little afterwards the maid went out and told Miss Groves that tea was ready. She came in alone, and it is suggestive of the views taken by the grandfather that there seems to have been no question about Parker coming in also to tea. She came out again into the garden and sat for a long time with the young man, after which they seem to have set off together for a stroll down the country lanes. What passed during that walk, what recriminations upon his part, what retorts upon hers, will never now be known. They were only once seen in the course of it. At about half-past eight o’clock a labourer, coming up a long lane which led from the high road to the Manor-house, saw a man and a woman walking together. As he passed them he recognised in the dusk that the lady was Miss Groves, the granddaughter of the squire. When he looked back he saw that they had stopped and were standing face to face conversing.

      A very short time after this Reuben Conway, a workman, was passing down this lane when he heard a low sound of moaning. He stood listening, and in the silence of the country evening he became aware that this ominous sound was drawing nearer to him. A wall flanked one side of the lane, and as he stared about him his eye caught something moving slowly down the black shadow at the side. For a moment it must have seemed to him to be some wounded animal, but as he approached it he saw to his astonishment that it was a woman who was slowly stumbling along, guiding and supporting herself by her hand against the wall. With a cry of horror he found himself looking into the face of Miss Groves, glimmering white through the darkness.

      ‘Take me home!’ she whispered. ‘Take me home! The gentleman down there has been murdering me.’

      The horrified labourer put his arms round her, and carried her for about twenty yards towards home.

      ‘Can you see anyone down the lane?’ she asked, when he stopped for breath.

      He looked, and through the dark tunnel of trees he saw a black figure moving slowly behind them. The labourer waited, still propping up the girl’s head, until young Parker overtook them.

      ‘Who has been murdering Miss Groves?’ asked Reuben Conway.

      ‘I have stabbed her,’ said Parker, with the utmost coolness.

      ‘Well, then, you had best help me to carry her home,’ said the labourer. So down the dark lane moved that singular procession: the rustic and the lover, with the body of the dying girl between them.

      ‘Poor Mary!’ Parker muttered. ‘Poor Mary! You should not have proved false to me!’

      When they got as far as the lodge-gate Parker suggested that Reuben Conway should run and get something which might stanch the bleeding. He went, leaving these tragic lovers together for the last time. When he returned he found Parker holding something to her throat.

      ‘Is she living?’ he asked.

      ‘She is,’ said Parker.

      ‘Oh, take me home!’ wailed the poor girl. A little farther upon their dolorous journey they met two farmers, who helped them.

      ‘Who has done this?’ asked one of them.

      ‘He knows and I know,’ said Parker, gloomily. ‘I am the man who has done this, and I shall be hanged for it. I have done it, and there is no question about that at all.’

      These replies never seem to have brought insult or invective upon his head, for everyone appears to have been silenced by the overwhelming tragedy of the situation.

      ‘I am dying!’ gasped poor Mary, and they were the last words which she ever said. Inside the hall-gates they met the poor old squire running wildly up on some vague rumour of a disaster. The bearers stopped as they saw the white hair gleaming through the darkness.

      ‘What is amiss?’ he cried.

      Parker said, calmly, ‘It is your grand-daughter Mary murdered.’

      ‘Who did it?’ shrieked the old man.

      ‘I did it.’

      ‘Who are you?’ he cried.

      ‘My name is Vincent Parker.’

      ‘Why did you do it?’

      ‘She has deceived me, and the woman who deceives me must die.’

      The calm concentration of his manner seems to have silenced all reproaches.

      ‘I told her I would kill her,’ said he, as they all entered the house together. ‘She knew my temper.’

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