The nurse came down the broad oak staircase, baby Leonard toddling by her side, and making two laborious jumps at each shallow step – one on – one off. Christabel met him, picked him up in her arms, and carried him back to the nursery, where she ordered his dinner to be brought. He was a little inclined to resist this change of plan at the first, but was soon kissed into pleasantness, and then the nurse was despatched to the servants' hall, and Christabel had her boy to herself, and ministered to him and amused him for the space of an hour despite an aching heart. Then, when the nurse came back, Mrs. Tregonell went to her own room, and sat at the window watching the avenue by which the men must drive back to the house.
They did not come back till just when the gloom of the sunless day was deepening into starless night. Christabel ran down to the lobby that opened into the stable yard, and stood in the doorway waiting for Nicholls to come to her; but if he saw her, he pretended not to see her, and went straight to the house by another way, and asked to speak to Mr. Tregonell.
Christabel saw him hurry across the yard to that other door, and knew that her fears were realized. Evil of some kind had befallen. She went straight to her husband's study, certain that she would meet Nicholls there.
Leonard was standing by the fireplace, listening, while Nicholls stood a little way from the door, relating the result of his search, in a low agitated voice.
"Was he quite dead when you found him?" asked Leonard, when the man paused in his narration.
Christabel stood just within the doorway, half hidden in the obscurity of the room, where there was no light but that of the low fire. The door had been left ajar by Nicholls, and neither he nor his master was aware of her presence.
"Yes, Sir. Dr. Blake said he must have been dead some hours."
"Had the gun burst?"
"No, Sir. It must have gone off somehow. Perhaps the trigger caught in the hand-rail when he was crossing the wooden bridge – and yet that seemed hardly possible – for he was lying on the big stone at the other side of the bridge, with his face downwards close to the water."
"A horrible accident," said Leonard. "There'll be an inquest, of course. Will Blake give the coroner notice – or must I?"
"Dr. Blake said he'd see to that, Sir."
"And he is lying at the farm – "
"Yes, Sir. We thought it was best to take the body there – rather than to bring it home. It would have been such a shock for my mistress – and the other ladies. Dr. Blake said the inquest would be held at the inn at Trevena."
"Well," said Leonard, with a shrug and a sigh, "it's an awful business, that's all that can be said about it. Lucky he has no wife or children – no near relations to feel the blow. All we can do is to show our respect for him, now he is gone. The body had better be brought home here, after the inquest. It will look more respectful for him to be buried from this house. Mrs. Tregonell's mind can be prepared by that time."
"It is prepared already," said a low voice out of the shadow. "I have heard all."
"Very sad, isn't it?" replied Leonard; "one of those unlucky accidents which occur every shooting season. He was always a little awkward with a gun – never handled one like a thoroughbred sportsman."
"Why did he go out shooting on the last morning of his visit?" asked Christabel. "It was you who urged him to do it – you who planned the whole thing."
"I! What nonsense you are talking. I told him there were plenty of birds about the Kieve – just as I told the other fellows. That will do, Nicholls. You did all that could be done. Go and get your dinner, but first send a mounted groom to Trevena to ask Blake to come over here."
Nicholls bowed and retired, shutting the door behind him.
"He is dead, then," said Christabel, coming over to the hearth where her husband was standing. "He has been killed."
"He has had the bad luck to kill himself, as many a better sportsman than he has done before now," answered Leonard, roughly.
"If I could be sure of that, Leonard, if I could be sure that his death was the work of accident – I should hardly grieve for him – knowing that he was reconciled to the idea of death – and that if God had spared him this sudden end, the close of his life must have been full of pain and weariness."
Tears were streaming down her cheeks – tears which she made no effort to restrain – such tears as friendship and affection give to the dead – tears that had no taint of guilt. But Leonard's jealous soul was stung to fury by those innocent tears.
"Why do you stand there snivelling about him," he exclaimed; "do you want to remind me how fond you were of him – and how little you ever cared for me. Do you suppose I am stone blind – do you suppose I don't know you to the core of your heart?"
"If you know my heart you must know that it is as guiltless of sin against you, and as true to my duty as a wife, as you, my husband, can desire. But you must know that, or you would not have brought Angus Hamleigh to this house."
"Perhaps I wanted to try you – to watch you and him together – to see if the old fire was quite burnt out."
"You could not be so base – so contemptible."
"There is no knowing what a man may be when he is used as I have been by you – looked down upon from the height of a superior intellect, a loftier nature – told to keep his distance, as a piece of vulgar clay – hardly fit to exist beside that fine porcelain vase, his wife. Do you think it was a pleasant spectacle for me to see you and Angus Hamleigh sympathizing and twaddling about Browning's last poem – or sighing over a sonata of Beethoven's – I who was outside all that kind of thing? – a boor – a dolt – to whom your fine sentiments and your flummery were an unknown language. But I was only putting a case, just now. I liked Hamleigh well enough – in his way – and I asked him here because I thought it was giving a chance to the Vandeleur girls. That was my motive – and my only motive."
"And he came – and he is dead," answered Christabel, in icy tones. "He went to that lonely place this morning – at your instigation – and he met his death there – no one knows how – no one ever will know."
"At my instigation? – confound it, Christabel – you have no right to say such things. I told him it was a good place for woodcock – and it pleased his fancy to try his luck there before he left. Lonely place, be hanged. It is a place to which every tourist goes – it is as well known as the road to this house."
"Yet he was lying there for hours and no one knew. If Nicholls had not gone he might be lying there still. He may have lain there wounded – his life-blood ebbing away – dying by inches – without help – without a creature to succour or comfort him. It was a cruel place – a place where no help could come."
"Fortune of war," answered Leonard, with a careless shrug. "A sportsman must die where his shot finds him. There's many a day I might have fallen in the Rockies, and lain there for the lynxes and the polecats to pick my bones; and I have walked shoulder to shoulder with death on mountain passes, when every step on the crumbling track might send me sliding down to the bottomless pit below. As for poor Hamleigh; well, as you say yourself, he was a doomed man – a little sooner or later could not make much difference."
"Perhaps not," said Christabel, gloomily, going slowly to the door; "but I want to know how he died."
"Let us hope the coroner's inquest will make your mind easy on that point," retorted her husband as she left the room.
CHAPTER II
"YOURS ON MONDAY, GOD'S TO-DAY."
The warning gong sounded at half-past seven as usual, and at eight the butler announced dinner. Captain Vandeleur and Mr. Montagu had returned from Bodmin, and they were grouped in front