Where Highways Cross/Part 3/Chapter 4
CHAPTER IV
HEPWORTH'S QUESTION
"Where are you going?" asked Verrell, following Hepworth from the parlour and down the passage to the door. There was something in Hepworth's voice and manner that alarmed him. Hepworth stood at the door, staring absently-minded at his horse and trap. At Verrell's question he laughed harshly and turned to look at his questioner with a strange expression on his face.
"Aye, where?" said he. "Where? Come, we must go somewhere. There is much to do, and the sooner we set about doing it the better."
Verrell followed him to the trap. Hepworth bade him get in and took the reins from the ostler. He drove out of the yard by the back entrance.
"Look here," said Verrell, "I don't know where you're taking me, but I hope it is not through the town. I want to escape observation as much as possible, you know, because—"
"Afraid of being caught, eh?" said Hepworth, and began to laugh again.
"You never know who there may be watching you," said Verrell, nervously. He wished Hepworth would not laugh in so strange a fashion. It seemed to him that it was the laughter of a madman. He glanced at Hepworth's face, and was still more uneasy. It was white and drawn as if with intense pain and there was a look in his eyes that frightened Verrell as much as the harsh, soulless laughter.
"We're going home," said Hepworth presently. "And we'll go by a quiet road. You need not be afraid. There's nobody will know you—it's most likely that we shan't meet a soul all the way."
"And when we get home," asked Verrell, "what shall we do? Is—is Elisabeth at your house now?"
"No," answered Hepworth.
"I suppose I had better see her at once!" said Verrell. "Of course, you will have to tell her that the marriage cannot take place."
Hepworth set his teeth firmly together, and brought down the whip in his right hand with savage force across the horse's flanks. The horse started violently and then plunged forward. Hepworth tightened his hold on the reins, and laughed again. Verrell shivered and clutched at the seat.
"It frightens me," he said, "to hear you laugh like that."
"You think I'm mad," said Hepworth bluntly, "I know you do. Well, perhaps I am. I think I went mad when I found out who you are."
"I am sorry," said Verrell. "Very sorry. I wish it could have been different. I've known sorrow, too, and so has my wife. I suppose you love her—"
"Man alive!" cried Hepworth. "Do you want to drive me mad altogether? Don't you see that it's almost killing me, this awful thing? Love her? My God, man, what do you know about love? You're young, you're a boy—look at me, I'm middle-aged, old, if you like, and I never loved in my life until I saw her. And now we're to be parted."
"Think of what it must have been when we were parted," said Verrell, quietly.
Hepworth nodded his head. He remembered the agony which Elisabeth had shown when she told him her story.
"I can't think," he answered. "I know what it must have been, but I can't think. The blow has broken me, man, I feel as if I were dead—dead as a door-nail and yet more alive than ever I was. That's what it must be to be in hell. I am in hell, Verrell—yes, in hell."
He drove on in silence. Instead of taking the high-road from Sicaster he had turned into a bye-lane through the fields, and over its ruts and uneven surface he drove swiftly forward, occasionally urging the horse on with blows of the whip. The trap rocked from side to side, and Verrell was obliged to hold on to keep his seat, but Hepworth paid no heed. A long, trailing branch from an overhanging tree caught his face and tore the skin and drew blood, but he gave no sign. Coming at last to a turn in the lane which brought them within sight of the woods beyond which lay the farmstead, he drew rein, and brought the sweating horse to a walking pace.
"What are your plans?" he said curtly.
"Plans?"
"You've some notion of what you're going to do, I suppose," said Hepworth. "You didn't come here for nothing."
"I came to find my wife," answered Verrell.
"Well, now you know where she is, what are you going to do? You'll go away with her, I expect."
"Yes," said Verrell. "I expect so. You see I haven't any definite plans, because I didn't know where Elisabeth might be. Now that I have found her I suppose we must go quietly away and hide ourselves—perhaps in America."
"Have you any money?" asked Hepworth bluntly.
"Not much," answered Verrell.
Hepworth pulled up his horse. The trap stood under the shadow of a grove of trees just where the lane crossed the great highway. Hepworth pointed across the lane with his whip.
"Get out," he said. "Go into those trees—you'll find a sort of hut in the middle, and you can stay there for a while until I bring your wife. It may be two or three hours yet. You must wait."
"Yes," said Verrell. He got out and advanced towards the trees.
"Stop a bit," said Hepworth, suddenly recalling him. He leaned over the side of the trap and looked Verrell searchingly in the face. "I know your story," he said. "Your wife thinks you were innocent. Tell me the truth. Before God—were you innocent?"
Verrell hung his head. For a moment he said nothing. Then he looked up and answered in a low voice, "No, I was not!"
Hepworth withdrew his eyes slowly from Verrell's upturned face. He was about to speak, but he suddenly shook the reins and drove away along the lane.