Where Highways Cross/Part 3/Chapter 5
CHAPTER V
TEMPTATION
Before he came to the point where the bye-way turned down through the woods to his farmstead, Hepworth let the reins drop on his horse's back and began to think. Verrell's admission had acted upon him like a sudden douche of ice-cold water. He was himself again, and felt prepared to think and act after his ordinary level-headed fashion. The sorrow that had come to him was still with him, but it no longer bore him down with a fierce regret that was half-madness. He now felt that it must be grappled with and conquered for Elisabeth's sake. So far he had thought only of himself; since Verrell's admission of his guilt he had begun to think for the woman he loved.
The horse, wearied and frightened by the harsh treatment it had received, dropped into a slow walk, hanging its head and panting. Hepworth let it go its own way. He sat with folded arms and bowed head, thinking gloomily.
"All is over," he said to himself. "I have lived in a fool's paradise, and now I am turned out of it. I used to wonder at Elisabeth when she first told me of her doubts about God, but now I half believe in what she said. What a mockery is life! Here am I, loving with all my heart a woman who is tied to another man. She loved that man passionately once, and believed in him with absolute confidence, and all the time he was deceiving her. She and I would have been happy together—it couldn't have been otherwise, because I love her. And now it's all over—and I'm sick at heart for wonder that God lets such things be. Oh, I don't wonder that Elisabeth had doubts. It seems as if God played shuttlecock with human lives. Is there a God? Once I never doubted it—I was content then. Did I ever think? I don't know—contented folk never ask themselves the why or wherefore of anything."
So he went on, thinking sombrely of his trouble, until the horse came to the gate of the narrow way that led to the farmstead. There he pulled himself together and took up the reins and drove at a quicker pace to the door of the house. He got out of the trap and collected his parcels and walked steadily into the kitchen. It was then six o'clock, and Mally and the two women were having a cup of tea at the table in the window-place. Mally looked at her master with some curiosity.
"Massy on us!" she said; "ye're lookin' badly, maister—that white and drawn. Aren't you weel?"
"I'm all right," he answered. "It's very hot to-day—it's the heat, Mally."
"I'll mak' you a cup o' fresh tea at once," said Mally. "It's varry coolin' is tea—nowt like it i' summer."
"No," he said, "I don't want it. I don't want anything just now, Mally—let me be."
He walked into the parlour and flung his parcels upon the table, and sat down in his chair with a sigh. He remembered with what joy and animation he had gone out of that room only a few hours previously. Then he felt a young man, instinct with life and vigour; now there was a curious, vague feeling of old age about him—it seemed to him that he had aged suddenly.
He sat for some minutes thinking in this way. One of his men came along the yard and took away the horse and trap; a child passed the window carrying a milk- jug. He noted these things with that keen appreciation which comes over the mind in times of pain or sorrow. At last he turned from the window and rose, walking aimlessly across the floor. A half-open drawer in the bureau in which he kept his papers attracted his attention. He laid his hand on it, intending to close it, but in the act his eyes became riveted to an object lying within. He stood, with the drawer half-closed, staring at the thing before him. The object at which Hepworth gazed was a revolver, the polished butt of which was partly covered by a loose mass of papers.
A full minute went by, and still Hepworth stood and stared fixedly at the thing which had caught his eye. He suddenly picked it up and went back to the chair from which he had lately risen, and sitting down, looked at it. He had bought it years before, in order to protect himself when coming home late along the lonely roads, but he had never used it, though it had been kept clean and bright against need to carry it. He examined it carefully now, and noticed that the chambers were all charged, and that everything was in proper order.
Hepworth began to think. With the power that lay concealed within those shining chambers he could cut the knot that now tied up all the sweet possibilities of life. Verrell was in that lonely grove of trees, absolutely alone, and not a soul in the world knew of his presence there. He was a man already believed to be dead. The law recognised him as dead. He had no friends to enquire for him. The people who saw him drive away with Hepworth from Sicaster would never ask after him, for they knew nothing about him. How easy to destroy him, to hide his body, and thus to put an end to the difficulties which his life raised in Hepworth's path!
Hepworth rose and went over to the side-board and poured himself out a stiff glass of whisky from the decanter that stood there. He drank it at a gulp, and sat down again, and played with the revolver and continued to think.
How easy to do it! And why not? Why should he fear? There was no God! God could not play fast and loose with human hearts, and since human hearts were played with in this fashion there was no God. There was naught but blind fate, cold, cruel, merciless. Let him defy it—let him take the power that life gave him into his own hands and conquer everything by sheer strength of will and purpose. Since everything was against him, let him be against everything. Fate had been kind in one way: it had shown him a means of removing from his path its only obstacle without a fear of discovery.
Hepworth rose. He slipped the revolver into his pocket, and leaving the parlour passed through the porch into the garden and went round the corner of the house, intending to walk across the fields to the spot where he had left Verrell. But before he turned out of the garden he passed an open window and heard voices in the room within. A chance word made him pause and then shrink close to the wall and listen.
Mally and one of the women were talking. They had forgotten their differences in their desire to gossip, and they now conversed as they swept and dusted.
"Dosta think shoo'll mak' t' maister a good wife, then?" said the woman.
"Aye, I think shoo will," said Mally. "I tuke a deeäl o' notice on her when shoo wor here, and shoo seemed a nice, tidy, weel-behaäved young woman."
"I wonder if shoo thinks a deeäl on 'im."
"That's more nor I can say," answered Mally. "Tha sees, lass, shoo'd been wed afore. Aye, and seemed to think a deeäll aboot her first husband! Theer wor one neet, at efter shoo'd promised to wed t' maister 'at I see'd her wi' her first husband's pictur—eh, dear, poor thing, shoo wor crying over it like a babby. Shoo kissed it, and hugged it to her, and then she'd luke at it for iver soa long, and kiss it ageeän. Soöa tho sees, mi lass, hahiver much shoo may think o' t' new, shoo hasn't forgat t' owd 'un; noäa, and niver will, and if he wor to rise throo' t' grave shoo'd göa to him, chuse what! Theer niver wor a woman i' this world 'at forgat her first love."
Hepworth walked quietly away. He turned out of the garden by a door that led into the fold. The fold was quiet; the men were in the back-kitchen at supper; everything lay hushed and peaceful under the summer evening's calm.
There was a well in one corner of the fold, covered by a stout oaken lid, raised by a heavy iron ring. He bent over and lifted the lid, and feeling for the revolver drew it from his pocket and dropped it into the well. He heard it splash far below. The noise of the falling lid drowned the echoes of the splash.
Hepworth turned back to the house. He went into the parlour and unlocked a small safe that stood in the cupboard. From an inner drawer he took out a pocket-book, and having put this in his breast, he left the house and walked swiftly towards the village.