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CHAPTER IV
The Killing of the Lie

My story draws near now to that night of my life when all things for me were to change, and when I was to go down into the Valley of the Shadow, and come face to face with Death. I pray you hear me patiently, and believe that what I write is true of all that I felt and thought at that time. And God knows I have had years enough wherein to plan the writing of it – years of solitude and misery and exile!

I know that I felt again at that supper party the same curious premonition of a storm that I had felt in the house of old Patton. There were dreadful silences between the three of us – silences from which my guardian feverishly awoke us, or that were broken in upon by some coarse remark from Hockley. For my part I said little; I seemed to be watching and waiting; and I know now that I was alert and eager to snatch at anything the brute might say, and make much of it. Always I seemed to remember that it was Barbara's wedding day; and that I stood outside, like some pale pure knight of old, to guard her memory, and to be faithful to what she had said to me. And I knew always that the very atmosphere of the room and of the men who were with me was antagonistic to any purity of thought or feeling. From the very first I would have you understand that, from that point of view, I was a doomed man.

The supper had been carefully ordered and was excellently served; for such guests the landlord insisted on waiting in person. Also the wine was good, and it circulated freely. I seemed to see, each time that I looked over the glass from which I drank, the two faces – that of Hockley, leering and heavy and brutal; that of my guardian, white and watchful and eager; and hovering always above us that suggestion of the storm to come.

Towards the close of the meal, Hockley raised his glass and stared across at me. "I give you a toast," he said, leaning forward over the table – "I give you the pretty bride!"

"Excellent!" exclaimed Fanshawe, springing up, and raising his glass. "The pretty bride!"

"The pretty bride!" I said hoarsely; and drained my glass, and, boylike, flung it into the fireplace, where it shivered to pieces. Hockley laughed as he set his own glass down on the table.

"The one toast – eh?" he suggested, with a sneer. "The fair lady would be honoured, I'm sure, if she knew. But she's nothing to us now, whatever she may have been."

"What do you mean by that?" I demanded, looking squarely at him.

"Don't take fire so readily," he retorted. "I mean that she belongs to another man, and I hope he thinks he's got a prize. Don't glare at me like that, my young friend," he added with a laugh; "I'd be the last to say anything against the lady."

"It would be better for you if you said nothing at all about her," I said; and he lay back in his chair, and roared with laughter.

"Come, come; we're getting on dangerous ground," broke in my guardian, laying a soothing hand on my shoulder. "Surely there's no harm in toasting a lady, as our friend Hockley has done; why should you be so ready to quarrel with him, Charlie?"

Hockley was still grinning in that unpleasant fashion of his across the table; I felt bitterly enough that he looked upon me as a tiresome, quarrelsome boy, and despised me in consequence. I chafed at the thought that in all probability I must presently play cards with him – perhaps to lose again; I chafed, too, at the thought that I was dependent on this other man, my guardian, for money with which to play at all. And even while I thought that, I had a vision of Barbara coming down the staircase at her father's house, with that look in her eyes as though she had been weeping, and with her lips quivering. Altogether a bad frame of mind for a boy of twenty to be in, with two such men for company.

The table was cleared at last, and then the cards were produced. With a burning face I drew my guardian aside, and spoke to him earnestly, believing that he had forgotten my request.

"I have no money," I said, "and I already owe this man a lot. You promised to let me have some; you promised to pay Hockley."

"My dear Charlie," he whispered, "do you imagine that I carry money about with me to that extent, and especially in a little country place like this? There are ten chances to one that you will win back to-night all that you have lost, and more; you won't get two such runs of bad luck in succession. Play on, and see how the game goes; I'll back you, whether you win or lose."

"I won't play to-night," I said doggedly. "I seem to be getting tangled in a net from which I shall never extricate myself; I'm getting afraid. I won't play to-night."

"You young fool!" he exclaimed, in a low voice, "do you want to give Hockley another handle to grasp. Do you want him to say that you owed him over thirty pounds, and wouldn't pay it, and wouldn't play again? Can't you understand what manner of man he is?"

I saw that there was nothing for it but to sit down with empty pockets, and to trust that my luck would change. For a time all went well; the cards all came my way, and I seemed to see the money I had lost flowing back into my pockets. More than once my guardian clapped me on the shoulder, and cheered me on, and rallied Hockley upon his ill-luck; Hockley set his teeth, and said nothing.

Presently I staked more than I should, and lost; staked again, and lost again. I saw Hockley's heavy jaw set firm, as he laid down card after card that beat mine and my guardian's; he never said a word, as we played on steadily in a silence which was growing oppressive. A bell had been rung and an order given, and some one had put a glass beside me; I was hot, and my throat was dry, and I eagerly gulped down what was there. And still the man before me, in a deadly silence, played his cards, and made notes on a slip of paper beside him.

I got up from the table at last, overturning my chair as I did so. Hockley was leaning back, with the slip of paper held before him, and with a pencil tapping out the figures on it. My eyes were burning, and something was singing in my ears; I scarcely knew where I was.

"Bad luck, Charlie," said the voice of my guardian, cutting the silence nervously.

"Mr. Hockley," I contrived to say, "I never meant to go on as far as this. I have no money – at least, not here; I can only give you my I.O.U. Will you please tell me how much it is?"

He went on deliberately checking the figures; did not even look at me as he said the amount, yawning over it a little as he spoke. It was over seventy pounds; and I seemed to understand that my guardian owed him something also.

"I can only give you my I.O.U.," I repeated, as I drew a scrap of paper towards me, and steadied my hand to write.

"That's no good to me," he said, "not worth the paper it's written on. I've one already of yours, and what's it worth?"

"You will be paid," I said, with a helpless look at my guardian.

"If you play with gentlemen, why don't you pay like a gentleman," retorted Hockley, snatching at my scrap of paper, and getting to his feet. "I can't think what Fanshawe ever meant by bringing you into a man's business at all; this game isn't for boys."

"Be careful, Hockley!" I cried, making a movement towards him.

"To the devil with you!" he exclaimed violently. "I've had enough of your sour looks, and your threats, and your high-handed ways. Of course we're all sorry for you; you must be feeling a bit sore to-night," he sneered.

I controlled my tongue even then; I remembered the face of Barbara; I remembered the words of her note: "I love you and I trust you; you are going always to be very brave and very gentle, so that I may carry that memory of you in my heart." No such bully as this should break down my resolution; there was a power in me greater than he suspected.

It was my guardian who stirred the wound. "Why don't you be quiet, Hockley?" he said; "why don't you leave difficult subjects alone? The past is done with – "

"And so's his pretty mistress," exclaimed Hockley. And it was not so much the words as the fashion in which he said them that maddened me.

Before Fanshawe could get to me I had overturned the table, and sprang at my man. He eluded me with a quickness I should scarcely have given him credit for, and slipped round behind my guardian; danced about there, in comparative safety, with mocking words and looks, keeping Jervis Fanshawe always between us. The situation was ridiculous, and I hesitated for very shame.

"Here's a fire-eater!" he cried, emboldened by the fact that I could not get at him, and that I stood chafing. "Owes a man money, and gives his dirty scrap of paper in exchange for it; and then will not have a word said against the girl who met him in secret in the wood. Hoighty toity – we're mighty particular!"

"I'll quarrel with you on any matter that your mean soul may choose – except that," I almost pleaded with him. "For your own sake as well as mine, leave her out of the conversation. She's as far above you as the stars; let your foul tongue wag about something else."

"My tongue shall wag as it chooses," he retorted, with a frown. "I know what I know, and I've seen what I've seen. You thought me asleep in the wood that day, didn't you?"

Again I saw the face of Barbara – first as she had come towards me smiling in the wood, then as she had come down the stairs, with her eyes on mine – eyes that had tears in them. And so I restrained myself, and waited there, helpless, until he should be silent.

"A fig for your saints and your Madonnas!" cried Hockley. "They're the worst of the lot. Our little meek-eyed Barbara was a lady of many loves – in secret. How did she meet you in the wood – you that had never met her before? How did she meet me – a dozen times before?"

"For the love of God, keep him quiet!" I cried to my guardian; for I felt that my head was bursting, and my throat was dry. I seemed then to be praying to the only saint I knew for strength and for confidence; I only wanted to get out of the room, before I struck the man dead. My guardian did nothing; he stood still, watching us both; and after a moment Hockley went on. I had a dim feeling, as he began to speak again, that people were moving outside the door; I think the place had been disturbed by the overturning of the table.

"That makes you wince, doesn't it?" he demanded; for I think he felt secure, now that other people were near at hand. "I tell you she was for any man that cared – "

I sprang straight at him then, and had him by the throat. I was young, and my muscles were tough; more than that, I was in finer condition than he, with all his drinking and his late nights and his vices, could hope to be. We went down together, he screaming out something that sounded like a cry for help; and I tore and raged at him as though I were mad.

When I came to myself, I was being held by three or four of them, and he was leaning against the overturned table, breathing heavily, and trying to arrange his collar and tie; his face was ghastly. After a moment he pointed a shaking hand at me, and gasped out —

"He tried to murder me; he meant to murder me. We were – we were joking, gentlemen – and he – he tried to murder me."

"Yes, I tried to murder you," I said. "And I'll try again, with more success, when I get the chance, unless you take back what you've said."

"Charlie – Charlie – come away!" exclaimed my guardian, putting his hands on my breast, and pushing me back. "I'm sorry to have disturbed all you good people," he added, turning to the landlord, who was staring at us with a scared face; "but this is only a matter of hot blood. They'll shake hands in the morning; they'll be friends again."

They were dragging me away, while I strove to break from them; I called out again to Hockley. "You shall take back what you said; I'll make you eat your lie, or I'll kill you."

I do not think I quite understood what I was saying; even the shocked scared faces about me could not make me understand the gravity of it all. I found myself outside the closed doors of the room, panting and almost weeping with excitement, with the stout landlord holding me on one side, and a waiter on the other. My guardian was speaking – not to me, but to the landlord.

"Very well, since you insist, he shall not stop in the house," said Jervis Fanshawe. "I'll take him away to Mr. Patton's place; I can secure a bed for him there. Yes – yes – I quite understand, and I'm sorry you've been disturbed; it shall all be put right. Tell Mr. Hockley that I've gone home."

They got me out of the house; locked the door on me, in fact. I stood under the stars with Fanshawe, staring before me down the road, and panting heavily; for I knew that this was but the beginning. I seemed to see the foul lips of the man for ever breathing out lies about her – lies that must be stopped and killed now in their birth. That was what I must do, and quickly. This thing would be spread; I seemed to see the man whispering it here, there, and everywhere, with shrugs and leers and winks. Yes, I would kill it.

As in a sort of dream I heard my guardian talking to me. "Yes, my dear boy; I know it's abominable – shameful; but what can you do? Any one who knows you and knows her must know that it is all a lie from beginning to end. There – there – come away. I suppose if we lived in any other century, you might strike a man down for this; I think I should strike him down myself, if I were as young and strong as you are." He was glancing at me curiously as we stood there in the utter silence of the night; there seemed a challenge in his eyes. And his suggestion about any other century had brought back again to my mind the remembrance that I was her pure knight, pledged to do battle for her. I began to walk rapidly away in the direction of the house of the Pattons, with my guardian walking beside me, and putting in a word here and there that was meant to be soothing, and yet that only served to inflame my passion.

"I ought not to have said that about striking him down, Charlie; that would be murder," he went on. "And one may not murder another man, however much one may be tempted, or however richly the man may deserve death. But the worst of it is, of course, that one doesn't know how to stop him; he'll go on saying those things about that sweet girl, and people will begin to believe – to say there's no smoke without fire, and horrible things of that sort. What had we better do, Charlie?"

"You can leave it to me," I said. "You can safely leave it to me."

He seemed to be able to do what he liked at the house of the Pattons. A manservant let us in; my guardian seemed to whisper something to him to account for my dishevelled appearance, and for the fact that I had no hat. The man got a light in one of the lower rooms, and presently brought in a decanter and some glasses; then, at a further whispered suggestion from Fanshawe, retired and left us alone together. My guardian was hovering about me anxiously – now murmuring what a shame it was that such things should be said openly about such a girl as Barbara – now muttering what he would do if he were a younger man – now urging me feebly to forget all about it, and leave the man alone.

"Above all, Charlie – no violence," he said. "I shudder to think what you might have done if I had not prevented you to-night. You won't mend things that way; we must think of some other method."

I said nothing; I drank mechanically what he put into my hand; I acquiesced in his suggestion that I should go to bed. My last recollection of him was when he came into my room, looking thinner and more gaunt than ever in a dark dressing gown, and hovered over me with a candle, and hoped that I would sleep.

But sleep was not for me that night; I had other things to think about. The lie faced me, like a grey haunting shadow, in the night; had become more horrible with the first streaks of dawn. The more I strove to control myself – the more I told myself that what such a creature as Hockley might say could not matter – the more my passion grew. And it was a worse passion now, because there was growing up in it a method that was greater than the madness of the night before. In that long night, wherein I lay and thought the thing over, the boyish part of me seemed to have lived far back in another age; it was a new Charles Avaline that rose with the morning, and dressed and went out.

I know that I walked into the hotel at Hammerstone Market quietly enough; I was half way up the stairs leading to my room before the startled landlord came out, and called after me to know where I was going. I turned, and faced him on the stairs.

"I'm going to my room to put my things together," I answered. "Is Mr. Hockley up yet?" I steadied my voice, and made the question as careless as I could.

"Mr. Hockley's gone, sir," said the man, in what was evidently a tone of satisfaction.

I came down the stairs, and faced him for a moment in silence. "That's not true," I said quietly; "he's afraid to meet me, and you're hiding him."

"Thank the Lord, sir, he's gone," said the man earnestly. "I didn't like the look of you last night, sir; and I like the look of you still less this morning. No offence, sir, but I'll be glad when you're out of my 'ouse."

I packed my bag, and arranged for it to be sent to the station; then I tramped back to find my guardian. I found him seated at breakfast, quite alone; Mr. Patton had not yet come down. I told him that I had been to the hotel, and that Hockley was gone. I think he seemed surprised, and a little taken aback at the news.

"Well, what are you going to do?" he asked, after a silence, during which he had been twisting his long fingers about over each other nervously. "Are you going to let the matter drop, or what are you going to do?"

"I'm going to follow him; I'm going to find him," I said. "You know where he lives in London; you must give me the address."

"I won't do that," he replied instantly; "I'll have no hand in this business. Let him say what he likes, or do what he likes; it's no affair of mine, and it should be no affair of yours. I wash my hands of it."

He went on with his breakfast again, muttering to himself something about young hot-headed fools; I waited patiently. I brushed aside his suggestion that I should have some breakfast; I was impatient to be gone. I told him again that I must have Hockley's address.

"Look here, Charlie," he said at last, "I'm going to London by a train which leaves in half an hour; you can come with me. We'll talk over this matter in the train, and I'll see if I can't bring you to a more sensible frame of mind."

To that I agreed, and we presently started together for the station. During our journey I urged two things upon him: that I must have sufficient money to pay my debt to this man, and that I must have this man's address. He flatly refused to let me have the address; the money he said he would forward to Hockley himself.

"You promise that?" I asked eagerly.

"I'll send him a cheque directly I reach the office," he replied earnestly.

I urged him again to let me know where the man lived, but he would not. Finally, however, he said he would think the matter over; if I would call at his office in the City that evening, he would let me know his decision. With that I had to be content; and I left him at the station, and after taking my luggage to my rooms, set off to kill the day as best I could.

I reached Jervis Fanshawe's office in the late afternoon, to find that he was gone. But he had left a note for me; I tore it open, and read it there.

"I have sent a cheque to Gavin Hockley to cover the full amount you are indebted to him. I enclose his address, because I think that you are the best judge of what you should do.

"J. F."

I tore the note up, having got that address clearly in my mind, and set out to find Hockley. I remember now that a curious calm had come over me – a curious feeling of deadly certainty as to what I wanted, and what I meant to have. I was no longer in his debt; I could stand face to face with him on absolutely equal terms. And I would have you bear in mind that I did not mean to kill him.

No – I did not mean to kill him. There was a thought in my mind that I might beat him to his knees, and force him to say the truth; that I might compel him, in fact, to write it down: nothing more than that. But my rage and my abhorrence had grown into a deadly thing, more dangerous than the passion of the night before; I did not know then what I have recognized since, that I had no real control of myself, and that I had sprung as it were, in one single instant, above any law that might be made by man. And I was in that condition when, in the coming gloom of the evening, I turned into Lincoln's Inn Fields, and looked for the place where Gavin Hockley lived.

It was a curious old house, with a great flagged courtyard in front of it; it had once been the house of some great man, before Lincoln's Inn had been invaded by lawyers and others in search of chambers and offices. I read his name on a plate at the door; I climbed the stairs, and as I climbed I slowly unbuttoned my gloves, and took them off. I had no weapon of any sort, save a light walking cane that would have snapped at a touch.

I came to the door of his rooms, and read his name there again.

My heart was beating a little more rapidly than usual, but I was outwardly calm. I saw that the door was open an inch or two; without knocking, I thrust it open, and went in. The place was empty. Judging at first that he had seen me coming, and had bolted I made a quick movement towards the door of the room in which I stood, with the intention of setting out in pursuit; and at that moment heard the outer door bang, and heard him come in, whistling. I stood still, just within the door of his sitting-room, and waited for him.

He came straight into the room, looking neither to right nor left; it was only as he swung about at the table that he saw me. I stood quite still, watching him, and for a moment I saw flash up in his eyes the look of a hunted creature at bay. He had stopped, with his hands resting on the table; he seemed to crouch there, waiting. I made a rapid movement, and got between him and the door.

"What do you want?" he asked at last, straightening himself, and putting his hand for a moment to his collar. I thought then that perhaps he had a difficulty in breathing, or perhaps he remembered my hands there on the previous night.

"You ran away from me this morning, because you were afraid of what I might do to you," I said steadily. "You can't run now; you've got to face me, and answer me, and do as I tell you."

"Oh, indeed!" He was getting a little of his courage back by this time, and some of his old air of bravado sat awkwardly enough upon him. "And may I ask what the devil you mean by forcing your way into a gentleman's rooms like this?"

"I had to meet you, and I chose the only way that was open to me," I replied. "I went to look for you this morning, but you had by that time decided that it was wiser to get out of my way. I want you to take back the lie you told last night."

I saw him look quickly round the room; I glanced for a moment round myself. I knew that his eyes sought a weapon; I knew that if he could frighten me out of the place, or overawe me in any way, he would laugh at anything I might threaten, and that my chance would be gone. He made a movement as if to get past me; I stood still, looking at him. The momentary glance round the walls had shown me that the place was very beautifully furnished, and that weapons of various sorts were fastened about, for the mere purpose of ornamentation. I saw that it would become a question as to which of us secured a weapon first; but even then, as I did not mean to kill him, I did not make the first move. That I will swear.

When he moved, it was to snatch a weapon that seemed characteristic of his clumsy brutality; he suddenly swooped and caught up a heavy poker from the fireplace. "It was no lie, and you know it," he blurted out. "Every one knows it, if it comes to that. Get out of my place, you cub, until you can pay your debts."

"Stay where you are!" I commanded him. "My debt is paid; a cheque has been sent you to-day. For the last time, will you take back what you have said, or shall I kill you?"

He suddenly made an ugly rush at me, swinging the poker above his head. He was blind with fury and fear; he did not seem to know where he struck. I sprang aside, and on the instant wrenched from its place on the wall a short old-fashioned heavy-bladed sword. I waited until he should turn to come at me again; and when he did his lips were spluttering out words and oaths so frightful, with her sweet name mixed horribly with them, that I felt I had no option. I struck down his weapon, and I drove straight at his head with my own. I struck him twice with all my force, and saw him drop to his knees, and then on to his side. And so lay, as in my dream, with blood upon him at my feet.

I turned round, and walked out of the place. Somehow it did not seem surprising that on the staircase I should meet my guardian, Jervis Fanshawe. He was trembling from head to foot; he took hold of my arm, and asked me in a shaking voice to tell him for the love of God what I had done.

"I've killed Gavin Hockley – and his lie," I said. Then I went quietly down the stairs, and out into the summer twilight of Lincoln's Inn Fields.