Kitabı oku: «The Shadow of Ashlydyat», sayfa 24

“There must be dreamers and there must be workers,” answered Janet, picking her way down the winding stairs. “We were not all born into the world with minds similarly constituted, or to fulfil the same parts in life.”

The day passed on. Thomas Godolphin came home in the evening to dinner, and said George had not returned. Maria wondered. It grew later. Margery went home with Meta: who thought she was very hardly used at having to go home before her mamma.

“I had rather you would stay, Maria,” Thomas said to her. “I particularly wish to say a word to George to-night, on business-matters: if he finds you are here when he returns, he will come up.”

George did find so—as you already know. And when he left Mrs. Charlotte Pain, her torn dress and her other attractions, he bent his steps towards Ashlydyat. But, instead of going, the most direct road to it, he took his way through the thicket where he had had the encounter an hour ago with Charlotte. There was a little spice of mystery about it which excited Mr. George’s curiosity. That someone had parted from her he felt convinced, in spite of her denial. And that she was in a state of excitement, of agitation, far beyond anything he had ever witnessed in Charlotte Pain, was indisputable. George’s thoughts went back, naturally, to the previous night: to the figure he had seen, and whom his eyes, his conviction, had told him was Charlotte. She had positively denied it, had said she had not quitted the drawing-room: and George had found her there, apparently composed and stationary. Nevertheless, though he had then yielded to her word, he began now to suspect that his own conviction had been correct: that the dark and partially disguised figure had been no other than Charlotte herself. It is probable that, however powerful was the hold Charlotte’s fascinations may have taken upon the senses of Mr. George Godolphin, his trust in her, in her truth and single-heartedness, was not of the most perfect nature. What mystery was connected with Charlotte, or whom she met in the thicket, or whether she met any one or no one, she best knew. George’s curiosity was sufficiently excited upon the point to induce him to walk with a slow step and searching eyes, lest haply he might come upon some one or something which should explain the puzzle.

How runs the old proverb? “A watched-for visitor never comes.” In vain George halted and listened; in vain he peered into every part of the thicket within view. Not a step was to be heard, not a creature to be seen: and he emerged from the trees ungratified. Crossing the open grass by the turnstile he turned round by the ash-trees, to the Dark Plain.

Turned and started. George Godolphin’s thoughts had been on other things than the Shadow. The Shadow lay there, so pre-eminently dark, so menacing, that George positively started. Somehow—fond as he was of ignoring the superstition—George Godolphin did not like its look to-night.

Upon entering Ashlydyat, his first interview was with Thomas. They remained for a few minutes alone. Thomas had business affairs to speak of: and George—it is more than probable—made some good excuse for his day’s absence. That it would be useless to deny he had been to London, he knew. Charlotte had put him on his guard. Janet and Bessy asked innumerable questions of him when he joined them, on the score of his absence; but he treated it in his usual light manner, contriving to tell them nothing. Maria did not say a word then: she left it till they should be alone.

“You will tell me, George, will you not?” she gently said, as they were walking home together.

“Tell you what, Maria?”

“Oh, George, you know what”—and her tone, as Mr. George’s ears detected, bore its sound of pain. “If you were going to London when you left me; why did you deceive me by saying you were going elsewhere?”

“You goose! Do you suppose I said it to deceive you?”

There was a lightness, an untruthfulness in his words, in his whole air and manner, which struck with the utmost pain upon Maria’s heart. “Why did you say it?” was all she answered.

“Maria, I’ll tell you the truth,” said he, becoming serious and confidential. “I wanted to run up to town on a little pressing matter of business, and I did not care that it should become known in the Bank. Had I known that I should be away for the day, of course I should have told Thomas: but I fully intended to be home in the afternoon: therefore I said nothing about it. I missed the train, or I should have been home in due time.”

“You might have told me,” she sighed. “I would have kept your counsel.”

“So I would, had I thought you deemed it of any consequence,” replied George.

Consequence! Maria walked on a few minutes in silence, her arm lying very spiritless within her husband’s. “If you did not tell me,” she resumed, in a low tone, “why did you tell Mrs. Pain?”

“Mrs. Pain’s a donkey,” was George’s rejoinder. And it is probable Mr. George at that moment was thinking her one: for his tone in its vexation, was real enough. “My business was connected with Verrall, and I dropped a hint, in the hearing of Mrs. Pain, that I might probably follow him to town. At any rate, I am safe home again, Maria, so no great harm has come of my visit to London,” he concluded, in a gayer tone.

“What time did you get in?” she asked.

“By the seven o’clock train.”

“The seven o’clock train!” she repeated in surprise. “And have only now come up to Ashlydyat!”

“I found a good many things to do after I got home,” was the rejoinder.

“Did you see Meta? Margery took her home at eight o’clock.”

Mr. George Godolphin had not seen Meta. Mr. George could have answered, had it so pleased him, that before the child reached home, he had departed on his evening visit to Lady Godolphin’s Folly.

CHAPTER IX.
THE DEAD ALIVE AGAIN

Saturday was a busy day at Prior’s Ash; it was a busy day at the banking-house of Godolphin, Crosse, and Godolphin. Country towns and country banks are always more busy on a market-day.

George Godolphin sat in the manager’s room, full of business. Not much more than a week had elapsed since that visit of his to London; and it was now Thomas’s turn to be away. Thomas had gone to town. His errand there was to consult one of the first surgeons of the day, on the subject of his own health. Not so much that he had hope from the visit, as that it would be a satisfaction to his family to have made it.

George Godolphin was full of business. Full of talking also. A hearty country client, one who farmed a large number of acres, and generally kept a good round sum in the Bank’s coffers, was with him. What little point of business he had had occasion to see one of the partners upon, was concluded, and he and George were making merry together, enjoying a gossip as to the state of affairs in general and in particular, out of doors and in. Never a man more free from care (if appearances might be trusted) than George Godolphin! When that hearty, honest farmer went forth, he would have been willing to testify that, of carking care, George possessed none.

As he went on, George sat down and bent over some account-books. His face had changed. Lines, of what looked worse than care, grew out upon it, and he lifted his hand to his brow with a weary gesture. Another minute, and he was interrupted again. He had very little peace on a market-day.

“Lord Averil wishes to see you, sir,” said one of the clerks. It was Isaac Hastings.

To any other announced name, George Godolphin’s ready answer would have been, “Show him in.” To that of Lord Averil he evidently hesitated, and a sudden flush dyed his face. Isaac, keen in observation as was his father, as was his sister Grace, noticed it. To him, it looked like a flush of shrinking fear.

“Did he ask for me?”

“He asked for Mr. Godolphin, sir. He says it will be the same thing if he sees you. Shall I show him in?”

“Of course,” replied George. “What do you stop for?” he angrily added.

He rose from his seat; he put a chair or two in place; he turned to the table, and laid rapidly some of its papers one upon another—all in a fuss and bustle not in the least characteristic of George Godolphin. Isaac thought he must have lost his usual presence of mind. As to the reproach addressed to himself, “What do you stop for?”—it had never been the custom to show clients into the presence of the partners without first asking for permission.

Lord Averil came in. George, only in that short time, had become himself again. They chatted a minute on passing topics, and Lord Averil mentioned that he had not known, until then, that Mr. Godolphin was in London.

“He went up on Thursday,” observed George. “I expect he will be back early in the week.”

“I intend to be in London myself next week,” said Lord Averil. “Will it be convenient for me to have those bonds of mine to-day?” he continued.

A sudden coursing on of all George’s pulses; a whirling rush in his brain. “Bonds?” he mechanically answered.

“The bonds of that stock which your father bought for me years ago,” explained Lord Averil. “They were deposited here for security. Don’t you know it?”—looking at George’s countenance, which seemed to speak only of perplexity. “Mr. Godolphin would know.”

“Oh yes, yes,” replied George, regaining his breath and his courage. “It is all right: I did not remember for the moment. Of course—the deposited bonds.”

“I am thinking of selling out,” said Lord Averil. “Indeed, I have been for some time thinking of it, but have idly put it off. If it would be quite convenient to give me the bonds, I would take them to town with me. I shall go up on Monday or Tuesday.”

Now, George Godolphin, rally your wits! What are you to answer? George did rally them, in a lame manner. Confused words, which neither he nor Lord Averil precisely understood—to the effect that in Thomas Godolphin’s absence, he, George, did not know exactly where to put his hand upon the securities—came forth. So Lord Averil courteously begged him not to take any trouble about it. He would leave them until another opportunity.

He shook hands cordially with George, and went out with a mental comment, “Not half the man of business that his brother is, and his father was: but wondrously like Cecil!” George watched the door close. He wiped the dewdrops which had gathered on his face; he looked round with the beseeching air of one seeking relief from some intense pain. Had Lord Averil persisted in his demand, what would have remained for him? Those are the moments in which man has been tempted to resort to the one irredeemable sin.

The door opened again, and George gave a gasp as one in agony. It was only Isaac Hastings. “Mr. Hurde wishes to know, sir, whether those bills are to go up to Glyn’s to-day or Monday?”

“They had better go to-day,” replied George. “Has Mr. Barnaby been in to-day?” he added, as Isaac was departing.

“Not yet.”

“If he does not come soon, some one must go down to the corn market to him. He is sure to be there. That is, if he is in town to-day.”

“I know he is in town,” replied Isaac. “I saw him as I was coming back from dinner. He was talking to Mr. Verrall.”

“To Mr. Verrall!” almost shouted George, looking up as if electrified into life. “Is he back again?”

“He is back again, sir. I think he had only then arrived. He was coming from towards the railway station.”

“You are sure it was Mr. Verrall?” reiterated George.

Isaac Hastings smiled. What could make Mr. George Godolphin so eager? “I am sure it was Mr. Verrall.”

George felt as if a whole ton weight of care had been lifted from him. He had been so long in the habit of flying to Mr. Verrall in his difficulties, that it seemed to him he would only have to go to him, to remedy the one hanging over him now. Mr. Verrall had generally accomplished the task as men of his profession do accomplish such tasks—by laying up an awful day of reckoning for the future. That day was not now far off for George Godolphin.

The Bank closed later on Saturdays, and George remained at his post to the end. Then he dined. Then, at the dusk-hour—nay, at the hour of darkness, he went out to Lady Godolphin’s Folly. Why was it that he rarely went to the Folly now, except under the covert shades of night? Did he fear people might comment on his intimacy with Mr. Verrall, and seek a clue to its cause? Or did he fear the world’s gossip on another score?

George arrived at Lady Godolphin’s Folly, and was admitted to an empty room. “Mr. Verrall had returned, and had dined with Mrs. Pain, but had gone out after dinner,” the servant said. He had believed Mrs. Pain to be in the drawing-room. Mrs. Pain was evidently not there, in spite of the man’s searching eyes. He looked into the next room, with similar result.

“Perhaps, sir, she has stepped out on the terrace with her dogs?” observed the man.

George—ungallant as he was!—cared not where Mrs. Pain might have stepped at that present moment: his anxiety was for Mr. Verrall. “Have you any idea when your master will be in?” he inquired of the servant.

“I don’t think he’ll be long, sir. I heard him say he was tired, and should go to bed early. He may have gone to Ashlydyat. He told Mrs. Pain that he had met Mr. Godolphin in town yesterday, and he should call and tell Miss Godolphin that he was better in London than he felt here. I don’t know, sir, though, that he meant he should call to-night.”

The man left the room, and George remained alone. He drummed on the table; he tried several seats in succession; he got up and looked at his face in the glass. A haggard face then. Where was Verrall? Where was Charlotte? She might be able to tell him where Verrall had gone, and when he would be in. Altogether George was in a state of restlessness little better than torture.

He impatiently opened the glass doors, which were only closed, not fastened, and stood a few moments looking out upon the night. He gazed in all directions, but could see nothing of Charlotte; and Mr. Verrall did not appear to be coming. “I’ll see,” suddenly exclaimed George, starting off, “whether he is at Ashlydyat.”

He did well. Action is better than inertness at these moments. Standing outside the porch at Ashlydyat, talking to a friend, was Andrew, one of their servants. When he saw George, he drew back to hold open the door for him.

“Are my sisters alone, Andrew?”

“Yes, sir.”

George scarcely expected the answer, and it disappointed him. “Quite alone?” he reiterated. “Has no one called on them to-night?”

The man shook his head, wondering probably who Mr. George might be expecting to call. “They are all alone, sir. Miss Janet has one of her bad headaches.”

George did not want to go in, Mr. Verrall not being there, and this last item afforded him an excuse for retreating without doing so. “Then I’ll not disturb her to-night,” said he. “You need not say that I came up, Andrew.”

“Very well, sir.”

He quitted Andrew, and turned off to the left, deep in thought, striking into a sheltered path. It was by no means the direct road back to the Folly, neither was it to Prior’s Ash. In point of fact, it led to nothing but the Dark Plain and its superstition. Not a woman-servant of Ashlydyat, perhaps not one of its men, would have gone down that path at night: for at the other end it brought them out to the archway, before which the Shadow was wont to show itself.

Why did George take it? He could not have told. Had he been asked why, he might have said that one way, to a man bowed under a sharp weight of trouble, is the same as another. True. But the path led him to no part where he could wish to go; and he would have to make his way to Lady Godolphin’s Folly through the gorse bushes of the Dark Plain, over the very Shadow itself. These apparently chance steps, which seem to be taken without premeditation or guidance of ours, sometimes lead to strange results.

George went along moodily, his hands in his pockets, his footfalls slow and light. But for the latter fact, he might not have had the pleasure of disturbing a certain scene that was taking place under cover of the archway.

Were they ghosts, enacting it? Scarcely. Two forms, ghostly or human, were there. One of them looked like a woman’s. It was dressed in dark clothes, and a dark shawl was folded over the head, not, however, concealing the features—and they were those of Charlotte Pain. She, at any rate, was not ghostly. The other, George took to be Mr. Verrall. He was leaning against the brickwork, in apparently as hopeless a mood as George himself.

They were enjoying a quarrel. Strange that they should leave the house and come to this lonely spot in the grounds of Ashlydyat to hold it! Charlotte was evidently in one of her tempers. She paced to and fro under the archway, something like a restrained tiger, pouring forth a torrent of sharp words and reproaches, all in a suppressed tone.

“I’ll tell you what it is,” were the first distinct words of anger George caught. But her companion interrupted her, his tone one of sadness and humility.

“I’ll tell you what it is, Charlotte–”

The start made by George Godolphin at the tones of the voice, the involuntary sound of utter astonishment that escaped him, disturbed them. Charlotte, with a cry of terror, darted one way, her companion another.

But the latter was not quick enough to elude George Godolphin. Springing forward, George caught him in his powerful grasp, really to assure himself that it was no ghost, but genuine flesh and blood. Then George turned the face to the starlight, and recognized the features of the dead-and-gone Mr. Rodolf Pain.

The return of a husband, popularly supposed to be dead and out of the way for good, may be regarded by the wife as a blessing from some special providence, or as a source of annoying embarrassment, according to the lady’s own feeling on the subject. Undoubtedly, Charlotte Pain looked upon it, and most unmistakably so, in the latter light. Charlotte knew, better than the world, that Mr. Rodolf Pain was not dead; but she had believed him to be as surely out of her way as though death and some safe metropolitan cemetery had irrevocably claimed him. Whatever trifling accident might have happened to put Mr. Rodolf Pain and the British criminal law at issue, Charlotte, at any rate, had assumed it one not to be easily got over, except by the perpetual exile of the gentleman from the British shores. When the little affair had occurred, and Mr. Rodolf had saved himself and his liberty by only a hair’s-breadth, choosing a foreign exile and a false name in preference to some notoriety at a certain court (a court which does not bear a pleasant sound, and rises ominous and dark and gloomy in the heart of the city), it had pleased Charlotte and those connected with her to give out that Mr. Rodolf Pain had died. In Mr. Rodolf Pain’s going out of the world by death, there was certainly no disgrace, provided that he went out naturally; that is, without what may be called malice prepense on his own part. But, for Mr. Rodolf Pain to be compelled to make his exit from London society after another fashion, was quite a different affair—an affair which could never have been quite tolerated by Charlotte: not on his score, but on her own. Any superfluous consideration for him, Charlotte had never been troubled with. Before her marriage she had regarded him in the light of a nonentity; since that ceremony, as an incumbrance. Therefore, on the whole, Charlotte was tolerably pleased to get rid of him, and she played her rôle of widow to perfection. No inconvenient disclosure, as to the facts of his hasty exit, had come out to the public, for it had fortunately happened that the transaction, or transactions, which led to it, had not been done in his own name. To describe Charlotte’s dismay when he returned, and she found her fond assumption of his perpetual exile to have been a false security, would take a cleverer pen than mine. No other misfortune known to earth, could have been looked upon by Charlotte as so dire a calamity. Had Prior’s Ash been blown up, herself included, by some sprung mine, or swallowed down by an earthquake, it would have been little, in comparison.

It certainly was not pleasant to be startled by a faint tap at the unscreened window, while she sat under the chandelier, busy at what she so rarely attempted, some useless fancy-work. Yet that was the unceremonious manner in which her husband made his return known to her. Charlotte was expecting no visitors that night. It was the night of George Godolphin’s dinner-party, at which Mr. Verrall had not appeared, having started for London instead. When the tapping came, Charlotte turned her head towards the window in surprise. No one was in the habit of entering that way, save free-and-easy George Godolphin; he would now and then do so; sometimes Mr. Verrall. But Charlotte knew of George’s dinner party, and Mr. Verrall was away. She could see nothing of the intruder: the room was ablaze with light; outside, it was, comparatively speaking, dark; and the window was also partially shaded by its lace curtains. Charlotte thought she must have been mistaken, and went on unravelling her crochet mat.

The tapping came again. “Very odd!” thought Charlotte. “Come in,” she called out.

No one came in. There was no response at all for a minute or two. Then there came another timid tapping.

Charlotte’s dress was half covered with cotton. She rose, shook it, let the cotton and the mat (what remained of it) fall to the ground, walked to the window, and opened it.

At the first moment she could see nothing. It was bright moonlight, and she had come from the blazing light within, beside which that outer light was so cold and pure. Not for that reason could she see nothing, but because there appeared to be nothing to see. She ranged her eyes in vain over the terrace, over the still landscape beyond.

“Charlotte!”

It was the faintest possible voice, and close to her. Faint as it was though, there was that in its tone which struck on every fibre of Charlotte’s frame with dismay. Gathered against the walls of the Folly, making a pretence to shelter himself beyond a brilliant cape-jessamine which was trained there, was the slight figure of a man. A mere shred of a man, with a shrinking, attenuated frame: the frame of one who has lived in some long agony, bodily or mental: and a white face that shivered as he stood.

Not more white, not more shivering than Charlotte’s. Her complexion—well, you have heard of it, as one too much studied to allow vulgar changes to come upon it, in a general way. But there are moments in a lifetime when Nature asserts herself, and Art retires before her. Charlotte’s face turned to the hue of the dead, and Charlotte’s dismay broke forth in a low passionate wail. It was Rodolf Pain.

A moment of terrified bewilderment; a torrent of rapid words; not of sympathy, or greeting, but of anger; and Charlotte was pushing him away with her hands, she neither knew nor cared whither. It was dangerous for him to be there, she said. He must go.

“I’ll go into the thicket, Charlotte,” he answered, pointing to the trees on the left. “Come to me there.”

He glided off as he spoke, under cover of the walls. Charlotte, feeling that she should like to decline the invitation had she dared, enveloped her head and shoulders in a black shawl, and followed him. Nothing satisfactory came of the interview—except recrimination. Charlotte was in a towering passion that he should have ventured back at all; Rodolf complained that between them all he had been made the scapegoat. In returning home, she caught sight of George Godolphin approaching the house, just as she was about to steal across the lawn. Keeping under cover of the trees, she got in by a back entrance, and sat down to her work in the drawing-room, protesting to George, when he was admitted, that she had not been out. No wonder her face looked strange in spite of its embellishments!

Her interviews with Rodolf Pain appeared to be ill chosen. On the following night she met him in the same place: he had insisted upon it, and she did not dare refuse. More recrimination, more anger; in the midst of which George Godolphin again broke upon them. Charlotte screamed aloud in her terror, and Rodolf ran away. But that Charlotte laid detaining hands upon George, the returned man might have been discovered then, and that would not have suited Charlotte.

A few more days and that climax was to arrive. The plantation appearing unsafe, Rodolf Pain proposed the archway. There they should surely be unmolested: the ghostly fears of the neighbourhood and of Ashlydyat kept every one away from the spot. And there, two or three times, had Charlotte met him, quarrelling always, when they were again intruded upon, and again by George. This time to some purpose.

George Godolphin’s astonishment was excessive. In his wildest flights of fancy he had never given a thought to the suspicion that Rodolf Pain could be alive. Charlotte had not been more confidential with George than with the rest of the world. Making a merit of what could not well be avoided, she now gave him a few particulars.

For when she looked back in her flight and saw that Rodolf Pain was fairly caught, that there was no further possibility of the farce of his death being kept up to George, she deemed it well to turn back again. Better bring her managing brains to the explanation, than leave it to that simple calf, whom she had the honour of calling husband. The fact was, Rodolf Pain had never been half cunning enough, half rogue enough, for the work assigned him by Mr. Verrall. He—Mr. Verrall—had always said that Rodolf had brought the trouble upon himself, in consequence of trying to exercise a little honesty. Charlotte agreed with the opinion: and every contemptuous epithet cast by Mr. Verrall on the unfortunate exile, Charlotte had fully echoed.

George was some little time before he could understand as much as was vouchsafed him of the explanation. They stood in the shadow of the archway, Charlotte keeping her black shawl well over her head and round her face; Rodolf, his arms folded, leaning against the inner circle of the stonework.

“What, do you say? sent you abroad?” questioned George, somewhat bewildered.

“It was that wretched business of Appleby’s,” replied Rodolf Pain. “You must have heard of it. The world heard enough of it.”

“Appleby—Appleby? Yes, I remember,” remarked George. “A nice swindle it was. But what had you to do with it?”

“In point of fact, I only had to do with it at second-hand,” said Rodolf Pain, his tone one of bitter meaning. “It was Verrall’s affair—as everything else is. I only executed his orders.”

“But surely neither you nor Verrall had anything to do with that swindling business of Appleby’s?” cried George, his voice as full of amazement as the other’s was of bitterness.

Charlotte interposed, her manner so eager, so flurried, as to impart the suspicion that she must have some personal interest in it. “Rodolf, hold your tongue! Where’s the use of bringing up this old speculative nonsense to Mr. George Godolphin? He does not care to hear about it.”

“I would bring it up to all the world if I could,” was Rodolf’s answer, ringing with its own sense of injury. “Verrall told me in the most solemn manner that if things ever cleared, through Appleby’s death, or in any other way, so as to make it safe for me to return, that that hour he would send for me. Well: Appleby has been dead these six months; and yet he leaves me on, on, on, in the New World, without so much as a notice of it. Now, it’s of no use growing fierce again, Charlotte! I’ll tell Mr. George Godolphin if I please. I am not the patient slave you helped to drive abroad: the trodden worm turns at last. Do you happen to know, sir, that Appleby’s dead?”

“I don’t know anything about Appleby,” replied George. “I remember the name, as being owned by a gentleman who was subjected to some bad treatment in the shape of swindling, by one Rustin. But what had you or Verrall to do with it?”

“Psha!” said Rodolf Pain. “Verrall was Rustin.”

George Godolphin opened his eyes to their utmost width. “N—o!” he said, very slowly, certain curious ideas beginning to crowd into his mind. Certain remembrances also.

“He was.—Charlotte, I tell you it is of no use: I will speak. What does it matter, Mr. George Godolphin’s knowing it? Verrall was the real principal—Rustin, in fact; I, the ostensible one. And I had to suffer.”

“Did Appleby think you were Rustin?” inquired George, thoroughly bewildered.

“Appleby at one time thought I was Verrall. Oh, I assure you there were wheels within wheels at work there. Of course there had to be, to carry on such a concern as that. It is so still. Verrall, you know, could not be made the scapegoat, he takes care of that—besides, it would blow the whole thing to pieces, if any evil fell upon him. It fell upon me, and I had to suffer for it, and abroad I went. I did not grumble; it would have been of no use: had I stayed at home and braved it out, I should have been sent abroad, I suppose, at her Majesty’s cost–”

Charlotte interrupted, in a terrible passion. “Have you no sense of humiliation, Rodolf Pain, that you tell these strange stories? Mr. George Godolphin, I pray you do not listen to him!”

“I am safe,” replied George. “Pain can say what he pleases. It is safe with me.”

“As to humiliation, that does not fall so much to my share as it does to another’s, in the light I look at it. I was not the principal; I was only the scapegoat; principals rarely are made the scapegoats in that sort of business. Let it go, I say. I took the punishment without a word. But, now that the man’s dead, and I can come home with safety, I want to know why I was not sent for?”

“I don’t believe the man’s dead,” observed Charlotte.

“I am quite sure that he is dead,” said Rodolf Pain. “I was told it from a sure and certain source, some one who came out there, and who used to know Appleby. He said the death was in the Times, and he knew it for a fact besides.”