Next day was Sunday, and after morning service a group of men gathered about the church porch to discuss the events of the night before. In the evening the parlor of the Flying Horse was full of dalespeople, and many a sapient theory was then and there put forth to account for the extraordinary coincidence of the presence of Paul Ritson at the fire and his alleged departure by the London train.

Hugh Ritson was not seen abroad that day. But early on Monday morning he hastened to the stable, called on Natt to saddle a horse, sprung on its back and galloped away toward the town.

The morning was bitterly cold, and the rider was buttoned up to the throat. The air was damp; a dense veil of vapor lay on the valley and hid half the fells; the wintery dawn, with its sunless sky, had not the strength to rend it asunder; the wind had veered to the north, and was now dank and icy. A snow-storm was coming.

The face of Hugh Ritson was wan and jaded. He leaned heavily forward in the saddle; the biting wind was in his eyes; he had a fixed look, and seemed not to see the people whom he passed on the road.

Dick o' the Syke was grubbing among the fallen wreck of the charred and dismantled mill. When Hugh rode past him he lifted his eyes and muttered an oath beneath his breath. Old Laird Fisher was trundling a wheelbarrow on the bank of the smelting-house. The headgear of the pit-shaft was working. As Hugh passed the smithy, John Proudfoot was standing, hammer in hand, by the side of a wheelless wagon upheld by poles. John was saying, "Wonder what sec a place Mister Paul slept a' Saturday neet—I reckon that wad settle all;" and a voice from inside the smithy answered: "Nowt of the sort, John; it's a fate, I tell, tha." The peddler's pony was standing by the hasp of the gate.

Never once lifting his eyes, with head bent and compressed lips, Hugh Ritson rode on in the teeth of the coming storm. There was another storm within that was uprooting every emotion of his soul. When he came to the vicarage he drew up sharply and rapped heavily on the gate. Brother Peter came shambling out at the speed of six steps a minute.

"Mr. Christian at home?" asked Hugh.

"Don't know as he is," said Peter.

"Where is he?"

"Don't know as I've heard."

"Tell him I'll call as I come back, in two hours."

"Don't know as I'll see him."

"Then go and look for him!" shouted Hugh, impatiently bringing down the whip on the flank of the horse.

Brother Peter Ward turned about sulkily.

"Don't know as I will," he grumbled, and trudged back into the house.

Then Hugh Ritson rode on. A thin sleet began to fall, and it drove hard into his face. The roads were crisp, and the horse sometimes stumbled; but the rider pressed on.

In less than half an hour he was riding into the town. The people who were standing in groups in the market-place parted and made space for him. They hailed him with respectful salutations. He responded curtly or not at all. Notwithstanding his long ride, his face was still pale, and his lips were bloodless. He stopped at the court-yard leading to the front of the Pack Horse. Old Willie Calvert, the innkeeper, stood there, and touched his cap when Hugh approached him.

"My brother Paul slept here a few nights ago, I hear?" said Hugh.

"So he did," said the innkeeper.

"What night was it?"

"What night? Let me see—it were a week come Wednesday."

"Did you see him yourself?"

"Nay; I were lang abed."

"Who did—Mistress Calvert?"

"Ey—she did for sure—Janet" (calling up the court). "She'll tell ye all the ins and oots."

A comfortable-looking elderly body in a white cap and print apron came to the door.

"You saw my brother—Paul, you know—when he slept at your house last Wednesday night?"

"Yes, surely," said Janet.

"What did he say?"

"Nay, nowt. It was verra late—maybe twelve o'clock—and I was bolting up and had the cannel in my hand to get me to bed, and a rap came, and when I opened the door who should it be but Mister Paul. He said he wanted a bed, but he seem't to be in the doldrums and noways keen for a crack, so I ax't na questions, but just took him to the little green room over the snug and bid him good-night."

"And next morning—did you see him then?" said Hugh.

"No, but a morning when he paid for his bed for he had nowther bite nor sup in the house."

"Did he look changed?—anything different about him?"

"Nay, nowt but in low feckle someways, and maybe summat different dressed."

"How different? What did he wear that night?"

Pale as Hugh Ritson's face had been before, it was now white as a face in moonlight.

"Maybe a pepper and salt tweed coat, but I can't rightly call to mind at the minute."

Hugh's great eyes stared out of his head. His tongue cleaved to his mouth, and for the moment denied him speech.

"Thank you, Mistress Calvert. Here, Willie, my man, drink my health with the missis."

So saying, he tossed a silver coin to the innkeeper, wheeled about, and rode off.

"I can not mak' nowther head nor tail o' this," said the old man.

"Of what—the brass?" said Janet.

"Nay, but that's soond enough, for sure, auld lass."

"Then just thoo leave other folks's business to theirselves, and come thy ways in with thee. Thoo wert allus thrang a-meddlin'."

The innkeeper had gone indoors and drawn himself a draught of ale.

"I allus like to see the ins and oots o' things," he observed, with a twinkle in his eye, and the pot to his mouth.

"Mind as you're not ower keen at seein' the ins and oots o' that pewter."

"I'll be keerful, auld lass."

Hugh Ritson's horse went clattering over the stones of the streets until it came to the house of Mr. Bonnithorne. Then Hugh drew up sharply, jumped from the saddle, tied the reins to the loop in the gate-pier, and rang the bell. In another minute he was standing in the breakfast-room, which was made comfortable by a glowing fire. Mr. Bonnithorne, in dressing-gown and slippers, rose from his easy-chair with a look of surprise.

"Did you hear of the fire at the mill on Saturday night?" asked Hugh in a faltering voice.

Mr. Bonnithorne nodded his head.

"Very unlucky, very," said the lawyer. "The man will want recompense, and the law will support him."

"Tut!—a bagatelle!" said Hugh, with a gesture of impatience.

"Of course, if you say so—"

"You've heard nothing about Paul?"

Mr. Bonnithorne answered with a shake of his yellow head, and a look of inquiry.

Then Hugh told him of the man at the fire, and of Natt's story when he drove up in the trap. He spoke with visible embarrassment, and in a voice that could scarcely support itself. But the deep fear that had come over him had not yet taken hold of the lawyer. Mr. Bonnithorne listened with a bland smile of amused incredulity. Hugh stopped with a shudder.

"What are you thinking?" he asked, nervously.

"That Natt lied."

"As well say that the people at the fire lied."

"No; you yourself saw Paul there."

"Bonnithorne, like all keen-eyed men, you are short-sighted. I have something more to tell you. The people at the Pack Horse say that Paul slept at their house last Wednesday night. Now I know that he slept at home."

Mr. Bonnithorne smiled again.

"A mistake as to the night," he said; "what can be plainer?"

"Don't wriggle; look the facts in the face."

"Facts?—a coincidence in evidence—a common error."

"Would to God it were!" Hugh strode about the room in obvious perturbation, his eyes bent on the ground. "Bonnithorne, what is the place where the girl Mercy lives?"

"An inn at Hendon."

"Do they call it the Hawk and Heron?"

"They do. The old woman Drayton keeps it."

Hugh Ritson's step faltered. He listened with a look of stupid consternation.

"Did I never tell you that the peddler, Oglethorpe, said he saw Paul at the Hawk and Heron in Hendon?"

Mr. Bonnithorne dropped back into his seat without a word. Conviction was taking hold of him.

"What do the folks say?" he asked at length.

"Say? That it was a ghost, a wraith, twenty things—the idiots!"

"What do you say, Mr. Ritson?"

"That it was another man."

The lawyer remained sitting, his eyes fixed and vacant.

"What then? What if it is another man? Resemblances are common. We are all brothers. For example, there are numbers of persons like myself in the world. Odd, isn't it?"

"Very," said Hugh, with a hard laugh.

"And what if there exists a man resembling your half-brother, Paul, so closely that on three several occasions he has been mistaken for him by competent witnesses—what does it come to?"

Hugh paused.

"Come to. God knows! I want to find out. Who is this man? What is he? Where does he come from? What is his business here? Why, of all places on this wide earth, does he, of all men alive, haunt my house like a shadow?"

Hugh Ritson was still visibly perturbed.

"There's more in this matter than either of us knows," he said.

Mr. Bonnithorne watched him for a moment in silence.

"I think you draw a painful inference—what is it?" he asked.

"What?" repeated Hugh, and added, absently, "who can tell?"

Up and down the room he walked restlessly, his eyes bent on the floor, his face drawn down into lines. At length he stood and picked up the hat he had thrown on the couch.

"Bonnithorne," he said, "you and I thought we saw into the heart of a mystery. Heaven pity us for blind moles! I fear we saw nothing."

"Why—what—how so—when—" Mr. Bonnithorne stammered, and then stopped short.

Hugh had walked out of the room and out of the house. He leaped into the saddle and rode away.

The wind had risen yet higher; it blew an icy blast from behind him as he cantered home. Through the hazy atmosphere a cloud of dun, vaporish red could be seen trailing over the dim fells. It poised above the ball crown of the Eel Crags like a huge supernatural bird with outstretched wings.

Hugh held the reins with half-frozen hands. He barely felt the biting cold. His soul was in a tumult, and he was driven on by fears that were all but insupportable. For months a thick veil had overspread his conscience, and now, in an instant, and by an accident, it was being rent asunder. He had lulled his soul to sleep. But no opiate of sophistry could keep the soul from waking. His soul was waking now. He began to suspect that he had been acting like a scoundrel.

At the vicarage he stopped, dismounted, and entered. Standing in the hall, he overheard voices in the kitchen. They were those of Brother Peter and little Jacob Berry, the tailor, who had been hired to sew by the day, and was seated on the dresser.

"I've heard of such sights afore," the little tailor was saying. "When auld Mother Langdale's son was killed at wrustlin' down Borrowdale way, and Mother Langdale was abed with rheumatis, she saw him come to the bed-head a-dripping wet with blood, as plain as plain could be, and in less nor an hour after they brought him home to the auld body on a shutter—they did, for sure."

"Shaf on sec stories! I don't know as some folks aren't as daft as Mother Langdale herself!" Peter muttered in reply.

Hugh Ritson beat the door heavily with his riding-whip.

"Parson Christian at home now?" he asked, when Peter opened it.

"Been and gone," said Peter.

"Did you tell him I meant to come back?"

"Don't know as I did."

Hugh's whip came down impatiently on his leggins.

"Do you know anything?" he asked. "Do you know that you are now talking to a gentleman?"

"Don't know as I do," mumbled Peter, backing in again.

"If Miss Greta is at home tell her I should be glad to speak with her—do you hear?" Peter disappeared.

Hugh was left alone in the hall. He waited some minutes, thinking that Peter was carrying his message. Presently he overheard that worthy reopening the discussion on Mother Langdale's sanity with little Jacob in the kitchen. The deep damnation he desired just then for Brother Peter was about to be indicated by another lusty rap on the kitchen door, when the door of the parlor opened, and Greta herself stood on the threshold with a smile and an outstretched hand.

"I thought it was your voice," she said, and led the way in.

"Your cordial welcome heaps coals of fire on my head, Greta. I cannot forget in what spirit we last talked and parted."

"Let us think no more about it," said Greta, and she drew a chair for him to the fire.

He remained standing, and as if benumbed by strong feeling.

"I have come to speak of it—to ask pardon for it—I was in the wrong," he said, falteringly.

She did not respond, but sat down with drooping eyes. He paused, and there was an ominous silence.

"You don't know what I suffered, or what I suffer still. You are very happy. I am a miserable man. Greta, do you know what it is to love without being loved? How can you know? It is torture beyond the gift of words—misery beyond the relief of tears. It is not jealousy; that is no more than a vulgar kind of envy. It is a nameless, measureless torment."

He paused again. She did not speak. His voice grew tremulous.

"I'm not one of the fools who think that the souls that are created for each other must needs come together—that destiny draws them from the uttermost parts of the earth—that, trifle as they will with their best hopes, fate is stronger than they are, and true to the pole-star of ultimate happiness. I know the world too well to believe nonsense like that. I know that every day, every hour, men and women are casting themselves away—men on the wrong women, women on the wrong men—and that all this is a tangle that will never, never be undone."

He stepped up to where she sat and dropped his voice to a whisper.

"Greta—permit me to say it—I loved you dearly. Would to Heaven I had not! My love was not of yesterday. It was you and I, I and you. That was the only true marriage possible to either of us from world's end to world's end. But Paul came between us; and when I saw you give yourself to the wrong man—"

Greta had risen to her feet.

"You say you come to ask pardon for what you said, but you really come to repeat it." So saying, she made a show of leaving the room.

Hugh stood awhile in silence. Then he threw off his faltering tone and drew himself up.

"I have come," he said, "to warn you before it is too late. I have come to say, while it is yet time, never marry my brother, for as sure as God is above us, you will repent it with unquenchable tears if you do."

Greta's eyes flashed with an expression of disdain.

"No," she said; "you have come to threaten me—a sure sign that you yourself have some secret cause for fear."

It was a home-thrust, and Hugh was hit.

"Greta, I repeat it, you are marrying the wrong man."

"What right have you to say so?"

"The right of one who could part you forever with a word."

Greta was sore perplexed. Like a true woman, she would have given half her fortune at that moment to probe this mystery. But her indignation got the better of her curiosity.

"It is false!" she said.

"It is true!" he answered. "I could speak the word that would part you wider than the poles asunder."

"Then I challenge you to speak it," she exclaimed.

They faced each other, pale, and with quivering lips.

"It is not my purpose. I have warned you," he said.

"You do not believe your own warning," she answered.

He winced, but said not a word.

"You have come to me with an idle threat, and fear is written on your own face."

He drew his breath sharply, and did not reply.

"Whatever it is, you do not believe it."

He was making for the door. He came back a step.

"Shall I speak the word?" he said. "Can you bear it?"

"Leave me," she said, "and carry your falsehood with you!"

He was gone in an instant. Then her anger cooled directly, and her woman's curiosity came back with a hundred-fold rebound.

"Gracious Heaven! what did he mean?" she thought, and the hot flush mounted to her eyes. She had half a mind to call him back. "Could it be true?" The tears were now rolling down her cheeks. "He has a secret power over Paul—what is it?" She ran to the door. "Hugh! Hugh!" He was gone. The galloping feet of his horse were heard faint in the distance. She went back into the house and sat down, and wept galling tears of pride and vexation.