That one thought dominated all else in the mind of Philip Chater. She believed him innocent—and she loved him. True, the message was not for him, in reality; it was for the man who lay in an unknown grave. But, having taken that dead man’s place, he claimed this message also, as belonging to him.

“I have taken the burden of his sins upon me—I am in peril of my life on account of them,” he thought. “Surely I have the right to claim this sweeter portion of what was his, as some leaven in the weight of my punishment. Yes—I’ll see her first; after that, if they capture me, I’ll go back with a light heart.”

Caution was necessary in approaching the village; for, by the time he reached it, daylight had fully come, and the people were astir. Keeping well on the outskirts of it, and yet in a place from which he could easily and rapidly reach the spot he had marked out in his mind as his destination, he came to a little copse, on the edge of some fields, and settled himself, as comfortably as possible, in a deep dry ditch, overhung with brambles and bushes, which completely hid him from the sight of any one passing near. Knowing that he must wait until nightfall, before daring to venture out, he resolved to remain in this place, with all the patience he could muster.

He had borrowed from Captain Quist a little tobacco and a pipe; and, after cautiously looking about him, he filled and lit this, and began to feel more resigned to his position. From where he lay, he could see, through the tangled growth above him, the towers and chimneys of Chater Hall; raising his head a little he could see a path, which wound across some slightly rising ground, and appeared to lead from the Hall down to the road near which he lay—entry to the road from it being obtained through a wooden gate in the high paling, which surrounded the grounds at the point where they joined the road. The Hall being high above him, he could see this path in its windings and twistings very clearly; and, as it was a short cut to the village, it appeared to be used pretty often.

It amused and interested the fugitive, lying hidden there, to watch this path, and those who came down it; he found himself wondering idly whether he should ever tread that path again or set foot in Chater Hall, and under what circumstances.

Knowing nothing of the locality, Philip had not chosen his hiding place so well as he had hoped; for presently he was startled by the noise of wheels behind him. Rising hurriedly, he looked over a bank, sheer down into a road below—a road not so broad as that which lay at some distance in front of him, but broad enough for vehicles. Indeed, the vehicle which Philip had heard had stopped immediately below him, and a man in it was alighting. So close was it, and so immediately underneath where he lay in the thick undergrowth, that Philip could hear distinctly what this man said to the driver.

“I brought you this way—because I have a fancy for going up to the Hall unannounced—just a mere whim of mine. I can get over from here. It’ll be—ha—ha—a little surprise for them—won’t it!”

The man muttered something, which Philip could not catch; received his fare; turned his horse’s head, and drove back the way he had come. The man stood quite still in the road, until the vehicle was out of sight; then began to climb the bank, which led to the place where Philip was concealed.

At first, Philip was afraid that the man had seen him, and was coming straight for him; he dived down, and lay flat, scarcely daring to breathe. But the stranger, who evidently knew the place well, came on steadily, until he stood within a few yards of the spot where Philip crouched; then he stopped, and looked straight across at the distant chimneys of Chater Hall. As he stood there, Philip found himself watching the man with an eagerness greater than he would have felt at the appearance of any chance stranger; for he knew the face of this man. Once again, he seemed to stand at the entrance to a little court, leading down to the river, at Woolwich; once again, to see a man dash past him, and to catch a glimpse of a face—gone in an instant, and seemingly forgotten—but well enough remembered now. Again, too, he seemed to stand on the terrace at Chater Hall, on that night of the burglary, striving to peer in through a window; to see the curtain suddenly flung back, and the room bright with lights, and that same face staring out at him. Small wonder that his heart beat heavily, as he lay crouched among the bushes, looking up at the man above him.

The stranger, for his part, seemed to hesitate what to do; made a step forward more than once, as if to go boldly across the road, and up the path to the house before him; and as often stopped, and turned about, and waited where he was.

Philip Chater was beginning to wonder what was to happen, and was half resolved—in the wild hurry of the thoughts which came crowding upon him—to spring out, and confront the man, when another figure seemed to spring almost from the grass near at hand, and to make rapidly towards the first comer. Philip, raising his head quickly, no sooner caught sight of this second man, than he dropped down flat again, at the bottom of the ditch.

It was Inspector Tokely; and that gentleman came forward with a threatening aspect, and stopped within about a yard of the other, who was much taller than himself.

“Mr. Ogledon, I believe,” said the Inspector, grimly; and Philip almost jumped out of his place again, at the mention of that name.

“Well—what of it?” was the surly reply; and it almost seemed to the listening man as though the speaker looked Tokely up and down superciliously as he spoke.

“What of it, sir!” cried the other, fiercely. “This of it, Mr. Ogledon—that you have insulted and maltreated the Law, as personified in me—in me, sir! That I have been lured into your presence, and, while in the execution of my duty, have been struck on a tender spot—to wit, the head—by a debauched companion of yours, and with a hard and heavy substance—to wit, a decanter; such assault being committed in order to delay, frustrate, postpone, or prevent the arrest of a certain person against whom I held a warrant. Damme, sir—what have you to say to that?” exclaimed the little man, suddenly losing his legal technicalities in an outburst of fury.

“I dare say you think you have cause of complaint against me”—began the other, coolly; but Tokely burst in again, more furiously than ever.

“Cause of complaint!” he almost shrieked. “When a man—and that man an officer of the Law—has a bump raised on his head, which compels him to wear his hat like a giddy youth on a bank-holiday excursion, and which prevents his lying with comfort in his bed—and the abettor of the outrage talks about cause of complaint!—I wonder, sir, what you will think when you occupy a cell, on account of this—eh, sir?”

“I am extremely sorry,” replied Ogledon—“very sorry indeed that you should have been caused any inconvenience. My friend is not—not responsible for his actions at times—and he—he mistook you for some one else.” All this time, Ogledon was working round the Inspector, and watching him narrowly. The Inspector, for his part, respecting the size and apparent strength of the other, began to move away; but flung back a taunt or two as he went.

“You shall hear from me again, sir!” cried the little man, savagely. “You and your decanter! You may like to know that I got my prisoner, after all.”

“To the devil with your prisoner!” cried Ogledon without looking round. The little man stopped, although at a safe distance, and even came back a pace or two.

“Oho!” he cried, with a vicious laugh—“I thought he was a friend of yours? I suppose you don’t own him now—eh?”

“I certainly own no interest in any prisoners,” said the other, glancing round at Tokely for a moment, and then turning away again.

“Indeed!” exclaimed the Inspector, more loudly even than before. “Yet you don’t mind living in his house, and knocking people about with his decanters!”

“What on earth are you talking about?” asked Ogledon, with a new and sudden interest.

The Inspector came a little nearer. “About your friend—Mr. Dandy Chater!” With this last shot, he turned and began to walk away down the hill.

Philip, looking out cautiously, saw the man who had been addressed as Ogledon start, as if a blow had been struck him; hesitate for a moment, with a face that was ghastly; and then start off at a run after Tokely. The Inspector, who was totally unprepared for pursuit, was overtaken in a few strides; seized; swung round; and confronted with the startled face of the other man.

“Stop—stop—and listen to me!” cried Ogledon, wildly. “What of this—this man—this prisoner—this”—he appeared to have some difficulty in getting out the name from his throat—as though it stuck there a little—“this Dandy Chater?”

“Ah—that stirs you up a bit—does it?” said Tokely, grinning. “Let me tell you then, that your friend Mr. Dandy Chater lies at this moment in Chelmsford Jail, awaiting his trial for murder—ah—that makes your face turn white—eh?—murder committed in this very village.”

Ogledon had dropped his hands from the other’s shoulders, and was staring at him, with an expression of stupid wonderment, incredulity and deadly fear. After a moment or two, he said, in a sort of whisper—“Then I did read of it; I haven’t merely seen the name in every paper I’ve picked up—just in the same fashion as I have seen it on the lips of every man I met; heard it in every wind that blew; seen it spelled in the stars on every night-sky.” He broke off suddenly, and looked at the other man, as if only just aware at that moment of his presence; looked at him silently for a space; and then burst into a peal of the most frightful laughter imaginable.

“There’s nothing like being merry, when you’ve got a chance,” said the Inspector, savagely.

“Merry!” cried the other, with another shout of laughter. “You’d make the dead rise from their graves, to laugh at such a jest as this! Merry! And so you’ve got Dandy Chater safe in Chelmsford Jail—have you? Well—keep him safe; lock and bolt and bar him in—and stop up every chink and keyhole—or, by Heaven!—Dandy Chater may give you the slip, my man! Dandy Chater in Chelmsford Jail!”

He burst into another frightful roar of laughter, and turned away; while the Inspector, after looking at him oddly, for a few moments, continued his way down the hill towards the road. Ogledon stopped in the same spot as before, near where Philip still lay, and sat down on the bank, above the very ditch in which the fugitive crouched, but with his back towards him.

“My God—what does this mean?” He spoke aloud, quite unconsciously, in the strong emotion which was upon him. “Is this some devil’s trick, to frighten and trouble me? Or has Something come back to earth, to take up again its old way of life, and mock me?” He stretched out one clenched hand, and looked at it. “With this hand I struck him down; my eyes saw him lying dead; other eyes have seen him—food for worms—taken from the river. Yet this Thing starts up again, full of life, the very next day; haunts the places where he was known; appears even to me; stands out as a living fact to all men, and is even printed about, in black and white, before my eyes. Am I going mad; is this some distortion of the brain? Do I dream that every one talks of him, even in a chance meeting like this a few minutes since—or what is it?”

After a time, he got up, and spoke more resolutely.

“I’ve allowed myself to think of him too much; I’ll do so no longer. I’ve heard of men who, dwelling on one frightful vision always, grow at last to see it in everything about them—hear it in every word that’s uttered—until it fills every fibre of their being, like some horrible disease, and saps their reason and their life. I’ll have no more of it; the man is dead, and I stand in his place; let that end it.”

He turned about resolutely, and went down by the road the Inspector had taken. After a little time, Philip, from his place of concealment, saw him mounting the path opposite, on the way to Chater Hall.

Through the weary hours, Philip waited, crouched where he was, cramped and stiff, until night came on, and the moon rose, in ghostly fashion, over the hill before him. Then, very cautiously, and looking all about him in case of surprise, he started for the Cottage.

There was a recklessness upon him, greater than any he had felt yet. What happened after this night he scarcely seemed to care; to see that one woman once again, and hold her in his arms, and hear from her own lips the message she had sent him, seemed enough. Whatever Fate might have in store for him after that did not seem to matter; this one night, at least, he was free, and he was going to the woman he loved.

Still, with all his recklessness, he was careful not to expose himself to any danger of capture; in a little time, he became quite an adept at dodging behind hedges, or dropping down flat among thick undergrowth, when any one came near him. But he reached the boundary hedge of the garden he remembered so well at last, and crouched behind it, striving to peer through—wondering how he should reach her, or make his presence known.

Voices in the garden, quite near to him, struck upon his ear; voices of a man and a woman—that of the man soft, smooth, and pleading—that of the woman angry, contemptuous, and scornful. And he knew both voices at once.

The two who talked in that garden in the moonlight appeared to be further up the lawn than the spot where he was; looking eagerly in that direction, he saw that the regularity of the trim hedge was broken by a thick growth of small trees, whose branches swept down to the ground. Gliding along noiselessly, he got amongst these, and lay flat, within a few feet of the pair upon the lawn; could see them distinctly, standing there facing each other—Ogledon and Madge Barnshaw. That they had arrived at a crisis of some kind in their talk was evident; for Madge stood proudly erect and defiant, looking at the man, who slashed savagely at the grass with a cane he held.

“Will nothing move you?” Ogledon was saying, without looking up at her. “Do you think it is nothing for me, who am no mere boy, to be the sport of a girl—do you think it’s nothing for me to have to plead, again and again, with you, when it is my nature to bend people to my will, and gain what I desire by force?”

“I have told you—many, many times already—that you might as well fling yourself against a rock, as strive to move me by any pleading. You are a coward, in any case, to assail me like this, when I have already told you that my heart is given to some one else——”

“Bah!—a mere girlish whim—a boy-and-girl affair, that should have been forgotten and done with in the days of pinafores. Besides, Dandy Chater is”—he hesitated, and seemed for a moment uncertain what to say; turned the sentence swiftly, and asked instead, with his keen eyes raised to her face—“By the way—where is this wonderful lover of yours?”

There was a pause for a moment, while the listener almost held his breath, and while Ogledon never took his eyes from her face. Then she went a little nearer to him, and held her head more proudly still.

“In a prison—there to await his trial on a fearful charge—of which I believe him innocent. But, though he appeared twice as black as men paint him, and as you, his evil spirit, have tried to make him, I would hold to him to the last; would cry, before you and all others—‘I love him—I love him—I love him!’ Now, what think you your pleading will do for you?”

The man had turned, and walked a step or two away; his hand had gone up nervously to his lips. “What does it mean?” Philip heard him mutter. “They all say it—even she says it. Go where I will, this Thing follows me—this name is dinned into my ears.” He turned swiftly towards her. “Why do you lie to me?” he cried harshly; “why do you repeat what every one else repeats? Do you think to frighten me away by such——” He stopped confusedly, and laughed. “There—I don’t know what I am saying; I—I lose myself sometimes. I—I’m not well; I’ll come—some other time—to see you.”

Without another word he turned quickly and hurried out of the garden leaving the girl standing alone in the moonlight. Philip waited until he heard the gate click, and the footsteps of the man dying away in the distance; then he came out of his hiding-place, and spoke her name in a whisper. She turned about swiftly, and would have cried out, but that he caught her in his arms, and laid a hand lightly on her lips.

“Hush, dearest,” he whispered—“I have escaped from prison, to come to you; just to look into your dear eyes—to touch your lips—to know that all is well with you, and that you are not changed towards me. Don’t speak for a moment; there is much that I must say to you. There is small chance of my final escape; I must I fear inevitably be caught, and taken back again to stand my trial.”

“But you are innocent, Dandy dear,” she whispered, hurriedly; “and you can prove your innocence.”

“As God above is my witness, I am absolutely innocent,” he replied. “But I cannot—I dare not prove it; some day you will understand the reason. If I was never firm upon this matter before, I am firm from to-night. But, if it should go hard with me, and there should be no way of escape, I want you to promise one thing.”

“Anything—everything,” she whispered, earnestly.

“If it should come to that, and there is no other way—find the man who was here with you just now—and ask him to tell you all he knows about Dandy Chater. He—and he alone—can establish my innocence. But this must only be done as a last resource. Will you promise that?”

She had begun to question him wildly and eagerly, when he suddenly raised his hand to silence her; they both stood listening. The garden gate had clicked again.

Philip dropped down among the shadows of the trees, and crept in amongst them again. Across the turf came a figure, noiselessly, and stopped before Madge, who had walked a few paces away from where Philip lay. The figure was that of Ogledon.

“I had no intention of troubling you again—at least, to-night”—he said, in a curiously strained voice, as though he were keeping control of it with difficulty—“but there is something I should like to ask you. I have been away—on the Continent—and have only returned a few hours ago. This lover of yours and cousin of mine—this Dandy Chater——”

“In Chelmsford Jail,” she reminded him, with a smile.

“In Chelmsford Jail. When—when did you see him last?”

She was on the point of answering, in some equivocal fashion which should not betray the fugitive, when she stopped, struck dumb by the expression on Ogledon’s face. He was looking past her, at something behind; turning, she saw Philip standing bareheaded and perfectly still in the moonlight, against the background of dark trees.

Ogledon stood for a moment, with his eyes starting, and his breath coming and going in gasps, while Philip stood absolutely rigid; then, with a terrible cry, he dropped forward upon his knees, and covered his face with his hands. When he ventured to look up again, Philip had vanished into the shadows.