Fabiola : or, The church of the catacombs - Digital Repository Services

PART III.
CHAPTER L
Now in her heart, Hannah bcl :
eved that Peter Sands had
met James Gardener, nml that, under provocation, in a moment
of fiery passion, he had struck the mail
and become Lis murderer.
But Hannah was still Peter's true friend.
a deadly blow,
W&SCKMD XAVJUD.
It was no business of hers to give utterance to any suspicion.
It was clearly her business to speak only to facts, and not to
say more about them than the truth demanded. She left him
in his room, and -went down stairs to the drawing room, where
the Miss Lances were sitting.
"
Ladies, did you hear the talking in the street ? I opened
the window to disperse the gossipers, and they wtnt but ; they
told me this James Gardener's dead body has liern found by
witness. Then we may be called on to speak as to what passed
when he came into the house. "
" I never heard him come in," said Miss Jane.
" That was because he came in by the back door," said Miss
Lance.
" All the interest lies in the fact that he did not come
by the usual way through the streets to the front of the house,
but he c me by the Long Meadows, and ho fell as he got over
the stile, and saved himself by coming down on his right hand
with sucli force as to hurt his wrist. The fog, he said, was so
dense at one moment, though it rolled away tlu next, that he
did not make his footing sure, and he found the st.le and all
about it slippery. Then, when he got to the garden door, he
tried to open it with his left hand, because his rigat wrist was
paining him, and the awkwardness of the attempt was heard by
Hannah, who went out and m t him. I stayed in the kitchen,
and when he came in I thought he looked pale ; he had mud
on his sleeve. Hannah returned from locking the door. She
said to Peter, ' '
You have hurt yourself. Then he told us of
his fall. But he said he could not account for blood on hi
hand and sleeve. He did not kn;w that he had cut his hand,
or any way broken the skin. He said he would go and wash,
and was going to carry a kettle of hot water up-stairs for himself,
but Hannah would not let him. She went up after him.
Now, Hannah, what happened next ?"
Then Hannah told all that has been just said as to the knife.
How that Peter had desired her to take the knife from his
pocket for him, as his wrist was stiff: how he had thought
that it would be dirty f:om the mire into which he sakl he
.had jerked it by the fall ; how the k. ifo was perfectly bright
and clean, and how she had found a second knii'e just like the
one he had bought that evening, and how this second knife
was soiled in a way too terrible to think of, and how she had
dropped it into the basin of hot water that was just before
her.
Then came the account of the voices below the window, and
of her inquiries, and the answer that had come, on which Pe-
ter had fainted fainted for the first time in his life.
She told, too, how she had recovered him, and left him to go
into bed, whila she had come down to toll, as she ha his senses. It
was well known in the house and, indeed, no one had tried to
conceal it that Peter had been Drake's fai'hful friend, and a
the Long Meadows stile, just by the side of the ditch."
" I thought Peter carne home that way," said Miss Lance.
" So he did. And you, ma'am, heard what he said."
" What is the meaning of it ? "What are you looking so oddly
for?"
It was Miss Jane who said this, and indeed it was enough to
alarm any one to see the strange expression on her sister's
face, and the
nah's.
unusual look of anxious determination on Han-
'
Please, Miss Jane, don't be nervous. It only means that
we are in the middle of very awful facts."
"Yes. You have said well, Hannah. Now, sister, just lis-
very
ten to what we say. Of course, Peter will be had up as a
firm frLnd, too that he had iss led orders to ;
Drake, and
that he had been obeyed that he had commanded Drake to
;
have no further dealings with Gardener, and that Drake J
told the servants to refuse Gardener admittance that Garden-
;
er had forced himself into the house on one occasion, and that
he had to be turned out, Drake having taken refuge in his
room anl locked his door.
Of these details of what had happened in Mr. Breward's
house in his absence she knew more than Peter knew, so she
had ground for her fears, and her fears were so strong a i to
make her believe that Peter had, under some strong prov ca-
tion, or perhaps in consequence of persousl violence, k llel
James Gardener that night at the Long Meadows stile.
Or, perhaps, bo liad not known that he h d killed him ; he
might have left him knocked down and disabled, and, perhaps,
the first knowledge of his being actually dead had it aoh( il him
through the voices in the street, and so sent him fainting on
the bed.
So Hannah argued; and so she really believed. But she
was never going to put her belief into words. She would be
Peti r's friend to the last.
Miss Jane Lance had listened with a frightened face to all
her sister had said: and to Hannah's continuation of the nar-
rative both sisters had given a perfect attention.
Miss Lance did not speak ; but Miss Jane, in a trembling,
'hurried manner, with a poorly acted appearance of indifler-
ence, said,
" Well, it is very disagreeable.
But all we know is that the
man is dead died in a fit, perhaps, or from an accident ; what
can it be to us ?"
" No, no, sister," said the elder lady, very gently. "Do not
let us pretend to an indifference which we cannot feel. People
are sure to fear that Gard. ner has been kilL d. It is for the
public safety that every suspicious thing of this nature should
be inquired into. It is plain that Peter must have been on the
spot immediately after the the perhaps the murder. Plain
speaking is best, I think. Evidences of foul play or what
has the appearance of foul play have come into this house
with him. He will be a witness, and called on to give evidence
of what befell him, of what he felt or saw; Hannah too, possibly.-
I may myself be called on, for I was one of the first to
see him on his entering this house after coming straight from
the place ef the murder. Very disagreeable things have come
into this house to-night. We have nothing to conceal. But we
mu-t not try to appear indifferent."
"
O, I am not indifferent," said Miss Jane; and, leaning back
in her chair, she burst into tears.
With a sickening intensity she knew that Peter would be
suspected. He must bo looked on as a : suspected person and
suspected of what ? Of murdering a man who had taken care
of h.s childhood; whom he had once, in his innocent infan y,
loved as a son loves his father. How could any
have Peter Sands suspected of such a deed as that ?