Tongues of Conscience Part 51

"I can't walk much more," she said.

"Then do let's go home now," Horace said.

She stood looking round her, searching the Park with her eyes.

"I suppose we must," she said slowly. Then she added, "We can come here again to-morrow."

Horace was puzzled.

"What for? Why should we?" he asked.

But his mother made no reply, and they walked home.

Next day she insisted on going again to the same place, and again she was obviously on the look-out. Horace grew more and more puzzled by her demeanour. And when the third day came, and once more Mrs. Errington called him to set forth to the Serpentine, he said to her, with a boy's bluntness----

"D'you want to meet someone there?"

Mrs. Errington looked at him strangely.

"Yes," she said, after a minute's silence.

"Why, who is it?"

"That beggar I wouldn't let you give money to."

Horace turned scarlet with the shock of surprise and the knowledge--which he absurdly felt as guilty knowledge--that the man was dead, perhaps even buried by now.

"Oh, nonsense, Mater!" he began, stammering. "He won't come there again.

Besides, you never give to beggars."

"I mean to give this man something."

Horace was more and more surprised.

"Why?" he exclaimed. "Why now? You wouldn't when I wanted you to, and now--now it's too late. What do you wish to give to him for now?"

But all she would say was, "I feel that I should like to, that--that his perhaps really was a deserving case. Come, Horace, let us go and try to find him."

And the boy, bound by his word to Captain Hindford, was forced to go out in search of a dead man. He felt the horror of this quest. To-day Mrs.

Errington carried her purse in her hand, and looked eagerly out for the beggar. Once she fancied she saw him in the distance.

"There he is!" she cried to Horace. "Run and fetch him."

The boy turned pale, and stared.

"Where, Mater?"

"Among those trees."

"It can't be! Nonsense!"

"No," she said; "you are right. I made a mistake. It's only somebody like him. Why, Horace, what's the matter?"

"Nothing," he answered.

But he was shaking. The business was too ghastly. He felt he couldn't stand it much longer, and he resolved to go to Captain Hindford and persuade the Captain to absolve him from his promise. In the afternoon of the same day, accordingly, he went off to Knightsbridge. He rang, and was told that Captain Hindford had gone to Paris and was afterwards going for a tour on the Continent. His heart sank at the news. Was he to go on day after day searching with his mother for this corpse, which was rotting in the grave? He asked for Hindford's address. It was Poste Restante, Monte Carlo. But the servant added that letters sent there might have to wait for two or three days, as his master's immediate plans were unsettled. Horace, however, went to the nearest telegraph-office and wired to Hindford--

"Let me off promise; urgent.--HORACE ERRINGTON."

Then, having done all he could, he went back to Park Lane. He found his mother in a curiously restless state, and directly he came in she began to talk about the beggar.

"I must and will find that man," she said.

"Mater, why?"

"Because I shall never be well till I do," she said. "I don't know what it is, but I cannot be still by day, and I cannot rest by night, for thinking of him. Why did I not let you give him something?"

"Mater, I wish to G.o.d you had!" the boy said solemnly.

Mrs. Errington did not seem to notice his unusual manner. She was self-engrossed.

"However, we shall see him again, no doubt," she went on. "And then I shall give him something handsome. I know he needs it."

Horace went hastily out of the room. He longed for a wire from Captain Hindford. Next day he "shammed ill," as he called it to himself, so as to get out of going into the Park. So Mrs. Errington went off by herself in a condition of almost feverish antic.i.p.ation.

"I know I shall see him to-day," she said, as she left Horace.

She returned at lunch-time, and came up at once to his room.

"I have seen him," she said.

Horace sat up, staring at her in blank amazement.

"What, Mater? What d'you say?"

"I have seen him."

"No?"

"Yes. I went to the place where he asked you for money, and walked up and down for ages. But he wasn't there. At last I gave it up and crossed the bridge. I took it into my head to come home on the other side of the water. Well, when I was half-way along it, I looked across, and there I saw him."

"Rot, Mater!"

"He was standing alone by the water, staring straight across at me, just as if he saw me and was trying to attract my attention."

"No, no!"

"Horace, don't be silly! Why do you contradict me? He looked just the same as when we saw him first, only he had no coat on."