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Errington and her son as they passed, partially raise himself up, gaze after them, and finally rise to his feet and follow their footsteps. Hindford could only see the man's back. It was long, slightly bending, and apparently youngish.
Errington continued rather excitedly, "I think if you had beckoned to him he would have come. He's afraid of me, perhaps, because because I wouldn't let you give to him. To-morrow you must come out with me. Till I've relieved that man's wants I shall have no peace." She hastened out of the room, apparently in a quiver of unusual agitation. Horace sat petrified. If only Hindford would telegraph!
"I say, Hindford, do me a good turn to-night, will you?" "Well, old chap, what is it, eh?" "When you say 'good-night, don't really go." The Captain looked astonished. "But " he began. "Wait outside a second for me. When the Mater's gone to bed I want you to come into the Park with me." "The Park? What for?" "To find that beggar chap. I bet he's there. Lots of his sort sleep there, you know.
He saw perpetually the man's white face, fierce and ashamed eyes, the gesture at once hungry and abashed with which he asked for charity. All day the vision haunted the boy in the sunshine. Mrs. Errington, on her part, calmly ignored the incident of the morning and appeared not to notice any change in her son's demeanour. In the evening Captain Hindford came to dine.
"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.
Come, promise me on your honour." "All right, Hindford, I'll promise. How horrible it's all been!" "Don't think about it, lad. Good-night." Horace trembled as he stole up the black staircase to bed. He meant to keep his promise, of course, but he wondered whether the Mater would have owned that she was in the wrong that morning if she had heard his dreary tale of the beggar's death in the night.
But he may be a dozen miles off by now." "No," Horace said, with a curious pertinacity; "I'm sure he's about here still. He looked like a man with no home. Ugh! how dreary it is! Come along, Hindford." The good-natured Captain obeyed, and they went on by the cheerless water, which was only partially revealed in the blackness. Suddenly they both stopped. "What's that?" Horace exclaimed.
"Mater, I wish to God 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.
Wishing devoutly that, being a gentleman, he had not to conform to an unwritten code of manners, Hindford walked away. And, as he walked, he saw continually the back of the beggar with that black coat of the two hills and the valley between the shoulder-blades. Meanwhile, Mrs. Errington and Horace, quite unaware that they were being followed, pursued their way.
Between them they quickly got the man on shore, and laid him down on the path on his back. The bull's-eye lantern, turned full on him, lit up a face that seemed all bony structure, staring eyes, a mouth out of which the water dripped. He had no coat on and his thin arms were like those of a skeleton. "Dead as a door-nail," said the first policeman. "A case of suicide." "God! Hindford, it's he!
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