’Thank you, Joyce, and thank Jim White, and here is a present to him for his mistaken kindness to me on a former occasion.’
’But,’ said Joyce, ’I may tell ’n that you don’t want the paper again. He be that stupid he might make the bringing of a paper an excuse to come here every Sunday. I know,’ she exclaimed brightly—’I know what I’ll do. I’ll tell ’n if he comes again you’ll up with your gun and bang off wi’ it as you did at me to Welltown that night.’
When Joyce had retired, Herring took up the paper indifferently. It could not interest him, for nothing interested him now.
’I wish you had been at church to-day, John,’ said Cicely; ’Mr. Harmless-Simpleton preached us a very good sermon.’
’Indeed—on what text?’ asked John Herring, carelessly.
Herring laughed bitterly. ’Cicely,’ he said, ’the order is inverted. The judgment comes first, and after that—after a long and weary interval—death. At least that is my experience.’
She looked at him with a distressed and puzzled expression. ’Dear Cousin John, what has come over you? you are so different from what you were.’
’What has come over me?’ he echoed; ’the judgment and condemnation. There! ask no more questions. Take the paper and look at it; there is nothing in it to interest me.’ He pushed it across the table to her.
’Do you take no interest in politics, John?’
’John, I cannot understand you. Why are you so changed in your view of life? At one time you were hopeful and believed in good, and now you despair and believe only in evil. You make me unhappy.’
’Then I am fulfilling my destiny. The curse is laid on me to blight all I come across.’
’We see life in different lights, Cicely. In after years you will recognise that my view is the true view. Fortunately, the young who start in life are nursed in delusions, or they would refuse the race.’
’John,’ said Cicely, ’what is the meaning of this?’ She had been turning listlessly over the paper, listening to Herring’s words, and troubled in her mind about him. ’Here stands your name—and Welltown, your place in Cornwall.’
’What!’ he asked; ’let me look.’ And he took the paper hastily out of her hands.
He read of the discovery of Mr. John Herring, late of Welltown, who had disappeared from home on a certain night, but without any suspicions having been raised till his body was found in Plackapit at low water a few days later, terribly mangled and defaced. It would not have been possible to identify the body but for the clothes worn by the deceased, and which had been taken from the place in his office where they usually hung. Moreover, the pocket contained a steel purse known to have belonged to the deceased gentleman, and in the breast-pocket was discovered a magnificent set of diamonds, the property of his wife, which she always kept in a concealed drawer, the secret of which was known only to herself and Mr. Herring. According to what had transpired, the last time the deceased was seen alive was by his wife, seated at the bureau in which these diamonds were. Apparently he had removed the jewels before leaving; for what purpose it was impossible to conjecture, especially as it was suspected that the deceased gentleman had committed suicide. It was reported that he had written a farewell letter to his wife at the bureau where she saw him, intimating his intention; but this letter she absolutely refused to produce at the inquest. This melancholy event had cast a deep gloom over the entire neighbourhood, &c. &c.