Then Monday morning, and the papers with the unbelievable news -MURDER ON HAZELDON HEATH. He was expecting that, and read on. The paper dropped from his grasp. He hadn’t killed Jenny. Jenny was alive. He had killed a stranger.

After a minute or two he picked up the paper again. There was something in his having killed a girl he had never heard of. He read all about her. She was Miriam Richardson, and she was the cousin of Mrs. Merridew whom he knew by name because she had a relation in Alingford- Miss Crampton, the late Vicar’s daughter, for whom he had a strong detestation. Mrs. Merridew stayed there occasionally. He hadn’t known that she was living at Hazeldon. There were too many old women in the world-that was a fact.

He went on reading about Miriam Richardson. She had gone up on to Hazeldon Heath to meet a man, one Jimmy Mottingley. A sense of her folly rushed upon him. Mrs. Merridew lived next door. What had possessed Miriam Richardson to come in where Jenny was before he arrived, and to leave the house in the dark to go up to the lonely Heath? What had possessed her? Well, he had only to read on to see. He read on…

So the girl had a lover. That was who Jimmy Mottingley was. And he had arrived late, and he had killed her-killed her. Well, it made quite a good story, and quite a likely one. A girl with a hot temper would be pretty wild if she had had to wait three quarters of an hour or so on a dark deserted heath. It was a black empty place for a girl to wait.

A sense of its blackness and emptiness swept over him as he read. He crushed it down. It had nothing to do with him. None of it had anything to do with him. Miriam Richardson was nothing to him. It was Jenny whom he had meant to kill, and it was Jenny who was most damnably alive.

A cold rage possessed him. He had made a fool of himself-had run into the utmost danger and had gained nothing. And somewhere in all this welter of mistakes-somewhere there was the note that he had written to Jenny. He crumpled the newspaper together and stood up. Such a rage possessed him that he could have done murder at its bidding without a thought but the dominating impulse, to kill. The keener, colder side of himself was alarmed. Alerted, it sprang back and took command. The rage subsided and reason held sway.

What must he do? That was what mattered now. That was all that mattered. He began to pace the room. What mattered most was the note. If he could only remember whether he had dated it or not-it had simply never occurred to him when he was writing it to think that Jenny would not do as he told her. He had that inflated sense of his own importance which is a little present in every young man who is the head of his family, and who has been flattered by an adoring mother and by the consciousness of his own talents.

As he paced the room he was not conscious of any remorse about Miriam’s death. He regarded her as negligible. He had meant to kill Jenny, both because she stood in his way and because she had turned from him to a stranger. No, if it had been a stranger he would have borne it better. It was because Richard Alington Forbes had the name and the blood- because he had not been turned down for someone outside the family. He jerked away from that. He wouldn’t think of that. What you did not think of did not exist for you. Jenny did not exist. Jenny was dead-

The revulsion came-a cold, deadly revulsion. Jenny wasn’t dead. Jenny was alive, and he would have to let her stay alive. It wouldn’t be safe to kill her now-not for a long time. No use dwelling on that

The note-what had happened to it? He saw no reason to suppose that it had never reached her.

And the note lay in Dicky Pratt’s pocket screwed up in a welter of the things boys carry in their pockets. No one had read it except Mac himself. There was no one to tell him that it was quite neatly and legibly dated in the top left-hand corner.

Chapter XXVIII

By Saturday Mac had made up his mind that no harm was going to come of his unfortunate note. Either it had not reached Jenny, or, having reached her, she had decided to take no notice of it. He inclined to the second of these theories, and though it roused his anger it was definitely the more likely of the two. He would get even with her some day, but not now. And there would be no more killing. The game was not worth the candle. The week that had just gone by had taught him that. There were other ways, ingenious ones, of venting a grudge. Jenny should be sorry enough for having flouted him! His mind toyed with this idea and that. There would be time enough for everything. Meanwhile he could relax, taste relief, and stretch himself in the consciousness of safety.

He went down to Alington House on Saturday. Mrs. Forbes looked up as he came in. He kissed her carelessly and went to stand in front of the fire. The day was a cold one for September, and he had driven fast.

“Any more news of Jenny?” he said.

Mrs. Forbes had been writing letters. She rose now and came to the fire.

“Jenny?” she said. “Why, my dear boy, haven’t you heard? She has managed to get herself involved in a murder case-that’s all.”

“A murder case? Good heavens!”

Mrs. Forbes bent down and put another log on the fire.

“I told you she was at Hazeldon-I’m sure I did. Well, a girl who was staying next door was murdered, and they say that Jenny will be a witness at the trial, because the girl went straight from Miss Danesworth’s house to meet the young man who murdered her.”

“My dear Mother, this sounds interesting. Jenny would be rather good in the witness-box, I should think. What has she got to say about it?”

“Oh, just that the girl had dropped in to see them-that is, Jenny and Caroline Danesworth. They didn’t know she was going to be murdered of course. I suppose they’ll be wanted at the trial.”

He said carelessly, “I can’t think why.”

“Oh, just to fix the time she left the house, I should think. I got a whole dose of it this morning in the village.”

“The village? This village?”

“Oh well, I’m sure I told you about Mrs. Merridew being a cousin of Miss Crampton’s. You remember?”

“Yes, I remember. A little squit of a thing with poison under a honeyed tongue.”

“Yes, that’s her. But don’t let anyone hear you say it. Miss Crampton is very much respected.” She made an impatient gesture.

Mac stooped down and adjusted the log.

“I saw something about it in the papers. I didn’t really connect it with Jenny. Come to think of it, it’s better for her to be away for a bit if she’s going to be called up in a murder trial, though I don’t mind betting that Meg and Joyce will get on to it.”

“Good heavens, I hope not!”

He laughed.

“It’s a wise parent who knows what his children are thinking about! Do you suppose that you really knew anything at all about Alan and me when we were that age?”

Mrs. Forbes felt a cold touch of fear, she didn’t know why. The words were nothing, and the tone in which they were said was light enough, but something swept over her like a dark shadow. It was gone again almost before she had recognized it. It was nothing-nothing at all. She couldn’t think why for a moment there had been that frightening blackness. In a revulsion of her feeling she laughed.

“My dear boy, how ridiculous that sounds!”

“Does it? I don’t mind betting that what fathers and mothers don’t know about their children would fill more books than what they think they do know. I could tell you all sorts of things.” He pushed the log with his foot and a sudden flame shot up. “But I don’t think I will. It might keep you awake at night.”

Mrs. Forbes smiled rather vaguely. The mood that had touched her was so completely gone that she couldn’t even remember it. She was thinking about Jenny. It was a very good thing that she should be away, with a murder trial coming on. Only if she hadn’t been away she wouldn’t have been connected with the murder at all. If she had still been in Alington House, this young Mottingley might have murdered Miriam Richardson without its being more than a paragraph in the papers as far as they were concerned. She had no knowledge, no instinct, to tell her that if Jenny had not left this house which was her home, Miriam Richardson would be alive and well, going about her own ill-natured affairs, and Jimmy Mottingley would be in no worse prison than was provided by his guilty conscience.