mary lowther and her cousin had taken their walk together on monday evening, and on the next morning she received the following letter from mrs. fenwick. when it reached her she had as yet heard nothing of the bullhampton tragedy.

vicarage, monday, sept. 1, 186—.

dearest mary,

i suppose you will have heard before you get this of the dreadful murder that has taken place here, and which has so startled and horrified us, that we hardly know what we are doing even yet. it is hard to say why a thing should be worse because it is close, but it certainly is so. had it been in the next parish, or even further off in this parish, i do not think that i should feel it so much, and then we knew the old man so well; and then, again,—which makes it worst of all,—we all of us are unable to get rid of a suspicion that one whom we knew, and was liked, has been a participator in the crime.

it seems that it must have been about two o’clock on sunday morning that mr. trumbull was killed. it was, at any rate, between one and three. as far as they can judge, they think that there must have been three men concerned. you remember how we used to joke about poor mr. trumbull’s dog. well, he was poisoned first,—probably an hour before the men got into the house. it has been discovered that the foolish old man kept a large sum of money by him in a box, and that he always took this box into bed with him. the woman, who lived in the house with him, used to see it there. no doubt the thieves had heard of this, and both frank and mr. gilmore think that the girl, agnes pope, whom you will remember in the choir, told about it. she lived with mr. trumbull, and we all thought her a very good girl,—though she was too fond of that young man, sam brattle.

they think that the men did not mean to do the murder, but that the old man fought so hard for his money that they were driven to it. his body was not in the room, but on the top of the stairs, and his temple had been split open with a blow of a hammer. the hammer lay beside him, and was one belonging to the house. mr. gilmore says that there was great craft in their using a weapon which they did not bring with them. of course they cannot be traced by the hammer.

they got off with ￡150 in the box, and did not touch anything else. everybody feels quite sure that they knew all about the money, and that when mr. gilmore saw them that night down at the churchyard corner, they were prowling about with a view of seeing how they could get into the farmer’s house, and not into the vicarage. frank thinks that when he afterwards found them in our place, sam brattle had brought them in with a kind of wild idea of taking the fruit, but that the men, of their own account, had come round to reconnoitre the house. they both say that there can be no doubt about the men having been the same. then comes the terrible question whether sam brattle, the son of that dear woman at the mill, has been one of the murderers. he had been at home all the previous day working very hard at the works,—which are being done in obedience to your orders, my dear; but he certainly was out on the saturday night.

it is very hard to get at any man’s belief in such matters, but, as far as i can understand them, i don’t think that either frank or mr. gilmore do really believe that he was there. frank says that it will go very hard with him, and mr. gilmore has committed him. the magistrates are to sit to-morrow at heytesbury, and mr. gilmore will be there. he has, as you may be sure, behaved as well as possible, and has quite altered in his manner to the old people. i was at the mill this morning. brattle himself would not speak to me, but i sat for an hour with mrs. brattle and fanny. it makes it almost the more melancholy having all the rubbish and building things about, and yet the work stopped.

fanny brattle has behaved so well! it was she who told that her brother had been out at night. mr. gilmore says that when the question was asked in his presence, she answered it in her own quiet, simple way, without a moment’s doubt; but since that she has never ceased to assert her conviction that her brother has had nothing to do either with the murder or with the robbery. if it had not been for this, mrs. brattle would, i think, have sunk under the load. fanny says the same thing constantly to her father. he scolds her, and bids her hold her tongue; but she goes on, and i think it has some effect even on him. the whole place does look such a picture of ruin! it would break your heart to see it. and then, when one looks at the father and mother, one remembers about that other child, and is almost tempted to ask why such misery should have fallen upon parents who have been honest, sober, and industrious. can it really be that the man is being punished here on earth because he will not believe? when i hinted this to frank, he turned upon me, and scolded me, and told me i was measuring the almighty god with a foot-rule. but men were punished in the bible because they did not believe. remember the baptist’s father. but i never dare to go on with frank on these matters.

i am so full of this affair of poor mr. trumbull, and so anxious about sam brattle, that i cannot now write about anything else. i can only say that no man ever behaved with greater kindness and propriety than harry gilmore, who has had to act as magistrate. poor fanny brattle has to go to heytesbury to-morrow to give her evidence. at first they said that they must take the father also, but he is to be spared for the present.

i should tell you that sam himself declares that he got to know these men at a place where he was at work, brickmaking, near devizes. he had quarrelled with his father, and had got a job there, with high wages. he used to be out at night with them, and acknowledges that he joined one of them, a man named burrows, in stealing a brood of pea-fowl which some poulterers wanted to buy. he says he looked on it as a joke. then it seems he had some spite against trumbull’s dog, and that this man, burrows, came over here on purpose to take the dog away. this, according to his story, is all that he knows of the man; and he says that on that special saturday night he had not the least idea that burrows was at bullhampton, till he heard the sound of a certain cart on the road. i tell you all this, as i am sure you will share our anxiety respecting this unfortunate young man,—because of his mother and sister.

good-bye, dearest; frank sends ever so many loves;—and somebody else would send them too, if he thought that i would be the bearer. try to think so well of bullhampton as to make you wish to live here.—give my kindest love to your aunt sarah.

your most affectionate friend,

janet fenwick.

mary was obliged to read the letter twice before she completely understood it. old mr. trumbull murdered! why she had known the old man well, had always been in the habit of speaking to him when she met him either at the one gate or the other of the farmyard,—had joked with him about bone’m, and had heard him assert his own perfect security against robbers not a week before the night on which he was murdered! as mrs. fenwick had said, the truth is so much more real when it comes from things that are near. and then she had so often heard the character of sam brattle described,—the man who was now in prison as a murderer! and she herself had given lessons in singing to agnes pope, who was now in some sort accused of aiding the thieves. and she herself had asked agnes whether it was not foolish for her to be hanging about the farmyard, outside her master’s premises, with sam brattle. it was all brought very near to her!

before that day was over she was telling the story to captain marrable. she had of course told it to her aunt, and they had been discussing it the whole morning. mr. gilmore’s name had been mentioned to captain marrable, but very little more than the name. aunt sarah, however, had already begun to think whether it might not be prudent to tell cousin walter the story of the half-formed engagement. mary had expressed so much sympathy with her cousin’s wrongs, that aunt sarah had begun to fear that that sympathy might lead to a tenderer feeling, and aunt sarah was by no means anxious that her niece should fall in love with a gentleman whose chief attraction was the fact that he had been ruined by his own father, even though that gentleman was a marrable himself. this danger might possibly be lessened if captain marrable were made acquainted with the gilmore affair, and taught to understand how desirable such a match would be for mary. but aunt sarah had qualms of conscience on the subject. she doubted whether she had a right to tell the story without leave from mary; and then there was in truth no real engagement. she knew indeed that mr. gilmore had made the offer more than once; but then she knew also that the offer had at any rate not as yet been accepted, and she felt that on mr. gilmore’s account as well as on mary’s she ought to hold her tongue. it might indeed be admissible to tell to a cousin that which she would not tell to an indifferent young man; but, nevertheless, she could not bring herself to do, even with so good an object, that which she believed to be wrong.

that evening mary was again walking on the towing-path beside the river with her cousin walter. she had met him now about five times, and there was already an intimacy between them. the idea of cousinly intimacy to girls is undoubtedly very pleasant; and i do not know whether it is not the fact that the better and the purer is the girl, the sweeter and the pleasanter is the idea. in america a girl may form a friendly intimacy with any young man she fancies, and though she may not be free from little jests and good-humoured joking, there is no injury to her from such intimacy. it is her acknowledged right to enjoy herself after that fashion, and to have what she calls a good time with young men. a dozen such intimacies do not stand in her way when there comes some real adorer who means to marry her and is able to do so. she rides with these friends, walks with them, and corresponds with them. she goes out to balls and picnics with them, and afterwards lets herself in with a latchkey, while her papa and mamma are a-bed and asleep, with perfect security. if there be much to be said against the practice, there is also something to be said for it. girls on the other hand, on the continent of europe, do not dream of making friendship with any man. a cousin with them is as much out of the question as the most perfect stranger. in strict families, a girl is hardly allowed to go out with her brother; and i have heard of mothers who thought it indiscreet that a father should be seen alone with his daughter at a theatre. all friendships between the sexes must, under such a social code, be looked forward to as post-nuptial joys. here in england there is a something betwixt the two. the intercourse between young men and girls is free enough to enable the latter to feel how pleasant it is to be able to forget for awhile conventional restraints, and to acknowledge how joyous a thing it is to indulge in social intercourse in which the simple delight of equal mind meeting equal mind in equal talk is just enhanced by the unconscious remembrance that boys and girls when they meet together may learn to love. there is nothing more sweet in youth than this, nothing more natural, nothing more fitting, nothing, indeed, more essentially necessary for god’s purposes with his creatures. nevertheless, here with us, there is the restriction, and it is seldom that a girl can allow herself the full flow of friendship with a man who is not old enough to be her father, unless he is her lover as well as her friend. but cousinhood does allow some escape from the hardship of this rule. cousins are tom, and jack, and george, and dick. cousins probably know all or most of your little family secrets. cousins, perhaps, have romped with you, and scolded you, and teased you, when you were young. cousins are almost the same as brothers, and yet they may be lovers. there is certainly a great relief in cousinhood.

mary lowther had no brother. she had neither brother nor sister;—had since her earliest infancy hardly known any other relative save her aunt and old parson john. when first she had heard that walter marrable was at loring, the tidings gave her no pleasure whatever. it never occurred to her to say to herself: “now i shall have one who may become my friend, and be to me perhaps almost a brother?” what she had hitherto heard of walter marrable had not been in his favour. of his father she had heard all that was bad, and she had joined the father and the son together in what few ideas she had formed respecting them. but now, after five interviews, walter marrable was her dear cousin, with whom she sympathised, of whom she was proud, whose misfortunes were in some degree her misfortunes, to whom she thought she could very soon tell this great trouble of her life about mr. gilmore, as though he were indeed her brother. and she had learned to like his dark staring eyes, which now always seemed to be fixed on her with something of real regard. she liked them the better, perhaps, because there was in them so much of real admiration; though if it were so, mary knew nothing of such liking herself. and now at his bidding she called him walter. he had addressed her by her christian name at first, as a matter of course, and she had felt grateful to him for doing so. but she had not dared to be so bold with him, till he had bade her do so, and now she felt that he was a cousin indeed. captain marrable was at present waiting, not with much patience, for tidings from block and curling. would that ￡5000 be saved for him, or must he again go out to india and be heard of no more at home in his own england? mary was not so impatient as the captain, but she also was intensely interested in the expected letters. on this day, however, their conversation chiefly ran on the news which mary had that morning heard from bullhampton.

“i suppose you feel sure,” said the captain, “that young sam brattle was one of the murderers?”

“oh no, walter.”

“or at least one of the thieves?”

“but both mr. fenwick and mr. gilmore think that he is innocent.”

“i do not gather that from what your friend says. she says that she thinks that they think so. and then it is clear that he was hanging about the place before with the very men who have committed the crime; and that there was a way in which he might have heard and probably had heard of the money; and then he was out and about that very night.”

“still i can’t believe it. if you knew the sort of people his father and mother are.” captain marrable could not but reflect that, if an honest gentleman might have a swindler for his father, an honest miller might have a thief for his son. “and then if you saw the place at which they live! i have a particular interest about it.”

“then the young man, of course, must be innocent.”

“don’t laugh at me, walter.”

“why is the place so interesting to you?”

“i can hardly tell you why. the father and the mother are interesting people, and so is the sister. and in their way they are so good! and they have had great troubles,—very great troubles. and the place is so cool and pretty, all surrounded by streams and old pollard willows, with a thatched roof that comes in places nearly to the ground; and then the sound of the mill wheel is the pleasantest sound i know anywhere.”

“i will hope he is innocent, mary.”

“i do so hope he is innocent! and then my friends are so much interested about the family. the fenwicks are very fond of them, and mr. gilmore is their landlord.”

“he is the magistrate?”

“yes, he is the magistrate.”

“what sort of fellow is he?”

“a very good sort of fellow; such a sort that he can hardly be better; a perfect gentleman.”

“indeed! and has he a perfect lady for his wife?”

“mr. gilmore is not married.”

“what age is he?”

“i think he is thirty-three.”

“with a nice estate and not married! what a chance you have left behind you, mary!”

“do you think, walter, that a girl ought to wish to marry a man merely because he is a perfect gentleman, and has a nice estate and is not yet married?”

“they say that they generally do;—don’t they?”

“i hope you don’t think so. any girl would be very fortunate to marry mr. gilmore—if she loved him.”

“but you don’t?”

“you know i am not talking about myself, and you oughtn’t to make personal allusions.”

these cousinly walks along the banks of the lurwell were not probably favourable to mr. gilmore’s hopes.