Upon which Loveday in a middle pew, perceiving here something sinister,
like a still wind flew to a back door, before ever the amazement of the
people had given place to a flutter like leafage; and running fast, he
came up with Hogarth by a stile twenty yards behind the chapel, touched
his shoulder.
“To the devil with you...!” shouted Hogarth, running still, and there
Loveday stood.
Margaret, meantime, was hurrying toward the towing-path, while Richard,
in a direction at right angles to hers, was pelting toward that spot
terrible to him--the elm.
At the moment when he entered the deep darkness of the beeches, he heard
what sounded like a pistol-shot, rain now falling drop by drop, and
through the forest with an uplifting whoop, like batsmen, swooped the
tomboy winds.
Now, approaching the elm, again he felt that thrill which the spot had
for him, and came peering, at slower pace: no sound but the gibbering
rout of the stiff-stark beech-leaves. Some steps more, and now he was
at the mound which surrounds the tree: stood, listened: silence,
sightlessness: Margaret not there.
One more forward step: and now his foot struck a body.
As he stooped, his hand touched a revolver--which was his own; another
moment, and he saw running lanterns borne by two park-keepers, and by
their light saw the body of Isaac, who but now had shot himself with the
weapon that was in Hogarth's hand.
The park-keepers had just been urged by their master to the spot, he
having, he told them, heard a pistol-shot; and before anyone could speak
Frankl himself was there, defiled with the presence of the dead.
He looked from Hogarth to the corpse, and from the corpse to Hogarth,
then, snatching the weapon from Hogarth's hand, exclaimed: “Why, bless
my heart, you've _murdered_ the man....”
XI
WROXHAM BROAD
In a cottage in Thring Street, marked “E. Norfolk, E. 58, Constabulary”,
Hogarth passed the night, having been arrested the moment he returned
home from the elm.
A few minutes afterwards Margaret, who had found no Frankl at the
towing-path, came home to the ghastliest amazement throughout Thring, so
that sleep overcame the village only toward morning.
At 7.30 A.M. Hogarth was marched to Beccles, then after an
inquest-verdict appeared before the magistrates' court, and was
committed.
One of the witnesses in the summary-jurisdiction court had been Loveday,
who had deposed that Hogarth, on leaving the chapel, was, beyond doubt,
in a passion; and mixed with the crowd was Margaret, who, standing
thickly veiled, heard that evidence. And thought she: “Is it possible
that he can be giving evidence against Richard like that? And smiling,
the mean, false thing--”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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