# Where Highways Cross/Part 3/Chapter 3

Layout 4
CHAPTER III
THE BLOW FALLS
During the next half-hour the men assembled in the bar-parlour of the inn continued to smoke, drink, and chat. The old farmer was somewhat inclined to tease Hepworth about his marriage, and threw out sundry sly hints as to the sudden frivolities of middle-aged men. Hepworth took all in good part: he was so heartily at peace with himself and all the world that nothing could ruffle the calm sea of his content. He smoked his pipe and laughed at the old man's humour. Half of what was said he did not hear—he was thinking of Elisabeth. Once or twice, glancing round the room he caught sight of the stranger in the corner. The young man still sat with his glass untasted before him. He ​kept his eyes fixed on Hepworth and seemed to be studying him with a curious interest. Hepworth, however, scarcely noted it—all that day he had been thinking of the morrow, and no other thought had power to turn him. from it. He was so absorbed that he did not even notice that the stranger had not tasted the contents of the glass before him. At last Hepworth shook the ashes out of his pipe and rose to go. The old farmer would have detained him on the plea of drinking another glass. Hepworth declined laughingly. The company then insisted upon his shaking hands with them individually. They pressed his hand with much fervour, wishing him joy. While this ceremony was going on the stranger rose and left the room.
In the inn-yard the ostler was yoking Hepworth's horse. Hepworth came out and began counting the parcels under the seat of the trap, to make sure that all were there, and none missing. While he was thus engaged, the stranger came up.
​"Can I speak to you a minute?" he said, addressing Hepworth.
Hepworth looked round in some astonishment. It occurred to him that the young man might be a hawker, selling something and anxious to trade with him.
"Yes, certainly," he replied, "but I'm afraid I haven't much time."
"Let us go into the inn—into some private room," said the stranger.
"Eh?" said Hepworth. "A private room? Why?"
"So that we can talk without interruption. What I wish to say to you is of a private nature."
"I don't understand you," said Hepworth.
"I want to speak to you on important matters, then," said the stranger.
Hepworth re-arranged his parcels, wondering what the man meant. He was impatient to drive away, so that he might get home early and spend an hour with Elisabeth.
​"Can't you say what you want to say here?" he asked. "You see—I'm in a hurry."
"No," answered the stranger. "Come into the inn. I must speak to you—do you hear—must! It's a matter of great importance—it's about—about your marriage."
Hepworth turned and looked at the stranger in astonishment. He then perceived that the young man was much agitated, and that something of moment had occurred. He called to the ostler and bidding him see to the horse, led the way into the house again.
"Let it be a private room," said the young man.
Hepworth opened the door of a small parlour at the end of a passage, and motioning the stranger to enter, followed him and closed it carefully behind them.
Then he turned to him. The young man sank down into a chair and seemed to be labouring under some emotion. He rested his head on his hand and looked at Hepworth with frightened eyes.
​"Well?" said Hepworth.
"I'm forced to speak," said the stranger. "It's all chance that I should have come here this afternoon and met you. A day later, and the chance would have gone."
"What do you want to say?" Hepworth asked.
"You were to be married to-morrow to a young woman named Elisabeth Verrell?"
"Were to be? I am to be—what of it?"
"You cannot marry her."
Hepworth looked at him silently. He felt as if he were dreaming: there was something unreal about the whole thing. He seemed to be no longer himself but rather another man looking on at his own doings, hearing his own words.
"Cannot?" he said at last, after what appeared to him a long silence. "And why?"
"Because, sir, she is already married."
"That," said Hepworth, "I know. But her husband is dead—she is a widow."
​"No, sir. Her husband lives."
At these words Hepworth suddenly regained full consciousness of his own being. He felt a fierce throb of anguish that made him stagger and turn sick. He sat down in the nearest chair and looked earnestly at the stranger.
"Proof of it!" he said. "Proof, man—for God's sake!"
The stranger sank his voice to a whisper.
"I trust to you," he said. "You must be an honest man, or Elisabeth—well, then, I am her husband—I am Walter Verrell."
For some five minutes after that the two men sat facing each other, their eyes staring, their faces white and drawn. Hepworth felt that all was over. He knew it was true. Something told him that this was no ugly dream, but an uglier reality. It was all over—and his great love was doomed to come to naught. He tried to think, but thought would not come to him. All he was conscious of was that something had struck him to the heart and numbed his life.
​Presently, Hepworth rose and went over to the window and looked out. In the yard stood his horse and trap, with two or three stable-boys lounging near it; through the gate of the inn he saw people pass to and fro about the market-place, bright and pleasant in the light of the afternoon sun; the laughter of a child in a neighbouring garden came to his ears. He noted all these things with a strange sense of keenness—they seemed to bum themselves into his brain.
"She told me you were dead," he said, suddenly turning to his companion. "Dead!"
"She does not know that I am not," answered Verrell. "I—do you know my story?"
"Yes," said Hepworth. "Yes—yes—I know."
"They thought I was dead—shot—and I saw in the papers that they found my body. It was not mine—I escaped."
Hepworth continued to stare out of the window. He was not yet able to think clearly ​over what had happened. Once more he began to fancy that it was a dream. It must be a dream—he was asleep of course, in his bed at the farm, and presently Mally would come knocking at his door and he would wake to find the sunlight pouring in through the window, and—
"What is to be done?" asked Verrell.
Hepworth started. Done? Then it was no dream. To do something meant action, reality. It was no dream.
"Done?" he said. "Done? I don't know—I can't think. Of course you are right—there is something to be done. But what? I can't think yet—give me time."
He spoke in disconnected sentences, feeling that he was not master of himself. Try as he would he could not think—it seemed to him that the blow which had just fallen upon him had numbed his faculties and rendered him wholly incapable of thought. It was difficult to speak, but more difficult to think.
"I suppose we must do something," he said ​at last, his voice full of despair. "It is all over, of course." He sat down and looked at Verrell.
"We must tell Elisabeth—your wife," he said. "After that—"
He paused, not knowing what to say next. Verrell said nothing. He sat silently watching Hepworth.
"How did you come here?" asked Hepworth, wearily.
Verrell leaned forward and spoke in a low voice. His eyes wandered to the door, then to the window, as if he dreaded to be overheard.
"It's a long story," he said. "A long story, Mr. Hepworth. You know that I have been in prison—Elisabeth told you, no doubt."
"Yes," said Hepworth. "Yes—she told me."
His mind went back to the night on which Elisabeth had told the story of her sorrow to him. He saw her weeping again, and again felt the wild desire that then filled him to ​take her into his arms and comfort her. While Verrell spoke, this picture remained before Hepworth's eyes. He saw Elisabeth and her grief, and began to wonder whether she then felt as he was feeling now.
"I escaped from prison," said Verrell, glancing nervously around him. "It was a marvellous escape, too. I met a man on Dartmoor whom I took into my confidence. He promised to assist me. We were hid all one day, and at night we crossed the moors. It was moonlight, and there was a search party out, and they saw us and shot at us from a distance. The man was hit. I dragged him into a sort of cave in a lonely spot. Then he died, and it seemed to me that there was a chance of escape. I took his clothes off and put them on myself, and left my clothes—the prison clothes—on him. Then I went away. They found him a long time after—and of course they thought it was the escaped convict. He—he was unrecognisable, but there were the clothes to go by."
​"And after that?" said Hepworth.
"I got down to Plymouth," continued Verrell. "There was money in the dead man's clothes, and I purchased a new outfit as soon as possible, and burnt his clothes lest anyone should recognise them. Then I went to sea in a ship bound for South America. I was out there sometime, but I came home at last because—because of Elisabeth. I ventured to go to Bristol and enquire after her, and then I tracked her to Clothford, and at Clothford I found the woman with whom she had worked, and learned that she was in your service. That's how I came here to-day. It was just chance that made us meet."
"Chance?" said Hepworth. "Chance?"
He began to laugh—Verrell shuddered to hear it; it was such soulless, despairing laughter. Suddenly Hepworth shook himself and turned to the door.
"Come!" he said, "No more talking—we must go."