George Manville Fenn (continued 5)

There was the moat to cross, and, beyond, the massive wall, beyond which again was the well-planted garden, with its southern wall covered with well-trained fruit trees.

It was for this part of the garden that Chris Lisle aimed, with every step of the way bringing up old remembrances of boy and girl life, and the hours he had spent in the grounds with Claude.

“And will again,” he muttered. “I am not a beggar now.”

After a glance or two at the back of the house, which he was facing, he took hold of one of the pendant boughs overhanging the moat, stepped to the very edge, and then lowered himself into the water.

It was deeper than he had anticipated, rising at once to his middle, and he paused for a moment, wondering whether he should have to swim; but fortunately, as he advanced, the depth was only increased by a few inches, and in a few seconds he had waded across, and was half dragging himself up by the ivy, half climbing to the foot of the wall, where, without thinking of what he was doing, he stood for a time to drain, the clear stream water trickling down, and forming a pool beneath the ivy at his feet.

All seemed still, and he crept through the abundant ivy to where a huge, massive buttress sloped down from the top of the wall to the rock, where the architect had studied the strength of his work as regarded the attacks of time, and not those of men who had designs upon the wealth Gartram would not trust in the banks. This buttress, when first built, might have been climbed by an active boy, while now, it was so densely coated with the ivy of many years’ growth that Chris had no difficulty in making his way to the top of the wall, where he lay down for a few moments to reconnoitre, and, finding all still, he had only to make use of the trunk of a pear-tree, whose horizontally trained bows were as easy to descend as a ladder.

He felt perfectly determined, but, all the same, a sensation of shame, mingled with dread, assailed him as he thought of how contemptible a figure he would cut if he were discovered.

That was but a momentary thought, chased away by the recollection that he was once more within the walls which held the woman he loved; and, perfectly familiar with every foot of the ground, he soon crossed the rather open part devoted to fruit-growing, and made his way to the shrubs surrounding the upper and lower lawns.

Here there were plenty of shadowy spots, among which he crept till he was brought to a standstill by the sound of steps coming along the terrace walk, and he recognised the voices at once as those of Gartram and Doctor Asher.

The hot blood flushed the young man’s face for two reasons.

If he stayed there, he would be forced to play the eavesdropper; and for the second reason, Gartram and the doctor being together, it, in all probability, meant that Glyddyr had been left alone with Claude.

At the risk of being heard, he drew back among the bushes, and crept slowly away, the voices seeming to follow him as he made from the side to the back of the house, and then in and out among the trees till he was right on the other side, where a light shone out from the drawing-room windows, and where, by a little manoeuvring, he was able to look in.

His heart beat faster as he caught sight of a black coat and the bright dress of Claude. It was just as he thought; and, unable to contain himself, he was about to cross the narrow patch of lawn, and make straight for the room, when a female figure passed the window, and he recognised Mary Dillon.

He drew a catching breath, full of relief, and remained in the shade.

Thank heaven! they were not alone.

Still, there seemed to be no opportunity for a word with Claude, and to have done what he felt he would like to do—go boldly in and speak to her—would only mean a scene with her father, and pain to her. There was nothing for it but to wait, and he remained there hidden, with his eyes fixed upon the window, and seeing, if he could not hear, much that was going on.

He heard, though, the doctor’s step, and knew when he left, his heart beating fast as he saw Glyddyr leave the room.

This was his opportunity, and he cautiously approached the window, meaning to risk all, and tap upon the pane, but before he put his plan into effect the door re-opened, and Glyddyr returned, sending Chris back among the bushes, where, unable to bear the sight of his rival in Claude’s presence, playing the part of the accepted lover, he stole off, intending to make his way round to the other side of the house, hoping that Gartram might be by this time following out a custom perfectly familiar to Chris, and having his after-dinner nap.

By means of a little scheming he contrived to get down among the bushes below the terrace in front of the study, but it was no easy task, for the cliff, in whose interstices the bushes were placed, sloped rapidly down here, and a false step or slip would have meant a fall of fifty or sixty feet.

Accustomed to rough climbing, though, as he was, he did not hesitate, and raising himself up till he could look over the edge, he was in time to see the study door open, and Sarah Woodham enter the room.

It was a little disappointing, for at the first glimpse of the woman’s dress he thought it was Claude; and, in utter ignorance of the fact that his opportunity had come, and that the ladies were now alone in the drawing-room, he remained watching for a time, and then crept slowly back, wishing that he had had the foresight to bring a note, for, had he borne one, he could easily have contrived to send it, with a pebble inside, through Claude’s open window.

Low-spirited and despondent, ready to take himself to task for coming upon so mad an expedition, he made his way cautiously back towards the garden, hesitating still as to whether he should go away, or wait about on the chance of getting a word with Claude. Common sense and manly pride advocated the return, but there was the natural desire to see the woman he loved, even if he were playing the part of a spy; and with a sigh he crept from bush to bush, keeping well in the shadowy till once more he was within range of the drawing-room window, and in the act of parting two boughs to gaze between, when there was a rustling sound, a strong hand held him by the collar, another grasped his wrist, and a deep voice said—

“I’ve got you, have I? What are you doing here?”

Stung to the quick by shame and annoyance, Chris swung himself back to make a desperate leap and escape—feeling that he had been discovered by Gartram, and like a flash the degradation and bitterness of what was to come seemed to blaze through his brain.

But there is a good old saying: Look before you leap.

Chris Lisle did not look before he leapt, and the consequence was that he went with a crash in among the elastic boughs of a short sturdy Weymouth pine, and was thrown back into his captor’s arms.

“Oh, no; you don’t,” rang in his ears, as he was borne to the ground, falling back on the grass with his face right out in the moonlight.

“Mr Lisle!”

“You, Brime!” whispered Chris huskily, as the hands were taken from his collar, and he struggled up, to stand facing the gardener.

“Why, sir, if I didn’t think it was one of them young dogs from down the harbour after the fruit. They’ve got a dinner party on, and I come out of the house and ketched sight of you. I beg your pardon, sir, I didn’t know you were asked.”

“Hush! Don’t talk so loud. No, I was not asked, Brime, but—that is—I thought I’d—I was looking at the drawing-room window.”

“I understand, sir. I see, sir; but how did you manage to get in?”

“Don’t—don’t ask me questions, man. I—there, for heaven’s sake, hold your tongue. Take this. Get yourself a glass.”

“Thankye, sir.”

“And don’t say you saw me here.”

“Oh, dear, no, sir; certainly not.”

“It was a bit of a freak, Brime,” continued Chris, feeling his cheeks burn, as he faltered and stumbled in his words, ready to bite out his own tongue at being compelled to lower himself like this to the man, as he was sure to go and chatter to the maids about how he had caught Mr Chris; and perhaps give Claude the credit of a clandestine meeting.

“Yes, sir; young gents will have their larks sometimes,” said the gardener drily, and mentally adding to himself, “Shabby beggar! Sixpence! Bound to say if it had been Mr Glider he’d ha’ made it half-a-crown.”

“I trust to your discretion, Brime. Can you let me out through the side gate?”

“Oh, yes, sir: of course. I’ve got the key in my pocket. But don’t let me interrupt you, sir, till you’ve quite done.”

“Done! What do you mean?” cried Chris in an angry whisper, as he fancied he detected a sarcastic ring in the man’s voice.

“Oh, nothing, sir. I thought perhaps you might be going to see somebody, and I’m in no hurry to go back home.”

“No, no; nonsense. I am not going to see anybody,” said Chris hurriedly. “Go on first; and look here, Brime, once more I must beg of you not to speak to any one of this meeting. It might cause trouble.”

“You may trust me, sir,” said the man sturdily.

“Thank you. Of course,” said Chris hastily, as the man led the way to a door in the thick wall of the garden, which door he opened, and Chris passed out.

“Who’d ever think as such games as that was being carried on?” muttered the gardener; “and Miss Claude all the while so prim, and looking as if butter wouldn’t melt in her mouth. If it had been Miss Mary I shouldn’t have wondered, for she can be a bit larky. But he wouldn’t come to see her, poor little crooked wench. Now, I wonder what Mr Glider would say if he knowed,” continued the gardener, as he thoughtfully turned the key, and went slowly back towards the house. “There’d be a row, and I’ll bet a tanner that he’d come down handsome if I told him; and it would serve t’other right—a mean snob. Sixpence! Yah!”

He turned the coin over in his hand, and looked at it in the bright moonlight before putting it in his pocket.

“Sixpence!” he said, half aloud. “Why, I’d have given a bob myself if it had been me, and—well! That it is! Half-a-suffrin! He’s a trump, and I wouldn’t let out about it for any money.

“Why, of course!” he continued, “I might have known. So he came to see Miss Claude on the sly when the governor was asleep, and couldn’t see her because there’s company. Well, why not? He’s a good sort, that’s what he is, and if I can help him without getting into trouble with the gaffer, I will, and no mistake. Half-a-suffrin! why, that may be just like a bean as I sticks in the ground. It may come up and have lots more half-suffrins. I’m glad I come up to-night. Better than gardening ever so much, that it is. Now, if I knowed exactly when he was coming next, I might happen to be here again—by accident, of course.”

He stopped for a few minutes, thinking, and then walked slowly up towards the back entrance, musing slowly and deeply, as gardeners will muse.

“I don’t seem to move her yet much, but I’m not going to give up. Hang me if I didn’t for a moment think he might have been after her. But no; he couldn’t be. Poor lass! so quiet and serious, and full o’ trouble, just the sort o’ woman a man could trust to bring all his savings to. Now, I wonder what it is in a widow as leads a chap on so. I don’t know, but she’s leading me on, and the day as she’s been a widow twelve month, sir, I’ll speak to her like a man.”

Reuben Brime, the biggest fool in Danmouth, according to his mother, opened the back door, and went into the house just at the same moment that Doctor Asher entered up the front.

Meanwhile, Chris Lisle had walked quickly down the narrow paved stone alley leading to the main path, crossed the lower drawbridge, and, with his teeth set, felt ready to curse himself for his folly.

“The contemptible, degrading position,” he muttered. “To be under the thumb of a servant who will look at me furtively, and whom I shall have to bribe into silence for fear of his confounded tongue. Oh, my darling, forgive me. It was for your sake I came, but I must have been half-mad.”

He was walking quickly down the roadway leading to the public cliff path, so intent upon the events of the night that he was right upon some one coming in the other direction before he realised the fact, and they met just in a part where the moon shone clearly.

“Ah, Mr Lisle,” said the doctor’s cheery voice, “nice evening, isn’t it?”

He passed on, and Chris almost staggered and reeled.

“Good heaven!” he groaned to himself. “I can’t ask him, and now he will go and tell them all that he met me coming from the house. What will Claude think. What will Gartram say?”

He went on, trying to find some excuse for his presence in that private roadway, but there was none. Any one coming along there must have been up to the Fort, and he had done a bad night’s work in yielding to his passionate desire to see Claude, and hear from her lips words of encouragement such as would make the situation more bearable—a worse night’s work than he realised for some time to come.

Chris Lisle went straight back to his lodgings, for the glorious night and the glittering sea had no attraction for him now. His landlady looked at him pityingly, and longed to ask him whether he was better, but did not dare.

“Poor young man,” she said to herself, as she heard him go up to bed early; “a good night’s rest is better than balm.”

She was quite right; but Chris Lisle had neither rest nor balm, but lay in his bed all night wakeful, seeing a pale, despicable looking man discovered like a thief in the Fort garden after he had waded the moat and climbed the wall.

“I shall have to meet Gartram and face him, and listen to his sneers and insolent bullying reproaches. Oh, how could I be such a fool?”

Chris Lisle lay awake all night working up his defence, the more strongly that he felt that he now stood more upon an equality with Claude’s father; but the slip he had made troubled him sorely.

“There’s only one way out of the difficulty,” he said at last, as the sun shone brightly in through his window. “Go up to him, confess what one has done, and boldly and frankly ask him once more to give me a chance.”

There was something so refreshing in that thought, backed as it was by forty thousand pounds, that Chris Lisle turned over and went to sleep.

But it might have been because he was utterly tired out.

Volume Two—Chapter Ten.

Parry Glyddyr is Unwell.

Doctor Asher did not go straight up to the Fort and tell every one that he had seen Chris Lisle coming down from the house. In fact, he hardly gave the meeting a second thought, for his mind was full of other matters.

“Well, young ladies,” he said cheerily, “all alone? I hope I am not too late for a cup of the boon. No? That’s right. Bless the man who first brought tea from China—the deliciously refreshing beverage we drink out of china, eh, Miss Dillon?”

“But you always have it in china, Doctor Asher,” said Mary quaintly.

“No, no, no, no, no,” said the doctor, smiling, as he tapped his cup with his spoon. “I am not going to be inveigled into a chop-logic or punning encounter with you, my dear, because I should be beaten. Come, now, if you want an argument, step on to my ground and give a poor man a chance. Now, what is your opinion of the effect of a vegetable alkaloid on the digestive function?”

“A very poor one,” said Mary quietly. “Can’t argue.”

“Ah, well, but you can sing. Will you?”

“If you wish me to.”

“If I wish you, eh,” said the doctor. “You know I do. But where is Mr Glyddyr? Gone.”

“He went to smoke in the study,” said Claude quietly.

The doctor turned round sharply.

“To burn vegetable alkaloid for his digestive function,” said Mary.

At that moment there was a step in the hall, and Glyddyr came in, looking rather sallow.

“Just in time, Mr Glyddyr,” said the doctor; “we are going to have a song.”

“Indeed?” said Glyddyr. “I am very glad.”

“When I marry—that is, if I marry,” said the doctor—“What delicious tea. A little too strong. Miss Gartram, would you kindly—a drop of milk—I mean cream. Thanks. What was I saying? Oh! I remember. When I marry—if I marry—I shall ask a lady who is a clever musician to share my lot. By the way, is Mr Gartram coming?”

“Sound asleep still,” said Glyddyr quickly. “I spoke to him when I finished my cigar, but he didn’t reply.”

“Not well, Mr Glyddyr?” said the doctor, between two sips of his tea.

“Well, really, to be frank,” said Glyddyr hastily, “I don’t think I am quite the thing. That last cigar was of a peculiar brand, I suppose, one I was not accustomed to; and if you will excuse me, Miss Gartram, I will say good-night.”

“Let me prescribe. A cup of strong coffee, or a liqueur of brandy. Miss Gartram, may I ring?”

“I will go and see that they are brought in,” said Mary, leaving the piano, where she was arranging a piece of music.

“No, no; I beg you will not,” said Glyddyr. “I’ll walk down to the harbour in the fresh night air. My men will be waiting. I said ten—they must be there now. Better soon.”

“Mr Gartram does have some strong cigars,” said the doctor quietly. “Singular that nicotine from one leaf affects you more than another.”

“I am sorry you feel unwell, Mr Glyddyr,” said Claude, in the most matter-of-fact tone.

“Mere trifle—nothing. Most absurd in me.”

“Pray let me ring for the spirit stand.”

“Indeed, no. Good-night—good-night, Miss Dillon. I’m going to be independent of you, Doctor Asher. Good-night.”

“Smokes too much, I’m afraid,” said the doctor, as the door was closed on Glyddyr’s retreating figure. “Seems unnerved. I shall be called upon to prescribe for him, only I’m afraid that you would quarrel with my medicine, Miss Gartram.”

“I?” said Claude quickly.

“I am afraid I have been indiscreet. Elderly men will presume upon their years, my dear Miss Gartram, and think that they have a right to banter young ladies. I was only going to say that my prescription would be, go away for a good long sea trip.”

“Is not papa sleeping an unusually long time, Mary?” said Claude, ignoring the doctor’s remark, as she proceeded to refill his cup.

“Oh, I don’t know,” replied Mary; “I’ll go and see.”

She left the room, and Claude at once turned to the doctor.

“Do you think papa is acting rightly about the medicine he takes?”

Asher raised his eyebrows, and gave his shoulders a slight shrug.

“It makes me terribly uneasy,” said Claude. “Of course, I know very little about these matters, but I have naturally learned how the use of narcotics grows upon those who indulge in them; and papa seems to fly more and more to that chloral.”

The doctor pursed up his lips in the most professional way.

“Really, my dear young lady,” he said, “you are, to speak vulgarly, putting me in a corner.”

“Pray do not trifle with me, doctor. You cannot think how I suffer.”

“I will be perfectly frank with you, my child. No he is not acting rightly, and the use of this drug is doing him harm.”

“Ah!” ejaculated Claude; and then, with eyes flashing and an indignant look, “How can you let him go on taking it, then?”

“Because I cannot help myself, my dear madam; and as I have before observed, it is better that he should take it under my supervision than left to himself, though even now I am helpless. I prescribe certain quantities, but I cannot prevent his taking more.”

“But why don’t you tell him that it is bad for him?”

“I have done so a score of times.”

“And what does he say?”

“That I am a fool, and am to mind my own business.”

“Oh!” ejaculated Claude, with the troubled look in her face increasing.

“He tells me plainly that if I do not choose to go on attending him as he wishes, he will call in some one else. My dear Miss Gartram, your father is not a man to drive; he always insists on holding the reins himself.”

“But, Doctor Asher, cannot anything be done?”

“I am doing all that is possible, my dear. I am giving him tonic medicine with the idea of counteracting any evil produced by the sedative dose he takes. If you can suggest a better line to pursue, pray let me hear it.”

“No, no,” said Claude sadly; “I am very ignorant and helpless. Does he really require this medicine?”

“Yes, and no, my child. He suffers terribly from insomnia, and nothing can be worse for a weary man than to be lying sleepless, night after night. It is a serious complaint.”

“Yes,” sighed Claude.

“He must have sleep, and to my mind the chloral seems the best thing to get it.”

“But you said yes and no, doctor?”

“I did. Well, then, no. Your father does not require this medicine if he will only change his course of life.”

Claude sighed.

“Do you wish me to speak plainly as your friend?”

“Yes; of course.”

“Then here is the case. All this insomnia is the consequence of an over-excited brain. Your father has certain ideas, and unfortunately they grow upon him. He has struggled hard to be rich. Now, of course, I know very little about his affairs, but everything points to the fact that he is a very rich man.”

“Yes,” sighed Claude; “he is, I think, very rich.”

“We will take it to be so. Well, then, why cannot he be content, and not be constantly striving for more?” Claude sighed again.

“I like money, wealth, power, and the rest of it; and I could go into London, say, and work up a prosperous practice; but I am happy here, with just enough for my needs; so I say to myself, ‘why should I stir?’”

“You are right, doctor. But my father’s case—what can we do?”

“I’ll tell you. Let me have your co-operation more. I want him weaned from this hunt for wealth; and the only way to achieve this is for you and your cousin to give way to him in everything. Never thwart him, for fear of bringing on one of those terrible fits.”

“I will try in every way,” replied Claude.

“Any opposition to his will would be seriously hurtful. Then, as to his life, it really rests with you to wean him in every way from his present pursuits. Company, visits, travel, anything to diver his attention from the constant struggle for more of the sordid dross.”

“But if you told him all this, doctor? I feel so helpless.”

“I have told him again and again, without success, but if we all combine more and more to keep up the pressure, we may win at last.”

“And in the meantime?”

“In the meantime we can quiet our consciences with the knowledge that we are doing what is right.”

“Fast asleep, dear,” said Mary, entering the room just then; and Claude directed an uneasy look at the doctor.

“Papa does not often sleep so long as this,” said Claude, after an uneasy interval.

“But it seemed a pity to disturb him,” replied Mary, and the doctor bent his head gravely. “He seemed to be so comfortable. Woodham was there when I went in. She had been shutting the window, as it was growing chilly.”

“Quite right,” said the doctor.

“She said she had been in before to remove the coffee cups; and I waited some time to see if he would wake, but, as he did not, I came away. That’s what is the matter with uncle.”

The doctor looked round sharply.

“Sleeping in the day time, and in the evenings. Why doesn’t he save it all up till night?”

They sat a few minutes longer, and then, unable to keep back the feeling of uneasiness which troubled her, Claude rose, excused herself, and left the drawing-room to see if her father was awake.

“Still asleep?” said Mary, as she returned.

“Yes,” said Claude, looking in a troubled way from one to the other; but the doctor seemed to be so very calm that she felt ashamed of the uneasy sensation which was troubling her, and, telling herself that she was foolishly nervous, she joined in the conversation. Then Mary sang a song, which the doctor insisted upon being repeated.

“I always felt and said that if ever I married it would be a lady with a charming voice.”

“Well,” said Mary sharply, “every one says I have a charming voice.”

“You have indeed,” said the doctor enthusiastically.

“I need have something charming about me by way of compensation,” cried Mary, as she made a grimace. “Perhaps, Doctor Asher, you had better propose for me.”

“Mary!” exclaimed Claude, flushing up to the roots of her hair.

“I don’t mean it, dear,” said Mary demurely. “The tongue is an unruly member, you know.”

“Well,” said the doctor, as he leaned back in his chair, with his eyes half closed, “some young ladies do not object to marrying a man thirty years their senior. Why not?”

“Shall I stand up and walk round, so that you may see all my graces and action?” said Mary banteringly.

“A young man looks at the outward graces of form and complexion,” said the doctor gravely; “a man of my age looks for those of the mind. He wants a companion who can talk.”

“Oh, I can talk,” said Mary merrily; “can’t I, Claude?”

“Mary, dear, I must request that you will not speak like this,” said Claude, very gravely. “You hurt me; and would you mind going in again and seeing if papa is awake.”

“Are you going to send me to bed, too, for being a naughty girl?” said Mary, rising.

Claude made no reply, but there was a good deal conveyed in her intent gaze, which for that moment Mary seemed to resent; but directly after her bright eyes beamed upon her cousin, and she passed close behind her chair, giving her an affectionate tap on the shoulder as she passed.

As she reached the door she turned, and there was a merry, yet half-pathetic look in her eyes as she said quickly—

“No, thank you, Doctor Asher, I am a kind of lay nun.”

“Mary says a great deal sometimes that she does not mean,” said Claude quickly. “But as papa does not seem to come, you would like a little seltzer water and the spirits, would you not?”

“I? No, no, my dear child, no,” said the doctor, taking out his watch. “I do take these things sometimes for sociability’s sake, but I always avoid them if I can, and I have a good opportunity here. Eleven o’clock. How the time flies. I must be off.”

“Pray don’t say no because the spirits are not in the room.”

“Believe me, I am so old a friend now, that I should not scruple to ask for them if I was so disposed.—Hah! Yes, that is one of the things which teach us that we are growing old.”

“I do not understand you.”

“I meant your cousin’s acuteness; when a man is about fifty, young ladies consider him a safe mark for their shafts.”

“Don’t think that, Doctor Asher. There is no malice in my dear cousin, but her deformity has caused her to be petted and indulged. She has not had a mother’s constant care.”

“Neither have you, my child.”

“No,” said Claude quietly; “but believe me, my cousin would be deeply grieved if she knew that she had said—Yes. What’s the matter? Papa?”

Claude had started from her chair, for, after giving a sharp tap at the door, Sarah Woodham had entered, looking ghastly, her dark eyes so widely open that they showed a white ring about the iris, her lips apart, and her hands convulsively twisting and tearing the apron she held out before her.

“Master, my dear. He frightens me.”

“Don’t be alarmed,” said the doctor quickly, as he rose perfectly cool and collected, and followed Claude out of the room, while, as the door swung to, the woman uttered a hoarse, panting sound, threw herself upon her knees, and clasping her hands together, she rocked herself to and fro.

“Oh, Isaac! husband!” she moaned, “it is too terrible. Heaven help me! Why did I come here?”

“Mary! Papa!” cried Claude, as she ran into the study, followed by the doctor.

“Hush! Don’t be alarmed,” said Mary. “I only thought that he was not breathing quite so naturally as he should, and I sent Woodham to fetch you.”

Claude flew to her father’s side, and caught his hand, looking intently in his face and then inquiringly at the doctor, who advanced in a calm, professional way, removed the lamp shade, drew the light so that it would fall upon the patient’s face, proceeded to feel his pulse, and then opened his eyelid to gaze attentively in the pupil.

“Quick, tell me!” cried Claude, in an excited whisper; “is it another fit?”

“No,” said the doctor gravely. “Be calm and quiet. I should like him to wake up naturally. There is nothing to mind.”

Claude uttered a sigh of relief, and closed her eyes for a few moments.

“What is the matter?” she said then.

“I am not sure yet, but I fear that it is what we said—an overdose.”

“Oh, Doctor Asher!”

“Hush, my child; don’t be agitated. There, he will sleep more easily now,” he continued, as he unfastened the insensible man’s collar and drew off his tie.

“You are not deceiving me?”

“Deceiving you?” said the doctor reproachfully.

“Can I do anything, ma’am?” said Woodham, softly entering the room.

“No, I think; nothing,” said the doctor thoughtfully. “I am very glad I had not gone.”

“Then you think—there is danger?”

“Danger? No, no, my dear child. There, let him rest. Miss Dillon, will you draw back that lamp and replace the shade? That’s it. Better let him sleep it off quietly.”

Woodham quickly raised the lamp and set it down in its old place, while Mary carefully put on the shade, with the effect that the room was once more gloomy of aspect, save where the bright light was condensed upon the table.

As soon as this was done, Claude looked appealingly in the doctor’s face, her eyes seeming to ask—What next?

The question was so plainly expressed that Asher said, with a smile—

“What next? Oh, we must let him sleep it off. I don’t suppose that he will be very long before he wakes.”

Claude’s hands seemed to go naturally together, and she passed one over the other, while Sarah Woodham stood gazing intently at Gartram, and a curious shudder ran through her from time to time.

“But, Doctor Asher,” said Claude at last, “I do feel so helpless—so lonely. I—”

“Oh, come, come,” cried the doctor encouragingly; “don’t look at it so seriously. It is a heavy sleep, and may last for hours. I’ll stop for a bit, and then come in quite early in the morning. Perhaps it would be as well for somebody to sit up.”

Claude tried to speak, but she could not. She laid her hand upon the doctor’s arm, and stood, with her lip quivering, gazing down at her father till she could command her voice, and then she whispered huskily,—

“Don’t go.”

She could say no more, but stood looking appealingly in his eyes.

“You mean stay till he wakes?”

She nodded quickly.

“Oh, certainly, if you wish it; but I ought to tell you that I hardly think it necessary.”

“I do wish it,” said Claude. “Do not you. Mary?”

“Yes.”

“By all means.”

“I will sit with you. Mary, too, will keep us company.”

“No, no,” said the doctor in a whisper, “there is no need for that. If I stay, it is with the understanding that you both go to bed.”

Sarah Woodham was standing back in the shadow, but she appeared to be listening eagerly to every word.

“But we should make it less dull for you,” pleaded Claude.

“I am never dull when I sit up with a sick person,” said the doctor didactically. “These are my hours for study of my patient. No, no; if I am to stay it is as the doctor—the master of the situation. You will go to bed.”

“But you will want refreshments—somebody within call.”

“To be sure, and there will be our old friend Mrs Woodham. You will sit up?”

“Yes, sir, of course,” said the woman eagerly.

“That’s right. Now, then, ladies, if you please, we must have utter silence till Mr Gartram wakes.”

Claude sighed, but she bowed her head, and turned to leave the room with Mary; but as she reached the door, she hurried back to where her father was seated, and bent over him to kiss his forehead.

“Must I go, doctor?” she whispered.

“Certainly,” he said quietly.

“But if he seems worse, you would have me called?”

“Directly.”

The two girls left the room, Claude beckoning to Sarah Woodham, who followed them out.

“You will make coffee for Doctor Asher.”

“Yes, ma’am, of course.”

“Go back and ask him when he would like it brought to him; and, Sarah, you will come and tell me how papa is. I shall not undress—only lie down.”

“You may depend on me, Miss Claude.”

“But you—is anything the matter? You look so ill.”

“I was a bit startled at master’s way of breathing, my dear. I thought he was going to be much worse.”

Claude went back into the drawing-room with Mary Dillon, neither of them noticing how wild and excited the servant grew, and a few minutes after they went slowly upstairs to Claude’s room.

Sarah Woodham softly retraced her steps to the study, tapped gently, and the door was opened by the doctor, who stood in the opening, book in hand.

“When will I have coffee? Oh, about four o’clock. I have only just had tea. Go and lie down somewhere within call—where I can find you.”

“I am not sleepy, sir.”

“No; but you may be by-and-by. Go and lie down on the sofa in the dining-room, I can easily find you there. Why, my good woman, you look ghastly.”

Sarah Woodham shrank away.

“Don’t disturb me till I ring. No: I’ll come for you. Sleep is the best thing for him.”

“Sleep is the best thing for him,” said Sarah Woodham in a hoarse whisper, as she went slowly back into the hall, and then into the servants’ quarters, from whence, after a few minutes, she returned to go about in a silent way like a dark shadow, closing and fastening doors, before listening for awhile on the study mat, and then going into the dining-room, where she seated herself on one of the chairs, resting her chin upon her hands, and gazing straight before her in the darkness. Then for a time all was still, save a low sigh, almost like a moan, which came from the suffering woman’s breast, followed by a shiver and a start, for it was as if the hand of the dead had just been laid upon her shoulder.

Volume Two—Chapter Eleven.

The Night Alarm.

“Asleep!”

“You, sir? I—I suppose I must have been,” faltered Sarah.

“Well, why not? I just came to see if you were within reach, in case I wanted you.”

“Master, sir?”

“Just the same.”

The doctor went out just as silently as he had entered, and Sarah heard the study door softly close, when once more she uttered the same low, moaning sigh, and rocked herself to and fro in her chair as she seemed to see the hard, thin face of her husband gazing straight at her, as she had seen it when he was dying in their cottage, and laying upon her the terrible duty she was to fulfil.

How long she sat like that she could not tell, but hours must have passed unnoted—hours during which, with eyes unvisited by sleep, she had gone on and on through her old life, and the scenes, when her husband had returned from his work, bitterly reviling Gartram for some real or fancied wrong, and then a light seemed to flash into the room like the light she had been expecting, and the doctor stood before her with a curious, intense look in his countenance, one she recalled vividly as having been there on the day her husband died.

Meanwhile Claude and Mary had sat talking for some time about the strange ending of the evening. Claude, in spite of her anxiety on her father’s behalf, feeling half pleased, half frightened by Glyddyr’s acts.

He appeared so strange, she thought, so shrinking in her presence, and so fearful of intruding upon her, even to be ready to go away.

Was this the man’s real love for her? Did he really care for her? and was she misjudging him in thinking that his desire was for her future prospects alone—her money?

She shuddered with dread lest he really should love her, and then her heart sank lower and lower, for the stern, upbraiding look of Chris Lisle was before her. The face of the boy companion, for whom she had always felt a warm affection, one which she knew in her heart, though she had not confessed it, had ripened into woman’s love for man.

“Are we going to sit up, or try to sleep, Claude?” said Mary at last.

“I am going to sit up, Mary. You are going to lie down and sleep.”

“Doctor Asher said that we were both to lie down and rest.”

“Yes; and you will do so. I could not sleep if I did. It is impossible.”

“But uncle is not seriously ill now, dear.”

“How do we know, Mary? He is not as he should be. I know—I feel that he is in an unnatural state.”

Mary slowly rose, walked across the room to the washstand, and stood there for some minutes before turning to her cousin.

“There,” she said; “now I feel as you do—that it would be impossible to sleep. Let’s have a quiet talk about uncle, and see if we cannot devise some means for making him think less about the quarry and money. Oh, Claudie, what a happy world this would be if there were no money and no love.”

Claude made no reply but sat gazing out through the window at the sea, where the moon, now high in the heavens, sent a path of silvery light along the dark waters, while, from far below, the waves washed and whispered among the rocks with a musical, plashing sound that rose in a drowsy murmur to the window against which she sat.

“Claude, dear, shall I shut the window now? Isn’t it too cool on a night like this?”

Claude turned to her, and looked rather vacantly in her face.

“The tide is going out fast, Mary,” she said, in a low, dreamy whisper. “Don’t you ever feel that there may be some truth in what they say, that people who are near the end pass away from us with the falling tide?”

“Claudie, dear, are you going to be ill?”

“I hope not.”

“And so do I; but do you know you are talking a lot of dreamy nonsense, such as is most distressing at a time like this. We haven’t got anybody near the end. Oh, what nonsense! It’s all old-fashioned silliness.”

Claude shook her head.

“No,” she said, “there is something in it all, Mary, and to-night it is as if some great trouble were coming upon us.”

“Are you going to set up for a prophetess, dear?”

“Shall we go down and see how my father is, Mary?”

“And insult Dr Asher by setting his commands at defiance. No; I am going to sit here patiently till morning, unless he sends word to us that uncle has woke up, and that he has gone to bed like a Christian. Claude, dear, your father must be a very unhappy man.”

“Then it is our duty to try and make him happy.”

“By doing everything he wishes us to do?”

Claude felt the hot blood flush into her cheeks again and she made no reply. She only turned to look out at the broad path of light stretching far away over the sea, and, as the water murmured about the rocks, it was as if some solemn spell of silence had fallen upon them, influencing Mary so that she ceased speaking, leaving the bantering remarks ready, unsaid. Claude put her arm around her cousin, and laid her head upon her shoulder, thinking of the words that had been spoken, and of why they were sitting up, till her heart almost sank, and the sea began to be to her full of strange whisperings and portents of some trouble to come.

And so hour after hour glided by, till they were chilled by the cold night air, but neither moved till they were electrified by a quick, light tapping on the door, which was opened before they could reach it, and from out of the darkness came a husky voice which sounded familiar.

“Come down, Miss Claude, at once.”

“Ah! Woodham? How is he?”

“Don’t ask me, my dear, but make haste down. You may be wanted. Doctor Asher wishes me to go and fetch Doctor Rixton.”

“But why? What for?”

“Miss Claude, dear, don’t ask me,” said the woman, in suffocating tones, as she turned slowly away.

Claude hurriedly followed her down toward the study door, where she stood trembling for a few moments, feeling that there had then been a meaning in the portent which had troubled her that night. Then, turning the handle, she went into the room.

“Well, back so soon?” said the doctor, whose face was from her. “Is he coming?”

“Doctor Asher.”

“You, Miss Gartram!” he said, in a hoarse whisper, as he turned sharply round. “What is it? Why have you come?”

“Woodham called me. What is the matter? Is he worse?”

“Hush!” said the doctor, in a hurried way, as he took her hand. “Don’t be agitated. We must hope for the best, and—”

“Then he is worse,” cried Claude, breaking from him and running to her father’s side, but only to shrink back.

For the light had been shifted so that it should fall upon Gartram’s fixed, stern face, in which she read so terrible a reality that it was as if a hand of ice had clutched her heart, paralysing thought and action, so that she stood there with staring eyes and parted lips, feeling that she was in the presence of death.

Then the reaction came, and, uttering a gasp, her womanly, helpful nature came to the front.

“I am not a child,” she said in a quick, passionate voice. “Tell me; how is this? When was he taken worse? Doctor Asher, why don’t you speak to me? Tell me what I can do to help.”

He shook his head.

“I am doing everything possible, and have sent Mrs Woodham for Doctor Rixton to share the responsibility.”

Claude caught him in turn by the wrist, drew him right to the far side of the room, by the panel of the bookshelves which formed the masked door, and in a whisper, as if she were afraid that her father should hear, she said—

“Is he dead?”

“No, no—no, no, my dear Miss Gartram. It is only what I have always feared, but he would not be advised. Look, my child, look!”

He went quickly to Gartram’s side, and drew something from his breast-pocket and held it before Claude in the light.

“Yes, I know,” she said, “the medicine bottle—the sedative draught.”

“Yes,” said Asher, quietly. “You saw that he had it in his breast.”

“It is generally in that cabinet. He keeps it there.”

“Yes,” said the doctor; “but I found it in his breast-pocket as I was trying to place him in an easier position. What can a medical man do when his patient acts in direct opposition to his wishes?”

“I don’t understand you—that is the medicine you prescribed for him.”

“Yes, my child,” said the doctor, in quick, angry tones; “but if I order a patient to take a tablespoonful of brandy, I don’t mean him to take a bottle.”

“Oh!” ejaculated Claude, the word coming from her breast like a moan.

“You see he had this to take, but he has been in the habit of carrying it in his pocket, to apply to as a drunkard does to a flask. I suspected to-night that he had taken a stronger dose than usual, or at more frequent intervals, and thought that the effect, as he was so inured to it, would pass off, but—”

“It will, doctor—oh, say it will,” whispered Claude. “Why don’t you give him something? Would wine or spirits be of any good? Ah, here is Doctor Rixton.”

She ran to open the door as steps were heard in the hall, but it was Sarah Woodham who entered, holding her hand to her side, haggard and breathless, as she staggered into the room, only just able to pant forth, “Coming directly,” before she reeled and would have fallen, had not Claude supported her, and let her sink into a chair.

“Hold up, woman!” whispered the doctor, savagely; “you must not give way.”

“I—ran—there—and—back—Miss Claude,” whispered the woman, and then to herself, as she lay back with her eyes closed, “It is too horrible, too horrible!”

The doctor went to the table and poured out some brandy, as Claude crept with a glass of wine to her father’s side, knelt by him, and, taking his hand, laid her other across her breast.

A chill crept through her, and a hysterical sob struggled to her lips, as she felt that the hand she held was growing clammy. But making an effort, she told herself that, in cases of sudden illness, the extremities did grow cold, and that this was not a matter for alarm. There was the doctor’s assurance, too.

Just then she turned her head and saw Sarah Woodham thrusting back the glass the doctor had held to her lips.

“No, no,” she said with a shudder; and the doctor turned away impatiently and set the glass upon the table.

“Miserable teetotal whims,” he muttered; and he went back to Gartram’s side, ignoring Claude’s presence and inquiring looks as he bent over his patient for a moment, and then hurriedly crossed to the door, flung it open, and went out into the hall, and then to the front door, which he threw open, and stood out in the air wiping the perspiration from his brow.

“He ought to be here by now,” he muttered, “he ought to be here by now.”

“Sarah! Sarah!”

The wretched woman opened her eyes with a start, and gazed in a frightened way at her mistress, who was standing over her, and had shaken her shoulder.

“Tell me—you were here?”

“No, my dear. He sent me to lie down in the dining-room to wait till he called me, but I did not go to sleep. I was sitting there—in the dark—thinking, when he came to me and said, ‘I want more help. Your master is worse.’”

“Oh, Sarah, Sarah!” moaned Claude, clinging to her; “tell me it is not so bad as I think. He will not die?”

The woman shuddered as she rose to her feet, and, in a curiously furtive weird way, she crossed to where Gartram lay back in his chair. Pausing once and shrinking away, but evidently overcome by the attraction, she once more advanced, battling the while with that which mastered her, and which drew her unwillingly on, till she stood close to the great easy-chair, and bent down over the form thereon.

Then, drawing herself up to her full height, she stood there erect, gazing straight before her into space, and muttering strangely to herself.

Claude gazed at her in alarm.

“Sarah,” she whispered, “Sarah! why don’t you speak? Sarah!”

There was no reply, and at last Claude laid her hand upon the woman’s arm, with the result that she turned slowly, muttering to herself the while, in a curiously absent manner, as if all the while unconscious of her mistress’s presence.

“Sarah,” whispered Claude again, as she gazed in affright at the woman’s strange, drawn face, “speak to me! I want comfort—tell me—he is not dead?”

“And I tried so hard,” said the woman, hoarsely. “I tried to do that which was right and just.—With all his sins upon his head, unrepentant, harsh and cruel to the last.”

“Sarah!”

“Hush, my child, hush!” said the woman in a low voice, full of deep passionate emotion. “I never had a child to love—to call me mother. Oh, my poor dear, helpless, motherless, fatherless girl; and I tried so hard—I tried so hard.”

“Sarah,” cried Claude, struggling from the woman’s encircling arm, “you don’t think—”

“This way, please—quick, sir, quick.”

The door was thrown open, and Doctor Asher entered, followed by a tall grave-looking man, who bowed to Claude, and laid his hat upon the table, looking then inquiringly at Asher.

“Yes; of course,” said the doctor. “My dear Miss Gartram, you will go now.”

“But, doctor—”

“No appeal, please; we must consult over the case and be alone. Trust me; we will do our best. There, you will come back soon.”

Claude reluctantly allowed herself to be led out of the room, and then, as she stood in the great sombre-looking hall; she in turn staggered and would have fallen, but for Sarah Woodham’s arm, and she suffered herself to be led into the drawing-room, where, with the awful truth beginning to grow and grow till it overshadowed her like a cloud she was about to fling herself sobbing in a chair, when a low sigh caught her ear.

Looking up, it was to see Mary Dillon coming slowly into the room, her eyes closed, and feeling her way along by the door, and then supporting herself by the various pieces of furniture she passed.

“Mary!” cried Claude.

“Yes; I have been there—in there all the time. You did not see me, but I heard everything. Oh, Claude, is it all true?”

She did not wait for a response, but sank down, covering her face with her hands, and completely prostrated by her grief.

“No, no,” whispered Claude, going to her, kneeling by her side, and, hungering for love and sympathy, drawing the weeping girl to her breast. “Doctor Asher said that it was not so, Mary darling,” she whispered; “help me to pray. He must not—he cannot die.”

Sarah Woodham stood near them hearing every word, and a shiver swiftly ran through her as she listened to the allusions to death, and again and again, with her face working, she stretched out her hands as if to try and comfort the two weeping girls, but only to shake her head sadly, and draw back from where they were now clasped in each other’s arms.

And the time went on.

Every few moments Claude rose to go to the door, and after opening it, stood listening intently, but the most she could hear was the low muffled sound of voices, and each time she returned to her cousin’s side with a despairing sigh.

“We seem so helpless,” she exclaimed. “Surely I might go back now.” But she made no attempt to disobey the doctor’s commands, and waited and waited till the low sobbing gave place to silent despair; and with eyes fixed upon the door, all sat waiting for the tidings that they dared not hope now would be good.

A step at last in the hall, and Claude flew to the drawing-room door, and flung it open, but only to shrink away, as she saw that it was not Asher, but the strange doctor—a new comer to the place—and one whom they had hardly spoken to before.

He came slowly across the hall, and bowed his head gravely as he entered, looking from one to the other, as if waiting to be interrogated, but no one spoke; and as the door swung to, the light of another day came stealing though the windows, and between the half-drawn blinds in a curious ghastly way, making everything look unreal, and the candles lit upon the table burn with a sickly glare.

Claude made an effort to speak twice, but the words failed upon her lips. She felt that she must rush by this strange, solemn-looking man, and seek the information she wanted in her father’s room, but her limbs refused to act, and she stood holding on by the back of a chair, while the new doctor now fixed his eyes on Sarah Woodham, who stood there wild-looking and motionless, her eyes appearing to burn.

“I grieve to say,” said the new doctor at last, and then he turned, for the woman’s eyes glared at him so fiercely that he ceased, paralysed.

“Well,” she said harshly, “Why do you not speak?”

“Doctor Asher has given me a history of the case,” he said, with an effort. “It is a most regretful incident. No one to blame. Perhaps Doctor Asher might have—but no—I should probably, under the circumstances, have been guilty of the same error.”

He paused in his low, faltering delivery, for Sarah Woodham had taken a step toward him, bending forward, and fascinating him with her wild, dark eyes.

Then, after a painful interval, as a low, querulous wail arose from outside, followed by what sounded like a fiendish chorus of chattering laughter from the rocks below, where a flock of gulls were quarrelling over some refuse cast up by the sea, the doctor continued—

“We have done everything possible under the circumstances, but the case was beyond our power. Ladies, this is a most painful communication for me to have to make. Doctor Asher—completely prostrated by grief. His most prominent patient, and—”

Claude stretched out one hand blindly fur that of her cousin, and took a step toward the door, but, as they reached it, Mary uttered a low cry and shrank back, withdrawing her hand.

Claude did not notice the action, but went slowly out of the room, as one goes deliberately on when walking in sleep.

They followed her to the door and saw her cross the hall, into which the soft glow of morning was now stealing fast, and there was something weird and strange about her movements as she went on and slowly opened the study door, to pass from their sight, as it were, from day into night.

One moment, the morning light bathed her light dress and gave her a look that was mistily transparent; the next, as she passed through the doorway into the shuttered and curtained room, the glow from the lamp within made her black and strange.

Then the door swung to behind her as she walked silently over the thick carpet.

“Miss Gartram! You have come?”

Claude made no reply, but walked straight to the couch upon which her father had been laid, and there she stood mentally stunned and unable to realise the fact.

His face looked stern and hard, but no more stern and hard than she had often seen it when she had stolen into the room where he had been lying asleep—as he appeared to be lying now—after some tiresome, wakeful night. Everything was the same, even to the faint odour of drugs and spirits which pervaded the place.

For one instant a flash of hope illumined her dark heart, but it was only for a moment. No: he would wake no more. The end had come; and as the truth forced itself deep down into her heart, she sank slowly upon her knees, placed her hands gently round the stalwart figure, and laying her cheek against the stony face, she whispered softly—

“Father, father! I loved you very dearly. Left—left alone!”

Volume Two—Chapter Twelve.

Her Own Mistress.

Chris Lisle sat at the table, over his breakfast, but nothing was good.

He had all that money lying at his bank, and after trying all kinds of subterfuges to satisfy his conscience that he had as good a right to it as anybody—that if he had not won it some one else would—that people who gambled deserved no sympathy—that all was fair in money wars, as he dubbed gaming—and that he would do more good with the money than any one else—and the like, his conscience refused to be bamboozled and told him constantly that he had won that money by a clever piece of dishonourable sharping, and that he ought to be ashamed of himself.

And he was.

That was one non-appetiser; the other was his interview with the gardener the previous night, and over this, after waking with it ready to confront him, he had been metaphorically gnashing his teeth.

“How I could have made myself such an ass! How I could have been such an idiot as to run such risks! It is like dragging her down to be the common talk and gossip of the place. Why, I shall always be that scoundrel’s slave. What an idiot he must have thought me!”

No wonder the coffee tasted bitter, and that the bacon was too salt, while he thrust the butter away as rancid, and the bread as being dry.

“If it were not for one thing I’d—Well, Mrs Sarson?”

The landlady had run in hastily, looking pale and excited, and then stood speechless before him.

“Is anything the matter?” exclaimed Chris, the blood rising to his cheeks, as with boyish dread he seemed to read in his landlady’s eyes the fact that she knew of the past night’s escapade.

“Matter, indeed, sir! Then you have not heard?”

“Heard what?”

“Mr Gartram, sir—dead!”

“What!”

Chris Lisle sprang from his chair and stood feeling as if the room was swimming round him, while the landlady went on hurriedly.

“I’ve just this minute heard, sir. There was a dinner party; Doctor Asher and that Mr Glyddyr, who has the yacht, were there; and they say he was taken bad about eleven. Doctor Asher stopped, and, in the middle of the night, the new doctor was fetched, too.”

“Oh, it can’t be true,” cried Chris, and dashing out of the room he seized his hat and hurried along the street, but had not gone far before he was conscious of the fact that groups of people were standing about talking.

Further on he saw that shutters were closed; and as he reached the harbour there, lying off some distance was Glyddyr’s yacht, with a flag up, half-mast high, while, as soon as he came in sight of the Fort—Gartram’s pride—in place of the bright glistening windows, every opening had a dull dead look, and appeared to be staring at him blankly. There was no doubt now—every blind was drawn down.

Chris uttered a groan.

“My poor darling, it will break her heart! Poor old fellow! Cut off like that.”

Resentment, bitterness, died out in this great sorrow; and Chris could only see now the fine-looking, masterful, elderly man, who had always been his friend, till ambition had led him astray, and he had discarded the suitor who had grown up to love his child.

It seems too horrible! One of these terrible fits.

He was on his way up to ask to see Claude, and try to administer some consolation, but he paused. It would be an outrage to go now. It would be indecent to force his way there in disobedience to the wishes of the man who was lying blank and cold—blank and cold as the edifice he had so proudly reared with the money he had fought for so long.

“No,” thought Chris. “I must go back and write.”

In the manly frankness of his disposition, up to that moment, no thought of obstacle removed, or the future that lay before him, had come across his brain, till just then he caught sight of the gardener coming quickly along the town street, when, like a flash, came back to him the scene of the past night, and his discovery. Then, with the incongruity of human nature, there came a feeling of satisfaction in the thought that Gartram could never now sting him with contemptuous allusions to his wretched escapade, and that now he need not fear this man.

Momentary thoughts, which he chased away with a feeling of indignation against himself as he stopped the gardener.

“Is it—true?”

“Yes, sir. It’s true enough. He was a hard master, one as come down upon you awful if he see a weed; but I’d give that there right hand to have him alive and well before me now.”

Chris bowed his head and walked slowly back, to start aside and gaze fiercely in the eyes of the man whom he encountered a few yards farther on, for, as he was approaching the post-office, Glyddyr came out suddenly with a telegraph form in his hand.

The two young men paused as if arrested by some power over which they had no control, and as they stood gazing at each other, Chris, waiting for Glyddyr to speak, a crowd of thoughts flashed through his brain.

Claude—alone—her own mistress, what of your triumph now!

Very different were Glyddyr’s thoughts. Claude was somehow mixed up with them, but he read in his rival’s eye distrust, suspicion, and a hidden knowledge of his latest acts; and they passed on rapidly through his mind, till he saw Chris Lisle denouncing him as a murderer and about to seize him then.

Neither spoke, and after the long, intense gaze of eye into eye had lasted some moments, each went his way, one back to his yacht to try and make up his mind whether he ought to call at once, the other home to sit down and write to Claude, and tell her that he was always hers, and that in this, her terrible hour of affliction, he was longing to try and share her pain.

“And if I said that,” thought Chris, as he slowly tore up the letter, “she would think it an insult, and that I am triumphing over the dead.”

So Chris’s letter, full of the tender love he felt, never reached Claude’s hand.

Volume Two—Chapter Thirteen.

Glyddyr Communes with Self.

Glyddyr gave the orders to unmoor and make sail, after a great deal of hesitation, and then countermanded those orders, and went down into his cabin. There he made the man who acted as steward and valet open for him a pint of champagne, which he tossed off as if suffering from a burning thirst.

That seemed to do him good. His hand ceased to shake, and the peculiar sensation of sinking passed off for the time as he sat by the cabin window, lit a cigar, and let it out again while he watched the Fort, with its drawn-down blinds, and thought over the last night’s proceedings.

“It was an accident,” he said to himself, “a terrible mistake, and all in vain. Good heavens! who could have thought that a little drop of clear white-looking stuff could have done that; and him so used to taking it.”

He shrank away from the window, dashed away his cigar and sat down there in the cabin, with his face buried in his hands.

“I ought to have summoned help when I saw how strange and cold he turned. It would have saved him, poor old fellow! I wouldn’t for all the world that it should have happened, it seems impossible, and I can’t even believe it yet.”

With a start of childish disbelief, he straightened himself and looked out of the cabin window, as if he had half-expected to see the blinds drawn up, and the Fort looking as usual.

But there was no change, and, with a groan of agony, he turned away and stamped his foot with impatient rage.

“Just like my cursed luck,” he cried. “Any one but me would have made a pot of money over Simoom. I could have made enough to free me from this wretched bondage, but now it’s just as if something always stood between me and success, and baulked all my plans.”

He let his head sink upon his hands, and sat thinking again, but only to raise himself in an angry fashion and ring the bell.

“You ring, sir?” said the steward at the end of a minute.

“Of course, I rang,” said Glyddyr with petulant rage. “You heard me ring, and knew I rang, or you wouldn’t have come. Well, where is it?”

“I beg pardon, sir?”

“I say, where is it?”

“Where is what, sir?”

“The pint of champagne I told you to bring.”

“Beg pardon, sir, I did bring it and you drank it.”

“What?” roared Glyddyr. “Yes, of course, so I did. I had forgotten. Bring me another.”

“Guv’nor on the house?” said one of the sailors.

“Hold your row. Upset over that affair up at the toyshop,” said the steward in a whisper, and he took in the fresh pint of wine.

“Set it down.”

“Yes, sir.”

The steward beat a retreat, and Glyddyr tossed off another glass, poured out the remainder, and sat gazing at it vacantly for a few minutes before taking it up, his hand once more trembling violently.

“If I weren’t such a cursed coward,” he said, “I could get on. He must have had a lot before, and that’s what did it. By George, it gives me the horrors!”

He tossed off the wine.

“No,” he muttered as he set down the glass; “it wasn’t what I gave him. It wasn’t enough, and to think now that there was all that lying ready to my hand, without my having the pluck to take what I wanted. I must have been a fool. I must have been mad.”

“Curse these bottles!” he cried, after a pause. “Pint? They don’t hold half—a wretched swindle. I believe there are thousands lying there; and I might have borrowed what I wanted, and all would have been well; but I was such a fool.”

“No, I wasn’t,” he cried, as if apostrophising someone. “How could I get it with that woman coming in and out, and the feeling on me that one of the girls might open the door at any moment. They’d have thought I meant to steal the cursed stuff. Then, too, it seemed as if he might wake up at any moment. Bah! How upset I do feel. That stuff’s no better than water.”

He rose angrily, and opened a locker, from which he took out a brandy decanter, and placed it on the table. “Let’s have a nip of you. I seem to want something to steady my nerves.”

He poured out a goodly dram and tossed it off.

“Ah, that’s better! One can taste you. Seems to take off this horrible feeling of sinking.—Poor old fellow! Seemed as if he would wake up. Never wake up again.”

He started up and looked sharply round, trembling violently; and then wiped his forehead with his hand.

“This will not do!” he muttered. “I mustn’t show the white feather. I’ve got nothing to fear. Nothing at all. Why should I have? It was an accident; I didn’t mean it. No: wouldn’t hurt a hair of the old man’s head—no, not a hair. Yes: it was an accident.”

He drew up his head and picked up the cigar he had thrown down, re-lit it, and after a puff or two, threw it down once more.

“Wretched trash!” he muttered, taking out his case and fiercely biting the end off another. One of Gellow’s best. “Ah,” he cried, as he brought down his fist upon the table heavily. “Only let me once get clear of that man! And I might have done it so easily,” he continued, as he lit the cigar, “so very easily, and been free of that cursed incubus for a time.”

He let his cigar go out again, and his head sank upon his hands as he stared in a maundering way at the cabin door.

“But it’s always my luck—always my luck; and I’m the most miserable wretch that ever crawled.”

There was no one present to endorse his words, as the maudlin tears rose to his eyes and dripped slowly down between his feet, nature seeming to distil the wine and spirits he had been imbibing all the morning ever since he had left the cot in which he had lain tossing in a fever of fear all through the night.

But after a time champagne and brandy had their effect, and the abject shivering man of half-an-hour before seemed to have grown defiant as to the future.

He was in the act of snapping his fingers with a half-tipsy laugh, when a boat bumped up against the side, and he heard a trampling on the deck, and the buzz of voices.

“What’s that?” he panted, completely sobered now, and trembling violently, as he suddenly turned to one of the most abject-looking and white-faced creatures it is possible to imagine. “What’s that?” he panted, with his voice trembling; and he took up the brandy to help himself again. “Bah! some boat has struck us. That’s all.”

“Beg pardon, sir,” said a voice; and the steward stood in the doorway.

“Yes; what is it?”

“Boat from the shore, sir, with a policeman in the stern and another man.”

“Policeman? Other man?” faltered Glyddyr in a low, faint voice; “what do they want?”

“You, sir,” said the man; and then, “Oh, here they are.”

Glyddyr sat back, staring at the men wildly.

“Well,” said the steward to himself; “I have seen the guv’nor a bit on, but this beats all. I say, you might have waited till you were asked to come down.”

This to a policeman who was stooping down to enter the cabin, while Glyddyr clutched the table, and held on, for the sickening sensation in his head threatened a complete collapse.

Volume Two—Chapter Fourteen.

Wimble finds a Curiosity.

Any one who could have watched Michael Wimble shaving himself at early morn would have wondered whether the man were really sane, for, as he performed the operation upon himself, he worked as if it was for practice—to keep his hand in, just as acrobats and instrumentalists go through their tasks constantly, so as to keep a tight hold upon that which has taken them so much time and labour to acquire.

Being a barber, he considered that those who shaved should shave well, and that the wearing of moustache, or the very smallest morsel of whisker was but a wreak pandering to the savages who had introduced or followed the moustache movement in the time of the Crimean war.

“It’s filthy, that’s what it is, filthy,” Wimble used to say; “and how a man can go about with his face like the back of a wild beast, beats me.”

Consequently, soon after springing from his solitary bed, the owner of the Museum used to set light to a spirit lamp to boil a small shaving pot of water, and then, as there were signs of ebullitions at the side, the brush was dipped in, and the performance commenced with a tremendous lathering.

There were no half-measures. Wimble passed the brush deftly all over his quaintly wrinkled face, till masses of lather hung on to his ears, and covered his cheeks, so that only his eyes were seen. Then, as he glared at himself in a shaving glass, he set to and scraped and scraped his countenance all over, applied the brush again and again in obstinate places, and finished off by grinning hideously in the little mirror, as he stood, with the razor passing over the skin in a way that would have suggested horrors about to be perpetrated by a maniac, weary of his life, to any one who could have seen the process.

Clever as he was, too, in the manipulation, there were at times, however, suggestions that a looker-on might have been right in his ideas. As, for instance, upon the morning in question, when a slip or a pimple—it is needless to say which—necessitated the use of sponge and sticking-plaster.

Then the task was done, and Michael Wimble finished dressing, talking to himself rapidly the while, sundry words which were spoken more loudly than others, giving the key to the subject of the man’s thoughts—the old, old theme, love. Other words told too of disappointment and jealousy, and all this tended to make Mr Wimble go the wrong way when he started for his regular morning walk along the shore.

His way was always west, but he went east, so as to pass Chris Lisle’s lodgings; and as he did so, staring hard at the drawn-down blinds, and the chimney pot innocent as yet of smoke, he gnashed his teeth softly, for there were two new flowers in Chris’s bedroom window—a fuchsia and a geranium, in pots of dazzling red, and the mignonette box, full of nasturtiums, which flowed over and hung down, had been newly painted a delicate green.

Fresh attentions to the lodger. The previous week clean muslin curtains had been put up, and the week before there was a new cover over the little table in the window upon which lay the big History of England which Mrs Sarson had taken in, or been taken in with, in shilling numbers, by a book canvasser, and had bound afterwards for one pound fifteen and sixpence, gilt lettered, and blind tooled, the canvasser had said.

That table cover, when Wimble saw it through the half-open window, was composed of crochet work and green satin, and must have been the widow’s handiwork, and a delicate compliment to her lodger.

That was bad enough, but the two new flower pots in the bedroom window were beyond all bearing.

“But wait a bit,” said Wimble to himself. “I can wait;” and he went on, turned up the glen path, struck off to the left, where he reached the bridge, and, by passing along by the backs of the cottages, he made his way to the alley by the public-house at the harbour head, and from there round by the boats and down to the sea shore.

Mr Wimble thought of the widow, and walked fast, gathering shells and scraps of weeds washed up by the tide, and paused from time to time to examine fragments of driftwood and pieces of rotten rope.

Everything was thrown away though, for he had plenty of duplicates at home, and only exceptional finds were now worthy of a place in the museum.

So limpets, and turritellas, and pectens were passed as unworthy of notice. A pelican’s foot shell was transferred to his pocket, but nothing more; and growing quite low-spirited at last, for three reasons—his ill-luck, love, and the want of his breakfast—he turned at last, made for the cliffs, and came along close under the land, in and out among the rocks where the soft sand lay thick and smooth, past the hollows where the old boots and shoes were washed up in company with the other disjecta membra with which shore-dwellers insult the ocean, in the belief that the tide will play the part of scavenger and sweep everything away, a task that the sea mostly scorns.

And so it was that in sundry corners beneath the mighty granite rocks, piled high like titanic walls, Michael Wimble thought of the widow, and made his way among old baskets, fish-heads, scraps of worn-out netting and tangles of rusty steel, half-covered with rotten fabric suggesting female attire.

No objects these for his museum, for, though old, they were not old enough. Had a few centuries passed since they were cast into the waves, that would have made all the difference, and a thousand years would have made them treasures great as gold.

But it was a barren hunt that morning. There had been no storm to tear away the sand and sweep bare the rock, to leave exposed tarnished old coins once cast ashore from an Armada galley; no serpula encrusted gem; nothing worthy of notice; and Wimble, with his thoughts turning eagerly now from the widow and her lodger to the toast and the rasher of bacon, he passed over his bachelor rival and stepped out till he came beneath the rocky point upon which Gartram had built his home, and was half-way by when a ray of sunshine flashed from something lying among the rocks in a little patch of soft, dry sand.

It might be a diamond, or at least a crystal ground out of the rocks!

But it was only a clear phial bottle—short, unlabelled, tightly corked, and holding about a teaspoonful of some clear fluid at the bottom.

A disappointment; but a clean bottle was always useful, and, after a brief examination, the barber transferred it to his pocket, but not until he had removed the cork, sniffed, replaced it, and looked round, asking himself whether it had floated there in the last spring tide.

No; it seemed too fresh. The cork was too new and dry. It could only have come from about—been thrown from Gartram’s windows, and—

Wimble got no further in his chain of reasoning. The vacuum which his nature abhorred was giving him strong hints which he was glad to obey; and the breakfast he had that morning was excellent for a jealous man in love.

Afterwards he rose, took off his coat to put on his apron, found the bottle in his pocket, put it carelessly in a drawer to wait till it could be washed, and declared himself ready for business. He had not long to wait, for one of his regular customers came for a shave. “Heard the news, of course?”

“News? no,” said Wimble, stopping short in the stropping of a razor. “What news? What is it?”

“The King of the Castle—dead.”

Volume Two—Chapter Fifteen.

The Dead tell no Tales.

“What’s the matter with him?” said one of the men who had come off from the shore to Glyddyr’s yacht, after performing the duty he had in hand.

“Well,” said the steward, laughing, “he’s my boss, so it ain’t for me to say; but if it had been you, I should have said you had been looking into a brandy glass till you were too giddy to stand.”

“Well; that’s what I thought,” said the coroner’s officer, “but being a gentleman, I held my tongue. Thought gents never did take too much.”

“Oh, no; never,” said the steward, sarcastically. “But don’t talk about it; the guvnor’s a good deal upset about the affair at Mr Gartram’s.”

“’Nough to upset any one. Who’d have thought it. Well, good morning.”

“Don’t want me as a witness, do you?”

The officer laughed, and was rowed back to the shore, while Glyddyr sat in his cabin watching the progress of the boat, and asking himself, as he glanced from time to time at the summons to the inquest which he held in his hand, whether he had committed himself in any way by word or look in the presence of the coroner’s officer.

Twice over he turned to the brandy decanter in search of courage, but he shrank from it with a fresh chill of dread.

“It may make me talk too much,” he said; “I might say something I couldn’t take back.”

Hurriedly thrusting the temptation from him, he well bathed his burning temples, and felt refreshed by the cold water.

“Now,” he said, setting his teeth and trying to be firm; “there’s only one man who knows the rights of this case, and I am that man. If I go straight no one can find it out, and there’s a rich wife for me at the end of a few months, and freedom from this cursed load of debt. Well, I’ll go through it in spite of everything. I will face it out.”

But even as he tried to screw himself up his own words struck him with terrible force—

“A rich wife!”

How would he dare to continue his advances towards the child of the man he had murdered?

“I can’t do it. I dare not do it,” he said in a despairing way. “She will be looking me through and through, and some day she might find out. No; Gellow must do his worst, I can’t go on.”

But as he thought all this his eyes were directed towards the Fort, with its blank-looking casements, and though he shuddered as he thought of the dead man lying there behind one of those blank windows—his work—the man whose hand he had grasped only the night before in friendship, and whom he had cut off by that one act—though he thought of all this with shudders, and vainly tried to screen himself from the darts of conscience by holding up as shield the word accident—the place had a terrible fascination, and he felt that he must go on now, for there was the sweet young girl heiress to so great a property, there was the ideal seaside home for a man who had yachting proclivities. The place was pretentious, and the mockery of an old Norman castle jarred upon his tastes; but there was the place waiting for him, ready to be his if he only had patience and manly force enough to keep his own counsel.

“And I will,” he said, as he clenched his fists. “It isn’t cowardice; it’s overstrung sensibility. I have the strength, and I will face it all out, come what may.”

He felt cooler now, and began to hesitate as to what he should do. The coroners inquest was to him the enemy, and he would have to view the body.

“No, no,” he muttered, “how confused I am—that is, for the jury. I am only a witness called because—Yes, I remember, what the man said now, because I saw the deceased last night.”

“Yes, I saw him last night,” groaned Glyddyr; “and I feel as if I shall always be seeing him now.”

Once more he made an effort to collect himself, and took the situation in the full. He had nearly been committing the grave error of running away, but he had fortunately paused.

“It would have been madness,” he thought, “and only inviting pursuit by attracting attention to my actions.”

He walked on deck, his nervous excitement having completely counteracted the effect produced by the spirits and wine, and ordered his men into the boat to row him ashore.

He had made up his mind what to do, and as soon as they reached the landing steps he walked straight up to the Fort for the second time that morning.

He was cool now, for he was fully awake to the fact that his life depended upon his calmly facing facts.

Half-way up, towards the bridge, he met Doctor Asher and his colleague, the latter bowing and passing on, but Asher stopped short, and took Glyddyr’s extended hand.

“Going in?” he said.

“Yes; how is she—Miss Gartram?”

“Terrible state, poor girl; broken-hearted; I only saw her for a few moments. Dreadful accident, is it not?”

Glyddyr felt his blood run cold, and his eyes seemed to him to be vacant, as he gazed straight at the doctor. “Accident?” he said, huskily.

“Oh, yes; no doubt about that. But you understand, do you not?”

“No—yes—I think I do,” said Glyddyr, whose throat felt dry.

“Of course. Poor fellow, I warned him against it over and over again, but it is of no use with a man who once becomes a slave to a drug.”

“Yes, I see,” said Glyddyr, staring hard at the doctor, but not seeing him.

“I feel as if I were to blame, but, on dispassionate consideration, what could I do?”

“Of course,” answered Glyddyr, “what could you do?”

“It was better that he should take the drug under my supervision than recklessly alone.”

“Yes; much,” said Glyddyr, vacantly.

“And yet on the face of it one can’t say that it seems so. But what could a medical man do in such a case? ‘I am suffering for want of sleep,’ he used to say, ‘and I must have this stuff.’ ‘It is madness to take it,’ I said. ‘If you don’t give it me, I shall get it myself at the druggists.’ So, of course, I had to give way and exhibit safe doses, but no foresight can prevent a man taking double or triple the quantities prescribed.”

“No; I see,” said Glyddyr, in the same vacant way. “But do you think he did get more at the druggist’s?”

“That was my first thought, and I telegraphed to the two nearest and most likely men, but they say in each case, ‘no.’ Most awful accident, Mr Glyddyr. It ought to be a warning to people not to tamper with drugs which they do not understand, eh?”

“Yes, of course.”

“How can anyone know how much to prescribe or take? A medical man of long experience has to go very cautiously, for what is a safe dose for one constitution is certain death to another. But, there: I must go. My colleague, to whom I have every reason to be grateful for his loyal aid, is waiting for me. I wanted help, for I cannot recall when I have been so overcome as by this case. The shock was terrible. Dining with him—called away—returning to find that he was asleep. Let me see you were with him, were you not?”

“Yes, part of the time,” faltered Glyddyr, as he felt a thrill of dread run through him under the doctor’s searching eyes, which seemed to be reading his inmost thoughts; and he found himself wondering whether this man had really been called away upon two occasions, or had made excuses, so as to watch his every act.

“And did you notice anything particular?”

“N-no,” faltered Glyddyr; and then, in response to the sharply applied goad of dread, “no, nothing; only that he breathed rather heavily.”

“To be sure; yes. But, there: good-bye. We shall meet again at the inquest, I suppose I I am not surprised at you looking so pale and overcome.”

“Do I look pale and overcome?” said Glyddyr hastily, the words slipping from his lips.

“Terribly, my dear sir, terribly. Good morning.”

Glyddyr stood looking after him as the doctor walked away, and a fit of trembling came on.

“He was pumping me, and he is suspicious,” thought Glyddyr. “Curse him! These doctors have a way of reading a man, and seeing through you. But he could only suspect; and what is suspicion where they want certainty?”

“What could he say,” he thought; “and how does it stand? He gave him chloral; Gartram took it himself, and if a little more was given, well, what could they prove unless they saw?”

“No; unless I betray myself, I am safe,” he muttered, as he walked up to the principal entrance and rang; but as the loud clangour of the bell ran through the place, the shiver of dread returned, and he was conscious from his sensations that he must be looking ghastly, and that his lips be white and cracked.

The door was opened by one of the maids.

“Ask Miss Gartram if she can see me for a few minutes,” he said, in a voice he hardly knew as his own.

The maid drew back for him to enter, and showed him into the drawing-room, where the yellow gloom of the light passing through the drawn-down blinds seemed to add to the oppression from which he suffered. Then, as he stood there, his hot eyes fixed themselves upon the chair which had been occupied by Claude when he was there the previous night; and he found himself wondering what he should say to her; and then a singular feeling of confusion came over him as he asked himself why he had come.

A footstep in the hall made him tremble, and he felt as if he could have given anything to be away from the place, for now, in its full force, he felt the terror of the interview he had to go through with the child of the man he had murdered, and who must now be lying still and stark not many yards away, while in the spirit, where was he?—perhaps about to be present to guard his child.

“If I only had more strength of mind!” groaned Glyddyr, as he vainly tried to string himself up. Then the door was opened, and he was face to face with Mary Dillon.

He drew a breath of relief, and his brain began to grow clearer, as if a mist had been wafted away, and, recovering himself, he advanced with extended hand.

“Will you be seated, Mr Glyddyr?” said Mary, ignoring the extended hand, and sinking wearily on the couch to half close her eyes and wrinkle up her brow.

“Thank you,” he said in a whisper; “I ought to apologise for coming, but—at such a time—dear Claude must—”

His words began to trail off slowly into silence, and he sat gazing at Mary helplessly, as if he could not command the flow of that which he wished to say.

“It is very good of you to come,” said Mary slowly, as if she were repeating a lesson when her thoughts were far away. “But poor Claude is completely prostrate. She cannot see you. It is cruel of you to ask for such a thing.”

“Yes, I suppose so,” he said meekly. “But, occupying the position as I do—she in such distress—I felt it a duty, let alone my own warm feelings. Miss Dillon, is there nothing I can do?”

He stopped short now, wondering at his own words, for they had come quickly, and sounded thoroughly natural in their ring.

“No,” said Mary, looking at him piercingly now; but he seemed nerved by the instinct of self-preservation, and the knowledge that everything depended upon him being calm.

Mary paused, and appeared to be struggling with her emotion for a few moments. Then, in a cold, hard way, she faced Glyddyr, as if she were defending her cousin from attack.

“No,” she said, in clear firm tones. “My cousin is seriously ill, Mr Glyddyr. Broken-hearted at our terrible loss, and anyone who feels respect for her, and wishes to be helpful at such an hour as this will leave her in peace till time has done something toward blunting the agony she is in.”

“Yes,” said Glyddyr, “you are quite right.”

He stood for a moment undecided, and as if he were about to go; but as he looked straight before him at the door, he saw mentally Gartram’s study; and a vision of wealth greater than any of which he had ever dreamed, appeared to be lying there waiting for him to call it mine; and the dazzling prospect began to drive away his terrors, and strengthen him in his belief that he was safe. No, he could not go back now, he felt, even if the figure of the dead were to rise up before him in defence of his hoards.

The dead tell no tales, he fancied he heard something within him say; and then—can the dead know?

Mary was looking at him inquiringly, and as he became conscious of this, he turned to her sadly and gravely.

“Yes; you are right,” he said, “it must be the kindest treatment to leave her to herself. It was my love for her that brought me here. Tell her, please, from me that my heart bleeds for her, and that I will wait until she can see me. I can say no more now. I trust you to be my faithful messenger. Good-bye.”

He held out his hand, and for a few moments she ignored his action, but as he stood there with his fingers outstretched, she felt unable to resist, and at last she placed her own within his, and he raised them to his lips.

The next minute she listened to his retiring steps as he went along the granite terrace, talking to himself.

“I did not think I could have done it,” he said; “but I have only to keep on, and the rest will come easy. I am too much a man of the world to be frightened at shadows after all.”

“It was perfect,” thought Mary Dillon, as she stood alone in the darkened drawing-room, “nothing could have been better, but I hate him and distrust him. Somehow he makes me shrink away with horror. But its only prejudice for poor Claude’s sake. I’d kill him first. He’d break her heart, and spend her money, and—yes, I’d kill him before he should do all that.”

She went slowly out into the hall, and stood hesitating for a few minutes. She appeared to be listening, and there was a curious weird look in her fine eyes as she glanced quickly here and there before drawing a long breath, and going across to the study door.

Here she paused on the thick wool mat, and tapped softly, but only to utter a faint hysterical cry, and press her hands to her lips, as if to keep back more, for the act had been one to which she was accustomed, and a thrill ran through her as she realised what she had done, and that the familiar, harsh voice could never again call to her “Come in.”