"You believe, do you not, that my being here is an accident?" Sir Albert said courteously. "I have been interested in your writing, and I am glad it has found appreciation."
She raised her head and spoke to him hurriedly, "You are kind—you mean to be kind—but you have no idea what a bitter, bitter blow this is to me—and what a terrible disappointment!"
"You misunderstand the whole thing," he said, moved almost beyond his powers of control when he noted how her bloom had faded, and how terrible the traces of anxiety in her face showed what her life was. "It is true that I have managed the publication for you, but I assure you that your poems have met with the highest praise, and that, though I did bring them out for you (it seems such a little thing to do for you), I have just now received a letter from the editor of one of the highest class of magazines to show you. Your name is unknown to him—he merely treats your poems as coming from a stranger—you are a complete stranger to him. Will you read it?"
He held it towards her. While finding fault with one or two lines, objecting to a word here and there, he acknowledged in warm terms the beauty of imagery, the flow of thought, the purity of the lines sent him, and considered it indicated unusual power, and that the author should be encouraged to try a longer flight.
Poor Margaret! The present and all the trials of her life were forgotten; the sweetness of this praise coming at a moment when her heart was starved, and all her brilliant and glowing imagination was pent up within the dreary walls of her most unhappy home, was almost overpowering. She held both hands out to the man who had proved himself so real a friend—her colour flushed into her cheek, and tears of gratitude sparkled in her eyes.
It was the sorest trial to poor Sir Albert not to be able to tell her that he could not bear gratitude from her. He stood gazing at her, as one spell-bound, clasping her hands till she withdrew them, with a struggle going on in his heart that was almost beyond him.
Then she turned to go, and her last words were at once a pang and a reward.
"I will always trust you," she said, earnestly, "you will be my critic and my judge; if I write nonsense you will be a real friend and say so. I feel so grateful to you! From henceforward I shall feel I have indeed a brother."
He muttered something, feeling miserable, and frightened of her seeing it, and he watched her go, knowing that his life was only cheered by the hope of befriending her—thankful that she had this one great gift to save her from despair, and yet fully aware that, as far as he was concerned, her utter unconsciousness of his continued love was an additional pain to him.
Then he went into one or two business details with Mr. Skidd; delighted that little man by corroborating his high opinion of the little poems by showing him the letter he had—and went to London, depressed and unhappy. He had gained nothing by this accidental interview except the conviction that she had so entirely forgotten his love that she proffered the brotherly tie as entirely satisfactory to him, as to her. And yet, in his heart of hearts, he knew that this attitude towards him was the only possible one for such as her if she allowed him to help her and to be her friend.
Mrs. Dorriman, missing Jean at every turn, was in a measure consoled by the gruff kindness of her brother to her.
She was so accustomed to his manner that she felt the kindness and did not resent his roughness.
She was happier since she had seen Jean, whose letter, faithfully detailing her adventures, was very amusing. But she asked herself what was to be the end of it all?
Grace, who must have some settled home, and poor Margaret, who seemed to be so completely a prisoner, and not able to go and look after her sister, were both perplexing problems.
But as life goes on we learn not to trouble so much about things, we feel that a Hand does guide and guard us, and bring all things right—and Mrs. Dorriman, looking back upon her life, was every day learning this deeper lesson.
She was surprised now to receive a good many visits, a thing she had hitherto been unaccustomed to, at Renton Place.
The few neighbours around, living within easy distance, had hardly realised that Mrs. Dorriman had come to Renton to live there. When she first went to Renton, with all the kindness of heart of the neighbours and a real wish to make acquaintance with a person of whom all the world spoke well, there was a pardonable amount of curiosity among some.
A man reputed to be a millionnaire, and who had a romantic attachment for his first wife, might also make a good husband to a second wife. Then also the question of the girls who were to have lived with him and who did not live with him. Margaret's marriage to a man "old enough to be her grandfather," and a certain little mystery of where it had all been made up, gave that interest in the doings at Renton Place which blossomed into activity in the shape of visits.
The first person who felt a visit due from her was Mrs. Wymans, who had the excuse of an apology to make for having handled the domestic affairs of Mr. Sandford, with a certain freedom, before Mrs. Dorriman.
Most people would have thought that the apology might have been made before, or might be left alone now; but this conditional tense in which her friends put the case was met by Mrs. Wymans with plausible reasons. Certainly she had always thought of going—but till now—did any one know that Mrs. Dorriman was anything more than a visitor? Had she known that she was really to be resident.... Why of course it would be very rude not to call.
Mrs. Dorriman was not at all inclined to despise the proffered olive-branch. She had no distaste for acquaintances, and was so evidently glad to see that people intended to be kind to her, that the infection spread. From being liked she became extremely popular; a person never sure enough of her facts to contradict anybody is always approved of; and after being spoken of as poor Mrs. Dorriman for many months she was now talked of as dear Mrs. Dorriman, being one of those women who, for some inexplicable reason, is never mentioned without an adjective.
The visits were made and returned—the only drawback being that Mr. Sandford had never yet been seen by any one—though Mrs. Wymans, who always posed as having done or seen a little more than her neighbours, avowed to having seen the back of his head upon one occasion, which, if true, certainly proved that he was capable of being in two places at once.
Truth to tell, therapprochementbetween the brother and sister was not productive of entire satisfaction to Mr. Sandford.
If Mrs. Dorriman's conscience was so sensitive that she felt like a traitor towards her brother, because of certain papers she knew of, the contents of which mightpossiblybetray something against him, his conscience, though not sensitive, had a far far heavier weight upon it, though it did not press upon him continually.
It was impossible to live with a woman so meek, so gentle, and so unselfish, without learning to like her, but the liking produced much acute uneasiness; and at times his rough manner was more a mask for his uncomfortable feelings than for any other reason.
He was up and out again, though he felt that he had not quite his old clearness of perception, he was more easily tired and he was always thankful to get home.
That home was indeed changed to him now. The cheerfulness and serenity, the evenness of Mrs. Dorriman's temper made him look forward to going home, where his most trifling wishes were attended to, and when he had thatcertaintyof being met in the same quiet way, of having no fluctuations in manner, which gives the real home feeling.
Mrs. Dorriman was not perfect, she was a woman who possessed no great gifts, and she was constitutionally timid, and not much fitted to form an opinion about subjects outside those of domestic interest; but she did understand that a man, tired and worried by affairs outside his home, required rest and refreshment in it, and she knew how to give both.
The dreariness that had once obtained had long vanished. All inside the house was light and bright and cheerful for him now, and each day sent him home with this recognition deeper in his heart, and more remorseful because of certain acts of his which now never could be undone.
Mrs. Wymans, when she made her appearance at Renton, had rehearsed her apology, and then found that it must be put differently.
The extreme quiet of Mrs. Dorriman's manner was a check she had hardly counted upon. When they had that encounter in the railway carriage the poor little lady had been troubled and nervous, her manner was agitated; and Mrs. Wymans, who was a shrewd observer, saw that she stopped the conversation about her brother from a sense of right, and that she was evidently not resenting it in a sisterly fashion.
From this she drew several inferences, everyone of which had to be laid aside now.
"Your brother, I hear, has been so ill we did not like to intrude, and before—you went away——" she said, which was not in the least what she had meant to say.
"Yes," said Mrs. Dorriman, "we went away, and had you been so kind as to call before this I could not have seen you, my brother has been so very ill."
"And you have no nurse?" said Mrs. Wymans, betraying her knowledge of the internal economy of the household. "You must find the nursing very troublesome and most fatiguing. I know of an excellent woman who could come at a moment's notice."
"Thank you, but I am happy to say that the fatigue, like the illness, lies in the past. My brother is quite well again, and out and about his usual business."
"Of course he likes his business, he is so successful; the trial is where hard work is not successful," and Mrs. Wymans spoke feelingly.
"I think my brother meets with some success and probably some trials also, but these are only words too; we never talk of business together, and I know nothing about his."
"Really! Forgive me, dear Mrs. Dorriman, but then where is the sympathy? And a woman has such sharp eyes. I never rest till I know every single thing that is going on—that is my way of showing sympathy."
"But it must tire your husband, does it not? A woman can see only one side, and then she cannot help in the way of advice. Her advice cannot be useful."
"That is only a notion of yours," said Mrs. Wymans, a little nettled, "and why should a woman only know one side of a thing?"
"Because she only hears her husband's views; of course his private affairs cannot be talked over with another person, therefore the wife's views must be a little one-sided."
"Oh no, mine are not. I hear a thing and see a great many sides all at once."
"Perhaps you are cleverer than I am," said Mrs. Dorriman, in all humility, glad that at any rate the question of the Rivers girls had not cropped up.
Mrs. Wymans eyed her keenly, anxious to make out whether she was speaking satirically or not. Somewhat reassured on that point by Mrs. Dorriman's placid face, she drew a little nearer her and said confidentially,
"What a sad thing Mrs. Drayton's position is!"
"In what way?" Mrs. Dorriman received a dreadful shock by this sudden touch upon the subject.
"Why, her husband being poor instead of rich, and some other things."
"Do you mind telling me what other things?" and Mrs. Dorriman was alarmed as well as annoyed.
"Why, if you do not know of any thing, ... but if it is not true, I had better not repeat it."
"You really must tell me what you mean," and Mrs. Dorriman, the gentlest of women, had so to speak all her feathers ruffled now.
"People say he drinks," answered Mrs. Wymans, with that sudden misgiving as to the wisdom of her words which made her wish them unsaid immediately they had passed her lips.
"That I am sure is not the case," returned Mrs. Dorriman; she felt quite convinced that had there been any truth about this she would have heard it counted against him when her brother had been so incensed with her and had said many bitter things.
"I am so very glad to hear it," and Mrs. Wymans lost her sense of discomfort, since it was not true.
"It was a curious marriage for a young girl to make," she remarked abruptly, since she found Mrs. Dorriman's silence a little oppressive.
"I think it was; but, though my brother offered them a home, he had, of course, no real authority over them."
"Ah," said Mrs. Wymans, enchanted to have got at the root of the matter, "people were rather puzzled at his having taken them up so much; do you very much mind telling me, dear Mrs. Dorriman, how it all was? What was the real bond of union?"
"Why should I mind telling you so simple a thing?" and Mrs. Dorriman's amused face was quite a little shock to her visitor; "they are his wife's nieces: he is their uncle by marriage, and being, as you are probably aware, devoted to his wife's memory, he was glad to befriend them."
"And is this really all?" exclaimed Mrs. Wymans, who could hardly get over her disappointment. "Why we all thought—every one thought—and people said something else."
"People are wrong," said Mrs. Dorriman, with a laugh that was a very genuine one; "I cannot myself understand the interest taken in these private matters, but that is the simple fact. Mr. Rivers and my brother married two sisters, who were devoted to each other. When Mrs. Rivers died she recommended her children to Mrs. Sandford, and at her death my brother promised to befriend them. It seems to me such a simple thing."
"It certainly does," and Mrs. Wymans rose to go, and bid farewell to Mrs. Dorriman, who was conscious only of one terrible speech; was it true that Mr. Drayton did——that——and, if it was true, were they right in taking all for granted and leaving Margaret at his mercy? But for the doctor's prohibition she would have gone straight to her brother and laid her new anxieties before him. But she remembered that he was not to be agitated or excited, and she resolutely sat still till all her own excited thoughts became calmer. She took up her knitting and worked on mechanically, while this new responsibility made her feel as though nothing in the world, of such moment, had ever come before her. It was an evil unknown to her; in the old days her father was a man both abstemious and refined in his surroundings, and since her marriage, though she saw terrible accounts in the papers, she had lived so little in any town, and had seen so little that was evil, that she considered people made almost unnecessary fuss about teetotalism; she could not imagine such a fearful thing as drinking touching her order, though she knew it obtained among some poor miserable creatures, of whom she seldom thought without a shudder of sorrow, mingled with disgust.
To think of Margaret, with all her great love of purity and peace, exposed to so horrible a thing, was something absolutely terrible to her; so perfectly appalling that she started up, feeling as though every moment was a cruel wrong to the girl she had learned to love so dearly. She went to her brother's room; he was sitting up, and she sat down beside him in a flutter of spirits that made her incoherent.
"You have had a visitor," he began, with a laugh in which there was not much mirth.
"Only Mrs. Wymans," she answered, with indifference.
"If she could hear you! She is a person of great consequence in her own estimation."
"I wonder why she called," his sister said, absently, doubtful as to her capability of putting the question without causing any excitement.
"I'll tell you," he answered; "there is a great deal of curiosity about Drayton just now; before this attack of mine I was driven wild by all manner of questions about him. He is a great fool to make a mystery of his address; there is no reason he should do so; he answers no letters, he leaves every one to conjecture things, and in this beautiful world if a thing is not fully understood, the worst interpretation and not the best is the accepted one."
"Then you think there is no reason for his shutting himself up?"
"There can be no reason. Margaret is not likely to give him cause for jealousy, and the man is in the possession of all his senses."
"Always, and at all times?" and Mrs. Dorriman leaned forward, breathing quickly and watching his face very anxiously.
"Anne," said Mr. Sandford, and this name from him was an especial sign of kindness towards her, "has any one told you anything? Depend upon it it is only gossip."
"It may be gossip, I trust it may be untrue; but why is Margaret, so to speak, shut up? She cannot go out even for a walk beyond the grounds; Jean says she has not been to see Grace for ever so long, and there must be some reason for his never answering any letter."
"I never heard this before. What do you mean about Margaret? I think you are speaking great nonsense."
"Jean says that the poor thing never gets out. At first she went out and he went with her—followed her like a shadow—now he does not go himself, and she is kept a perfect prisoner. No one is allowed to go near the house. I assure you, brother, I have been longing for you to be well to speak about it."
"The man must be mad," exclaimed Mr. Sandford, and then he noticed his sister's face. "You have heard something, you have something more to say?" and his own face flushed.
"Brother, do not excite yourself. You know the doctor is afraid of your being ill if you do."
"Well, then, don't make mysteries," he said very angrily, and with much of his old violence.
"I am sure," said the poor woman, hurt at such an accusation, "I do not wish to make mysteries, but Mrs. Wymans told me that she had heard he drank. Now, I am not quite sure if she put it quite that way or if she asked me if he drank."
"Not a bit of it. If he does, it is something quite new. He was a very abstemious man. You might recollect his headaches, and saying wine increased those headaches."
"So I do," exclaimed Mrs. Dorriman, joyfully; "how tiresome it is that I forgot this when that woman was here. She spoke so meaningly," and Mrs. Dorriman as usual considered herself somehow altogether to blame.
Mr. Sandford said no more, but he lay back, thinking. He blamed himself, justly, for having been the person to bring this man to the house for his own end—and now....
He was free of further blame; he had heard rumours in connection with Mr. Drayton's family that had greatly disturbed him, andthenhe had done his best to prevent his marrying Margaret; his conscience had plenty to bear but not this—only he might have spoken more plainly, he might have told her or his sister something that had come to his knowledge. Then, when too late, heknew.
He was better, but his strength was not coming back quickly, and business matters, the position he had held, everything connected with the past, began to shrink in importance.
But Margaret! Something must be done at once about her; a terrible dread came to him about her.
"One thing you must do at once," he said, aloud, following out his own thoughts, "you must write to Jean without delay; enclose her a cheque, and tell her it is important that she should give it, and letters from you, to Margaret, into her own hand. Write to Margaret and tell her she is to let you know the truth, and what her position is—writeat once," he repeated, as though his sister, who was thoroughly alarmed, needed any second telling.
Jean was, on the whole, easier about Grace, who had made a surprising rally. She was able to be up and enjoy her meals; she was also able to enjoy the visits of no less a person than Paul Lyons.
Margaret being married and out of his reach, that young man had conceived a great affection for her sister, now a very softened and subdued likeness of herself at Lornbay.
"You are not Margaret, but you remind me of her," he said sentimentally.
"We are sisters. I think there is a likeness."
Grace was extremely amused by his sentiment and by the little speeches he made her. She had always rather liked him, and was always tolerant of the little ways that had so provoked her high-minded sister.
"I am not sure about it, personally," he said, "I meant your voice and your manner, and something altogether."
"We have the same kind of nose," laughed Grace. "Never mind, Mr. Lyons, I like you to be loyal to my sister; I never,never, could come up to her, and I know it!"
"You—you are more like than you were last year. Sometimes I think youverylike Margaret," said Mr. Lyons, consolingly.
"Thank you. I know that is a very high compliment from you."
"Don't you think, Miss Rivers, that Margaretmight, she might, have been happier with a fellow like me than with an old madman like Drayton?—that's what hurts me so much," said the young man.
"Of course she would have been happier, but everything went wrong," and Grace blushed vividly. "I sent everything wrong, and, poor, poor darling, she sacrificed herself to save me. Oh, Mr. Lyons! you never can say anything bad enough for me to feel it unjust. I hate myself more and more every day," and, much to his consternation, Grace, usually mocking at tears, shed them now.
"I declare you are so like Margaret that I am getting to be very fond of you," exclaimed Paul, "please don't cry, it makes me feel so ... funny!" and he looked unhappy, also.
"Oh, if I coulddoanything!" exclaimed poor Grace, who was, now she was stronger, less able to remain passive, and who was utterly and entirely miserable about her sister.
"If one could only shoot the fellow!" said Paul, vindictively.
"You see even if I could go out that wretched man keeps guard; he will not let Jean see my poor Margaret. A little while ago there was a back door, now that is shut up."
"But why does she not walk out of the house?"
"Because of her baby. She will not leave it and he will not allow her to take it with her, and I do not quite understand about the law, but, even if she took it, they might force her to send it back to him, so she says."
"Grace," said young Lyons, and he looked as though he had quite made up his mind to something, "I wish you would marry me. I am quite in earnest," he said, getting very red at her expression of amazement; "you see, if I washerbrother I might be of some use."
Perhaps never was a proposal made so oddly, and never one so open to offence taken in such good part.
"No, Mr. Lyons," said Grace, laughing, while tears stood in her eyes; "you are a dear, kind-hearted boy; do you suppose I would consent to anything of the kind? Put all nonsense out of your head and try to see if there is anything in the world we can do. You are more able, you are stronger than I am; think!"
Paul Lyons thought, but he could see no way of helping Margaret unless she would help herself.
They neither of them knew what had only lately happened at the Limes. When Margaret, her heart full of gratitude about her writing, a glow of deep and checquered feeling making her steps lighter, as she went homewards, had been kept at the door waiting a weary while.
When at length the servant came Mr. Drayton was with him, and he had been so excited and so violent that the man could hardly control him.
"I am sure, ma'am, he is mad," he said to the terrified girl, "and I will see and get the doctor to-morrow; I cannot well leave him just now."
"Oh, pray, do not leave him!" said Margaret, terrified; "but to-morrow, yes, something must be done to-morrow."
She had made up her mind, as she stood trembling before him, that she would go, and she would take her child; surely, if he was mad—and she knew he must be mad—no one would take her child from her.
Next day, so soon as baby was awake, she roused the nurse. She had great difficulty in telling her what she meant to do; she meant to go now at once, while, as she thought, her husband slept, and the nurse might follow later.
"He will not wish to detain you," she said, "once we are safe away."
"But who will pay my wages?" asked the nurse, who did not at all see why she should risk her earnings or be left in the house with a madman when her charge and her mistress were gone.
"Of course that will be all right," said Margaret, with dignity.
"Are you sure, ma'am? because they say here you had no money, that your sister is living in a very poor way, and that you married master for his money."
Margaret's face was one flame.
"You are quite forgetting yourself," she said, and then the sting of these words made her turn away. Here was a truth—she had acknowledged to herself—put in the coarsest possible way to her! Had she a right to resent it?
She dressed her baby and herself, put up a few necessaries, and then knelt down and asked for help and guidance. It could not be wrong to go, for she was sure that her husband was mad; she must go and she must take her baby, who was hers; she was sure if she stayed that her husband would do her an injury; she had long had a vague fear, but last night had made her tremble; supposing he broke out in this way when the man was not by his side! She was trembling now as she went downstairs.
"Baby must keep quiet," she whispered; but how could baby know? As they passed her husband's door her frightened and close embrace alarmed and hurt the child, and she set up a tremendous roar. Margaret went to the front door; no key was there; she turned to the drawer to look and found her husband beside her.
"Where are you going?" he thundered, holding her shoulder as in a vice.
"I am going out," she answered, trying to speak, quivering with fear all the time.
"You do not go out at that door! and besides how can you go out with your precious child in the rain?"
Poor Margaret looked up and there indeed she saw that it was raining heavily.
Her heart sank and she paused irresolute.
At that moment the key turned in the lock, and the man came in.
"I have been to the doctor and he is coming directly," he said, and with a feeling of being baffled, though only for the time, poor Margaret turned her weary steps upstairs.
She was over-excited, and cried with the passion that comes from weakness, as from despair.
Then she left her child upstairs, and prepared to see the doctor. Through him she would surely be able to arrange something.
No one, she kept saying to herself, would wish her to stay with a madman, no one could leave a child in his keeping.
And she went to the sitting-room, and when she heard the doctor come she fled swiftly towards him, and took him upstairs to her own room. She would lay everything before him, and he would help her.
And he, looking at her flushed face and great excitement of manner, wondered whether she was going to tell him about some illness of her own; and conscious of a certain prejudice against her, because of her marriage to this man, and a farewell he had witnessed between her and—Sir Albert Gerald.
Since that first interview Dr. Jones had had with the poor wife his feelings of admiration and pity had changed a good deal.
The explanation of her position lowered her considerably in his eyes. Perhaps no one sees the utter emptiness of life, and the non-importance of wealth, more than a medical man, who sees how little happiness it brings to any one; how little (standing by itself) it does for poor humanity.
He was disgusted when he saw that there was apparently no excuse for her; and he was shocked when he saw a farewell between her and a young man as he passed Mr. Skidd's shop, because here was evidently a lover. Her face he could not see, but Sir Albert's expression was unmistakable.
Margaret, having no clue to his coldness and evident disapproval, felt speaking difficult, far more difficult than she had thought.
"I want to speak to you," she said, colouring under his searching gaze. "I want to tell you about my husband. I am very miserable, and I am very much frightened."
"Humph!" said Dr. Jones, "let us leave the misery upon one side, and talk about your fears; what makes you afraid?"
"My husband's violence. He was so very violent yesterday and this morning; I am afraid of his doing me an injury—I am afraid because of my child," and Margaret shivered.
"What made him violent?"
"He cannot bear my going out. He never allows me to go out, I am a prisoner here!"
He remembered having seen her out, and in his heart believed she was deliberately telling him a lie.
"What do you want to go out for?" he asked, roughly. "What do you mean by 'going out'?"
"I want to see my sister oftener."
Another lie he thought. "Why don't you brave him and go?" he said, trying her; "you might leave him altogether."
"Because I am told that if I leave he can keep my child!" said Margaret, passionately.
"Of course he can."
"It seems so hard," she said.
"Does it? I do not agree with you; why should a man be deprived of his child any more than a woman?"
"But if a man—is—mad?" whispered poor Margaret.
"Oh, that's where you are, is it! Well, I do not think that word is applicable here. There is temper, and therewasdrink. You will forgive my saying that, as you married Mr. Drayton, you took him for better or for worse. I do not think his health is good, and his temper is—well, irritable—that is the worst."
"Then you cannot help me!" and poor Margaret, who had hoped much from him, felt cruelly disappointed.
"How can I help you?" he asked, impatiently. "You wish me,for some reason of your own, to say that your husband is mad—which I have seen nothing to prove—and I willnotsay what I do not believe."
"I do not wish you to say it; I wish nothing but what is true and right: but I cannot understand how you, a medical man and experienced, can think Mr. Drayton quite right," pleaded Margaret; "if you could only see him as I have seen him!" and she stopped, afraid of betraying emotion to one so evidently lacking in sympathy.
"Of course, if I saw him with your eyes," began the doctor, coldly, all the more upon his guard because he was conscious that in spite of disapproval, in spite of what he knew and what he had seen, he was beginning to be influenced by her passionate appeal to him.
"We need not discuss this matter any longer," said Margaret, rising, and looking very fair and very pale as she stood in the full morning light. "For some unknown reason—unknown to me—you are not my friend; after all, you do not know me. If I find my life unbearable, I have friends who will help me!"
"Now, Mrs. Drayton, answer me a plain question," and the doctor, rising also, looked at her with a curious expression of mingled distrust and rising interest, "What have you to complain of? Is your husband rough to you. Has he ever done you any injury?"
Poor Margaret!
"He is rough," she said, with hesitation in her voice; "he uses language new to me. But if you can see no strangeness in his manner...." Her voice died away, her hopes had vanished; she had a horrible and undefinable dread—she had seen a wildness in his eyes, which in a less degree she had seen when she had first known him; but our own convictions, unsupported by any facts, are inconclusive to other people—and Dr. Jones, seeing in her a very lovely woman, but one evidently able to deceive, and who did not hesitate to say she had no liberty, when he had seen her alone and out, was steeled against her.
He laid down the law with all the authority of a man who is fully aware of having right on his side.
"Madam, if you have any one tangible grievance—if your husband ever struck you, or ill-treated you in any way—then I should see my way to interfering in your behalf; the law protects you in such a case."
"Yes," Margaret answered, bitterly, "you will interfere, and the law will protect (?) me when I am injured; there is no help for me till the necessity for help has passed away."
She bowed and left him—knowing that her words were useless, and went to try and comfort herself, andtryand bear her fate without a murmur. Had she not sinned, and against all her convictions, with her eyes open, and fearing this very thing!
"What a very illogical mind she has," said Dr. Jones, as he stalked downstairs, comfortably satisfied that he had been firm, and that her grace, the pathos of her voice, and her great beauty, had alike been disregarded. Justice, without doubt, was on his side—he thought.
But as he stepped on the last step something made him sensible that there might be a little truth in what she said. Though she had told him a deliberate untruth, all might not be false.
He changed his mind about going home at once, and he went to see Mr. Drayton instead. He found him very quiet, rather depressed, without a trace of excitement in his manner.
Nothing during the interview transpired to give the slightest colour to the wife's dread; and the doctor left, perfectly convinced in his own mind that Mrs. Drayton was quite in the wrong, in more ways than one.
Just as he reached the front door and was full of his own good sense, he heard a sound that startled him, a loud soul-less meaningless laugh, and as the front door shut upon him, pulled by his own hand, a quick, sharp misgiving crossed his mind, and he wished he had seen the man-servant. He had not thought it necessary. But his own convictions soon banished that sudden thought, and the result of his visit was to confirm his views and to give rise to many moral reflections on the way in which glaring faults may be marked by unusual personal advantages.
His wife, who was shrewd and kind-hearted, but who had not that deep estimation for his talents which goes far to make the conjugal relationship happy, was interested in the poor wife and mother living in such a singularly secluded manner. She had only seen her, no one ever being allowed an entrance to the Limes, by Margaret's own wish and consent, when she had found that her husband had a terrible tendency, and which she had no wish to alter had she been able to do so, now the dread had changed.
Mrs. Jones was not a great admirer of her husband's abilities—indeed she had lived to find him peculiarly dull in a great many things; but he was very kind to her, and admired her quickness immensely, so that though the balance was on the wrong side still it was there.
Everything passing in his mind she could generally read pretty clearly, and he did not object to her doing so. He was always rather relieved when she brought her mind to bear upon some perplexity; and, though as far as medical cases went, he was very discreet, there were occasions, of which the present was one, when it was a substantial comfort to have his mode of action approved of by her.
Mrs. Jones was one of the women who have no inclination for prolonged meals, and it was always a trial to her the deliberation and great enjoyment evinced by her husband on these occasions. Some people have no talent for eating, and except for his sake Mrs. Jones would never have gone through that ceremony—to which so many cling—of having a succession of dishes presented one after another, as though you could not have one thing and finish with it, she herself would say; and her luncheon as often as not, consisted of an apple or two which she crunched between her fine white teeth, and a biscuit, the hardness of which tested their capability.
But she was wise enough to understand that a good dinner was really an essential to Mr. Jones, and, without caring about it herself, she threw herself into the subject, and the result was eminently satisfactory.
She bore the prolonged meals, in which her rapid demolition was a standing grievance, with some work on her lap, work which employed her active fingers and left her mind free to apply to any of her husband's interests at the moment.
He had at one time considered this to be "not quite the thing," and had questioned its propriety.
"But it is much better for you, if you could only see it," she had answered. "The work does not prevent my talking, and my dinner does," which argument was unassailable.
Mr. Jones had even come to consider there was great merit in the arrangement, as his wife never hurried him now, or showed by any little feminine indications that the time seemed long.
"I am glad, my dear," he said, when he had arrived at that pleasant stage of affairs when his appetite was partially satisfied, and had yet to be satiated, "I am very glad your acquaintance with Mrs. Drayton went no further."
"Why?"
"I am afraid, my dear (speaking of course in strictest confidence), that she is not quite a straightforward person."
"I hardly know any one I consider quite straightforward, myself," answered Mrs. Jones calmly. "What has she done?"
"I think you are making rather a sweeping assertion, my dear," he said, eyeing with a momentary misgiving a roast duck; it looked overdone.
"Never mind my assertions, but tell me what that poor thing has done?"
"Why do you say thatpoorthing? I really do not see why she is to be pitied."
"Don't you? well I do. Do you call the life she leads a proper life for a young creature accustomed probably to all the freedom of a country life in Scotland? I often think of her, and I declare sometimes I should like to force my way into that dismal house, and take her and her child out of it." Mrs. Jones spoke with a vehemence quite surprising to her husband.
"Really, my dear," he said, "the rapid conclusions you arrive at are ... bewildering to my slower mode of thought. You have seen Mrs. Drayton once, and you are ready immediately to credit her with weariness, and the house is a substantial house and very well furnished, and...."
"Do you suppose curtains and carpets can make a woman happy?" asked Mrs. Jones, severely.
"They do something towards it, I think, judging from your own great anxiety upon the subject."
Mr. Jones had some reason for this statement.
"All I have to say is that that poor young creature's heart is broken—yes, broken. I never saw any one so thoroughly and utterly miserable as she is."
Mr. Jones was startled but not convinced.
"I saw her the other day, though not to speak to," Mr. Jones went on. "She went to Skidd's, and I was going in also, but asyouobjected to my being mixed up with her I drew back. A friend of hers happened to go there on business, and she welcomed him, and I saw her face, and its expression has haunted me ever since."
"As you saw her out with your own eyes, you can understand that when she talks of never going out that is not a perfectly true statement," and Mr. Jones, who was longing to have his own slight misgivings set at rest by his wife, took off his spectacles, rubbed imaginary specs off their polished surface, and replaced them.
"One swallow does not make a summer," said Mrs. Jones, with as much contempt in her meaning as she thought befitting. "It is a fact known to every one here that she has only been seen once, and that she is kept exactly as though the Limes was a prison and her husband a jailer."
"Really, my dear, in these days such expressions are quite absurd."
"Their being absurd does not make them false, and I trust that if you can in any way help that poor thing you will."
"If she went out once she can do so again."
"Not at all a certainty; she may have managed it once, and yet because she did so it may be made impossible for her."
"It strikes me, my dear, that you know more about it all than I imagined," said Dr. Jones, with a sudden perception which for him was really acute.
"I know this, that Mr. Drayton refused her sister shelter on the worst night we have had; that the sisters are orphans devotedly attached to each other; that one sister is ill, and that the other is a prisoner, therefore they cannot meet. They have one or two friends, and the only thing that puzzles me is why the friends do not interfere."
"My dear," and Dr. Jones spoke with great irritation, "how can any one interfere? There is nothing wrong about the man. I saw him to-day. I am not going to proclaim him mad to please his wife or any one else."
"Then she appealed to you?"
"She told me a long story. She wanted more liberty. How can I interfere?"
"And she asked you if her husband was—that?"
"Was what?"
"Mad."
"She said something, but as I had seen her out, and she said she could not go out, I did not feel very much inclined to take her view of the question," said the doctor, obstinately.
"Why are you prejudiced against her?"
"Because I saw her meet thefriendyou speak of, and I drew my own conclusions."
"Well, you ought to be ashamed of yourself," said Mrs. Jones, very warmly, "thoroughly ashamed of yourself. As it happens the meeting was a pure accident. Mr. Skidd has been publishing some poetry; he told me about it at first; in fact he showed the first poem to me, and asked me what I thought," said Mrs. Jones, not without a pardonable little glow of satisfaction. "I thought it beautiful. Then the editor of some magazine in London came down and arranged to have all she wrote. He called by accident and met Mrs. Drayton, and they talked business. How you can put such an ill-natured construction on so simple a thing I cannot make out."
"My dear, I really—putting two and two together—I thought——"
"I shall be afraid of speaking to any one now for fear of your seeing evil in it—Mr. Paul Lyons, for instance—I shall refuse to shake hands with him."
"My dear, I wish you would not go off at a tangent like that. It is a very different thing. You are not in her position; you are not young and beautiful, and.... What in the world is the matter now?"
His wife rushed out of the room, and disdained answering him.
In the meantime Jean was bravely facing all her difficulties. Her principal difficulty was that she had a woman to deal with in the shape of a landlady who was what Jean termed a "slithery" creature. When she found that Jean looked after things she was impertinent; but that had no effect. Jean looked over her head and ignored her altogether.
Then she took to being disobliging, and would neither answer a bell nor give any help. Her next move was to let the kitchen fire out perpetually, and when Jean wanted to heat some soup and get anything hot there was no fire.
She calculated that as Grace was very ill and could not be moved, she would get the best of it in the long run.
But Jean was not a woman who would allow herself to be put out of it without giving her opinion and trying to remedy matters. She had a great contempt for the "wishy-washy" voice and untidy ways of Mrs. Cripps, a woman who lived in a black cap, and knew nothing of any but baker's bread, and could neither make "a scone or even oat-bread, let be bannocks," Jean said to Grace when she was dwelling upon the shortcomings of the house one day.
"I am glad," said Grace, laughing. "I never cared for oat-bread. I always feel, if I ever try to eat it, that I am eating sand; please do not be offended."
"I'll take no offence where none is meant," said Jean, quietly; "and people are not a' born wi' a good taste."
The landlady tried in vain to speak her high-bred English, and to put herself above her. There are a good many like her that cannot distinguish between provincialism and vulgarity. Jean had a ready tongue, and, though she assured Grace that she kept it well between her teeth, the landlady heard it occasionally, and felt it in all its roughness.
The skirmishes were invariably amusing to Grace, who used to lie in her chair and laugh over the scenes afterwards, and tell them to Paul Lyons, who showed how little any real love had existed for her by the way in which he still came to see her and to hear of Margaret.
She could not help asking herself what she gained in all this unhappiness; she was as badly off as ever. She was still dependent on Mr. Sandford. She was living in a tiny lodging. She disliked the doctor, and never would see him if she could help it, and the sister, who had all their lives been her one great stay and support, had no liberty to come and see her.
She had planned her life so differently, and it came vividly before her. How proud she had always been of the cleverness, which tested at length, had failed in every particular. But once she rallied, hers was not at all the nature to dwell upon unpleasant things. The first day she went out she drove to the Limes, taking Jean with her, and they asked for Mrs. Drayton.
"Mrs. Drayton is out," said the man-servant, who did not dare say otherwise.
"Hoot! man," said Jean, "you need not tell me that. Why, Mrs. Drayton is never out."
"Shut that door immediately," called out an angry voice, and Mr. Drayton, looking very haggard and wild, came to the door.
"My sister! I want to see my sister," and Grace held out her hands imploringly.
Mr. Drayton came down the steps and looked at her; then he made a perfectly diabolical face, burst into a roar of laughter, and slammed the door in her face.
Grace, weak and terrified, clung to Jean as they went home. "What shall we do? What shall we do?" she sobbed. "Oh, Jean! that man is mad, and she, my poor Margaret, is in his power!"
"Whist, my dear bairn," said Jean, who was nigh upon tears herself. "Whist! I think we will be guided," she said, reverently, and she sat silent for a few minutes. "I doubt we will have to speak to the police," she added, as that brilliant idea came to console her.
Grace wrote a letter to Mrs. Dorriman that night, in which she told her all she knew, all she feared, for the first time; she expressed her gratitude for all the kindness she had received; for the first time she acknowledged that she was to blame, and she asked to express something of her feeling to Mr. Sandford.
This done she felt more happy than she had done lately, and rose next day trusting that in some way her sister's freedom would be brought about.
Mr. Lyons called early, and was delighted to receive her confidence. Might he go and call? Surely there could be no harm, he asked, anxiously; it might save time.
"It would only make matters worse for my sister," Grace said, "and you would do no good."
"But it will show that she—that your sister—has friends near her."
"That very fact might rouse him to more violence, and my sister would suffer."
"I might go and call onhim. I do not believe he would be violent if I asked for him. I am afraid he knows me, otherwise I might take some circulars and call upon him about business."
"As if you know anything about business."
"I assure you I have been very hard at work lately. I have gone into the question of employment very seriously."
"I doubt your having done anything seriously," laughed Grace.
"That is rather hard on a fellow, when a fellow has really tried."
"Come, Mr. Lyons, what have you tried?"
"I have offered myself as an agent to begin with. Agency is a very good thing. You spend no money yourself, and other people's money sticks to your fingers; it is really a very simple thing."
"And what are you agent for, may I ask?"
"Oh! the appointment is not confirmed, but I think I am on the high road to it. It does not much matter what it is as long as you can get people to buy. I have at this moment two things before me, of which I have really a very fair chance."
"Have you?"
"Are you sufficiently interested, Miss Rivers, to hear what they are?"
"I am doing my best to show my interest by listening to you with both my ears."
"Ah! but you arenotgiving me your undivided attention. You are knitting, and just now I quite distinctly heard you count five. A fellow cannot talk of his prospects to a girl while she counts five," Mr. Lyons said, in a tone of disgust, and looking round the room appealing to an imaginary audience.
"I will not count again—only just this once. I have made a mistake already;" and Grace wrinkled her forehead and became absorbed in her work for a few moments.
"Miss Rivers, will you really let a fellow talk to you? life and death does not hang upon a few stitches more or less."
"No, but a sock does; and dear Mrs. Dorriman took such pains to teach me to make one."
"You are always knitting," the young man said, discontentedly.
"No; only when I feel very good," she answered, gravely; "then I knit all kinds of things into my sock."
"What sort of things—colours? that thing looks all the same colour to me."
"Oh, I do not mean material things, but sorrow and penitence—and the bitterest repentance," she added the last words in a lower tone, and her eyes were concealed under lowered lids; then she sighed.
Mr. Lyons sighed also, he had a very good idea what she referred to.
"To return to your wishes," said Grace, laughing a little, to carry off a feeling of awkwardness at having shown emotion; "what do you wish to tell me?"
"It—it sounds a little frivolous now. I only wanted to say I have tried to get into every agency you can think of. I have gone steadily down the alphabet and picked out everything you can think of. It is quite astonishing how many things there are to be canvassed for. I did the W's yesterday, and the X's and Y's to-day. I took the W's out of their turn because of wine; there are such an enormous number of firms who sell or want to selltheonly drinkable wine; and it is a subject I know a little about."
"And you got nothing?"
"Considerably less than nothing. One question was asked—introductions—references, and, as I had never thought of an introduction, and could refer to no one as to my ability—I was bowed out. I met with civility, I will say; I had on my best coat, and that tells," he said, in a tone of satisfaction.
"Perhaps something may turn up," Grace answered brightly.
"I hope so; you see, I never could do much more than sign my name—my handwriting is simply abominable. It has happened to me to have my address and signature cut out of my own letter and pasted on as the only way of solving the problem of where I lived, and then it sometimes wandered about a good deal before it reached me;" and he laughed at the recollection. Grace laughed with him.
"But what is your plan as regards Margaret, my poor darling sister?" she asked, and her countenance changed.
"If I was agent to something in which Mr. Drayton was interested I could ask to see him on business, and if I could only get a recommendation or introduction to him all would be easy; once in the house I am not afraid." The young man drew up his head and looked quite ready for anything that might happen.
Grace clasped her hands. "I think it is a very good plan," she exclaimed, "and I can help you a little myself. What do you call a manufactory that turns out horrible smells, and kills trees and plants and things."
"Artificial manures?" he said, pulling a list out of his pocket and referring to it.
"Oh, dear no," said Grace, impatiently, "it makes all the trees look like skeletons. Who ever heard of manure killing anything? it makes them grow."
"I spoke without thinking, only remembering that that made an appalling smell, quite enough to kill everything."
"Well, think, with all your might, or, still better, think, and give me your list—and if I saw the name I should know it—and you can think in the meantime," said Grace, speaking very quickly.
"I have it!" she exclaimed, joyfully pointing with her finger to it and holding out the paper to him. "Chemical works! now do not forget, chemical, chemical, chemical—say it over and over again, for fear of forgetting it. Well, Mr. Lyons, at Renton there is a huge large chemical work, and Mr. Drayton used to go there constantly. I remember his saying one day that he had invested money—a quantity of money—in these things."
"That will do then," he said. "I will boldly ask for Mr. Drayton to-morrow morning, and ask if he is still interested in the Renton chemical works. You will see, all will go well."
"I pray that it may. I shall write a long letter to my poor darling and entreat her to tell me exactly the state of the case. She has so much cleverness that Icannotunderstand her not coming to see me. She must have some difficulty to contend with we know nothing of."
"Ask her to suggest some plan herself, if she requires help of any kind," said young Lyons.
"Yes, only she is so horribly conscientious, she may make difficulties. Her spirit seems so broken."
"Hearing that man laugh is quite enough to make one wish never to laugh again. However, now that I have something definite to do I feel happier. Oh! if all only goes well.
"I hope Lady Lyons is not uneasy about your being so much away."
"No, she is quite accustomed to my erratic movements. Good-bye, and if...."
He stopped, turned very red, and went swiftly out of her presence.
Margaret found the days pass on with a monotony which was very terrible to her. At times her husband joined her at dinner, but she never knew when to expect him. Sometimes he came into the nursery, when he would sit watching her and the child, in whom her love (starved in every other direction) centred so completely.
She learned to be horribly afraid of him. She could not understand how the doctor could reconcile it to his conscience to speak of him as sane; there was such a wildness in his eyes, and a vagueness in his laughter, which made her shiver with fright.
She forgot the great cunning that forms so great a feature in some kind of insanity, and, always viewing him with nervous eyes, she heard him speak rationally at times without noticing it, because her mind was always on the stretch, and mental anxiety is apt to distort everything. He had generally, however, fits of silence when she was only conscious of his eyes gleaming at her from under the shaggy eyebrows, and these prolonged periods of silence were far, far more acceptable to her than his terrible laugh. Each day she prayed with all her soul for health and strength—she tried, poor child, to do her duty, and, sometimes full of pity for his evident supreme unhappiness, she tried to talk to him and to interest him in their child. He watched her unceasingly. In the garden, where now spring flowers were coming out, where the birds began to chirp and twitter, and where the trees showed green, and another spring had come to gladden the earth.
It brought no rejoicing to her heart, because there must be a responsive chord somewhere, and to enter into the fair happiness of spring the pulses must be able to beat a little quickly, and some sympathy between the great new birth of the year and the soul must be possible. The cheerfulness of outside nature seemed almost a mockery to her—just as the overflowing mirth of a casual acquaintance jars upon one in sorrow.
Her writing began to be noticed, and at times her nurse, who had been unsympathetic and suspicious at first, but who had grown to love her, managed to bring her carefully-written letters from Grace, and news from the outside world, though Margaret seldom dared to ask her to make the attempt, she was so afraid that this one human being in whom she had begun to have trust might be taken from her. She dreaded night because, though locked in with her child, the nurse sleeping in an adjoining room, she would often wake in a paroxysm of terror, thinking that in some way her husband had gained an entrance to her room, and that he was threatening her and her child.
She was walking in the garden with her sorrowful thoughts, watching her little darling, when the front doorbell rang loudly, a sound so seldom heard as to be startling to her.
Mr. Drayton, who used to sit in a room off the front hall, of which the window commanded the garden, went as usual into the hall to see that no one went out or came in, and heard his own name mentioned by a peremptory and loud-voiced man, who demanded instant admission, to see him on urgent business.
"Tell him I have done with business, I refuse to see him."
"But you will be extremely sorry if you do not see me," said the stranger in a still louder tone. "You thought you had made a mess of those chemical work shares, but you have been a far, far cleverer man than we gave you credit for. Those shares Mr. Sandford laughed at...."
"Come in here, come in here," said Mr. Drayton, rubbing his hands with glee. "So I was right, and that old fool was wrong, hah! hah! hah!" and he laughed uproariously.
The stranger walked into the small room; he could hardly believe, he said, that Mr. Drayton's acute intelligence had been laughed at. What shares had he had in those works; what papers had he to show? Perhaps that was a matter of no moment. If the shares had been sold ... why it was a misfortune, unless he could buy them back before the discovery, the great discovery, was made known.
"What discovery?" asked Mr. Drayton, in a moment suspicious.
"That you were right and every one else wrong."
"How has that discovery been made?"
"By experiment."
"Yes; but who made the experiment?"
The stranger leaned forward and said in a low voice, "You remember your manager, the man who left you?"
"Remember him! You do not mean to say he is in the thick of this—the scoundrel, the—the rascal." Then suspicion came to him again.
"What interest in all this have you?" he asked, very angrily, and glaring at the stranger fiercely.
"Interest? you do not suppose I have come to you for nothing; that would be rather a good joke," and he laughed heartily.
"Of course not, of course not. But from what motive? No one does anything for nothing," and Mr. Drayton put on an air of wisdom, in which cunning was very visible.
"I should think not, indeed; and I am not working for nothing, I can tell you. In the first place, a friend of mine has been most abominably treated—shockingly, shamefully treated!"
"By whom?"
"By some one connected with these works," (and I am sure that is true, said Paul Lyons to himself, since he, this man, has been connected with them).
"Can't you tell his name?"
"No, I can't, it would spoil all my plans if I did," (and so it would, he thought).
"I do not believe in disinterested friendships."
"Nor do I; but I intend having a reward."
"From me, I suppose," and Mr. Drayton laughed again.
"From you—and from some one else. If my ideas are correct—you would not grudge me a good percentage, eh?"
"What do you call a good percentage?"
"Well, I want half; I want fifty per cent."
"Fifty per cent.! nonsense, absolute nonsense."
"You have no right to say 'nonsense'; and I think I am wasting my time," (which is also true, it is quite wonderful how I have been able to speak the truth to-day), and Paul Lyons felt a glow of satisfaction at this reflection.
"I don't know what you're driving at;" and Mr. Drayton looked so furiously at him that Paul Lyons thought if he ever favoured Margaret with such a glance it was enough to give her a fit.
"I am driving at nothing," he said, with a very good show of anger. "I don't pretend that I shan't be abominably annoyed if you do not go into this matter, because I see my way to making some money, but it seems to me that you have no papers to show me, and that you do not understand this matter very much; I believe I had better go—time, as far as I am concerned, is too precious to waste."
He rose and made a movement towards the door. Mr. Drayton put his hand to his forehead; he felt confused; he never now could follow a thought for any time, but his cunning made him anxious to conceal this.
"You can stop," he said, speaking a little thickly, and more slowly. "I have some papers upstairs."
"Let your servant fetch them."
"No; certainly not. I will go myself."
He left the room, and Paul threw up the window, flung out a packet, and closed it again.
Margaret saw the packet fall, but she also saw her husband at the upstairs window; therefore, to the young man's disappointment, she continued walking along, holding her little one's hand, and took no notice.
Mr. Drayton returned, holding some papers in his hands.
"What did you open the window for?" he asked, and Paul saw that his suspicions were again aroused.
"Open the window!" he answered, with great presence of mind. "My dear Mr. Drayton, if you said that to any one else you would be accused of having delusions!"
Mr. Drayton glared at him, and said no more. Paul took the papers and glanced them over; they were lists in Mr. Drayton's own handwriting; and lists no sane man would have written. Here and there a number put down, and a long rambling note about some one supposed to have injured him; remarks about a man who took various shapes, and who made fiendish faces at him; and things of that sort.
Paul Lyons was not experienced in cases of the kind; this man, whom he felt to be insane (though evidently having lucid intervals), was a new revelation to him; but his heart beat violently. He had seen poor Margaret's face, and had recognised that she was pining under the influence of confinement, and probably terrors; and he felt sure that in his hand he held proofs that must be listened to—that he had that now in his possession which must ensure her freedom.
He affected to hunt for papers in his own pockets, and said carelessly, as he crammed the papers into the breast-pocket of his coat, "I will look these over and compare them with what I have at home. Shall I find you at home to-morrow, Mr. Drayton?"
There was no answer, and looking up at him he saw that he was looking out of the window with a face full of malignancy—there was something horrible in his expression as he watched poor Margaret, who had seen the packet, and who had not dared to lift it yet. She had passed close to it once or twice, and had pushed it under a bush with a careless kick. Taken aback by this sign of animosity towards Margaret, Paul Lyons did not know what to do.
He was afraid of making things worse for her, and yet he could not bear going without giving and receiving a sign from her.
"Is that not your wife?" he asked suddenly. "Will you not introduce me to her?"
"Quite impossible, sir—quite impossible. My wife is not all there; she is mad, poor thing, very mad."
"Is she indeed? Well, all the same I should like to speak to her, I should like to make sure that this is not another of your...." He stopped short.
"Another of my——! Finish, pray finish, my dear sir;" and Mr. Drayton spoke in a tone of suppressed fury.
"Delusions," said the young man, calmly, trying to remember all the various theories about subduing a madman by the expression of the eye, and staring at him hard, conscious all the time of failure.
With sudden fury Mr. Drayton turned upon him, "I believe you to be an impostor, an impostor, sir, do you hear? and you have come here to do me an injury;" he moved towards him threateningly.
"Sir," answered Paul, understanding directly that it was no moment for trifling, "I shall go and I shall tell all the world that Mr. Sandford is right; you understand nothing of business; you are abusive—and, in short, no one can make anything of you."
As he spoke Mr. Drayton nearly grasped him, but he had youth and activity on his side, and he slipped away from him and stood by the window, having thrown down all the chairs.
"Now, sir," he said, "I intend seeing for myself if Mrs. Drayton is mad." Before Mr. Drayton could get round the obstructions he had opened the window, which was not many feet from the ground, and alighted on the lawn close to where Margaret, with deadly anxiety lest the packet should never come into her possession, paced to and fro—she had her child still with her.
"Your husband is mad," said Paul in a hurried whisper, "I hold proofs, and you will be rescued." He stooped and picked up the child, anxious to try and pacify Mr. Drayton now he had spoken those few words to poor Margaret, and forgetting that the child, unaccustomed to any strangers, might be frightened.
The little one, who had been unusually fretful all the morning, which was the reason Margaret tried to amuse it in the fresh air for a longer time than usual, uttered the most piercing shrieks, and just as Mr. Drayton came up to them almost foaming at the mouth. She struggled, and kicked, and clutched hold of the wig, which had made Paul Lyons unrecognisable, even to Margaret, and tore it off, revealing his curly hair.
A perfect roar burst from Mr. Drayton.
Margaret, soothing her child in her arms, watched with terror-stricken eyes the terrible struggle that then ensued. The one man, heavier and stronger with rage, and the other, lithe and pliable, keeping him at times at bay, and at others closing with his adversary. As they neared the little side door, Margaret saw it open slowly, and saw the man-servant there.
In a moment she seized the packet and rushed into the house, and upstairs, never taking breath till the doors were locked behind her, and that she was safe in her room with the child, from whence she could see the road.
The struggle went on and Paul was nearly overpowered, when the servant interfered, and, catching hold of Mr. Drayton's uplifted arm, told Paul to go.
"I will go if you will promise to protect Mrs. Drayton from this madman till help come to her," he gasped, bruised and breathless, but feeling that it had not all been a failure since he had given her hope.
"She won't hurt," said the man, "but I'm not going to stop. I would not stay with him," he said, contemptuously, "not for double the money."
"But you will stay till some one comes, will you not?" Paul asked, more afraid than ever.
"He'll have to look sharp then," said the man. "I've told the doctor my mind, and that its a case of asylum, but he did not choose, he does not choose, to believe me, and I am not going to stay here to be murdered, I can tell you. It's two men's work to look after him, and he's that cunning he speaks the doctor fair when he comes, and the doctor's a fool besides."
Paul lost no time—he rushed out of the house and made his way to an hotel, where he tried to remove all signs of the frightful struggle he had just had, and to sally forth before his old spruce self.
What ought to be his first step? He must lose no time—leaving Margaret even for a day in the power of that madman was horrible to him.