Chapter Nineteen.

Chapter Nineteen.Was it Delirium?“Leo, my child, think what you are saying,” cried North.“I do think. I have lain here and thought for hours. I am not ashamed to confess it. Why should I be?”She looked up at him inquiringly; while he for the moment felt giddy with emotion, but recovered himself directly.“She is delirious, poor child,” he said to himself; and he tried to remove the enlacing arms from his neck.“No, no; don’t leave me,” she said softly. “Don’t be angry with me for saying this.”“I am not angry, but you are weak. You have been very ill, and you must not be excited now.”“No, I am not excited. I only feel happy—so happy. You are not angry?”“Angry? No,” he said tenderly. “There, let me lay you back upon your pillow. Try and sleep.”“No. I do not wish to sleep. Only tell me once again that you are not cross, and then sit down by me, and let me hold your hand.”“Poor girl!” muttered North, as he felt the hands which had clasped his neck steal down his arm softly and lingeringly, as if they delighted in its strength and muscularity, resting for a few moments upon his wrist, and then grasping his hand tightly, while their owner uttered a low sigh of satisfaction.He seated himself by the bedside, and Leo said softly, as she lay gazing into his eyes:“I feel so happy and restful now.”“And as if you can sleep?”“Sleep? No. Let me lie and look at you. Don’t speak. I want to think. Shall I die?”“Die? No; you must get better now, and grow strong, for Mary’s sake and for Hartley’s.”“And for yours,” said Leo softly, as she smiled lovingly in his face. “I shall be your wife if I live.”“You shall live, and grow to be happy with all who love you.”“Yes,” she said softly, “with all who love me;” and she closed her eyes.“Itisdelirium, poor child,” said North to himself. “Good heavens! am I such a scoundrel as to think otherwise?”He sat back in his chair startled by the thoughts which had surged up to his brain. He was horrified. For, in spite of medical teaching, of his thorough command over himself, and of the fact that he had always been one whose love was his profession, he had found that he was strongly moved by the words and acts of the beautiful girl who had seemed to be laying bare the secrets of her heart.“Delirium—delirium! the workings of a distempered brain,” he said to himself fiercely. “Good heavens! am I going to be delirious too?”At that moment Leo opened her eyes again, with a calm, soft light seeming to burn therein, as she smiled in his face and drew his hand more to her pillow so that she could rest her cheek upon it, and once more her eyes half closed; but he knew that she was gazing at him still with the same soft, loving look which, in spite of his self-control, made his heart beat with a dull, heavy throb.“I have so longed to tell you all this,” she whispered; “but I never dared till now. It has made me bitter, and distant, and strange to you. I was angry with myself for loving you; and yet I could not help it. You made me love you. I always did—I always shall.”“It is delirium,” panted North. “I will not listen to her. Pah! it is absurd. Where is my manliness—where are all my honourable feelings? I can master such folly, and I will.”He set his teeth, and his face grew hard and cold; but all the same his pulses quickened, and as he sat prisoned there, with those soft, lustrous eyes gazing into his, he found that he was dreaming of another life in which his scientific researches would be forgotten in the sweet, dreamy, sensuous existence which would be his—enlaced in that loving embrace, while those eyes gazed in his as they were gazing now, and those curved lips returned his kisses or murmured tenderly as once more they whispered the secrets of her breast.“It has been so long. I have been so ill: but I do not complain, for it has made me free to speak to you as I speak now. No, no; don’t take away your hand. Let me rest like that.”He was softly stealing away his hand, but she clung to it the more tightly, and her white teeth glistened between her ruby lips in a smile that was half mocking.He heaved a deep sigh, and resigned himself to his position, while the new thoughts which came surging on in a flood began to sweep everything before them. She had been delirious, but there was no delirium here. She loved him. This young and beautiful girl, to whom for years he had given no thought save as the sister of his old friend, loved him passionately, and he knew now the meaning of the ideas which had troubled him for days—he must—he did love her in return.But he was not beaten yet. A flush rose to his forehead and he set his teeth hard, as he recalled his position—the confidence reposed in him as a medical man—a confidence which he seemed to be abusing; and drawing his breath deeply, he resolved that he would be man enough to resist this temptation now Leo was weak and excited. She was yielding to her impulse as she would not have yielded had she been strong and well; hence he would be taking an unmanly advantage if he trespassed upon her weakness now.His course was open; his mind clear. He would be tender and kind to her now. After she was well he could listen to her confessions of love as a lover should; and as the thought expanded in his brain that he would call this loving girl wife, he wondered how it was that he could have been so dull and cold before—how it was that love should have been shut from his mental vision as by a veil? And he sat gazing at his patient, almost dazzled by the bright light which seemed to be shed upon his future, till Hartley softly entered the room.“Any change?” he whispered.North glanced at the bed, and his heart beat fast. Leo was again sleeping uneasily, and muttering in a low whisper. To an ordinary observer there seemed to be none, but to Horace North there was an enormous change, and he asked himself whether he should speak now or wait.He could not speak then of the subject nearest to his heart. He and Salis had always been the most intimate of friends—almost brothers—and they would be quite brothers in the future; but he could not tell him then.“She seems calmer,” he whispered. “She was awake and talking a little while ago.”“What—lucidly—sensibly?”In spite of himself North could not help a start as he turned and met his friend’s eye, while his words were slow and constrained as he said, in a hesitating manner:“Yes; I think so. But she is very weak.” And the mental question insisted upon being heard—Was she speaking sensibly, and as one in the full possession of her senses?“North, old fellow, this is great news,” cried the curate. “Heaven be thanked! I must go and tell Mary.”He was hurrying from the room, but his friend caught his arm.“No, no; not yet,” he said hurriedly. “I would not raise her hopes too much.”“Not when she is starving for the merest crumb of comfort? I must tell her.”“Then be content to say I think she is a trifle better,” whispered North.“But the climax must have come and gone?”“I—I am not sure. The case is peculiar. Do as I say, and give her the crumb of comfort of which you spoke. To-morrow, perhaps, I can speak more definitely.”Hartley Salis left the room, and North once more bent over the bed. His heart beat, his pulses throbbed, and the nerves in his temples seemed to tingle, as he laid his hand upon the burning brow, placed a finger upon the wrist, where the pulse beat so hard and pitifully, while, when he softly raised one of the blue-veined eyelids and gazed at the pupil, he drew back slowly, and shaded the sick girl’s face from the light.It was growing late, the wind howled mournfully about the house, and from time to time there was a soft, patting noise at the window, as of some one tapping the panes with finger-tips. So high was the wind without that the candle flames were at times wafted to and fro.Horace North had left the bedside, and was standing with his foot upon the fender, gazing down into the tiny glowing caverns in the fire, where the cinders fell together from time to time with a peculiar musical sound—the sound that strikes a watcher’s ear so strangely in the long hours of the night.His thoughts were wild, and a tempest was raging in his breast as furious as that without. Love had made its first attack upon a strong man, and the wound was rankling. His brain was confused. He was almost giddy with his new sensations, astonished at the position in which he found himself.He had been keen enough man of the world to understand Mrs Berens’ tender, shrinking advances, and they had been to him by turns a cause of annoyance and of mirth. But this was a novel and an intense delight. He could not have believed that he could be so moved.It was a hard fight, but the man of honour won.“I am her brother’s friend; I am her medical attendant,” he mused; “and neither by word nor look will I betray what passes in my heart till she is well. Then I, too, will lay bare the secret I shall hide.”“And if she speaks to you again as she spoke a while ago—what then?”It was as if a soft voice had whispered those words in his ear, and he shivered as he asked himself, “What shall I say?”“It is all madness,” he cried fiercely—“utter madness. They were the outpourings of her diseased brain. Am I growing into an idiot? Has much study of the occult wonders of our life half turned my brain?”He walked quickly to the bed, took up the candle, and let its light fall upon the flushed face for a few moments, a face looking so beautifully attractive with its wealth of rich hair tossed away over the white pillow.He set down the candle, and pressed his hand softly once more upon her burning brow, listening the while to the dull throbbings of his heart.“Yes, Horace North,” he said at last, “you, the much-praised would-besavant, are as weak as the weakest of your sex, ready to be flattered into a passion by the first sweet words which fall from a woman’s lips. You are strong in knowledge, you have mastered endless difficulties, but you have not mastered Horace North.”“Fool—fool—fool!” he whispered to himself, after a pause; “with all your study to be so ready to rush to such a belief—ready to forget the trust reposed in you by a true man, by his sweet-minded sister, and, as it were, by you, my poor helpless girl. Spoken in your wild delirium, my child—the emanations of a young girl’s brain, of one whose waking thoughts must, Nature taught, be almost always of who is to be your mate through life. You opened the secret casket of your heart, my child, when helpless and without control, and I have gazed therein with prying eyes. But sleep in peace; they shall be secrets still. Yes,” he added, once more, as he drew steadily back—“delirium: she knows not what she says.”A sigh from the sleeper made him pause, and then a low, musical laugh rang out, followed by a quick muttering.Then once more the low laugh was heard, and the muttering became louder—then plainly heard, as if the speaker were in a merry protesting mood.“You ask so much. Again? Well, I will confess. Yes, I do love you—with all my poor weak heart!”

“Leo, my child, think what you are saying,” cried North.

“I do think. I have lain here and thought for hours. I am not ashamed to confess it. Why should I be?”

She looked up at him inquiringly; while he for the moment felt giddy with emotion, but recovered himself directly.

“She is delirious, poor child,” he said to himself; and he tried to remove the enlacing arms from his neck.

“No, no; don’t leave me,” she said softly. “Don’t be angry with me for saying this.”

“I am not angry, but you are weak. You have been very ill, and you must not be excited now.”

“No, I am not excited. I only feel happy—so happy. You are not angry?”

“Angry? No,” he said tenderly. “There, let me lay you back upon your pillow. Try and sleep.”

“No. I do not wish to sleep. Only tell me once again that you are not cross, and then sit down by me, and let me hold your hand.”

“Poor girl!” muttered North, as he felt the hands which had clasped his neck steal down his arm softly and lingeringly, as if they delighted in its strength and muscularity, resting for a few moments upon his wrist, and then grasping his hand tightly, while their owner uttered a low sigh of satisfaction.

He seated himself by the bedside, and Leo said softly, as she lay gazing into his eyes:

“I feel so happy and restful now.”

“And as if you can sleep?”

“Sleep? No. Let me lie and look at you. Don’t speak. I want to think. Shall I die?”

“Die? No; you must get better now, and grow strong, for Mary’s sake and for Hartley’s.”

“And for yours,” said Leo softly, as she smiled lovingly in his face. “I shall be your wife if I live.”

“You shall live, and grow to be happy with all who love you.”

“Yes,” she said softly, “with all who love me;” and she closed her eyes.

“Itisdelirium, poor child,” said North to himself. “Good heavens! am I such a scoundrel as to think otherwise?”

He sat back in his chair startled by the thoughts which had surged up to his brain. He was horrified. For, in spite of medical teaching, of his thorough command over himself, and of the fact that he had always been one whose love was his profession, he had found that he was strongly moved by the words and acts of the beautiful girl who had seemed to be laying bare the secrets of her heart.

“Delirium—delirium! the workings of a distempered brain,” he said to himself fiercely. “Good heavens! am I going to be delirious too?”

At that moment Leo opened her eyes again, with a calm, soft light seeming to burn therein, as she smiled in his face and drew his hand more to her pillow so that she could rest her cheek upon it, and once more her eyes half closed; but he knew that she was gazing at him still with the same soft, loving look which, in spite of his self-control, made his heart beat with a dull, heavy throb.

“I have so longed to tell you all this,” she whispered; “but I never dared till now. It has made me bitter, and distant, and strange to you. I was angry with myself for loving you; and yet I could not help it. You made me love you. I always did—I always shall.”

“It is delirium,” panted North. “I will not listen to her. Pah! it is absurd. Where is my manliness—where are all my honourable feelings? I can master such folly, and I will.”

He set his teeth, and his face grew hard and cold; but all the same his pulses quickened, and as he sat prisoned there, with those soft, lustrous eyes gazing into his, he found that he was dreaming of another life in which his scientific researches would be forgotten in the sweet, dreamy, sensuous existence which would be his—enlaced in that loving embrace, while those eyes gazed in his as they were gazing now, and those curved lips returned his kisses or murmured tenderly as once more they whispered the secrets of her breast.

“It has been so long. I have been so ill: but I do not complain, for it has made me free to speak to you as I speak now. No, no; don’t take away your hand. Let me rest like that.”

He was softly stealing away his hand, but she clung to it the more tightly, and her white teeth glistened between her ruby lips in a smile that was half mocking.

He heaved a deep sigh, and resigned himself to his position, while the new thoughts which came surging on in a flood began to sweep everything before them. She had been delirious, but there was no delirium here. She loved him. This young and beautiful girl, to whom for years he had given no thought save as the sister of his old friend, loved him passionately, and he knew now the meaning of the ideas which had troubled him for days—he must—he did love her in return.

But he was not beaten yet. A flush rose to his forehead and he set his teeth hard, as he recalled his position—the confidence reposed in him as a medical man—a confidence which he seemed to be abusing; and drawing his breath deeply, he resolved that he would be man enough to resist this temptation now Leo was weak and excited. She was yielding to her impulse as she would not have yielded had she been strong and well; hence he would be taking an unmanly advantage if he trespassed upon her weakness now.

His course was open; his mind clear. He would be tender and kind to her now. After she was well he could listen to her confessions of love as a lover should; and as the thought expanded in his brain that he would call this loving girl wife, he wondered how it was that he could have been so dull and cold before—how it was that love should have been shut from his mental vision as by a veil? And he sat gazing at his patient, almost dazzled by the bright light which seemed to be shed upon his future, till Hartley softly entered the room.

“Any change?” he whispered.

North glanced at the bed, and his heart beat fast. Leo was again sleeping uneasily, and muttering in a low whisper. To an ordinary observer there seemed to be none, but to Horace North there was an enormous change, and he asked himself whether he should speak now or wait.

He could not speak then of the subject nearest to his heart. He and Salis had always been the most intimate of friends—almost brothers—and they would be quite brothers in the future; but he could not tell him then.

“She seems calmer,” he whispered. “She was awake and talking a little while ago.”

“What—lucidly—sensibly?”

In spite of himself North could not help a start as he turned and met his friend’s eye, while his words were slow and constrained as he said, in a hesitating manner:

“Yes; I think so. But she is very weak.” And the mental question insisted upon being heard—Was she speaking sensibly, and as one in the full possession of her senses?

“North, old fellow, this is great news,” cried the curate. “Heaven be thanked! I must go and tell Mary.”

He was hurrying from the room, but his friend caught his arm.

“No, no; not yet,” he said hurriedly. “I would not raise her hopes too much.”

“Not when she is starving for the merest crumb of comfort? I must tell her.”

“Then be content to say I think she is a trifle better,” whispered North.

“But the climax must have come and gone?”

“I—I am not sure. The case is peculiar. Do as I say, and give her the crumb of comfort of which you spoke. To-morrow, perhaps, I can speak more definitely.”

Hartley Salis left the room, and North once more bent over the bed. His heart beat, his pulses throbbed, and the nerves in his temples seemed to tingle, as he laid his hand upon the burning brow, placed a finger upon the wrist, where the pulse beat so hard and pitifully, while, when he softly raised one of the blue-veined eyelids and gazed at the pupil, he drew back slowly, and shaded the sick girl’s face from the light.

It was growing late, the wind howled mournfully about the house, and from time to time there was a soft, patting noise at the window, as of some one tapping the panes with finger-tips. So high was the wind without that the candle flames were at times wafted to and fro.

Horace North had left the bedside, and was standing with his foot upon the fender, gazing down into the tiny glowing caverns in the fire, where the cinders fell together from time to time with a peculiar musical sound—the sound that strikes a watcher’s ear so strangely in the long hours of the night.

His thoughts were wild, and a tempest was raging in his breast as furious as that without. Love had made its first attack upon a strong man, and the wound was rankling. His brain was confused. He was almost giddy with his new sensations, astonished at the position in which he found himself.

He had been keen enough man of the world to understand Mrs Berens’ tender, shrinking advances, and they had been to him by turns a cause of annoyance and of mirth. But this was a novel and an intense delight. He could not have believed that he could be so moved.

It was a hard fight, but the man of honour won.

“I am her brother’s friend; I am her medical attendant,” he mused; “and neither by word nor look will I betray what passes in my heart till she is well. Then I, too, will lay bare the secret I shall hide.”

“And if she speaks to you again as she spoke a while ago—what then?”

It was as if a soft voice had whispered those words in his ear, and he shivered as he asked himself, “What shall I say?”

“It is all madness,” he cried fiercely—“utter madness. They were the outpourings of her diseased brain. Am I growing into an idiot? Has much study of the occult wonders of our life half turned my brain?”

He walked quickly to the bed, took up the candle, and let its light fall upon the flushed face for a few moments, a face looking so beautifully attractive with its wealth of rich hair tossed away over the white pillow.

He set down the candle, and pressed his hand softly once more upon her burning brow, listening the while to the dull throbbings of his heart.

“Yes, Horace North,” he said at last, “you, the much-praised would-besavant, are as weak as the weakest of your sex, ready to be flattered into a passion by the first sweet words which fall from a woman’s lips. You are strong in knowledge, you have mastered endless difficulties, but you have not mastered Horace North.”

“Fool—fool—fool!” he whispered to himself, after a pause; “with all your study to be so ready to rush to such a belief—ready to forget the trust reposed in you by a true man, by his sweet-minded sister, and, as it were, by you, my poor helpless girl. Spoken in your wild delirium, my child—the emanations of a young girl’s brain, of one whose waking thoughts must, Nature taught, be almost always of who is to be your mate through life. You opened the secret casket of your heart, my child, when helpless and without control, and I have gazed therein with prying eyes. But sleep in peace; they shall be secrets still. Yes,” he added, once more, as he drew steadily back—“delirium: she knows not what she says.”

A sigh from the sleeper made him pause, and then a low, musical laugh rang out, followed by a quick muttering.

Then once more the low laugh was heard, and the muttering became louder—then plainly heard, as if the speaker were in a merry protesting mood.

“You ask so much. Again? Well, I will confess. Yes, I do love you—with all my poor weak heart!”

Chapter Twenty.A Venerable Old Man.“No, Moredock, I am not going to find more fault, and I am not going to complain to the rector. If you had been a young man, with chances of getting work elsewhere, I should have had you discharged at once.”“Ay, discharged at once,” said the old man, trying to bite his livid lip with one very yellow old tooth, as he stood in the vestry doorway, looking down at the curate.“But as you are a venerable old man—”“Gently, Parson Salis; a bit old, but not venerable,” grumbled the sexton.“I shall look over it, and not disturb you for the short time you have to live upon this earth. But—”“Now, don’t go on like that, sir, and don’t get talking about little time on earth. I may live a many years.”“I hope you will, Moredock,” said the curate, taking out the cigar-case he had started at North’s recommendation, and carefully selecting a cigar before replacing it; “and I hope you will bitterly repent. If you had come to me and asked me I would have given you a bottle of wine, but for a trusted servant of the church to take advantage of his position and steal—”“On’y borri’d it, sir.”“I say steal, Moredock. It was a wicked theft,” said Salis sternly. “The wine kept here for sacramental purposes—”“But it was only in the cupboard.”“It was a wicked theft, sir.”“And it’s poor sweet stuff; no more like the drop o’ port Squire Candlish give me than treacle and water’s like gin.”“You’re a scoundrelly old reprobate, Moredock.”“No, I arn’t, parson. I’m a good old sarvant o’ the church. Here have I been ill, as doctor ’ll tell you, and I was took bad in the church o’ Saturday, and you’d ha’ done the same, and took a drop o’ the wine.”“And you’ve been taken bad Saturday after Saturday for months past, eh, sir?” said the curate sternly.“Been out of order for a long bit, sir,” grumbled Moredock, shuffling from foot to foot like a scolded schoolboy.“You old scoundrel!” said the curate, half rising from his seat in the dim vestry, where the surplices and gowns, hung against the old oak panels, seemed like a jury listening to the sexton’s impeachment. “You old scoundrel!” he said again, shaking the cigar at him, as if it were a little staff. “It’s quite a year since I began missing the wine, and I would not—I could not—suspect you. Why, I should as soon have thought that you would rob the alms box.”The old man started, as if his guilty conscience needed no accuser, for he had more than once helped himself to a silver coin from the box within the south door, telling himself that the alms were for the poor, and that he was one of that extremely large fringe of rags upon civilisation.“Well,” continued the curate, “I shall to some extent condone this very serious offence, Moredock, for I cannot find it in my heart to prosecute an old man of over ninety; so now go, and I sincerely hope that you will repent.”“Ay, I’ll repent, parson; but it wouldn’t ha’ been much loss to ha’ been turned out o’ being saxton. Nobody dies now, and no one gets married. How’s Miss Leo?”“Getting quite strong again.”“That’s a blessing, sir,” grumbled the old man, who in spirit abused the young girl for defrauding him of certain fees. “Health’s a blessing, sir.”“Yes, Moredock, it is,” said the curate, rising.“And I thankye kindly, sir, for looking over the wine, I do. You needn’t lock it up. I won’t touch it again.”“I shall not lock it up, Moredock. My forgiveness is full. I shall trust you as if this had never occurred.”“Thankye, parson. That’s han’some.”“But let me have no more complaints. You must do your duty, as I try to do mine.”“Ay, parson, and I will,” said the old sexton, following his superior to the door leading out to the churchyard, where Salis stopped and took a box of vestas from his pocket, as he stood just outside the old stone doorway, where a stone corbel with a demoniacal expression of countenance seemed to be leering by his shoulder as if in enjoyment of what had taken place.It was a sheltered corner for lighting a cigar, and the curate, without pausing to think, struck a match, and began to puff out the smoke.“Well, I’ve no right to speak, as between parson and sax’on, sir; but twix’ old man and young man, I do say—what would you ha’ said to me if you’d ketched me having a pipe in the churchyard?”“Why, you old rascal, I’ve often seen you smoking when you’ve been digging a grave.”“Not often, parson; because one never hardly gets a grave to dig. I have had a pipe sometimes when my chesty has felt a bit weak.”“I deserve your reproof, Moredock,” said the curate, putting out his cigar. “I have taken to smoking so much that I find myself lighting cigars at all times and seasons, and I am greatly to blame here.”“Nay, nay, I shan’t say no more,” said the old man, calmly taking the place of reprover instead of being reproved; “but try a pipe, parson. Worth a dozen cigars. Stop a moment, sir, I wants another word with you.”“Yes. What about?”“My gran’child, Dally, parson. I arn’t saddersfied there.”“Why, Moredock?”“Because I don’t think you looks arter her morals as you should. ‘Send her to me, Moredock,’ you says, ‘and me and the young ladies will take every care on her.’”“I did, Moredock; and we have.”“Nay, you haven’t, sir; or else she wouldn’t go on as she do.”“What do you mean, man?”“Along o’ young Tom Candlish, squire’s brother, sir.”“Is this true?”“True, sir? Course it is. Don’t I say so? I’ve ketched ’em together over and over again.”“Tut—tut—tut! this must be stopped,” cried Salis angrily. “Did you speak to him?”“Ay, I spoke to him.”“What did he say?”“Called I an old fool.”“But your grandchild. Did you speak to her?”“Ay, course I did; but you might as well talk to yon cobble. She just laughed, and give her pretty head a toss. She is a pretty gal, parson.”“Far too pretty, Moredock.”“Oh! I don’t know ’bout that, sir. Think young Tom wants to marry her? I’ll put down a hundred pound the day she’s wed.”“You will, Moredock? Why, I thought you were very poor.”“So I am, parson, so I am; but I’ve saved up for the gal. But you keep her in more; it’ll make him more hungry arter her, and I’d like to see her mistress up at the Hall.”“Moredock!” cried the curate, in horrible perplexity.“Well, I should,” said the old man, grinning. “Squire’s drinking hisself to death as fast as he can, and he won’t marry; so young Tom’s sure to get the place. But you keep her in.”“I will, Moredock,” said the curate sternly, and, in grave perplexity at the loose ideas of morality existing in Duke’s Hampton, he went straight home, to find the doctor seated by Mary’s couch.

“No, Moredock, I am not going to find more fault, and I am not going to complain to the rector. If you had been a young man, with chances of getting work elsewhere, I should have had you discharged at once.”

“Ay, discharged at once,” said the old man, trying to bite his livid lip with one very yellow old tooth, as he stood in the vestry doorway, looking down at the curate.

“But as you are a venerable old man—”

“Gently, Parson Salis; a bit old, but not venerable,” grumbled the sexton.

“I shall look over it, and not disturb you for the short time you have to live upon this earth. But—”

“Now, don’t go on like that, sir, and don’t get talking about little time on earth. I may live a many years.”

“I hope you will, Moredock,” said the curate, taking out the cigar-case he had started at North’s recommendation, and carefully selecting a cigar before replacing it; “and I hope you will bitterly repent. If you had come to me and asked me I would have given you a bottle of wine, but for a trusted servant of the church to take advantage of his position and steal—”

“On’y borri’d it, sir.”

“I say steal, Moredock. It was a wicked theft,” said Salis sternly. “The wine kept here for sacramental purposes—”

“But it was only in the cupboard.”

“It was a wicked theft, sir.”

“And it’s poor sweet stuff; no more like the drop o’ port Squire Candlish give me than treacle and water’s like gin.”

“You’re a scoundrelly old reprobate, Moredock.”

“No, I arn’t, parson. I’m a good old sarvant o’ the church. Here have I been ill, as doctor ’ll tell you, and I was took bad in the church o’ Saturday, and you’d ha’ done the same, and took a drop o’ the wine.”

“And you’ve been taken bad Saturday after Saturday for months past, eh, sir?” said the curate sternly.

“Been out of order for a long bit, sir,” grumbled Moredock, shuffling from foot to foot like a scolded schoolboy.

“You old scoundrel!” said the curate, half rising from his seat in the dim vestry, where the surplices and gowns, hung against the old oak panels, seemed like a jury listening to the sexton’s impeachment. “You old scoundrel!” he said again, shaking the cigar at him, as if it were a little staff. “It’s quite a year since I began missing the wine, and I would not—I could not—suspect you. Why, I should as soon have thought that you would rob the alms box.”

The old man started, as if his guilty conscience needed no accuser, for he had more than once helped himself to a silver coin from the box within the south door, telling himself that the alms were for the poor, and that he was one of that extremely large fringe of rags upon civilisation.

“Well,” continued the curate, “I shall to some extent condone this very serious offence, Moredock, for I cannot find it in my heart to prosecute an old man of over ninety; so now go, and I sincerely hope that you will repent.”

“Ay, I’ll repent, parson; but it wouldn’t ha’ been much loss to ha’ been turned out o’ being saxton. Nobody dies now, and no one gets married. How’s Miss Leo?”

“Getting quite strong again.”

“That’s a blessing, sir,” grumbled the old man, who in spirit abused the young girl for defrauding him of certain fees. “Health’s a blessing, sir.”

“Yes, Moredock, it is,” said the curate, rising.

“And I thankye kindly, sir, for looking over the wine, I do. You needn’t lock it up. I won’t touch it again.”

“I shall not lock it up, Moredock. My forgiveness is full. I shall trust you as if this had never occurred.”

“Thankye, parson. That’s han’some.”

“But let me have no more complaints. You must do your duty, as I try to do mine.”

“Ay, parson, and I will,” said the old sexton, following his superior to the door leading out to the churchyard, where Salis stopped and took a box of vestas from his pocket, as he stood just outside the old stone doorway, where a stone corbel with a demoniacal expression of countenance seemed to be leering by his shoulder as if in enjoyment of what had taken place.

It was a sheltered corner for lighting a cigar, and the curate, without pausing to think, struck a match, and began to puff out the smoke.

“Well, I’ve no right to speak, as between parson and sax’on, sir; but twix’ old man and young man, I do say—what would you ha’ said to me if you’d ketched me having a pipe in the churchyard?”

“Why, you old rascal, I’ve often seen you smoking when you’ve been digging a grave.”

“Not often, parson; because one never hardly gets a grave to dig. I have had a pipe sometimes when my chesty has felt a bit weak.”

“I deserve your reproof, Moredock,” said the curate, putting out his cigar. “I have taken to smoking so much that I find myself lighting cigars at all times and seasons, and I am greatly to blame here.”

“Nay, nay, I shan’t say no more,” said the old man, calmly taking the place of reprover instead of being reproved; “but try a pipe, parson. Worth a dozen cigars. Stop a moment, sir, I wants another word with you.”

“Yes. What about?”

“My gran’child, Dally, parson. I arn’t saddersfied there.”

“Why, Moredock?”

“Because I don’t think you looks arter her morals as you should. ‘Send her to me, Moredock,’ you says, ‘and me and the young ladies will take every care on her.’”

“I did, Moredock; and we have.”

“Nay, you haven’t, sir; or else she wouldn’t go on as she do.”

“What do you mean, man?”

“Along o’ young Tom Candlish, squire’s brother, sir.”

“Is this true?”

“True, sir? Course it is. Don’t I say so? I’ve ketched ’em together over and over again.”

“Tut—tut—tut! this must be stopped,” cried Salis angrily. “Did you speak to him?”

“Ay, I spoke to him.”

“What did he say?”

“Called I an old fool.”

“But your grandchild. Did you speak to her?”

“Ay, course I did; but you might as well talk to yon cobble. She just laughed, and give her pretty head a toss. She is a pretty gal, parson.”

“Far too pretty, Moredock.”

“Oh! I don’t know ’bout that, sir. Think young Tom wants to marry her? I’ll put down a hundred pound the day she’s wed.”

“You will, Moredock? Why, I thought you were very poor.”

“So I am, parson, so I am; but I’ve saved up for the gal. But you keep her in more; it’ll make him more hungry arter her, and I’d like to see her mistress up at the Hall.”

“Moredock!” cried the curate, in horrible perplexity.

“Well, I should,” said the old man, grinning. “Squire’s drinking hisself to death as fast as he can, and he won’t marry; so young Tom’s sure to get the place. But you keep her in.”

“I will, Moredock,” said the curate sternly, and, in grave perplexity at the loose ideas of morality existing in Duke’s Hampton, he went straight home, to find the doctor seated by Mary’s couch.

Chapter Twenty One.“Something Particular to Say.”Horace North had sternly determined on self-repression, and, from the moment when the crisis of Leo’s fever had left her utterly prostrate, he had set himself the almost superhuman task of saving her from the grave.He had treated his patient with a gentleness and care that gradually won upon her, harsh and distant as she was by nature; so that at last, after the first fits of wearing fretfulness were over, she began to greet him with a welcoming smile, and seemed happier when he sat down and stayed chatting to her by her bed.On that night when the passionate avowals had been uttered she had sunk back into a violent fit of delirium; and since then, in all his long hours of watching, no word of love had passed her lips—no kindly look her eyes.North was disappointed and touched to the quick, for he watched for her loving looks, listened for her tender words.On the other hand, in his calmer moments he was pleased, for it made his task the lighter. He could repress himself until such time as his patient were well and he could honourably approach her to ask her to be his wife.He was not surprised at her petulance or her irritability; and even in her worst moods he only smiled, as he thought of her past sufferings and present weakness. This childlike temper was the natural outcome of such a fever, and would soon pass away.“It is better as it is,” he said, and he toiled away, neglecting his studies, his great discovery, all for Leo’s sake, that she might live and grow strong once more.“How beautiful!” he thought; and as she unconsciously suffered his attentions, receiving them as her right, as if she were a queen, Mary drank in all, and read the doctor’s heart to the very deepest cell.But she made no sign. It was her lot to suffer, and she would bear all in silent patience to the end, working to make others happy if she could, but sorrowing the more, as she wished well to North, and tried to believe that, after all, Leo might change, and worthily return his love.For, after seeing her home, Tom Candlish sent twice to know how Leo was. After that he seemed to take no further notice, though he really spent his time in asking Dally Watlock about her mistress, as he called it—questions which took a long time to ask and longer to gain replies.Leo never mentioned his name, but lay back reading, setting aside the book wearily when any one seemed disposed to converse, and taking up the book again as soon as whoever it was had done.Salis entered the room where North was seated conversing with Mary, whose pinched face bore a slight colour as she listened to his words, something he was saying being interrupted by the brother’s entrance.“Ah, here you are!” cried North warmly. “I have stayed to see you, for I have something particular to say.”“That’s right. At least, it is not bad news, I hope.”“I hope good,” said the doctor warmly, and then he stopped awkwardly.It had all seemed so easy to say in his own room. Here it was terrible.Mary’s heart began to flutter, and a piteous look came into her eyes; but she closed them gently, and a tear slowly welled through from each.“Well, what is it? Nothing fresh about Tom Candlish, I hope?”“About him? No; nonsense! I wanted to tell you that there is no further need for me to attend your sister,” Slid the doctor clumsily. “She is nearly well now, and—”“My dear Horace, you have saved her life!”“No, no; nonsense! Only did as any other medical man would have done.”“I say she owes you her life, and it will be Leo’s duty to remember that, and to strive henceforth to render back to you—”“If she only will!” cried North excitedly, as he sprang up and clasped his old friend’s hand.For the ice was broken. He could speak now, and as Mary looked up through a mist of blinding tears he seemed to her like the hero she had always painted—as the man whom some day she might love. But for her love was dead.“Why, Horace, old man, what do you mean?” cried Salis, as Mary fought down a wail of agony which strove to escape her lips.“What do I mean, Salis?” cried the doctor passionately; “why, that I love Leo dearly, and I ask you to let me approach her, and beg her to be my wife.”The curate sank into the nearest chair, and sat gazing up at his friend.“Why, you don’t seem—I had hoped—Hartley, old fellow, don’t look at me like that.”“I am very sorry.”“No, no; don’t speak in that way—so cold and bitter.”“Have you spoken to Leo—of your love?”“Not a word. On my honour.”A sigh escaped Mary.“You need not say your honour, Horace, old fellow,” said the curate sadly. “I did once hope this, but that time has gone by, and I can only say again I am very sorry.”“But why?—why?”“Because,” said the curate slowly, “Leo is not the woman to make you a happy husband.”“Nonsense, my dear boy. I—I believe she loves me.”The curate shook his head.“Ah! well,” cried the young doctor joyously; “we shall see. Tell me this: would you accept me as your brother?”“I already look upon you as a brother.”“Then you will let me speak to Leo?”The curate paused a few moments, and then in the gravest of tones said:“Yes.”“Now? At once?”“If you wish it,” said Salis, after another pause.“Then I will,” said North. “I have waited months, and borne agonies all through her illness. Now I will be at rest.”“But—”Salis was too late, for hot, excited, and strung up hard to the highest pitch of excitement, North strode from the room, while Salis stooped over Mary and kissed her.“I am very sorry,” he repeated: and a couple of loving arms closed round his neck, as Mary sobbed gently upon his breast.Then brother and sister sat talking, for the drawing-room door had closed, and they could hear the low, dull murmurings of the doctor’s voice.He had entered the drawing-room, where, looking extremely beautiful in hernégligéehabit, and refined by illness, Leo lay upon her couch by the fire, for the spring was cold, and as he entered she lowered her book and smiled.It was a good augury, and with beating heart Horace North advanced and took her hand—to ask this woman to be his wife.

Horace North had sternly determined on self-repression, and, from the moment when the crisis of Leo’s fever had left her utterly prostrate, he had set himself the almost superhuman task of saving her from the grave.

He had treated his patient with a gentleness and care that gradually won upon her, harsh and distant as she was by nature; so that at last, after the first fits of wearing fretfulness were over, she began to greet him with a welcoming smile, and seemed happier when he sat down and stayed chatting to her by her bed.

On that night when the passionate avowals had been uttered she had sunk back into a violent fit of delirium; and since then, in all his long hours of watching, no word of love had passed her lips—no kindly look her eyes.

North was disappointed and touched to the quick, for he watched for her loving looks, listened for her tender words.

On the other hand, in his calmer moments he was pleased, for it made his task the lighter. He could repress himself until such time as his patient were well and he could honourably approach her to ask her to be his wife.

He was not surprised at her petulance or her irritability; and even in her worst moods he only smiled, as he thought of her past sufferings and present weakness. This childlike temper was the natural outcome of such a fever, and would soon pass away.

“It is better as it is,” he said, and he toiled away, neglecting his studies, his great discovery, all for Leo’s sake, that she might live and grow strong once more.

“How beautiful!” he thought; and as she unconsciously suffered his attentions, receiving them as her right, as if she were a queen, Mary drank in all, and read the doctor’s heart to the very deepest cell.

But she made no sign. It was her lot to suffer, and she would bear all in silent patience to the end, working to make others happy if she could, but sorrowing the more, as she wished well to North, and tried to believe that, after all, Leo might change, and worthily return his love.

For, after seeing her home, Tom Candlish sent twice to know how Leo was. After that he seemed to take no further notice, though he really spent his time in asking Dally Watlock about her mistress, as he called it—questions which took a long time to ask and longer to gain replies.

Leo never mentioned his name, but lay back reading, setting aside the book wearily when any one seemed disposed to converse, and taking up the book again as soon as whoever it was had done.

Salis entered the room where North was seated conversing with Mary, whose pinched face bore a slight colour as she listened to his words, something he was saying being interrupted by the brother’s entrance.

“Ah, here you are!” cried North warmly. “I have stayed to see you, for I have something particular to say.”

“That’s right. At least, it is not bad news, I hope.”

“I hope good,” said the doctor warmly, and then he stopped awkwardly.

It had all seemed so easy to say in his own room. Here it was terrible.

Mary’s heart began to flutter, and a piteous look came into her eyes; but she closed them gently, and a tear slowly welled through from each.

“Well, what is it? Nothing fresh about Tom Candlish, I hope?”

“About him? No; nonsense! I wanted to tell you that there is no further need for me to attend your sister,” Slid the doctor clumsily. “She is nearly well now, and—”

“My dear Horace, you have saved her life!”

“No, no; nonsense! Only did as any other medical man would have done.”

“I say she owes you her life, and it will be Leo’s duty to remember that, and to strive henceforth to render back to you—”

“If she only will!” cried North excitedly, as he sprang up and clasped his old friend’s hand.

For the ice was broken. He could speak now, and as Mary looked up through a mist of blinding tears he seemed to her like the hero she had always painted—as the man whom some day she might love. But for her love was dead.

“Why, Horace, old man, what do you mean?” cried Salis, as Mary fought down a wail of agony which strove to escape her lips.

“What do I mean, Salis?” cried the doctor passionately; “why, that I love Leo dearly, and I ask you to let me approach her, and beg her to be my wife.”

The curate sank into the nearest chair, and sat gazing up at his friend.

“Why, you don’t seem—I had hoped—Hartley, old fellow, don’t look at me like that.”

“I am very sorry.”

“No, no; don’t speak in that way—so cold and bitter.”

“Have you spoken to Leo—of your love?”

“Not a word. On my honour.”

A sigh escaped Mary.

“You need not say your honour, Horace, old fellow,” said the curate sadly. “I did once hope this, but that time has gone by, and I can only say again I am very sorry.”

“But why?—why?”

“Because,” said the curate slowly, “Leo is not the woman to make you a happy husband.”

“Nonsense, my dear boy. I—I believe she loves me.”

The curate shook his head.

“Ah! well,” cried the young doctor joyously; “we shall see. Tell me this: would you accept me as your brother?”

“I already look upon you as a brother.”

“Then you will let me speak to Leo?”

The curate paused a few moments, and then in the gravest of tones said:

“Yes.”

“Now? At once?”

“If you wish it,” said Salis, after another pause.

“Then I will,” said North. “I have waited months, and borne agonies all through her illness. Now I will be at rest.”

“But—”

Salis was too late, for hot, excited, and strung up hard to the highest pitch of excitement, North strode from the room, while Salis stooped over Mary and kissed her.

“I am very sorry,” he repeated: and a couple of loving arms closed round his neck, as Mary sobbed gently upon his breast.

Then brother and sister sat talking, for the drawing-room door had closed, and they could hear the low, dull murmurings of the doctor’s voice.

He had entered the drawing-room, where, looking extremely beautiful in hernégligéehabit, and refined by illness, Leo lay upon her couch by the fire, for the spring was cold, and as he entered she lowered her book and smiled.

It was a good augury, and with beating heart Horace North advanced and took her hand—to ask this woman to be his wife.

Chapter Twenty Two.Dr North Proposes.As Horace North took the hand of Leo Salis in his, it was to find it soft and cool and moist—very different from the burning palm he had so often held a few months since. It was without a tremble, but it sent a thrill through him; and with eyes flashing and revelling in his new joy, he was about to speak, when she half threw herself back in her chair with a movement of resignation which came upon him like adouche.He knew it so well. He read it and understood it as plainly as if she had spoken. It was the patient waiting for him to feel her pulse.“I thought you had given me up,” she said lightly.“Given you up—you whom I love!”Those were the words he wanted to say, but they would not come now after the damping he had received, and involuntarily his fingers glided slowly to her wrist, and he held them pressed against the calmly-beating pulse, gazing down at her half-averted eyes the while.There was no coquetry, no playful manner; she was as calm and resigned as any patient he had ever visited, and yet, time back, she had clung to him, gazed passionately into his eyes, and whispered of her love.Was it delirium?He could not bring himself to say; but even if it were, she must at heart have loved him, and in her abnormal state have confessed what she would sooner have died than said when well.The moments glided by, and he still held her wrist in the most professional manner, till, apparently surprised, she raised her eyebrows, opened her languid eyes, and looked up at him.“Well, doctor,” she said, half laughing, “loth to part with your patient? I am quite well.”He was dumb. A whirlwind of emotion was sweeping through him, as he vainly sought to shape his course. Could he tell her of her passionate avowal, or would it be too cowardly to take advantage of her past weakness?He could not recall that—not now. Some day, perhaps, he might; but now he felt that he must approach her unarmed. She was delirious, and her brain must be a blank to all that had passed, and he would speak plainly—conventionally.“Why, doctor,” she said at last, half-wonderingly, “of what are you thinking?”“Thinking?” he said hoarsely.“Yes; you look so serious. Surely I am not going to have a relapse?”“Oh, no!” he cried.“Then why do you look at me like this?”She asked him the question so naïvely, as she half lay back in her place, that a cold chill came upon him again, and, letting her hand fall, he took a turn to the window and back, half ready to say nothing then; but nerving himself once more, he took a chair, drew it to the lounge, and, seating himself again, took her hand.“Another inspection, doctor?” she said, half laughingly; and then, as she met his eyes, she seemed to comprehend his meaning, and tried to withdraw her hand, but he held it tightly.“Do you know what I want to say to you?” he said gravely.“What you wish to say?”“Yes. There! I cannot speak to you in set terms, but do you think I could know you as I have known, have watched by you, and tended you through all this terrible illness, with any other result? Leo, I love you! Will you be my wife?”“Dr North!”Yes; her mind must be a blank. There was so much genuine surprise in her tone, such a look of astonishment in her eyes, that he knew it now without doubt, and his emotion choked him for the moment, so great was the disappointment and despair her tone evoked.“You wonder at it, but why should you? Listen to me, Leo—”“No, no; stop—stop! You are too hasty. Let me think.”She put her hands to her temples, and looked at him half-wonderingly, half amusedly, but to him it seemed as if she were trying to recall something, and he once more caught her hand.“You will listen to me. You will give me your promise, Leo—dear Leo! You seem to belong to me, for I have, as it were, brought you back from the dead. Tell me you will be my wife.”She gave him a quick, keen glance that was as if full of horror and revolt, but he could not interpret it, and drew her hand towards his breast. Then, with a quick movement, and a pitying look at the man for whom she felt something approaching gratitude:“No, no,” she exclaimed; “it is impossible.”“I have spoken hastily. I have taken you by surprise,” he cried. “Only tell me this: you do not hate me, Leo?”“Hate you? Oh, no, Dr North,” she cried. “Have we not always been great friends? Have you not saved my life?”“Let me be more than friend,” he exclaimed; and a curious look came into her eyes, as he went on pouring forth in almost incoherent terms his love for her, the intense longing she had inspired. He could not interpret it—that it was full of mockery and suppressed mirth, mingled with contempt.“You do not speak,” he said, at last. “Give me some hope.”“What shall I say?” she cried. “It is too much to ask of me. You want me to promise.”“Yes,” he said; “and I will wait patiently for the fulfilment of that promise.”“But I have thought so little of such a thing,” she said calmly. “You have taken me so by surprise. I cannot—oh, I cannot promise.”“But I may hope?” he said.“I cannot—I will not—promise,” she said firmly. “If I marry it must be some one who has distinguished himself, who has made himself a name among the great people of the world. I hate this humdrum life, and this dull existence in the country. The man I loved should be one of whom his fellow-men talked because he had become great and done something of which I could be proud. No, no, Dr North; you must not ask me to promise this.”He sat gazing into her eyes, for her words had struck a chord in his breast. They seemed to rouse up in him the thoughts and theories which had been set aside during the months of her illness while she had been his only care; and with an eager burst of fervid passion in his tones, he exclaimed:“If I distinguished myself in some way—if I set men talking about my discoveries, and made my name famous, would you listen to me then?”The same mocking light was in her eye, the same half-contemptuous smile played for a moment about the corners of her lips, as she said, in a low voice:“Wait and see.”“Wait? I will wait,” he cried eagerly; “and you shall share my triumph. Leo, you do not know, you cannot tell, what thoughts I have—what investigations I am making into a science which is full of wonders waiting to be discovered. You have roused once more in me the great desire to win fame: to make researches that shall benefit humanity for all time to come. I can, I will, win these secrets from Nature, and we will together go hand-in-hand, learning more and more. I shall succeed!” he cried excitedly. “Ah! you smile. You do give me hope.”She did not speak, but veiled her eyes, to hide the mocking light within them.“My darling—my love!” he exclaimed.She drew back from his embrace.“No, no,” she said. “We are only friends.”“Yes, friends,” he cried—“friends now.”“Say no more,” she continued. “I am still weak, and this troubles me. Pray go now.”“Yes, I am going,” he said eagerly, “to fight a hard fight. I used to think of it as for fame alone. Now it is for love—your love—the love of the woman who first taught me that I had a heart.”Raising the hand she surrendered, he kissed it tenderly, and was about to speak again, but he could not trust himself; and giving her a look full of love, trust, and devotion, he hurried back to the study, where Salis sat with Mary, waiting his return.“Well?” said Salis, as Mary sat with pinched lips, and eyes wild with emotion.“Congratulate me, my dear boy!” cried North excitedly.“She has promised to be your wife?”“No, no; I am to wait and work. She is quite right. It was assumption on my part.”“Then she has refused you?”“Oh, no! She is quite right. She bids me do something to make me worthy of her love, and—ah! Hartley, old fellow, I did not know what life was before. There! I am the happiest fool on earth.”He turned to Mary, who was gazing at him with a look so full of pain that it would have betrayed her secret at another time. But just then the love madness was strong, and its effect sufficient to blind North, who, in his joy, raised Mary’s hand and kissed it, as he had kissed her sister’s.Mary shrank at the contact of his lips with her soft, white hand; and a look of despair that she could not control shot from her lustrous eyes.North did not see it, but Hartley Salis made a mental note thereof as the doctor exclaimed, laughing:“There, good folks, let me go. Don’t laugh at me and be too hard when I am gone.”“Hard!” said the curate sadly.“Well, I know I’m behaving like a lunatic. I’m going away to study hard, and work myself back into a state of sanity—if I can.”He nodded and left the house; and, as the door closed, Mary closed her eyes as the sank back helplessly in her place.“Asleep, dear?” said Hartley tenderly, a few minutes later, and he had risen from where he sat, with a dejected look upon his face.“No, Hartley; only thinking,” she said, smiling sweetly in his face.“Thinking?”“Of Leo.”“And so was I,” he said sadly.But Leo Salis was not thinking of brother or sister. She was writing rapidly, with a blotting-book held half open, and the book she had been reading held in the same hand, so that she could close the blotter instantly and seem to be reading if any one came.Leo’s lips formed the words she wrote:—“It is ridiculous of you to have such jealous thoughts. He has tended me patiently as any other doctor would. I will tell you more to-morrow night, but to-day I tell you this: I think him very clever as a doctor; as an ordinary being I think him an idiot. At the old time as nearly as I can. Do be punctual this time, pray.”It was about five o’clock the next morning that, after sitting up reading hard, and trying to recover lost time, till half-past three, North was plunged in a deep sleep, in which he dreamed that Leo was smiling in his eyes, and repeating the words she had uttered in her delirium, when there was a heavy dragging at the night-bell.“What is it?” cried the doctor from his window.“My young master, sir,” cried the voice of the butler from the Hall.“Taken ill?”“Ill, sir? Oh, Heaven help us! it’s worse than that!”

As Horace North took the hand of Leo Salis in his, it was to find it soft and cool and moist—very different from the burning palm he had so often held a few months since. It was without a tremble, but it sent a thrill through him; and with eyes flashing and revelling in his new joy, he was about to speak, when she half threw herself back in her chair with a movement of resignation which came upon him like adouche.

He knew it so well. He read it and understood it as plainly as if she had spoken. It was the patient waiting for him to feel her pulse.

“I thought you had given me up,” she said lightly.

“Given you up—you whom I love!”

Those were the words he wanted to say, but they would not come now after the damping he had received, and involuntarily his fingers glided slowly to her wrist, and he held them pressed against the calmly-beating pulse, gazing down at her half-averted eyes the while.

There was no coquetry, no playful manner; she was as calm and resigned as any patient he had ever visited, and yet, time back, she had clung to him, gazed passionately into his eyes, and whispered of her love.

Was it delirium?

He could not bring himself to say; but even if it were, she must at heart have loved him, and in her abnormal state have confessed what she would sooner have died than said when well.

The moments glided by, and he still held her wrist in the most professional manner, till, apparently surprised, she raised her eyebrows, opened her languid eyes, and looked up at him.

“Well, doctor,” she said, half laughing, “loth to part with your patient? I am quite well.”

He was dumb. A whirlwind of emotion was sweeping through him, as he vainly sought to shape his course. Could he tell her of her passionate avowal, or would it be too cowardly to take advantage of her past weakness?

He could not recall that—not now. Some day, perhaps, he might; but now he felt that he must approach her unarmed. She was delirious, and her brain must be a blank to all that had passed, and he would speak plainly—conventionally.

“Why, doctor,” she said at last, half-wonderingly, “of what are you thinking?”

“Thinking?” he said hoarsely.

“Yes; you look so serious. Surely I am not going to have a relapse?”

“Oh, no!” he cried.

“Then why do you look at me like this?”

She asked him the question so naïvely, as she half lay back in her place, that a cold chill came upon him again, and, letting her hand fall, he took a turn to the window and back, half ready to say nothing then; but nerving himself once more, he took a chair, drew it to the lounge, and, seating himself again, took her hand.

“Another inspection, doctor?” she said, half laughingly; and then, as she met his eyes, she seemed to comprehend his meaning, and tried to withdraw her hand, but he held it tightly.

“Do you know what I want to say to you?” he said gravely.

“What you wish to say?”

“Yes. There! I cannot speak to you in set terms, but do you think I could know you as I have known, have watched by you, and tended you through all this terrible illness, with any other result? Leo, I love you! Will you be my wife?”

“Dr North!”

Yes; her mind must be a blank. There was so much genuine surprise in her tone, such a look of astonishment in her eyes, that he knew it now without doubt, and his emotion choked him for the moment, so great was the disappointment and despair her tone evoked.

“You wonder at it, but why should you? Listen to me, Leo—”

“No, no; stop—stop! You are too hasty. Let me think.”

She put her hands to her temples, and looked at him half-wonderingly, half amusedly, but to him it seemed as if she were trying to recall something, and he once more caught her hand.

“You will listen to me. You will give me your promise, Leo—dear Leo! You seem to belong to me, for I have, as it were, brought you back from the dead. Tell me you will be my wife.”

She gave him a quick, keen glance that was as if full of horror and revolt, but he could not interpret it, and drew her hand towards his breast. Then, with a quick movement, and a pitying look at the man for whom she felt something approaching gratitude:

“No, no,” she exclaimed; “it is impossible.”

“I have spoken hastily. I have taken you by surprise,” he cried. “Only tell me this: you do not hate me, Leo?”

“Hate you? Oh, no, Dr North,” she cried. “Have we not always been great friends? Have you not saved my life?”

“Let me be more than friend,” he exclaimed; and a curious look came into her eyes, as he went on pouring forth in almost incoherent terms his love for her, the intense longing she had inspired. He could not interpret it—that it was full of mockery and suppressed mirth, mingled with contempt.

“You do not speak,” he said, at last. “Give me some hope.”

“What shall I say?” she cried. “It is too much to ask of me. You want me to promise.”

“Yes,” he said; “and I will wait patiently for the fulfilment of that promise.”

“But I have thought so little of such a thing,” she said calmly. “You have taken me so by surprise. I cannot—oh, I cannot promise.”

“But I may hope?” he said.

“I cannot—I will not—promise,” she said firmly. “If I marry it must be some one who has distinguished himself, who has made himself a name among the great people of the world. I hate this humdrum life, and this dull existence in the country. The man I loved should be one of whom his fellow-men talked because he had become great and done something of which I could be proud. No, no, Dr North; you must not ask me to promise this.”

He sat gazing into her eyes, for her words had struck a chord in his breast. They seemed to rouse up in him the thoughts and theories which had been set aside during the months of her illness while she had been his only care; and with an eager burst of fervid passion in his tones, he exclaimed:

“If I distinguished myself in some way—if I set men talking about my discoveries, and made my name famous, would you listen to me then?”

The same mocking light was in her eye, the same half-contemptuous smile played for a moment about the corners of her lips, as she said, in a low voice:

“Wait and see.”

“Wait? I will wait,” he cried eagerly; “and you shall share my triumph. Leo, you do not know, you cannot tell, what thoughts I have—what investigations I am making into a science which is full of wonders waiting to be discovered. You have roused once more in me the great desire to win fame: to make researches that shall benefit humanity for all time to come. I can, I will, win these secrets from Nature, and we will together go hand-in-hand, learning more and more. I shall succeed!” he cried excitedly. “Ah! you smile. You do give me hope.”

She did not speak, but veiled her eyes, to hide the mocking light within them.

“My darling—my love!” he exclaimed.

She drew back from his embrace.

“No, no,” she said. “We are only friends.”

“Yes, friends,” he cried—“friends now.”

“Say no more,” she continued. “I am still weak, and this troubles me. Pray go now.”

“Yes, I am going,” he said eagerly, “to fight a hard fight. I used to think of it as for fame alone. Now it is for love—your love—the love of the woman who first taught me that I had a heart.”

Raising the hand she surrendered, he kissed it tenderly, and was about to speak again, but he could not trust himself; and giving her a look full of love, trust, and devotion, he hurried back to the study, where Salis sat with Mary, waiting his return.

“Well?” said Salis, as Mary sat with pinched lips, and eyes wild with emotion.

“Congratulate me, my dear boy!” cried North excitedly.

“She has promised to be your wife?”

“No, no; I am to wait and work. She is quite right. It was assumption on my part.”

“Then she has refused you?”

“Oh, no! She is quite right. She bids me do something to make me worthy of her love, and—ah! Hartley, old fellow, I did not know what life was before. There! I am the happiest fool on earth.”

He turned to Mary, who was gazing at him with a look so full of pain that it would have betrayed her secret at another time. But just then the love madness was strong, and its effect sufficient to blind North, who, in his joy, raised Mary’s hand and kissed it, as he had kissed her sister’s.

Mary shrank at the contact of his lips with her soft, white hand; and a look of despair that she could not control shot from her lustrous eyes.

North did not see it, but Hartley Salis made a mental note thereof as the doctor exclaimed, laughing:

“There, good folks, let me go. Don’t laugh at me and be too hard when I am gone.”

“Hard!” said the curate sadly.

“Well, I know I’m behaving like a lunatic. I’m going away to study hard, and work myself back into a state of sanity—if I can.”

He nodded and left the house; and, as the door closed, Mary closed her eyes as the sank back helplessly in her place.

“Asleep, dear?” said Hartley tenderly, a few minutes later, and he had risen from where he sat, with a dejected look upon his face.

“No, Hartley; only thinking,” she said, smiling sweetly in his face.

“Thinking?”

“Of Leo.”

“And so was I,” he said sadly.

But Leo Salis was not thinking of brother or sister. She was writing rapidly, with a blotting-book held half open, and the book she had been reading held in the same hand, so that she could close the blotter instantly and seem to be reading if any one came.

Leo’s lips formed the words she wrote:—

“It is ridiculous of you to have such jealous thoughts. He has tended me patiently as any other doctor would. I will tell you more to-morrow night, but to-day I tell you this: I think him very clever as a doctor; as an ordinary being I think him an idiot. At the old time as nearly as I can. Do be punctual this time, pray.”

It was about five o’clock the next morning that, after sitting up reading hard, and trying to recover lost time, till half-past three, North was plunged in a deep sleep, in which he dreamed that Leo was smiling in his eyes, and repeating the words she had uttered in her delirium, when there was a heavy dragging at the night-bell.

“What is it?” cried the doctor from his window.

“My young master, sir,” cried the voice of the butler from the Hall.

“Taken ill?”

“Ill, sir? Oh, Heaven help us! it’s worse than that!”

Chapter Twenty Three.Tom Candlish Plays Badly.Squire Luke Candlish looked flushed and angry, as he stood facing his brother in the billiard-room, over the dining-room, at the Hall. Dinner had been ended an hour, and in company with his brother he had partaken of enough wine for three ordinary men, after which they had gone upstairs to smoke and play two or three games.Tom Candlish played horribly that night. The strokes he made were vile; and so transparent were some of his blunders that any one but Squire Luke would have seen and asked what it meant.Squire Luke only chuckled and smoked, and spilled the cigar-ash over the green cloth and played; but played more vilely than his brother, with the result that, in spite of all his efforts, Tom won game after game.It was very awkward, for Tom had a request to make, and unless he could get his brother in a good temper, the request would certainly be in vain.He made misses and his brother scored one each time. Then went straight into the pocket without touching a ball; and his opponent scored three; but directly afterwards, when his turn came round, the balls seemed as if they would make cannons and winning and losing hazards, so that his score kept rising, and Squire Luke raved.Tom won every game, and his brother grew more silent, till quite in despair at the failure of his plan to put the squire in a good temper, Tom blurted out his business. He wanted a hundred pounds.“I should think you do want a hundred pounds!” said the squire coolly; “say two.”“Two!” cried Tom merrily.“Twopence!” cried his brother, driving his ball off the table with a tremendous clatter. “What for?”“Meet a couple of bills,” said Tom, picking up the ball. “No! Your play again.”“No business to accept them.”“Couldn’t help it, old fellow. Come, let’s have a hundred.”“Not a stiver.”“Why?”“Because you’ve had your allowance for the year, and fifty over.”“Nonsense, old man; I’m hard pushed, and if I don’t meet the bills, they’ll be dishonoured.”“Well, what of that?” said Squire Luke coolly, as he made a stroke.“What of it! eh? Why, the glorious name of Candlish will be dragged in the mire.”“Bah!” ejaculated the squire, playing again.“Why, Luke, that stroke was not emblematic, was it, of your turning into a screw?”“None of your hints. I put on no screw, and I am no screw. You have your five hundred a year to spend, and I keep you besides.”“Oh, yes: and keep me well; but a man can’t always keep just inside a certain line.”“You always keep outside a certain line,” retorted the squire. “You have your five hundred regularly.”“And you have your five thousand regularly,” said Tom, who was beginning to flush up.“Well, what of that?”“Why, it isn’t fair that you should have all this big place and a large income, and I nearly nothing.”“That’s right,” said the squire; “abuse your father.”“I don’t abuse my father!” retorted Tom hotly; “but I say it was an infernal shame!”“He knew what a blackguard you are, Tommy. Ah! that’s a good stroke: six!”“Blackguard, eh? Come, I like that. Because I am open and above-board, and you are about the most underhanded ruffian that ever lived, I’m a blackguard, and you are only Squire Luke. Why, you sneaking—”“Don’t call names, Tom,” said the squire, laughing huskily, with his heavy face bloated and red from the wine he had taken. “Little boy, younger brother, if you are rude I may use the stick in the shape of a billiard cue.”“I only wish you would,” said Tom, grinding his teeth as he played, striking the balls viciously, and scoring now every time.“Oh, that’s it, is it?” cried the squire; “going to win, are you? We shall see.”“Win? Curse the game! I could give you fifty out of a hundred, and beat you easily. Look here, are you going to let me have that money?”“No, I am not; mind your play.”“Then I’ll have it somehow.”“Burglary?”“No; I’ll make it so unpleasant for a certain person about some things I know that he shall be glad to lay down the hundred instead of lending it, as one brother should to another.”The squire’s face grew dark, and the cue quivered in his grasp, as he gazed full at Tom Candlish, the brothers looking singularly alike in their anger. But the elder turned it off with a curious, unpleasant laugh, and leant over the table to make a stroke.“Don’t be a fool, Tom,” he said, playing. “You always did have too much tongue.”“Too much or too little, I mean to use it more, instead of submitting to the tyranny of such a mean-spirited hound as you. What the old man could have been thinking of to leave the estate to such a miserly cur—”“Mean-spirited hound! miserly cur, eh!” paid the squire, between his teeth.“Yes; and I repeat it,” cried Tom Candlish, who was furious with disappointment. He found that humility was useless, and that now they had begun to quarrel, his only chance of getting money was by bullying and threats; so without heeding the gathering anger in his brother’s eyes as he went on playing rapidly in turn and out of turn, he kept up his attack. “What the governor could have been thinking of, I say—”“Leave the governor alone, Tom,” growled the squire. “He knew that if he left the money to me with the title, the estate would be kept out of the lawyers’ hands, and the money would not be found in pretty women’s laps.”“But down your throat, you sot!” The squire looked up at him again, and he was going to make some furious retort, when the old butler’s steps were heard ascending the flight of stairs, and he entered the room.“Can I bring anything else, Sir Luke, before I go to bed?”“No, Smith,” said the squire; “what time is it?”“Half-past ten, sir.”“All locked up? Servants gone to bed?”“Yes, Sir Luke.”“That’ll do, then, without Mr Tom wants some more hot water.”“No; I’m in hot water enough,” growled Tom, lighting a cigar, and the butler withdrew.For some few minutes there was no sound but the click of the billiard balls, as the squire, forgetful entirely of the game, kept on knocking the red here, the white there, while Tom Candlish paced up and down, cue in hand, emitting regular puffs of smoke, as if he were some angry machine moved by an internal fire.Doors were heard to shut here and there, and then all was silent in the old place save the regular pacing about of Tom, the squire’s hasty tread, and the clicking of the billiard balls.“Now, then!” cried Tom, at last; “are you going to let me have that money?”“No,” said the squire, coolly enough. “I wouldn’t let you have it now for your bullying. I’m a hound and a cur, am I, my lad?”“Yes, you are a despicable hound and a miserable cur, and if the old man had known—”“Let the old man rest,” said the squire, with a lurid look.“I say, if the old man had known how you were going to spend his money, sotting from morning to night—”“He’d have left it to you to spend on the loose, eh?”“Loose? Why, you are ten times as loose as I am; but you are so proud of your good name that you sneak about in the dark to do your dissipation. I am manly and straightforward in mine.”“Yes, you’re a beauty,” said the squire mockingly. “Which of those girls are you going to marry—Leo Salis or Dally Watlock?”“You mind your own affairs, and leave me to manage mine!” said Tom Candlish fiercely.“But I should like to know,” said the squire, “because then I could arrange about the paper and furniture for the rooms.”“Do you want to quarrel, Luke?”“Quarrel?” chuckled the squire; “not I. Trying to be brotherly and to make things pleasant. If it is to be Leo, of course we must have greys and sage greens and terra cottas. If it is to be Dally Watlock, we must go in for red and yellow and purple. How delightful to have the sexton’s granddaughter for a sister! I say, Tom, how happy we shall be!”Tom Candlish turned upon his brother furiously, as if about to strike; and the squire, though apparently laughing over his banter, and about to play, kept upon his guard.But no blow was struck. Tom uttered a low sound, like the muttering growl of an angry dog, and smoked quickly, giving the butt of his cue a thump down upon the floor from time to time as he walked.“I shan’t mind your marrying, Tom; and there’s plenty of room for you to bring a wife to. I shan’t marry, so your boy will get the title—and the coin.”“Coin?” cried Tom savagely; “there’ll be none left. Do you think I don’t know how you are spending it?”“Never mind how I spend it, my lad. I only spend what is my own; and if I had spent all, I shouldn’t come begging to you.”“Lucky for you,” cried Tom Candlish tauntingly. “Look here, Luke, how many years does it take a man to drink himself to death?”“Don’t know,” said the squire, wincing.“Well, you’re hard at work, and I shall watch the experiment with some curiosity. I’ve a good chance.”“Healthier man than you, Tom; and it’ll take me longer to kill myself than it will take you. I shall be a hale man long after you’ve broken your neck hunting.”“Look here!” cried Tom savagely, “once more: do you want to quarrel?”“Not I,” said the squire; “and I don’t want to fight. Cain might kill Abel over again with an unlucky blow.”“’Pon my soul, Luke, if I could feel sure that Cain would be hung for it, I shouldn’t mind playing Abel.”“Look at that!” cried the squire, as, after a random shot, the red ball went into one pocket, the white into another. “There’s a shot!”“Yes—a fluke,” sneered Tom. “Your life has been a series of flukes. It was one that you were born first, and another that you ever lived; while in earnest, as in play, it’s always flake, fluke, fluke!”“Anchor flukes take fast hold of the ground, Tom,” said the squire, with a sneering laugh.“Yes, and of the money, too,” cried Tom. “Come, I’ll give you another chance. Will you let me have that cash?”“No.”“Not to save me from a writ?”“Who holds the bills?”“That scoundrel Thompson. North’s cousin.”“Then he’ll worry you well for it,” said the squire. “Let him. It’ll be a lesson for you, and bring you to your senses. You’ll be more careful.”“Nonsense! Let me have the money.”“I might have let you have it, and precious unwillingly, too,” said the squire. “I might, I say, have let you have the money to save you for the last time, but your bullying tone, and the way in which you have spoken to me to-night, have quite settled it. You may have writs and he arrested, and turn bankrupt if you like: it doesn’t make any difference to me. Yes, it would; for perhaps I should get rid of you for a time.”“You cursed, mean, unbrotherly hound!” cried Tom furiously; and, throwing down the cue upon the table just as his brother was about to play, he swung out of the room, descended the stairs, and went up to his bedroom.“Hang him!” muttered the squire, going to a side table and pouring himself out half a tumbler of strong brandy, which he diluted a little, and then drank off half at a draught.“I wish to goodness he’d go altogether. I won’t pay his debts any more. That’s not a bad stroke. How a drop of brandy does steady a man’s hand! Let him swear and growl. Five hundred’s enough for him for a year, and the old man was quite right.”He went on playing for another half-hour, practising strokes with very little success, till, glancing at his watch, he found it was close upon midnight, and placing his cue in the rack, he poured himself out some more brandy, drank it, turned down the lamp, and was moving towards the baize swing-door, when it opened, and Tom Candlish stood in the opening.“Hallo!” said the squire; “thought you’d gone to bed.”“What’s the good of my going to bed with that money trouble to think about.”“Have some brandy? Make you forget it. I’ve left some on the table.”“No fooling, Luke. I was out of temper. I’ve been worried, and I said things I didn’t mean.”“Always do. Here, let me come by. I want to go to bed.”“All right, you shall directly, old fellow; but you’ll let me have that money?”“Not a sou.”“I want it horribly; and it will save me no end of worry. You’ll let me have it?”“Not a sou, I tell you.”“Come, Luke, old chap, don’t be hard upon me. I’ve been waiting patiently till I got cool, and you had finished playing, before I came and spoke to you again. Now, then, it’s only a hundred.”“And it’ll be a hundred next week, and a hundred next month. I won’t lend you a penny.”“Then, give it me. I’ve a right to some of the old man’s coin.”“Not a sou, I tell you, and get out of my way. I want to go to bed.”“You’ll help me, Luke?”“No! Stand aside!”“Come, don’t be hard. I’m your brother.”“Worse luck!” said the squire, whose face was flushed by the brandy he had taken.“Never mind that. Let me have the hundred.”“I tell you again, not a sou. Curse you! Will you let me come by?” cried the squire savagely; for the spirit had taken an awkward turn, and his face grew purple.“Once more; will you let me have the money?”“No!” roared the squire. “Get out of the way—dog!”“Dog, yourself! Curse you for a mean hound!” cried Tom Candlish, with a savage look. “You don’t go by here till you’ve given me a cheque.”The squire’s temper was fully roused now. He had restrained it before; though, several times when he had uttered a low laugh and kept on handling his cue, his anger had been seething, and ready to brim over.Now, at his brother’s threat, that he should not pass until he had signed a cheque, he seized Tom by the shoulder as he blocked the way, and flung him aside.Luke Candlish cleared the passage for his descent; but roused the evil in his brother, so that Tom closed with him in a fierce grip.The struggle was almost momentary. There was a wrestling here and there, and then Luke Candlish put forth his whole strength as he practised a common Cornish trick, and Tom was thrown heavily upon the landing.“There!” cried the squire; “lie there, you idiot! You’ll get no cheque from me.”The squire had to pass over his brother’s body to reach the stairs, and he was in the act of rapidly crossing him, when, with a desperate effort, Tom made a savage snatch at his leg.The result was what might have been expected: the sudden check caused the squire to lose his balance, and he literally pitched head foremost down the stairs, to fall with a heavy crash at the bottom.Tom Candlish rose to his hands and knees, and gazed at where his brother lay, just beneath the lamp in the lobby, head downwards, and in a curiously-awkward position for a living man.

Squire Luke Candlish looked flushed and angry, as he stood facing his brother in the billiard-room, over the dining-room, at the Hall. Dinner had been ended an hour, and in company with his brother he had partaken of enough wine for three ordinary men, after which they had gone upstairs to smoke and play two or three games.

Tom Candlish played horribly that night. The strokes he made were vile; and so transparent were some of his blunders that any one but Squire Luke would have seen and asked what it meant.

Squire Luke only chuckled and smoked, and spilled the cigar-ash over the green cloth and played; but played more vilely than his brother, with the result that, in spite of all his efforts, Tom won game after game.

It was very awkward, for Tom had a request to make, and unless he could get his brother in a good temper, the request would certainly be in vain.

He made misses and his brother scored one each time. Then went straight into the pocket without touching a ball; and his opponent scored three; but directly afterwards, when his turn came round, the balls seemed as if they would make cannons and winning and losing hazards, so that his score kept rising, and Squire Luke raved.

Tom won every game, and his brother grew more silent, till quite in despair at the failure of his plan to put the squire in a good temper, Tom blurted out his business. He wanted a hundred pounds.

“I should think you do want a hundred pounds!” said the squire coolly; “say two.”

“Two!” cried Tom merrily.

“Twopence!” cried his brother, driving his ball off the table with a tremendous clatter. “What for?”

“Meet a couple of bills,” said Tom, picking up the ball. “No! Your play again.”

“No business to accept them.”

“Couldn’t help it, old fellow. Come, let’s have a hundred.”

“Not a stiver.”

“Why?”

“Because you’ve had your allowance for the year, and fifty over.”

“Nonsense, old man; I’m hard pushed, and if I don’t meet the bills, they’ll be dishonoured.”

“Well, what of that?” said Squire Luke coolly, as he made a stroke.

“What of it! eh? Why, the glorious name of Candlish will be dragged in the mire.”

“Bah!” ejaculated the squire, playing again.

“Why, Luke, that stroke was not emblematic, was it, of your turning into a screw?”

“None of your hints. I put on no screw, and I am no screw. You have your five hundred a year to spend, and I keep you besides.”

“Oh, yes: and keep me well; but a man can’t always keep just inside a certain line.”

“You always keep outside a certain line,” retorted the squire. “You have your five hundred regularly.”

“And you have your five thousand regularly,” said Tom, who was beginning to flush up.

“Well, what of that?”

“Why, it isn’t fair that you should have all this big place and a large income, and I nearly nothing.”

“That’s right,” said the squire; “abuse your father.”

“I don’t abuse my father!” retorted Tom hotly; “but I say it was an infernal shame!”

“He knew what a blackguard you are, Tommy. Ah! that’s a good stroke: six!”

“Blackguard, eh? Come, I like that. Because I am open and above-board, and you are about the most underhanded ruffian that ever lived, I’m a blackguard, and you are only Squire Luke. Why, you sneaking—”

“Don’t call names, Tom,” said the squire, laughing huskily, with his heavy face bloated and red from the wine he had taken. “Little boy, younger brother, if you are rude I may use the stick in the shape of a billiard cue.”

“I only wish you would,” said Tom, grinding his teeth as he played, striking the balls viciously, and scoring now every time.

“Oh, that’s it, is it?” cried the squire; “going to win, are you? We shall see.”

“Win? Curse the game! I could give you fifty out of a hundred, and beat you easily. Look here, are you going to let me have that money?”

“No, I am not; mind your play.”

“Then I’ll have it somehow.”

“Burglary?”

“No; I’ll make it so unpleasant for a certain person about some things I know that he shall be glad to lay down the hundred instead of lending it, as one brother should to another.”

The squire’s face grew dark, and the cue quivered in his grasp, as he gazed full at Tom Candlish, the brothers looking singularly alike in their anger. But the elder turned it off with a curious, unpleasant laugh, and leant over the table to make a stroke.

“Don’t be a fool, Tom,” he said, playing. “You always did have too much tongue.”

“Too much or too little, I mean to use it more, instead of submitting to the tyranny of such a mean-spirited hound as you. What the old man could have been thinking of to leave the estate to such a miserly cur—”

“Mean-spirited hound! miserly cur, eh!” paid the squire, between his teeth.

“Yes; and I repeat it,” cried Tom Candlish, who was furious with disappointment. He found that humility was useless, and that now they had begun to quarrel, his only chance of getting money was by bullying and threats; so without heeding the gathering anger in his brother’s eyes as he went on playing rapidly in turn and out of turn, he kept up his attack. “What the governor could have been thinking of, I say—”

“Leave the governor alone, Tom,” growled the squire. “He knew that if he left the money to me with the title, the estate would be kept out of the lawyers’ hands, and the money would not be found in pretty women’s laps.”

“But down your throat, you sot!” The squire looked up at him again, and he was going to make some furious retort, when the old butler’s steps were heard ascending the flight of stairs, and he entered the room.

“Can I bring anything else, Sir Luke, before I go to bed?”

“No, Smith,” said the squire; “what time is it?”

“Half-past ten, sir.”

“All locked up? Servants gone to bed?”

“Yes, Sir Luke.”

“That’ll do, then, without Mr Tom wants some more hot water.”

“No; I’m in hot water enough,” growled Tom, lighting a cigar, and the butler withdrew.

For some few minutes there was no sound but the click of the billiard balls, as the squire, forgetful entirely of the game, kept on knocking the red here, the white there, while Tom Candlish paced up and down, cue in hand, emitting regular puffs of smoke, as if he were some angry machine moved by an internal fire.

Doors were heard to shut here and there, and then all was silent in the old place save the regular pacing about of Tom, the squire’s hasty tread, and the clicking of the billiard balls.

“Now, then!” cried Tom, at last; “are you going to let me have that money?”

“No,” said the squire, coolly enough. “I wouldn’t let you have it now for your bullying. I’m a hound and a cur, am I, my lad?”

“Yes, you are a despicable hound and a miserable cur, and if the old man had known—”

“Let the old man rest,” said the squire, with a lurid look.

“I say, if the old man had known how you were going to spend his money, sotting from morning to night—”

“He’d have left it to you to spend on the loose, eh?”

“Loose? Why, you are ten times as loose as I am; but you are so proud of your good name that you sneak about in the dark to do your dissipation. I am manly and straightforward in mine.”

“Yes, you’re a beauty,” said the squire mockingly. “Which of those girls are you going to marry—Leo Salis or Dally Watlock?”

“You mind your own affairs, and leave me to manage mine!” said Tom Candlish fiercely.

“But I should like to know,” said the squire, “because then I could arrange about the paper and furniture for the rooms.”

“Do you want to quarrel, Luke?”

“Quarrel?” chuckled the squire; “not I. Trying to be brotherly and to make things pleasant. If it is to be Leo, of course we must have greys and sage greens and terra cottas. If it is to be Dally Watlock, we must go in for red and yellow and purple. How delightful to have the sexton’s granddaughter for a sister! I say, Tom, how happy we shall be!”

Tom Candlish turned upon his brother furiously, as if about to strike; and the squire, though apparently laughing over his banter, and about to play, kept upon his guard.

But no blow was struck. Tom uttered a low sound, like the muttering growl of an angry dog, and smoked quickly, giving the butt of his cue a thump down upon the floor from time to time as he walked.

“I shan’t mind your marrying, Tom; and there’s plenty of room for you to bring a wife to. I shan’t marry, so your boy will get the title—and the coin.”

“Coin?” cried Tom savagely; “there’ll be none left. Do you think I don’t know how you are spending it?”

“Never mind how I spend it, my lad. I only spend what is my own; and if I had spent all, I shouldn’t come begging to you.”

“Lucky for you,” cried Tom Candlish tauntingly. “Look here, Luke, how many years does it take a man to drink himself to death?”

“Don’t know,” said the squire, wincing.

“Well, you’re hard at work, and I shall watch the experiment with some curiosity. I’ve a good chance.”

“Healthier man than you, Tom; and it’ll take me longer to kill myself than it will take you. I shall be a hale man long after you’ve broken your neck hunting.”

“Look here!” cried Tom savagely, “once more: do you want to quarrel?”

“Not I,” said the squire; “and I don’t want to fight. Cain might kill Abel over again with an unlucky blow.”

“’Pon my soul, Luke, if I could feel sure that Cain would be hung for it, I shouldn’t mind playing Abel.”

“Look at that!” cried the squire, as, after a random shot, the red ball went into one pocket, the white into another. “There’s a shot!”

“Yes—a fluke,” sneered Tom. “Your life has been a series of flukes. It was one that you were born first, and another that you ever lived; while in earnest, as in play, it’s always flake, fluke, fluke!”

“Anchor flukes take fast hold of the ground, Tom,” said the squire, with a sneering laugh.

“Yes, and of the money, too,” cried Tom. “Come, I’ll give you another chance. Will you let me have that cash?”

“No.”

“Not to save me from a writ?”

“Who holds the bills?”

“That scoundrel Thompson. North’s cousin.”

“Then he’ll worry you well for it,” said the squire. “Let him. It’ll be a lesson for you, and bring you to your senses. You’ll be more careful.”

“Nonsense! Let me have the money.”

“I might have let you have it, and precious unwillingly, too,” said the squire. “I might, I say, have let you have the money to save you for the last time, but your bullying tone, and the way in which you have spoken to me to-night, have quite settled it. You may have writs and he arrested, and turn bankrupt if you like: it doesn’t make any difference to me. Yes, it would; for perhaps I should get rid of you for a time.”

“You cursed, mean, unbrotherly hound!” cried Tom furiously; and, throwing down the cue upon the table just as his brother was about to play, he swung out of the room, descended the stairs, and went up to his bedroom.

“Hang him!” muttered the squire, going to a side table and pouring himself out half a tumbler of strong brandy, which he diluted a little, and then drank off half at a draught.

“I wish to goodness he’d go altogether. I won’t pay his debts any more. That’s not a bad stroke. How a drop of brandy does steady a man’s hand! Let him swear and growl. Five hundred’s enough for him for a year, and the old man was quite right.”

He went on playing for another half-hour, practising strokes with very little success, till, glancing at his watch, he found it was close upon midnight, and placing his cue in the rack, he poured himself out some more brandy, drank it, turned down the lamp, and was moving towards the baize swing-door, when it opened, and Tom Candlish stood in the opening.

“Hallo!” said the squire; “thought you’d gone to bed.”

“What’s the good of my going to bed with that money trouble to think about.”

“Have some brandy? Make you forget it. I’ve left some on the table.”

“No fooling, Luke. I was out of temper. I’ve been worried, and I said things I didn’t mean.”

“Always do. Here, let me come by. I want to go to bed.”

“All right, you shall directly, old fellow; but you’ll let me have that money?”

“Not a sou.”

“I want it horribly; and it will save me no end of worry. You’ll let me have it?”

“Not a sou, I tell you.”

“Come, Luke, old chap, don’t be hard upon me. I’ve been waiting patiently till I got cool, and you had finished playing, before I came and spoke to you again. Now, then, it’s only a hundred.”

“And it’ll be a hundred next week, and a hundred next month. I won’t lend you a penny.”

“Then, give it me. I’ve a right to some of the old man’s coin.”

“Not a sou, I tell you, and get out of my way. I want to go to bed.”

“You’ll help me, Luke?”

“No! Stand aside!”

“Come, don’t be hard. I’m your brother.”

“Worse luck!” said the squire, whose face was flushed by the brandy he had taken.

“Never mind that. Let me have the hundred.”

“I tell you again, not a sou. Curse you! Will you let me come by?” cried the squire savagely; for the spirit had taken an awkward turn, and his face grew purple.

“Once more; will you let me have the money?”

“No!” roared the squire. “Get out of the way—dog!”

“Dog, yourself! Curse you for a mean hound!” cried Tom Candlish, with a savage look. “You don’t go by here till you’ve given me a cheque.”

The squire’s temper was fully roused now. He had restrained it before; though, several times when he had uttered a low laugh and kept on handling his cue, his anger had been seething, and ready to brim over.

Now, at his brother’s threat, that he should not pass until he had signed a cheque, he seized Tom by the shoulder as he blocked the way, and flung him aside.

Luke Candlish cleared the passage for his descent; but roused the evil in his brother, so that Tom closed with him in a fierce grip.

The struggle was almost momentary. There was a wrestling here and there, and then Luke Candlish put forth his whole strength as he practised a common Cornish trick, and Tom was thrown heavily upon the landing.

“There!” cried the squire; “lie there, you idiot! You’ll get no cheque from me.”

The squire had to pass over his brother’s body to reach the stairs, and he was in the act of rapidly crossing him, when, with a desperate effort, Tom made a savage snatch at his leg.

The result was what might have been expected: the sudden check caused the squire to lose his balance, and he literally pitched head foremost down the stairs, to fall with a heavy crash at the bottom.

Tom Candlish rose to his hands and knees, and gazed at where his brother lay, just beneath the lamp in the lobby, head downwards, and in a curiously-awkward position for a living man.

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