CHAPTER XXXI.
“Love’s reason’s without reason.”
“Love’s reason’s without reason.”
“Love’s reason’s without reason.”
“Love’s reason’s without reason.”
The cob was all the fresher for the impatience which he had suffered in standing for nearly an hour in the lane, and he bowled the dog-cart along the level roads at a tremendous pace. Theodore arrived at the Priory before eleven, and found Juanita sitting on the lawn with her baby in her lap, and the dog Styx at her side. His heart leapt with gladness at the sight of her sitting there, safe and happy, in the morning sunshine, for his morbid imagination had been at work as he drove along, and he had been haunted by hideous visions of some swift and bloody act which might be done by the fugitive mad woman before he could reach the Priory. What deed might not be done by a woman in the state of mind which that woman must have been in when she left the evidence and the confession of her crime upon the table and fled out of her house in the early morning? A silent thanksgiving went up from his heart to his God as he saw Juanita sitting in the sunshine, smiling at him, holding out her hand to him in surprised welcome. She was safe, and it was his business to guard her against that deadly enemy. He knew now whence the danger was to come—whose the hand he had to fear. It was no longer a nameless enemy, an inscrutable peril from which he had to defend her.
“How early you are, Theodore. Everybody is well, I hope—there is nothing wrong at home?”
“No. Every one is well. Your father is going to London for a few days, and your mother is coming to stay with you during his absence, and I come to throw myself on your hospitality while she is here. His lordship has heard of some suspicious characters in your neighbourhood, and has taken it into his head that it will be well for you to have me as your guest until your brothers-in-law come to you for the shooting. I hope you won’t mind having me, Juanita?”
“Mind, no; I am delighted to have you, and my mother, too. I was beginning to feel rather lonely, and had half decided on carrying baby off to Swanage. Isn’t he a fortunate boy to have two doating grandmothers?” She checked herself with a sudden sigh, remembering in what respect the richly-dowered infant was so much poorer than other babies. “Yes, darling,” she murmured,bending over the sleeping face, rosy amidst its lace and ribbons as it nestled against her arm. “Yes, there is plenty of love for you upon earth, my fatherless one; and, who knows, perhapshislove is watching over you in heaven.”
After this maternal interlude she remembered the obligations of hospitality.
“Have you breakfasted, Theodore? You must have left Cheriton very early.”
Theodore did not tell her how early, but he confessed to having taken only a cup of tea.
“Then I will order some breakfast out here for you. It is such a perfect morning. Baby and I will stay with you while you take your breakfast.”
She called the nurse, who was close by, and gave her orders, and presently the gipsy table was brought out, and a cosy breakfast was arranged upon the shining damask, and Theodore was having his coffee poured out for him by the loveliest hands he had ever seen, while the nurse paraded up and down the lawn with the newly-awakened baby.
“I cannot understand my father taking an alarm of that kind,” Juanita said, presently, after a thoughtful silence. “It is so unlike him. As if any harm could come to me from tramps or gipsies, or even professional burglars, with half a dozen men-servants in the house, and all my jewels safe at the Bank. Theodore, does it mean anything?” she asked, suddenly. “Does it mean that my father has found out something about the murder?”
He was silent, painfully embarrassed by this home question. To answer it would be to break faith with Lord Cheriton; to refuse to answer was in some manner to break his promise to Juanita.
“I must ask you to let me leave that question unanswered for a few days,” he said. “Whatever discovery has been made it is your father’s discovery, and not mine. His lips alone can tell it to you.”
“You know who murdered my husband?”
“No. Juanita, I know nothing. The light we are following may be a false one.”
He remembered how many lying confessions of crime had been made by lunacy since the history of crime began—how poor distraught creatures who would not have killed a worm had taken upon themselves the burden of notorious assassinations, and had put the police to the trouble of proving them self-accusing perjurers. Might not Mrs. Porter be such a one as these?
“Ah! but you are following some new light—you are on the track of his murderer?”
“I think we are. But you must be patient, Juanita. You must wait till your father may choose to speak. The business is out of my hands now, and has passed into his.”
“And he is going to London to-day, you say—he is going upon that business?”
“I have said too much already, Juanita. I entreat you to ask me no more.”
She gave an impatient sigh, and turned from her cousin to the dog, as if he were the more interesting companion of the two.
“Well, I suppose I must be content to wait,” she said; “but if you knew what I have suffered—what I shall suffer till that mystery is solved—you would not wonder if I feel angry at being kept in the dark. Has your friend gone back to London?”
“Yes; but he is coming again before my holiday is over. You like him, I know, Juanita,” he added, looking at her somewhat earnestly.
“Yes, I like him,” she answered, carelessly, but with a faint blush. “I suppose most people like him, do they not? He is so bright and clever.”
“I am very glad you like him. He is the most valued friend I have—indeed, I might almost say he is the only friend I made for myself at the University. I made plenty of acquaintances, but very few I cared to meet in after-life. Ramsay was like a brother. It would have been a real grief to me if our friendship had not lasted.”
“He is ambitious, is he not?”
“Very ambitious.”
“And proud?”
“Very proud; but it is a noble pride—the pride that keeps a man straight in all his doings—the pride that prefers bread and cheese in a garret to turtle and venison at a parvenu’s table. He is a splendid fellow, Nita, and I am proud of his friendship.”
“Is he very busy, that he should be so determined to leave Dorchester?”
“Yes; he is full of work always. I thought he might have been content to take two or three weeks’ quiet reading in our sleepy old town, but he wanted to get back to the hospital. He will come back for a day or two when the whim seizes him. He has always been erratic in his pleasures, but steady as a rock in his work.”