"I cannot interfere, really, my dear Mary--I cannot interfere. Mrs
Berens is a friend of yours, and one of my parishioners, but what can I
do?"
"She is alone in the world, and in great trouble."
"But here is a foolish woman; goes and listens to a plausible lawyer,
and makes at his suggestion a number of investments, and then repents
and comes to the parson."
"Well, to whom better?" said Mary, smiling.
"For advice over her sins it would be right enough," said Salis.
"I don't think Mrs Berens has any. If so, dear, they must be only
small ones."
"But to come to the parson for help on money matters is absurd. This is
the third time she has been."
"Yes, dear."
"It is not as if the investments had gone wrong."
"No, dear; she mistrusts Mr Thompson."
"Perhaps without reason. Let her get the money back, then, at as little
loss as she can, and put it in consols."
"There, you see, you can give good advice, Hartley."
"Oh, any noodle could give advice like that. It isn't perfect."
"No, dear," said Mary sadly; "for Mrs Berens says that this Mr
Thompson tells her it is impossible to withdraw now, and it seems he has
been very angry with her--almost threatening."
"Confound his insolence!"
"He told her she ought not to have invested if she meant to change her
mind, and that she is making a fool of him."
"Impossible!" said Salis sharply. "She might make him a rogue."
"You will help her, will you not, Hartley?"
"Well, I'll see what I can do; but I shall be an unfair advocate, for I
hate that man."
"And you will go and see Mr North to-day."
"Perhaps," said Salis. "He faithfully promised to send for me when I
could be of any use, and I may do more harm than good by forcing myself
there."
Three days had passed since the last visit, and the suspicions which had
flashed through the curate's brain had faded away as soon as he had
found himself questioned by Mary, and felt how much she would be alarmed
if he alluded to several little matters in connection with his
interview.
"The fact is," he had said to himself, "my imagination is too active,
and I am ready to invent horrors and troubles which are never likely to
exist."
It had been a busy morning, for one of the rector's customary lectures
on the management of the parish had arrived; and it was only by Mary's
special request that a sharp retort had not been sent back to a remark
in the rector's letter to the effect that he was glad Mr Salis had
taken his advice respecting his sister's appearance in the
hunting-field, and had put down the unnecessary horse.
"It makes me feel disposed to go and borrow of Horace North, and
immediately set up a carriage and pair, with servants in livery of
mustard and washing blue."
This was an attempt at being comic in allusion to the rector's showy
liveries, which generally created a sensation in King's Hampton when he
came down to the neighbouring place and went for a drive.
Mary smiled and went on with her work.
"How is Leo this morning?"
"Much better, I think. She was sitting with me for a long time
yesterday evening. Hartley, I am sure she is undergoing a great
change."
"I am very glad, dear," said Salis sadly.
"She seemed so quiet and affectionate to me."
"Why, of course. Who would not be?" said the curate affectionately.
"She seemed unwilling to leave me, and kissed me very tenderly when she
went to bed."
"I'm very glad, dear," said Salis; "but I wish she would give up
confining herself so to her room. It will grow into a habit."
"Let us wait," said Mary. "Yes, dear," said Salis, looking sadly from
the window as he dwelt upon the lives of his two sisters. "Time cures a
great many ills."
"Yes," said Mary gravely. "What did Moredock want this morning?"
"Wine," said Salis shortly. "And it's my belief the old rascal can
afford to buy it far better than I can."
"And you gave him some?"
"No," said Salis, with a droll look; "the last bottle in number one bin,
of the four we stood up six weeks ago, went to poor Sally Drugate."
"To be sure, yes," said Mary. "She had two of the others, had she not?"
"Yes, dear," said Salis, who was trying hard to get a hair out of his
pen. "Old Mrs Soames had the other. By the way, Mary, oughtn't we to
have laid down that wine?"
"I believe wine drinkers do generally lay down wine," said Mary,
smiling. "But what difference does it make?"
"They say it keeps better," said the curate drily. "Ours keeps very
badly. By the way, Moredock incidentally gave me a bit of news."
"What, dear?"
"Tom Candlish has gone from the Hall for a tour they say, to restore his
health."
"Left the Hall?"
"Yes, and I hope it will be many months before he returns."
"Yes," said Mary softly; "it will be better. There, now you will go on
and see Mr North."
"Oh, dear! who would be a slave?" sighed the curate. "Yes, madam, I
will go, and when I come back I ought to go and see Mrs Berens, and
then I shall be led into acts which will cause Mr Thompson to commence
an action against me. Result: ruin, and our quitting Duke's Hampton."
"Did you not say to me that your imagination was too active?" said Mary,
smiling.
"Yes, I did. What then?"
"You were quite right," said Mary; "it is."
Salis laughed and went on his mission, but in half-an-hour he was back,
and Mary looked up at him wonderingly.
"Back so soon?" she said; and then with her heart beating frightfully,
and a look of agony in her face that came as a revelation to Salis, she
stretched out her hands to her brother, her fingers twitching
spasmodically, as she uttered a wild cry, which brought him to her feet.
"Mary! My dear child! Be calm!" he panted, for he was evidently out of
breath.
"Speak!" she cried. "Have pity on my helplessness. I am chained here
by my affliction, and depend on you alone. Don't torture me--don't keep
me in suspense. Horace North?"
"Yes; only be calm, dear."
"You are temporising," cried the poor girl wildly, as she clung to his
hands and began to kiss them passionately. "Hartley--Hartley, for
pity's sake, speak!"
"If you will only be calm," he cried angrily. "This is hysterical
madness. You are hindering me when I come back to you for help and
advice."
Mary uttered a piteous moan, and set her teeth, as she clung still to
her brother's hands.
"Tell me the worst," she implored. "I can bear that more easily than
this suspense."
Salis gazed at his sister more wildly, as he, for the first time, read,
in her anguished looks and broken words, the secret which she had kept
so well.
For the moment he was as one in a nightmare. He strove to speak, but
something seemed to keep him dumb, while all the time she kept on
moaning appeal after appeal to him to tell her all.
"I thought little of it then," he said; "but now the idea seems to have
grown stronger and more terrible. Words he used which I did not heed
then seem to bear a terrible import now, and I cannot help thinking that
something ought to be done."
"You saw him just now?" said Mary hastily.
"No, but I spoke with Mrs Milt, and she is terribly uneasy. Mary,
dear, for your own sake, spare me this."
"No," said the suffering woman sternly; "you can tell me nothing so bad
as I shall imagine if you are silent. Tell me the very worst. He is
dead?"
"No, no, no!" cried Salis; "but I fear for him. He is not in a
condition to be left, and yet, strive how I may, I cannot get him to
listen to reason."
"But you have not seen him again?"
"No; he is now shut up in the library, and Mrs Milt has a terrible
account of his eccentricity; she fears that he is going--"
"No, no, no! Don't say that," cried Mary; "it is too horrible. But
quick! What are you going to do?"
"Drive over to King's Hampton, take the train to Lowcaster, and come
back with two of the principal physicians."
"No," said Mary sharply. "Telegraph at once to Mr Delton. Tell him
his friend North is in urgent need of his help. He believes in North,
and looks upon him almost as a son. His advice will be worth that of a
dozen Lowcaster physicians."
"Mary, you're a pearl among women," cried Salis.
"Don't stop to speak," she cried, with an energy that startled him.
"Your friend's life--his reason--is in peril. Go!"
"My friend; the man that poor broken-spirited creature loves," muttered
Salis, as he hurried away, and was soon after urging his hired pony to a
gallop.
"Oh, what moles we men are!" he said, as the hedges and trees flew by
him. "But who could have suspected her of caring for him? Lying
crushed and broken there, and no one suspecting the agonies she must
have suffered."
Realising by slow degrees the depth of his sister's love for North, and
the life she must have led, Salis urged the pony on to reach King's
Hampton at last, and hurry to the post-office, to despatch his telegram
beseeching the old doctor to send a reply; and for this he determined to
sit down and wait, but only to pace the coffee-room of the nearest
hotel, with his mind a chaos of bewildering ideas, as he wondered what
was to be the end of this new trouble which had come upon his house.
Volume 3, Chapter XII.