It was, as Morton Denville said, cold and cheerless at his home, and the
proceedings that night endorsed his words, as at half-past ten, after
the servants had been dismissed, his father rose to seek his sleepless
couch.
Claire rose at the same moment, starting from a silent musing fit, while
Morton threw down the book he had been reading in a very ill-used way.
"Good-night, my son," said Denville, holding out his hand, and grasping
the lad's with unusual fervour. "Good-night, father."
"And you'll mind and be particular now, my boy. I am sure that at last
I can advance your prospects."
"Oh, yes, father, I'll be particular."
"Don't let people see you fishing there again." "No, father, I'll take
care. Good-night. Coming Claire?" Claire had put away her needlework,
and was standing cold and silent by the table.
"Good-night, Claire, my child," said Denville, with a piteous look and
appeal in his tone.
"Good-night, father."
She did not move as the old man took a couple of steps forward and
kissed her brow, laying his hands afterwards upon her head and muttering
a blessing.
Then, in spite of her efforts, a chill seemed to run through her, and
she trembled, while he, noting it, turned away with a look of agony in
his countenance that he sought to conceal, and sank down in the nearest
chair.
He seemed to be a totally different man, and those who had seen him upon
the cliff and pier would not have recognised in him the fashionable
fribble, whose task it was to direct the flight of the butterflies of
the Assembly Room, and preside at every public dance.
"Aren't you going to bed, father?" said Morton, trying to speak
carelessly.
"Yes, yes, my son, yes. I only wish to think out my plans a little--
your commission, and other matters."
"I hope he won't be long," muttered Morton as he left the room. "Why,
Claire, how white and cold you are! There, hang me if it isn't enough
to make a fellow sell himself to that old Lady Drelincourt for the sake
of getting money to take care of you. If I'd got plenty, you should go
abroad for a change."
Claire kissed him affectionately.
"Hang me if I don't begin to hate May. She doesn't seem like a sister
to us. Been here to-day, hasn't she? I heard they'd come back."
"Yes," said Claire with a sigh.
"It was cowardly of them to go off like that, when you were in such
trouble. You did not have a single woman come and say a kind word
when--_that_ was in the house."
"Don't speak of it, dear," said Claire. "Mrs Barclay came, though."
"Rum old girl! I always feel ready to laugh at her."
"She has a heart of gold."
"Old Barclay has a box of gold, and nice and tightly he keeps it locked
up. I say, he'll sell us up some day."
"Morton dear, I can't bear to talk to you to-night; and don't speak like
that of May. She has her husband to obey."
"Bless him!" cried Morton musingly. "Good-night, Sis."
He kissed her affectionately, and a faint smile came into Claire's wan
face, as it seemed to comfort her in her weary sorrow. Then they
parted, and she went to her room, opened the window, and sat with her
face among the flowers, watching the sea and thinking of some one whom
she had in secret seen pass by there at night.
That was a dream of the past, she told herself now, for it could never
be. Love, for her, was dead; no man could call her wife with such a
secret as she held in her breast, and as she thought on, her misery
seemed greater than she could bear.
The tide was well up, and the stars glittered in the heaving bosom of
the sea as she sat and gazed out; and then all at once her heart seemed
to stand still, and then began beating furiously, for a familiar step
came slowly along the cobble-paved walk in front of the house, along by
the railed edge of the cliff, and then for a moment she could see the
tall, dark figure she knew so well, gazing wistfully up at the window.
She knew he loved her; she knew that her heart had gone out to him,
though their acquaintance was of the most distant kind. She knew, too,
how many obstacles poverty had thrown in the way of both, but some day,
she had felt, all would be swept away. Now all that was past. She must
never look at him again.
She shrank from the window, and sank upon her knees, weeping softly for
the unattainable, as she felt how he must love her, and that his heart
was with her in sympathy with all her trouble.
"Dead--dead--dead," she moaned; "my love is dead, and my life-course
broadly marked out, so that I cannot turn to the right or left."
She started and shuddered, for below her there was the tread of a heavy
foot. She heard her father's slight cough, and his closing door, and at
the same moment, as if it were he who separated them, the step outside
could be heard returning, and Claire arose and crept to the window again
to listen till it died away.
"Dead--dead--my love is dead," she moaned again, and closing the window,
she strove to forget her agony of mind and the leaden weight that seemed
to rest upon her brow in sleep.
Eleven had struck, and two quarters had chimed before Morton Denville
dared to stir. He had waited with open door, listening impatiently for
his father's retiring; he had listened to the steps outside; and then at
last, with all the eagerness of a boy, in spite of his near approach to
manhood, and excited by the anticipations of the fishing, and the
romance of the little adventure, he stole forth with his shoes in his
hands, after carefully closing the catch of his well-oiled door.
The crucial part was the passing of the end of the passage leading to
his father's room, and here he paused for a few moments, but he fancied
he could hear a long-drawn breathing, and, after a hasty glance at the
door of the back drawing-room, erst Lady Teigne's chamber, he opened the
drawing-room door, stepped in and closed it.
He breathed more freely now, but a curious chill ran through him, and he
felt ready to retreat as he saw that the folding-doors were not closed,
and that the faint light from the back window made several articles of
furniture look grotesque and strange.
"Here am I, just twenty, and as cowardly as a girl," he muttered. "I
won't be afraid."
All the same, though, his heart beat violently, and he shrank from
moving for some minutes.
"And Dick waiting," he muttered.
Those words gave him the strength he sought, and, going on tiptoe across
the room, half feeling as if a hand were going to be laid upon his
shoulder to keep him back, he drew aside the blind, opened the French
window, passed out, closed it after him, and stood there in the balcony,
gazing at the heaving, star-spangled sea.
"I can't be a man yet," he said to himself. "If I were I shouldn't feel
so nervous. It is very horrid, though, the first time after that old
woman was killed; and by some one coming up there. Ugh! it's very
creepy. I half fancied I could hear the old girl snoring as she used."
He leaned over the balcony rails and looked to right and left, but all
seemed silent in the sleeping town, and after listening for a minute or
two he seized the support of the balcony roof, stepped over the rails,
lowered himself a little, and clasping the pillar with his legs, slid
easily down, rested for a moment on the railings with his feet between
the spikes, and then, clasping the pillar, dropped lightly down upon the
pavement, to be seized by two strong hands by arm and throat, a dark
figure having stepped out of the doorway to hold him fast.
Volume One, Chapter XIV.