If ever words were uttered with a wild intensity of fervour, it was that
awful appeal; and, in the interval that followed, I felt my heart beat
painfully, while Hallett, with the great drops standing on his knotted
brow, clutched the little shoulder, so that Linny flinched from him.
"I cold-blooded--I know naught of love?" he whispered hoarsely; "when,
for a year past, my life has been one long-drawn agony! I know naught
of love, who have had to crush down every thought, every aspiration,
lest I should be a traitor to the man whose bread I eat! Love? Girl,
my life has been a torture to me, knowing, as I did, that I was a
groveller, as you say, and that I must grovel on, not daring to look up
to one so far above me, that--Heaven help me, what am I saying?" he
cried, looking from one to the other. "Linny, for our dead father's
sake--for the sake of that poor, pain-wrung sufferer below, let there be
no more of this. Trust me, child. Believe in me. I know so much of
what you must suffer, that if he, whoever he be, prove only true and
worthy of you, he shall be welcome here. But why raise this barrier
between us? See, I am not angry now. It is all past. You roused that
within me that I could not quell, but I am calm again, and, as your
brother, I implore you, tell me who is this man?"
"I--I cannot," said Linny, shaking her head.
"You cannot?"
"No," she said firmly; "I gave my promise."
"That you would not tell me--your own brother? Your mother then?"
"No, not now," she said, shaking her head. "After a time I will."
Without another word she turned and ran from the room, leaving Hallett
gazing vacantly before him, as if suffering from some shock.
I went up to him at last. "Can I help you, Hallett?" I said; and he
turned and gazed at me as if he had not understood my words.
"Antony," he said at length, "a time back I should have thought it folly
to make a friend and confidant of such a boy as you; but I have no man
friend: I have shut myself up with those two below there, and when I
have not been with them my hours have been spent here--here," he said,
pointing mockingly at the model, "with my love, and a strange,
coquettish jade she is--is she not? But somehow, my boy, we two have
drifted together, and we are friends, badly coupled as we may seem. You
have heard what Linny said. Poor child, she must be saved at any cost,
though I hardly know what course to pursue. There," he said wearily,
"let it rest for to-night; sometimes, in the thickest wilderness of our
lives, a little path opens out where least expected, and something may
offer itself even here."
"I am very, very sorry, Hallett," I said.
"I know it, my boy, I know it," he said hurriedly; "but forget what you
heard me say to-night. I was betrayed into speaking as I did by a fit
of passion. Forget it, Antony, forget it."