Rintoul had bad nights, and could not sleep. He had been in such
constant movement that day that he was fatigued, and had hoped for rest;
but after tossing on his uneasy bed, he got up again, as for several
nights past he had been in the habit of doing, and began to pace up and
down his room. The house was all buried in repose and silence--the woods
rustling round, the river flowing, the silence outside tingling with the
never altogether hushed movements of nature; but indoors nothing
stirring--all dark; nothing but the heavy breath of sleep within the
thick old walls. The fire was dying out on the hearth; the candles,
which he lighted hastily, did not half light the room, but rather
cleared a little spot in the darkness, and left all else in gloom. A
nervous tremor was upon the young man,--he to whom nerves had been all
folly, who had scoffed at them as affectation or weakness; but he had no
longer that command of himself of which he had once been proud. His
mind strayed involuntarily into thoughts which he would fain have shut
out. They dwelt upon one subject and one scene, which he had shut his
mind to a hundred times, only to feel it the next moment once more
absorbing every faculty. His shadow upon the window paced up and down,
up and down. He could not keep quiet. He did not care to have the door
of his room behind him, but kept it in sight as if he feared being taken
at a disadvantage. What did he fear? he could not tell. Imagination had
seized hold upon him--he who had never known what imagination was. He
could not rest for it. The quiet was full of noises. He heard the
furniture creaking, as it does at night, the walls giving out strange
echoes; and never having kept any vigil before, thought that these
strange voices of the night had to do with himself, and in his soul
trembled as if he had been surrounded by enemies or spies searching his
inmost thoughts.
Thus he walked up and down the room, keeping his face to the door. Did
he expect any one, anything to come in? No, no; nothing of the kind. But
it is certain that sometimes along the long passage he heard sounds as
of a horse's hoofs. He knew it was nonsense. It was the sound of the
river, to which he was perfectly accustomed; but yet it sounded somehow
like a horse's hoofs. He never would have been surprised at any moment
to see the door pushed open and something come in. He knew it was
ridiculous, but still he could not help the feeling. And the silence of
the house was a pain to him beyond telling. One of these nights one of
the servants had been ill, and Rintoul was glad. The sense that some one
was waking, moving about, was a relief. It seemed somehow to give him a
sort of security,--to deliver him from himself. But while he thus felt
the advantage of waking humanity near him, he was thankful beyond
description that the society of the house was diminished--that his
mother and Edith were away. He knew that they must have found him
out--if not what was in his mind, at least that there was something on
his mind. During the last twenty-four hours particularly they would have
been worse spies than the trees and the winds. How could he have kept
himself to himself in their presence, especially as they would have
besieged him with questions, with incitements to do something. They
would have assumed that they knew all about it in their ignorance. They!
They were always assuming that they knew. There was a fierce momentary
satisfaction in Rintoul's mind to think how completely out they would
be, how incapable of understanding the real state of the case. They
thought they knew everything! But he felt that there was a possibility
that he might have betrayed himself in the very pleasure he would have
had in showing them that they knew nothing. And it was better, far
better, that they should be out of the way.
He did not, however, yield to this fever of the mind without doing what
he could manfully to subdue it. He made a great effort now to fix his
mind upon what his father had said to him--but the names of Millefleurs
and Lady Reseda only swept confusedly through his brain like straws upon
the surface of the stream. Sometimes he found himself repeating one of
them vaguely, like a sort of idiotical chorus, while the real current of
his thoughts ran on. Lady Reseda, Lady Reseda: what had she to do with
it?--or Millefleurs, Millefleurs!--they were straws upon the surface,
showing how rapidly the torrent ran, not anything he could catch hold
of. There was one name, however, round which that dark current of his
thoughts eddied and swirled as in a whirlpool--the name of John Erskine.
There could not be any doubt that _he_ had something to do with it. He
had thrust himself into a matter that did not concern him, and he was
paid for his folly. It was not _his_ place to stand up for Carry, to
resent her husband's rudeness--what had he to do with it? He was an
intrusive, officious fool, thrusting himself into other people's
business. If he brought himself into trouble by it, was that Rintoul's
fault? Was he bound to lay himself open to a great deal of annoyance
and embarrassment in order to save John Erskine from the consequences of
his own folly? This was the question that would not let him rest.
Nothing Rintoul had been a party to had compromised John Erskine. It was
all his own doing. Why did he, for his pleasure, take the Scaur road at
all? Why did he stop and quarrel, seeing the other was excited? Why rush
down in that silly way with his coat torn to make an exhibition of
himself? All these things were folly,--folly beyond extenuation. He
ought to have known better; and whatever followed, was it not his own
fault?
Along with this, however, there were other thoughts that flashed at
Rintoul, and would not let him carry on steadily to the conclusion he
desired. There are some things that are permissible and some that are
not permissible. A gentleman need not betray himself: it is not
indispensable that he should take the world into his confidence, if any
accident happens to him, and he gets himself into trouble; but he must
not let another get into trouble for him,--that comes into the category
of the "anything disgraceful" which Lord Lindores was assured his son
had never been guilty of. No! he had never done anything disgraceful.
How was he to escape it now? And then, looking back upon all the
circumstances, Rintoul sadly perceived what a fool he had been not to
put everything on a straightforward footing at once. He reflected that
he could have given almost any account of the occurrence he pleased.
There was nobody to contradict him: and all would have been over without
complication, without any addition from the popular fancy. It seemed to
him now, reflecting upon everything, all the details that had filled him
with an unreflecting panic then, that nothing could have been easier
than to explain the whole matter. But he had lost that good moment, and
if he made the confession now, every false conception which he had
feared would be realised. People would say, If this was all, why make
any mystery about it? Why expose another to disgrace and suffering?
Rintoul had not intelligence enough, though he had always plumed himself
on his common-sense, to thread his way among those conflicting
reasonings. He grew sick as the harpies of recollection and thought
rushed upon him from all quarters. He had no power to stand against
them,--to silence her who cried, "Why did you not do this?"--while he
held at bay the other who swooped down upon him, screaming, "How could
you do that?" When it grew more than he could bear he retreated to his
bed, and flung himself exhausted upon it, throwing out his arms with the
unconscious histrionic instinct of excitement, appealing to he knew not
what. How could he do this thing? How could he leave it undone? Rintoul
in his despair got up again and found an opiate which had been given
him when he had toothache, long ago, in days when toothache was the
worst torture he knew. He swallowed it, scarcely taking the trouble to
mark how much he was taking, though the moment after he took a panic,
and got up and examined the bottle to assure himself that all was right.
It was nearly daybreak by the time that this dose sent him to
sleep,--and he scarcely knew he had been asleep, so harassing were his
dreams, till he came to himself at last, to find that it was eleven
o'clock in a dull forenoon, his shutters all open, and the dim light
pouring in. The horrors of waking when the mind is possessed by great
misery is a well-worn subject,--everybody knows what it is to have Care
seated by his bedside, ready to pounce upon him when he opens his eyes;
but Rintoul had scarcely escaped from that dark companion. She had been
with him in his dreams: he felt her grip him now, with no surprise, if
with a redoublement of pain.
It was nearly mid-day when he got down-stairs, and he found nobody. His
father was out. Millefleurs was out. His breakfast was arranged upon a
little table near the fire, his letters laid ready, the county
newspaper--a little innocent broadsheet--by his plate. But he could not
take advantage of any of these luxuries; he swept his letters into his
pocket, flung the paper from him, then reflected that there might _be
something in it_, and picked it up again with trembling hands. There
was _something in it_. There was an account of the private examination
before the sheriff of Mr John Erskine of Dalrulzian on suspicion of
being concerned in the death of the late lamented Mr Torrance of Tinto.
"From circumstances which transpired," the sheriff, the newspaper
regretted to say, had thought it right to relegate Mr Erskine to
Dunnottar jail, there to await the result of a more formal inquiry, to
be held on the 25th at Dunearn. "We have little fear that a gentleman so
respected will easily be able to clear himself," it was added; and "a
tribute of respect to the late Patrick Torrance,--a name which, for
genial _bonhomie_ and sterling qualities, will long be remembered in
this county," wound up the paragraph. The greater portion of its
readers, already acquainted with the news by report, read it with
exclamations of concern, or cynical rustic doubt whether John Erskine
was so much respected, or Pat Torrance as sure of a place in the
county's memory, as the 'Dunearn Sentinel' said; but all Rintoul's blood
seemed to rush to his head and roar like a torrent in his ears as he
read the paragraph. He could hear nothing but that rushing of excitement
and the bewildered half-maddened thoughts which seemed to accompany it.
What was he to do? What was he to do?
There was a little interval, during which Rintoul literally did not
know what he was doing. His mind was not prepared for such an emergency.
He tossed about like a cork upon the boiling stream of his own
thoughts--helpless, bewildered, driven hither and thither. He only came
to himself when he felt the damp air in his face, and found himself
setting out on foot on the road to Dunearn: the irregular lines of the
housetops in front of him, the tall tower of the Town House pointing up
to the dull skies, standing out from the rest of the buildings like a
landmark to indicate what route he was to take. When he caught sight of
that he came violently to himself, and began at once to recover some
conscious control over his actions. The operations of his mind became
clear to him; his panic subsided. After all, who could harm John
Erskine? He had been very foolish; he had exposed himself to suspicion;
but no doubt a gentleman so respected would be able to clear himself--a
gentleman so respected. Rintoul repeated the words to himself, as he had
repeated the names of Millefleurs and Lady Reseda the night before. And
what would it matter to John Erskine to put off till the 25th his
emancipation and the full recognition of his innocence? If he had a bad
cold, it would have the same result--confinement to the house, perhaps
to his room. What was that? Nothing: a trifling inconvenience, that any
man might be subject to. And there could be no doubt that a gentleman
so respected----There would be evidence that would clear him: it was not
possible that any proof could be produced of a thing that never
happened; and the whole county, if need be, would bear witness to John
Erskine's character--that he was not quarrelsome or a brawler; that
there was no motive for any quarrel between him and----
Rintoul's feet, which had been going rapidly towards Dunearn, went on
slower and slower. He came to a pause altogether about a mile from the
town. Was it necessary to go any farther? What could he do to-day?
Certainly there would be no advantage to Erskine in anything he did
to-day. He turned round slowly, and went back towards Lindores. Walking
that way, there was nothing but the long sweep of the landscape between
him and Tinto, to which his eyes could not but turn as he walked slowly
on. The flag was up again--a spot of red against the dull sky--and the
house stood out upon its platform with that air of ostentation which
fretted the souls of the surrounding gentry. Rintoul could not bear the
sight of it: it smote him with a fierce impatience. Scarcely conscious
that his movement of hot and hasty temper was absurd, he turned round
again to escape it, and set his face towards the emblem of severe
justice and the law, the tower of the Town House of Dunearn. When this
second monitor made itself visible, a kind of dull despair took
possession of him. His steps were hemmed in on every side, and there was
no escape.
It was while he was moving on thus reluctantly, by a sort of vague
compulsion, that he recognised, with amazement, Nora Barrington coming
towards him. It was a piece of good fortune to which he had no right.
She was the only creature in the world whose society could have been
welcome to him. They met as they might have met in a fairy tale: fairy
tales are not over, so long as people do meet in this way on the
commonplace road. They had neither of them thought of any such
encounter--he, because his mind was too dolorous and preoccupied for any
such relief; she, because Rintoul seldom came into Dunearn, and never
walked, so that no idea of his presence occurred to her. She was going
to fulfil a commission of Miss Barbara's, and anxious if possible to see
Edith, which was far more likely than Edith's brother. They were both
surprised, almost beyond speech; they scarcely uttered any greeting. It
did not seem strange, somehow, that Rintoul should turn and walk with
her the way she was going, though it was not his way. And now a
wonderful thing happened to Rintoul. His ferment of thought subsided all
at once,--he seemed to have sailed into quiet seas after the excitement
of the head-long current which had almost dashed him to pieces. He did
not know what it meant. The storm ended, and there stole over him "a
sound as of a hidden brook, in the leafy month of June." And Nora felt a
softening of sympathetic feeling, she did not know why. She was sorry
for him. Why should she have been sorry for Lord Rintoul? He was
infinitely better off than she was. She could not account for the
feeling, but she felt it all the same. She asked him first how Lady
Caroline was--poor Lady Caroline!--and then faltered a little, turning
to her own affairs.
"I hope I shall see Edith before I go away. Do you know when they are
coming back? I am going home--very soon now," Nora said. She felt almost
apologetic--reluctant to say it,--and yet it seemed necessary to say it.
There were many people whom she might have met on the road to whom she
would not have mentioned the fact, but it seemed incumbent upon her now.
"Going away! No, that you must not do--you must not do it! Why should
you go away?" he cried.
"There are many reasons." Nora felt that she ought to laugh at his
vehemence, or that, perhaps, she should be angry; but she was neither
the one nor the other--only apologetic, and so sorry for him. "Of course
I always knew I should have to go: though I shall always think it home
here, yet it is not home any longer. It is a great pity, don't you
think, to live so long in a place which, after all, is not your home?"
"I cannot think it a great pity that you should have lived here," he
said. "The thing is, that you must not go. For God's sake, Nora, do not
go! I never thought of that; it is the last drop. If you knew how near I
am to the end of my strength, you would not speak of such a thing to
me."
"Lord Rintoul! I--don't understand. What can it matter?" cried Nora, in
her confusion. She felt that she should have taken a different tone. He
had no right to call her Nora, or to speak as if he had anything to do
with her coming or going. But the hurried tone of passion and terror in
his voice overwhelmed her. It was as if he had heard of the last
misfortune that could overwhelm a man.
"Matter! Do you mean to me? It may not matter to any one else; to me it
is everything," he said, wildly. "I shall give in altogether. I shall
not care what I do if you go away."
"Now, Lord Rintoul," said Nora, her heart beating, but trying to laugh
as she best could, "this, you must know, is nonsense. You cannot mean to
make fun of me, I am sure; but----I don't know what you mean. We had
better say no more about it." Then she melted again. She remembered
their last interview, which had gone to her heart. "I know," she said,
"that you have been in a great deal of trouble."
"You know," said Rintoul, "because you feel for me. Nobody else knows.
Then think what it will be for me if you go away--the only creature whom
I dare to speak to. Nora, you know very well I was always fond of
you--from the first--as soon as we met----"
"Don't, don't, Lord Rintoul! I cannot get away from you on this public
road. Have some respect for me. You ought not to say such things, nor I
to hear."
He looked at her, wondering. "Is it any want of respect to tell you that
you are the girl I have always wanted to marry? You may not feel the
same; it may be only your kindness: you may refuse me, Nora; but I have
always meant it. I have thought it was our duty to do the best we could
for the girls, but I never gave in to that for myself. My father has
spoken of this one and that one, but I have always been faithful to you.
That is no want of respect, though it is a public road. From the time I
first knew you, I have only thought of you."
What an ease it gave him to say this! All the other points that had so
occupied him before seemed to have melted away in her presence. If he
had but some one to stand by him,--if he had but Nora, who felt for him
always. It seemed that everything else would arrange itself, and become
less difficult to bear.
As for Nora, she had known very well that Rintoul was, as he said, fond
of her. It is so difficult to conceal that. But she thought he would
"get over it." She had said to herself, with some little scorn, that he
never would have the courage to woo a poor girl like herself,--a girl
without anything. He had a worldly mind though he was young, and Nora
had never allowed herself to be deluded, she thought.
"Don't you believe me?" he said, after a moment's pause, looking at her
wistfully, holding out his hand.
"Yes, I believe you, Lord Rintoul," said Nora; but she took no notice of
his outstretched hand, though it cost her something to be, as she said
to herself, "so unkind." "I do believe you; but it would never be
permitted, you know. You yourself would not approve of it when you had
time to think; for you are worldly-minded, Lord Rintoul: and you know
you ought to marry--an heiress--some one with money."
"You have a very good right to say so," he replied. "I have always
maintained that for the girls: but if you had ever taken any notice of
me, you would have found out that I never allowed it for myself. Yes, it
is quite true I am worldly-minded; but I never meant to marry money. I
never thought of marrying any one but you."
And now there was a pause again. He did not seem to have asked her any
question that Nora could answer. He had only made a statement to her
that she was the only girl he had ever wished to marry. It roused a
great commotion in her breast. She had always liked Rintoul, even when
his sisters called him a Philistine; and now when he was in trouble,
under some mysterious shadow, she knew not why, appealing to her
sympathy as to his salvation, it was not possible that the girl should
shut her heart against him. They walked on together for a few yards in
silence, and then she said, faltering, "I had better go back
now----I--did not expect to--meet any one."
"Don't go back without saying something to me. Promise me, Nora, that
you will not go away. I want you! I want you! Without you I should go
all wrong. If you saw me sinking in the water, wouldn't you put out your
hand to help me?--and that is nothing to what may happen. Nora, have you
the heart to go back without saying anything to me?" cried Rintoul, once
more holding out his hand.
There was nobody visible on the road, up or down. The turrets of
Lindores peeped over the trees in the distance, like spectators deeply
interested, holding their breath; at the other end the long thin tower
of the Town House seemed to pale away into the distance. He looked
anxiously into her face, as if life and death hung on the decision.
They had come to a standstill in the emotion of the moment, and stood
facing each other, trembling with the same sentiment. Nora held back
still, but there was an instinctive drawing closer of the two
figures--irresistible, involuntary.
"Your father will never consent," she said, with an unsteady voice; "and
my father will never allow it against his will. But, Lord Rintoul----"
"Not lord, nor Rintoul," he said.
"You never liked to be called Robin," Nora said, with a half malicious
glance into his face. But poor Rintoul was not in the humour for jest.
He took her hand, her arm, and drew it through his.
"I cannot wait to think about our fathers. I have such need of you,
Nora. I have something to tell you that I can tell to no one in the
world but you. I want my other self to help me. I want my wife, to whom
I can speak----"
His arm was quivering with anxiety and emotion. Though Nora was
bewildered, she did not hesitate--what girl would?--from the
responsibility thus thrust upon her. To be so urgently wanted is the
strongest claim that can be put forth upon any human creature.
Instinctively she gave his arm a little pressure, supporting rather than
supported, and said "Tell me," turning upon him freely, without blush or
faltering, the grave sweet face of sustaining love.