"It was so horrible, Miss Mary; for thoughts like that came to me."
"But, Sarah," whispered Mary, "I did not think of it before; when she
wakes, if she is wild like that again, there is some of poor uncle's
medicine in the library--there is a bottle of that chloral that had not
been opened. Would it be wise to give her some of it to make her calm?"
"Miss Mary!" gasped Woodham, as she pressed her hand to her side.
"Hush! Don't! You--oh, pray, pray, don't talk of that!"
Mary looked at her wonderingly, the woman's excitement seemed so wild
and strange.
"No, it would not be wise," she said.
At that moment there was the sound of the dining-room door being opened,
and Claude sprang to her feet.
"Mary! Woodham!" she panted. "He is coming."
"Claude! Claude, darling!" cried Mary, with a sob, as she flew to her
cousin's arms.
"Keep Woodham here too. He's coming! Do you hear?"
"But, Claude, dearest, he is master here. You made him so. You are his
wife."
"Yes, Mary. I was blind and mad. I forced myself to it, thinking it
must be my father's will--my duty to the dead. But it is too horrible.
Chris could not have done this thing."
"No, no, my poor darling; he could not have been so vile."
And as the cousins clung together, Mary felt the heart that beat against
hers fluttering like that of some prisoner bird. There was the sound of
an angry voice in the hall, and then a door was opened.
"Oh, you're there, are you?"
"Yes, Mr Glyddyr, I am here."
"Then why didn't you come into the dining-room like a man, not stop
hiding there. What the hell do you mean?"
"Don't go on like that, old fellow," said another voice. "Here, come
back into the dining-room. Mr Trevithick will join us, perhaps."
"Hold your tongue, curse you! Here, you--you can go back into your
hole; and as to you, Gellow, I know what I'm about. Come along."
The voices died away, as if the speakers had gone back into the
dining-room, and the door swung to.
"Ah!" ejaculated Claude, with a piteous sigh.
"I know what I'm about," came loudly again, followed by the banging of a
door and a step in the hall.
"Mary!"
"Claude, dear, you must. He is your husband."
"And I love Chris still with all my heart."
"Claude!" whispered Mary, as the door was thrown open, and Glyddyr
strode in.
"Here, Claude, where are you? Why don't you have more lights? Oh,
there you are, and our little cousin, eh? Now, woman, you can go."
Sarah Woodham gave her mistress one wild, pitying look, and then left
the room.
"Ah, that's better," said Glyddyr, whose face was flushed, but his gait
was steady, and there was an insolent smile upon his lips. "Only been
obliged to entertain my best man," he said, with a laugh; and he gave
his head a shake, and suddenly stretched out a hand to steady himself.
"But kept myself all right."
It was plain to Mary that the man had been drinking heavily, and her
spirit rose with indignation and horror, mingled with excitement at her
cousin's avowal.
"Mary, don't leave me," whispered Claude.
"Now, then, little one, you go and talk to the other fellows; I want to
have a chat with my wife."
He laughed in a low, chuckling way, for he had long ago mastered
Gellow's opposition, and been told to drink himself blind if he liked.
And he had drunk till his miserable feeling of abject dread had been
conquered for the moment, while, inured as he was to the use of brandy,
he only seemed to be unsteady at times.
"Do you hear?" he said sharply. "Why don't you go?"
"Claude, dearest, what shall I do?" whispered Mary.
"Stay with me, Mary, pray," panted Claude. And she looked wildly round
for a way of escape, her eyes resting last upon the window, which opened
over a steep portion of the cliff.
"Oh! what are you thinking?" said Mary wildly.
"Ah!" exclaimed Glyddyr, with a savage expression crossing his face,
"the window? No; he's not there. Curse him! I could shoot him like a
dog."
Claude, covered her quivering face with her hands.
"Yes, madam, it's time we came to a little explanation about that, and
then we can go on happily. No trifling with me.--Now then," he cried
fiercely, "will you go?"
"No," cried Mary, turning upon him so sharply that he dropped the hand
he had raised to seize her by the shoulder. "How dare you come into my
cousin's presence like this? Shame upon you! She is ill--agitated--not
fit to meet you now, and you dare to force your way to her like this--
drunken as one of the quarrymen at his worst."
"What!"
"Is this the gentleman who begged and pleaded and humbled himself to
her? You shall not stop here now, master or no master--husband or no
husband. She is my dear cousin, and--"
"She is my wife," thundered Glyddyr. "My slave if I like; and as for
you--"
"Oh, would that my uncle were alive to see his cruel work!"
Those last words were like a sharp blow in Glyddyr's face, and he
stepped back, looked quickly round, and a shudder ran through him as he
turned pale. But it was momentary. The potent brandy was strong in its
influence still, and he recovered himself.
"Bah! nonsense!" he cried, with the flush coming back into his face.
"I'm not to be fooled like that. There; be off at once."
He took a couple of steps forward.
"Come, Claude; there has been enough of this."
Claude flinched away toward the window, and Mary sprang between them.
"Not while you are like this," she cried.
Glyddyr uttered an angry snarl, seized Mary savagely by the arm, and
gripped the frail limb so cruelly that, in spite of her determined
courage, she uttered a piercing cry for help.
"Silence, you little vixen.--Hah!"
It was as if the arm of a giant had suddenly interposed, for Glyddyr was
seized by John Trevithick, dashed staggering back, to totter three or
four yards, catch at a little table to save himself, and drag it over
with him in his fall.
"Curse you!" he roared, as he rose to his hands and knees; and then,
uttering a wild cry of horror, he backed away from the picture he had
dragged with him to the floor, one which had fallen, with its little
velvet-covered table-easel to which it had been secured, on end, and
close to his face.
It was as if Gartram had come back to him from the dead to interpose
between him and his child; and, with that shriek of horror, Glyddyr fell
over sidewise, his face contorted, his eyes staring, his teeth gnashing,
and the foam gathering upon his lips.
"Take him away! take him away!" he shrieked, and then lay uttering
strangely inhuman sounds as he writhed in the agonies of a fit.
Volume Three, Chapter XVI.