THE LAIRD OF GLENCARDINE
CHAPTER II
FROM OUT THE NIGHT
CHAPTER III
SEALS OF DESTINY
CHAPTER IV
SOMETHING CONCERNING JAMES FLOCKART
CHAPTER V
THE MURIES OF CONNACHAN
CHAPTER VI
CONCERNS GABRIELLE'S SECRET
CHAPTER VII
CONTAINS CURIOUS CONFIDENCES
CHAPTER VIII
CASTING THE BAIT
CHAPTER IX
REVEALS A MYSTERIOUS BUSINESS
CHAPTER X
DECLARES A WOMAN'S LOVE
CHAPTER XI
CONCERNS THE WHISPERS
CHAPTER XII
EXPLAINS SOME CURIOUS FACTS
CHAPTER XIII
WHAT FLOCKART FORESAW
CHAPTER XIV
CONCERNS THE CURSE OF THE CARDINAL
CHAPTER XV
FOLLOWS FLOCKART'S FORTUNES
CHAPTER XVI
SHOWS A GIRL'S BONDAGE
CHAPTER XVII
DESCRIBES A FRENCHMAN'S VISIT
CHAPTER XVIII
REVEALS THE SPY
CHAPTER XIX
SHOWS GABRIELLE DEFIANT
CHAPTER XX
TELLS OF FLOCKART'S TRIUMPH
CHAPTER XXI
THROUGH THE MISTS
CHAPTER XXII
BY THE MEDITERRANEAN
CHAPTER XXIII
WHICH SHOWS A SHABBY FOREIGNER
CHAPTER XXIV
"WHEN GREEK MEETS GREEK"
CHAPTER XXV
SHOWS GABRIELLE IN EXILE
CHAPTER XXVI
THE VELVET PAW
CHAPTER XXVII
BETRAYS THE BOND
CHAPTER XXVIII
THE WHISPERS AGAIN
CHAPTER XXIX
CONTAINS A FURTHER MYSTERY
CHAPTER XXX
REVEALS SOMETHING TO HAMILTON
CHAPTER XXXI
DESCRIBES A CURIOUS CIRCUMSTANCE
CHAPTER XXXII
OUTSIDE THE WINDOW
CHAPTER XXXIII
IS ABOUT THE MAISON LÉNARD
CHAPTER XXXIV
SURPRISES MR. FLOCKART
CHAPTER XXXV
DISCLOSES A SECRET
CHAPTER XXXVI
IN WHICH GABRIELLE TELLS A STRANGE STORY
CHAPTER XXXVII
INCREASES THE INTEREST
CHAPTER XXXVIII
"THAT MAN'S VOICE!"
CHAPTER XXXIX
CONTAINS THE CONCLUSION
THE HOUSE OF WHISPERS
CHAPTER I
THE LAIRD OF GLENCARDINE
"Why, what's the matter, child? Tell me."
"Nothing, dad--really nothing."
"But you are breathing hard; your hand trembles; your pulse beats
quickly. There's something amiss--I'm sure there is. Now, what is it?
Come, no secrets."
The girl, quickly snatching away her hand, answered with a forced laugh,
"How absurd you really are, dear old dad! You're always fancying
something or other."
"Because my senses of hearing and feeling are sharper and more developed
than those of other folk perhaps," replied the grey-bearded old
gentleman, as he turned his sharp-cut, grey, but expressionless
countenance to the tall, sweet-faced girl standing beside his chair.
No second glance was needed to realise the pitiful truth. The man seated
there in his fine library, with the summer sunset slanting across the
red carpet from the open French windows, was blind.
Since his daughter Gabrielle had been a pretty, prattling child of nine,
nursing her dolly, he had never looked upon her fair face. But he was
ever as devoted to her as she to him.
Surely his was a sad and lonely life. Within the last fifteen years or
so great wealth had come to him; but, alas! he was unable to enjoy it.
Until eleven years ago he had been a prominent figure in politics and in
society in London. He had sat in the House for one of the divisions of
Hampshire, was a member of the Carlton, and one year he found his name
among the Birthday Honours with a K.C.M.G. For him everybody predicted a
brilliant future. The Press gave prominence to his speeches, and to his
house in Park Street came Cabinet Ministers and most of the well-known
men of his party. Indeed, it was an open secret in a certain circle that
he had been promised a seat in the Cabinet in the near future.
Then, at the very moment of his popularity, a terrible tragedy had
occurred. He was on the platform of the Albert Hall addressing a great
meeting at which the Prime Minister was the principal speaker. His
speech was a brilliant one, and the applause had been vociferous. Full
of satisfaction, he drove home that night to Park Street; but next
morning the report spread that his brilliant political career had ended.
He had suddenly been stricken by blindness.
In political circles and in the clubs the greatest consternation was
caused, and some strange gossip became rife.
It was whispered in certain quarters that the affliction was not
produced by natural causes. In fact, it was a mystery, and one that had
never been solved. The first oculists of Europe had peered into and
tested his eyes, but all to no purpose. The sight had gone for ever.
Therefore, full of bitter regrets at being thus compelled to renounce
the stress and storm of political life which he loved so well, Sir Henry
Heyburn had gone into strict retirement at Glencardine, his beautiful
old Perthshire home, visiting London but very seldom.
He was essentially a man of mystery. Even in the days of his universal
popularity the source of his vast wealth was unknown. His father, the
tenth Baronet, had been sadly impoverished by the depreciation of
agricultural property in Lincolnshire, and had ended his days in the
genteel quietude of the Albany. But Sir Henry, without betraying to the
world his methods, had in fifteen years amassed a fortune which people
guessed must be considerably over a million sterling.
From a life of strenuous activity he had, in one single hour, been
doomed to one of loneliness and inactivity. His friends sympathised, as
indeed the whole British public had done; but in a month the tragic
affair and its attendant mysterious gossip had been forgotten, as in
truth had the very name of Sir Henry Heyburn, whom the Prime Minister,
though his political opponent, had one night designated in the House as
"one of the most brilliant and talented young men who has ever sat upon
the Opposition benches."
In his declining years the life of this man was a pitiful tragedy, his
filmy eyes sightless, his thin white fingers ever eager and nervous, his
hours full of deep thought and silent immobility. To him, what was the
benefit of that beautiful Perthshire castle which he had purchased from
Lord Strathavon a year before his compulsory retirement? What was the
use of the old ancestral manor near Caistor in Lincolnshire, or the
town-house in Park Street, the snug hunting-box at Melton, or the
beautiful palm-shaded, flower-embowered villa overlooking the blue
southern sea at San Remo? He remembered them all. He had misty visions
of their splendour and their luxury; but since his blindness he had
seldom, if ever, entered them. That big library up in Scotland in which
he now sat was the room he preferred; and with his daughter Gabrielle to
bear him company, to smooth his brow with her soft hand, to chatter and
to gossip, he wished for no other companion. His life was of the past, a
meteor that had flashed and had vanished for ever.
"Tell me, child, what is troubling you?" he was asking in a calm, kind
voice, as he still held the girl's hand in his. The sweet scent of the
roses from the garden beyond filled the room.
A smart footman in livery opened the door at that moment, asking,
"Stokes has just returned with the car from Perth, Sir Henry, and asks
if you want him further at present."
"No," replied his blind master. "Has he brought back her ladyship?"
"Yes, Sir Henry," replied the man. "I believe he is taking her to the
ball over at Connachan to-night."
"Oh, yes, of course. How foolish I am! I quite forgot," said the Baronet
with a slight sigh. "Very well, Hill."
And the clean-shaven young man, with his bright buttons bearing the
chevron _gules_ betwixt three boars' heads erased _sable_, of the
Heyburns, bowed and withdrew.
"I had quite forgotten the ball at Connachan, dear," exclaimed her
father, stretching out his thin white hand in search of hers again. "Of
course you are going?"
"No, dad; I'm staying at home with you."
"Staying at home!" echoed Sir Henry. "Why, my dear Gabrielle, the first
year you're out, and missing the best ball in the county! Certainly not.
I'm all right. I shan't be lonely. A little box came this morning from
the Professor, didn't it?"
"Yes, dad."
"Then I shall be able to spend the evening very well alone. The
Professor has sent me what he promised the other day."
"I've decided not to go," was the girl's firm reply.
"I fear, dear, your mother will be very annoyed if you refuse," he
remarked.
"I shall risk that, dear old dad, and stay with you to-night. Please
allow me," she added persuasively, taking his hand in hers and bending
till her red lips touched his white brow. "You have quite a lot to do,
remember. A big packet of papers came from Paris this morning. I must
read them over to you."
"But your mother, my dear! Your absence will be commented upon. People
will gossip, you know."
"There is but one person I care for, dad--yourself," laughed the girl
lightly.
"Perhaps you're disappointed over a new frock or something, eh?"
"Not at all. My frock came from town the day before yesterday. Elise
declares it suits me admirably, and she's very hard to please, you know.
It's white, trimmed with tiny roses."
"A perfect dream, I expect," remarked the blind man, smiling. "I wish I
could see you in it, dear. I often wonder what you are like, now that
you've grown to be a woman."
"I'm like what I always have been, dad, I suppose," she laughed.
"Yes, yes," he sighed, in pretence of being troubled. "Wilful as always.
And--and," he faltered a moment later, "I often hear your dear dead
mother's voice in yours." Then he was silent, and by the deep lines in
his brow she knew that he was thinking.
Outside, in the high elms beyond the level, well-kept lawn, with its
grey old sundial, the homecoming rooks were cawing prior to settling
down for the night. No other sound broke the stillness of that quiet
sunset hour save the solemn ticking of the long, old-fashioned clock at
the farther end of the big, book-lined room, with its wide fireplace,
great overmantel of carved stone with emblazoned arms, and its three
long windows of old stained glass which gave it a somewhat
ecclesiastical aspect.
"Tell me, child," repeated Sir Henry at length, "what was it that upset
you just now?"
"Nothing, dad--unless--well, perhaps it's the heat. I felt rather unwell
when I went out for my ride this morning," she answered with a frantic
attempt at excuse.
The blind man was well aware that her reply was but a subterfuge.
Little, however, did he dream the cause. Little did he know that a dark
shadow had fallen upon the young girl's life--a shadow of evil.
"Gabrielle," he said in a low, intense voice, "why aren't you open and
frank with me as you once used to be? Remember that you, my daughter,
are my only friend!"
Slim, dainty, and small-waisted, with a sweet, dimpled face, and blue
eyes large and clear like a child's, a white throat, a well-poised head,
and light-chestnut hair dressed low with a large black bow, she
presented the picture of happy, careless youth, her features soft and
refined, her half-bare arms well moulded, and hands delicate and white.
She wore only one ornament--upon her left hand was a small signet-ring
with her monogram engraved, a gift from one of her governesses when a
child, and now worn upon the little finger.
That face was strikingly beautiful, it had been remarked more than once
in London; but any admiration only called forth the covert sneers of
Lady Heyburn.
"Why don't you tell me?" urged the blind man. "Why don't you tell me the
truth?" he protested.
Her countenance changed when she heard his words. In her blue eyes was a
look of abject fear. Her left hand was tightly clenched and her mouth
set hard, as though in resolution.
"I really don't know what you mean, dad," she responded with a hollow
laugh. "You have such strange fancies nowadays."
"Strange fancies, child!" echoed the afflicted man, lifting his grey,
expressionless face to hers. "A blind man has always vague, suspicious,
and black forebodings engendered by the darkness and loneliness of his
life. I am no exception," he sighed. "I think ever of the
might-have-beens."
"No, dear," exclaimed the girl, bending until her lips touched his white
brow softly. "Forget it all, dear old dad. Surely your days here, with
me, quiet and healthful in this beautiful Perthshire, are better, better
by far, than if you had been a politician up in London, ever struggling,
ever speaking, and ever bearing the long hours at the House and the
eternal stress of Parliamentary life?"
"Yes, yes," he said, just a trifle impatiently. "It is not that. I don't
regret that I had to retire, except--well, except for your sake perhaps,
dear."
"For my sake! How?"
"Because, had I been a member of this Cabinet--which some of my friends
predicted--you would have had the chance of a good marriage. But buried
as you are down here instead, what chances have you?"
"I want no chance, dad," replied the girl. "I shall never marry."
A painful thought crossed the old man's mind, being mirrored upon his
brow by the deep lines which puckered there for a few brief moments.
"Well," he exclaimed, smiling, "that's surely no reason why you should
not go to the ball at Connachan to-night."
"I have my duty to perform, dad; my duty is to remain with you," she
said decisively. "You know you have quite a lot to do, and when your
mother has gone we'll spend an hour or two here at work."
"I hear that Walter Murie is at home again at Connachan. Hill told me
this morning," remarked her father.
"So I heard also," answered the girl.
"And yet you are not going to the ball, Gabrielle, eh?" laughed the old
man mischievously.
"Now come, dad," the girl exclaimed, colouring slightly, "you're really
too bad! I thought you had promised me not to mention him again."
"So I did, dear; I--I quite forgot," replied Sir Henry apologetically.
"Forgive me. You are now your own mistress. If you prefer to stay away
from Connachan, then do so by all means. Only, make a proper excuse to
your mother; otherwise she will be annoyed."
"I think not, dear," his daughter replied in a meaning tone. "If I
remain at home she'll be rather glad than otherwise."
"Why?" inquired the old man quickly.
The girl hesitated. She saw instantly that her remark was an unfortunate
one. "Well," she said rather lamely, "because my absence will relieve
her of the responsibility of acting as chaperon."
What else could she say? How could she tell her father--the kindly but
afflicted man to whom she was devoted--the bitter truth? His lonely,
dismal life was surely sufficiently hard to bear without the extra
burden of suspicion, of enforced inactivity, of fierce hatred, and of
bitter regret. So she slowly disengaged her hand, kissed him again, and
with an excuse that she had the menus to write for the dinner-table,
went out, leaving him alone.
When the door had closed a great sigh sounded through the long,
book-lined room, a sigh that ended in a sob.
The old man had leaned his chin upon his hands, and his sightless eyes
were filled with tears. "Is it the truth?" he murmured to himself. "Is
it really the truth?"