CHAPTER XXVIII
THE END OF THE THREAD
Madeleine had appeared greatly distressed at the thought that, throughher, her sister was now in so doubtful and precarious a situation. Itwas part of her punishment, she told herself for her sins of deceitand unmaidenliness in encouraging and meeting a clandestine lover.
She had gone through some very bitter hours since her tryst at theruins. The process of cutting off a malignant growth that has becomepart of oneself is none the less painful because the conviction isclear that it is for one's health to do so, and the will is firm notto falter. Not the less is the flesh mangled, do nerves throb, andveins bleed. But Madeleine was determined that nobody should evenguess her sufferings.
Rupert had counted upon Sophia's old habit of obedience to him, andupon her superstitious terrors not to betray to the young girl thepart he had played in the unmasking of her lover; but he had anunexpected, and even more powerful ally in Madeleine's own pride. WhenMiss Sophia had tremblingly endeavoured to falter out a few words ofsympathy and sorrow, upon the distressing subject, Madeleine quicklyinterrupted her.
"Never speak even his name again, Sophia; all that is finished forme."
There was such a cold finality in her voice, that the poor confidant'sexpansiveness withered up within her beyond even the hope ofblossoming again.
When Rupert heard of Captain Jack's latest doings, and especially ofhis sister-in-law's disappearance, he thought that the fates werepropitious indeed. In his wildest schemes he could not have plannedanything that would have suited his game more perfectly.
Though he thought it incumbent upon him to pull a face of desperatelength whenever the subject was touched, in his innermost soul he hadhardly ever enjoyed so delightful a joke as this denouement to hisbrother's marriage and to his cousin's engagement. And, strange tosay, though he would most gravely protest against any interpretationof his kinswoman's disappearance save the one which must most redoundto her credit, the story, started by the gossips in the village uponthe return of the revenue men, that Lady Landale had bolted with thehandsome smuggler, grew and spread apace all over the county, moreespecially from such houses as Rupert was wont to visit.
That all his hints and innuendoes should fail, apparently, to makeMadeleine put upon the case the interpretation he would have liked,was at once a matter of secret sneering and of admiration to hiscuriously complicated mind.
The days went by, to all appearance placidly enough, for the trio atPulwick. Madeleine shunned none of the usages of life in common,worked and talked with Sophia of a morning, rode or walked out withRupert of an afternoon; and passed the evening at her embroidery framemeeting his efforts to entertain her as amiably as before.
Rupert thought he knew enough of the human heart, and more especiallythe feminine, to draw satisfactory conclusions from this behaviour.For a girl to bear no malice to the man who had taken it upon himselfto demonstrate to her the unworthiness of her lover, argued, to hismind, that her affections could not have been very deeply engaged inthat quarter. It was clear that she felt gratitude for a timelyrescue. Nay, might he not go further, and lay the flattering unctionto his soul that she would not be unwilling to transfer these sameblighted feelings to a more suitable recipient?
A slight incident which took place a few nights later, tended stillmore to increase the kindness of Madeleine's manner to him upon thenext day; but this was for a reason that he little suspected.
It had been an anniversary with Sophia--none less indeed than that ofthe lamented Rector's demise. When her young cousin had retired to herroom, the desire to pursue her thither with a packet of old letters,and other treasures exhumed from the depths of her cupboards, hadproved too strong for a soul burning for congenial sympathy; andSophia had spent a couple of very delightful hours pouring forthreminiscences and lamentations into the bosom of one who, as she said,she knew could understand her.
Madeleine a little wearied, stifling a sigh or a yawn as the minutesticked by, was too gentle, too kind-hearted to repel the faithful, ifloquacious mourner; so she had sat and listened, which was all thatSophia required.
Upon the stroke of twelve, Miss Landale rose at length, collected herrelics, and mopping her swollen eyes, embraced her cousin, and badeher good-night with much effusion, while with cordial alacrity thelatter conducted her to the door.
But here Sophia paused. Holding the flat silver candlestick with onehand, with the other clasping to her bosom her bundle of superannuatedlove letters, she glanced out into the long black chasm of corridorwith a shudder, and vowed she had not the courage to traverse it aloneat such an hour. She cast as she spoke such a meaning glance atMadeleine's great bed, that, trembling lest her next words should be aproposal to share it for the night, the young girl hurriedlyvolunteered to re-conduct her to her own apartment.
Half way down the passage they had to pass the door of the picturegallery, which was ajar, disclosing light within. At the sight ofRupert standing with his back to them, looking fixedly at the pictureupon the opposite wall, Sophia promptly thought better of the screamshe was preparing, and seized her cousin by the arm.
"Come away, come away," she whispered, "he will be much displeased ifhe sees us."
Madeleine allowed herself to be pulled onward, but remembering Molly'sprevious encounter upon the same spot, was curious enough to demand anexplanation of Rupert's nocturnal rambles when they had reached thehaven of Sophia's bedroom. It was very simple, but it struck her asexceedingly pathetic and confirmed her in her opinion of theunreasonableness of her sister's dislike to Rupert.
He was gazing at his dead wife's picture. He could not bear, Sophiasaid, for any one to find him there; could not bear the smallestallusion to his grief, but at night, as she had herself discoveredquite by accident, he would often spend long spells as they had justseen him.
There was something in Madeleine's own nature, a susceptible proudreserve which made this trait in her cousin's character thoroughlycongenial; moreover, what woman is not drawn with pity towards the manwho can so mourn a woman.
She met him therefore, the next day, with a softness, almost atenderness, of look and smile which roused his highest hopes. And whenhe proposed, after breakfast, that they should profit by the mildweather to stroll in the garden while Sophia was busy in the house,she willingly consented.
Up the gravel paths, between the gooseberry bushes, to the violet bedsthey went. It was one of those balmy days that come sometimes in earlyspring and encourage all sorts of false hopes in the hearts of men andvegetables. "A growing day," the farmers call them; indeed, at suchtimes you may almost hear the swelling and the bursting of the buds,the rising of the sap, the throbbing and pushing of the young greenlife all around.
Madeleine grew hot with the weight of her fur tippet, the pale faceunder the plumy hat took an unusual pink bloom; her eyes shone with amoist radiance. Rupert, glancing up at her, as, bent upon one knee, hesought for stray violets amid the thick green leaves, thought it wasthus a maiden looked who waited to be won; and though all of true lovethat he could ever give to woman lay buried with his little bride, hefelt his pulses quicken with a certain aesthetic pleasure in thesituation. Presently he rose, and, after arranging his bunch of purplesweetness into dainty form, offered it silently to his companion.
She took it, smiling, and carried it mechanically to her face.
Oh, the scent of the violets! Upon the most delicate yet mightypinions she was carried back, despite all her proud resolves to thatgolden hour, only five days ago, when she lay upon her lover's broadbreast, and heard the beating of his heart beneath her ear.
Again she felt his arm around her, so strong, yet so gentle; saw hishandsome face bent towards her, closer--ever closer--felt again thetide of joy that coursed through her veins in the expectation of hiskiss.
No, no, she must not--she would not yield to this degrading folly. Ifit were not yet dead, then she must kill it.
She had first grown pale, but the next moment a deep crimso
n floodedher face. She turned her head away, and Rupert saw her tremble as shedropped the hand that held the flowers close clenched by her side. Heformed his own opinion of what was passing within her, and it madeeven his cold blood course hotly in his veins.
"Madeleine," he said, with low rapid utterance; "I am not mistaken, Itrust, in thinking you look on me as a good friend?"
"Indeed, yes;" answered the girl, with an effort, turning hertremulous face towards him; "a good friend indeed."
Had he not been so five days ago? Aye, most truly, and she would haveit so, in spite of the hungry voice within her which had awaked andcried out against the knowledge that had brought such misery.
He saw her set her little teeth and toss her head, and knew she wasthinking of the adventurer who had dared aspire to her. And he gainedwarmer courage still.
"Nothing more than a friend, sweet?"
"A kind cousin; almost a brother."
"No, no; not a brother, Madeleine. Nay, hear me," taking her hands andlooking into her uncomprehending eyes, "I would not be a brother, butsomething closer, dearer. We are both alone in the world, more orless. Whom have you but a mad-cap sister, a poor dreamer of abrother-in-law, an octogenarian aunt, to look to? I have no one, noone to whom my coming or my going, my living or my dying makes onepulse beat of difference--except poor Sophia. Let us join ourloneliness and make of it a beautiful and happy home. Madeleine, Ihave learned to love you deeply!"
His eyes glowed between their narrowing eyelids, his voice rangchanges upon chords of most exquisite tenderness; his whole manner wascharged with a courtly reverence mingled with the subtlest hint ofpassion. Rupert as a lover had not a flaw in him.
Yet fear, suspicion, disgust chased each other in Madeleine's mind inquick succession. What did he mean? How could it be that he loved her?Oh! if _this_ had been his purpose, what motive was prompting himwhen he divided her from her deceiving lover? Was no one true then?Was this the inconsolable widower whose grief she had been sosympathetically considering all the morning; for whose disinterestedanxiety and solicitude on her behalf her sore heart had forced itselfto render gratitude? Oh! how terrible it all was ... what a hatefulworld!
"Well, Madeleine?" he pressed forward and slid his arm around her.
All her powers of thought and action restored by the deed, shedisengaged herself with a movement of unconscious repulsion.
"Cousin Rupert, I am sure you mean kindly by me, but it is quiteimpossible--I shall never marry."
He drew back, as nonplussed as if she had struck him in the face.
"Pshaw, my dear Madeleine."
"Please, Cousin Rupert, no more."
"My dear girl, I have been precipitate."
"Nothing can make any difference. That I could never marry you, somuch you must believe; that I shall never marry at all you are free tobelieve or not, as you please. I am sorry you should have spoken."
"Still hankering after that beggarly scoundrel?" muttered Rupert, asneer uncovering his teeth betrayed hideously the ungenerous soulwithin. He was too deeply mortified, too shaken by this uttershattering of his last ambitions to be able to grasp his usualself-control.
Madeleine gave him one proud glance, turned abruptly away, and walkedinto the house.
She went steadily up to her room, and, once there, without hesitationproceeded to unlock a drawer in her writing-table and draw from it alittle ribbon-tied parcel of letters--Jack's letters.
Her heart had failed her, womanlike, before the little sacrifice whenshe had unshrinkingly accomplished the larger one. Now, however, withdetermined hand, she threw the letters into the reddest cavern of herwood-fire and with hard dry eyes watched them burn. When the lastscrap had writhed and fluttered and flamed into grey ash, she turnedto her altar, and, extending her arm, called out aloud:
"I have done with it all for ever----"
And the next instant flinging herself upon her bed, she drew her brownringlets before her face, and under this veil wept for her brokenyouth and her broken heart, and the hard cold life before her.
* * * * *
There is a kind of love a man can give to woman but once in hislifetime: the love of the man in the first flush of manhood for thewoman he has chosen to be his mate, untransferable and never to beforgotten: love of passion so exquisite, of devotion so pure, born ofthe youth of the heart and belonging to an existence and personalitylost for ever. A man may wed again, and (some say) love again, butbetween the boards of the coffin of his first wife--if he has lovedher--lie secrets of tenderness, and sweetness, and delight, which,like the spring flowers, may not visit the later year.
But, notwithstanding this, a second wooing may have a charm and aninterest of its own, even the wooing which is to precede a marriage ofconvenience.
So Rupert found. The thought of an alliance with Madeleine de Savenayewas not only engrossing from the sense of its own intrinsicadvantages, but had become the actual foundation-stone of all his newschemes of ambition.
Nay, more: such admiration and desire as he could still feel forwoman, he had gradually come to centre upon his fair and gracefulcousin, who added to her personal attractions the other indispensableattributes, blood, breeding and fortune. Mr. Landale was asessentially refined and fastidious in his judgment as he wasunmeasured in his ambition.
His error of precipitancy had been pardonable enough; and mereself-reproach for an ill-considered manoeuvre would not havesufficed to plunge him into such a depth of bitter and angrydespondency as that in which he now found himself. But the rebuff hadbeen too uncompromising to leave him a single hope. He was too shrewdnot to see that here was no pretty feminine nay, precursor of theyielding yea, not to realise that Madeleine had meant what she saidand would abide by it. And, under the sting of the moment betrayedinto a degradingly ill-mannered outburst, he had shown that hemeasured the full bearings of the position.
So, the wind still sat in that quarter!
Failing the mysterious smuggler, it was to be nobody with the Savenayeheiress--and least of all Rupert Landale.
And this, though the scoundrel had been thoroughly shown up; though hehad started upon his illegal venture and was gone, never to return ifhe valued his neck, after murdering four officers of the crown andsinking a king's vessel; though he had carried away with him (ah!there was consolation in that excellent jest which had so fardeveloped into Sir Adrian's wild goose chase to France and might stillhold some delicate denouement), had carried with him no less a personthan Lady Landale herself (the fellow had good taste, and either ofthe sisters was a dainty morsel), he still left the baneful trail ofhis influence behind him upon the girl he had deluded and beguiled!
Rupert Landale, who, for motives of his own had pleased himself byhunting down Madeleine's lover, had felt, in the keenness of hisblood-hound work, something of the blood-hound instinct of destructionand ferocity spring up within him before he had even set eyes on hisquarry. And the day they had stood face to face this instinctivehatred had been intensified by some singular natural antagonism. Addedto this there was now personal injury and the prey was out of reach.Impotence for revenge burned into the soul of him like a corrosivepoison. Oh, let him but come within his grip again and he should notescape so easily.
Sits the wind still in that quarter?
The burthen droned in his head, angry conclusion to each long spell ofinconclusive thought, as he still paced the garden, till the noon hourbegan to wane. And it was in this mood, that, at length, returning tohis study, he crossed in one of the back passages a young womanenveloped in a brilliant scarlet and black shawl, who started inevident dismay on being confronted with him.
Rupert knew by sight and name every wench of kitchen and laundry, aswell as every one of the buxom lasses or dames whom business broughtperiodically to the great hall. That this person was neither of thehousehold nor one of the usual back-door visitors, he would have seenat a glance, even had not her own embarrassment drawn his closerattention. He looked keenly and recogn
ised the gatekeeper's daughterMoggie.
Having married Sir Adrian's servant and withdrawn to take up her abodein the camp of the enemy, so to speak, she was not one whom Mr.Landale would have regarded with favour in any case; but now,concentrating his thoughts from their aimless whirl of dissatisfactionupon the present encounter, he was struck by the woman's manner.
Yes, she was most undoubtedly frightened. He examined her with amalevolent eye which still discountenanced her. And, though he made noinquiry, she forthwith stammered out: "I--I came, sir, to see if therebe news of her Ladyship ... or of Sir Adrian, sir--Renny can't leavethe island, you know, and he be downright anxious."
"Well, my good woman, calm yourself. Nothing wrong; nothing to hide inthis very laudable anxiety of you and your good man! No, we have nonews yet--that is quickly told, Mrs. Potter."
He kept her for a moment quailing and scared under his cruel gaze,then went on his way, working upon the new problems she had broughthim to solve. No matter was too small for Rupert's mind, he knew howinextricably the most minute and apparently insignificant may beconnected with the most important events of life.
The woman was singularly anxious to explain, reflected he, pausing athis chamber door, singularly ready with her explanation--too ready.She must have lied. No doubt she lied. Liar was written upon everyline of the terrified face of her. What was that infernal littleFrench husband of hers hatching now? He had been in the Smith plot, ofcourse. Ah, curse that smuggling fellow: he cropped up still on everyside! Pray the fates he would crop up once too often for his ownsafety yet; who knew!
Meanwhile Mrs. Potter, the innocent news-gatherer, must not be allowedto roam unwatched at her own sweet will about the place. Hark! whatclumping, creaking, steps! These could only be produced by Rene'sfairy-footed spouse: the house servants had been too well drilled byhis irritable ear to venture in such shoe leather within its range.He closed his door, and gently walked back along the corridor.
As he passed Molly's apartment, he could hear the creaking of awardrobe door; and, a startling surmise springing into his brain, hequietly slipped into an opposite room and waited, leaving the doorslightly ajar.
As he expected, a few minutes later, Moggie re-appeared loaded with abulky parcel, glancing anxiously right and left. She tiptoed by him;but, after a few steps, suddenly turning her head once more, met hiseyes grimly fixed upon her through the narrow aperture. With a faintsqueal she paddled off as though a fiend were at her heels.
"Something more than anxiety for news there, Mrs. Potter," said Mr.Landale, apostrophising the retreating figure with a malignant, inwardlaugh! Then, when the last echo of her stout boots had faded away, heentered his sister-in-law's room, looked around and meditatively beganto open various presses and drawers. "You visited this one at anyrate, my girl," thought he, as he recognised the special sound of thehinges. "And, for a lady's maid, you have left it in singulardisorder. As for this," pulling open a linen drawer half-emptied, andshowing dainty feminine apparel, beribboned and belaced, in the mostutter disorder--"why, fie on you, Mrs. Potter! Is this the way totreat these pretty things?"
He had seen enough. He paused a moment in the middle of the room withhis nails to his lips, smiling to himself.
"Ah, Mrs. Potter, I fancy you might have given us a little news,yourself! Most unkind of my Lady Landale to prefer to keep us in thisunnatural anxiety--most unkind indeed! She must have singularly goodreasons for so doing.... Captain Smith, my friend, Mr. Cochrane, orwhatever may be your name, we have an account to settle. And there isthat fool of an Adrian scurrying over the seas in search of hisrunaway wife! By George! my hand is not played out yet!"
Slowly he repaired to his study. There he sat down and wrote, withoutany further reflection, an urgent letter to the chief officer of thenewly established Preventive Service Station. Then he rang the bell.
"One of the grooms will ride at once to Lancaster with this," he saidto the servant, looking at the missive in his hand. But instead ofdelivering it he paused: a new idea had occurred. How many of theseservants might not be leagued in favour of that interloper, bribed, orknowing him, perhaps, to have been a friend of Sir Adrian, or yetagain out of sheer spite to himself? No; he would leave no loop-holefor treachery now.
"Send the groom to me as soon as he is ready," he continued, and whenthe footman had withdrawn, enclosed the letter, with its tale-tellingsuperscription, in another directed to a local firm of attorneys, witha covering note instructing them to see that the communication, on HisMajesty's Service, should reach the proper hands without delay.
When the messenger had set forth, Mr. Landale, on his side, had hishorse saddled and sallied out in the direction of Scarthey sands.
As from the top of the bluff he took a survey of the great bay, acouple of figures crossing the strand in the distance arrested hisattention; he reined in his horse behind a clump of bushes andwatched.
"So ho! Mrs. Potter, your careful husband could not leave the island?"muttered he, as he marked the unmistakable squat figure of the one, aman carrying a burden upon his shoulder, whilst, enveloping the womanwho walked briskly by his side, flared the brilliant-hued shawl ofMoggie. "That lie alone would have been sufficient to arousesuspicion. Hallo, what is the damned _crapaud_ up to?"
The question was suggested by the man's movements, as, after returningthe parcel to his consort at the beginning of the now bare causeway,he turned tail, while she trudged forward alone.
"The Shearman's house! I thought as much. Out he comes again, and notby himself. I have made acquaintance with those small bare legsbefore. I should have been astonished indeed if none of the Shearmanfellows had been mixed up with the affair. I shall be even yet withthose creditable friends of yours, brother Adrian. So, it's you again,Johnny, my lad; the pretty Mercury.... Can it be possible that CaptainSmith is at his old games once more?"
Mr. Landale's eyes shone with a curious eager light; he laughed alittle mirthless laugh, which was neither pleasant to hear nor togive. "Dear me," he said aloud, as he watched the pair tramp togethertowards Scarthey, "for plotters in the dark, you are particularly easyto detect, my good friends!"
Then he checked himself, realising what a mere chance it had been,after all--a fortuitous meeting in the passage--that had first arousedhis suspicions, and placed between his fingers the end of the threadhe now thought it so simple to follow up. But he did hold the thread,and depended no longer upon chance or guess-work, but on his ownrelentless purpose to lay the plotters by the heels, whatever theirplot might be.
In the course of an hour and a half, Johnny Shearman, whistling,light-hearted, and alone, was nearing his native house once more, whenthe sight of a horseman, rapidly advancing across the sands, broughthim to a standstill, to stare with a boy's curiosity. Presently,however, recognising Mr. Landale--a person for whom he had more dreadthan admiration--he was starting off homeward again at a brisk canter,when a stern hail from the rider arrested him.
"Johnny!" The boy debated a moment, measured the distance between thecottage and himself, and shrewdly recognised the advisability ofobeying. "Johnny, my boy, I want you at the Hall; take hold of mystirrup, and come along with me."
The boy, with every symptom of reluctance, demurred, pleading apromise to return to his mother. Then he suddenly perceived a look inthe gentleman's eye, which gave him a frantic, unreasoned desire tobolt at once, and at any cost. But the horseman anticipated thethought; bending in the saddle, he reached out his arm and seized theurchin by the collar.
"Why, you little devil, what is the matter with you?" he asked,grinning ominously into the chubby, terrified face. "It strikes me itis time you and I should come to a little understanding. Any moreletters from the smuggler to-day, eh? Ah, would you, you young idiot!"and Mr. Landale's fingers gave a sudden twist to the collar, whichstrangled the rising yell. "Listen, Johnny," tightening his graspgradually until the brown face grew scarlet, then purple, and thegoggling eyes seemed to start out of their sockets; "that is what itfeels like to be
hanged. They squeeze your neck so; and they leave youdangling at the end of a rope till you are dead, dead, dead, and thecrows come and eat you. Do you want to be hanged?"
For some moments more he kept the writhing lad under the torture; thenloosening his grip, without however relinquishing his hold, allowedhim to taste once more the living air.
"Do you want to be hanged, Johnny Shearman?" he asked again gravely.The lad burst into gasping sobs, and looked up at his captor with anagony of fear in his bloodshot eyes. "No," continued Mr. Landale, "Iam sure you don't, eh?" with a renewed ominous contraction of thehand. "It's a fearful thing, is hanging. And yet many a lad, hardlyolder than you, has been hanged for less than you are doing.Magistrates can get people hanged, and I am a magistrate, you know._Stop that noise!_"
"Now," continued the gentleman, "there are one or two little things Iwant to know myself, Johnny, and it's just possible I might let youoff for this time if by chance you were able to tell them to me. So,for your sake, I hope you may be."
He could see that the boy's mind was now completely turned withfright.
"If you were to try to run away again I should know you had secrets tokeep from me, and then, Johnny Shearman, it would go hard with youindeed! Now come along beside me, up to the Hall."
Quite certain of his prey, he released him, and, setting his horse toa trot, smiled to note the desperate clutch of the lad upon hisstirrup leather, as, with the perspiration dripping from his face, andpanting breath, he struggled to keep up the pace alongside.
Marched with tremendous ceremony into the magistrate's study anddirected to stand right opposite the light, while Mr. Landaleinstalled himself in an arm-chair with a blood-curdling air ofjudicial sternness, Johnny Shearman, at most times as dare-devil apickle of a boy as ever ran, but now reduced to a state of mental andphysical jelly, underwent a terrible cross-examination. It wascomparatively little that he had to say, and no doubt he wished mostfervently he had greater revelations to make, and could thuspropitiate the arbiter of the appalling fate he firmly believed mightlie in store for him. Meagre as his narrative was, however, it quitesufficed for Mr. Landale.
"I think, Johnny," he said more pleasantly, well knowing theinducement that a sudden relaxation from fear offers to a witness'sgarrulity, "I think I may say you will not hang this time--that is,"with a sudden hardening of his voice, and making a great show ofchecking the answers with pen and ink in his most magisterial manner,"that is if you have really told me _all_ you know and it be all_true_. Now let us see, and take care. You saw no one at the peelto-day but Renny Potter, Mrs. Potter and Mrs. Crackenshaw?"
"No, sir."
"But you heard other voices in the next room--a man's voice--whilstyou were waiting?"
"Yes, sir."
"Then Renny Potter came back and gave you a message for your brothers.This message they made you repeat, over and over again. How did itgo?" And as Mr. Landale frowningly looked at his paper, the boytremblingly repeated:
"I mun tell brothers Will an' Rob, that one or t'other mun watchen thelight o' nights, to-night, to-morrow night, an' ontil woord coomagain. If light go out they mun setten forth in they ketch thotmoment, fettled op for a two-three days' sailing. If wind is contrairylike, they mun take sweeps. This for the master's service--for SirAdrian's service!"--amending the phrase with a sharp reading of theblackness of Mr. Landale's swift upward look.
"Yes," murmured the latter after a pause. "And you were to tell no oneelse. You were to keep it above all from getting to my ears. Verygood, Johnny. If you have spoken the truth, you are safe."
There was a special cell, off the official study, with high windows,bolts and bars, and a wooden bench, for the temporary housing of suchdesperate criminals as might be brought to the judgment of RupertLandale, Esquire, J.P. There he now disposed of the young offender whosnivelled piteously once more; and having locked the door andpocketed the key, returned to his capacious arm-chair, where, as thetwilight waned over the land, he fell to co-ordinating his scheme andgloating upon this unexpected turn of Fortune's wheel.
* * * * *
At that hour Madeleine, alone in her chamber, knelt before her littlealtar, wrestling with the rebellion of her soul and besieging theheavens with a cry for peace.
* * * * *
Sir Adrian having failed to hear aught of the _Peregrine_ at St. Malo,filled with harassing doubt about its fate but clutching still athope--as men will, even such pessimists as he--stood on the deck ofhis homeward bound ship, straining his eyes in the dusk for the coastline.
* * * * *
In the peel, the beacon had just been lighted by Rene, in whosecompany, up in his secluded turret, sat Captain Jack, smoking a pipe,but so unusually silent as to have reduced even the loquaciousFrenchman to silence too. Below them Lady Landale, torn between thedread of a final separation from the loadstar of her existence and thegnawing anxiety roused in her bosom by Moggie's account of Mr.Landale's watchfulness, was pacing the long book-lined room with therestlessness of a caged panther.
* * * * *
On the road from Lancaster to Pulwick a posse of riding officers and acarriage full of hastily gathered preventive men were trotting ontheir way to the Priory.
The Light of Scarthey: A Romance Page 30