King of the Castle Part 84

The woman did not answer with her lips, but her dark eyes were fixed wildly on those of her mistress.

"Then it is true!"

"Claude, dear; pray come," whispered Mary, clinging to her; but she was thrust away.

"I will know everything," she cried, excitedly. "You, Sarah Woodham, speak out, and tell me all the truth."

"No--no," whispered the woman, and she stood trembling as if with ague.

"I will know," said Claude, catching her up by the arm. "I heard what was said--that Mr Lisle was charged with murder. It could not be."

"No, no, Claude, of course not."

"Silence, Mary! Speak, woman, or must I go down to the beach and ask there. Tell me. It was a quarrel; they met and fought. Is Mr Glyddyr dead?"

They gazed at her wonderingly--stricken for the moment--the silence being broken by the two servants exclaiming in a breath--

"No, no, miss. It was master they said he killed."

"What?"

"Come away, Claude," whispered Mary, who was white and trembling. "It is a horrible invention. There is no truth in it. Come back into the drawing-room, and I'll tell you quietly, dear, what I have heard."

"Go on," said Claude, fixing the two women with her eyes as she held her cousin's arm and half forced her back. "Tell me everything you have heard."

Between them, trembling the while before the wild eyes which seemed to force them to speak, the women related confusedly the report they had heard, one which had grown rapidly as is the custom with such news; and out of the tangle, as Sarah Woodham and Mary both strangely moved, stood speechless and silent, Claude learned the charge which had arisen against the man she loved, to the bitter end, struggling the while to make indignant denial of that at which her soul felt to revolt. But no words would come. Her reason, her soul, both cried out aloud within her that this was an utter impossibility, but the rumours mastered them with a terrible array of facts, till she was forced to believe that, stung to madness by the treatment he had received, and hurried on by a l.u.s.t for gold, Chris, her old playmate and brother as a child, the man at last she had grown to love, had been tempted to commit this deed.

"It is not true--it is not true," something within her kept on saying as she gazed wildly from one to the other, seeing the gap--the black gap-- already existing between her and her lover, widening into an awful, impa.s.sable chasm, in which were buried her life's hopes and happiness for ever.

Volume Three, Chapter IX.

A DEBATE.

Glyddyr had undoubtedly gone backward in health with rapid strides since he and the Doctor had last met, not many hours before. His face was of a sickly yellow; there were dark marks under his eyes, and his hands trembled as he weakly arranged the flower in his b.u.t.ton-hole, and played with his blue serge yachting cap.

"How terrible!" he murmured at last. "Poor girl! What a shock!"

"Yes; enough to give her brain fever," said the Doctor, speaking quickly. "The wretched, cackling fools."

"Terrible! terrible!" muttered Glyddyr. Then, after a pause, as he took a turn up and down the Doctor's little surgery, as if it were his own cabin, he pa.s.sed his tongue over his dry lips, and turned quickly to the Doctor, who was watching him curiously. "Here, I say: I'm completely knocked over. For heaven's sake give me a dose."

"Yes, of course."

"No, no, not that cursed stuff," cried Glyddyr, as he saw the Doctor's hand raised toward the ammonia bottle. "Brandy--whisky, for goodness'

sake!"

Asher gave him a quick look, then took his key, and, opening a cellaret, poured a goodly dram of brandy into a gla.s.s, and placed it on the table.

"There's water in that bottle," he said.

Glyddyr made an impatient gesture, and tossed off the raw spirit.

"Hah!" he cried, setting down the gla.s.s, "I can talk now. What--what do you think of this report?"

"Oh, all madness, of course," cried the Doctor hastily.

"Yes--yes--all madness, of course," said Glyddyr, letting himself sink down in a chair. "All madness, of course. He couldn't, could he?"

The two men gazed in each other's eyes, and there was silence for quite a long s.p.a.ce.

"But they found that bottle," continued Glyddyr, as if speaking to himself. "Ugly piece of evidence, isn't it?"

"Oh, but that proves nothing," said Asher.

"And he being found in the garden that night, when Gartram was having his after-dinner nap," continued Glyddyr, looking at the door.

"Yes, looks bad," said the Doctor, "but all nonsense. Why can't they let the old man rest?"

"You--you don't think he poisoned him?" said Glyddyr.

"No, certainly not."

"It would have been impossible, of course. But they say he is rich now; has plenty of money. How could he come by that?"

"Who can say?"

"Yes; and a large sum was missing--a very large sum."

"That is the worst argument yet," said the doctor. "But, pooh, pooh, my dear sir, the old man died from an overdose of chloral. My colleague and I were satisfied about that. There, don't look so white."

"Do I look white?" said Glyddyr, picking up the gla.s.s he had used and draining the last drops. "Oh, I feel much better now. But, Doctor, what do you think of it all? They'll arrest that young man, I suppose.

It would be very horrible if he were to be tried and condemned to death."

"Horrible!"

"Do you think he will be taken?"

"No."

"I'm--I'm glad of that," faltered Glyddyr, with his trembling hands playing about his watch chain. "So horrible. He was a friend, you see, of Miss Gartram's. Of course, with such a charge as that against him, he could never speak to her again."

"Look here, Glyddyr," said the Doctor, "you and I may as well understand each other."

"What do you mean?" cried Glyddyr, sinking back in his chair.

"That we have somehow become friends, and we may as well continue so.

You mean to marry Claude Gartram?"

"Yes, yes, of course," a.s.sented Glyddyr drawing a long hoa.r.s.e breath.