The Danvers Jewels, and Sir Charles Danvers Part 51

_"There is no one to tell if you don't."_

CHAPTER XXVIII.

It was close on dressing-time when Charles came into the drawing-room, where Evelyn and Molly were building castles on the hearth-rug in the ruddy firelight. After changing his damp clothes, he had gone to the smoking-room, but he had found Dare sitting there in a vast dressing-gown of Ralph's, in a state of such utter dejection, with his head in his hands, that he had silently retreated again before he had been perceived. He did not want to see Dare just now. He wished he were not in the house.

Quite oblivious of the fact that he was not in Evelyn's good graces, he went and sat by the drawing-room fire, and absently watched Molly playing with her bricks. Presently, when the dressing-bell rang, Evelyn went away to dress, and Molly, tired of her castles, suggested that she might sit on his knee.

He let her climb up and wriggle and finally settle herself as it seemed good to her, but he did not speak; and so they sat in the firelight together, Molly's hand lovingly stroking his black velvet coat. But her talents lay in conversation, not in silence, and she soon broke it.

"You do look beautiful to-night, Uncle Charles."

"Do I?" without elation.

"Do you know, Uncle Charles, Ninny's sister with the wart on her cheek has been to tea? She's in the nursery now. Ninny says she's to have a bite of supper before she goes."

"You don't say so?"

"And we had b.u.t.tered toast to tea, and she said you were the most splendid gentleman she ever saw."

Charles did not answer. He did not even seem to have heard this interesting tribute to his personal appearance. Molly felt that something must be gravely amiss, and, laying her soft cheek against his, she whispered, confidentially:

"Uncle Charles, are you uncomferable inside?"

There was a long pause.

"Yes, Molly," at last, pressing her to him.

"Is it there?" said Molly, sympathetically, laying her hand on the front portion of her amber sash.

"No, Molly; I only wish it were."

"It's not the little green pears, then," said Molly, with the sigh of experience, "because it's always _just_ there, _always_, with them. It was again yesterday. They're nasty little pears,"--with a touch of personal resentment.

Uncle Charles smiled at last, but it was not quite his usual smile.

"Miss Molly," said a voice from the door, "your mamma has sent for you."

"It's not bedtime yet."

"Your mamma says you are to come at once," was the reply.

Molly, knowing from experience that an appeal to Charles was useless on these occasions, wriggled down from her perch rather reluctantly, and bade her uncle "Good-night."

"Perhaps it will be better to-morrow," she said, consolingly.

"Perhaps," he said, nodding at her; and he took her little head between his hands, and kissed her. She rubbed his kiss off again, and walked gravely away. She could not be merry and ride in triumph up-stairs on kind curvetting Sarah's willing back, while her friend was "uncomferable inside." There was no galloping down the pa.s.sage that night, no pleasantries with the sponge in Molly's tub, no last caperings in light attire. Molly went silently to bed, and as on a previous occasion when in great anxiety about Vic, who had thoughtlessly gone out in the twilight for a stroll, and had forgotten the lapse of time, she added a whispered clause to her little pet.i.tions which the ear of "Ninny" failed to catch.

Charles recognized, in the way Evelyn had taken Molly from him, that she was not yet appeased. It should be remembered, in order to do her justice, that a good woman's means of showing a proper resentment are so straitened and circ.u.mscribed by her conscience that she is obliged, from actual want of material, to resort occasionally to little acts of domestic tyranny, small in themselves as midge bites, but, fortunately for the cause of virtue, equally exasperating. Indeed, it is improbable that any really good woman would ever so far forget herself as to lose her temper, if she were once thoroughly aware how much more irritating in the long-run a judicious course of those small persecutions may be made, which the tenderest conscience need not scruple to inflict.

Charles was unreasonably annoyed at having Molly taken from him. As he sat by the fire alone, tired in mind and body, a hovering sense of cold, and an intense weariness of life took him; and a great longing came over him like a thirst--a longing for a little of the personal happiness which seemed to be the common lot of so many round him; for a home where he had now only a house; for love and warmth and companions.h.i.+p, and possibly some day a little Molly of his own, who would not be taken from him at the caprice of another.

The only barrier to the fulfilment of such a dream had been a conscientious scruple of Ruth's, to which at the time he had urged upon her that she did wrong to yield. That barrier was now broken down; but it ought never to have existed. Ruth and he belonged to each other by divine law, and she had no right to give herself to any one else to satisfy her own conscience. And now--all would be well. She was absolved from her promise. She had been wrong to persist in keeping it, in his opinion; but at any rate she was honorably released from it now. And she would marry him.

And that _second_ promise, which she had made to Dare, that she would still marry him if he were free to marry?

Charles moved impatiently in his chair. From what exaggerated sense of duty she had made that promise he knew not; but he would save her from the effects of her own perverted judgment. He knew what Ruth's word meant, since he had tried to make her break it. He knew that she had promised to marry Dare if he were free. He knew that, having made that promise, she would keep it.

It would be mere sentimental folly on his part to say the word that would set Dare free. Even if the American woman were not his wife in the eye of the law, she had a moral claim upon him. The possibility of Ruth's still marrying Dare was too hideous to be thought of. If her judgment was so entirely perverted by a morbid conscientious fear of following her own inclination that she could actually give Dare that promise, directly after the arrival of the adventuress, Charles would take the decision out of her hands. As she could not judge fairly for herself, he would judge for her, and save her from herself.

For her sake as much as for his own he resolved to say nothing. He had only to keep silence.

_"There's no one to tell if you don't."_

The door opened, and Charles gave a start as Dare came into the room. He was taken aback by the sudden rush of jealous hatred that surged up within him at his appearance. It angered and shamed him, and Dare, much shattered but feebly cordial, found him very irresponsive and silent for the few minutes that remained before the dinner-bell rang, and the others came down.

It was not a pleasant meal. If Dare had been a shade less ill, he must have noticed the marked coldness of Evelyn's manner, and how Ralph good-naturedly endeavored to make up for it by double helpings of soup and fish, which he was quite unable to eat. Charles and Lady Mary were never congenial spirits at the best of times, and to-night was not the best. That lady, after feebly provoking the attack, as usual, sustained some crus.h.i.+ng defeats, mainly couched in the language of Scripture, which was, as she felt with Christian indignation, turning her own favorite weapon against herself, as possibly Charles thought she deserved, for putting such a weapon to so despicable a use.

"I really don't know," she said, tremulously, afterwards in the drawing-room, "what Charles will come to if he goes on like this. I don't mind"--venomously--"his tone towards myself. That I do not regard; but his entire want of reverence for the Church and apostolic succession; his profane remarks about vestments; in short, his entire att.i.tude towards religion gives me the gravest anxiety."

In the dining-room the conversation flagged, and Charles was beginning to wonder whether he could make some excuse and bolt, when a servant came in with a note for him. It was from the doctor in D----, and ran as follows:

"DEAR SIR,

"I have just seen (6.30 P.M.) Stephens again. I found him in a state of the wildest excitement, and he implored me to send you word that he wanted to see you again. He seemed so sure that you would go if you knew he wished it, that I have commissioned Sergeant Brown's boy to take this. He wished me to say 'there was something more.' If there is any further confession he desires to make, he has not much time to do it in. I did not expect he would have lasted till now. As it is, he is going fast. Indeed, I hardly think you will be in time to see him; but I promised to give you this message.

Yours faithfully, R. WHITE."

"I must go," Charles said, throwing the note across to Ralph. "Give the boy half a crown, will you? I suppose I may take Oth.e.l.lo?" and before Ralph had mastered the contents of the note, and begun to fumble for a half-crown, Charles was saddling Oth.e.l.lo himself, without waiting for the groom, and in a few minutes was clattering over the stones out of the yard.

There was just light enough to ride by, and he rode hard. What was it--what could it be that Raymond had still to tell him? He felt certain it had something to do with Ruth, and probably Dare. Should he arrive in time to hear it? There at last were the lights of D---- in front of him.

Should he arrive in time? As he pulled up his steaming horse before the police-station his heart misgave him.

"Am I too late?" he asked of the man who came to the door.

He looked bewildered.

"Stephens! Is he dead?"

The man shook his head.

"They say he's a'most gone."

Charles threw the rein to him, and hurried in-doors. He met some one coming out, the doctor probably, he thought afterwards, who took him up-stairs, and sent away the old woman who was in attendance.

"I can't do anything more," he said, opening the door for him. "Wanted elsewhere. Very good of you, I'm sure. Not much use, I'm afraid.