King of the Castle Part 52

"Yes, dear, directly. Mute as a fish; but it was such fun to watch his pleading looks and refuse silently all his prayers--for your sake, darling. Remember that."

"You are always good to me, Mary."

"You don't half know, my dear. Then, after a time, a change came over the man, and he grew cross. I could see him growling mentally, and calling me names for a little crook-backed female Richard the Third, and once I thought he was going to kick me out of the door, or throw me out of the window, for being such an idiot as to stay."

"Mary, what nonsense you do talk."

"It is not nonsense, dear. Uncle kept the doctor out in the garden, so that Mr Glyddyr could come and have a sweet little chat with you; and I ought to have left the room, of course, but, to oblige you, I sat here like an ice, and kept the enemy at a distance. Oh, how he must hate me!"

"Mary, dear, pray be serious."

"Oh, yes, I'll be serious enough, dear. There, I am solidity itself; I could not be better, I'm sure, when the enemy approaches," she whispered, as steps were once more heard crossing the hall.

"Shall I go, dear? Perhaps I had better now."

She rose from her seat and set down her cup, but Claude laid her hand upon the thin little arm, and motioned towards a chair.

The door opened, and Glyddyr re-entered.

"I beg your pardon," he said; and the matter-of-fact man of the world seemed to have quite lost his ordinary _aplomb_, and came on in a quiet, hesitating way.

"I'm afraid I was very rude leaving you like that," he said; "and I did not thank you for the duet."

"We needed no thanks, Mr Glyddyr," said Claude gravely.

"No, no, of course not," he said. "I meant to thank you. Mr Gartram is asleep, and if you will not think me rude, I will go and sit in the study and smoke a cigar."

"Pray do, Mr Glyddyr," said Claude; and he once more left the room.

"Well, I couldn't have believed it, Claudie. The lion completely tamed by love. Why, my poor darling, you've turned him from a sarcastic, sharp-tongued, clever London society man to a weak, hesitating lover."

"For goodness' sake, don't talk like that, Mary," cried Claude; for the picture her cousin painted seemed to her terrible. She literally shuddered at the idea of this man really loving her, and sat looking aghast before her, while Glyddyr went slowly back, so excited that the perspiration oozed from his brow, and made him unconsciously take out his pocket handkerchief to wipe the palms of his hands.

Upon the first occasion he had strung himself up and walked quickly to the study determined to carry out his plans.

"It will only be a loan," he told himself; "only borrowing what is to be my own some day, and he would never miss it."

Closing the door behind him, and merely glancing at the easy-chair in which Gartram lay back, with his face in the shade, and his white s.h.i.+rt-front standing out of the gloom like some peculiar creature, Glyddyr walked to the mantelpiece, looked at the gla.s.s; then crossed to the table, and began picking and choosing from the cigars in the box, as in a furtive way he listened to his host's slow, heavy breathing, and wondered whether he was sufficiently sound for him to attempt to get his keys.

The breathing came very regularly, and at last, after hesitating a great deal on the selection of a cigar, he said aloud--

"Where do you get your cigars, Mr Gartram?"

No reply; only the heavy breathing.

"I said where did you get your cigars?" said Glyddyr, still more loudly.

"He must be safe," he thought to himself; and to make sure he walked carelessly to the side of the chair, and gazed full in Gartram's face.

"He would have winced if there had been any pretence," he thought. And then, "Pooh! what a fool I am."

He glanced at the table in whose drawer the keys reposed, looked at the great section of the bookcase which swung round as upon a pivot, and then he walked quickly to the window and looked out right and left, listening the while to the beating of the waves upon the rocky coast far below.

"While I am hesitating," he thought, "I might do it. The doctor can't be back yet, and no one is likely to come."

There was a step outside.

He took a couple of strides, and then sharply threw himself into an easy-chair near the bookcase, and lay back in almost profound darkness, for the rays of the moon cut right across from the window, bathing the carpet with a soft light, but leaving beyond the well-defined line a deep shadow.

He had hardly taken his place when there was a faint tap at the panel of the door, the handle turned, and, silent and ghastly-looking in the gloom, Sarah Woodham came into the room, closed the door behind her, and walked across to Gartram's chair.

Volume Two, Chapter IX.

AN UNPLEASANT POSITION.

"It's enough to drive a man mad," said Chris Lisle, as he sat in his room with a book in his hand, one which he had been vainly trying to read. "To think of him having the run of the Fort, and constant opportunities of being at her side. But I will not think about it."

He settled himself back in his chair, raised the open book once more to his eyes, uttered a mocking laugh at his own expense, and threw the volume pa.s.sionately across the room, for he had realised that he had been sitting there for a full hour making pretence of reading with the book upside down.

"I could not have believed that I was such a fool," he growled fiercely; "but always with her!" he added softly, as the wearing, tormenting thought uppermost in his brain a.s.serted itself.

"Women are naturally weak, and it is Gartram's wish. How could I be surprised if she yielded? No, she would not; she is too firm, and I am a contemptible brute to want faith in her."

He felt a little better after that, roundly taking himself to task; and it was like a mental stimulus; but, like the action of most stimulants, the effect was not lasting.

"It is not as if she had confessed her love for me, and promised to be my wife some day. If she had pledged herself to me, I would not have cared, but I have nothing to hold on by; and if she obeyed her father's wishes, what right have I to complain? Oh, it will drive me mad!" he muttered, as he leaped up and paced the room.

At that moment there was a tap at the door.

"Come in!" roared Chris, as impatiently as if he had answered half-a-dozen times.

"It's only me, Mr Lisle," said his landlady, "and I'm sure I beg your pardon for coming in; but it does worry me so to hear you walking up and down so in such agony. Now do be advised by me, sir; I'm getting on in years, and I've had some experience of such things."

"Oh, yes, yes, Mrs Sarson; but, pray, don't bother me now."

"Indeed, no, sir, I won't; but though I can't help admiring the fort.i.tude you show, it is more than I can bear to sit in my little room and hear you walking up and down in such pain. Now mark my word, Mr Lisle, sir, it's _not_ toothache."

"No, no," he said impatiently; "it is not toothache."

"No, sir. Which well I know. It's what the doctors call newrallergeer."

"My dear Mrs Sarson--"

"No, no, my dear, don't be cross with a poor woman whose only idea is to try and do you good. No one knows what it is better than I do. I've had your gnawing toothache, which is bad enough for anything; but your jig, jigging newrallergeer is ten times worse, and it makes me pity you, Mr Lisle."

"Yes, thank you, Mrs Sarson, I am greatly obliged to you, but--"

"Take my word for it, sir, 'tis your stomach, and you won't be no better till you've had a tonic."