Starvecrow Farm Part 44

Clyne did not utter a syllable, but he beckoned to the other to come out to him. And, with a chap-fallen look and a brick-red face, h.o.r.n.yold complied, and went out. Clyne closed the door on the girl--that she might not hear. And the two men alone in the yard confronted one another, Clyne's face was dark.

"I overheard your last words, Mr. h.o.r.n.yold," he said in a voice low but stern. "And you are mistaken. There is a parson here--who has forgotten that he is a gentleman. It is well for him, very well, that having forgotten that fact he remains a parson."

h.o.r.n.yold tried to bl.u.s.ter, tried to face the other down and save the situation. "I don't understand you!" he said. "What does this mean?"

He was the taller man and the bigger, but Clyne's air of contemptuous mastery made him appear the smaller. "I don't understand you," he repeated. "The young lady--I merely came to visit her."

"The less," Clyne retorted, cutting him short, "said about her the better! I understand perfectly, sir," with severity, "if you do not!

Perfectly. And I desire you to understand that it is your cloth only that protects you from the punishment you deserve!"

"That's easy said!" h.o.r.n.yold answered with a poor attempt at defiance.

"Easy! What! Are we to have all this fuss about a chit that----"

"Silence, sir!" And Clyne's voice rang so loud that the other not only obeyed but stepped back, as if he feared a blow. "Silence, sir! I know you well enough, and your past, to know that you cannot afford a scandal. And you know me! I advise you, therefore, when you have pa.s.sed that door"--he pointed to the door leading to the prison lodge, "to keep a still tongue, and to treat this lady's name with respect.

If not for the sake of your own character, for the sake, at any rate, of your ill-earned stipends."

"Fine words!" h.o.r.n.yold muttered, with a sneer of bravado.

"I will make them good," Clyne answered. And the look and the tone were such that the other, high as he wished to carry it, thought discretion the better part. He turned, still sneering, on his heel, and cutting the air with his whip made his way with what dignity he might to the door. He hesitated an instant and then disappeared, raging inwardly.

The moment he was gone Clyne's face relaxed. He pa.s.sed his hand over his brow as if to recall his thoughts, and he sighed deeply. Then turning he went slowly to Henrietta's door and tapped on it. The girl opened. "May I speak to you?" he said.

She did not answer, but she stepped out. She had recovered her self-control--quickly and completely, as women do; and her face told nothing. Whatever she thought of his intervention and of the manner in which he had routed h.o.r.n.yold, she made no sign. She waited for him to speak. Yet she was aware not only of his downcast carriage, but of the change which sleepless nights and days of unutterable suspense had wrought in his face. His features were thinner and sharper, his temples more hollow: and there was a listening, hungry look in his eyes which did not quit them even when he dealt with other things than his loss.

"I have brought an order for your release," he said without an attempt at preface. "I have given bail for your appearance when needed. You are free to go. You have not to thank me, however, but Mr. Sutton, who discovered the letter that was written to you----"

She interrupted him by an exclamation.

"The letter," he continued mechanically, "that was written to you making an appointment."

"Impossible!" she cried. "I destroyed it."

"He put it together again," he answered in the same tone. "I--we are all indebted to him. Deeply indebted to him! I don't know that there is anything more to be said," he continued dully, "except that I have come to take you back. I was coming last evening, but the snow prevented me."

"And that is all--you have to say?"

He raised his eyes to hers with so much sadness in their depths, with such utter dejection in his looks, that in spite of all her efforts to keep it alive, her anger drooped. "Except that I am sorry," he said.

"I am sorry. We have treated you--badly amongst us."

"You!" she said vindictively.

"I, if you like. Yes, I. It is true."

She called up the remembrance of the severity with which he had judged her and the violence of which her wrist still wore the traces. She pictured the disgrace of the prison and her fears, the nights of apprehension and the days of loneliness, ay, and the insolence of the wretch who had just left her--she owed all to him! All! And yet she could not keep her anger hot. She tried. She tried to show him something of what she felt. "You!" she repeated. "And now you think,"

bitterly, "that I shall bear to go back to the place from which you sent me? Sent me in open disgrace--in that man's charge--with no woman with me?"

"G.o.d help me!" he said. "I know not what to think or do! I thought that if I took you back myself, that would perhaps be best for all."

She was silent a moment, and then, "I have been very, very unhappy,"

she said in a different tone. And even while she said it she wondered why she complained to him, instead of accusing him, and blaming him.

"I believe it," he said slowly. "We have wronged one another. Let it stand at that."

"You believe, you do believe now," she said, "that I had no hand in stealing him?"

"I do."

"And knew naught of it," she insisted earnestly, "before or after?"

"I do."

"I would have cut off my hand first!" she said.

"I believe it," he answered sorrowfully.

Then they were both silent. And she wondered at herself. Why did she not hate him? Why did she not pour out on him the vials of her indignation? He had treated her badly, always badly. The wrong which she had done him in the first place, he had avenged by a gross insult to her womanhood. Then not satisfied with that, he had been quick to believe the worst of her. He had been violent to her, he had bullied her: and when he found that she was not to be wrung to compliance with his orders, he had degraded her to a public prison as if she had been the worst of her s.e.x--instead of his kith and kin. Even now when his eyes were open to his injustice, even now when he acknowledged that he owed amends, he came to her with a few poor words, meagre, scanty words, a miserable "I am sorry, you are free." And that was all. That was all!

And yet her rage drooped cold, her spirit seemed dead. The scathing reproaches, the fierce truths which had bubbled to her lips as she lay feverish on her prison-bed, the hot tears which had scalded her eyes, now that she might give them vent, now that he might be wounded by them and made to see his miserableness--were not! She stood mute and pale, wondering at the change, wondering at her mildness. And when he said meekly, "The chaise is ready, will you make your preparations?"

she went to do his bidding as if she had done nothing but obey him all her life.

CHAPTER XXVI

A RECONCILIATION

When she had filled her band-box, and with a tearful laugh looked her last on the cell, she emerged from the yard. She found Captain Clyne awaiting her with his hand on the key of the prison gate. He saw her look doubtfully at the closed lodge-door; and he misread the look.

"I thought," he said, "that you would wish to be spared seeing more of them. I have," with a faint smile, "authority to open."

"Oh!" she answered, wrinkling her pretty brow in perplexity. "But I must see them, please. They have not been unkind to me, and I should not like to go without thanking them."

And before he could remonstrate, she had pushed open the lodge door and gone within.

"Now, Mrs. Weighton," he heard her cry, "you'll give me a character, won't you? I've behaved well now, haven't I?"

"Yes, miss, I'll say that," the woman answered stolidly.

"I haven't scratched nor screamed, and I've done as I've been bid? And you've had no use for the pump water?"

"I wish you hadn't swept out the yard," grudgingly; "'twas no order of mine, you'll remember. And don't you go and say that I've treated you ill!"

"I'll not! Indeed, I'll not!" Henrietta cried in a different tone.

"I'll say you treated me very well. And that is for your little girl to make up for her disappointment. She'll be sorry I'm not going to be transported," with a hint of laughter in her voice. "And, Mrs.

Weighton, I'm going to ask you something."

"Well, miss? If it is to oblige you?"