The inspection seemed to afford a grim satisfaction. There could be no doubt now of the ghostly smile that played upon his face.
There was a tall antique clock in the corner of the hall. It struck eight. The slow beats of the bell echoed chillily in the hushed apartment. The hour awakened the consciousness of the brooding man. At eight o"clock Mr. Bonnithorne was appointed to be there to make the will.
Hugh Ritson touched gently a hand-bell that stood on the table. A servant entered.
"Send Natt to me," said Hugh.
A moment later the stableman shambled into the hall. He was a thick-set young fellow with a short neck and a full face, and eyelids that hung deep over a pair of cunning eyes. At first sight one would have said that the rascal was only half awake; at the second glance, that he was never asleep.
Hugh received him with a show of cordiality.
"Ah, Natt, come here--closer."
The man walked across. Hugh dropped his voice.
"Go down to Little Town and find Mr. Bonnithorne. You may meet him on the way. If not, he will be at the Flying Horse. Tell him I sent you to say that Adam Fallow lies dying at Bigrigg, and must see him at once.
You understand?"
The man lifted his slumberous eyelids. A suspicious twinkle lurked beneath them. He glanced around, then down at his big, grimy boots, measured with one uplifted hand the alt.i.tude of the b.u.mp on the top of his bullet head, and muttered, "I understand."
Hugh"s face darkened.
"Silence!" he said, sternly; and then he met Natt"s upward glance with a faint smile. "When you come back, get yourself out of the way--do you hear?"
The heavy eyelids went up once more. "I hear."
"Then be off!"
The fellow was shuffling away.
"Natt," said Hugh, following him a step, "you fancied that new whip of mine; take it. You"ll find it in the porch."
A smile crossed Natt"s face from ear to ear. He stumbled out.
Hugh Ritson returned to the hearth. That haunting mirror caught the light of his eyes again and showed that he too was smiling. At the same instant there came from the inner room the dull, dead sound of a deep sob. It banished the smile and made him pause. He looked at the reflection of his face--could it be the face of a scoundrel? Was he playing a base part? No, he was merely a.s.serting his rights; his plain legal rights--nothing more.
He opened a cupboard in the wall and took down a bunch of keys.
Selecting one key, he stepped up to a cabinet and opened it. In a compartment were many loose papers. Now to see if by chance there existed a will already. He glanced at the papers one by one and threw them aside. When he had finished his inspection he took a hasty turn about the room. No trace--he had been sure of it!
Again the deep sob came from within. Hugh Ritson walked noiselessly to the inner door, opened it slightly, bent his head, and listened. He turned away with an expression of pain, picked up his hat, and went out.
The night was very dark. He strode a few paces down the lonnin and then back to the porch. Uncovering his head, he let the night wind cool his hot temples. His breath came audibly and hard. He was turning again into the house when his eye was arrested by a light near the turning of the high-road. The light was approaching; he walked toward it, and met Josiah Bonnithorne. The lawyer was jouncing along toward the house with a lantern in his hand.
"Didn"t you meet the stableman?" said Hugh in an eager whisper.
"No."
"The blockhead must have taken the old pack-horse road on the fell-side.
One would be safe in that fool"s stupidity. You have heard what has happened?"
"I have."
"There is no will already."
"And your father is insensible?"
"Yes."
"Then none shall be made."
There was a pause, in which the darkness itself seemed full of speech.
The lantern cast its light only on an open cart-shed in the lane.
"If your mother is the Grace Ormerod who married Robert Lowther and had a son by him, then Paul was that son--the heir to Lowther"s conscience-money."
"Bonnithorne," said Hugh Ritson--his voice trembled and broke--"if it is so, then it is so, and we need do nothing. Remember, he is my father. It is not within belief that he wants to disinherit his own son for the son of another man."
Mr. Bonnithorne broke into a half-smothered laugh, and stepped close into the cobble-hedge, keeping the lantern down.
"Your father--yes. But you have seen to-day what that may come to. He has always held you under his hand. Paul has been the old man"s favorite."
"No doubt of that." Hugh crept close to the lawyer. He was wrestling in the coil of a tragic temptation.
"If he recovers consciousness, he may be tempted to recognize as his own his wife"s illegitimate son. That"--the low tone was one of withering irony--"will keep her from dishonor, and you from the estates."
"At least he is my brother--my mother"s son. If my father wishes to provide for him, G.o.d forbid that we should prevent."
Once more the half-smothered laugh came through the darkness.
"You have missed your vocation, Mr. Ritson. Believe me, the Gospel has lost a fervent advocate. Perhaps you would like to pray for this good brother; perhaps you would consider it safe to drop on your knee and say, "My good brother that should be, who has ever loved me, whom I have ever loved, take here my fortune, and leave me until death a penniless dependent on the lands that are mine by right of birth.""
Hugh Ritson"s breath came in gusts through his quivering, unseen lips.
"Bonnithorne, it cannot be--it is mere coincidence, seductive, d.a.m.ning coincidence. My mother knows all. If it were true that Paul was the son of Lowther, she would know that Paul and Greta must be half-brother and half-sister. She would stop their unnatural union."
"And do you think I have waited until now to sound that shoal water with a cautious plummet? Your mother is as ignorant of the propinquity as Greta herself. Lowther was dead before your family settled in Newlands.
The families never once came together while the widow lived. And now not a relative survives who can tell the story."
"Parson Christian?" said Hugh Ritson.
"A great child just out of swaddling-clothes!"
"Then the secret rests with you and me, Bonnithorne?"
"Who else? The marriage must not come off. Greta is Paul"s half-sister, but she is no relative of yours--"
"You are right, Bonnithorne," Hugh Ritson broke in; "the marriage is against nature."