"Well, by my grandfather, if you so prefer it," repeats he, with much unconcern. "It got itself, if it ever existed, irretrievably lost, and that is all any one knows about it."
Mona is watching him intently.
"Yet I feel sure--I know," she says, tremulously, "you are hiding something from me. Why do you not look at me when you answer my questions?"
At this his dark face flames, and his eyes instinctively, yet almost against his will, seek hers.
"Why?" he says, with suppressed pa.s.sion. "Because, each time I do, I know myself to be--what I am! Your truthful eyes are mirrors in which my heart lies bare." With an effort he recovers himself, and, drawing his breath quickly, grows calm again. "If I were to gaze at you as often as I should desire, you would probably deem me impertinent," he says, with a lapse into his former half-insolent tone.
"Answer me," persists Mona, not heeding--nay, scarcely hearing--his last speech. "You said once it would be difficult to lie to me. Do you know anything of this missing will?"
"A great deal. I should. I have heard of almost nothing else since my arrival in England," replies he, slowly.
"Ah! Then you refuse to answer me," says Mona, hastily, if somewhat wearily.
He makes no reply. And for a full minute no word is spoken between them.
Then Mona goes on quietly,--
"That night at Chetwoode you made use of some words that I have never forgotten since."
He is plainly surprised. He is indeed glad. His face changes, as if by magic, from sullen gloom to pleasurable antic.i.p.ation.
"You have remembered something that I said, for eleven days?" he says, quickly.
"Yes. When talking then of supplanting Sir Nicholas at the Towers, you spoke of your project as a "splendid scheme." What did you mean by it? I cannot get the words out of my head since. Is "scheme" an honest word?"
Her tone is only too significant. His face has grown black again. A heavy frown sits on his brow.
"You are not perhaps aware of it, but your tone is insulting," he begins, huskily. "Were you a man I could give you an answer, now, here; but as it is I am of course tied hand and foot. You can say to me what you please. And I shall bear it. Think as badly of me as you will. I am a schemer, a swindler, what you will!"
"Even in my thoughts I never applied those words to you," says Mona, earnestly. "Yet some feeling here"--laying her hand upon her heart--"compels me to believe you are not dealing fairly by us." To her there is untruth in every line of his face, in every tone of his voice.
"You condemn me without a hearing, swayed by the influence of a carefully educated dislike," retorts he:
""Alas for the rarity Of Christian charity Under the sun!"
But I blame the people you have fallen among,--not you."
"Blame no one," says Mona. "But if there is anything in your own heart to condemn you, then pause before you go further in this matter of the Towers."
"I wonder _you_ are not afraid of going too far," he puts in, warningly, his dark eyes flashing.
"I am afraid of nothing," says Mona, simply. "I am not half so much afraid as you were a few moments since, when you could not let your eyes meet mine, and when you shrank from answering me a simple question. In my turn I tell you to pause before going too far."
"Your advice is excellent," says he, sneeringly. Then suddenly he stops short before her, and breaks out vehemently,----
"Were I to fling up this whole business and resign my chance, and leave these people in possession, what would I gain by it?" demands he. "They have treated me from the beginning with ignominy and contempt. You alone have treated me with common civility; and even you they have tutored to regard me with averted eyes."
"You are wrong," says Mona, coldly. "They seldom trouble themselves to speak of you at all." This is crueller than she knows.
"Why don"t I hate you?" he says, with some emotion. "How bitterly unkind even the softest, sweetest women can be! Yet there is something about you that subdues me and renders hatred impossible. If I had never met you, I should be a happier man."
"How can you be happy with a weight upon your heart?" says Mona, following out her own thoughts irrespective of his. "Give up this project, and peace will return to you."
"No, I shall pursue it to its end," returns, he, with slow malice, that makes her heart grow cold, "until the day comes that shall enable me to plant my heel upon these aristocrats and crush them out of recognition."
"And after that what will remain to you?" asks she, pale but collected.
"It is bare comfort when hatred alone reigns in the heart. With such thoughts in your breast what can you hope for?--what can life give you?"
"Something," replies he, with a short laugh. "I shall at least see you again on the 19th."
He raises his hat, and, turning abruptly away, is soon lost to sight round a curve in the winding pathway. He walks steadily and with an unflinching air, but when the curve has hidden him from her eyes he stops short, and sighs heavily.
"To love such a woman as that, and be beloved by her, how it would change a man"s whole nature, no matter how low he may have sunk," he says, slowly. "It would mean salvation! But as it is--No, I cannot draw back now: it is too late."
Meantime Mona has gone quickly back to the Towers her mind disturbed and unsettled. Has she misjudged him? is it possible that his claim is a just one after all, and that she has been wrong in deeming him one who might defraud his neighbor?
She is sad and depressed before she reaches the hall door, where she is unfortunate enough to find a carriage just arrived, well filled with occupants eager to obtain admission.
They are the Carsons, mustered in force, and, if anything, a trifle more noisy and oppressive than usual.
"How d"ye do, Mrs. Rodney? Is Lady Rodney at home? I hope so," says Mrs.
Carson, a fat, florid, smiling, impossible person of fifty.
Now, Lady Rodney _is_ at home, but, having given strict orders to the servants to say she is anywhere else they like,--that is, to tell as many lies as will save her from intrusion,--is just now reposing calmly in the small drawing-room, sleeping the sleep of the just, unmindful of coming evil.
Of all this Mona is unaware; though even were it otherwise I doubt if a lie could come trippingly to her lips, or a nice evasion be balanced there at a moment"s notice. Such foul things as untruths are unknown to her, and have no refuge in her heart. It is indeed fortunate that on this occasion she knows no reason why her reply should differ from the truth, because in that case I think she would stand still, and stammer sadly, and grow uncomfortably red, and otherwise betray the fact that she would lie if she knew how.
As things are, however, she is able to smile pleasantly at Mrs. Carson, and tell her in her soft voice that Lady Rodney is at home.
"How fortunate!" says that fat woman, with her broad expansive grin that leaves her all mouth, with no eyes or nose to speak of. "We hardly dared hope for such good luck this charming day."
She doesn"t put any _g_ into her "charming," which, however, is neither here or there, and is perhaps a shabby thing to take notice of at all.
Then she and her two daughters quit the "coach," as Carson _pere_ insist on calling the landau, and flutter through the halls, and across the corridors, after Mona, until they reach the room that contains Lady Rodney.
Mona throws open the door, and the visitors sail in, all open-eyed and smiling, with their very best company manners hung out for the day.
But almost on the threshold they come to a full stop to gaze irresolutely at one another, and then over their shoulders at Mona. She, marking their surprise, comes hastily to the front, and so makes herself acquainted with the cause of their delay.
Overcome by the heat of the fire, her luncheon, and the blessed certainty that for this one day at least no one is to be admitted to her presence, Lady Rodney has given herself up a willing victim to the child Somnus. Her book--that amiable a.s.sistant of all those that court siestas--has fallen to the ground. Her cap is somewhat awry. Her mouth is partly open, and a snore--gentle, indeed, but distinct and unmistakable--comes from her patrician throat.
It is a moment never to be forgotten!
Mona, horror-stricken, goes quickly over to her, and touches her lightly on the shoulder.
"Mrs. Carson has come to see you," she says, in an agony of fear, giving her a little shake.