Charles, whose temper was singularly irritable this morning, repeated with suppressed annoyance the greater part of what he had just said, and proved to Dare that the fact that Stephens was dead would in no way prevent the illegality of his marriage being proved.
When Dare had grasped the full significance of that fact he was quite overcome.
"Am I, then," he gasped--"is it true?--am I free--to marry?"
"Quite free."
Dare burst into tears, and, partially veiling with one hand the manly emotion that had overtaken him, he extended the other to Charles, who did not know what to do with it when he had got it, and dropped it as soon as he could. But Dare, like many people whose feelings are all on the surface, and who are rather proud of displaying them, was slow to notice what was pa.s.sing in the minds of others.
He sprang to his feet, and began to pace rapidly up and down.
"I will go after breakfast--at once--immediately after breakfast, to Slumberleigh Rectory."
"I suppose, in that case, Miss Deyncourt is the person whose name you would not mention the other day?"
"She is," said Dare. "You are right. It is she. We are betrothed. I will fly to her after breakfast."
"You know your own affairs best," said Charles, whose temper had not been improved by the free display of Dare"s finer feelings; "but I am not sure you would not do well to fly to Vandon first. It is best to be off with the old love, I believe, before you are on with the new."
"She must at once go away from Vandon," said Dare, stopping short. "She is a scandal, the--the old one. But how to make her go away?"
It was in vain for Charles to repeat that Dare must turn her out. Dare had premonitory feelings that he was quite unequal to the task.
"I may tell her to go," he said, raising his eyebrows. "I may be firm as the rock, but I know her well; she is more obstinate than me. She will not go."
"She must," said Charles, with anger. "Her presence compromises Miss Deyncourt. Can"t you see that?"
Dare raised his eyebrows. A light seemed to break in on him.
"Any fool can see that," said Charles, losing his temper.
Dare saw a great deal--many things besides that. He saw that if a friend, a trusted friend, were to manage her dismissal, it would be more easy for that friend than for one whose feelings at the moment might carry him away. In short, Charles was the friend who was evidently pointed out by Providence for that mission.
Charles considered a moment. He began to see that it would not be done without further delays and scandal unless he did it.
"She must and shall go at once, even if I have to do it," he said at last, looking at Dare with unconcealed contempt. "It is not my affair, but I will go, and you will be so good as to put off the flying over to Slumberleigh till I come back. I shall not return until she has left the house." And Charles marched out of the room, too indignant to trust himself a moment longer with the profusely grateful Dare.
"That man must go to-day," said Evelyn, after breakfast, to her husband, in the presence of Lady Mary and Charles. "While he was ill I overlooked his being in the house; but I will not suffer him to remain now he is well."
"You remove him from all chance of improvement," said Charles, "if you take him away from Aunt Mary, who can s.n.a.t.c.h brands from the burning, as we all know; but I am going over to Vandon this morning, and if you wish it I will ask him if he would like me to order his dog-cart to come for him. I don"t suppose he is very happy here, without so much as a tooth-brush that he can call his own."
"You are going to Vandon?" asked both ladies in one voice.
"Yes. I am going on purpose to dislodge an impostor who has arrived there, who is actually believed by some people (who are not such exemplary Christians as ourselves, and ready to suppose the worst) to be his wife."
Lady Mary and Evelyn looked at each other in consternation, and Charles went off to see how Oth.e.l.lo was after his night"s work, and to order the dog-cart, Ralph calling after him, in perfect good-humor, that "a fellow"s brother got more out of a fellow"s horses than a fellow did himself."
Dare waylaid Charles on his return from the stables, and linked his arm in his. He felt the most enthusiastic admiration for the tall reserved Englishman who had done him such signal service. He longed for an opportunity of showing his grat.i.tude to him. It was perhaps just as well that he was not aware how very differently Charles regarded himself.
"You are just going?" Dare asked.
"In five minutes."
Charles let his arm hang straight down, but Dare kept it.
"Tell me, my friend, one thing." Dare had evidently been turning over something in his mind. "This poor unfortunate, this Stephens, why did he not tell you all this the _first_ time you went to see him in the afternoon?"
"He did."
"What?" said Dare, looking hard at him. "He _did_, and you only tell me this morning! You let me go all through the night first. Why was this?"
Charles did not answer.
"I ask one thing more," continued Dare. "Did you divine two nights ago, from what I said in a moment of confidence, that Miss Deyncourt was the--the--"
"Of course I did," said Charles, sharply. "You made it sufficiently obvious."
"Ah!" said Dare. "Ah!" and he shut his eyes and nodded his head several times.
"Anything more you would like to know?" asked Charles, inattentive and impatient, mainly occupied in trying to hide the nameless exasperation which invariably seized him when he looked at Dare, and to stifle the contemptuous voice which always whispered as he did so, "And you have given up Ruth to him--to _him_!"
"No, no, no!" said Dare, shaking his head gently, and regarding him the while with infinite interest through his half-closed eyelids.
The dog-cart was coming round, and Charles hastily turned from him, and, getting in, drove quickly away. Whatever Dare said or did seemed to set his teeth on edge, and he lashed up the horse till he was out of sight of the house.
Dare, with arms picturesquely folded, stood looking after him with mixed feelings of emotion and admiration.
"One sees it well," he said to himself. "One sees now the reason of many things. He kept silent at first, but he was too good, too n.o.ble. In the night he considered; in the morning he told all. I wondered that he went to Vandon; but he did it not for me. It was for her sake."
Dare"s feelings were touched to the quick.
How beautiful! how pathetic was this _denouement_! His former admiration for Charles was increased a thousand-fold. _He also loved!_ Ah! (Dare felt he was becoming agitated.) How sublime, how touching was his self-sacrifice in the cause of honor! He had been gradually working himself up to the highest pitch of pleasurable excitement and emotion; and now, seeing Ralph the prosaic approaching, he fled precipitately into the house, caught up his hat and stick, hardly glancing at himself in the hall-gla.s.s, and, entirely forgetting his promise to Charles to remain at Atherstone till the latter returned from Vandon, followed the impulse of the moment, and struck across the fields in the direction of Slumberleigh.
Charles, meanwhile, drove on to Vandon. The stable clock, still partially paralyzed from long disuse, was laboriously striking eleven as he drew up before the door. His resounding peal at the bell startled the household, and put the servants into a flutter of anxious expectation, while the sound made some one else, breakfasting late in the dining-room, pause with her cup midway to her lips and listen.
"There is a train which leaves Slumberleigh station for London a little after twelve, is not there?" asked Charles, with great distinctness, of the butler as he entered the hall. He had observed as he came in that the dining-room door was ajar.
"There is, Sir Charles. Twelve fifteen," replied the man, who recognized him instantly, for everybody knew Charles.
"I am here as Mr. Dare"s friend, at his wish. Tell Mr. Dare"s coachman to bring round his dog-cart to the door in good time to catch that train. Will it take luggage?"
"Yes, Sir Charles," with respectful alacrity.
"Good! And when the dog-cart appears you will see that the boxes are brought down belonging to the person who is staying here, who will leave by that train."
"Yes, Sir Charles."
"If the policeman from Slumberleigh should arrive while I am here, ask him to wait."