Of High Descent Part 51

"Gone!" he said in a low voice, "gone! Yes, I'll keep my word--if I can."

He opened the cas.e.m.e.nt window, and stood there leaning against the heavy stone mullion, listening to the low soft beating of the waves far below.

The cool air fanned his fevered cheek, and once more the power to think seemed to be coming back.

He had had no idea of the lapse of time, and a flash of broad sunlight came upon him like a shock, making him start away from the window; now lit up with the old family shield and crest a blaze of brilliant colour.

"_Roy et Foy_," he read silently; and the words seemed to mock him.

Henri Comte des Vignes, the plotter in a robbery of the man who had been his benefactor. Perhaps his murderer.

"Comte des Vignes!" he said, with a curious laugh. "Boy! vain, weak, empty-headed boy! What have I done--what have I done?"

"Harry!"

He started round with a cry to face his sister.

"Not been to bed?"

"No," he said wearily. "I could not sleep."

She laid her hands upon his shoulders and kissed him.

"Neither could I," she said, "for thinking of it all. Harry, if he should die!"

He looked down into the eyes gazing so questioningly into his, but his lips framed no answer.

He was listening to the echoing of his sister's words, which seemed to go and on thrilling through the mazes of his brain, an infinitesimally keen and piercing sound at last, but still so plain and clear--

"_If he should die_!"

Volume 2, Chapter IV.

UNCLE LUKE GROWS HARDER.

"I would not stop over these, my dears," said Vine, as they sat at breakfast, which was hardly tasted, "but if I neglect them they will die."

He had a gla.s.s globe on the table, and from time to time he went on feeding with sc.r.a.ps of mussel the beautiful specimens of actiniae attached to a fragment of rock.

"We'll all go directly and see if we can be of any use. I'm glad Knatchbull called as he went by."

"But what news!" said Louise sadly. "It seems so terrible. Only yesterday evening so well, and now--"

She finished her remark with a sob.

"It is very terrible," said her father; "but I hope we shall soon hear that the villains are caught."

Harry sat holding the handle of his teacup firmly, and gazing straight before him.

"You'll go up to the office, of course, my boy?" said Vine.

"Eh? Go up to the office?" cried Harry, starting.

"Yes, as if nothing had happened. Do all you can to a.s.sist Crampton."

"Yes, father."

"He was very quiet and reserved when I went in at seven; quite snappish, I might say. But he was too much occupied and troubled, I suppose, to be very courteous to such an old idler as I am. Ah!" he continued, as a figure pa.s.sed the window, "here's Uncle Luke."

A cold chill had run through Harry at the mention of Crampton--a chill of horror lest he should suspect anything; and now, at the announcement of his uncle's approach, he felt a flush run up to his temples, and as if the room had suddenly become hot.

"Morning," said Uncle Luke, entering without ceremony, a rush basket in one hand, his strapped-together rod in the other. "Breakfast? Late for breakfast, isn't it?"

"No, Luke, no; our usual time," said his brother mildly.

"You will sit down and have some, uncle?"

"_No_, Louie, no," he replied, nodding his head and looking a little less hard at her. "I've had some bread and skim milk, and I'm just off to catch my dinner. The idiot know?"

"My dear Luke!" said his brother mildly, as Uncle Luke made a gesture upward towards Aunt Marguerite's room; "why will you strive to increase the breach between you and our sister?"

"Well, she tells every one that I'm mad. Why shouldn't I call her an idiot? But nice goings on, these. Wonder you're all alive."

"Then you have heard?"

"Heard? Of course. If I hadn't I could have read it in your faces.

Look here, sir," he cried, turning sharply on his nephew, "where were you last night?"

Harry clutched the table-cloth that hung into his lap.

"I? Last night?" he faltered. "Yes; didn't I speak plainly? Where were you last night? Why weren't you down at Van Heldre's, behaving like a man, and fighting for your master along with your henchman?"

"Uncle, dear, don't be so unreasonable," said Louise, leaning back and looking up in the old man's face--for he had thrown his basket and rod on a chair, and gone behind her to stand stroking her cheek--"Harry was at home with Mr Pradelle."

"Pradelle, eh?" said the old man sharply. "Not up?"

"Mr Pradelle has gone," said Louise.

"Gone, eh?" said Uncle Luke sharply.

"Yes," said his brother. "Mr Pradelle behaved very nicely. He left this note for me."

"Note, eh? Bank-note--"

Harry winced and set his teeth.

"No, no, Luke. Nonsense!"

"Nonsense? I mean to pay for his board and lodging: all the time he has been here."