The Squire's Daughter Part 76

He tried, over his lonely dinner, to review the situation; tried to put himself in the place of Ralph Penlogan. It was a profitable exercise.

The lack of imagination is often the parent of wrong. He was bound to admit to himself that Ralph was under no obligation--moral or otherwise--to reveal his secret, or even to sell his knowledge.

"No doubt I have behaved badly to him," Sir John said to himself, "and badly to his father. He has good reason for hating me and thwarting me.

By Jove! but we have changed places. He is the strong man now, and if he pays me back in my own coin, it is no more than I deserve."

Sir John did not make a good dinner that evening. His reflections interfered with his appet.i.te.

"Should I tell if I were in his place?" he said to himself. And he answered his own question with a groan.

Under the influence of a cigar and a cup of black coffee, visions of prosperity floated before him. He saw himself back again in Hamblyn Manor, and in more than his old splendour. He saw himself free from the clutches of the money-lenders, and a better man for the experiences through which he had pa.s.sed.

But his visions were constantly broken in upon by the reflection that his future lay in the hands of Ralph Penlogan, the young man he had so cruelly wronged. It was a hard battle he had to fight, for his pride seemed to pull him in opposite directions at the same time.

Half an hour before the boat started for Folkestone he was on the wharf, eagerly scanning the faces of all the pa.s.sengers. He had made up his mind to try to persuade Ralph to go back with him and stay the night.

His pride was rapidly breaking down under the pressure of unusual circ.u.mstances.

He remained till the boat cast off her moorings and the paddle-wheels began to churn the water in the narrow slip, then he turned away with a sigh. Ralph was not among the pa.s.sengers.

CHAPTER XLII

COALS OF FIRE

Ralph returned home by way of Calais and Dover, and on the following day he came face to face with Dorothy outside the lodge gates. He raised his hat and would have pa.s.sed on, but she would not let him.

"Surely we may be friends?" she said, extending her hand to him, and her eyes were pleading and pathetic.

He stopped at once and smiled gravely.

"I thought it was your wish that we should meet as strangers," he said.

"Did I say that?" she questioned, and she turned away her eyes from him.

"Something to that effect," he answered, still smiling, though he felt as if every reason for smiles had pa.s.sed from him.

"I have been expecting to see you for days past," she said, suddenly raising her eyes to his.

"I have been from home," he answered. "In fact, I have been to Boulogne."

"To Boulogne?" she asked, with a start, and the blood mounted in a torrent to her neck and face.

"I went across to see your father," he said slowly.

"Yes?" she questioned, and her face was set and tense.

"He was obdurate. He said he would rather see you in your coffin."

For a moment there was silence. Then she said--

"Was he very angry?"

"I am sorry to say he was. He evidently dislikes me very much--a feeling which I fear is mutual."

"I wonder you had the courage to ask him," she said at length.

"I would dare anything for your sake," he replied, with averted eyes. "I would defy him if you were willing. And, indeed, I cannot see why he should be the arbiter of your fate and mine."

"You must not forget that he is my father," she said quietly and deliberately.

"But you defied him in the case of Lord Probus."

"That was different. To have married Lord Probus would have been a sin.

No, no. The cases are not parallel."

"Then you are still of the same mind?" he questioned.

"It would not be right," she said, after a long pause, "knowing father as I do, and knowing how keenly he feels all this."

"Then it is right to spoil my life, to fling all its future in shadow?"

"You will forget me," she said, with averted eyes.

"Perhaps so," he answered a little bitterly; "time is a great healer, they say," and he raised his hat again and turned away.

But her hand was laid on his arm in a moment.

"Now you are angry with me," she said, her eyes filling. "But don't you see it is as hard for me as for you? Oh, it is harder, for you are so much stronger than I."

"If we are to forget each other," he replied quietly and without looking at her, "we had better begin at once."

"But surely we may be friends?" she questioned.

"It is not a question of friendship," he answered, "but of forgetting, or of trying to forget."

"But I don't want to forget," she said impulsively. "I could not if I tried. A woman never forgets. I want to remember you, to think of your courage, your--your----"

"Folly," he interrupted.

She looked at him with a startled expression in her eyes.

"Is it folly to love?" she questioned.

"Yes, out of your own station. If I had loved anyone else but you----"

"No, no! Don't say that," she interrupted. "G.o.d knows best. We are strengthened and made better by the painful discipline of life."