The White Virgin Part 32

"Father!" cried Dinah wildly.

"Hush, my pet. Nervous again: I can feel your heart beating. Why, of course I must go some day. And now this Clive Reed has somehow got hold of my confidence as well as yours. I trust him, you see, just as you do, my darling, and--and, Dinah, he's a fine fellow, a fine, true-hearted, manly fellow, and--and I won't be a miserable, selfish old man, but happy and contented, and glad that my darling's choice has fallen upon so genuine a man. There! do you hear, my pet? I am heartily glad, for I like him. G.o.d bless him! G.o.d bless you both!"

The arms clung more tightly round the Major's neck, and a shower of kisses fell upon his cheeks and lips.

"It's quite right, Di--quite right. You are growing strong and well again. He has done you good. There is no reason whatever why you should not love him, and make him the best of wives."

Dinah's arms relaxed a little, and her cheeks, which had begun to flush, once more turned deadly pale.

"There is no just cause or impediment why you should not love him and be loved. But not yet, Di, not yet."

The Major did not see the frightened look at that moment as it intensified in his daughter's eyes, but he did directly after as the dog's chain was heard to rattle and it burst into a furious baying.

"Confound it! there must be some one about," said the Major angrily.

"There, there! don't turn white like that."

"No, no, don't, don't go," whispered Dinah, clinging to him.

"Not go? Why, you little coward, I must go. Where's my stick? It's one of those mining scamps." Dinah shuddered.

"After eggs or chickens, for a sovereign."

"Don't--don't go, father," whispered Dinah again, as she clung to him tightly.

"Not go? Why, what has come to you, Dinah? This will not do, little one. I have only to hurry out and scare anybody who is there into fits.

Guilty conscience, you know."

She stared at him wildly.

"Why, my darling, I thought you were getting over this nervousness," he said tenderly. "You used not to be like this. Well, I will not go; but I must do something to scare him, whoever it is." She made no answer, but clung to him half fainting, and he helped her to a chair, noticing the while that she was gazing excitedly towards the open window.

The dog was silent now, but as the Major went and shouted a few angry words it responded with a sharp, clear bark or two, and its master returned.

"Scared away without my help," said the Major, coming back again, and speaking lightly. "Come, come, this will not do! I shall have to tell Reed what a little coward you have grown. Why, you look as if you had seen a ghost. It's all right now. Whoever it was has gone, or the dog would not have calmed down. Nothing stolen this time, I'll venture to swear. There," he cried, as he shut the window and closed the shutters before turning to where Dinah sat fighting hard to be calm, and noticing that she uttered a sigh as if of relief, "if you turn like this, my dear, I shall begin to think that we are living in a lonely spot too secluded for you, and look out for a place in town."

"No, no, I'm better now," she said, turning to her father with a smile.

"Of course you are, my dear. There's a st.u.r.dy protector, too, for us now, eh? There, there," he cried, bending down to kiss her. "Go to bed; you're a bit overdone, my darling; this has been an exciting evening--enough to upset any one's nerves. I'm off my balance too.

First, I have had to deal with one marauder who comes to steal my little ewe lamb, and I get rid of him to be permitted to keep her a little longer; and then comes another would-be thief. Dinah! my darling child!" he cried, as she rose to fling herself into his arms and cling to him more agitated and overcome than ever. "There, there, I must play doctor. Dose for soothing the nerves; eight hours' sound sleep. The medicine to be taken instantly. Off with you. Good-night."

Dinah pa.s.sionately returned his embrace, and hurried to her room, but not to sleep. The nervous excitement kept her wakeful hour after hour, with the intense longing to shelter herself in her lover's arms; and all the time a fierce lurid pair of eyes seemed to be watching her, and, as plainly as if the words had been spoken by her ear, she heard a rough, deep voice whispering, "It's no use, little one. No one is coming betwixt us two."

As she lay in her bed, too, she fancied she could hear the man's firm step patrolling the paths about the place.

But Michael Sturgess was a couple of miles away, though he had been down to the cottage, and so close that he could look in and see that his chief was not there still. For there were bounds to the man's patient doggedness, and he had grown wearied out at last, when Clive Reed had taken a short cut over the mountain, home, and did not return by the spoil bank and the shelf-like path.

Still Dinah Gurdon could not know this as she lay there, torn by the mental fever which made her temples throb.

Loved--loved by one who idolised her, and who had made her heart awaken and unfold to the true meaning of the great pa.s.sion of human life. He loved her as she loved him, and she had let him press her in his arms; she had thrilled beneath his kisses, and all as in a dream of joy and delight. Safe, too, with him near to cherish and protect. Then he had left her, and the old cloud of horror and dread had come back, and with it the still small voice of conscience out of the darkness of her heart.

Ought she not to have spoken? Ought she not to have whispered to her father, or failing him, to have confided in their old servant--the only woman near--the terror of that day, and how she had been haunted since?

Always the same reply as her woman's heart rebelled and shrank from the confession. How could she? She dared not. She would sooner have died than made the avowal, while there before her, looming up, the precursors of a storm, were the black clouds of the future, and Michael Sturgess's words vibrating always in her ears.

CHAPTER TWENTY TWO.

BAD OMENS.

"No insolence, sir!"

"What?"

"I say no insolence, sir. I am aware of the fact that you are an excellent workman and valuable to me here, but you are presuming on those facts, and I warn you that if ever you dare to answer me in that way again, we part on the instant."

"What way?"

"As you addressed me a short time back. Michael Sturgess, I have long noticed your insolent, overbearing ways with the men. They are beginning to resent it. I have had several complaints from them, and all this must end, if you are to stay here."

"If I'm to stay here, eh? I daresay if the company is tired of the way in which I have made this old mine pay, I can soon get another engagement."

"My good man," said Clive Reed coldly and dispa.s.sionately, "prosperity is making you lose your head, and it is an act of kindness to disillusionise you before you go too far and lose a valuable appointment."

The man glared at him as they stood together in one of the dark pa.s.sages of the mine, close to an old shaft which descended to a lower line of workings.

"Let me tell you, once for all, that, though you have worked well, you are in no wise answerable for the success of the mine, and that it would have been quite as prosperous if Michael Sturgess had not been here."

"Oh, indeed!" said the man insolently; and Reed flushed angrily, but controlled his rising temper, and went on calmly enough.

"Secondly, let me disabuse your mind of the idea that it is open to you to appeal to the company against any decision of mine. Understand this, sir: my power here is supreme, and, though I should be reluctant to exercise that power against a good workman, the trouble of obtaining a successor in your post would not be great, and I should exercise that power sharply and firmly, if I had just cause."

"Oh, I don't know so much about that, Mr Reed. You are chief here at the mines."

"And at the board in town, my man. You are insolent and angry still.

Go about your work, and when you are calm and have had an opportunity for thinking all this over, come to me and apologise as a straightforward man should."

"Oh, there's no time like the present," said the man roughly.

"Yes, there is, and I decline to quarrel with you, sir. That will do now. I leave you to think over what has pa.s.sed, as I don't wish to be angry and do anything to injure an honest man's prospects."

"But--"

"I said that will do," said Reed firmly; and turning his back, he began to walk away without seeing the ominous shadow cast by the lanthorn he carried, as Michael Sturgess took a step forward with his hands cramped like a bird's claws.

It would have been so easy, too; a sharp side-wise thrust and nothing could have saved the man who was touched. There was a slight rail by the side of that old shaft, but a man who slipped must have been precipitated headlong down the stony pit seventy or eighty feet, to the rocky floor below, and mutilation was certain--death more than a probable event.

But the man did not stir, and the shadow grew more and more faint, as Clive Reed strode along the gallery till he pa.s.sed round a corner and disappeared.

Michael Sturgess stood listening to his chief's steps till they died out, and then taking out a box of matches, he struck one and lit a lanthorn which he took from a niche in the wall, the glow lighting up his savage features.