Wylder's Hand Part 73

'I cannot tell you, my poor brother, how miserable I am. I have just learned that a very dangerous person has discovered more about that dreadful evening than we believed known to anybody in Gylingden. I am subjected to the most agonising suspicions and _insults_. Would to Heaven I were dead! But living, I cannot endure my present state of mind longer.

To-morrow morning I will see Dorcas--poor Dorcas!--and tell her all. I am weary of urging you, _in vain_, to do so. It would have been much better.

But although, after that interview, I shall, perhaps, never see her more, I shall yet be happier, and, I think, relieved from suspense, and the torments of mystery. So will she. At all events, it is her _right_ to know all--and she shall.

'YOUR OUTCAST AND MISERABLE SISTER.'

On Stanley's lips his serene, unpleasant smile was gleaming, as he closed the note carelessly. He intended to speak, but his voice caught. He cleared it, and sipped a little claret.

'For a clever girl she certainly does write the most wonderful rubbish.

Such an effusion! And she sends it tossing about, from hand to hand, among the servants. I've antic.i.p.ated her, however, Dorkie.' And he took her hand and kissed it. 'She does not know I've told you _all_ myself.'

Stanley went to the library, and Dorcas to the conservatory, neither very happy, each haunted by an evil augury, and a sense of coming danger. The deepening shadow warned Dorcas that it was time to repair to the Dutch room, where she found lights and tea prepared.

In a few minutes more the library door opened and Stanley Lake peeped in.

'Radie not come yet?' said he entering. 'We certainly are much pleasanter in this room, Dorkie, more, in proportion, than we two should have been in the drawing-room.'

He seated himself beside her, drawing his chair very close to hers, and taking her hand in his. He was more affectionate this evening than usual.

What did it portend? she thought. She had already begun to acquiesce in Rachel's estimate of Stanley, and to fancy that whatever he did it was with an unacknowledged purpose.

'Does little Dorkie love me?' said Lake, in a sweet undertone.

There was reproach, but love too, in the deep soft glance she threw upon him.

'You must promise me not to be frightened at what I am going to tell you,' said Lake.

She heard him with sudden panic, and a sense of cold stole over her. He looked like a ghost--quite white--smiling. She knew something was coming--the secret she had invoked so long--and she was appalled.

'Don't be frightened, darling. It is necessary to tell you; but it is really not much when you hear me out. You'll say so when you have quite heard me. So you won't be frightened?'

She was gazing straight into his wild yellow eyes, fascinated, with a look of expecting terror.

'You are nervous, darling,' he continued, laying his hand on hers. 'Shall we put it off for a little? You are frightened.'

'Not much frightened, Stanley,' she whispered.

'Well, we had better wait. I see, Dorcas, you _are_ frightened and nervous. Don't keep looking at me; look at something else, can't you? You make yourself nervous that way. I promise, upon my honour, I'll not say a word about it till you bid me.'

'I know, Stanley--I know.'

'Then, why won't you look down, or look up, or look any way you please, only don't stare at me so.'

'Yes--oh, yes,' and she shut her eyes.

'I'm sorry I began,' he said, pettishly. 'You'll make a fuss. You've made yourself quite nervous; and I'll wait a little.'

'Oh! no, Stanley, _now_--for Heaven's sake, _now_. I was only a little startled; but I am quite well again. Is it anything about marriage? Oh, Stanley, in mercy, tell me was there any other engagement?'

'Nothing, darling--nothing on earth of the sort;' and he spoke with an icy little laugh. 'Your poor soldier is altogether yours, Dorkie,' and he kissed her cheek.

'Thank G.o.d for that!' said Dorcas, hardly above her breath.

'What I have to say is quite different, and really nothing that need affect you; but Rachel has made such a row about it. Fifty fellows, I know, are in much worse fixes; and though it is not of so much consequence, still I think I should not have told you; only, without knowing it, you were thwarting me, and helping to get me into a serious difficulty by your obstinacy--or what you will--about Five Oaks.'

Somehow trifling as the matter was, Stanley seemed to grow more and more unwilling to disclose it, and rather shrank from it now.

'Now, Dorcas, mind, there must be no trifling. You must not treat me as Rachel has. If you can't keep a secret--for it _is_ a secret--say so.

Shall I tell you?'

'Yes, Stanley--yes. I'm your wife.'

'Well, Dorcas, I told you something of it; but only a part, and some circ.u.mstances I _did_ intentionally colour a little; but I could not help it, unless I had told everything; and no matter what you or Rachel may say, it was kinder to withhold it as long as I could.'

He glanced at the door, and spoke in a lower tone.

And so, with his eyes lowered to the table at which he sat, glancing ever and anon sideways at the door, and tracing little figures with the tip of his finger upon the shining rosewood, he went on murmuring his strange and hateful story in the ear of his wife.

It was not until he had spoken some three or four minutes that Dorcas suddenly uttered a wild scream, and started to her feet. And Stanley also rose precipitately, and caught her in his arms, for she was falling.

As he supported her in her chair, the library door opened, and the sinister face of Uncle Lorne looked in, and returned the captain's stare with one just as fixed and horrified.

'Hush!' whispered Uncle Lorne, and he limped softly into the room, and stopped about three yards away, 'she is not dead, but sleepeth.'

'Hallo! Larcom,' shouted Lake.

'I tell you she's dreaming the same dream that I dreamt in the middle of the night.'

'Hallo! Larcom.'

'Mark's on leave to-night, in uniform; his face is flattened against the window. This is his lady, you know.'

'Hallo! D-- you--are you there?' shouted the captain, very angry.

'I saw Mark following you like an ape, on all-fours; such nice white teeth! grinning at your heels. But he can't bite yet--ha, ha, ha! Poor Mark!'

'Will you be so good, Sir, as to touch the bell?' said Lake, changing his tone.

He was afraid to remove his arm from Dorcas, and he was splashing water from a gla.s.s upon her face and forehead.

'No--no. No bell yet--time enough--ding, dong. You say, dead and gone.'

Captain Lake cursed him and his absent keeper between his teeth; still in a rather flurried way, prosecuting his conjugal attentions.

'There was no bell for poor Mark; and he's always listening, and stares so. A cat may look, you know.'

'Can't you touch the bell, Sir? What are you standing there for?' snarled Lake, with a glare at the old man. He looked as if he could have murdered him.

'Standing between the living and the dead!'