CHAPTER XV.—“COMING EVENTS CAST THEIR SHADOWS BEFORE.”
If this austere, unsociable life
Change not your offer made in heat of blood;
If frosts and fasts, hard lodging, and thin weeds,
Nip not the gaudy blossoms of your love,
But that it bears this trial, and last love;
Then, at the expiration of the year,
Come challenge me.
—Shakspere.
The deadly faintness which had overcome Old Wilton, when he fell into the arms of Harry Vivian, increased, until it deprived him of all consciousness of what was passing around him.
Alarmed by an unusual disturbance in the house, both Mark and Flora hastened to the library in time to witness a scene to them incomprehensible.
Mr. Riversdale was struggling in the arms of an officer; Nathan Gomer was, as usual, unexpectedly present, giving instructions to a servant; Lester Vane had disappeared; and, oh! strangest sight of all, their father was leaning on the breast of Hal Vivian.
Yet an instant, and the whole scene was changed as at the stroke of a magician’s wand. Riversdale, officer, Nathan Gomer, and the servant, had disappeared from the room at one moment, and Hal Vivian was alone left to explain. Both hurriedly inquired of him what had happened; but he tenderly placed old Wilton in his library chair, and begged for some restoratives on the instant, for it was painfully apparent that the old man was in a swoon.
Flora hastened to obtain them, while Mark, in compliance with suggestions rapidly made by Hal, descended to the garden.
Upon Flora’s return, she, assisted by Vivian, applied some ammoniacal salts to her father’s nostrils, and bathed his temples with eau-de-cologne and water. In a short time the application proved successful; Wilton recovered sufficiently to gaze vacantly around him and utter a few incoherent remarks.
Flora twined her arms about his neck, and, with fond words and soothing tenderness, succeeded in calming down the violent perturbation which succeeded the recovery from his swoon.
Then he gazed, almost wildly, round him in search of the actors in the scene which had perfectly electrified and overwhelmed him.
They were gone.
The old man gave an involuntary groan, accompanied by a sudden shudder, then he asked—
“Where is Nathan Gomer?”
“Mark has just quitted the library to seek an interview with him,” replied Flora. “He will return with him, I have no doubt.”
“No, no,” said Wilton, soliloquizing. “He will come back no more—no more! From afar he will contemplate the destruction of hopes he assisted to raise, only the more completely to hurl them to the dust.”
“Dear sir!” exclaimed Flora, softly, “you have been startled and shocked by what has happened. Mr. Gomer, though strange in his manner, is at heart generous and noble; you wrong him, if you imagine he entertains any hostile feelings towards you.”
“How, can you tell?” inquired her father, sharply. “You know not who he is; you cannot, more than myself, even conjecture what influences have animated him in appearing as my friend, and acting as—as——”
He really could not get his lips to shape the word “enemy.”
“Acting still as your friend, I hope and believe,” observed Vivian, as the old man paused.
Wilton turned quickly, and gazed upon him with an air of surprise. He had not yet collected his scattered memories.
“Why are you here, sir?” he asked with knitted brow.
“Dear papa!” ejaculated Flora, with an appealing aspect, for she was grieved at the harshness of his tone of voice and the sternness of his manner. She remembered how much both were indebted to Vivian.
“Silence!” said her father, brusquely.
“Have you so soon forgotten the object of the visit of Mr. Riversdale and myself?” interrogated Vivian, gently.
Old Wilton placed his hands on his brow and reflected.
“True, I remember now,” he exclaimed, sarcastically. “You came hither to oust a rival”—he looked around the library—“and I presume you have succeeded to your satisfaction.”
“And to yours, I hope, sir,” responded Hal, calmly.
“To mine?—oh, of course to mine; to be sure, to mine and my daughter’s. You forgot her, did you not, Mr. Vivian?” he asked with a sneer.
“No, sir,” replied Hal, emphatically. “Miss Wilton was my first consideration in performing the duty I undertook.”
“Ah! to be sure; I had forgotten that,” said the old man, in the same jibing tone. “I ought to remember that you were not wholly disinterested in the part you have played.”
“Sir!” exclaimed Vivian, with dignity; “you would only do me justice if you were to charge me with being deeply interested in what I have performed; but, at the same time, I hope you will acquit me of being selfishly so. I hold the happiness of Miss Wilton, and the honour of yourself and house at too high a value to permit it to be shattered and degraded by so debased and so unworthy a scoundrel as the person who, guarded by officers, has so recently been conveyed hence. But do not misunderstand me, sir. I build up no claim to your consideration in what I have done; I ask for no acknowledgment or elevation to your favour in saving yourself and daughter from the machinations of an infamous schemer. Your good-will I will accept only when it is the offspring of your free inclination; I have not sought, nor would I ever seek, to purchase it at any other price. I love Miss Wilton, sir, I candidly admit—-most devotedly love her, and shall do so while I have life—but I never have, I never desired, and never would attempt to crawl by stealth or by any secret or unworthy agency into an alliance with her. I hold her in too high respect, and possess, sir, a too well-defined consciousness of what is due to my own honour, to be guilty of acts which bring their own punishment with them. Your unprincipled friend, Colonel Mires, did not scruple, while charging me with a basely underhand attempt to win your daughter’s affections, to arrange, and carry almost to fulfilment, a devilish scheme, which, if successful, would, while it utterly destroyed the happiness of your child, have ruined the plans you had formed and looked forward to complete. Then, he whom you had selected for the distinguished honour and inestimable happiness of receiving your daughter’s hand, is a worthless, depraved and penniless swindler. Sir, at least the very strictest and closest scrutiny into my nature and habits will absolve me from being capable of the baseness of the one, or guilty of the depravity of the other. It has been my great good fortune to rescue you in both instances; on the one hand from the agony of a shameful bereavement; on the other, from an awakening to a knowledge of the infamy brought upon your name, and the misery entailed upon your daughter by an alliance which henceforward the thought of having ever desired to contract will make your cheek burn with vexed mortification. In having performed this office, I hope to be understood as not having been influenced by one selfish thought, but animated only by a desire to guard and protect Miss Wilton from dangers she could scarcely avert from herself, and your name from the obloquy which would have fallen upon it. In achieving this I have been most importantly aided by Mr. Nathan Gomer, and to him your acknowledgments are due for the share he has taken in obtaining success. For myself, as I have said, I ignore them; and when I come forward, as I hope at no distant day to do, and ask of you your consent to sanction my union with your daughter, I trust, sir, you will then do me the justice to admit that while, in respect to income, I am not unjustified in preferring a claim, that I have not resorted at any time, or under any influences, to surreptitiously obtain that which you are free to give or to withhold.”
“Um! you admit that?” exclaimed Wilton, who had listened attentively to all that fell from his lips, and caught at the last expression.
“I can conscientiously acquit myself of having at any time attempted to subvert that right,” returned Vivian.
Old Wilton drew along breath, and then covered his face with his hands, in which attitude he sat for a few minutes, evidently plunged in a profound reverie.
Both Flora and Hal watched him attentively and anxiously; at length he raised his head, and, addressing Hal, he said—
“I cannot conceal from myself that I am indebted to you for my life; I am equally conscious that I must look upon you as the saviour of my daughter’s life and honour. They are heavy debts, and very difficult to repay”——
“Spare me acknowledgments, I beg of you,” interrupted Hal, a little impetuously. “I have told you, sir, already, that I neither desire nor claim them; and I most earnestly assure you, that the only reward I looked for I have reaped—my grateful satisfaction at having been successful.”
“Nevertheless, I feel that I owe to you something,” continued Wilton; “and in one way I can do a little towards confessing my obligation to you—and that is, by being candid with you. The world is full of disappointments—the sun resting on a valley field makes it appear a rich expanse of golden grain, but when we reach it, we find it a poor piece of grass land, thin, weedy, and worthless. Of such are some of our glowing expectations; they burn brightly in the eye of hope, but, like a brilliant flame consuming a flimsy material, realise nothing but ashes. I have had great hopes, high dreams, and proud anticipations—they have become nothing but dust. Now, Mr. Vivian, in the position in which I have been and am living, it is but natural, in suing for my daughter’s hand, you should expect with her at least a moderate fortune. She would have had a liberal dowry, but that expectations I have entertained will, to an almost inevitable certainty, not be realised. She will, therefore, have nothing from me upon her marriage—not a shilling. While she remains with me, of course she will share the comforts of the luxurious style in which we now live; but if she quits for a humbler position, she must accept its trials and its troubles, for no aid must she or her husband expect from me. One moment, Mr. Vivian,” he exclaimed, as Hal was about eagerly to offer some observation—“one moment more. I am informed your uncle’s son has returned from abroad, and has taken possession of everything—no will having been found—to the utter destruction of all the expectations you entertained of succeeding to his business and property. Is this true?”
“It is quite true!” replied Hal, firmly.
“You have, then, to depend alone upon your own exertions for the future?” continued Wilton.
“Entirely so,” responded Hal.
“How far, then, does the disinterested character of your love for my daughter extend?” inquired Wilton, fixing a steadfast look upon him.
“Thus far, sir: that as she, in all her sweet and pure integrity, is the only prize I covet, I shall be infinitely prouder and happier in taking her to my heart as my own beloved wife, dowerless, than did she have the settlement of a princess.”
How gratefully and fondly Flora’s eyes beamed on Hal’s animated face, as he, with enthusiastic emphasis, uttered those words.
“That I can well believe,” said Wilton, dryly. “The romance of youth is capable of all that; but, Mr. Vivian, can you transplant her to such a home as this or Harleydale? Can you provide her with a town house and a carriage, with a country mansion, with its well-ordered garden, spacious parks, surrounded by upland and dell, by sloping vales, meandering streams, by all the charming accessories and beauties of English landscape? Are you, I say, prepared to do this?”
Flora stole to her father’s side, and, placing her hand upon his shoulder gently, said, with a face of rosy hue—
“Papa, dearest, to me all those beauties would be as nothing if not shared by one—I—by—by those I—to whom I am attached!”
Her face, brilliant with blushes, sank upon his shoulder.
Mr. Wilton waved his hand.
“My proposition was to Mr. Vivian, and not to you!” he exclaimed. “Answer me, Mr. Vivian.”
“I cannot, sir, now do this,” replied Hal, firmly.
“Then how, sir, can you call your love for my daughter other than selfish?” cried Wilton, with apparent triumph. “Out of your exaggerated liking for her, you would remove her from a sphere in which she enjoys all the luxuries of comparative wealth into one in which they are all denied to her. You would transplant her from competence and ease, to surround her with wants, privations, and care. This is disinterested love, indeed, to sacrifice the everyday peace and comfort of the woman for whom you profess attachment in order that you may call her your own. Go to, sir, true love seeks to secure the entire happiness of the object of affection, it sacrifices its own wishes and aspirations, rather than a cloud should hang upon the loved one’s brow, a tear dim her eye, or the smile fade from her cheek. It elevates, sir—never seeks to reduce her chances of happiness; and rather frets itself out in silence and secrecy, than it would, by the gratification of its inclinations, jeopardise her future peace and contentment.”
“I admit, sir,” replied Hal, “the force of your argument, but I deny the truth of its intended conclusion. I yield to no being in the world in the disinterestedness of my passion for Miss Wilton. I would sacrifice my love and myself a thousand times rather than occasion her one moment’s care or privation. It is not, sir, because I cannot at first place her in the sphere she now so fairly and brightly adorns, that I must necessarily conduct her to a hovel in a bye-street. Something is due to my own sense of her worth and my own pride in preparing for her—if I were to be so blessed as to call her mine—a home as fitting to her beauty and goodness, as to the station she quitted to pass her life with me. I should, indeed, be wanting in true love if I did not endeavour to make the change as slight as indomitable perseverance and unflagging industry could accomplish. I agree, sir, that true love seeks to elevate the being it worships; but requited love will make a palace of a prison and gild the roof of a humble cottage, as though it were the fretted ceiling of a palace. Love sees through love’s eyes and with love’s urgings, and it seldom finds room for discontent if the heart it prizes remains true, faithful, and devoted to it. The great secret of a loving woman’s happiness, sir, consists not in the halls she treads, the terraced flower-garden she may pace, the high sphere in which she may have been born and lived, the accessories of wealth, its gaieties, or its pleasures. It is the discovery that the idol she was first induced to worship is not molten brass, but the pure gold for which she first accepted it. That her trusting faith has not been abused, that the ardent manner of him who won her heart has not waned, that the beaming look of fond affection remains unchanged, that the soft word has not grown harsh, and that the ever-watchful solicitude for her happiness remains as intact as when it first moved her gentle heart to respond to its generous tenderness. That loving, trusting heart that you would chain to its own sphere, would pine itself into the grave if, upon such a plea, it were confined to its halls, its gardens, parks, and extended landscape; but, believe me, it would not grieve if its lot, though cast in a lower sphere, rested on a manly, faithful, truthful nature, which never swerved from the deep and passionate affection it once professed. However, sir, at best we are but theorizing—I am content to abide the issue. I will not, I pledge my honour—my dearest possession—ask your permission to woo Miss Wilton until I am fairly in a social position which will give me some title to do so. Further, sir, if it be your wish, great as may be the pain and privation to me, I will not attempt to visit, or to see, or to speak with her in any manner which may infringe upon the relation in which we now stand to each other in the eyes of the world—acquaintances. I will not, if unprepared to urge my own claim, interfere with any offer which may be made for the honour of Miss Wilton’s hand, if that offer is in accordance with your wishes and not opposed to her future happiness. More I scarcely expect you will wish me to say; less, sir, I feel would be inconsistent with my own sense of what is just and honourable.”
Mr. Wilton extended his hand to Hal, saying—
“You have spoken frankly, and—and—a—I may as well say it as think it—nobly, Mr. Vivian. I am well satisfied and fully appreciate those sentiments which you have just uttered, and which I shall test, I honestly tell you. The result is for the future. Take, at present, your farewell of Flora; when we next meet, it will be as friends. Heaven shall decide whether it will be by a nearer and dearer title.”
Hal shook the extended hand warmly.
“I will not abuse any confidence you may be pleased to place in me, sir,” he replied. “But I, too, honestly tell you, that it will be the object of my most incessant perseverance and ardent ambition to change the title of friend into one nearer and dearer.”
Hal walked up to Flora. She was not contented with giving him one hand, but she placed both in his, and she looked up in his face with trusting confidence, and a sweet, loving expression in her eyes. A beaming aspect of hopefulness shone in her very lovely features which communicated its cheerful, sanguine anticipations to Hal.
“It shall go hard, dear Flora, but I win the wealth which shall make you mine,” he ejaculated, in fervent tones.
“Love gilds the humble roof, dear Hal,” she murmured; “anywhere, anywhere in the wide world, with your unfading, faithful love.”
“My undying, ever, ever faithful love,” he responded. “With my undying, ever, ever faithful love,” she echoed, as she pressed his hand, making him thrill with happiness.
And so they parted.
The ice about Mr. Wilton’s heart, in respect to their union, had begun to crack.
He gazed upon them very intently while they were conversing together, and he thought them certainly a very handsome young couple; and if personal attributes alone, were needful, a more fitting match could hardly be conceived.
Soon after Hal had quitted the house, Mark Wilton returned to the library to furnish his father with a brief narrative of what had taken place without the house, as well as in it, relative to the Honorable Lester Vane.
The miserable schemer’s affrighted leap had been attended with desperate results; fractured legs and arms attested the fearful violence with which he came to the ground; and he was conveyed, as soon as he was picked up, senseless to the nearest hospital, still in custody of an officer.
He was the mortgagor of an estate to Nathan Gomer, which had been already twice mortgaged to more than its value. The title-deeds he handed over were fresh ones he had had copied from the original draft, and were therefore fraudulent. The sight of Nathan Gomer, with an officer at his elbow, revealed to him the discovery that had been made; and, in his intense alarm, he leaped out of the window, in the hope of escape, but only to succeed in making himself a maimed cripple for life.
No one would desire to “break a butterfly on a wheel;” and by this event Hugh Riversdale considered his wife, Helen, avenged.
Mark introduced Nathan Gomer to Hugh, and they together left Wilton’s house for the residence of the deceased Grahame.
Wilton listened to the account of Lester Vane’s iniquity, and to his terrible accident, with a chastened spirit-He called Flora to him, and pressed her to his heart. “I have wronged you, Flo’, my darling,” he said with emotion. “I have been bitterly punished. Well, well; we will see if we cannot reward you with a young handsome fellow you would like better; well, well, we shall see how he behaves himself.”
“Dear, dear father,” murmured Flora, her eyes glistening with happiness at his words.
Old Wilton gazed fondly on her face, upturned to his; a gleam of pride shot forth from his eyes as he perused her exquisite features.
“Upon my word,” he said, with a chuckle, “that young fellow, Vivian, is a cunning dog, with excellent taste. He might journey many a weary mile ere he found a prettier face than yours, Flo’. Except,” he added, reflectively, “that he were to encounter my little pet nurse on his way. Hem! she had a pretty face that kind young friend of yours, eh, Flo’?”
“A dear, dear face!” responded Flora, warmly. She turned to Mark with an expressive twinkle in her eyes, and said, “you think so too, don’t you, Mark?”
“He!” ejaculated his father, with a kind of depreciatory grunt—“he’s but a poor judge.”
“Judge enough, at least,” cried Mark, rather hotly, “to think the face of your little pet nurse, as you call her, the brightest, sweetest, pleasantest, the most loveable under heaven.”
He looked fiercely and defiantly both at his sister and father, as though to challenge them to disprove him if they could. Flora smiled roguishly at him; and Wilton with evident satisfaction, for he little dreamed that the subject of his son’s encomium was that very “low-born beggar” he had so sternly objected to receive into his family.
“Why, Mark,” he exclaimed, with a chuckle, “you have more discrimination and taste than I gave you credit for. In this matter you judge justly, and with a very clear perception of the truth. I say, that when she comes before you, her face greets you like a burst of sunshine, it is radiant with a galaxy of glories, for it is cheerful, amiable, placid, gentle, good, generous, patient, unselfish—everything, in fact, that is estimable, and can make the female face divine.”
“Everything?” echoed Mark, emphatically.
“Everything?” repeated Flora, reflectively.
“Yes; every one of those beautiful qualities I have named beam in her fascinatingly expressive face!” exclaimed Wilton.
“And in her clear, earnest eyes?” said Mark.
“And in her eyes!” echoed his father.
“And in her smile!” suggested Flora.
“And in her smile,” repeated Wilton, slightly elevating his voice.
“Aha!” chuckled Mark—“Aha! aha!”
He was on the eve of making a great disclosure, but he restrained himself. He, however, rubbed his hands briskly with intense gratification; while Mr. Wilton felt his resolution to carry out his cherished and secretly formed design considerably strengthened by the very apparent good feeling entertained by his children towards the object of his hidden purpose.
The pleasure diffused by that conversation, somewhat further extended, seemed to compensate for the pain the previous incidents of the morning had occasioned.
Truly, the little episode was very agreeable—not the less so, perhaps, because the actual relation in which the subject of it stood to father and son did not transpire.
A few days subsequently, Mr. Wilton was startled by a note from Mr. Charlock. It had reference to the proposed meeting between Mr. Wilton and his solicitor, and the new claimant and his solicitor. It stated that Mr. Eglinton, having ascertained beyond a doubt the indisputable character of his claim, failed to see, upon reflection, any advantage in the suggested arrangements; he therefore announced his intention of withdrawing from it, and of leaving the legal proceedings to take their legitimate course. Mr. Charlock appended to this communication from the opposite party his own private opinion that, after a very keen and subtle examination of the new claims by a consultation of eminent counsel, there was no prospect of successfully resisting them; and, in the strict and conscientious performance of his duty, he advised, to save the enormous cost of going to trial, that Mr. Wilton should abandon those he had for years so pertinaciously urged.
Mr. Wilton perused this letter with much dissatisfaction, and without at all being convinced by its reasoning. No man, who for years has nursed a claim to property, real or fancied, is ready to yield it up on representations such as Mr. Charlock made to Mr. Wilton. If there is one thing in life’s transactions he clings to with more unyielding tenacity than another, it is a claim at law to property. To prosecute his claim, he will suffer himself to be denuded of all he possesses; he will part with everything he can lay his hands on—try solicitor after solicitor—abandon trade, profession, comparative independence—exhaust his means—yield up everything, in fact—but his claim; and when, after successive defeats, all possibility of continuing the struggle longer is taken from him, he has still faith in his right still an unshaken belief that he has not had justice dealt out to him, that judge, jury, and lawyers have been feeed, and have entered into a conspiracy to defraud him of what is lawfully his.
Old Wilton was no exception to the rule. It is true he had a misgiving about this claim, of which he had first heard from Nathan Gomer, but that individual had told him it was one which was never likely to be preferred, and he had, therefore, troubled himself no more about it. Nathan Gomer had spoken in very light terms about it, and no doubt justly. He began to surmise that Mr. Charlock was falling into his dotage when he recommended a client to resign claims acknowledged to be most powerful to property so large and valuable. He quickly found many reasons why he should contend for the prize, and, whether founded on sound conclusions or not, he adopted them. Who was this Mr. Eglinton who had so suddenly appeared? Where had he sprung from—where hidden himself—how could he identify himself? Ha! that was a point of very great importance! Had not he, Wilton, for years been kept from the enjoyment of his property, because of the difficulty of proving that he actually was the person he represented himself to be. In such manner did he argue the question with himself, and ultimately determine at any sacrifice to proceed in his suit, even if he had to change his “man of business” to accomplish his resolve.
First, however, he resolved upon a reconciliation with Nathan Gomer. He had at best but a hazy notion of the actual cause of difference existing between them. He, however, felt that he had himself been to blame, and from him the amende honorable ought to come. He determined that it should; but how communicate with Nathan. He had already had one letter written to him returned unopened. He was not anxious to repeat the experiment.
He luckily remembered that Flora stood very high in Nathan’s favour, that he had always evinced a nervous anxiety for her happiness; and therefore it was extremely probable that if she were to address to him a few lines requesting him to come again to visit the family on the same footing as of old, and convey a hint that her father regretted any unconsidered behaviour of his own which had tended to produce a rupture in the amiable relations in which they had always stood to each other, he would comply with her solicitation.
After carefully considering the point over, he sought his daughter, Flora, and conveyed to her his desire that she should write a note to Nathan Gomer, inviting him to return to his old position in their family. Wilton left to Flora the entire wording of the epistle. He merely wished her to express his own desire to meet Nathan again, and his regret that any misunderstanding should have occasioned their separation.
Flora was quite unconscious of the result attending this communication. If she had been, it is very probable that she would have infused into it all the ardour and fervour of which her nature was capable. As it was, she had a deep respect for the little man, and great faith in his promise to procure for her future life as much happiness as he might have it in his power to control.
Thus she composed her note to Nathan Gomer with sufficient eloquence and warmth to assure him that she was solicitous to see him again; and he was shrewd enough to comprehend also Wilton’s anxiety, by the medium he had employed to convey his wishes. In his dreary, dull old chamber he sat alone, and pondered over Flora’s note the long night through; and the following day she received a short but kind reply, to tell her that he yielded to her solicitation, and he would join them at dinner that day.
He came to his appointment. His manner and appearance exhibited no apparent difference to what they ordinarily wore. Yet Flora fancied she could detect an expression of satisfaction, if not pleasure, in his eyes, an evidence that he was no less gratified at the reunion than all present were.
When the cloth was cleared, and the servants had quitted the room, Wilton cleared his throat, and said—
“Ahem—a—Mr. Gomer—a—I take an early moment to say—a—that with no desire to intrude upon your time, which I—a—I know to be very valuable—I—a should be most glad of a little of your counsel and experience on a matter which very intimately and deeply—a—concerns my future prospects.”
“I shall be very happy, Wilton, to afford you any advice or assistance,” replied Nathan Gomer, gravely; “but before I attempt to do so, there are two points, I think, ought to be settled. First, who I really am, and by what right I have taken upon myself to interfere in your family affairs——”
Flora and Mark looked hard at each other; if ever here was a question possessing a vivid interest to them both, this was one.
“And, secondly,” continued Nathan Gomer, “that I consider my advice, if worth asking for, to be worth following. I therefore distinctly decline to give it unless you, having faith in the deep concern I entertain for your welfare and interests, pass to me your word of honour as a gentleman that you will accept it and carry it out.”
The first was a subject of eager curiosity to Wilton, and he was only too glad that Nathan had himself mooted it: but the second was a poser. Suppose he should advise as Charlock had done?
A rapid retrospective reflection, however, caused Wilton to believe that he might rely upon the sincerity of Nathan Gomer’s counsel, for he had proved its truth and its profound sagacity; so he assented, with a graceful manifestation, which Nathan accepted at pretty much its proper value.
“First, then,” he exclaimed, “to reveal to you who I am, and why I therefore have taken upon myself to advance your interests, and ensure the happiness of yourself and children.”
He drew a deep breath and placed his hand over his eyes.
Wilton, Mark, and Flora regarded him with breathless attention.
For a minute or so a profound silence reigned, broken only by the heavy inspirations of Nathan Gomer.