A NEW IDEA
"And now you know where the real Lady Josceline Justice is," said Farish M'Kissock drearily, almost as if the savour of his overwhelming revenge on all who had wronged him had cloyed already. "The girl you have here—"
"Never mind about her," Captain Dove interrupted hoarsely, and darted a quick, furtive glance at Slyne, who looked very much as if he had just been struck on the back of the head with a hammer. "What are you going to do about it? That's all we want to hear from you."
He had been scarcely less overcome by that most calamitous disclosure than was his unhappy accomplice. And he did not doubt for a moment that Farish M'Kissock was speaking the truth; although until then he himself had been almost convinced that Sallie must indeed be the dead Earl of Jura's daughter. That possibility had been proven so perfectly probable that even the Court of Chancery had accepted it for a fact. But now—
The sudden and cataclysmic collapse of all his own prospects along with hers had spurred Captain Dove's momentarily stunned faculties into a perfect frenzy.
"What are you going to do about it?" he demanded again, imperatively, since the other was slow to answer.
"I need do nothing more—to thwart your fine schemes," said Farish M'Kissock quietly: "for—they will fail. Although it matters little to me now who may rule here, since the last of the old brood lies dead and unburied in Africa; and she was fond of me, too, as I was of her. 'Twas a notable revenge that I took on them-all! And I think ye'll allow that I've settled old scores handsomely with the both of you two as well.
"You might maybe murder me yet, to still my tongue, as you're thinking, but that would end as ill for yourselves, and I'm not here for long anyhow. There's nothing in this world or the next that will avail you against me now, and—"
His voice died away, wearily. He was gazing into the flickering flames, brooding over his own desperate memories.
"I might murder you, as you say, and in self-defence at that, Farish," replied Captain Dove, in a tone that he was striving to make more friendly. "But—how would it be if we went partners instead? What's the use of cutting your nose off to spite your face? There's surely enough here for all of us. And your share would more than make up to you for—"
The gaunt wreck in the armchair beside the fire broke into a low, mocking laugh.
"It's to close my account with you that I'm here, Captain Dove," said he implacably, "and not to open a new one."
Captain Dove, his face distorted with impotent fury, darted another devilish look at Slyne, but Slyne was still sitting motionless, staring at the ex-Emir, like one in a trance. Captain Dove glanced again at the stooping figure on the other side of the fireplace, set one foot firm on the floor, and leaped at his enemy like a wild beast.
Farish M'Kissock fought fiercely, with a strength surprising in one of his enfeebled appearance, had almost succeeded, indeed, in freeing himself from the old man's vice-like grip before Slyne at last awoke from his lethargy and, of mechanical instinct, came to Captain Dove's assistance. The two of them soon got him down, and then Captain Dove lashed his wrists and ankles securely with a strong fishing-line snatched from a rack on the wall.
"This way with him now," he panted, and, drawing aside a blind panel in the wainscot of the near wall, disclosed a low, wide opening, toward which he pulled their prostrate prisoner by the heels. And together they bundled the groaning body down a steep flight of dry stone steps, into an unlighted cell at one side of the dark tunnel below.
"He'll be safe enough in there," said Captain Dove vindictively, as he held up the match he had struck while Slyne, with fumbling fingers, drew its rusty iron outside bolt across the door of the cell. "And it will be easy to get him down the tunnel to the water-gate, too."
"Can anyone get in by the water-gate?" asked Slyne in a breathless whisper.
"I have the key in my pocket," Captain Dove answered shortly, and drew the blind panel back into place as they regained the gun-room together.
There, he made at once for the half-empty decanter upon the table. But Slyne sat down before the fire again, with bent head, as if utterly crushed.
It was self-evident that he had come to believe implicitly in Sallie's right to the new identity he had bestowed upon her, had never doubted that the proofs on which that belief had been based were anything but genuine. He could scarcely doubt now that Captain Dove had hoodwinked him from first to last, that Farish M'Kissock's story was the real truth of the matter. And, thus in a moment confronted with the ruinous outcome of his credulity, he could not yet bring his mind to bear on anything but the utter eclipse of all his own golden dreams.
"And so—that fellow Carthew will be Earl of Jura," he said suddenly, and looked up at Captain Dove with a hell of hate aflame behind his dull eyes. "And you've been lying to me all along," he said, in a still, dispassionate voice.
Captain Dove, back in his own chair, better pleased with himself, paused to consider before replying. He had been investigating the pantry and found out how Farish M'Kissock had come there.
"You're wrong, both times," he at length remarked. "I've told you nothing that wasn't the truth. All I've said about Sallie, I can prove up to the hilt. And, anyhow, you've been managing the whole business. You've told me often enough not to butt in! You can't blame me for any mistake that's been made.
"And, what's more," he went on, marshalling his ideas, "it remains to be proved that there has been any mistake. You're surely not going to take the mere word of a fellow like Farish for that—a mutinous second mate I had to maroon to get rid of him. Anyhow, if you're going to lie down and die at his orders, I'm not. D'ye see?"
Slyne drew a shaky hand across a damp forehead. He was obviously all unstrung.
"You didn't cast any doubt on his story," he muttered.
"There was no need," declared Captain Dove. "Let him disprove yours first. It was you who discovered who Sallie should be. I had no idea whose daughter she was—and neither had she. You and Jobling it was who put two and two together and made out four. I don't believe Farish—M'Kissock, as he calls himself now—could better that."
"Don't you believe what he said?" asked Slyne.
"Not me," lied Captain Dove. "The man's mad, that's what's the matter with him. He's probably made the whole thing up, just to get even with us, and knowing that we could do little more than contradict it. But—he didn't know that we have the Chancery Court behind us now. And that makes all the difference. We've won—and he's lost. D'ye see?
"I was scared at first, I'll admit—when he walked in. It was that infernal 'white lady' tale of yours that upset me. But—you don't believe in ghosts! What's wrong with you is sheer funk."
But even that insult seemed to have no immediate effect on Slyne, and Captain Dove got up, growling.
"Here," said he. "Drink this down—and try if you can't muster even a little Dutch courage."
Slyne swallowed, still without a word in retort, the dose of spirit which the old man had poured out for him; and that seemed to restore a little his crippled self-confidence. Some faint spark of hope that all might not yet be lost seemed to have sprung up in his heavy heart. His benumbed brain was apparently beginning to work again. He sat up, with an effort.
"But—how are we to carry on here?" he asked, in a tone which told how very feeble his faith was. "If any such story gets to the ears of—"
"It will get no farther than it has gone," declared Captain Dove with assured emphasis. "If Farish hasn't told that old hag of a sister of his yet, it stays between you and me. We'll make sure of her silence—and his. That will be easy enough."
Slyne sank back into his chair again, and scowled. He did not affect to misunderstand his companion's sinister promptings.
"Will you undertake to look after them, then?" he stipulated, with dire distaste, after further consideration.
Captain Dove in his turn took time to cogitate over that selfish suggestion. He had no intention whatever of helping Slyne at his own hazard. On the contrary, he had already made up his mind to get rid of Slyne at the same time as the other two. But, of course, it was only politic to pretend a little reluctance.
"All right," he agreed at length. "I'll look after them. But you must lend me a hand, if it's necessary. There's no one else I can trust, and we're both in the same boat now. You must lend me a hand, if it's necessary."
"And what about Carthew?" Slyne demanded, recovering himself by degrees under the old man's most matter of fact example. "If he should get any inkling—"
"Oh, don't make difficulties!" growled Captain Dove.
"What's to hinder our settling his hash the same way as the others? There are only the three of them in our way. We'll make a clean sweep. We'll get him up here—we'll send him word that Sallie would like to see him, and—the rest will be easy."
"But, good God!" cried Slyne, "how are you going to account for their disappearance? It's madness—"
"Farish is mad, all right," said Captain Dove reflectively. "Which will account for whatever happens to him and his precious sister. If they were both found with broken necks at the foot of this infernal rock, who's going to make us responsible? And, as for that fellow Carthew, if we can't explain away his disappearance we'll deserve to lose everything, Slyne.
"Damn it, man! What are you afraid of! Are you going to throw up the sponge just before the fight's won!"
"If we were once clear of the three of them, that would leave us perfectly safe," said Slyne, in a voice that was not very steady. "But what if Mrs. M'Kissock knows already—"
"We'll ring for her now and find out," answered Captain Dove with savage decision. "If she seems to know more than she should—she can keep her infernal brother company until Brasse comes ashore."
He rose, and had almost reached the bell-push beside the mantel when the door opened and the Marquis of Ingoldsby walked into the room, looking much less imbecile and more of a man in his splashed breeches and boots and spurs.
Captain Dove glared at him.
"Howdy do, Captain Dubb," said his lordship, politely, after peering through his eye-glass at Slyne. "Glad to see you again. Lady Josceline told me I would probably find you here, and—I want to talk to you—about her."
He let his eye-glass drop and helped himself to a brandy and soda. Slyne was staring at him. Captain Dove was dumb.
"I've just been askin' her to marry me," his lordship remarked, after slaking his thirst. And, as he paused to light a cigarette, "The devil you have!" exclaimed Captain Dove, considering that idea.
"She said she couldn't," Lord Ingoldsby mentioned, straddling across the hearth-rug, his hands on his hips, disregarding Slyne's presence entirely now. "But—she wouldn't tell me why. And I thought I'd ask you, don't y'know. So far as I can understand, you're her nearest livin' relative—her stepfather, or godfather, or somethin' of that sort, what? And I thought that maybe you wouldn't mind talkin' over the matter with me."
Captain Dove scratched his head. He could see that Slyne was watching him very closely. It had no doubt flashed through Slyne's mind as through his own that here was a providential by-path of escape, for him at least, from his present predicament; that, if all else went askew, Sallie might prove profitable enough, to him at least, as the Marchioness of Ingoldsby. For had not Mr. Jobling stated that the young man before the fire was one of the wealthiest peers in England or elsewhere.
"I don't want to over-hurry her, y'know," said the noble marquis, "and, maybe, I've been a bit sudden. But I've been huntin' high and low for her ever since I last saw her, and—here I am, don't y'know. So I thought I'd ask her."
"Didn't you hear me tell you in Monte Carlo that Lady Josceline is engaged to marry me?" Slyne broke in, with a sudden access of anger, since Captain Dove still seemed to have nothing to say.
"That's so," said Captain Dove slowly. "She's engaged to this gentleman—on conditions."
Lord Ingoldsby screwed his eye-glass into his face and gravely regarded Slyne again.
"But she's not married to him yet," said he. "And—it's a woman's privilege to change her mind. Besides, if her engagement is only conditional—"
"We needn't discuss it just now," Captain Dove put in with unusual diplomacy. He could see that Slyne was liable to explode dangerously at any moment.
"All right, then," said Lord Ingoldsby in a tone of great determination. "I'll just have to do the best I can for myself." And, having finished his light refreshment, he strolled off again, taking not the slightest notice of Slyne's very obvious indignation.
As soon as he was safely out of earshot, Slyne fell foul of Captain Dove, who listened patiently enough to all he had to say.
"But I'm not interfering," said the old man. "All that sort of thing lies between you and her, Slyne. If you can get her to marry you right away—"
"Of course I can—if you back me up," Slyne declared wrathfully. "And you've got to do that now, Dove—for your own sake. We're both in the same boat, remember,—and if it upsets, we'll both drown. I'll make quite sure of that.
"So—we'll get hold of Sallie now before the thing goes any further—and settle that question for good."
CHAPTER XXIV
BY RIGHT OF PURCHASE
Sallie had been far too happily occupied since she had come to Loquhariot to have been conscious of the wheels within wheels revolving about her there.
She could scarcely at once accustom herself to look upon the great, grey, age-old castle as her home; but there was Janet M'Kissock always eager to help her in that respect, with endless stories of bygone days which made the place seem always more familiar and friendly to her. She grew, by degrees, to know and love it almost as if she had lived there all her life.
It was much more difficult to grasp the idea that the whole of the beautiful white world beyond its windows was also hers, and hers alone; from the rugged, snow-clad mountains towering behind and on either hand, even to the Small Isles, like bergs in the sun amid the smoking seas in that turbulent weather. But Slyne missed no opportunity to impress that important fact upon her. And she was finding it always easier to forget her unhappy past, to enjoy the marvellous present and the most inspiriting part in it, to leave the over-difficult future to evolve itself.
The men and women about the place were all devoted to her. She had very soon won the staunch good-will of the cottagers at the cliff-foot. And her soft sway was everywhere undisputed, although Slyne had at first been inclined to contest it himself. But he soon seemed to realise that it would be best, in the meantime, to order events from the background and in her voice.
He had shown some disposition, too, to question the extent of the liberty she might now assume to herself. But he had not pressed that point unduly either, and they continued on that footing of pleasant comradeship which he had been at such ceaseless pains to promote. His debonair courtesy to her, his easy deference to most of her wishes, were very different indeed from his off-hand manner of former days. And she could not but be grateful to him, in the meantime, for the almost over-ample fulfilment of his original promise.
Regarding her pledge to him, he had said nothing more, although she spent long afternoons and evenings in his company when the weather was at its worst, while Mr. Jobling was away. Captain Dove left the two of them very much to themselves, and Slyne had offered to teach her to play billiards, to pass the time.
She would have been entirely content, indeed, but for the hardship her coming had entailed on Justin Carthew. She had met him more than once out of doors, and he had always seemed pleased to see her, but—it was of common report that he was a poor man, and she could not help feeling that he had shown himself very much more generous to her than she to him. She found comfort, however, in the conclusion that circumstances were quite beyond her control, and that he would understand better by and by the complications through which she had had to find her way as best she could.
She had gone down to the village on the afternoon when the Olive Branch arrived in the loch, and she walked back as far as the castle with Carthew. The reappearance of that ill-omened craft had alarmed her more than a little, and she could see that Carthew was becoming always more sorely puzzled. But he had promised her to await events without question for three short months; and he was keeping his promise loyally. She could have told him nothing, in any case.
She met Slyne in the hall, on her way indoors, and he reassured her as to her perfect safety from any further risk of evil-doing by Captain Dove. He pointed out, too, that the steamer's crew was too scanty now to cope with the force he could call to her aid from the village in case the old man should attempt to make any mischief, which was most unlikely. And she went on to her own cosy quarters, quite content again.
She was changing her outdoor dress for one of her pretty Parisian tea-gowns, when word was brought her that the Duchess of Dawn and Lord Ingoldsby had come across the mountains to pay her a call.
She remembered Lord Ingoldsby, and wondered what could have brought him to Loquhariot. The idea of entertaining a duchess dismayed her a little; she had no notion at all what the conventions called for under circumstances so unusual in her own experience—although Slyne had been at some pains to explain a number of other conventions to her. But she went along to the blue drawing-room at once, and was relieved to find Slyne there before her, unconcernedly chatting with a very beautiful young woman in a sadly splashed habit, her back to the fire, booted feet a little apart, hunting-crop in clasped hands, laughter in her clear eyes; while Lord Ingoldsby, looking much less imbecile and more of a man in his travel-soiled riding-kit, stood listening gloomily.
His face cleared at sight of Sallie, however. "Here's Lady Josceline, Aunt Jane," he cried, and the duchess, after a single swift, appraising glance at her, came forward with outstretched hands and kissed her without any more ado.
"Oh! my dear," said the duchess impulsively, "you can't imagine what a relief you are. Ingoldsby has been simply raving about you, and—I was so anxious, don't you know. But I don't blame him now.
"I've seen you before, too—one night at the Savoy. If I had only known then who you were—But some one said you were a Miss Harris! You've kept it all such a close secret! We wouldn't have known even now if we hadn't heard, quite by chance, that the beacon had been lighted one night. And we've been wondering ever since—So you must tell me all about everything now, if you will." And she drew Sallie down beside her on a low couch at one side of the white marble fireplace, leaving the two men to their own devices while she went on to explain herself no less volubly.
"It was madness, of course, to cross the Pass in weather like this, but—Ingoldsby would give me no peace; and I've been so curious myself to find out who could be here. I'm your nearest neighbour, you know, although Castle Dawn is ten miles away; those are worse than twenty anywhere else. So, when the rain stopped this forenoon we set out—and here we are, covered with mud! The road's in a dreadful state, but you must come over and stay with me as soon as the bridges are mended. We're going to be great friends. I knew your father—although I'm not quite so old as you might imagine from that, for I wasn't out of short petticoats the last time he spoke to me. And, as for being the aunt of that scapegrace there, he's five years older than I am in years—and fifty in—"
"Don't be too rough on a fellah, Aunt Jane!" interrupted her noble nephew, who had been regarding Sallie with fixed vacuity through his eye-glass. "An' don't you believe all you hear about me, Lady Josceline: I'm not so black as I'm painted, at any rate."
"He's been simply raving about you," the duchess declared again, in a laughing whisper. "I couldn't imagine what had brought him down to Dawn in midwinter, until he confided in me that he had been searching the wide world for you ever since he met you first: and he imagined that you might, after all, be here, at home."
She had a great many questions to ask Sallie then, questions which Sallie, in such a situation, might have found it very difficult to answer but for Jasper Slyne's sharp ears and tactful tongue. And the duchess was not slow to understand.
"Of course you can't confide in me yet," she declared laughingly. "But some day you must tell me all your adventures. Your home-coming after all these years will make a nine days' wonder once the papers get to hear of it."
A servant came in to light the lamps, and Slyne sauntered to a window before the curtains were drawn.
"It's snowing again, Ingoldsby," said he. "You won't get back to Dawn to-night."
The duchess looked a little alarmed, but was soon laughing again.
"All right," she agreed, in response to Sallie's prompt proffer of hospitality. "I'll be most happy to stay over-night—and so will Ingoldsby, I'm sure."
"I'll go and let Mrs. M'Kissock know," Slyne volunteered. "Will you look into the gun-room when you pass, Lady Josceline?"
"Is old Janet still here?" the duchess asked as he left the room. "I must have a chat with her. She and I used to be great friends before—when Torquil St. Just was still alive and my mother would bring me over to Loquhariot when she came to call on yours. I was Jane Gairloch in those days."
Lord Ingoldsby sat listening very patiently for a time while they talked to each other, and then he became possessed by a strangled cough—to which the duchess paid no attention.
"You might give a fellah a chance, Aunt Jane," he at length suggested desperately, and she rose from the couch with a most penitent expression.
"Bless my heart, child!" she said. "I had almost forgotten—But—I'll go and talk to old Janet now." And she disappeared without other apology.
Sallie looked surprised. But Lord Ingoldsby, having cleared his throat again, claimed her attention.
"You've no idea, Lady Josceline," he said hurriedly, "what a deuce of a bât I've been in for nearly a fortnight. I was afraid I'd never find you again. And, now that I've found you, don't y'know, what I want to say to you is—It's very difficult to express—But I mean—What I'm trying to tell you is that I thought we might maybe make a match of it. Will you marry me, Lady Josceline?"
Sallie looked still more surprised. But she was not slow in answering such a preposterous question.
"I can't," she said, concisely.
"But why not?" he cried. "For heaven's sake! don't go so fast. Give me time to—"
"Time couldn't make any difference," she said, seeing that he was very much in earnest. "I can't—"
"But—why not?" he insisted. "Is—is there some one else already? It's not that fellah I met in Monte Carlo with you, I'm sure; he's such a rank outsider—you couldn't care for him, I'm sure. And why not give me just a chance to show you—
"There's nothing I wouldn't do for you, Lady Josceline. Give me just a chance."
"I can't," she repeated for the third time, and he stared at her as if in abject despair.
"Why can't you?" he demanded in a difficult, husky voice.
She could scarcely answer that question, a question which he had no right to ask. But—she felt sorry for him in his very obvious disappointment.
"If you care to ask Captain Dove, perhaps he will tell you," she said, unable to think of any other safe way out of that difficulty, and not caring very much what Captain Dove might say.
But Lord Ingoldsby was not so easily to be got rid of. He stayed where he was, arguing and imploring by turns until his youthful aunt appeared again, looking somewhat serious; she seemed to take in the situation between them at a shrewd glance.
He left the room then for a little, and when he returned Sallie and the duchess were on the point of retiring.
"I'm going to have a hot bath and a rest before dinner, Ingoldsby," his aunt informed him.
"Your rooms will be ready now, too," Sallie added, unwilling to be left alone there with him again. And he went off, very glumly, under convoy of a servant, toward the bachelor apartments in the Warder's Tower.
Sallie saw the duchess settled in the suite which had been prepared for her, and having provided her with a plentiful choice of evening frocks, went on to the gun-room, to see what Slyne wanted with her.
Captain Dove and he were seated on either side of the fireplace, and looked round rather uncertainly as she came into the room.
"I've made the duchess quite comfortable, Jasper," she said with a smile, "and she's been exceedingly nice to me. I hope you'll look as well after Lord Ingoldsby."
"I've told them to give him the run of my wardrobe," Slyne answered indifferently. "So he'll be all right.
"And—what I wanted to say to you, Sallie, is that—I've just heard—All my hard work for you has been successful at last," he stammered, in a changed voice. "The claim I made for you has been allowed by the law. We're all going up to London to-morrow to get matters finally settled, and then—you'll be Countess of Jura in your own right."
He paused, effectively. Captain Dove was glancing from one to the other of them with judicial gravity.
"So that you can keep your promise to me now, without any further delay," said Slyne. "I want you to tell the others at dinner to-night—that you've chosen me for your husband."
The happy light in her eyes died out instantly. A faint frown furrowed her smooth white forehead. Her curved lips trembled a little. The old unhappiness and dread were plucking at her heart again. But she did not shirk the issue.
"But you agreed to wait—for three months, Jasper," she said in a low, pleading voice.
"That was only in case it took so long to fix things up for you," he lied easily. "Our signed agreement makes that quite clear, and it's absolutely binding, you know. Mr. Jobling will tell you that—and he's a lawyer."
She was gazing at him with something very like horror in her wide eyes.
"Was that in the paper I signed?" she asked breathlessly. But her lips had grown set and resolute. "I thought—"
"You must have misunderstood me, then," Slyne interrupted with assumed impatience. "But—you signed it of your own free will, before responsible witnesses. I've kept my part of our bargain; and now—you must keep yours, or the law will make you."
Her heart was beating almost painfully. To her, in her ignorance, the law was merely an instrument of injustice. She believed herself to be bound without hope of release by the document she had signed, and that the same inexorable law which had, only the other day, ruined Justin Carthew to raise her up in his place, would now force her to abide by whatever was written above her disastrous signature. The whole fair fabric of that wonderful new world to which she had so recently gained admittance had in these minutes come tumbling about her ears. And the crash of its falling palaces left her helpless and stupefied. She looked dizzily round at Captain Dove. But his features were quite unreadable.
"There's another point, Sallie," said Slyne, all his quick wits at work again as he saw the impression his words had made, determined to hammer home every argument that might weigh with her in her ignorance, "another point that I'd never have mentioned if you had been prepared to deal fairly with me after all I've done for you."
She shivered at that further thrust; she, who had never dealt unfairly with either friend or enemy.
"Even without your promise, you're mine—by right of purchase. You were Captain Dove's property before, as you know very well. He bought you and paid for you. And he sold you to me, to save you from a worse master.
"You can't say now that you didn't know what was ahead of you, for I told you, in Genoa. And I gave you a last chance, too, before we left Monte Carlo, to draw back and go your own way with him. Now you're doubly mine. Ask him, if you don't believe me."
The girl glanced in agonised appeal at the old man sitting motionless in his chair, his eyes on the ground. But Captain Dove merely nodded, like some mechanical figure.
Slyne scowled, as if at an end of his patience, and, striding across to the door, locked it, pocketing the key.
"However," said he, "I'm not going to argue with you. I've evidently wasted my time in treating you reasonably. Now, there are only two courses open to you. You can come my way, with me, or—"
He crossed the room again and pulled back the loose panel in the wainscot, pointed to the dark cavity it had concealed.
"There's a boat from the Olive Branch at the water-gate at the end of this passage. You're perfectly free to go back on board with Captain Dove, and—if you do, I wish you joy of your choice. I'm maybe not much of a catch as a husband, but—" He left the inference unspoken, significantly, daring her to go back to that dreadful fate by hinting at which he had once before forced her to change her mind.
Captain Dove got on to his feet with a puzzled scowl. Slyne had turned aside, to light a couple of candles, as if in preparation for a descent underground.
Captain Dove slowly drew the back of one hand across his mouth and from behind it whispered a few words to Sallie. "Humour him just now," he advised with suppressed vehemence. "I'll see you safe."
"Well?" Slyne demanded and came toward her. "Which is it to be? Time's up."
His hands hung open but tense at his sides. His teeth were set between parted lips, his knees bent a little as he braced himself to spring at her wrists before she could make any movement in self-defence. Captain Dove had stepped up behind her and she did not doubt that, unless she fell in with their wishes, they meant now to overpower her and carry her off.
She did not move for a moment, but her clouded eyes slowly cleared, and Slyne, studying her features intently, relaxed his own strained attitude a little as if in fore-knowledge of final success.
Sallie's expression of utter despair had given place to one of resignation, almost of peace. She had made up her mind to have done with the seemingly endless, unequal struggle.
"Very well, Jasper," she said slowly at last, in a very hurtful voice. "You may tell the others—whatever you like—at dinner to-night, if you'll wait till then."
Captain Dove drew back and returned to his chair, as if satisfied for the moment. Slyne's dogged glance had dropped before the tragedy in her eyes.
"You can surely trust me, Sallie," he said, "after all I've done for you. And, listen! I'm not trying to rush you, either. If you'll tell the others at dinner to-night just that you take me for your husband—I'll wait till the end of the three months for our real wedding in church."
She could not quite understand what he really wanted, and looked her perplexity. But her mind was made up. She meant to keep any promise she might have made him, whether in writing or otherwise, and even mistakenly.
"Will you let me go now?" she begged brokenly, and he went to open the door for her.
"You'll say nothing about it to anyone till—the time comes," he stipulated before he would turn the key, and to that also she agreed with a nod, not trusting herself to speak.
She was very thankful that she met no one on her way to her own rooms, for her eyes were wet. She had never felt so utterly forlorn and friendless as now. There was no one in whom she might safely confide, no one who could help her safely past the promise into which she had been tricked, that promise to which, she did not doubt, the law would hold her firmly. And, in any case, she could not have gone back on board the Olive Branch—to a fate even worse.
Ambrizette was awaiting her, to dress her for dinner, but, on a sudden impulse, she sat down at the escritoire in her boudoir to write a few hurried lines to Carthew. She thought she would like to see him again, before—
Her letter ready, she bade Ambrizette ring the bell. It was the maid Mairi who answered it, and, when Sallie looked up again, she saw that the girl was silently crying.
"What's the matter, Mairi?" she asked in her gentle voice, forgetting her own cruel cares for the moment, and at that the half-hysterical maid broke into a storm of unintelligible explanations in Gaelic, with here and there a broken sentence that Sallie could understand.
Her heavy-hearted mistress rose and put a protecting arm about her.
"You must tell me what the trouble is," said Sallie softly, "and I'll try to help you. What is it that has gone wrong?"
"Ochon—ochon—ochanorie!" the girl sobbed. "It is for your ladyship—not for me—and I was not to tell you, whatever. But—it is not right at all that I must not speak. Your ladyship should be told in time—it is that the White Lady has come to the castle again—and—there will be doom to follow before daylight. Ochon, ochon!"
Sallie shivered in spite of herself, as she recalled the uncanny legend which Mr. Jobling had related on the evening of their arrival. She had scarcely thought of it since, but now—
"Who has seen the White Lady, Mairi?" she asked patiently, and the girl grew a little calmer.
"I, with my own eyes, your ladyship," she declared. "It was at a turn of the passage not far from Mistress M'Kissock's room. And I did not run from it, moreover. I stood and watched till it disappeared, for I was afraid to move. And Mistress M'Kissock will say that it is all havers and nonsense, but I am sure. For it was seen in the woods as well, on the way to the hut that was Lord St. Just's, and Donuil Mohr, the forester, it was who saw it there."
Sallie sighed. She did not know what to think of it all, she who had so much else to think about. But she comforted the distressed Mairi, and presently sent her off on her errand, dry-eyed at last, and with word for the other servants that her ladyship was not in the least afraid of any such shadow seen in the dusk.
Sallie had almost forgotten the matter, indeed, before Ambrizette—much exercised in her mind by her beloved mistress's very evident and unusual preoccupation—had finished brushing out her beautiful hair and heaped it about her bent head in a heavy red-gold crown. When her toilette was quite complete, she looked wistfully round the luxurious rooms in which she had dreamed such happy dreams, and then went quietly through, a tall, slender, white-robed figure herself in the firelight, to one of the windows that look down Loch Jura and out to sea. She stopped there, and stayed for a time gazing out at the silver sheen of the ripple among which the Small Isles were set. The snow had ceased for the moment, but it looked as if there were more to come.
She looked directly downward, at the quiet village below. There was only a single light visible, and that at the inn. It was suddenly extinguished and Sallie turned away from the window.
"I wonder—I think he will come," she told herself, if a little doubtfully, as she passed through her boudoir again on her way to rejoin her guests; she paused for an instant to throw two warm, white arms about Ambrizette watching her as she went, out of dog-like eyes with a world of dumb devotion in them.
"I think he will come," she encouraged herself as she entered the distant drawing-room. "He promised—
"Oh, Mr. Herries!"
She had stopped, a little startled, at sight of the solitary figure before the fire. But it was none other than the old factor, a very cadaverous spectacle in evening clothes much too ample for one so emaciated, who came forward with a hasty apology for his intrusion.
"I'm quite well again now," he assured her, in reply to her anxious questions, "and—I thought I would risk taking the liberty—if you will grant me permission to sit at table with you to-night. I always had that privilege with the earl."
Sallie thought she knew his real reason for being there, and it touched her sore heart to think that he was so eager to be at her side, sick or well, while the strange portent of which Mairi had told her was still impending.
"Do you really believe in the White Lady, Mr. Herries?" she asked with a little laugh that was half a sigh, as she put her hands into his and so set him down on a chair.
"I couldn't exactly say either yes or no," the old man answered with native caution. "But, at any rate, I've never seen—any such nonsense myself."
"I don't," declared Sallie, with simple conviction, and, turning as some one else entered the room, "He will come," said she to herself.