DEBIT AND CREDIT
"And you're—Earl of Jura—now," stammered Herries, helplessly, as though that undeniable fact altogether staggered belief.
The ragged scarecrow with the eye-glass nodded, somewhat shamefacedly, and once more made a pitiful effort to straighten his stooping shoulders. Herries looked away, wretchedly, and then, as if understanding something of what must be in his mind, took it upon himself to dismiss the servants, but bidding them remain within call and also to see to it that no word went elsewhere of what they had seen and heard in the banquet-hall.
The rest of the company were regarding the ex-engineer of the Olive Branch with very varied expressions. A sickly pallor had overspread Slyne's rigid features as he heard the title by which Herries had addressed that untimeous intruder. Captain Dove, his hands still on the table before him, and crouching as if to spring, was breathing jerkily from between set teeth, like one with a seizure. The Marquis of Ingoldsby's narrow forehead was corrugated by a fixed and splenetic frown which kept his eyes and mouth at their very widest. Behind Sallie's questioning, compassionate, clouded glance lurked hope, and fear, and a steadfast determination; she was still holding fast the stem of her wine-glass. Justin Carthew looked as if he did not know in the least who or where he was. Mr. Jobling's purple visage and pendulous jowl spoke plainly the apoplectic and painful nature of his emotions. Of them all, only the Duchess of Dawn seemed to have preserved any measure of self-possession.
While Herries was giving the butler his orders, she crossed toward the fireplace with a little characteristic, impulsive gesture.
"I hope you haven't forgotten me, Torquil?" said she, almost timidly. It could not but hurt her to see what the years had made of the man who, when she had met him last, had been little more than a teasing, mischievous school-boy.
"I knew you at once," he replied, and blinked back at her and cleared his throat uncomfortably. The pinch of his present decayed estate before her once more quickened his numb sense of the grievous injury done him by Captain Dove. He glanced again in Captain Dove's direction, but the old man's gaze met his absolutely mystified; and his heavy heart began to grow hot again as he recalled how often his cunning taskmaster had cowed him by dint of threats to disclose his unknown identity to the police.
"We all believed you were dead," said the duchess, and he answered her stupidly, at random. His sullen eyes had encountered Slyne's, in which he read aright dismay unspeakable and a stunned seeking after some elusive scheme to turn the tables upon him yet. She saw how distrait he was. "But you'll tell me by and by something of your adventures," said she. "I just wanted to say how glad I am—that you're safe and sound after all. And now I'll be off to the drawing-room with Ingoldsby. We're only in the way here. I know you must have a great deal to say to your sister."
He started at hearing Sallie so styled. His restless regard had reached her, at the end of the table next him, and he wondered what it could be that had brought such an uncontrollable gleam of relief into her still bewildered eyes.
"I wish you would wait for a little, if you don't mind," he answered the duchess. "I'd like you to stay beside her until—I get rid of some of those others, if you don't mind."
She nodded, if rather reluctantly, and turned aside toward Herries as Sallie approached, holding out to the shabby prodigal whose belated return had brought about such a stupefying change in the situation there a tremulous, eager hand.
"You're just in time," Sallie said to him in such a glad, warm, grateful voice that even he, who knew very well her generous nature, was almost surprised by her evident pleasure in thus admitting his prior right to the high rank and vast heritage which he believed should have been hers but for him. He was infinitely embarrassed when, before them all, she stooped and touched with her lips the back of the claw-like, toil-stained hand, he had tried hard to withhold from her.
