To this aspiration Gascoigne made no reply.
"I suppose you think I'm a brute, now, don't you?" inquired his companion.
"Since you will have it, I think you are a stepfather—that's all."
"But like a fellow in a story-book, eh? Come, now. Well, I'm an honest, plain man"—the latter fact was sufficiently manifest—"and I'll tell you the truth. I could have liked the child—not the same way as my own, of course—but still well enough; and the only girl too. But I cannot stand her; she is a double-faced, dangerous imp and extraordinarily daring. When you think she is quiet and on her good behaviour she is certain to be hatching something awful; she has a talent for bringing off the most unexpected things. Ah, you laugh, but I warn you, Gascoigne——"
Here he paused, for the sensitive mare had taken fright at a hideous hog, who, with his great bristles all erect, went grunting across the road, and broke into a wild gallop.
"Now, I say, young fellow," he shouted in agonised alarm, "no foolery—no larking—don't let her get away, for God's sake! Remember, I've a family depending on me," and as he spoke he clutched Gascoigne's arm with the grip of the drowning.
"Oh, you'll be all right," answered the driver, angrily shaking off the grasp; "there's no fear." He was disgusted with his guest, for whose cowardice and meanness he had the most supreme contempt. He did not permit Sally to "get away," but he suffered her to go at a pace that brought his companion's heart into his mouth, and, as a natural result, the remainder of the drive was silence.
CHAPTER IX
THE BEQUEST
Although the temperature was that of a bake-house, and not a breath of air stirred the drowsy bamboos, or the long seed-pods of the bare acacias; yet, as Mrs. Wilkinson was driven homewards, her teeth chattered, and her hands were as cold as ice—premonitory symptoms of a severe attack of fever. Bitterly she now blamed herself for her folly in lingering by the riverside, and she recalled what the river's bosom carried with a gasping shudder. Was it a warning to her? No, no; she was but nine-and-twenty—her life was not yet half spent. She drew the sleeping child into her arms, and oh, how warm the little creature felt, in her own deathly cold embrace!