“My very words!” I cried; “and so repeated by you, Lord Castleton, they seem prophetic.”
“Take my advice, and don’t lose sight of your cousin while his pride is yet humbled, and his heart perhaps softened. I don’t say this only for his sake. No, it is your poor uncle I think of: noble old fellow! And now I think it right to pay Lady Ellinor the respect of repairing, as well as I can, the havoc three sleepless nights have made on the exterior of a gentleman who is on the shady side of remorseless forty.”
Lord Castleton here left me, and I wrote to my father, begging him to meet us at the next stage (which was the nearest point from the high road to the Tower), and I sent off the letter by a messenger on horseback. That task done, I leaned my head upon my hand, and a profound sadness settled upon me, despite all my efforts to face the future and think only of the duties of life—not its sorrows.
CHAPTER IV.
Before nine o’clock Lady Ellinor arrived, and went straight into Miss Trevanion’s room; I took refuge in my uncle’s. Roland was awake and calm, but so feeble that he made no effort to rise; and it was his calm, indeed, that alarmed me the most,—it was like the calm of nature thoroughly exhausted. He obeyed me mechanically, as a patient takes from your hand the draught, of which he is almost unconscious, when I pressed him to take food. He smiled on me faintly when I spoke to him, but made me a sign that seemed to implore silence. Then he turned his face from me and buried it in the pillow; and I thought that he slept again, when, raising himself a little, and feeling for my hand, he said, in a scarcely audible voice,—
“Where is he?”
“Would you see him, sir?”
“No, no; that would kill me,—and then what would become of him?”
“He has promised me an interview, and in that interview I feel assured he will obey your wishes, whatever they are.” Roland made no answer.