“Don’t listen to him, Mr. Tuke!” she cried. “He’s a bad, bad boy!”
She made a very pretty picture, as she turned with radiant face and tumbling hair to their guest. Her girlish grace commanded the situation.
“I didn’t know—I didn’t, I didn’t!” she cried; and “Fibs, Tuke!” was the response in a smothered voice.
Now the visitor was a salted gallant; but he found something very sweet in this delicate-skinned, coquettish maid of many arts and graces. She was like an exotic whiff from the glass-house of his former life—good God! how vague and far away that seemed now. This gave him a full feeling about the heart; a feeling as though he, a years-long exile, had chanced across a compatriot in the land of his desolation; and the consequences was that he, who would not while he might, was now wavering to a parlous state in the afternoon of his fortunes.
The vision of her standing on the steps to bid him God-speed abode with him during the length of his homeward journey, and would often rise up before him at intervals during the day.
Sir David had stretched up to him, as he sat mounted for his departure, hat in hand.
“Tuke,” the little man whispered, “that is a cursed queer business you told us about, and it jumps oddly with Luvaine’s. You will hold me at your service if you need assistance. I am a Justice of the Peace, sir.”
He smacked his chest; dropped back on his heels, and cried “A votre service!” with extreme elegance.
CHAPTER XVI.
Something singular in the appearance of his house engaged Mr. Tuke’s attention the moment he drew rein before the door. Desolate and haunted it always looked; but now there was a deathly air about the place that was an additional burden on its eeriness.