"Impossible! absurd! Nothing but derangement could make your brother imagine any mortal would believe a fabrication so atrocious and improbable!"
"It will at least excite interest, and his plans are but too well laid. My story might then become public; and little as the world thinks in general of such sorrows as mine, there are some who would pity me. Ernest has the cunning of madness; and he thinks if you and Henry De Lancey were removed, he must succeed to Lord Doncaster. If I live, his strange and deadly scheme of revenge shall be circumvented; yet beware of Ernest! Your life is not safe for an hour! Night and day,—alone or in company, at your table or in your bed, wherever you turn, and wherever you go, beware; for none but myself can tell what his love or his hatred are. I would prevent mischief for his sake, and—and even for yours."
A dark convulsion passed over the unhappy woman's countenance,—she gazed for several moments at Captain De Crespigny in silent, disastrous wretchedness, and with the livid smile of a broken heart, she disappeared.
Captain De Crespigny scarcely slept that night,—the moaning of the wind sounded dismal as the cry of departed spirits in his ears, and when at last his eye closed in feverish, restless slumber, he suddenly started up, thinking his name had been called out with a shriek of anguish in accents to which he had long been a stranger, and unable to tell whether it had been a dream or a reality, he watched for some time in agitated silence, and towards morning fell into a deep repose.
CHAPTER XXV.
When Captain De Crespigny called two days after this at St. John's Lodge, to take leave before setting out for Yorkshire, he looked so absent and so agitated, that Agnes became quite elated and flattered by what she attributed to his unconquerable regret at being obliged to take so long a leave of herself. She even forgave him for enquiring almost immediately what had become of Marion, and answered with careless vivacity, "She is gone to her favorite home at Portobello. Marion perfectly idolises her uncle. I should require to attend a series of lectures on naval tactics, and to take a course of nautical novels for a month, before I could get on with the Admiral as she does! My sister talks about the battles of Trafalgar and Camperdown, as if she had fought at them herself, but really somehow or other, I never can find a word for good, worthy sir Arthur!"
"And yet," observed Sir Patrick, "you never seem very much at a loss for conversation, Agnes, when I have the pleasure of seeing you! It is years, countless years, since I have entered his house, or since he has entered mine; but suppose we go down together some day, and cut out Marion at once, by doing the agreeable in our very best and most fascinating style!"
"If my uncle Doncaster were such a man, I should certainly make up to him greatly!" said Captain De Crespigny, in a tone more than commonly in earnest. "It would be well worth your while to try."
"Sir Arthur has nothing to leave! you are quite mistaken there!" replied Agnes, inadvertently. "When we were perfect children, and all on the very best terms, he used to say that it would be quite enough for an old sailor like him, if he could bequeath us his watch and enough to bury him! As Pat says, he might make his will on his thumb-nail. Oh! rest assured he has nothing to leave!"
"I did not suppose he had," continued Captain De Crespigny, gravely. "A small income in his liberal hand has done more good than the very largest in any other person's. It is an odd phenomenon in nature, that the lightest purse always is the most open to others, while the heavier a purse grows the more its mouth becomes contracted! A sort of spasmodic affection, I think!"