“So did I,” said Bartley Bradstone, with a knowing look. “I was only waiting for their departure,” and he went out.
He had not told the squire that he held all his bonds in his hands, and that at any moment he could crush him, ruin him, turn him out of the Grange. Bartley Bradstone was clever enough to know that if he had done so, and had also intimated that his price for sparing her father was the daughter’s hand, the squire would have turned him out of the house, and probably kicked him into the bargain. No, Bartley Bradstone, though a vulgar parvenu, was too clever to make such a false move. He reserved it. That was all.
CHAPTER XI.
A BID FOR LOVE.
For all his outward show of composure, he was feeling anything but comfortable, and as he stood with his hand upon the drawing-room door, there was a strange look upon his face, a look that expressed something more than the usual lover’s despondent timidity, something more than the ordinary nervousness; it was rather that of a man who was playing a dangerous and a desperate game, and who stands upon the brink of a precipice, which, lined as it may be with flowers, means, if he should fall, death and destruction.
“The old man was easy,” he muttered, “but it’s different with her. By Heaven, if she knew!”
The thought, whatever it was, seemed to increase his uneasiness, and he wiped the perspiration from his face, which had suddenly grown white under the reflection.
Then he opened the door. Olivia was alone, and seated at the piano, but not playing. Her hands were lying clasped loosely in her lap, her face and her whole attitude expressive of complete abstraction—so complete that she did not hear him open the door, and it was not until he was close beside her and had spoken her name, that she knew he had entered.
“Mr. Bradstone!” she said, with a slight start. “I thought you had gone,” she added, coldly.
The sullen look came into his eyes for a moment.
“No, I ought to have gone; but I have been talking with the squire,” he said.