CHAPTER XII. DARKER AND DARKER.
THERE was an unusual depression at the villa each had his or her own load of anxiety, and each felt that an atmosphere of gloom was thickening around, and, without being able to say why or wherefore, that dark days were coming.
“Among your letters this morning was there none from the vicar, Mr. Calvert?” asked Miss Grainger, as he sat smoking his morning cigar under the porch of the cottage.
“No,” said he, carelessly. “The post brought me nothing of any interest A few reproaches from my friends about not writing, and relieving their anxieties about this unhappy business. They had it that I was killed—beyond that, nothing.”
“But we ought to have heard from old Mr. Loyd before this. Strange, too, Joseph has not written.”
“Stranger if he had! The very mention of my name as a referee in his affairs will make him very cautious with his pen.”
“She is so fretted,” sighed the old lady.
“I see she is, and I see she suspects, also, that you have taken me in your counsels. We are not as good friends as we were some time back.”
“She really likes you, though—I assure you she does, Mr. Calvert. It was but t’other day she said, ‘What would have become of us all this time back if Mad Harry—you know your nickname—if Mad Harry had not been here?’”