“And we have agreed to the terms, Mr. Scanlan,” said her Ladyship, with a great effort to conciliate. “It only remains for us to say, a good journey, and every success attend you.”
“Thank you, my Lady; I'm your most obedient. Captain, I wish you good-bye, and hope soon to send you happy tidings. I trust, if Mr. Martin asks after me, that you 'll give him my respectful duty; and if—”
“We'll forget nothing, sir,” said Lady Dorothea, rising; and Scanlan, after a moment's hesitation as to whether he should venture to offer his hand,—a measure for which, happily, he could not muster the courage,—bowed himself out of the room, and closed the door.
“Not a very cordial leave-taking for one that's to be her nephew,” muttered he, with a bitter laugh, as he descended the stairs. “And, indeed, my first cousin, the Captain, is n't the model of family affection. Never mind, Maurice, your day is coming!” And with this assuring reflection he issued forth to give orders for his journey.
A weary sigh—the outpouring of an oppressed and jaded spirit—broke from Lady Dorothea as the door closed after him. “Insufferable creature!” muttered she to herself? and then, turning to the Captain, said aloud, “Is that man capable of playing us false?—or, rather, has he the power of doing so?”
“It is just what I have been turning over in my own mind,” replied he. “I don't quite trust him; and, in fact, I'd follow him over to London, if I were free at this moment.”
“Perhaps you ought to do so; it might be the wisest course,” said she, hesitatingly.
“Do you think I could leave this with safety?” asked he. But she did not seem to have heard the question. He repeated it, and she was still silent. “If the doctors could be relied on, they should be able to tell us.”
“To tell us what?” asked she, abruptly, almost sternly.
“I meant that they'd know—that they'd perhaps be in a position to judge—that they at least could warn us—” Here he stopped, confused and embarrassed, and quite unable to continue. That sense of embarrassment, however, came less of his own reflections than of the cold, steady, and searching look which his mother never ceased to bend on him. It was a gaze that seemed to imply, “Say on, and let me hear how destitute of all feeling you will avow yourself.” It was, indeed, the meaning of her stare, and so he felt it, as the color came and went in his cheek, and a sense of faintish sickness crept over him.