The generous girl delayed not a moment, but hastened from the room as she spoke, leaving Sir Marmaduke and Terry silently confronting each other. The moment of his daughter's departure, Sir Marmaduke felt relieved from the interference her good opinion of Terry suggested, and, at once altering his whole demeanour, he walked close up to him, and said—
“I shall but give you one chance more, sir. Answer my question now, or never.”
“Never, then!” rejoined Terry, in a tone of open defiance.
The words, and the look by which they were accompanied, overcame the old man's temper in a moment, and he said—
“I thought as much. I guessed how deeply gratitude had sunk in such a heart. Away! Let me see you no more.”
The boy turned his eyes from the speaker till they fell upon his own seared and burned limb, and the hand swathed in its rude bandage. That mute appeal was all he made, and then burst into a flood of tears. The old man turned away to hide his own emotions, and when he looked round, Terry was gone. The hall door lay open. He had passed out and gained the lawn—no sight of him could be seen.
“I know it, father, I know it all now,” said Sybella, as she came running up the slope from the lake.
“It is too late, my child; he has gone—left us for ever, I fear,” said Sir Marmaduke, as in shame and sorrow he rested his head upon her shoulder.
For some seconds she could not comprehend his words; and, when at last she did so, she burst forth—
“And, oh, father, think how we have wronged him. It was in his care and devotion to us, the poor fellow incurred' our doubts. His habit was to sit beneath the window each night, so long as lights gleamed within. Till they were extinguished, he never sought his rest. The boatman tells me this, and says, his notion was, that God watches over the dark hours only, and that man's precautions were needed up to that time.”