The squire made no reply to this, and Mrs. Layton, having drank her port, took her leave, remarking to her husband as they quitted the house together:
“Poor man, he is evidently failing fast.”
“Thank heavens she is gone!” exclaimed the squire with energy, pulling the handkerchief from his face as he heard their retreating footsteps. “What a woman! She’s enough to drive anyone mad.”
CHAPTER XVI.
THE LOVE THAT CAN NOT CHANGE.
John Temple went up the staircase toward his own room, after quitting the luncheon, saying some very hard things indeed below his breath of Mrs. Layton. She had made him intensely angry about May Churchill and young Henderson. Not that he believed a word of it, but it enraged him to hear the girl’s name coupled with this ruffian’s, for so he mentally designated Henderson.
John indeed had always had serious doubts as to Henderson’s actual guilt regarding Elsie Wray’s death. That he had broken the poor girl’s heart he never doubted. But there had been something in the evidence of the groom, Jack Reid, something in his face that made John believe he was not speaking the truth.
And that Henderson dare go near May! “It’s that disgusting stepmother, I suppose,” thought John; “my poor little girl, my poor May, you will be happier with me.”
So John sat down to write to his poor little May when he got to his own room, and then started out across the park to post his letter at the nearest post office. He walked on with a bent head and a thoughtful brow. He was dissatisfied with himself, irresolute, and yet his heart was warm with love. In his letter he had asked May to fix some place where he could see her, but he was fated to meet her earlier than he expected.
May and her brothers had walked home from church, May feeling somewhat disappointed that she had not had an opportunity of exchanging a word with John Temple, but still she was ready to excuse him.