"Do—do you think he has gone mad?" asked Julia, with clasped hands and tearful eyes.
"My dear Mark, I think something ought to be done,—some one ought to go after her," says Portia, nervously. "He really looked quite dreadful."
"I'll go," says Roger, angrily.
"No, you won't," says Sir Mark, catching hold of him. "Let them have it out,—it is far the best thing. And if she gets a regular, right-down, uncommonly good scolding, as I hope she will"—viciously,—"I can only say she richly deserves it."
"I can only say I don't know whether I am standing on my head or on my heels," says Mr. Browne, drawing a long breath; "I feel cheap. Any one might have me now for little or nothing—quite a bargain."
"I don't think you'd be a bargain at any price," says Sir Mark; but this touching tribute to his inestimable qualities is passed over by Mr. Browne in a silence that is almost sublime.
"To think Stephen could look like that!" he goes on, as evenly as if Sir Mark had never spoken. "Why, Irving is a fool to him. Tragedy is plainly his forte. Really, one never knows of what these æsthetic-looking people are capable. He looked murderous."
At this awful word the children—who have been silent and most attentive spectators of the late scene, and who have been enchanted with it—turn quite pale, and whisper together in a subdued fashion. When the whispering has reached a certain point, the Boodie gives Jacky an encouraging push, whereupon that young hero darts away from her side like an arrow from a bow, and disappears swiftly round the corner.
Meanwhile, having arrived at the Beeches, a rather remote part of the ground, beautiful in Summer because of the luxuriant foliage of the trees, but now bleak and bare beneath the rough touch of Winter, Stephen stops short and faces his companion steadily. His glance is stern and unforgiving; his whole bearing relentless and forbidding.
To say Miss Blount is feeling nervous would be saying very little. She is looking crushed in anticipation by the weight of the thunderbolt she knows is about to fall. Presently it descends, and once down, she acknowledges to herself it was only a shock after all, worse in the fancy than in the reality; as are most of our daily fears.