Roland did not answer. There are moments when moral reflections are particularly hateful.
The doctor arrived sooner than they had hoped, the man-servant having met him about half-way between Aspinshaw and his own house, but of course he could only confirm what they all knew. The whole contents of the gun had lodged in the lungs, and death must have been instantaneous. He asked the two young men a good many questions as to the manner of the accident, but of course they had not seen it, and were unable to throw any light on the cause of the disaster. He must have been carrying the gun full-cock, and the concussion, when he brought the butt down on the ground, must have started it.
'Mrs Stanley bears up wonderfully well.'
'And his daughter?' put in Litvinoff.
'Well, the poor child's crushed at present, but she'll soon be all right. Young hearts soon throw off their troubles, thank Heaven! I shall have to trouble you two gentlemen at the inquest,' he said, as he got into his gig and was driven off.
Roland Ferrier and Michael Litvinoff walked home almost in silence, consumed a dinner enlivened by Miss Letitia's comments on the events of the day, and, when she had retired in tears, passed one of the most melancholy evenings in the recollection of either. Roland did his best to perform the difficult part of genial host to the guest who had been introduced to Thornsett under such inauspicious circumstances; but he was a young man who had not that within him which enables men to resist the influence of the immediately surrounding circumstances, and his attempt was a dead failure. Litvinoff could, perhaps, have succeeded with a desperate effort in raising the cloud of gloom that hung over them both, but it did not seem to him that the game was quite worth the candle, and he let it alone.
Under the circumstances there could be no shooting, and none of such social entertainments as would certainly otherwise have enlivened his visit, and the prospect of his first Christmas in an English country-house looked very bleak.
'I suppose one mustn't smoke here,' he said aloud to himself, when, the long evening over, he reached his bedroom, and sank down into an easy-chair before the brightly-burning fire. 'That antiquated lady is the sort of person who would go mad if she smelt smoke in one of the bedrooms. It is a great bore. I want to think—and how the deuce am I to think if I can't smoke!—and I must think. Yes, it must be done; they must put it down to my foreign ways,' he added, as he drew out his cigar-case and lighted up.
Something in his surroundings reminded him of that night in October when he had saved the life of the man who was now lying dead at Aspinshaw.
'Poor old boy,' he said, 'I didn't renew his lease of life for very long, after all; but I expect he lived long enough to have done almost as much for me as he could have done had he lived longer. Perhaps my "views," as he would have called them, will not stand so much in the way now. My crushed young host told me that she is beginning to share those views and to be enthusiastic—thanks to that mysterious entity, Petrovitch. I owe him that; I wonder if I owe him anything else? I do owe many sums to many people. He had me for ten pounds, though, any way. Pardieu! I hope he won't try that again, or I shall have to stay down here permanently. I shall attend a funeral in a few days, I suppose. I wonder when I shall attend a marriage? She was obedient to-day—a good sign. Things will go smoother so.'