"What's become of the man they caught?" I asked.
"Remanded without bail until you can give evidence, which you won't be able to do just yet," was the reply. "And now you're not to talk any more. Not another word, sir," he added, sharply, in a tone of command which he often used, and which came naturally from him, as it does from any born soldier. And, of course, I obeyed.
The short period of my illness was made as pleasant for me as kindness and every luxury could make it. Marian was given a room close to mine, and Sir Francis had also insisted upon sending for a trained nurse from York Infirmary. All night she sat up with me, although it was quite unnecessary, for all symptoms of the brain fever, which the doctor had feared was impending, had disappeared, and I invariably slept well. And all day Marian was with me, whilst Lady Olive and, more rarely, Maud Devereux paid me occasional visits. My most regular daily visitor, though, was Sir Francis himself. Every afternoon I woke up from my doze to see his tall, stately figure moving softly about the room, or sitting in the high-backed chair by my side. And sometimes I found him with his eyes fixed upon me, watching me with a half-curious, half-tender light softening his fine, stern face. Then I knew that he was thinking of my father, and I found it hard to refrain from clasping his hand and telling him who I was, and the whole truth about that miserable day so many years ago. But I remembered that he had heard it from my father, and called him a liar. I remembered that to his soldierly notion the court-martial was a court infallible, a tribunal which could not err, and I kept my mouth closed.
To others, the obvious fancy which Sir Francis had taken for me seemed inexplicable. I alone could guess—nay, knew, the reason. Marian and Lady Olive sometimes jested with me about it, but Maud never referred to it. In those days of my convalescence it seemed to me almost as though her wild face, when I had lain fainting in the hall, must have been a dream. She was kind, but in a proud, languid way; she talked to me, but in a monotonous, measured manner, and with a cold gleam in her deep blue eyes. She moved about my room with the stately grace of a princess, but of a princess who is stooping to perform a conscientious duty which she finds very wearisome. And yet, when she was there all was glaring light, and my heart was beating with the pleasure of her presence, and, when she was gone, the room seemed dark, and cold, and cheerless, and the light went out of my eyes and from my heart.
During those long days of forced inaction many thoughts troubled me. Not a single line had I heard from my father since our parting at Exeter, and his worn, suffering face haunted me day and night, and filled me with a vague self-reproach. True, little time had gone by yet, and I had already moved one step forward towards the accomplishment of my sworn purpose. But—Maud Devereux was she not the daughter of the man whom we had met on Exmoor, the daughter of my Uncle Rupert, the man who had blasted my father's life, and thrown a long shadow over my own! It was a thought which made me toss about restless and uneasy, and filled me with a vague discontent. I never asked myself why—I doubt whether I knew, but all the same the feeling was there.
One afternoon, just as I was getting a little stronger and able to move about, Sir Francis Devereux gave me the opportunity which I had often coveted. He alluded indirectly to his son. Summoning up all my courage I asked him a question.
"Will your son—Mr. Rupert Devereux, isn't it—be down before the shooting is all over, Sir Francis?" I asked.
His face changed at once. From the courteous, sympathising friend he became the stiff, dignified aristocrat. His lips were set firmly together, and there was a decided contraction of his black-grey eyebrows. Altogether he looked as though he had suddenly remembered that I was a comparative stranger, and only his land agent, from whom a personal question of any sort was a decided impertinence.
"Certainly not," he answered, curtly; "my son never visits Devereux."
"And yet it will be his some day," I could not help remarking.