"Perhaps," said Rupert, "if you will only favour me with your attention for a few minutes first, aunt, and allow me to narrate to you the circumstances of my brother's return here, and of his subsequent self-exile, you will see fit to change your opinion, both as regards him and myself."
A self-controlled nature will in the long run, rightly or wrongly, always assume the ascendency over an excitable one. The moderateness of Rupert's words, the coolness of his manner, here brought Tanty rapidly down from her pinnacle of passion.
Certainly, she said, she was not only ready, but anxious to hear all that Rupert could have to say for himself; and, smoothing down her black satin apron with a shaking hand, the old lady prepared to listen with as much judicial dignity as her flustered state allowed her to assume. Rupert drew his chair opposite to hers and leant his elbow on the table, and fixed his bright, hard eyes upon her.
"You remember, of course," he began after a moment's pause, "how at the time of my poor father's death, Adrian was reported to have lost his life in the Vendée war—though without authoritative confirmation—at the same time as the fair and unhappy Countesse de Savenaye, to whose fortune he had so chivalrously devoted himself."
Tanty bowed her head in solemn assent; but Molly, watching with the most acute attention, felt her face blaze at the indefinable shade of mockery she thought to catch upon the speaker's curling lip.
"It was," continued he, "the constant strain, the long months of watching in vain for tidings, that told upon my father, rather than the actual grief of loss. When he died, the responsibilities of the headship of the house devolved naturally upon me, the only male representative left, seemingly, to undertake them. The months went by; to the most sanguine the belief in Adrian's death became inevitable. Our hopes died slowly, but they died at last; we mourned for him," here Rupert cast down his eyes till the thick black lashes which were one of his beauties swept his cheek; his tone was perfect in its simple gravity. "At length, urged thereto by all the family, if I remember rightly by yourself as well, dear aunt, I assumed the title as well as the position which seemed mine by right. I was very young at the time, but I do not think that either then, or during the ten years that followed, I unworthily filled my brother's place."
There was a proud ring of sincerity in the last words, and the old lady knew that they were true; that during the years of his absolute power as well as of his present more restricted mastership, Rupert's management of the estate was unimpeachable.
"Certainly not, my dear Rupert," she said in softer tones than she had hitherto used to him, "no one would dream of suggesting such a thing—pray go on."
"And so," pursued the nephew, with a short laugh, relapsing into that light tone of banter which was his most natural mode of expression; "when, one fine day, a hired coach clattered up Sir Rupert Landale's avenue and deposited upon his porch a tattered mariner who announced himself, in melancholy tones that would have befitted the ghost no doubt many took him for, as the rightful Sir Adrian, erroneously supposed defunct, I confess that it required a little persuasion to make me recognise my long-lost brother—and yet there could be no doubt of it. The missing heir had come to his own again; the dead had come back to life. Well, we killed the fatted calf, and all the rest of it—but I need not inflict upon you the narrative of our rejoicing."
"Faith, no," said Tanty, drily, "I can see it with half an eye."