"In that case perhaps you'll oblige me by ringing the bell."
She did so, but when the valet appeared, instead of the curt order to show her out Marrion had expected, the old man commanded the instant production of cake and wine.
"Nonsense!" he growled decisively to her protestations. "It is devilish cold. You haven't on warm enough clothes, and you don't leave this house without bite or sup, if only because your father Paul was a deuced good servant to my poor brother. Good fellow was Paul--always suspicioned he was a gentleman--think now he must have been. Here"--the valet had come and gone, leaving the tray on the table--"pour yourself out a glass of port. Won't get better anywhere, I'll go bail. Only half a binn left, so I shall finish that before I die, thank God! Now," he eyed her narrowly, "drink to the health of Marmaduke Muir's son, the heir to Drummuir!"
The room seemed to spin round for a moment. Then without a quiver she drank the health, put down her glass and turned to the door. Just as she reached it the old man said--
"Good-bye. I'm damned sorry that little chap of yours died; he would have been game, anyhow."
She gave back one sudden grateful look, and the memory of what she saw remained with her till the day of her death. The pearly whiteness of the snow outside showing behind the mountain of diseased flesh swathed in scarlet flannel, the gouty hands in the act of tearing up the paper they had been holding, a cruel smile in the old grey eyes, despite the words which had just fallen from the cruel lips.
"Though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be white as snow."
The phrase recurred and recurred as she tramped her way down the beech avenue. There were many gaps in it now. How many trees would be left when Marmaduke's heir came to his own?
[ III]
The swing doors leading to the smoking-room of the fashionable club in London fell back with a slightly louder thud than usual, and more than one occupant of the room looked up--looked up, however, to smile, for the newcomer was a universal favourite. It was Marmaduke Muir, fresh from one of his many disappearances, for he was quartered at the new camp of Aldershot and his London visits were generally but a passing flash on his way to find sport in the counties. At seven-and-thirty he showed almost more youthful than he had done at seven-and-twenty, for he was thinner, more alert, and the laughter in his face seemed to belong to him more absolutely. For the rest he was handsome beyond compare, and dressed faultlessly in a taste that had sobered itself from those early days in England when Marrion Paul had found him flamboyant. There was still a slight exuberance in the carnation in his buttonhole and the immense size of the cigar he drew out of his case; but the case itself was simple, and there was a simplicity about his whole bearing which disarmed criticism.