Colonel Richardson walked up and down in the snow in front of the gate, stopping after every few steps to listen, and to shake the thick flakes off his coat impatiently. He never came very near to the motionless figure among the trees, for there were a low wall and a thick growth of laurel and rhododendron bushes between them. And the spot Harry had chosen for his station was on the lower side of the gate, while any one coming from the house would come down to the upper side, so that Colonel Richardson, peering anxiously in impatient expectation through the branches, never once glanced in his direction.
When, in a low voice, he gave the coachman some direction, and the carriage went on a little way, and then turned slowly round, Harry recognized it as a hired carriage from a livery stable in Beckham. His hand still round his revolver, he was on the alert for the next movement; but the carriage, having turned so that the horses’ heads were toward Beckham, stopped again before the gate.
Time went slowly by for both men, the watcher and the watched; while the latter stamped the snow from his boots, strode up and down, and showed ever-increasing impatience, the former remained as still as ever at his post among the laurels. He did not feel the keen wind, or the falling snow, or the cold of the damp, white mass beneath his feet, which was striking into his frame and chilling him to the bone.
For almost the first time in his life thought had got hold of him, and was torturing him with sharp pangs which deadened the sense of bodily discomfort within him. His hatred of the man who stood there, unconscious of his presence, and the deadly errand which brought him, blazed as fiercely as ever; but his anger against his wife was dying away, and giving place to pity for the beautiful little creature who had so rashly given her happiness into his keeping four years and a half ago, to be punished for her rashness by his brutal neglect and indifference.
“Yet I meant to be kind to her. I did not want to be cruel. Am I such a brute that I can’t help it? I have tried to be gentle with her lately, and she likes me no better. She comes back to tantalize me into loving her as I never thought I could love any woman, and then runs away with this blackguard, who would just throw her over when——Good heavens! No! Even he couldn’t desert her!”
His lip quivered, and there came a choking feeling in his throat.
“Thank Heaven I’m in time to stop her! She’ll have to stay with me now; but she will find a way of making it more a punishment for me than for her, I expect. What an ass I am to care about her—I mean, to have cared about her! I’ll just show her the difference now. She shall see if it wasn’t better to have a churlish husband for a slave than for a master. She despised me, did she, and thought me a fool for letting her do what she liked with me? Yes, that is the way with women. Well, now it is her turn to do what I like; and I sha’n’t be so soft about it either. I’ll just——Confound her, I’ve a good mind to let her go off with him, and snap my fingers at her and be rid of her! Ay, and I would, too, only she is my wife, worse luck, and I must do for my honor what I wouldn’t do for her. No, that I wouldn’t! Oh, good Heaven, will she never love me? I’m not good enough for her; but I’m not such a cur as that fellow!”
As the minutes dragged on, a hope began to rise within him that she was not coming, after all, while he could see, to his joy, that the anxiety of the man he was watching had grown keener. Still they heard no sound, though they listened intently, the one in hope, the other in deadliest fear.
At last Harry saw Colonel Richardson turn his head quickly, as if his ear had caught some expected sound; then he laid his hand upon the latch of the gate. Still Harry heard nothing.
But a minute later, through the falling snow, he saw above him, swiftly approaching down the soft, white track of the pathway, a woman’s figure; and with a silent curse and a heart heavy within him, his eyes turned quickly to the man who was stealing his treasure. Colonel Richardson had raised the latch of the gate, opened it, and stood inside, waiting. Harry’s anger blazed up with fresh intensity.