Doggedly, sullenly, with a hard mouth and cold eyes, Bram went about his day’s work in the office. His fellow-clerks knew that something of deep import had happened during that half-hour while he was shut up with Mr. Cornthwaite in the inner room; but so well did they know him by this time that no one made any attempt to learn from him what it was that had passed.
Quietly, unostentatiously, without any apparent effort, Bram had made himself a unique position, with his office companions as well as with his employers. Very taciturn, very stolid of manner, never giving an unasked opinion on any subject, he always seemed to be too much absorbed in the details of work to have time or inclination for the discussions, the idle chatter, with which the rest beguiled the monotonous hours on every opportunity.
But they had long since ceased to “chaff” him on his attitude, not through any distaste on his part for this form of attack, but as a natural result of the respect he inspired, and of the position he held with “the guv’nor” and his son. There was a feeling that he would be “boss” himself some day, and a consequent disposition to leave him alone.
But when the day’s work was done, and Bram started on the walk back to Hessel, the look of dogged attention which his face had worn during office hours relaxed into one of keen anxiety. He had been able, by force of will, to thrust into the background of his mind the one subject which was all-important to him. Now that he was again, for fifteen hours, a free man, his thoughts fastened once more on Claire and on the question—Would Christian, obedient to his father and to self-interest, abandon her, or would he not?
Bram felt a dread of the answer. He would not allow to himself that he believed Christian capable of what he looked upon as an act of inconceivable baseness; but down at the bottom of his heart there was a dumb misgiving, an unacknowledged fear.
And Bram, his thoughts stretching out beyond the limits he imposed upon them, asked himself what he should do for the best for the poor child, if she were left stranded, as Mr. Cornthwaite made no secret of intending. He had unconsciously assumed to himself, now that the image of Claire had been deposed from the high pedestal of his ideal, the attitude of guardian to this most helpless of creatures, taking upon himself in advance the position which her father ought to have held.
If she were abandoned by her lover, it was he who would find her out, and care for her, and settle her in some place of safety. That she would never come back to the neighborhood of her own accord Bram felt sure.
When Bram got back to Hessel, he called at once at the farm, with a lingering hope that something might have been heard of Claire, that she might have sent some message, written some letter to her father or to Joan.
But she had not. He found Mr. Biron in the care of Joan, whose patience he tried severely by his fretfulness and irritability. The doctor had called again, and had expressed a growing fear of erysipelas, which had only increased the patient’s ill-temper, without making him any more careful of himself. He was drinking whisky and water when Bram came in, and Joan reported that he had been doing so all day, and that there was no reasoning with him or stopping him, even by using the authority of the doctor.