CHAPTER XXIII. FATHER AND DAUGHTER.
Bram was struck by the entire change which had taken place in Theodore Biron, a change which had, indeed, been creeping over him ever since Meg’s attack, and his consequent disfigurement, but which seemed to have culminated to-night in what was almost a transformation.
As he crouched on the floor, and looked anxiously up at the window, there was no trace in the cowering, shrivelled figure, in the scarred, inflamed face, out of which the bloodshot eyes peered in terror, of the gay, easy-mannered country gentleman en amateur, who had impressed Bram so strongly with his airy lightness of heart only sixteen months before.
“Lock the door, Bram,” said he, presently, in a hoarse voice when he suddenly became conscious of the young man’s presence. “Lock the door!”
Bram hastened to do so. He wanted to open it first to look out and see who it was that had inspired Mr. Biron with so much alarm. But Theodore restrained him by a violent gesture.
“Lock it, lock it!” repeated he, as, evidently relieved to find a man in the house, he got up from the floor, and went with shivering limbs and chattering teeth towards the fire. “And now bolt the shutters—quick—and then on the other side!”
He indicated with a nod the front of the house, but when Bram walked towards the door he shuffled after him, as if afraid of being left alone. Bram turned to cast a glance at the sofa and its occupant before leaving the room. Theodore, in a state of nervous alarm which made him watch every look, glanced back also. On seeing his daughter lying back with closed eyes on the cushions, he uttered a cry.
“Claire, oh, oh, what will become of her? What will become of me?”
And, utterly broken down, he covered his face with his shivering hands, and sobbed loudly.