He was silent for some time, pacing up and down the little room, listening intently to every sound, glancing from time to time at his watch impatiently, while the gloom upon his face constantly increased.
“Perhaps none of them will come,” suggested Deborah.
“Yes, they will; at any rate he will,” said the earl. “When I am highly strung, as I am to-night, I can feel a misfortune approaching. And this man has always brought misfortune to me. Don’t smile, my dear girl. When you have reached my age, you will believe, at any rate somewhat, in portents.”
But Deborah was not smiling. There was something more of solemnity, something more of a kindly dignity, in the earl’s manner, as the afternoon wore slowly on. She began to believe, as she watched the change which was creeping over him, and turning him, as it were, from the genial carpet knight into the soldier ready for battle, that they were, indeed, as his presentiment told him, on the eve of some great calamity, which would overshadow even the anxieties from which they were suffering.
The dark afternoon was merging into evening, and the fire had been allowed to sink very low, when, at last, there was a sound of turning of a latch-key in the outer door. The earl, who had been resting for a moment in a chair by the dying fire, with his head in his hands, sat up and signed to Deborah to keep still on the little sofa where she was sitting.
Before she could guess his purpose they both heard a very light tread in the hall outside, the door opened noiselessly, and a man, not at first distinguishable in the darkness, crept into the room like a shadow.
Then by his height, and his stealthy movements, they knew him to be Amos Goodhare.
CHAPTER XXI.
When Amos Goodhare entered the little sitting-room, Deborah was sitting on a sofa, so far back in the black shadow that she knew it was impossible for him to see her. But Lord St. Austell was sitting so far forward in the arm-chair that the faint glow of the little fire shone upon him. Nevertheless, Amos behaved exactly as if he saw no one.
The window was to the left of the door, and only four or five steps from it. He crossed the narrow space with a very soft tread, and throwing open the window, which he did quickly, but without the least noise, descended on the stone flags outside, and, turning to the right, disappeared quickly in the darkness.