"Lord, Mr. Lockwood, I hope not," cried the keeper; "but let us be after him, then; for it is as well to be near to part them in case of need."
"It might be difficult to part them," answered Lockwood; "but come along;" and taking up his hat, he accompanied the keeper into the park, leaving Faber, still trembling with apprehension, in the inner room of the cottage.
CHAPTER XLII.
In the large drawing-room at Winslow Abbey, with four tallow candles on the table, to give some light to its great extent, stood Sir William Winslow, his brow heavy with thought, his cheek pale, and his eye haggard with anxiety. The gloomy room, the faded hangings of dull crimson velvet, which seemed to drink in all the rays of light and give none back again, the many memories with which the place was stored, the solitary aspect of the nearly deserted mansion, the melancholy sighing of the wind through its courts and corridors, tended not to raise the spirit in a heart already depressed by crime. He had sent his valet to Elmsly, glad to be freed from his oppressive presence, and had come on alone, full of bitter and even angry fancies. The worm that never dies was in his heart, the fire that cannot be quenched consumed his brain. He had given way to an intemperate burst of passion at not finding Faber there waiting to receive him, though the young man knew not of his coming; but when he had sent Garbett out to find Lockwood, and he remained alone in that wide room, his feelings became more gloomy and less fierce, his heart sunk, to think of what he was, and of what he might yet become.
The memories of pleasant childhood, too, of innocence, if not of peace, (for he had been turbulent from his infancy,) came back in mournful contrast with the present, when peace and innocence were gone together, when nought remained but bitter anxiety, and corroding fear, and dark remorse. It was well nigh despair he felt.
Yet there was something like a gleam of sunshine upon the long, long past which made him fix his eyes by preference upon it. He thought of the young days when he had sported in that room, piled up the chairs into castles, or built himself houses with the sofa cushions. He saw his father's stately form stand gazing at him with pride; he beheld his mother sit and watch him with affection; he knew that both had looked forward with expectation of high things to his future career; he asked himself where were these hopes? how were they fulfilled? Gone, gone, with those days of childhood, with those innocent sports, with the calm of infancy, with the fleeting ills of boyhood. Gone for ever--a bar between them and fruition, which no repentance could ever remove, no reformation ever do away.
He took a candle from the table, and held it up to the large picture of his mother, gazing earnestly upon features which had almost faded from memory. Suddenly his eye fell upon a ticket in the corner, marked, "Lot 60;" and he exclaimed, "Good God! was I going to sell that? No, that must not be sold!" And taking the ticket, he tore it from the frame.
The next instant there was a timid knock at the door, and he said, in a milder voice than usual, "Come in."
It was the keeper Garbett's wife, with something like a letter in her hand; which, advancing many curtsies, she presented to Sir William.
"Who was it gave you this?" asked the baronet, taking a curiously folded piece of vellum from her hand.