"Yes, Blanche, as well as you do," replied her brother. "He is your cousin and mine, Henry Beauchamp, whom we have both played with on that carpet in our childhood."
"It is useless, William--it is all useless!" replied Blanche, with a deep and painful sigh. "But there is my fathers step in the hall--Let me go, William, if you love me--and oh, do not, for Heaven's sake, increase his anxiety just now, by letting him know any thing of all this!--Let me go, my dear brother, I beseech you!" and struggling free, she made her escape by the door opposite to that by which Sir Sidney Delaware was just about to enter the library.
Captain Delaware had a painful task before him, in the necessity of communicating to his father, the result of the enquiries he had set out in the morning to make, although he could not find in his heart to tell him explicitly upon what doubtful chances his hope of receiving the money ere the next morning, was founded. He confined his information, therefore, as much to general terms as possible; and informed Sir Sidney that Mr. Tims had not yet indeed received the money, which was to be furnished by a third party, but that he doubted not it would be paid that night, or early the next morning, before Lord Ashborough's lawyer could arrive.
These tidings stopped any farther enquiries from Sir Sidney Delaware, though they did not satisfy or quiet his mind; and he concluded that his son had told him all he knew, although that all but served to render him anxious and impatient. He remained restless and disturbed through the whole of the day; raised a thousand aerial hypotheses in regard to Mr. Tims's delay--drew a general picture of all misers, lawyers, and usurers, which might have ornamented the scrap-book of Eblis--and more than once threatened to visit the worthy proprietor of Ryebury himself, from which feat he was with difficulty dissuaded by his son, who, in fact, was but little less anxious than himself.
Perhaps, indeed, Captain Delaware's anxiety was the more keen and corroding, because he forced himself to conceal it, and to appear perfectly confident and careless. Blanche, on her part, avoided all communication with her brother, except that, when they met at dinner and at tea, her eyes besought him to spare her. The moments waned; neither Mr. Tims nor Burrel, nor any messenger from either, appeared during the evening; and, as night began to fall, Captain Delaware's impatience gradually got the better of his self-command; and finding himself in the situation of a shell, the fuse of which was rapidly burning down to the powder, and which must consequently explode in a short time, he thought it better to carry himself away, and let his heat and disappointment reck itself upon any other objects than his friends and relations.
As the most natural vent for such feelings, he took his way towards Ryebury; but when he returned, after about an hour's absence, he appeared to the eyes of his sister--who strove to read his looks with no small apprehension--more heated and irritable than before.
"Well, William, what does Mr. Tims say now?" demanded Sir Sidney Delaware, whose own anxiety had at once told him whither his son had turned his footsteps, although Captain Delaware had given no intimation of his purpose.
"I have not seen him, sir!" was the reply. "The old dotard would not let me in. Afraid of robbers, I suppose. I rang till I was tired, and then came away. But it is no matter; the money will be forthcoming to-morrow, I have no doubt. The coach does not arrive till the afternoon; and Lord Ashborough's solicitor did not come by it to-night, for I enquired at the inn."
Things which, buoyed up on the life-preserver of a light heart, float like feathers over all the waves of adversity that inundate this briny world, sink the soul down to the bottom of despair the moment that the life-preserver, dashed against some sharp rock, or beaten by some more violent surge, suffers the waters to flow in, and the fine elastic air to escape. Not many weeks before, Blanche Delaware would have wondered, in the happy contentedness of her own heart, at the anxiety and disappointment of her brother and her father, and would have looked upon the events which they seemed to regret so bitterly, but as a very small and easily borne misfortune. But in the present depression of her spirits, it overwhelmed her even more than it did them. Her own grief was so deep, that she could not well bear any more; and, soon after her brother's return, she retired to her chamber to weep.
The night went by, and Blanche and her father descended to the breakfast-table somewhat earlier than usual; for care makes light sleepers.