"But he would not betray any man," replied the other; "and besides, he is out at the town, and will not be back for two or three hours."
Nothing farther was said till they reached the Grange, where, going in without ceremony, Norries put his head into Helen's drawing-room, saying, "I can go into the up-stairs room which I had before, Helen dear, I suppose?"
"Oh, certainly!" answered Helen. "Everything is there just as you left it; but my father is not at home, and will not return for some hours."
"That does not matter," answered Norries; and calling one of the maids, he told her, if any gentlemen came to inquire for him, to show them up stairs to him; and mounting the steps, he led the person called Nichols into the room where his conference had been held with Sir Arthur Adelon. Helen in the mean time remained below, unoccupied, apparently, with anything but thought, for though there was a book open before her, she seldom looked at it. She was seated with her face to the window, which commanded a view of the garden, and through the trees across the river to the opposite side of the little dell in which it flowed. With one arm in a sling, and the other resting across the book upon the table, she gazed forth from the window, watching that opposite bank with an anxious, almost apprehensive expression of countenance, and if she dropped her eyes to the page for a moment, she raised them again instantly. Hardly three minutes had passed after Norries' arrival, when a figure was indistinctly seen coming over the slope, and Helen, starting up, exclaimed, "There he is again! This is really too bad. I am glad my uncle is here!" But before the words were well uttered, the figure came more fully in sight, and Helen saw that it was that of a perfect stranger. Another equally unknown to her, followed close behind the first; and she sat down again, murmuring with a slight smile, "I frighten myself needlessly. But it is really very hard to be so treated. I do not know what to do. If I were to tell my father what he had said, and how he had treated me, he would kill him on the spot; and if I told Edgar all, they would fight, I am sure. Poor, dear, generous Edgar! I can see he is very uneasy, and yet I dare not speak. It is very strange that Father Peter should treat the matter with such indifference. I believe my best way would be to tell my uncle."
As she thus went on murmuring broken sentences, the two men whom she had seen approached the house, rang the bell, and Helen could hear their heavy footsteps mount the stairs.
She had turned her head towards the door when they came into the house; but the moment that her eyes were directed towards the window again, she saw the figure of Lord Hadley, coming down the path with a proud, light, self-confident step, and instantly starting up once more, she closed the book, and ran out of the room. A maid was in the passage, and in an eager and frightened tone, the beautiful girl exclaimed, "Tell him exactly what I said, Margaret. If he asks for me, say I will not see him. Make no excuses, but tell him plainly and at once, I will not."
"That I will, Miss Helen," answered the woman, heartily. "Shall I ask Ben the ploughman to thrash him if he won't go away?"
If Helen had uttered the reply that first rose in her mind, her words would have been, "I wish to heaven you would!" but she refrained, and saying, "No; no violence, Margaret," she ran up stairs to her own room, and seated herself near a little table, after locking the door.
What passed below she could not hear; but between that chamber and the next was a partition of old dark oak, not carved into panels, as in the rooms below, but running in long polished planks from the ceiling to the floor, with the edges rounded into mouldings, for the sake of some slight degree of ornament. They were tightly joined together, but still the words of any one speaking in a loud tone in the one room, could be heard in the other; and it seemed to Helen, from the pitch to which two or three of the voices were elevated, that one of the party at least in her uncle's chamber was somewhat hard of hearing. Her thoughts for a moment or two after she entered, were too much agitated for her to pay any particular attention; but all remained still below, and she said to herself, "He has gone in to wait for my father, or to sit down and rest himself, as he pretends, I dare say. I wonder how a gentleman can have recourse to such false excuses, and here I must be kept a prisoner till he chooses to go."
As she thus thought, some words from the neighbouring room caught her ear, and instantly fixed her attention. It was without design she listened: by an impulse that was irresistible. Her cheek turned paler than it was before; her lips parted with eagerness and apparent anxiety; and she put her hand to her brow, murmuring, "Good heaven! I hope my father has no share in all this! I will go down upon my knees to him, and beg him not to meddle with it." But the next moment other words were spoken, and the look of terror passed away from her beautiful face like a dark cloud from a summer sky. Then again the name of Sir Arthur Adelon was mentioned frequently, and again the cloud came over Helen's fair brow; but now there was surprise mingled with fear, for it was marvellous to her, that a man of great wealth, station, and respectability, should be implicated so deeply in the schemes which she heard.