Manners only interrupted a conversation which was not without interest to himself, and was so deeply interesting to her, in order to inquire for her cousin, and to put many a question concerning Miss Falkland's health, after the accident of the preceding night. He was still in full career, when she herself entered, somewhat paler but not less gay than ever; and although she declared, and persisted in the declaration, that she was bound by every rule of propriety to fall in love with the gipsy who had rescued her, and to tender him her hand and heart, Manners felt sincerely rejoiced that Pharold had been the person to come so opportunely to her aid. Isadore, indeed, as she recollected one or two words which had been spoken on the preceding evening, coloured more than once when Manners addressed her; but she knew him to be a generous man, and she determined to trust to his generosity for the result.
Mrs. Falkland soon after joined the party; and the house of mourning was changed into a house of joy. Nothing more remained but to write to Lord Dewry, informing him of his son's safety; and this Manners undertook and executed, keeping in mind the engagement he had come under to Sir William Ryder, regarding the concealment of his name. A servant was instantly despatched to Dewry Hall with the note: but on reaching that place he found that the peer had returned early that morning to Dimden, and thither he then bent his steps; but arrived too late to give Lord Dewry even the option of visiting his son that night.
[CHAPTER IX.]
Dimden Park--a spot which had been hated and avoided by Lord Dewry ever since it fell into his possession, on account of its many memories--some painful in themselves, some painful in their associations--had, by this time, not alone been revisited by its master, but had been occupied by him, with a part of his general household, as if for the purpose of longer residence. Such a state of things had been in no degree contemplated by the peer, either when Manners left him, or when he himself terminated his conversation with the gipsy boy who had become his prisoner; but another conversation had succeeded with another person, to whose chamber we must now follow.
The first object of Lord Dewry being to get the gipsy Pharold into his power--trusting to his previously arranged schemes to work his will with him when he had him there--it was natural that he should turn his whole efforts to accomplish his capture before he attended to anything else. The moment, however, that all the means had been employed for that purpose which circumstances permitted, his attention instantly returned to the plans which he had concerted in order to prove the object of his hatred and his fear guilty of the crime imputed to him, when he should be ultimately taken. The execution of these plans materially depended upon Sir Roger Millington; and for his safety and recovery the peer's next aspirations were consequently raised. As soon, then, as he had dismissed the affair of the boy, and had seen the treacherous scoundrel he thought fit to employ for the purpose of inveigling the gipsy to his destruction set out upon his errand, Lord Dewry turned his steps towards the chamber of the wounded man, sincerely grieved for the accident which had happened to him, and most anxious concerning its ultimate result. Calculating, however, with nice acumen, the irritable selfishness of sick people, he trusted not to the personal vexation which he really felt to give his air and countenance the appearance of grief and sympathy; but as he walked slowly up the stairs, he thought over every point of the part he was to play, in order to cover his individual motives from the eye of the wounded man, and make him believe that sincere interest in his fate and sufferings was the sole emotion which affected his friend and benefactor.
At the door of the chamber to which Sir Roger had been conveyed, the peer paused for a moment; and then laying his hand upon the lock, turned it, and entered with as noiseless a step as possible. The windows were darkened; but there was still enough light in the room for the eye to distinguish the table covered with surgical instruments and bloody bandages, and all those appliances and means for saving life which man so strangely combines with the most skilful and persevering activity in taking it. There was the bed, too, and the half-drawn curtains, and the gentleman in black, sitting by the bolster, while a young prim assistant walked about on tiptoe, for the soothing dose or the cooling drink. A deep groan was sounding through the room as the peer entered; and although he was, and always had been, a man of nerve, without any corporal terror at the thought either of pain or death, there was something in that sound, and all the accessory circumstances around, that made a sort of shudder pass over his frame. It were difficult to guess in what feelings that shudder took its rise. It might be, alone, the natural repugnance of the human heart to anguish and dissolution--it might be that he thought of his son--it might be that he remembered his brother, for there were chords of association between the fate of each, and the situation of the man he came to visit, which, like the strings of the Eolian harp, might well be moved to a thousand vague and melancholy sounds by the slightest breath that stirred them.
He advanced, however, lightly towards the bed, and stood by the chair, whence the surgeon rose as he approached, ere the wounded man was aware of his presence. Sir Roger Millington was lying on his left side, with his face turned away, and his right hand cast over the bed-clothes; and it was not difficult, from the slow clenching of his hand, and the rocking motion of his head, to see the intense agony he suffered. The peer paused, and gazed for a moment with some emotion--not, indeed, without a mingling of better feelings--compassion, and sympathy, and disinterested grief, such as he had not known for many years. It was better than all the acting in the world; and when Sir Roger, whom no persuasion of the surgeon could induce to lie still, turned round with the quick and irritable movement of high fever and excessive pain, he saw the peer standing by him, with an expression of sincere sorrow which could not be mistaken.
A groan and a fearful contortion followed the change of position; but when the first agony was over, he looked pleased to see the countenance of Lord Dewry; and said, in a voice wonderfully strong and firm, considering his situation, "Your lordship is very kind--I am badly hurt, I am afraid--those accursed gipsies took too good an aim--damn me, if I do not think the shot must have been red hot, it gives one such torture. I have been wounded before, but never felt anything like this. Do you think I shall die, my lord, ey?"
"Heaven forbid," cried the peer, sitting down; "on the contrary, I trust the very pain you suffer evinces that you are in no danger; for I have always heard that mortal wounds are generally the least painful. Is it not so, Mr. Swainstone?"
"Yes, exactly so, my lord," replied the surgeon, who would probably have confirmed anything on earth that the peer said to sooth his patient. "I had told the gentleman so before your lordship arrived."