"A man!" cried Mr. Croyland, impatiently. "What man? I don't want any man! I've had enough of men for one morning, surely, with those two fools fighting just opposite my house!--What sort of a man is it?"
"Very odd man, indeed, master," answered the Hindoo. "Got great blue pattern on him's face. Strange looking man. Think him half mad," and he made a deferential bow, as if submitting his judgment to that of his master.
"Well, I like odd men," exclaimed Mr. Croyland. "I like strange men better than any others. I'm not sure I do not like them a leetle mad--not too much, not too much, you know, Edith, my dear! Not dangerous; just mad enough to be pleasant, but not furious or obstreperous.--Where have you put him?"
"In de library, master," replied the man; "and he begin taking down the books directly."
"High time I should go and see, who is so studiously inclined," said Mr. Croyland; "or he may not only take down the books, but take them away. That wouldn't do, you know, Edith, my dear--that wouldn't do. Without my niece and my books, what would become of me? I don't intend to lose either the one or the other. So that you are never to marry, my love; mind that, you are never to marry!"
Edith smiled faintly--very faintly indeed; but for the world she would not have made her uncle feel that he had touched upon a tender point. "I do not think I ever shall, my dear uncle," she answered; and saying, "That's a good girl!" the old gentleman hurried out of the room to see his unknown visitor.
Edith remained for some time where she was, in deep and even painful thoughts. All that she had learnt from her sister, since Zara's explanation with Sir Edward Digby, amounted but to this, that he whom she had so deeply loved--whom she still loved so deeply--was yet living. Nothing more had reached her; and, though hope, the fast clinger to the last wreck of probability, yet whispered that he might love her still--that she might not be forgotten--that she might not be abandoned, yet fear and despondency far predominated, and their hoarse tones nearly drowned the feeble whisper of a voice which once had been loud and gay in her heart.
After meditating, then, for some minutes, she rose and left the drawing-room, passing, on her way to the stairs, the door of the library to which her uncle had previously gone. She heard him talking loud as she went along; but the sounds were gay, cheerful, and anything but angry; and another voice was answering, in mellower tones, somewhat melancholy, indeed, but still not sad. Going rapidly by, this was all she distinguished; but after she reached her own room, which was nearly above the library, the murmur of the voices still rose up for more than an hour, and at length Mr. Croyland and his guest came out, and walked through the vestibule to the door.
"God bless you, Harry--God bless you!" said Mr. Croyland, with an appearance of warmth and affection which Edith had seldom known him to display towards any one; "if you wont stay, I can't help it. But mind your promise--mind your promise! In three or four days, you know;" and with another cordial farewell they parted.
When the stranger was gone, however, Mr. Croyland remained standing in the vestibule for several minutes, gazing down upon the floor-cloth, and murmuring to himself various broken sentences, from time to time. "Who'd have thought it," he said; "thirty years come Lady-day next, since we saw each other!--But this isn't quite right of the boy: I will scold him--I will frighten him, too. He shouldn't deceive--nobody should deceive--it's not right. But after all, in love and war, every stratagem is fair, they say; and I'll work for him, that I will. Here, Edith, my love," he continued, calling up the stairs, for he had heard his niece's light foot above, "come, and take a walk with me, my dear: it will do us both good."