“God bless you, my pet! But I put it off too long. I may not see my boy again. That’s right; quite under the pillow, dear. Thank you. Kiss me, not as your uncle, but as James Harrington, the grim old man who told your father and mother he would protect their little girl, and has tried to do his duty by her.”
Gertrude raised the withered hand, and held it to her lips, as, after removing the pillow, the old man lay back, tired out, and slept calmly and peacefully. And, as she watched him, she thought of her position there in that great house a dozen miles from town. How she had grown up with no young companions save those she had encountered at school, and how the time had glided away. How of late the old man who had adopted her had begun to talk of his approaching end, and chilled her at first with horror till she grew accustomed to his conversation; but never chilling her so much as when Saul Harrington, the old man’s nephew, had begun to make advances to her—advances which filled her with disgust and dread.
She shivered as she thought of the scene in the dining-room that day; and, like a black cloud, the idea arose as to what her fate would be if the old man, hanging, as it were, on the brink of eternity, should pass away, leaving her alone.
There was Mrs Denton, the old housekeeper, and there were Mr and Mrs Hampton, old Harrington’s confidential solicitor and his wife, friends both—Mrs Hampton, in her harsh, snappish way, always meaning to be most kind. And then there was the doctor. Yes; and Bruno. But still, she would soon be alone, and at the mercy of Saul Harrington, a man whom she had always dreaded when he came to pester his uncle for money.
Then came a change in her musings, and she began to picture the man who had been selected for her husband, and the warm blood came and went in her cheeks as she found herself wondering what he would be like, what he would think of her, and whether, under the circumstances, her future would be happy.
She bent down and covered her face with her hands, as she sat listening to the old man’s faint, regular breathing, and seemed to see the bright-eyed, sharp-witted child who had made so great an impression on her guardian. Then the blue tattooed heart upon his little white skin stood out before her mind’s eye, and she half shuddered as she thought of the pain the brave child must have suffered under his sea-going father’s whim.
And, as she thought and thought, wondering what her future would be, she was so intent that she did not hear the door open, and a footstep cross the carpet, the first suggestion of another presence being a hand laid lightly upon her shoulder, and she started into wakefulness to encounter the mocking countenance of Saul.