Chapter Six.
Down in the Depths.
Half-mad with despair and misery, one thought constantly returned with terrible persistence to Richard Frayne as he tramped up and down his prison—for so it now seemed, though neither locks nor bars stayed his way to freedom. The pleasant, handsomely-furnished room was the same as it had been only a few hours before, with musical instruments and treasured hobbies that he had collected together; and yet not the same, for it was the cell in which he was confined by the order of the man whose word had always been to him as a law, and in which he felt as firmly shut in as if he had given his parole of honour not to leave it until told to descend.
The thirst for news was again rising. Mark, they had informed him, was lying insensible, slowly sinking into eternity, and he could not go to his side, fall upon his knees, and tell him that he would sooner have suffered death than this should have happened. And there, crushing him down, as his eyes were constantly turned upon that helmet, while he tramped the room or sank upon one of the chairs, was the thought, with its maddening persistency, that it was better that his parents had not lived to see their son’s position—the shame and despair which were now his lot—always that thought; for he recalled the days of sorrow, a couple of years back, when the gallant officer, whose name had been a power in India, was snatched away, and the loving wife and mother followed him within a month.
Light-hearted, of an affectionate nature, and always on the warmest terms of intimacy with his fellow-pupils, his position now seemed to him doubly hard in his loneliness, for not one had come near him to take him by the hand. The words raved out in the quarrel had run through them and hardened all against him. They could have sympathised with him in the terrible result of the encounter; but the dishonourable, criminal act which his cousin’s charge had fixed upon him soured all, and they readily obeyed the principal’s wish that he should be left to himself.
There were times when it seemed impossible to him that the charge he had made should so have recoiled and fixed itself upon him; but, by a strange perverseness, thus it was, and, saving by the servant, hardly a friendly word had been spoken.
“Am I going mad?” he muttered, as he tramped up and down, holding his throbbing head. “It seems more than I can bear!”
It was evening now, a glorious summer evening; with the mellow sunshine lighting up the lake-like meadows, for the river was far out of bounds and spreading still; but Richard Frayne saw nothing through the black cloud which seemed to shut him in. Then all at once, sending an electric thrill through him, there was a sharp tap at the door, and he turned to meet the visitor.