“But, Martha, dear, I’m fifteen years older than you, and if anything happened it would break my heart—there!” he exclaimed, vehemently. “I’d sooner go down to Trevass Rocks, and jump off into the sea, and end it all, than that anything should happen to us now—after all these years.”
Mrs Lloyd did not speak for a few minutes. Then, hearing a voice downstairs, she opened the door gently, and listened, to make out that it was only laughter from the smoking-room, and she closed the door once more.
“If ever there was a coward, Lloyd, you are one,” she said, with a bitter sneer.
“Yes,” said the butler. “I suppose I am, for I can’t bear the idea of anything happening now. Then people say we’re unnatural to poor Humphrey.”
“Poor Humphrey again!” exclaimed Mrs Lloyd, angrily; “let people talk about what they understand. I should like for any one to say anything to me.”
“But Martha,” said Lloyd, after a pause. “Well?”
“You’ll not be rash in the morning—don’t peril our position here out of an angry feeling.”
“You go to sleep,” was the uncompromising response.
And sighing wearily, the butler did go to sleep, his wife sitting listening hour after hour till nearly two, when there was the sound of a door opening, a burst of voices, steps in the hall, “Good nights!” loudly uttered, Pratt going upstairs to his room, whistling number one of the Lancers-quadrilles with all his might. Then came the closing of bedroom doors and silence.
Mrs Lloyd sat for ten minutes more, then, taking her candle, she walked softly downstairs; went round dining- and drawing-rooms and study, examining locks, bolts, and shutters, and then went to the butler’s pantry, gave a drag at the handle of the iron plate-closet, to satisfy herself that all was right there, and lastly made for the smoking-room.