“It will be all right,” he muttered; and he turned round and faced Crellock, who smiled and nodded.
“Nothing like a little firmness,” he said, smiling.
Then Crellock went into the verandah to smoke his cigar and play the part of watch-dog in case of some interruption to his plans; and, while Hallam employed himself in his old fashion, drinking himself drunk in the house of Alcohol his god, the dark calm evening became black night, and a moist, soft wind from the Pacific sighed gently among the trees.
Crellock walked round the house time after time, peering in at the windows, and each time he looked there was the heavy stolid face of Hallam staring before him at vacancy; on the other side of the house Julia gazing up into her mother’s face as she knelt at her feet.
It must have been ten o’clock when, as Crellock once more made his round, he saw that Hallam was asleep, and that Mrs Hallam had taken up the candle still burning, and with Julia holding her hand, was looking round the room as if for a last good-night.
Then together they went to the door, hand in hand; the door closed; the light shone at the staircase window, then in their bedroom, where he watched it burn for about a quarter of an hour before it was extinguished, and all was dark.
“I shan’t feel satisfied till I have her safe,” he said, as he walked slowly back to his old look-out that commanded the road.
The wind came in stronger gusts now, for a few minutes, and then seemed to die quite away, while the clouds that overspread the sky grew so dense that it was hard to distinguish the trees and bushes a dozen yards from where he stood.
He finished his cigar, thinking out his plans the while, and at last coming to the conclusion that it was an unnecessary task this watching, he was about to make one more turn round the verandah, and then enter by the window and go to bed, when he fancied he heard a door close, as if blown by the wind that was once more sighing about the place.
“Just woke up, I suppose,” he said, and he walked towards the study window and looked in.