As he did so, his heart grew cold within him, for the look in her dilated dark eyes was not only wild, but absolutely wicked.
CHAPTER XVII.
A MAD BRIDE.
“I thought you were lost, miss—I did, indeed,” protested Dakin, as Miss Cranstoun, hardly deigning to notice her, swept past her into the house. “And if Sir Philip thought I’d let you run out of the house like that—— Lor’, here he is!”
Mistress and maid were crossing the wide hall as Sir Philip entered it from the dining-room. Miss Cranstoun’s shawl had fallen back, and her plentiful blue-black hair, disarranged by the woollen wrap, curled in picturesque disorder round her face. The Baronet advanced to meet her, and then suddenly stopped. He did not even see Dakin in attendance as his pale face grew paler still, and his dry lips murmured:
“Clare!”
It was only a trick of light, no doubt, but he had never seen Stella look so startlingly like her dead mother as she did to-night; the same proud, defiant carriage of the head, the same flashing dark eyes, and curved, scornful, red lips. Twenty years seemed to have slipped away, and he himself to be taken back into the body of a young fool, bringing his beautiful, low-bred bride into the home of his fathers.
Speech would dispel the hateful illusion; he realized that, and uttered his daughter’s name sharply:
“Stella!”
“Yes.”
“Be sure that you are dressed in time to-morrow. The train for Portsmouth leaves Grayling Station at two o’clock. Neither Lord Carthew nor I like to be kept waiting. Do you hear me?”