He came opposite Denman again, and the butler coughed apologetically—
"Have you any orders for me, sir?"
"Orders? Yes; have the bay saddled, and waiting at the end of the drive in ten minutes. Not a word of this, Denman, to any one."
It was not very long since Rigby, whose fears on the point may be remembered, had been constrained to tell his wife of the disinterested part he was playing as messenger between Miss Laverack and Mr. Roddick of Wynyates. And Mrs. Rigby, though pledged to absolute secrecy by all she held sacred in the world, had nevertheless been unable to refrain from repeating the story, in confidence, to her friend the cook. From the cook it had travelled round, still strictly in confidence, to the ears of Denman, the butler; and Denman, having lately endangered his comfortable post here by a rather glaring misdemeanour, promptly repeated what he had heard to his master, hoping by this means to re-establish his shaken credit. Laverack, being a man who was not over-nice in his own methods, credited his keeper with like principles; and his certainty that Rigby would spread the tale far and near, if dismissed, was his sole reason for keeping man and wife in his employ. Poor Rigby, whose only faults were an inordinate love of mystery and a tendency to give others the benefit of his experiences, had been almost heart-broken when he learned that it was all over with the meetings between Roddick and Janet. Laverack had stormed and raved, and had with difficulty been persuaded to stay at the Folly till the invited guests should have come and gone. Even as it was, Janet was never sure from day to day that he would not get rid of everyone on some excuse of sickness or bereavement; and she resolved to bring matters to a crisis before she was again dragged away from Roddick.
"By Gad, what a night!" muttered Laverack, as he went quietly out of the house and crossed to the bend of the drive where his horse was waiting for him. "Why Heaven gives a man daughters, Heaven only knows. I shall be wet to the skin before I get back. Cranshaw first, if that knave Rigby told me right, and after that I must ask the way."
CHAPTER XXIX. WHAT THE SNOWFLAKES FELL UPON.
At four of the same afternoon, while the sun was setting redly into the snow-banks, Griff Lomax sat in the parlour of Gorsthwaite, with his child's dead body on his knees. The grate was fireless, and the failing twilight left all but the table and a chair near the window in darkness. The two maid-servants, and Simeon, the farm-man, moved uneasily about the kitchen, and asked one another in muffled tones how it was likely to fare with the master. Early that morning the child had followed its mother, and Griff, alone here in the parlour, was dumbly kicking against the pricks. One after another, all that he had in the world had gone into that shadowy Beyond of which he had neither fear nor hope. On his knees lay the refutation of all the dreams he had cherished, the plans he had framed, for the future of another Lomax who should carry down the name, who should add one more to the list of moor-men that had thriven under the old Manor roof. From time to time he stroked the little cold body with his own cold hands, and laughed softly to himself: it seemed a hideous jest that this scrap of tissue, which would soon be worse than the earth that covered it, should have caused such fantasies. It was to have grown to a lusty manhood, and fought and loved and hated—and now—and now—
Such utter vacuum, of mind and purpose, could not go on. No man, with strength at his command, can see life for long as an empty mirror of his own emptiness. Something must be done, was the thought that flashed into Griff's mind. He got up from his chair and laid the body on it; then walked slowly up and down the darkened room, striking against the furniture, and feeling vaguely glad of the smarts.