Still more did Fate seem to be playing into the hands of Rookleigh, when in the shipping intelligence appeared a notice to the effect that the Amethyst had perished in a storm in the Indian Ocean, and that a vessel answering her description, with the flag of the Royal Naval Reserve flying at her gaff-peak, upside down in token of distress, had been seen to founder; and Rookleigh knew that in the fulness of time he would be Lord Oakhampton, if he had the grace to be patient and wait. Of this catastrophe Rookleigh made no mention to Clara, whose spirit seemed so low now that nothing could depress it further.
"Child, child," her father would often say, while caressing her fondly and with great commiseration, "by your marriage with one or other of these men I may die in possession of my title undegraded—undegraded, and at my death, it will go to one or the other."
"Oh that Derval had been worthy of me!" wailed the girl in her heart.
Old Patty Fripp was gone now to God's Acre, and with her ended another of "the innumerable simple and honest lives of pain and love, that are swept away like the dead leaves by the winds of autumn," and there was no one in Finglecombe now, save Mr. Asperges Laud, to lament for Derval Hampton, and, aware of Rookleigh's hatred of the latter, he bewailed his sorrowful destiny in strong language.
"Destiny brings stranger things to pass than ever you dream of," said Rookleigh, with a grimace of triumph.
"This bearing of yours is shameful!" exclaimed the old curate; "yea, it is indecent! What says the gospel of St. John?"
"Nothing that affects me."
"Listen, ingrate! 'He that loveth not, abideth in death. Whoso hateth his brother is a murderer. And you know that no murderer hath eternal life abiding in himself.'"
But Rookleigh only laughed, and shrugged his shoulders contemptuously, at St. John and his gospel too.