Would the next evening, when he was to depart, never come? Then he had the meals, the family, and their surmises to face!
He had a haggard and hunted look that evening and all next day, which Lord Aberfeldie, in the kindness of his heart, amid all his own new anxiety, attributed to the pressure of his monetary affairs.
CHAPTER III.
HOLCROFT DEPARTS.
It was a considerable relief to Holcroft's mind to perceive that this second abrupt disappearance of Allan excited more surprise than alarm in his family circle; and in her own thoughts Lady Aberfeldie secretly connected it with some lovers' quarrel between him and Olive; it was so like their past relations that some such folly should intervene.
The bell for dinner sounded much earlier than usual, as Mr. Holcroft was to depart for the south that evening, and to see him in the drawing-room dressed de rigueur in black, with spotless shirt-front and diamond studs, with tie and collar perfect, his hair brushed with precision and the ends of his tawny moustache waxed out to sharp points, who could have imagined him an actor in that scene in the distant arched passage, or connected him with what was lying at the bottom of that deep, dark oubliette!
Holcroft always thought that great games involved serious hazards; but now this was a hazard beyond all his previous calculations.
The greatest chance of fortune he had ever seen in his varied life seemed to be slipping—or to have speedily slipped—away from him, when Olive Raymond and her cousin suddenly appeared on such amicable terms; savage emotions of mingled disappointment and revenge filled his heart, and certainly he had given full swing to them!
Now, what he had done was over; the rubicon had been passed. He was—what he dared not name himself: the thought of all that Allan Graham must endure ere he died (if he was not already dead) was—at times, but at times only—maddening even to his destroyer; and he felt that he could not too soon place miles upon miles between himself and Dundargue; and that, happen what might, he would never set foot in Dundargue again.
Seated at that luxurious table with the hospitable father, the patrician-like mother, the tender sister and brilliant fiancée of him he had slain, with stately-liveried valets in attendance, while longing for the conveyance or carriage that was to take him to the station, he did feel more than once as if he would go mad if it lasted much longer—this acting—this tension of the heart—but, as we say, for a time only. He was too near the scene of his awful crime not to feel his soul shrink with selfish horror and dismay, which made him nervously twist up, roll, and unroll his serviette, as it is called in Scotland.