She was a handsome, strapping girl, with a temper like hot lava, and she honestly believed herself Denzil Carron's lawful wife, though her mother still cast doubts upon it.
"You!" Nance labelled Mr. Kennet after this episode, and concentrated in that single word all the scorn of her outraged feelings; and thereafter, till she took herself off to parts unknown, made Mr. Kennet's life a burden to him, yet caused him to thank his stars that the matter had gone no farther.
And the grim old man upstairs? From the women's treatment of the boys--and he spied upon them in ways, and at times, and by means, of which they had no slightest idea--he had learned nothing. And so he waited and waited, with infinite patience, and hoped that time might bring some solution of the problem, even though it came by the hand of Death. And then, as Death stood aloof, and the boys grew and waxed strong, and developed budding personalities, he watched them still more keenly, in the hope of finding in their dispositions and tempers some indications which might help him in his quest.
Plain living was the order of those days at Caine; and he who had hobnobbed with princes, and had been notorious for his prodigality in time when excess rioted through the land, lived now as simply as the simplest yeoman of the shire. And that not of necessity, for his income was large, and, since he spent nothing, the accumulations were rollicking up into high figures. The candle had simply burnt itself out. He had not a desire left in life, unless it was to get the better of these women who had dusted his latter days with ashes.
Of his son, the origin of this culminating and enduring trouble, he had heard nothing for many years. He did not even know whether he was alive or dead, and, save for the confusion which lack of definite knowledge on that head might cause in the table of descent, he did not much care.
He had looked to the gallant captain to raise the house of Carne to its old standing in the world--a poor enough ambition indeed, but still all that was left him. By his hot-headed folly Captain Denzil had struck himself out of the running, and by degrees, as this became more and more certain, his father's interest in life transferred itself from the impossible to the remotely possible, even though the possibility was all of a tangle.
For a time he supplied the prodigal freely with money, and the prodigal dispensed it in riotous living. The fact that by rights he ought to have been cooling his heels in prison gave a zest to his enjoyments, and he denied himself none.
His father buoyed his hopes, as long as hope was possible, on his son's return in course of time to his native land, and to those aristocratic circles of which he had previously been so bright an ornament. But time passed and brought no amelioration of his prospects. Louis Philippe still occupied the French throne. The death of d'Aumont was not forgotten. Sir Denzil's quiet soundings of the authorities were always met with the invariable, and perfectly obvious, reply, that Captain Carron was at liberty to return at any time--at his own risk; a reply which only strengthened Captain Carron's determination to remain strictly where he was.
He lived for a time, as Kennet told us, in Paris, under an assumed name of course, but under the very noses of the men whose implacable memories debarred him from returning home. It was added spice to his already highly spiced life. But high living demands high paying, and Captain Denzil's demands grew and grew till at last his father--who would have withheld nothing for a definite object, but saw no sense in aimless prodigality--flatly refused anything beyond a moderate allowance. From that time communications ceased, and whether and how his son lived Sir Denzil knew, not, and, from all appearance; cared little. He had ceased to be a piece of value in the old man's game.
Pending direction, from above or below or from the inside, Sir Denzil left the boys to develop as they might. A magnanimous, even a reasonably balanced nature would have assumed the burden and done its best for both alike, and trusted to Time and Providence for a solution of the problem. But no one ever miscalled Sir Denzil Carron to the extent of imputing to him any faintest trace of magnanimity. Time he had some hopes of. Providence he had no belief in. He was simply the product of his age: an unmitigated old heathen, with but one aim in life--the resuscitation of the house of Carne, and to that end ready to sacrifice himself, or any other, body, soul, and spirit.