CHAPTER LXXVI.
PHŒBE CHIFFINCH.
Mr. Longcluse passed into the inner room, as he heard a step approaching from the hall. It was Louisa Diaper, in whose care, with the simple remedy of cold water, the young lady recovered. She was conveyed to her room, and Richard Arden followed, at Longcluse's command, to “keep things quiet.”
In an agony of remorse, he remained with his sister's hand in his, sitting by the bed on which she lay. Longcluse had spoken with the resolution that a few sharp and short words should accomplish the crisis, and show her plainly that her brother was, in the most literal and terrible sense, in his power, and thus, indirectly, she also. Perhaps, if she must know the fact, it was as well she should know it now.
Longcluse, I suppose, had reckoned upon Richard's throwing himself upon his sister's mercy. He thought he had done so before, and moved her as he would have wished. Longcluse, no doubt, had spoken to her, expecting to find her in a different mood. Had she yielded, what sort of husband would he have made her? Not cruel, I daresay. Proud of her, he would have been. She should have had the best diamonds in England. Jealous, violent when crossed, but with all his malice and severity, easily by Alice to have been won, had she cared to win him, to tenderness.
Was Sir Richard now seconding his scheme?
Sir Richard had no plan—none for escape, none for a catastrophe, none for acting upon Alice's feelings.
“I am so agitated—in such despair, so stunned! If I had but one clear hour! Oh, God! if I had but one clear hour to think in!”
He was now trying to persuade Alice that Longcluse had, in his rage, used exaggerated language—that it was true he was in his power, but it was for a large sum of money, for which he was his debtor.
“Yes, darling,” he whispered, “only be firm. I shall get away, and take you with me—only be secret, and don't mind one word he says when he is angry—he is literally a madman; there is no limit to the violence and absurdity of what he says.”