"Pshaw, you are always drunk enough to be unreasonable before noon. Turn some cold water upon your head and be ready to attend to what I have to say."
What he had to say took a long time in the telling, for it was a long, long hour before the conference broke up, and the two men left the room together.
Then the doors of the wardrobe opened slowly, and a pale, pinched face looked forth; following the face came the body of Evan Lamotte, shaken as if with an ague. Mechanically he closed the wardrobe, and staggered rather than walked from the room. Once more within his own room he locked the door with an unsteady hand, and then threw himself headlong upon the bed, uttering groan after groan, as if in pain.
After a time he arose from the bed, still looking as if he had seen a ghost, and, going to a desk, opened it, and took therefrom a capacious drinking flask; raising it to his lips he drained half its contents, and the stimulant acting upon overstrained nerves, seemed to restore rather than to intoxicate.
"At last," he muttered to himself, "I am at the bottom of the mystery, and—I am powerless." Then, like his sister on the previous day, he muttered, "There is but one way—only one—and it must be done!" Then throwing himself once more upon the bed, he moaned:
"Oh, that I, the accursed of the family, heretofore, should live to be—but pshaw! it is for Sybil I care. But—for to-day let them all keep out of my sight—I could not see them and hold my peace."
He pocketed the half empty flask, and made his way from the house to be seen by none at Mapleton for the next twenty-four hours.
After that morning interview with his father-in-law, John Burrill blusters less for a few days, and makes himself less disagreeable to the ladies. He accepts the situation, or seems to; he rides out on one or two sunny afternoons with Mrs. Lamotte and Sybil, and on one of these occasions they meet Constance Wardour, driving with her aunt. The heiress of Wardour smiles gayly and kisses the tips of her fingers to the ladies, but there is no chance for him—he might be the footman for all Constance seems to see or know to the contrary. This happens in a thoroughfare where they are more than likely to have been observed, and John Burrill chafes inwardly, and begins to ponder how he can, in the face of all the Lamottes, gain a recognition from Constance Wardour. In his sober moments this becomes a haunting thought; in his tipsy ones it grows to be a mania.
One day, during this lull in the family siege, Sybil and her mother visit the city, doing a mountain of shopping, and returning the next day. Sybil keeps on as she began, on the night when she listened to her father and husband, while they held council in her mother's room. She is full of energy and nervous excitement always, and the old stupor of dullness, and apathetic killing of time, never once returns. But Mrs. Lamotte likes this last state not much better than the first; neither does Constance; but they say nothing, for the reason that it would be useless, as they know too well. Sybil goes out oftener, sits with the family more, and seems like one waiting anxiously for a long expected event.
John Burrill is a little disturbed at Sybil's visit to the city. He knows that she will go and come as she pleases there, unquestioned, and, if she choose, unattended by her mother. And, without knowing why, he feels inclined to rebel; but he is still under the spell of that morning interview, and so holds his peace.