And then he thought with horror of Ramsay’s idea that a hatred so malignant as that which had killed Godfrey Carmichael might reveal itself in some new crime. He thought of the young mother bending over her infant’s cradle in some unguarded room—calm in the fancied safety of her English home. He thought of her wandering alone in park or wood, while that rabid hatred lurked in the shadow, waiting and watching for the moment of attack. The horror of the idea chilled him to the heart, but he was careful not to hint at that horror to Juanita. He seized the first opportunity of being alone with Lady Jane, and imparted his fears, founded upon that suggestion of Cuthbert Ramsay’s to her. The kind creature was quick to take alarm, and promised to see that Juanita was guarded at all hours by all precautions that could be taken without alarming her.
“She is surrounded with old and faithful servants,” said Lady Jane; “a hint to them will put them on their guard; but if you thought it wiser I would take her away from this place—take her away from England, if necessary. It is horrible to think of living at the mercy of an unknown foe.”
“My friend’s notion may be groundless. The crime of last year may have been an isolated act—the inspiration of madness. In our efforts to account for the unaccountable we may invent theories which torture us, and which may yet have no ground in fact. Only it is as well to think of possibilities, however hideous.”
He spent one night at the Priory, and before departure next morning presented his offering of a fine George the Second mug to his godson, Godfrey James Dalbrook—who in his present stage of existence seemed to his godfather a scarcely distinguishable morsel of humanity smothered in overmuch cambric and Valenciennes.
“I’m afraid if I were to meet my godson in the arms of a strange nurse I should not know him,” he said, deprecatingly, after he had kissed the rosebud mouth, “but, please God, the time will come when he and I will be firm friends. As soon as he is old enough to decline mensa I shall feel that we can converse upon a common footing, and when he goes to Eton I shall renew my youth every time I run down to waste an hour in the playing fields watching him at cricket, or to drive him to the ‘White Hart.’”
Although he put on an air of cheerfulness in his leave-taking, he left the Priory with a sense of deepest anxiety; and it was almost a relief to him when he received a letter from Lady Jane a week afterwards.
“I could not get over the uneasy feeling which your suggestion awakened,” she wrote, “so I am going to carry off mother and child to Switzerland the day after to-morrow. Interlaken and Grindelwald are delightful at this season. We shall return to Dorsetshire as soon as the tourists begin to invade our retreat, and I trust in God that some discovery may be made in the meantime, so that all our minds may be more at ease.”
CHAPTER XXI.
“Ruin hath taught me thus to ruminate,
That time will come and take my love away.