Major Raynor had never seen this man: and Frank and Charles, each for his own private and individual reasons, had refrained from speaking about him. Of late the major had chiefly confined himself to the gardens immediately attached to his house. There were two reasons for this: the one, that he had now grown so very stout as to render walking a trouble to him, and when he did go out it was in a carriage; the other, that he never went beyond his inner fence but he was sure to meet one or other of those wretched malcontents; who thought nothing of accosting him and asking him to do this, and to do that. So matters remained pretty stationary: the major indolently nursing himself in his easy-chair on the lawn; the young men enjoying their private discomforts; and the Tiger peering into every conceivable spot open to him, and making himself better acquainted with the general shortcomings of the Raynors, in regard to the estate and the people on it, than they were themselves.
It was Saturday evening. Alice sat at the piano in the drawing-room, singing songs in the twilight to the intense gratification of William Stane, who stood over her. The young barrister frequently ran down home the last day of the week, to remain over the Sunday with his family. As a matter of course, he spent a great part of the time at Eagles' Nest. The major sat back in the room, dozing; Charles was listlessly turning over a pile of music. Eagles' Nest had given an afternoon party that day; a fashionable kettledrum; but the guests had departed.
"I can scarcely see," said Alice, as her lover placed a new song before her. She was in the dress she had worn in the afternoon: a black gauze trimmed with white ribbons, with silver bracelets and other silver ornaments, and looked charmingly lovely. They were in mourning for Dr. Raynor.
"I'll ring for lights," said Charles. "I can't see, either."
The talking had aroused the major. "We don't want lights yet," said he. "It is pleasanter as it is."
"Sing the songs you know by heart," whispered William Stane. "After all, they are the best and sweetest."
Presently Lamb came in of his own accord, with the wax-lights. The major, waking up again, made no objection now, but forbade the shutters to be closed.
"It's a pity to shut out that moonlight," said he. Not that the moonlight could have interested him much, for in another minute he was asleep again. He had grown strangely drowsy of late. So the room was lighted up, and the moonlight streamed in at the window.
Frank entered. He had been sitting upstairs with his wife, who was still very ill. In fact, this had been an unusually prolonged and critical sickness. Taking up his position at the window, Frank listened silently to the song then in progress. Charles came up to him.
"How is she to-night, Frank?"