'Us?' said Helen. 'You told me you were not concerned.'
And then Mr Burton changed colour and lost his temper.
'You drive a man wild,' he cried. 'You make me that I don't know what I am saying. Of course you know what I mean, though you pretend you don't. I mean my friends. And you know that; and you know how much you owe to me, and yet the answer I get is—this!'
He slammed the door after him like an angry maid-servant; he strode hastily away to his own house, with a face which of itself gave a new paralytic seizure to old John at the lodge. He filled everybody with consternation in his own house. And Helen stood still after he had left her, half exultant, half stupefied. Us! Had she found his cunning manœuvres out?
CHAPTER V.
Dr Maurice came down next day. He was a man of very quiet manners, and yet he was unable to conceal a certain excitement. He walked into the Gatehouse with an air of abstraction, as if he did not quite know what he was about.
'I have come to talk about business,' he said, but he did not send Norah away. Probably had he not been so glad to see her once more, it would have surprised him to see the child whom he had never beheld apart from a book, standing up by her mother's chair, watching his face, taking in every word. Norah's rôle had changed since those old days. She had no independent standing then; now she was her mother's companion, champion, supporter. This changes as nothing else can do a child's life.
'Our case is to be heard for the first time,' he said. 'I believe they are all very much startled. Golden was brought before the magistrate yesterday; he has been admitted to bail, of course. If I could have had the satisfaction of thinking that rascal was even one night in prison! But that was too much to hope for. Mrs Drummond, can you guess who was his bail?'
Helen shook her head, not understanding quite what he meant; but all the same she knew what his answer would be. He brought it out with a certain triumph—