"One moment, Lady Lindores. I must tell you why I have come: not for myself—to ask help for Erskine, whom I have just left in custody, charged with having occasioned somehow—I can't tell you how—the death of—the late accident—your son-in-law," Beaufort stammered out.
The next moment he seemed to be surrounded by them, by their cries of dismay, by their anxious questions. A sharp keen pang of offence was the first feeling in Beaufort's mind,—that John should be so much more interesting to them than he was! It gave him a shock even in the excitement of the moment.
"This was what he meant"—he could at last hear Edith distinctly after the momentary babel of mutual exclamations—"this was what he meant: that we might hear something, which he might not be able to explain, but that we were to believe in him—you and I, mamma."
"Of course we believe in him," cried Lady Lindores; "but something else must be done, something more. Come this way, Mr Beaufort; Lord Lindores is here."
She called him Mr Beaufort without any hesitation now—not pausing, as she had done before, with the more familiar name on her lips. It was John who was in the foreground now—John who, perhaps, for anything they knew, had caused the event which had put them in mourning. With a whimsical mortification and envy, Beaufort exaggerated in his own mind the distress caused by this event. For the moment he looked upon it as a matter of real loss and pain to this unthinking family who showed such interest in the person who perhaps——But the sentiment did not go so far as to be put into words; it resolved itself into a half-indignant wonder at the interest taken in John, and sense of injured superiority on his own account—he, of whom no man could say that he had been instrumental in causing the death even of a dog.
Lady Lindores led the way hastily into the library, where three figures were visible against the dim light in the window as the others came in. Lord Lindores, seated in his chair; little Millefleurs, leaning against the window, half turned towards the landscape; and in front of the light, with his back to it, Rintoul, who was speaking. "With you as bail," he was saying, "he may be set free to-night. Don't let him be a night in that place."
"Are you speaking of John Erskine, Robin, my dear boy? Oh, not a night, not an hour! Don't lose any time. It is too dreadful, too preposterous. Your father will go directly. Take the carriage, which is at the door. If we are a little late, what does it matter?" said Lady Lindores, coming forward, another shadow in the dim light. Millefleurs turned half round, but did not come away from the window on which he was leaning. He was somewhat surprised too, very curious, perhaps a trifle indignant, to see all this fuss made about Erskine. He drew up his plump little person, altogether indifferent to the pronounced manifestation of all its curves against the light, and looked beyond Lady Lindores to Edith,—Edith, who hurried after her mother, swift and silent, as if they were one being, moved by the same unnecessary excitement. Millefleurs had not been in a comfortable state of mind during these last days. The delay irritated him; though Lord Lindores assured him that all was well, he could not feel that all was well. Why should not Edith see him, and give him his answer? She was not so overwhelmed with grief for that brute. What did it mean? And now, though she could not see him on such urgent cause, she was able to interest herself in this eager way on behalf of John Erskine! Millefleurs was very tolerant, and when the circumstances demanded it, could be magnanimous, but he thought he had reason of offence here.
There was a momentary pause—enough to show that Lord Lindores did not share the feeling so warmly expressed. "I am surprised that you should all be so inconsiderate," he said; "you, at least, Rintoul, who generally show more understanding. I have understood that Erskine had laid himself under suspicion. Can you imagine that I, so near a connection of poor Torrance, am the right person to interfere on behalf perhaps of his—murd—that is to say, of the cause—of the instrument——"
"It is impossible," cried Edith, with such decision that her soft voice seemed hard—"impossible! Can any one suppose for a moment——"
"Be silent, Edith," cried her father.