"I am tired with my double journey, and need rest I will give you until to-morrow morning to come to your senses. By the way, I am glad the mare is all right again. She will sell for something, and every little helps."
The littleness displayed in this threat pained Kathleen more than the threat itself. Every day of late had shown her more plainly to what manner of man she had given herself. At this moment, however, the thought, "My child is safe, in loving hands, and with those whose faces and home are familiar to him," took the sting from the bitterest words that Mr. Torrance could say to her.
In spite of herself, Kathleen felt troubled about her husband. The complaint of weariness was no pretence. He walked unsteadily from the room, as if suffering from giddiness, and she noticed the almost livid colour on his face. He had of late frequently consulted a specialist relative to attacks of the kind, and had been advised to live very quietly and avoid excitement and stimulants. He would obey for then, feeling better, would laugh resume his old habits. Before Kathleen slept, she knew the story of her boy's recovery. It was told as briefly as possible in a note which Mountain placed in her hands later still.
[CHAPTER XXIII]
LIGHT AT EVENTIDE
IT had been easy for Aylmer to find out that Mr. Torrance had left the train at Earlsford Junction, and Kenneth with him. The ex-captain was too well-known through the county for any mistake in identity to be possible. Besides, the carrying off of the child had been a sudden inspiration, not the result of a carefully laid plan, and Mr. Torrance had only counted that it would be needful to detain him for a night in some place unknown to his mother, to ensure her complete subjugation.
At Earlsford, he had hired a conveyance and driven away with the child, then returned alone, and taken train to another station thirty miles distant, whence he would return to Hollingsby.
Aylmer discovered the driver employed by Mr. Torrance without any trouble, and the man was willing to give any information, as Mr. Matheson was no stranger to him.
"It was a new thing for the captain to be in charge of the little man," he said. "But he was in rare spirits, as if he were up to some trick. Little master cried when his father left him, but Mrs. Munslow will take good care of him. She was nurse at Monk's How once, and afterwards she married a widower with two children, but comfortably off. She has one of her own now, so little master won't be short of a playfellow," said the man.
Aylmer knew that Ralph's nurse, Sarah Swain, was married, but neither remembered her present name nor her exact address—only that her home was a couple of miles from Earlsford Junction. The idea that Mr. Torrance would take the boy to Sarah had flashed across his mind, and sent him in the right direction instead of to town. He accordingly engaged the driver to convey him to her house. Under Sarah's charge he found little Kenneth, making himself very much at home in the society of the smallest Munslow.