In the Dead of Night: A Novel. Volume 2 (of 3)

by T. W. Speight

So Wigley proceeded to open it slowly and lovingly, as a man having a deep admiration for the work of his own hands. First the outer doors were flung wide open, revealing a few empty garments drooping drearily from the pegs. But when Mr. Wigley, with a solemn finger, touched the secret spring, and the false back swung slowly open on its secret hinges, the three men pressed forward with beating pulses and staring eyes, feeling sure that in another moment the great prize would be in their grasp.

Drayton’s fingers closed instinctively on the handcuffs in his pocket, while Martha Vince looked on from the background with a cynical smile.

The false back swung slowly open, and revealed the hiding-place behind. But it was empty.

“Flown!” said Wigley, with a deep sigh, all his golden visions vanishing like the shadow of a dream.

“Sold I most infernally sold!” exclaimed. Drayton, his face a picture of blank discomfiture. “It’s no good waiting here any longer,” he added, as he turned on his heel. “He’s got clear away, never fear.”

Downstairs the three men tramped, without another word, and, marching out, banged the front door behind them with a force that made every window in the little cottage rattle in its frame.

“Gone at last, thank Heaven!” exclaimed Edith, as the echo of the retreating footsteps died away. “If only I had tidings that my darling is safe, then I almost think that I should be quite happy.” Unbidden tears were in her eyes as she stood for a moment with clasped hands and upturned face, while from her heart a silent prayer of thankfulness winged its way on high.

Tom Bristow lingered about the grounds and shrubberies at Pincote till the dusky evening was deepening into night, and the lamps in the drawing-room were alight. Then, with cautious footsteps, he stole nearer the house, and at last found himself ensconced behind a clump of holly, and close to one of the three French windows which opened from the drawing-room on to the lawn. The venetians were down, but between the interstices he could obtain a clear view of the room and its inmates. The inmates were only two in number—Miss Culpepper and another young lady whom Tom had never seen before. The Squire, if at home, had not left the dining-room. How pretty Jane looked as she sat there in the lamplight, in her soft flowing dress of white and mauve, plying her needle swiftly—for Jane’s fingers were rarely unemployed—while her companion read to her aloud! Her every look, her every gesture, went direct to Tom’s heart. He was caught in the toils at last—this cold, self-willed, unimaginative man of the world—and he began to find that, even for such as he, such bonds are not easily broken.

“This is either love or something very much like it,” he muttered to himself. “I find that I am just as great an ass as my fellow-men. What is it in this that fascinates me so strangely? She is not particularly clever, or handsome, or witty, or accomplished. I have been in the society of women who could outshine her in every way: and yet, for me, she is the one woman whom the world holds—the one woman whom I ever felt that I could love. It is easy to talk about dying for a woman, and not very difficult to do so, I dare say. The grand test of love, as it seems to me, is to live with a woman and to love her at the end of twenty years as well as you loved her on your wedding-day. Now, of all the women I have ever met, yonder fairy is the only one with whom I should care to try the experiment. Her I fancy I could love as well at the end of a hundred years as of twenty: and yet of what the charm consists that draws me to her—whence it comes, and how she exercises it—I know no more than the man in the moon.”

But Tom’s love-reveries did not absorb him to the extent of making him oblivious of the particular object which had brought him to Pincote. It was requisite that he should see Jane alone, and nothing could be done so long as Jane’s companion was in the room with her. Besides which, the squire might come in at any moment, and then his last chance would be gone. Should the worst come to the worst, he was prepared to go up to the front door, knock like any ordinary visitor, and ask to see Miss Culpepper openly and boldly. But it was only as a last resource that he would adopt a measure which, should it come to the squire’s ears, could only lead to inquiry; and inquiry on the squire’s part was what Tom was particularly wishful to avoid. Not that the old man would not have been as stanch as steel in such a case, and would have done anything and everything to assist Lionel. But, unfortunately, he had a garrulous tongue, which could not always be trusted to keep a secret—which often betrayed secrets without knowing that it had done so; and in a matter so grave as the one in which he was now engaged, Tom was careful to avoid the slightest unnecessary risk. It would be far better for every one that the squire should rest in happy ignorance, till the future should bring its own proper time for revealing everything.