“Nothing of the kind. I’ve a great deal to think about while I’m out, and I want to be alone. Besides, I’ve asked Bristow to stay to dinner, and you must do your best to entertain him.”
“If you go out, papa, I shall go with you,” said Jane, in her straightforward, positive way. “Besides which, Briggs is ill to-day, and there’s nobody to drive you—unless you will let Mr. Bristow be your coachman for once, and then we shall all be together.”
With some difficulty the Squire was induced to consent to this arrangement. It was evident that he would have preferred to go out alone, but that was just what Jane would by no means allow him to do. Her woman’s instinct told her that they were in the midst of a thunder-cloud, but where and when the lightning would strike she could not even guess. In any case, it seemed to her well that for some time to come her father should be left alone as little as possible.
So they drove out together, all three of them. The Squire was unusually silent, but did not otherwise seem different from his ordinary mood, and neither Tom nor Jane was much inclined for talking. On the road they found a child of six, a little girl who had wandered away from home and lost herself, who was sitting by the roadside crying bitterly. The Squire would have the child on his knee, although she was neither very neatly dressed nor very pretty. He kissed her, and soothed away her tears, and made her laugh, and found out where she lived. Then, in a little while, still sitting on his knee, she fell asleep, and the old man wrapped the thickest rug around her, and sheltered her from the cold as tenderly as though she had been his own child. And when the girl’s mother was found, and the girl herself had to be given up, he made her kiss him, and put half-a-crown into her hand, and promised to call and see her in a day or two. Tom, watching him narrowly all the time, said to himself, “I don’t understand him at all to-day. I thought my news would have overwhelmed him, but it seems to have had far less effect upon him than it had upon me. I’m fairly puzzled.” But there are some troubles so overwhelming that, for a time at least, they numb and deaden the feelings by their very intensity. All the more painful is the after-waking.
“I think, dear, that I will go and lie down for a little while,” said the Squire, when they had reached home. “You will wake me up in time for dinner.”
But there was Blenkinsop, his steward, waiting by appointment, who wanted his signature to the renewal of a lease.
“Yes, yes, to be sure, Blenkinsop,” said he Squire, in his old business-like way, as he sat down at his writing-table and spread out the paper before him and dipped his pen in the ink. Then he paused.
“Just your name, sir, nothing more—on that line,” said the steward, deferentially, marking the place with his finger.
“Just so, Blenkinsop, just so,” said the Squire, tremulously. “But what is my name? Just for the moment I don’t seem as if I could recollect it.”
A look of horror flashed from Jane’s eyes into the eyes of Tom. She was by her father’s side in a moment. He looked helplessly up at her, and tried to smile, but his lips quivered and tears stood in his eyes.