“Pooh! Don’t be a coward. Sir Gilbert’s bark, as you ought to know by this time, is far worse than his bite. He will give you a good jacketing, and serve you right, and there will be an end of it.”
“Ah!—you don’t know him; you think you do, but you don’t,” said Luigi with the intense gravity of semi-inebriety. “Yes, I’d almost sooner drown myself than face him,” he whimpered for the second time.
He was indeed, as Everard could not help reflecting, in no condition to be seen by his grandfather. What was the best thing to do? He stood for a moment or two considering, and then he said: “If you like to stay at my place to-night, I will find you a bed. But in that case, after leaving you there, I must drive to the Chase, inform Sir Gilbert where you are, and make the best excuse I can for your non-appearance.”
“Lisle, you’re a brick!” ejaculated Luigi, seizing Everard by both arms and making as though he would playfully shake him. “I’ve never liked you, you know, but to-night you’ve proved a regular brick.—Yes, that’s the card—a shake-down at your place, and you to go and make my excuses to Granddad. Of course you’ll know what to say. Suddenly taken ill on my road home—glad to take refuge anywhere—awfully sorry he’s been put about—better already and hope to be all right by morning.—You know.”
A sharp drive of twenty minutes brought them to Elm Lodge, Mr. Kinaby’s house, where, by this time, everybody had retired for the night, for which Everard was not sorry. He let himself and his companion in by means of his latch-key. His intention had been to give up his bed to Luigi, but this the latter would by no means agree to, not through any unselfishness on his part, but because he felt that the trouble of undressing would be too much for him. “All I want and all I’ll have is a snooze on a sofa,” was his own way of putting it. Accordingly, Everard having provided him with a blanket and pillow, he kicked off his boots and stretched himself out on the couch in the sitting-room. Half a minute later he was fast asleep.
Everard, having turned down the lamp, left him. The dog-cart was waiting at the door, and ten minutes later he drew up at the main entrance to the park. Nixon, the lodge-keeper, was in bed and had to be knocked up. Leaving his horse and trap in the old man’s charge, Lisle took a bee-line across the park in the direction of the house. On reaching the terrace he saw that the entire frontage was in darkness, except that the couple of lozenge-shaped openings, high up in the shutters of the study windows showed like two dim patches of yellow light. It was evident that the baronet was keeping his word and had not yet retired.
Going up to one of the windows, Lisle took a coin out of his pocket and tapped with it on the glass. For a man of his years, Sir Gilbert’s hearing was still remarkably acute, and in less than a minute the shutter was unbolted and thrown back, and in his deepest tones came the question: “Who is there?” It was almost on such a night, some quarter of a century before, that Alec Clare had tapped at the same window, and he, Sir Gilbert, had put to him precisely the same question that he was putting now. He shivered as the fact recalled itself to his mind. A chill breath from the tomb seemed for a moment to lift his silvered locks.
“It is I—Everard Lisle,” came the clear response.
With fingers that trembled somewhat, Sir Gilbert undid the window-fastenings, and Lisle stepped into the room.
“You have brought me tidings of Lewis?” was the old man’s eager query.