For a moment even the doctor was nonplussed, for that was a question to which there seemed to be no possible answer—or, at least, no answer that should prove satisfactory. It was, indeed, the strangest scene, to us, at least, who understood the true inwardness of it: that little grey-haired man, who might carry locked up in his numbed brain something that presently should leak out; the girl demanding to know the reason of his presence there; and the doctor and myself with the full knowledge of what had really happened, and of where Gregory Pennington lay hidden.
Bardolph Just, however, was the last man to be placed at a disadvantage for any length of time. In a moment or two he laughed easily, and shrugged his shoulders. "'Pon my word, I don't know!" he replied, in reference to the girl's question. "I can make neither head nor tail of him; but as his master is not here, I scarcely care to turn him out into the world in his present condition."
"What's the matter with him?" asked Debora. "I never saw him like this before."
"Can't say," retorted the doctor quickly. "But I should judge him to have had a stroke of some kind. At all events, Debora, I don't want you to think that I'm a brute; and as Gregory Pennington was a friend of yours—I should say, is a friend of yours—the old man shall stay here until—until his master returns."
I noticed that Capper kept close beside the girl as she moved away towards the house; he looked up at her trustingly, as a child might have done who wanted a guide. As they walked away together, Bardolph Just stepped forward and laid a hand on the girl's arm. I heard what he said distinctly.
"I have not said my last word, by any means," he said in his smooth voice; "nor is this the end."
"It is the end so far as I am concerned," she retorted, without slackening her pace. "You shall be my guardian no longer; I'll arrange something, so that I can get out into the world and live for myself and in my own fashion."
"We'll see about that," he retorted, between his teeth. "Go to your room, and remain there."
She gave him a glance of contempt, that had yet in it some spice of fear, as she turned away and made for the house, with old Capper trotting dog-like beside her. Then the doctor turned to me, and although I saw that there were certain white spots coming and going at the edges of his nostrils and on his cheek bones, he yet spoke calmly enough—indeed, a little amusedly.
"What do you think of that for pretty defiance?" he asked; then, sinking his voice to a lower tone, and taking a step nearer to me, he went on—"She's getting suspicious about that boy; and the madman who's gone off with her now is likely to cause trouble. I don't know what to do with him, but I shall have to devise something. Don't forget, my friend, that if the worst comes to the worst you're in the same boat with me—or in a worse boat. I've only cheated the authorities for your sake; I can plead human sympathy and kindliness, and all sorts of things—which you can't."