“There, that will do; I’m quite capable of abusing him myself, if necessary, without your help. I suppose I ought to thank you for what you’ve told me to-night, but I’m afraid I can’t quite do that. I wish, in my heart of hearts, I might have died five minutes before you came in, for then his kiss was warm upon my old cheek, and I—God help me!—I believed in him. There, don’t speak to me. Go away, please; I want to be alone.”
Mr. Robert Carlaw quietly took his way out of the room and out of the house. As he walked home he looked up at the night sky and smiled softly to himself, and felt that the world was good and that Providence had been specially kind to him.
“Women are strange creatures,” he muttered to himself, “and when they’ve been upset or have had something rudely torn away from them they do remarkable things. Years ago, my dear Charlotte, you rejected my offspring and put Master Comethup Willis in his place. I may be wrong, but I think now, with the swing of the pendulum, it is ten thousand chances to one that you will restore Brian to your favour; and then our begging days are over, and all our fortunes will be made. And I shall have made them.”
CHAPTER XXV.
THE FALL OF PRINCE CHARMING.
Miss Carlaw stood for a long time in the same attitude after her brother had left her; the whole hideous thing had come upon her so unexpectedly and with such force that she was like one stunned. She began presently to pace about the room, moaning once or twice to herself as she walked, and then again stopping suddenly with a new light on her face and a smile about her lips. But those latter moments were rare and fleeting; they came to her only when she felt for an instant that the story she had heard was a hideous invention, and that her faith in Comethup might still remain unshaken.
After a long, long time her heart leaped suddenly at the sound of wheels and the opening of a door; then died down again at the thought of the interview before her. She heard his footstep in the hall, and then knew by the opening of the room door that he was coming to her as he always did. She stood stiff and rigid to receive him.
The sound of the voice she loved so well almost shook her resolution to be stern with him, almost broke her into an appeal. She knew that in another moment his arm would be about her shoulders in the old boyish fashion, and she cried out in an agony, “Stop! Stay where you are. Don’t come near me!”
He stopped dead; so suddenly quiet was he that she almost fancied he had stopped breathing. Then the tension was over; he gave a quick little gasp and said hurriedly, “What’s the matter?”