Ferrard presently rose from his chair, and put the keys in his waistcoat pocket. Then he left the house, stealthily, like one in fear.
That night, or rather the next morning, for it was between one and two o’clock, a figure came round the corner of the street from the square and walked a few paces past the iron door. Then the figure stood still for a moment and peered up and down the road. Not a sound, save the distant rattle of a night-cab—not a movement anywhere around. The figure turned and walked back. It stood in the shadow of the wall, glanced round once more, seemed to listen, opened the door, entered, and closed it gently from within.
The few hours of night wore out, the bright summer morning was come. The blinking policeman drifted slowly up the street, and as usual inspected the door. All well. He thought he heard a distant cry, and raised his head to listen. The cry was repeated. Satisfied that it was very far off—nowhere near his beat—he smote his chilled hands together and sauntered away, to meet his welcome relief.
CHAPTER IV.—CONCLUSION.
Amy did not greatly enjoy herself at Brighton. Her father was kind to her, but he was not the jovial, light-hearted companion whom she remembered of old. He was dull, heavy, and irritable, and was constantly engrossed in thought, muttering anxiously to himself. He did not sleep well, for she heard him walking about his room in the night; and he grew more haggard and weary-looking every day. He was clearly not benefiting by the sea-air. He spoke but little; and on the question of her relations with her husband, he, much to her surprise and disgust, declined to speak at all. When she once began to babble of her wrongs, he turned upon her with positive anger; told her that he had come there for rest, not to be worried; that it would no doubt all be arranged comfortably on their return; and that, till then, she was to preserve silence on the subject. All this made Mrs Ferrard extremely dignified and sulky; but being a young person of no great depth, she simply concluded that Pa had a fit of indigestion, and contrived to amuse herself fairly well with shopping, drives, and promenades, in the company of certain friends of her maiden days who chanced to be at Brighton, and who were by no means averse to the society of a lady of title. At all events, the life was a pleasant contrast to that which the Honourable Mrs Ferrard had enjoyed of late in the company of her lord and master.
The truth was that Mr Cross was very ill both in body and mind. He had, though he knew it not, been ailing ever since his daughter’s flight; and the perplexity and distress he was now enduring were telling upon him fearfully. He had quite lost faith in the success of his plans; calmer reflection told him that it would be vain to hope that the leopard could change his spots in the manner he had proposed. Ferrard’s blank silence at the breakfast-table, and the fact that no letter had been received from him since, bore out this opinion.
But what caused him greater trouble and alarm than anything else was the manner in which the idea of Ferrard’s death had taken hold upon his mind, to the exclusion of all other thoughts, until it had assumed the pitiless tyranny of a fixed idea. Night and day it was all before him—the uselessness of the man’s existence, the evils which would cease with it, the chances for and against its duration, the various causes which might perhaps terminate it. And through all, a fierce and devouring longing for its termination, such as he dared not now acknowledge to himself. He was maddened at the difficulties in his way, horrified at the tendency of his thoughts; and there were times when he felt that the safest and easiest thing to do would be to row himself out a mile or two from the beach and hide his troubles and temptations for ever under the careless waves.
They had only been at Brighton five days, when Mr Cross, to his daughter’s surprise and chagrin, announced his intention of returning to town at once. Amy expostulated, but in vain; he declared that he was sick of the place; that it was doing him no good—which was quite true; that he must get back to work and occupy his mind. Finding opposition useless, Mrs Ferrard made her preparations with the best grace she might, and they took the noon-train to London the same day.
On arrival, they drove first to the lodgings in Duke Street, and the auctioneer entered the house with his daughter. To their surprise, they found that Ferrard was not only absent, but had not been seen or heard of since the day of his wife’s departure, when he had remained indoors until ten o’clock at night, and had then gone out; leaving, according to his wont, no word as to when he should return. The people of the house had after a time concluded that he also must be at Brighton. Amy, being used to these absences, though never before of such duration, was less surprised than her father, who was not only astonished, but greatly cast down at what seemed to be an additional evidence of Ferrard’s rejection of his plans, and determination to continue the old courses.
‘There, it’s no use talking,’ he said at last. ‘He’ll come home some time, I suppose; and when he does, send him on to me at once, d’ye hear, Amy? Tell him—ay, tell him that I’ve altered my mind—that I have proposals to make to him which will suit him much better than the last. I must try and hit on something else. And if he’s not back to-morrow, come over and let me know in the evening, will you? There, good-bye; and keep up your spirits, my pet—father’ll see you all right, don’t you fear.’