"No," she said, waiting until he was gone before she spoke again.—"We shall go to Cousin Will's now, father. I wish to say good-night to him."
"Very well, my dear. I'll leave you to read to him while I run round to see if any letters have come. I feel confident somebody will answer my advertisement about the scissors."
CHAPTER V.
A luxurious apartment, of which the most salient features were excess of heat and color. A glowing fire burned in the grate. Persian rugs, richly-tinted curtains, tiger and leopard skins, light and gilding on every side, threw into more miserable contrast Laidley's pinched, pallid face as he stood in the midst. His back was to the fire, his claw-like hands behind him, opening and shutting mechanically as if to grasp the heat, his pale eyes blinking through his eye-glasses on Jane standing before him.
"Do I understand what you say?" in a tone of blank amazement. "That you, a child, come here to a dying man to assert your claim to his property! It is incredible that you came of your own free will. Who sent you?"
"Nobody, Cousin Will. It seemed to me the thing I ought to do. I do wish you would sit down," anxiously. "You are not able to stand."
He sank into a chair: "Bring me some wine."
She brought the wine, tucked the leopard skins about him, wiped his forehead tenderly, placed a cushion beneath his feet. He shivered, closed his eyes for a moment, then fixed them on her: "Now go on."
She did go on without the slightest hesitation, without even a flush of color, quick as her blood was to come and go when she was moved. The thing she had to do evidently seemed to her exceedingly simple and easy: "I knew you did not see the matter just as it is, or there would be no difficulty about it. No one else seemed willing to speak to you, and so I came myself."
He put out his hand toward the wine: she set it within his reach, and resumed her place, one arm resting on the mantel-shelf, looking down at him. There was only that sorrowful pity in her face with which any large-hearted, healthy woman would look at a diseased, dying man.