Richard Dowling

“ Grant, try to forgive me. I am too selfish. But I am distracted. I never knew till now how fond I was of—of my father, and it would be rude and ungrateful in me not to see Mr. Grey after all his care and trouble. What should we have done without him? Not a soul belonging to us near us. Dear Mrs. Grant, will you go to him and say—don't send a servant, he deserves all the courtesy we can show him—say to him I would go to him myself, but the house and place is so—so crowded, and I am not very—strong. ”

“ Grant, do forgive my selfishness!"
The widow wound her arms around the weeping girl, and crushing back her own grief, said passionately:
"Selfish, Maud! you selfish! Why, my darling never thinks there is such a person as herself until she finds she can be of use to some one. No, love, not selfish. There, love, love, don't cry; we shall be the best of friends all our lives. We are both friendless and alone; that is all the more reason why we should be good friends all our lives, Maud darling. ”

“ My dear Sir William, you can draw on us for fifty thousand without notice. If you have the least occasion for more than fifty, just tell me four days before you draw, so that there may be no chance of a disappointment to you."
Grey thought, "Clearly this young man is in debt. How lucky! When a man is in debt and wants money badly he will do——" He paused, thought of his own case, shuddered, and whispered in the innermost solitude of the desert of crime where he and his spectre dwelt,—"he will do anything—murder!" ”

“ Again the stranger bowed low to Miss Midharst. It was impossible, without downright rudeness, for Grey to move until the stranger should have recovered an erect attitude, as evidently there was something else he wished to say.
"Miss Midharst," at last the stranger said, "I am William Midharst, your cousin;" he held out his hand to her.
"The new baronet!" murmured the servants, in whispers. All the men looked keenly at the tall dark young man, who with a grave smile stood holding out a brown right hand to the fair, shrinking, timid, pale, beautiful girl. ”

“ This time he spoke with the most elaborate clearness of articulation, slowly and with emphasis:
"You promise to make over to me the guardianship of the thing to which I allude as absolutely as though it had been made over to me by your father's will."
"I do."
"Then it is the guardianship of my cousin, Maud Midharst."
"The guardianship of me! But Mr. Grey is my guardian!"
"Yes and no. He is the guardian of your fortune absolutely. But with respect to your own personal action you are left free. ”

“ Michael the servant entered, and announced, "Sir William Midharst and Mr. Grey."
"You will see Mr. Grey first, of course, Maud?" said Mrs. Grant, in a low voice.
Miss Midharst looked perplexed, and by way of reply said:
"Why?"
"Oh, you will surely see your guardian before a man you met only yesterday?"
"Don't you think it would look strange, Mrs. Grant, if I did not see my cousin before Mr. Grey?"
"Certainly not. Mr. Grey was appointed to take care of you. He has known you since you were a child, and you owe him every respect," said Mrs. Grant, speaking so low that Michael could not hear. ”

“ My name is Grey. I have just come from Miss Midharst. I understand you wish to see her, and, I am sorry to say, she does not feel herself equal to an interview; but if you will favour me with any communication for her, or let me know the nature of your business, I shall be happy to do anything I can for you." Grey spoke in a kind and winning manner. "There is no knowing what facts he may be in possession of, and nothing can be lost by politeness to him," was Grey's reflection. ”

“ To-morrow morning Maud Midharst will think of me as a widower—Maud Midharst, who will one day own that chest, which, when opened, will be found to contain the bones of a thief and a suicide, not the fortune of a great heiress. ”

“ Yes; the open air was much better than the house. Out of doors one could keep at a distance from shadows, and, when there is the rustle of a dress, soon find out it is not hers. Then, when the worst comes to the worst, one, when out of doors, could run. Indoors, you cannot run any distance, and jumping through a window would attract attention and inquiry, neither of which could be endured now.
Leaning heavily on the arm of the young baronet, Grey walked up and down the terrace in front of the northern face of the Castle. ”

“ It was well for Grey they were in the dimly-lighted corridor, because he blenched and staggered for a moment.
"Who can this man be?" he thought, "who has such urgent business with Miss Midharst? Can this swarthy solemn man be here on official business connected with—with Miss Midharst's money? He looks a gentleman, but talks too like a book for one. A detective? That would be a nice finale to this ceremony.
"Dear Miss Midharst, here is Mr. Grey come to see you," said Mrs. Grant, opening the door of the little drawing-room and ushering in the banker. ”

“ As they came into that room to hear that will read, by which he became sole executor, trustee, and guardian, did she not lean on him? Already she liked him. Soon she should love him. Soon she should marry him.
Considering her position, the world would approve of her marrying; for she had no one to protect her but a guardian, no kin near enough to take any interest in her. In her solitary situation, every one would approve of her marrying soon.
There was a rustle, and all the men rose to their feet upon perceiving Miss Midharst in the act of rising. ”

“ Across the threshold of that bedroom-door this jaw-dropped thing never came. That room was one's only sanctuary. The old love of the long ago never left that place with the dying of the perfume. Here one's wife moved about the room and stood by the bedside as God had made her, comely, and as love had made her, happy; not as indifference had made her, wretched, and the devil's agent had made her, dead. ”

“ The young baronet was walking softly up and down the great hall, and Wat Grey was standing transfixed by a new terror in the library the two young people had just left.
Presently Maud came down the great staircase. The young baronet looked up and saw a sweet, white, childish face, full of sadness in the midst of crape, and beneath that face a lithe graceful figure, moving as though the ground had nothing to do with her movements, her step was so free and light.
"My cousin Maud," thought the young man, "is too fair for health. ”

“ I am afraid of him: he makes me feel smaller and helpless. I never feel helpless when Mr. Grey is near me, for he can always tell me what to do; but I feel as if I must do what my cousin says, and after only one meeting too. I was ashamed to confess this until you made me."
Her luminous candid spirit looked out of the large soft eyes into the eyes of the woman.
Mrs. Grant stole her arm round Maud's waist, and for a while both walked on in silence. ”

“ He had come from Egypt, the land of the inexplicable Pyramids and the inscrutable Sphynx. To her this cousin William's inner life was as dark a mystery as the riddle of the Pyramids, and his face as baffling as the face of the Sphynx. Until now she had heard men speak, and had attended to their words. When he spoke now she regarded less the words than the unuttered thoughts attending upon them. The "How d'ye do?" of other men required only a straightforward answer, without thought beyond the scope of the question. ”

“ Had Mrs. Grant discovered anything about the Midharst Consols? She was the last person of his acquaintance he would imagine likely to come upon a clue to the fact. But no one could tell who might pick up the thread. If he had known matters would take turns like these he should never have touched those Consols. He would have shut the door first. What a fool, what a poor fool he had been not to have taken his mother's advice and shut the door.
"But if he wants money he must be poor?"
"He will have a fine income now."
"Miss Midharst has a large fortune, Mr. Grey." ”

“ I want to speak about Sir William Midharst."
"The new baronet!" cried Mr. Grey, with a start and suddenly intensified interest.
"Yes. Do you know anything of him?"
"No. Nothing. He has not yet established his identity, but there can be no doubt he is the right man. As what you have to say concerns him, and as I am under no pledge to guard his interests (though of course I should not sit still and see them injured) , you may speak quite freely. I promise to mention what you say to no one." ”

“ Grant.
"Take my arm and come into the air. The air will do you good," said the young man in a voice of grave solicitude and kindness.
"Thank you," said Grey, accepting the offer.
The two left the room together, the banker upon the baronet's arm.
Neither the knee nor the head of Grey was suffering at that moment; but he felt a deadly faintness come over him when Mrs. Grant made the appeal to him to protect Miss Midharst against fortune-hunters.
"The blows come too quickly and too heavily; too quickly and too heavily; too quickly and too heavily for me." ”

“ Grant, with a look of grave trouble in her eyes, "what you say about lions and King Charlie is all nonsense. When you have a King Charlie you play with him, and feed him out of your hand. When you have a lion, you look at him through the bars of a cage. Besides, Maud, it is absurd and romantic to think of an English baronet as a lion. ”

“ And here, against the homely sash of that old familiar window, that commonplace sash and frame, down which she had seen the dreary rain of weary winter days slide to the sodden ground, he leaned; on his face and hands the brown harvest of Egyptian suns, in his dark eyes the strange knowledge of awful arts and rites wrought in labyrinth and in cave by Egypt's ancient priests, and in his tones the softness of a land where no waves beat and no winds blow loudly enough to drown the timid whispers of a maid. ”

“ Is not that better than watching each boat, and bending over each poor body that is landed?"
"You are right!" cried Grey eagerly, all his faculties suddenly starting into life, and his mind for the first time seizing upon the idea of getting certain knowledge speedily. The torpor which had fallen upon his intellectual faculties at the moment of the explosion left him, and he not only warmly seconded the old man's plan, but before the other could speak, had secured and was seated in one of the many flys which had already begun to arrive with helpers and friends at the scene of the wreck. ”

“ As in all earliest forms of life, nearly everything was done for the individual by heat and moisture. The unseemly inside of that tower was fretting and rotting slowly away, being slowly devoured by the worm and the maggot and the fungus.
Through the warm vapours of that polluted tower the man staggered upward. His breathing had now become stertorous, and beat in the hollow staircase and against the sounding boards furnished by the empty rooms like the snorting of a hunted monster. ”

“ The coroner's jury found that Mrs. Grey, wife of Henry Walter Grey, Esq., died of excessive drink! Intolerable!
And yet this wretched woman lying here had made such a thing not only possible but probable. Suppose she should never wake, what an unendurable position for him! He could not live through that odious inquest, never survive that degrading verdict. He should throw himself into the Weeslade, or blow out his brains first. ”

“ Grey had lost his wife?"
"No. Does it make any difference? Cannot a widower be guardian in a will?" She dreaded to lose the protection she had been taught to rely on.
"Oh, indeed, he can. It makes not the least difference in the eyes of the law whether a man has a wife or not, as far as his appointment of guardian in a will goes. I was asking merely for information's sake. And now, Maud, I think you had better go in. It is getting dark already, and I should like to have a little conversation with your guardian—your other guardian—before I leave. ”

“ He seemed to imagine himself in a dock, and the huge oaks the grave and grey jury empanelled to try him, and the sweet low voice of the river the indictment that never ceased to sound.
"I own I quailed when I heard his first words from the threshold, but that was when he accused me of what I have done." He had once more dropped his voice to a cautious whisper.
"Who would not, being a thief, quake at being called a thief for the first time by the man he had stolen from, and in the presence of her for whom the vast savings of a lifetime had been laid by? ”

“ Was it the background afforded by the Nile and the sacred crocodile, and the mysterious barren silent rows of the Pyramids, with those features of men and women lying hid in folds of linen and layers of asphaltum, with, save the eyes, all the features, the lips that were kissed by lover or mother, still unchanged, still the same lip, the same dimple in the cheek, the same curve in the temple as when Thebes and Memphis conned the stars, the Paris and the London of three thousand years ago, and taught the world all the world knew? ”

“ Now, if you look back, you will see as pretty a view as there is on the whole of the Weeslade, Don't the pasture and park lands look well with the hills behind them, and dead astern, in the throat of the river, Warfinger Island with its hill, and on the top of the hill the old Castle standing out sharp against the sky, with the Tower of Silence highest of all?
"By-the-way, in a moment you will see why people got a superstitious feeling about that tower. Right in our wake is the Castle, and we are steering right into the sun. ”

“ Miss Midharst had forgotten the baronet in the allegory, and was thinking only of the lion; so that when Mrs. Grant triumphantly said, "I told you so," Maud believed Mrs. Grant was contemplating the same image as herself—that is, her own disappearance down the lion's throat. So that Maud smiled and said:
"Fortunately there are very few lions in this part of the world, and one very seldom gets loose."
"On the contrary, there are very many lions in this part of the country, and they all go about seeking whom they may devour." ”

“ The banker placed his hand firmly, though lightly, on the shoulder of Mrs. Grant, and said, in an impressive voice:
"We are all, I am sure, very sorry Sir Alexander is so ill; but we must not add to our grief for him the fear that Miss Midharst will be unprovided for. There will be few richer heiresses, and she and her fortune shall be well taken care of. I wish you would be kind enough to tell me what the doctors said about Sir Alexander."
"Oh, Mr. Grey, I hope you will excuse me. I am so fearfully troubled and excited. I know what trouble is myself. ”

“ As Grey took his way from the library to the hall, he felt far from easy. He did not want men near him, and he did not want strange men; he did not want strange men more than a match for him in fence; and, above all, he did not want this man, who was not only a stranger and a better master of the foils, but who, moreover, had matter of importance to communicate to Miss Midharst, and displayed a plain conviction he should that day have an opportunity of speaking to Miss Midharst, notwithstanding her denials. ”