T. W. Speight

“ The sea was invisible from the lower windows of the Hall, but there was a fine view of it from the dormer windows in the north wing; and here Ella Winter had had a room fitted up especially for herself. Had you ever slept at Heron Dyke on a winter night, when a strong landward breeze was blowing, you would have been hushed to rest by one of nature's most majestic monotones. ”

“ Young Gilbert writhed uneasily in his chair; the frown on his face grew darker as he listened.
"And even as matters are," resumed his uncle, blandly, "even though you have not yet come to an untimely end, it is quite competent for me to pass you over and nominate your cousin as my heir."
"Oh, sir, this is intolerable!" cried the young man, starting to his feet for the second time. "To see you as you are, uncle, grieves me to the bottom of my heart--believe me or not. But I did not come here to be preached at. No man knows my faults and follies so well as I know them myself. ”

“ He seemed to follow the pathway by instinct rather than by sight. It was a thinner line of grass that wound like a ribbon through the thicker grass of the park. His own footsteps were all but inaudible to him as he walked.
The pathway took a sudden turn round two gnarled thorn-trees, when all at once, and without a moment's warning, Captain Lennox found himself face to face with a dark-hooded figure--hooded and cloaked from head to foot--which might have sprung out of the ground, so silently and suddenly did it appear to his sight. ”

“ Conroy seemed all at once to have lost his speech. Neither of them had much to say, but to both the silence exhaled a subtle sweetness. There are moments when words seem a superfluity--almost on impertinence. To live, to breathe--to feel that beside you is the living, breathing presence of the one supremely loved, is all that you ask for. It is well, perhaps, that such sweetly dangerous moments come so seldom in a lifetime.
They left the park by a wicket, took a winding footway through the plantation beyond, and reached the sand-hills, where they sat down for a few moments. ”

“ You are the young jackanapes who wants to sketch my house--eh?" said Mr. Denison, as he peered into Conroy's face with eager, suspicious eyes. "How do I know that you are not a spy--a vile spy?" He ground out the last word from beneath his teeth, and craned his long neck forward so as to bring it closer to Conroy's face.
"Do I look like a spy, sir?" asked Conroy calmly, as he went a pace nearer to the old man's chair.
"What have looks to do with it? There's many a false heart beneath a fair-seeming face. Aye, many--many." ”

“ Heron Dyke is getting an ill name for mystery, see you, and I do not choose that my innocent lassie shall pass the winter in it."
"Quite right; I perceive all now, and I will take her out of it, Gilbert. At least for two or three of the dark months."
"Two or three months won't do," cried the Squire, testily. "It would be of no use. She must not come back until the days are long and bright."
"Well, well, I see how anxious you are for her," said Mrs. Carlyon; who, however, could hardly feel it right to let him be so long alone. "In any case, you would like her to be home before your birthday." ”

“ It was at the billiard-table that he and Lennox had first met. A billiard-table is like a sea voyage: it brings people together for a short time on a sort of common level, and acquaintanceships spring up which under other circumstances would never have had an existence. The advantage is that you can drop them again when the game is over, or the voyage at an end: though people do not always care to do that. In the dull little town of Nullington the occasional society of a man like Captain Lennox seemed to Lord Camberley an acquisition not to be despised. ”

“ He turned and walked a little way with her, and then they parted.
Philip sighed as he turned away. What an air of quiet goodness there was about Maria! How sweet and saintly she looked in her dress of homely blue, with the sunlight shining on her!
"If she had lived five hundred years ago, her face would have been painted as that of some mediæval saint," muttered Philip to himself. "She is far away too good to be the wife of such a shuffling, weak-minded fellow as I am."
When he reached the florist's shop on his way back to the office, the remaining bouquet was still in the window. ”

“ That dark, sunken look about the eyes, those fine-drawn lines around the mouth, what business have they there at your age? I tell you, Gilbert Denison, that if you do not change your mode of life at once and for ever, you will not live to see your thirtieth birthday. ”

“ By-and-by Conroy strolled into the drawing-room, and Captain Lennox, who happened to be watching Ella at the time, saw the sudden light that leapt into her eyes the moment she caught sight of his form in the doorway.
"She's interested in him already," muttered the Captain to himself. "This Mr. Conroy is playing some deep game, or I am very much mistaken. I wonder where he has met her before?"
"How do you think my niece is looking?" asked Mrs. Carlyon of Captain Lennox, a little later on, as she glanced fondly at Ella.
"Uncommonly well," replied the Captain. "She always does look well." ”

“ There was a tradition in the family that the whilom lord of Heron Dyke set fire to the roof-tree of the old mansion with his own hand, hoping by such summary method to exorcise the ghost of a girl dressed in white and having a red spot on her breast, which would persist in rambling through the upper chambers of the house during that weird half-hour when the daylight is dying, and night has not yet come. ”

“ At the back of the house was a charming terraced-garden, with an extensive view, some prominent features of which were the twisted chimneys of Heron Dyke, and the seven tall poplars that overshadowed the moat. Here dwelt the Rev. Francis Kettle, vicar of Nullington-cum-Easterby, and his daughter Maria. The living was not a very lucrative one, being only of the annual value of six hundred pounds; but the vicar was a man who, if his income had been two thousand a year, would have lived up to the full extent of it. ”

“ He was very dear to Dorothy: perhaps not less so to Aaron. Aaron did not answer; could not: and, as if to relieve her fears, Hubert came in the next moment.
"Why, grandfather, what on earth has come to you?" cried the young man, no less astonished than Dorothy.
With a half sob, Aaron told what had come to them: the trouble had taken all his crusty ungraciousness out of him. The master was going to die. Spreckley said he could not keep him alive until next April. And Miss Ella would have to turn out of Heron Dyke to make way for those enemies, the other branch. ”

“ Carlyon, who had been a widow for several years, was still a handsome woman, although she could count considerably more than forty summers. Her house was a good one, pleasantly situated, and well furnished. She kept her brougham and half-a-dozen servants, and nothing pleased her better than to see herself surrounded by young people. Most enjoyable to her were those times when Miss Winter was allowed by her great-uncle, the present Squire Denison, of Heron Dyke, to exchange for a few weeks the quietude of the country for the gaieties of Bayswater and the delights of the London season. ”

“ A hand of the dying man sought a hand of his nephew, found it, and clasped it. The latter had been expressing his sorrow at finding his uncle in so sad a state, and his hopes that he would yet get over the results of his accident.
"There is no hope of that, boy," said Mr. Denison. "A few hours more, and all will be ended. But why should you be sorry? Is the heir ever really sorry when he sees the riches and power, which all his life he has been taught will one day be his, coming at last into his own grasp? Human nature's pretty much the same all the world over." ”

“ One by one, he slowly and with much deliberation extinguished the candles in the sconces over the chimney-piece, but not those on the table. He then proceeded to close and bar the shutters of the three high, narrow windows. It was a whim of Mr. Denison to have the windows of whatever room he might be sitting in left uncurtained and unshuttered till the last moment before retiring for the night. "I hate to sit in a room with its eyes shut," he used to say: and he never would do so if he could help it.
The clatter made by Aaron roused Mr. Denison from the reverie into which he had fallen. ”

“ Ella conducted Conroy into another room, and then rang the bell. "There must be some magic about you," she said, with a smile, "to have charmed my uncle as you have. You don't know what a rarity it is for him to see a fresh face at Heron Dyke."
Aaron Stone answered the bell, Ella gave Conroy into his charge, with instructions to show him all that there was to be seen, and to allow him to sketch whatever he might choose. The old man received this with a bad grace. He had become so thoroughly imbued with the fear of spies and what they might do, that no courtesy was left in him. ”

“ The Squire lifted his hand slightly, and then let it drop on the coverlet again. Was it a gesture of resignation, or of despair? His chin drooped forward on his breast, and there was unbroken silence in the room for some moments.
"Doctor," said Mr. Denison then, and his tones sounded strangely hollow, "I will give you five thousand pounds if you can keep me alive till the twenty-fifth of April. Five thousand, Spreckley!"
"All the money in the world cannot prolong life by a single hour when our time has come," said the surgeon. "You know that as well as I, Mr. Denison. ”

“ He himself was growing old, and Aaron got more stupid every year that he lived. By-and-by nothing more was said about Hubert having to earn a living elsewhere. He relieved the Squire of many duties that had become irksome to him; and when a man of his years has once dropped a burden he rarely cares to pick it up again. In short, by the time Hubert was twenty years old he had made himself thoroughly indispensable to the Squire.
No one but Hubert himself ever knew with what a fever of unrest he awaited the coming home of Ella Winter. ”

“ If this wild and reckless mode of life has such fascinations for you, that it has induced you to dissipate the fortune left you by your father, to apply to me more than once to extricate you from your difficulties, to involve you deeply with the money-lenders, and to bring you at length to contemplate I know not what as a mode of escape from your troubles, what sort of hold will it have over you when you come into the uncontrolled possession of six thousand a year? ”

“ Once on a time you had a splendid constitution, and seventy is not a great age for a Denison to reach. In due time you will probably marry and have a son. That son may be left little better off than a pauper should his father not live to see his seventieth birthday. If I cannot induce you to take care of your health for your own sake, I will try to induce you to do so for the sake of those who will come after you. Heaven only knows whether my plan will succeed. Our poor purblind schemes are but feeble makeshifts at the best. ”

“ At a little distance, a person not in the habit of hearing either of them speak frequently, might readily have mistaken one voice for the other.
"I fancy, sir," said the Captain, "that Miss Winter is never so happy as when at Heron Dyke. She strikes me as being one of those exceptional young ladies who care but little for the gaieties and distractions of London life." ”