As for your lost paper, whatever it may be, you had better look for it in the morning, unless you want to get into further trouble,” and he turned on his heel and disappeared.[61]

Stephen waited until he had got at a safe distance, and, blowing out the candle, followed down the road with stealthy footsteps, keeping a close watch on the rapidly-striding figure, and examining the road at the same time. But all to no purpose; Jack reached and entered the inn without stopping, and neither going nor returning could Stephen see anything of the missing will.

Two hours afterward he crept back and staggered into the library more dead than alive, one question rankling in his disordered brain.

Had Jack Newcombe found the will, and, if not, where was it?

After a time the paroxysm of fear and despair passed, and left him calmer. His acute brain, overwhelmed but not crushed out, began to recover itself, and he turned the situation round and round until he had come to a plan of action.

It was not a very definite one, it was rather vague, but it was the most reasonable one he could think of.

There in Warden Forest, living as the daughter of a woodman, who was himself ignorant of her legitimacy, was the girl. I am sorry to say that he cursed her as he thought of her. Where was the will? Whoever had got it would no doubt come to him first to make terms, and, failing to make them, would go to the real heiress.

Stephen, quick as lightning, resolved to take her away.

But where?

He did not much care for the present, so that it was somewhere under his eyes, or in the charge—the custody, really—of a trustworthy friend.

The only really trustworthy friend whom Stephen knew was his mother.

“Yes, that is it,” he muttered. “Mother shall take this girl as—as—a companion. Poor mother, some great ignorant, clodhopping wench who will frighten her into a nervous fit. Poor mother!” And he smiled with a feeble, malicious pleasure.

There are some men who take a delight in causing pain even to those who are devoted to them.

“Dear mother,” he wrote, “I have to send you the sad news of my uncle’s death. Need I say that I am utterly[62] overwhelmed in grief. I have indeed lost a friend!” (“The malicious, mean old wolf,” he muttered, in parenthesis.) “How good he was to me! But, mother, even in the midst of our deepest sorrows, we must not forget the calls of charity. I have a little duty to perform, in which I require your aid. I fear it will necessitate your making a journey to Wermesley station on this line. If you will come down by the 10:20 on Wednesday, I will meet you at Wermesley station. Do not mention your journey, my dear mother; we must not be forgetful that we are enjoined to do good by stealth.

“In great affliction,
“Your loving son,
“Stephen Davenant.”

It was a beautiful letter, and clearly proved that Stephen was not only a bad man, but an extremely clever and dangerous one—for he could retain command over himself even in such moments as these.

CHAPTER X.

Let us hasten from the gloomy atmosphere of Hurst Leigh, and, leaving the presence of the thwarted old man lying upstairs, and the no less thwarted young man writhing in torturing dread in the darkened library, return to Warden Forest.

With fleet feet Una fled from the lake, the voices of the woodman and Jack Newcombe ringing in her ears, a thousand tumultuous emotions surging wildly in her heart.

Until the preceding night Gideon Rolfe had seemed the calmest and most placable of fathers; nothing had occurred to ruffle his almost studied impassability. New and strange experiences seemed to crowd upon her so suddenly that she scarcely accepted them as real. Had she been dreaming, and would she wake presently to find the handsome young stranger, with his deep musical voice, and his dark, eloquent eyes, the phantom of a vision?

As she came in sight of the cottage she turned aside and, plunging into the depths of the wood, sank down upon a bank of moss and strove to recall every word,[63] every look, every slight incident, which had passed since the arrival of the stranger; and, as she did so, she seemed vaguely conscious that a change, indefinite yet undeniable, had fallen upon her life. The very trees, the atmosphere itself, seemed changed, and in place of that perfect, unbroken calm which had hitherto enwrapped her life, a spirit of unrest, of vague longing, took possession of her.

A meteor had crossed the calm, serene sky of her existence, vanishing as quickly as it had come, and creating a strange, aching void.

Still it was not at all painful, this novel feeling of wistfulness and unrest; a faint echo of some mysterious delight rang in the inner chambers of her young soul, the newly awakened heart stirred within her like an imprisoned bird, and turned to the new light which had dawned upon her. That it was the celestial light of love she was completely ignorant. She only knew and felt, with all the power of mind and soul, that a spirit had fallen upon her life, that she had, half-blinded, left the road of gray, unbroken calm, never to return—never to return.

Step by step she recalled all that had passed, and sat revolving the strange scene with ever-increasing wonder.

What did it mean? Why should her father be angry with the youth? Why should he accuse and insult him, and drive her away as if from the presence of some wild animal who was seeking to devour her?

Wild animal! A smile, sad and wistful, flitted over her beautiful face as she called up the handsome face and graceful form of the youth. Was it possible that one so base as her father declared him to be could look as this youth had looked, speak as he had spoken? With a faint, tremulous, yet unconscious blush, she remembered how graceful he looked lying at her feet, his lips half parted in a smile, his brow frank and open as a child’s.

And yet he himself had said, half sadly, that he was wild and wicked. What could it mean?

Innocent as a nun, ignorant of all that belonged to the real living world, she sat vainly striving to solve this, the first enigma of her inner life.

Once, as she sat thinking and pondering, her eyes cast down, her brows knit, her fingers strayed to her right arm[64] with a gentle, almost caressing touch. It was the arm upon which Jack’s hand had rested: even now she seemed to feel the pressure of the strong fingers just as she heard the ring of his deep, musical voice, and could feel the gaze of his dark, flashing eyes; they had looked fierce and savage when she had first seen them at the open door of the cottage last night, but this morning they had worn a different expression—a tender, half-pitying, and wholly gentle expression, which softened them. It was thus she liked to remember them—thus she would remember them if she never saw them again.

And as this thought flashed across her mind a wistful sadness fell upon her, and a vague pain came into her heart. Should she never see him again? Never! She looked round mournfully, and lo! the whole world seemed changed; the sun was still shining, the trees were still crowned in all their glory of summer leafage, but it all looked gray and dark to her; all the beauty and glory which she had learned to love had gone—vanished at the mere thought that she should never see him again.

Slowly she rose, and with downcast eyes moved toward the cottage. She passed in at the open door and looked round the room—that, too, seemed altered, something was missing; half-consciously she wandered round, touching with the same half-caressing gesture the chair on which Jack Newcombe had sat, opened the book at the page which she was reading while he was eating his supper; a spell seemed to have fallen upon her, and it was with a start like one awakening from a dream that she turned as a shadow fell across the room and Gideon Rolfe entered.

She turned and looked at him questioningly, curiously, but without fear. The cry of alarm when he had broken in upon them by the lake had been on Jack’s account, not her own; never since she could remember had Gideon Rolfe spoken harshly to her, looked angrily; without a particle of fear, rather with a vague wonder, she looked and waited for him to speak.

The old man’s face wore a strange expression; all traces of the fierce passion which had convulsed it a short[65] time ago had passed away, and in its place was a stern gravity which was almost sad in its grim intensity.

Setting his ax aside, he paced the room for a minute in silence, his brows knit, his hands clasped behind his back.

Una glided to the window and looked out into the wood, her head leaning on her arm.

“Una,” he said, suddenly, his voice troubled and grave, but not unkind.

She started, and looked around at him; her spirit had fled back to the lake again, and she had almost forgotten that he was in the room.

“Una, you must not wander in the forest alone again.”

“No! Why not?”

He hesitated a moment, as if he did not know how to answer her; then he said, with a frown:

“Because I do not wish it—because the man you saw here last night, the man you were with by the lake, may come again”—a faint light of gladness shone in her eyes, and he saw it, and frowned sternly as he went on—“and I do not wish you to meet him.”

She was silent for a moment, her eyes downcast, her hands tightly clasped in front of her; then she looked up.

“Father, tell me why you spoke so angrily to him—why do you not want him to come to Warden again?”

“I spoke as he deserved,” he answered; “and I would rather that Warden should be filled with wild beasts than that he should cross your path again.”

Her face paled slightly, and her eyes opened with wonder and pain.

“Is he so very bad and wicked?” she asked, almost inaudibly.

Gideon Rolfe strode to and fro for a moment before he answered. How should he answer her?—how warn and caution her without destroying the innocence which, like the sensitive plant, withers at a touch?

“Is it not sufficient that I wish it, Una?” he said. “Why are you not satisfied? Wicked! Yes, he’s wicked; all men are wicked, and he’s the most wicked and base!”

“You know him, father?” she asked. “You would not say so if you did not. I am sorry he is so bad.”[66]

“Look at me, Una,” he said.

She turned, her eyes downcast and hidden, her lips trembling for a moment.

“Yes, father.”

“Una,” he said, “what is the meaning of this? Why are you changed—why do you shrink from me?”

She looked up with a curious mixture of innocent pride and dignity.

“I don’t shrink from you, father,” she said in a low voice.

Gideon’s hand dropped from her shoulder, and the frown gave place to a sad expression. “Has the time I looked forward to with fear and dread come at last?” he murmured, inaudibly, and he paced to and fro again, as if endeavoring to arrive at some decision.

Una watched him with dreamy, questioning eyes, in which shone a tender mournfulness. Why were all men wicked? Why was this one man, with the handsome face and the musical voice, more wicked than the rest? What was it that her father knew that should make him hate the youth so? These were the questions that haunted her as she waited silent and motionless.

At last, with a wave of the hand, as if he were putting some decision on one side, Gideon Rolfe turned to her and motioned her to the window-seat.