At Love's Cost Part 5

"Yes," she said, as if it were useless to deny the fact.

"It is very old, and I ma very fond--"

She stopped suddenly, her lips apart, her eyes fixed on the farther end of the terrace; for while she had been speaking a figure, only just perceptible in the semi-darkness, had moved slowly across the end of the terrace, paused for a moment at the head of the flight of steps, and then slowly descended.

Stafford also saw it, and glancing at her he saw that she was startled, if not frightened. She scarcely seemed to breathe, and she turned her large, dark eyes upon him questioningly, somewhat appealingly.

"What is that?" she said, in a whisper, more to herself than to him.

"Someone--a man has gone down the steps from the house," he said.

"Don't you know who it is?"

"No," she replied in as low a voice. "It is not Jason--there is no one else--who can it be? I will go and see."

She moved towards the terrace, and Stafford said:

"I will come with you; you will let me?"

She did not refuse; indeed, she appeared to have forgotten his presence: together they crossed the lawn and reached the corner of the house near which the figure had disappeared. It struck Stafford as strange that the dogs did not bark. In profound silence they went in the direction the figure had taken, and Stafford presently saw a ruined building, which had evidently been a chapel. As they approached it the figure came out of it and towards them. As it pa.s.sed them, so close that they instinctively drew back, Stafford saw that it was an old man in a dressing-gown; his head was bare, his hair touched the collar of the gown. His eyes were wide open, and gazing straight in front of him.

Stafford was about to step forward and arrest his progress, when suddenly the girl's hand seized his and gripped it.

"Hus.h.!.+" she whispered, with subdued terror. "It is my father. He--yes, he is asleep! Oh, see, he is asleep! He will fall--hurt himself--"

She, in her turn, was about to spring forward, but Stafford caught her arm.

"No, no, you must not!" he said, in a hurried whisper. "I think it would be dangerous. I think he is all right if you let him alone. He is walking in his sleep. Don't speak--don't cry out."

"No, no," she breathed. "But it is dreadful."

Instinctively, unconsciously, she drew closer to Stafford, almost clung to him, watching her father over her shoulder until the figure, with its ghastly, mechanical movement and vacant stare, had pa.s.sed into the house; then, with a long breath, and with her hands clasping her throat, as if she were stifling, she broke from Stafford and sprang quickly and noiselessly up the steps and disappeared also. Wondering whether he was awake or dreaming, Stafford waited for over an hour to see if she would appear again; and he was turning away at last, when her figure appeared in the open door-way, like that of a wraith. She waved her hand to him, then disappeared, and the door closed.

Still asking himself if he were not in a land of dreams, but tingling with the touch of her small hand, with the haunting perfume of the soft black hair, Stafford gained the road and walked towards the inn.

CHAPTER IV.

Ida had followed her father across the terrace, across the hall, lit weirdly by the glow of the sinking fire and the pale moonlight, up the broad stairs, along the corridor to the open door of his room. He had walked slowly but steadily with his usual gait, and his head bent slightly; though his eyes were wide open, he seemed to see nothing, yet he did not stumble or even hesitate. Ida followed behind him with absolute noiselessness. They were both ghostlike in their movements, and the dogs stood and watched them intently, ears erect, and with that gravity in their eyes which dogs wear when they are puzzled.

The old man closed his door softly, still without any hesitation, and Ida, grasping the broad rail of the staircase, waited breathlessly. She heard him moving about, as leisurely and precisely as before; then all was still. She stole to the door and opened it; the light was streaming into the room and fell athwart the bed in which he was lying, his eyes closed, his face calm and peaceful; she went on tiptoe to the bed and bent over him, and found that he was in a deep, profound sleep. With a long breath of relief, she left him, and sat on the stairs and waited; for it was just possible that he might rise again and resume the dreadful walk--that motion of death in life.

She waited for an hour, so absorbed in her anxiety that she did not remember the man she had left outside. After another quarter of an hour she went to her father's room, and found that he was still sleeping.

Then she remembered Stafford, remembered him with a start of discomfort and embarra.s.sment. Was he waiting there still? She went down-stairs, and from the open door-way she saw dimly his figure under the trees.

There was something in the att.i.tude of the erect figure that reminded her of a soldier on guard, a sentinel standing faithful at his post; and when she had waved her hand in dismissal she did not quite close the door, but watched him through the narrow opening as he paced slowly down the road, looking back at the house now and again as if to see if she wanted him.

Then she closed the door, signed to the dogs to be down before the fire, and went up to her room, after pausing beside her father's door and listening to his regular breathing. Her room was a large one--nearly all the rooms in the place were large; and as she undressed herself slowly she looked round it with a novel sense of loneliness.

The tall shadows of her graceful yet girlish figure were cast grotesquely on the wall by the candles beside her gla.s.s. She had never felt lonely before, though her life ever since she had arrived at the Hall might be called one almost of solitude.

She had been so absorbed in the duties which had so suddenly fallen upon her young shoulders that there had been no time in which to feel the want of companions.h.i.+p. There had always been something to think of, something to do; her father demanded so much attention; the house, the land, the farm--she had to look after them all; there had not been time to think even of herself; and it had never occurred to her that she was leading a life so different to that led by most girls. But to-night the silence of the great house, large enough to hold fifty people, but sheltering only five persons--her father and herself and the three servants--weighed upon her.

That sense of loneliness had come upon her suddenly as she had watched the young man's retreating figure. She could not help thinking of him even when her mind was oppressed with anxiety on her father's account.

In a vague way she remembered how kind this stranger had been; how quietly, and with what an air of protection, he had stood by her and restrained her from crying out and alarming her father. As vaguely, she remembered that in the moment of her terror she had clung to him, had forgotten under the great strain that he was a stranger--and a man.

Even now she did not know his name, knew nothing of him except that he was staying at The Woodman Inn.

Kind and considerate as he had been she thought of him with something like resentment; it was as if he had stepped into her life, had intruded upon its quiet uneventfulness. He had no right to be there, no right, to have seen her father in that terrible condition, that death in life. And she had behaved like a frightened servant-maid; had not only clung to him--had she clung to him, or was it only fancy?--but had left him without a word of thanks, had allowed him to wait there, and then had waved her hand to him just as she had seen Jessie, the maid, wave her hand to her "young man" after they had parted, and she was going into the house.

She bit her lip softly and a faint flush rose to the clear pallor of the lovely, girlish face reflected in the gla.s.s. Yes, she had behaved just like a servant-maid, she who in her heart of hearts knew that she prided herself upon her dignity and the good manners which should belong to a Heron of Herondale. It was characteristic of her that while she thought of his conduct and what she considered her bad behaviour, she gave no thought to the fact that the stranger who had so "intruded"

was singularly handsome and possessed of that strange quality which at once impresses women. Most girls would have remembered the fact, but Ida was different to the general run of her s.e.x. She had been brought up in an out-of-the-way place in which the modern novel, the fas.h.i.+onable pastime of flirtation, were not known; and her secluded life in the lonely dale had deepened that sense of aloofness from the world, that indifference to the sentiment which lurks in most girls'

bosoms. This tall, handsome man who had stepped into her life and shared the secret of her father's strange affliction, weakness, was nothing more to her than one of the other tourists whom she sometimes chanced to see on her lonely rides and walks.

When she had undressed she went again to her father's door and listened to his deep and regular breathing; then, at last, she went to bed; but the sense of loneliness was so intense that she lay awake for hours thinking of that bent figure walking in its sleep from the shadows of the ruined chapel. For the future she would have to watch her father closely, would perhaps have to lock the door of his room. Why had he gone to the chapel? So far as she knew he was not in the habit of going there; indeed, she did not remember having seen him go there in his waking moments. She knew nothing of somnambulism; but she imagined that he had gone in that direction by mere chance, that if he had happened to find any impediment in his way he might as easily have gone in another direction.

She fell asleep at last and slept an hour beyond her usual time, and so deeply that Jessie had filled the cold bath without waking her beloved young mistress. Ida dressed quickly, all the incidents of the preceding night rus.h.i.+ng through her mind, and hurried to her father's room; the door was open, the room empty, and, with a sudden fear, she ran down the stairs and found him in his usual seat in the library. She drew a long breath and went and kissed him, wis.h.i.+ng him good-morning as casually as she could.

"You are up early this morning, father," she said, trying to keep her tone free from any anxiety.

He glanced at the clock calmly.

"No, you are later," he said.

His eyes met hers with their usual expression of absentminded serenity.

"I--I was a little tired and overslept myself," she said. "Are--are you quite well this morning, father?"

"Yes, quite well. Why not?" he replied, with slight surprise.

She drew a breath of relief: it was quite evident that he knew nothing of that weird walk, and that it had not affected him injuriously.

"Nothing," she said, forcing a smile.

As she spoke, Jason, in his in-door livery, which, in some strange way, looked as if it had shrunken with the figure which had worn, it so long, came to the door, and in his husky voice said that breakfast was ready; and Ida, taking her father's arm, led him into the dining-room in which all their meals were served.

As she went to her place she glanced through the window, from which she could see the steps at the corner of the terrace and a small part of the ruined chapel, and she shuddered.

When she had poured out her father's coffee, she took it round to him and let her hand rest on his shoulder lovingly; but Jason had brought in the post-bag and Mr. Heron was unlocking it and taking out the few letters and papers, and seemed unconscious of the little anxious caress.

"Are there any for me, father?" she asked, lingering beside him, and she stretched out her hand to turn the envelopes on their right side; but he stopped her quickly and swept them together, covering them with his long hand--the shapely Heron hand.

"No, no," he said, almost sharply; "they are all for me; they are business letters, booksellers' catalogues, sale catalogues--nothing of importance."

She went back to her place and he waited until she had done so before he began to open the letters. He merely glanced at some of them, but presently he came to one which, after a sharp, quick look at her, he read attentively; then he returned it to its envelope and, with a secretive movement, slipped it into the pocket of his dressing-gown.

"Yes, nothing but catalogues and bills; you'd better take them, Ida; the bills, at any rate."

And he threw them across to her.