The Squire's Daughter Part 20

He came to the conclusion after a while that he would not tell her. All things considered, it was better that she should remain in ignorance. In a few weeks, or months at the outside, he hoped she would be Lady Probus, and then she would forget all about the Penlogans and their grievance.

He took the poker and thrust it into the fire, and sent a cheerful blaze roaring up the chimney. Then he edged himself back into his easy-chair and stared at the grate.

"It's quite time the wedding-day was fixed," he said to himself at length. "Dorothy is almost as well as ever, and there's no reason whatever why it should be any longer delayed. I hope she isn't beginning to think too seriously about the matter. In a case like this, the less the girl thinks the better."

The short November day was fading rapidly, but the fire filled the room with a warm and ruddy light.

He touched the bell at length, and a moment or two later a servant stood at the open door.

"Tell your young mistress when she comes downstairs that I want to see her."

"Yes, sir." And the servant departed noiselessly from the room.

Sir John edged his chair a few inches nearer the fire. He was feeling very nervous and ill at ease, but he was determined to bring matters to a head. He knew that Lord Probus was getting impatient, and he was just as impatient himself. Moreover, delays were often fatal to the best-laid plans.

Dorothy came slowly into the room, and with a troubled look in her eyes.

"You wanted to see me, father?" she questioned timidly.

"Yes, I wanted to have a little talk with you. Please sit down." And he continued to stare at the fire.

Dorothy seated herself in an easy-chair on the other side of the fireplace and waited. If he was nervous and ill at ease, she was no less so. She had a shrewd suspicion of what was coming, and she dreaded the encounter. Nevertheless, she had fully made up her mind as to the course she intended to take, and she was no longer a child to be wheedled into anything.

Sir John looked up suddenly.

"I have been thinking, Dorothy," he said, "that we ought to get the wedding over before Christmas. You seem almost as well as ever now, and there is no reason as far as I can see why the postponed ceremony should be any longer delayed."

"Are you in such a great hurry to get rid of me?" she questioned, with a pathetic smile.

"My dear, I do not want to get rid of you at all. You know the old tag, 'A daughter's a daughter all the days of her life,' and you will be none the less my child when you are the mistress of Rostrevor Castle."

"I shall never be the mistress of Rostrevor Castle," she replied, with downcast eyes.

"Never be the mistress of--never? What do you mean, Dorothy?" And he turned hastily round in his chair and stared at her.

"I was only a child when I promised," she said timidly, "and I did not know anything. I thought it would be a fine thing to have a t.i.tle and a house in town, and everything that my foolish heart could desire, and I did not understand what marriage to an old man would mean."

"Lord Probus is anything but an old man," he said hastily. "He is in his prime yet."

"But if he were thirty years younger it would be all the same," she answered quietly. "You see, father, I have discovered that I do not love him."

"And you fancy that you love somebody else?" he said, with a sneer.

"I did not say anything of the kind," she said, raising her eyes suddenly to his. "But I know I don't love Lord Probus, and I know I never shall."

"Oh, this is simple nonsense!" he replied angrily. "You cannot play fast and loose in this way. You have given your solemn promise to Lord Probus, and you cannot go back on it."

"But I _can_ go back on it, and I will!"

"You mean that you will defy us both, and defy the law into the bargain?"

"There is no law to compel me to marry a man against my will," she said, with spirit.

"If there is no law to compel you, there's a power that can force you to keep your promise," he said, with suppressed pa.s.sion.

"What power do you refer to?" she questioned.

"The power of my will," he answered. "Do you think I am going to allow a scandal of this kind to take place?"

"It would be a greater scandal if I married him," she replied.

"Look here, Dorothy," he said. "We had better look at this matter in the light of reason and common sense----"

"That is what I am doing," she interrupted. "I had neither when I gave my promise to Lord Probus. I was just home from school; I knew nothing of the world; I had scarcely a serious thought in my head. My illness has given me time to think and reflect; it has opened my eyes----"

"And taken away your moral sense," he snarled.

"No, father, I don't think so at all," she answered mildly. "Feeling as I do now, it would be wicked to marry Lord Probus."

He rose to his feet and faced her angrily.

"Look here, Dorothy," he said. "I am not the man to be thwarted in a thing of this kind. My reputation is in a sense at stake. You have gone too far to draw back now. We should be made the laughing-stock of the entire county. If you had any personal objection to Lord Probus, you should have discovered it before you promised to marry him. Now that all arrangements are made for the wedding, it is too late to draw back."

"No, father, it is not too late; and I am thankful for my illness, because it has opened my eyes."

"And all this has come about through that detestable young scoundrel who refused to open a gate for you."

In a moment her face flushed crimson, and she turned quickly and walked out of the room.

"By Jove, what does this mean?" Sir John said to himself angrily when the door closed behind her. "What new influences have been at work, I wonder, or what quixotic or romantic notions has she been getting into her head? Can it be possible--but no, no, that is too absurd! And yet things quite as strange have happened. If I find--great Scott, won't we be quits!" And Sir John paced up and down the room like a caged bear.

He did not refer to the subject again that day, nor the next. But he kept his eyes and ears open, and he drew one or two more or less disquieting conclusions.

That a change had come over Dorothy was clear. In fact, she was changed in many ways. She seemed to have pa.s.sed suddenly from girlhood into womanhood. But what lay at the back of this change? Was her illness to bear the entire responsibility, or had other influences been at work?

Was the romantic notion she had got into her mind due to natural development, or had some youthful face caught her fancy and touched her heart?

But during all those long weeks of her illness she had seen no one but the doctor and vicar and Lord Probus, except--and Sir John gave his beard an impatient tug.

By dint of careful inquiry, he got hold of the entire story, not merely of Dorothy's accident, but of the part she had played in Ralph Penlogan's accident.

"Great Scott!" he said to himself, an angry light coming into his eyes.

"If, knowingly or unknowingly, that young scoundrel is at the bottom of this business, then he can cry quits with a vengeance."

The more he allowed his mind to dwell on this view of the case, the more clear it became to him. There was no denying that Ralph Penlogan was handsome. Moreover, he was well educated and clever. Dorothy, on the other hand, was in the most romantic period of her life. She had found him in the plantation badly hurt, and her sympathies would go out to him in a moment. Under such circ.u.mstances, and in her present mood, social differences would count for nothing. She might lose her heart to him before she was aware. He, of course, being inherently bad--for Sir John would not allow that the lower orders, as he termed them, possessed any sense of honour whatever--would take advantage of her weakness and play upon the romantic side of her nature to the full, with the result that she was quite prepared to fling over Lord Probus, or to pose as a martyr, or to pine for love in a cottage, or do any other idiotic thing that her silly and sentimental heart might dictate.

As the days pa.s.sed away Sir John had very great difficulty in being civil to his daughter. Also, he kept a strict watch himself on all her movements, and put a stop to her playing my Lady Bountiful among the sick poor of St. Goram.

He hoped in his quieter moments that it was only a pa.s.sing madness, and that it would disappear as suddenly as it came. If she could be kept away from pernicious and disquieting influences for a week or two she might get back to her normal condition.