The Dark House Part 16

"Help me in my endeavours, and tell me this--some day if I make the discovery, and am once more in a position to ask you to be my wife--you will listen to me?"

She raised her beautiful eyes to his, and he caught her hand.

It was withdrawn, and she said softly:

"I am sorry you should think me so sordid."

"Then you love me," he cried.

"I made no such confession. The man to whom I give my hand will not be chosen for the sake of his money."

"Then I may hope?" he cried.

"Mr Capel, is it not your duty to find your fortune?"

"Yes, but let me say, our fortune," he cried.

"Mr Capel, do not speak to me again like this. I should feel that I was standing in your light if I listened now."

"But at some future time?"

She looked at him softly, and his breath went and came fast, as her speaking eyes rested on his, and he saw the damask-red deepen in her cheeks.

"Wait till that future time comes," she whispered.

"And you will help me?" he cried.

"Yes," she said, at last, "I will help you--all I can."

He would have caught her in his arms, but she raised her hand.

"I thought we were to be friends."

"Friends," he whispered. "I love you."

"It must be then as a friend," she said, in her low voice; but there was that in her look which made Capel's heart throb, while, when she extended her hand, he kissed it, without being aware that Lydia had entered the room, and drawn back, with a weary look of misery in her face that she vainly sought to hide.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN.

IN THE DARK.

"Look here, Kate, I'm not going back till I've had a good try here to see if something can't be made out of this affair."

Katrine D'Enghien sat in the drawing-room of the Dark House, with her eyes half closed, as if listening to the ballad Lydia was singing in a low tone in the corner of the back room, while Capel stood by turning over the leaves.

The old lawyer was in another corner at a card-table, on whose green surface lay a heap of papers and parchments, one of which he took up from time to time, and laid down, after examining it by the light of the shaded lamp.

"You said only yesterday that you were sick of this domestic cemetery,"

said Katrine.

"So I am, for it's doleful enough for anything here, only it makes me mad to see such a wealth of art treasures and plate belonging to this fellow Capel."

"Then it is very evident that you did not filch the old man's treasure,"

said Katrine.

"Yes, my dear, very evident. If I had, I should not be here."

"Unless you thought it better for the sake of throwing people off the scent," said Katrine, with a peculiar look in his face.

"I say," he cried, returning the gaze, "what do you mean? You don't think I killed those two fellows, and got the plunder, do you?"

"I don't know," she replied.

"Well, then, I didn't. I never had the chance."

"Or the brains to conceive such a _coup_."

"Look here," cried Artis.

"Don't speak so loud, Gerard."

"Oh, very well. But look here, Madam Clever, did you manage that bit of business?"

Katrine raised her soft, white hands.

"Don't do that," said the young man. "You make me want to kiss them."

"You would not be so foolish, now."

"I don't know. And look here, I don't like you being so thick with Capel."

"Don't you? He wants to marry me."

"I'll break his neck first."

"You will act sensibly and well, _mon cher_," said Katrine, "that is, if you mean that we are to be married by-and-by."

"Mean it? Of course."

"But not on a fortune of one hundred pounds each, _mon cher_."

"Good Heavens! No."

"Then hold your tongue, and say nothing."

"But I shall say something, if I see you working up a flirtation with that cad."