The Squire's Daughter. Hocking Silas Kitto

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СКАЧАТЬ style="font-size:15px;">      The appeal as yet had been to her vanity – to her sense of self-importance. There had been no appeal to her heart or affections. She did not know what love was, and if she married Lord Probus it would be well for her if she never knew. But love might awake when least expected; her heart might be stirred unconsciously. Some Romeo might cross her path, and with one glance of his eyes might change all her life and all her world; and a woman in love was more intractable than a comet.

      Sir John would not like to be brought into such a position that he would have to coerce his child. Spendthrift that he was, and worse, with a deep vein of selfishness that made him intensely unpopular with all his tenants, he nevertheless loved Dorothy with a very genuine affection. Geoffrey, his son and heir, had never appealed very strongly to his heart. Geoffrey was too much like himself, too indolent and selfish. But Dorothy was like her mother, whose passing was as the snapping of a rudder chain in a storm.

      The gritting of wheels on the gravel caused Sir John to turn suddenly on his heel, and descending the steps at the end of the terrace, he walked a little distance to meet the approaching carriage.

      Lord Probus was not expected, but he was not the less welcome on that account.

      "The day is so lovely that I thought I would drive across to have a peep at you all," Lord Probus said, stepping nimbly out of the landau.

      He was a dapper man, rather below the medium height, with a bald head and iron-grey, military moustache. He was sixty years of age, but looked ten years younger.

      "I am delighted to see you," Sir John said, with effusion, "and I am sure Dorothy will be when she returns."

      "She is out, is she?"

      "She is off riding as usual. Since you presented her with Jess, she has spent most of her time in the saddle."

      "She is a good horsewoman?"

      "Excellent. She took to riding as a duck takes to water. She rode with the hounds when she was ten."

      "I wish I could ride!" Lord Probus said, reflectively. "I believe horse exercise would do me good; but I began too late in life."

      "Like skating and swimming, one must start young if he is to excel," Sir John answered.

      "Yes, yes; and youth passes all too quickly." And his lordship sighed.

      "Well, as to that, one is as young as one feels, you know." And Sir John led the way into the house.

      Lord Probus followed with a frown. Sir John had unwittingly touched him on a sore spot. If he was no younger than he felt, he was unmistakably getting old. He tried to appear young, and with a fair measure of success; tried to persuade himself that he was still in his prime; but every day the fact was brought painfully home to him that he had long since turned the brow of the hill, and was descending rapidly the other side. Directly he attempted to do what was child's play to him ten years before, he discovered that the spring had gone out of his joints and the nerve from his hand.

      He regretted this not only for his own sake, but in some measure for Dorothy's. He never looked into her fresh young face without wishing he was thirty years younger. She seemed very fond of him at present. She would sit on the arm of his chair and pat his bald head and pull his moustache, and call him her dear, silly old boy; and when he turned up his face to be kissed, she would kiss him in the most delightful fashion.

      But he could not help wondering at times how long it would last. That she was fond of him just now he was quite sure. She told him in her bright, ingenuous way that she loved him; but he was not so blind as not to see that there was no passion in her love. In truth, she did not know what love was.

      He was none the less anxious, however, on that account, to make her his wife, but rather the more. The fact that the best part of his life was gone made him all the more eager to fill up what remained with delight. He might reckon upon another ten years of life, at least, and to possess Dorothy for ten years would be worth living for – worth growing old for.

      "You expect Dorothy back soon?" Lord Probus questioned, dropping into an easy-chair.

      "Any minute, my lord. In fact, I expected her back before this."

      "Jess has been well broken in. I was very careful on that point." And his lordship looked uneasily out of the window.

      "And then, you know, Dorothy could ride an antelope or a giraffe. She is just as much at ease in a saddle as you are in that easy-chair."

      "Do you know, I get more and more anxious as the time draws near," his lordship said absently. "It would be an awful blow to me if anything should happen now to postpone the wedding."

      "Nothing is likely to happen," Sir John said grimly, but with an apprehensive look in his eyes. "Dorothy is in the best of health, and so are you."

      "Well, yes, I am glad to say I am quite well. And Dorothy, you think, shows no sign of rueing her bargain?"

      "On the contrary, she has begun to count the days." And Sir John walked to the window and raised the blind a little.

      "I shall do my best to make her happy," his lordship said, with a smile. "And, bachelor as I am, I think I know what girls like."

      "There's no doubt about that," was the laughing answer. "But who comes here?" And Sir John ran to the door and stepped out on the terrace.

      A boy without coat, and carrying his cap in his hand, ran eagerly up to him. His face was streaming with perspiration, and his eyes ready to start out of their sockets.

      "If you please, sir," he said, in gasps, "your little maid has been and got killed!"

      "My little maid?" Sir John questioned. "Which maid? I did not know any of the servants were out."

      "No, not any servant, sir; but your little maid, Miss Dorothy."

      "My daughter!" he almost screamed. And he staggered up against the porch and hugged one of the pillars for support.

      "Thrown from her horse, sir, down agin Treliskey Plantation," the boy went on. "Molly Udy says she reckons her neck's broke."

      Sir John did not reply, however. He could only stand and stare at the boy, half wondering whether he was awake or dreaming.

      CHAPTER III

      A NEW SENSATION

      Ralph Penlogan's first impulse was to rush off into St. Goram and rouse the village; but on second thoughts he dropped on his knees by the side of the prostrate girl, and placed his ear close to her lips. For a moment or two he remained perfectly still, with an intent and anxious expression in his eyes; then his face brightened, and something like a smile played round the corners of his lips.

      "No, she is not dead," he said to himself. And he heaved a great sigh of relief.

      But he still felt doubtful as to the best course to take. To leave the unconscious girl lying alone by the roadside seemed to him, for some reason, a cruel thing to do. She might die, or she might return to consciousness, and find herself helpless and forsaken, without a human being or even a human habitation in sight.

      "Oh, I hope she will not die," he said to himself, half aloud, "for if she does I shall feel like a murderer." And he put his ear to her lips a second time.

      No, she still breathed, but the rivulet of blood seemed to be growing larger.

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