Part 31 (1/2)
”Thomas, when do they leave Ashlydyat?”
”Who, sir? The Verralls? They have not had notice yet.”
Sir George stopped. He drew up his head to its full height, and turned to his son. ”Not had notice? When, then, do I go back? I won't go to Lady G.o.dolphin's Folly. I must go to Ashlydyat.”
”Yes, sir,” said Thomas soothingly. ”I will see about it.”
The knight, satisfied, resumed his walk. ”Of course you will see about it. You are my son and heir, Thomas. I depend upon you.”
They pursued their way for some little time in silence, and then Sir George spoke again, his tone hushed. ”Thomas, I have put on mourning for her. I mourn her as much as you do. And you did not get there in time to see her alive!”
”Not in time. No,” replied Thomas, looking hard into the mist overhead.
”I'd have come to the funeral, Thomas, if she had let me. But she was afraid of the fever. George got there in time for it?”
”Barely.”
”When he came back to Broomhead, and heard of it, he was so cut up, poor fellow. Cut up for your sake, Thomas. He said he should be in time to follow her to the grave if he started at once, and he went off then and there. Thomas”--dropping his voice still lower--”whom shall you take to Ashlydyat now?”
”My sisters.”
”Nay. But as your wife? You will be replacing Ethel sometime.”
”I shall never marry now, father.”
At length Broomhead was reached. Thomas held open the gate of the shrubbery to his father, and guided him through it.
”Shall we have two engines, Thomas?”
”Two engines, sir! What for?”
”They'd take us quicker, you know. This is not the station!” broke forth Sir George in a sharp tone of complaint, as they emerged beyond the shrubbery, and the house stood facing them. ”Oh, Thomas! you said you were taking me to Ashlydyat! I cannot die away from it!”
Thomas G.o.dolphin stood almost confounded. His father's discourse, the greater part of it, at any rate, had been so rational that he had begun to hope he was mistaken as to his weakness of mind. ”My dear father, be at rest,” he said: ”we will start if you like with to-morrow's dawn. But to go now to the station would not forward us: it is by this time closed for the night.”
They found the house in a state of commotion. Sir George had been missed, and servants were out searching for him. Lady G.o.dolphin gazed at Thomas with all the eyes she possessed, thunderstruck at his appearance.
”What miracle brought you here?” she exclaimed, wonderingly.
”No miracle, Lady G.o.dolphin. I am thankful that I happened to come. What might have become of Sir George without me, I know not. I expect he would have remained at the stile where I found him until morning; and might have caught his death there.”
”He will catch that speedily enough if he is to wander out of the house at midnight in this mad manner,” peevishly rejoined my lady.
CHAPTER XVI.
THE LAST JOURNEY.
”I beg your pardon, Lady G.o.dolphin. That is not the question.”
”Not the question!” reiterated Lady G.o.dolphin. ”I say that it is the question. The question is, whether Sir George is better and safer here than he would be at Prior's Ash. And of course he is so.”