Part 58 (1/2)

”Will you stay and take tea with me, Isaac?” asked Maria. ”I have dined.

I am expecting Rose.”

”I am taking tea already,” answered Isaac, with a laugh. ”I was at Grace's. We were beginning tea, when I put my hand into my pocket to take out my letter, and found it was George G.o.dolphin's.”

”You were not in haste to read your own letter,” returned Maria.

”No. I knew who it was from. There was no hurry. I ran; all the way from Grace's here, and now I must run back again. Good-bye, Maria.”

Isaac went away. George was in and out of the room, walking about in a restless manner. Several arrivals had been heard, and Maria felt sure that all the guests, or nearly all, must have arrived. ”Why don't you go to them, George?” she asked.

The hour for dinner struck as she spoke, and George left the room. He did not enter the drawing-room, but went down and spoke to the butler.

”Has Mr. Verrall not come yet?”

”No, sir. Every one else is here.”

George retraced his steps and entered the drawing-room. He was gay George again: handsome George; not a line of perplexity could be traced on his open brow, not a shade of care in his bright blue eye. He shook hands with his guests, offering only a half apology, for his tardiness, and saying that he knew his brother was there to replace him.

Some minutes of busy conversation, and then it flagged: another few minutes of it, and a second flag. Thomas G.o.dolphin whispered to his brother. ”George, I should not wait. Mr. Verrall cannot be coming.”

George went quite red with anger, or some other feeling. ”Not be coming?

Of course he is coming? Nothing is likely to detain him.”

Thomas said no more. But the waiting---- Well, you all know what it is, this awkward waiting for dinner. By-and-by the butler looked into the room. George thought it might be a hint that dinner was spoiling, and he reluctantly gave orders that it should be served.

A knock at the door--a loud knock--resounding through the house. George G.o.dolphin's face lighted up. ”There he is!” he exclaimed. ”But it is too bad of him to keep us waiting.”

There he is _not_, George might have said, could he have seen through the closed door the applicant standing there. It was only Maria's evening visitor, pretty Rose Hastings.

CHAPTER V.

A REVELATION.

The dinner-table was s.p.a.cious, consequently the absence of one was conspicuous. Mr. Verrall's chair was still left for him: he would come yet, George said. No clergyman was present, and Thomas G.o.dolphin said grace. He sat at the foot of the table, opposite to his brother.

”We are thirteen!” exclaimed Sir John Pevans, a young baronet, who had been reared a milksop, and feared consumption for himself. ”I don't much like it. It is the ominous number, you know.”

Some of them laughed. ”What is that peculiar superst.i.tion?” asked Colonel Max. ”I have never been able to understand it.”

”The superst.i.tion, is that if thirteen sit down to dinner, one of them is sure to die before the year is out,” replied young Pevans, speaking with great seriousness.

”Why is thirteen not as good a number to sit down as any other?” cried Colonel Max, humouring the baronet. ”As good as fourteen, for instance?”

”It's the odd number, I suppose.”

”_The_ odd number. It's no more the odd number, Pevans, than any other number's odd. What do you say to eleven?--what do you say to fifteen?”

”I can't explain it,” returned Sir John. ”I only know that the superst.i.tion exists, and that I have noticed, in more instances than one, that it has been borne out. Three or four parties who have sat down thirteen to dinner, have lost one of them before the year has come round. You laugh at me, of course; I have been laughed at before: but suppose you notice it now? We are thirteen of us: see if we are all alive by the end of the year.”

Thomas G.o.dolphin, in his inmost heart, thought it not unlikely that one of them, at any rate, would not be there. Several faces were broad with amus.e.m.e.nt: the most serious of them was Lord Averil's.