Page:The Strand Magazine (Volume 4).djvu/274

 "What is the matter? Why was I not told? I must go to him."

"It is not serious. My father is with him. It was a slight faintness, Don't let people imagine anything has gone wrong. I asked Mrs. Montresor to go down."

"Are you sure? Would he rather I stayed here?"

"I am quite sure he would rather you stayed here, and I also, Ellinor."

She obeyed him, but she was uneasy with foreboding, especially when Sir Arthur did not return, and longed to see the last of her guests, that she might be free.

In the library lay the master of Firholt. He had shrunk in this last hour. He was more wizened; his hands and feet seemed drawing themselves up into clothes that had suddenly grown loose and baggy; his face was livid, even to the lips. He lay with his eyes closed.

Sir Arthur Peyton was walking up and down the room, limping still from the gout, his face working; he was in a terrible passion.

"You own to it that this man's story is true; that you have plotted to bring disgrace upon an honourable house; added crime to crime, the taint of it to fall upon the children of my son?"

The shrivelled fiture on the couch trembled.

"I believed that it would never become known. I did it for her."

"Known or not known, the disgrace was there—the d disgrace! Good God! how can I tell what Guy will do! The exposure alone—"

"Must that exposure come?" said Mr. Rawdon, faintly.

"Come? who is to prevent it?" said the man of title. "The scandal will half kill Lady Peyton. To be sure I have stopped that, American's mouth for the present. No one but he and myself know for certain."

A faint tinge of colour was coming back to Mr. Rawdon's face. He reached a cordial that was upon a table near, and drank it. Then he stood upright. There was a touch of dignity in his bent figure, his thin hands were folded quietly, his feet shuffled no more.

"Sir Arthur, when I forged that cheque, my wife was dying, and I had no money—I had begged five pounds from the father of the man who dined at my table today, and he refused it; then I used his name. Now I am going to beg once more—for my daughter—for Ellinor. Stop this thing from becoming public; save her from knowing. It will be better for you, too; and I—I will go to-night. I cannot stay here. I will write to her—telling her that the love of the old roving life is upon me—what you will. I cannot live long; I know it. The attack I had to-night was from the heart."

"And my son?"

"Tell him if you think it right; do as you like. Send him abroad. I will tell Ellinor she must wait for my return, but let it fall upon her gradually—gently; do not break her heart."

There was something in the absolute simplicity of the man's pleading that touched Sir Arthur's heart—not an unkindly one; also the plan proposed seemed the best for them all.

He did not know that Matthew Rawdon looked to the possibility that, with his self-