Part 15 (2/2)

'I meant to spare you, my dear,' said Lady Sarah, trembling very much, and putting her hand upon Dolly's shoulder. 'I have no good news for you; but sooner or later you must know it. Your brother has been behaving as badly as possible. He has put his name to some bills. Mr.

Raban heard of it by chance. Wretched boy! he might be arrested. It is hard upon me, and cruel of George.'

They were standing near the hen-house still, and a hen woke up from her dreams with a sleepy cluck. Lady Sarah was speaking pa.s.sionately and vehemently, as she did when she was excited; Raban was standing a little apart in the shadow.

Dolly listened with a hanging head. She could say nothing. It all seemed to choke her; she let her Aunt Sarah walk on--she stood quite still, thinking it over. Then came a gleam of hope. She felt as if Frank Raban must be answerable somehow for George's misdemeanours. Was it all true, she began to wonder. Mr. Raban, dismal man that he was, delighted in warnings and croakings. Then Dolly raised her head, and found that the dismal man had come back, and was standing beside her. He looked so humble and sorry that she felt he must be to blame.

'What have you been telling Aunt Sarah?' said Dolly, quite fiercely.

'Why have you made her so angry with my brother?'

'I am afraid it is your brother himself who has made her angry,' said Raban. 'I needn't tell you that I am very sorry,' he added, looking very pale; 'I would do anything I could to help him. I came back to talk to you about it now.'

'I don't want to hear any more,' cried Dolly, with great emotion. 'Why do you come at all? What can I say to you, to ask you to spare my poor George? It only vexes _her_. You don't understand him--how should you?'

Then melting, 'If you knew all his tenderness and cleverness?'--she looked up wistfully; for once she did not seem stern, but entreating; her eyes were full of tears as she gazed into his face. There was something of the expression that he had seen in the studio.

'It is because I do your brother full justice,' said Raban, gravely, looking at her fixedly, 'that I have cared to interfere.'

Dolly's eyes dilated, her mouth quivered. Why did she look at him like that? He could not bear it. With a sudden impulse--one of those which come to slow natures, one such as that which had wrecked his life before--he said in a low voice, 'Do you know that I would do anything in the world for you and yours?'

'No, I don't know it,' said Dolly. 'I know that you seem to disapprove of everything I say, and that you think the worst of my poor George; that you don't care for him a bit.'

'The worst!' Raban said. 'Ah! Miss Vanborough, do you think it so impossible to love those people of whose conduct you think the worst?'

She was beginning to speak. He would not let her go on. 'Won't you give me a right to interfere?' he said; and he took a step forward, and stood close up to her, with a pale, determined face. 'There are some past things which can never be forgotten, but a whole life may atone for them. Don't you think so?' and he put out his hand. Dolly did not in the least understand him, or what was in his mind.

'n.o.body ever did any good by preaching and interfering,' cried the angry sister, ignoring the outstretched hand. 'How can _you_, of all people----?' She stopped short; she felt that it was ungenerous to call up the past: but in George's behalf she could be mean, spiteful, unjust, if need be, to deliver him from this persecution,--so Dolly chose to call it.

She was almost startled by the deep cold tone of Frank's voice, as he answered, 'It is because I know what I am speaking of, Miss Vanborough, that I have an excuse for interfering before it is too late. You, at all events, who remember my past troubles, need not have reminded me of them.'

Heartless, cruel girl, she had not understood him. It was as well that she could not read his heart or guess how cruelly she had wounded him.

He would keep his secret henceforth. Who was he to love a beautiful, peerless woman, in her pride and the triumph of her unsullied youth. He looked once more at the sweet, angry face. No, she had not understood him; so much he could see in her clear eyes. A minute ago they had been full of tears. The tears were all dry now; the angel was gone!

So an event had occurred to Dolly of which she knew nothing. She was utterly unconscious as she came sadly back to the house in the twilight.

The pigeons were gone to roost. Lady Sarah was sitting alone in the darkling room.

'What a strange man Mr. Raban is, and how oddly and unkindly he talks,'

said Dolly, going to the chimney and striking a light.

'What did he say?' said Lady Sarah.

'I don't quite remember,' said Dolly; 'it was all so incoherent and angry. He said he would do anything for us, and that he could never forgive George.'

CHAPTER XVIII.

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