Part 45 (1/2)
”I am willing to help if I can,” he said. ”What is your trouble?”
”Tell him,” Flavia said, averting her face.
They told him lamely--they were scarcely less jealous of the honour of the house than she was--in almost the same words in which they had broken the news to her. ”And the curse of Cromwell on me, but he's parading up and down now,” Morty continued, ”and c.o.c.king his eye at the sun-dial whenever he pa.s.ses, as much as to say, 'Is it coming, you are?' till the heart's fairly melted in me with the rage!”
”And it's shame on us we let him be!” cried Phelim.
Colonel John did not answer. He was silent even when, under the eyes of all, the ominous shadow pa.s.sed again before the entrance gates--came and went. He was so long silent that Flavia turned to him at last, and held out her hands. ”What shall we do?” she cried--and in that cry she betrayed her new dependence on him. ”Tell us!”
”It is hard to say,” Colonel John answered gravely. His face was very gloomy, and to hide it or his thoughts he turned from them and went to one of the windows--that very window through which Uncle Ulick and he had looked at his first coming. He gazed out, not that he might see, but that he might think unwatched.
They waited, the men expecting little, but glad to be rid of some part of the burden, Flavia with a growing sense of disappointment. She did not know for what she had hoped, or what she had thought that he would do. But she had been confident that he could help; and it seemed that he could do no more than others. Neither to her, nor to the men, did it seem as strange as it was that they should turn to him, against whose guidance they had lately revolted so fiercely.
He came back to them presently, his face sad and depressed. ”I will deal with it,” he said--and he sighed. ”You can leave it to me. Do you,” he continued, addressing Morty, ”come with me, Mr. O'Beirne.”
He was for leaving them with that, but Flavia put herself between him and the door. She fixed her eyes on his face. ”What are you going to do?” she asked in a low voice.
”I will tell you all--later,” he replied gently.
”No, now!” she retorted, controlling herself with difficulty. ”Now! You are not going--to fight him?”
”I am not going to fight,” he answered slowly.
But her heart was not so easily deceived as her ear. ”There is something under your words,” she said jealously. ”What is it?”
”I am not going to fight,” he replied gravely, ”but to punish. There is a limit.” Even while he spoke she remembered in what circ.u.mstances those words had been used. ”There is a limit,” he repeated solemnly.
”He has the blood of four on his head, and another lies at death's door. And he is not satisfied. He is not satisfied! Once I warned him.
To-day the time for warning is past, the hour for judgment is come. G.o.d forgive me if I err, for vengeance is His and it is terrible to be His hand.” He turned to Phelim, and, in the same stern tone, ”my sword is broken,” he said. ”Fetch me the man's sword who lies upstairs.”
Phelim went, awe-stricken, and marvelling. Morty remained, marvelling also. And Flavia--but, as she tried to speak, Payton's shadow once more came into sight at the entrance-gates and went slowly by, and she clapped her hand to her mouth that she might not scream. Colonel Sullivan saw the action, understood, and touched her softly on the shoulder. ”Pray,” he said, ”pray!”
”For you!” she cried in a voice that, to those who had ears, betrayed her heart. ”Ah, I will pray!”
”No, for him,” he replied. ”For him now. For me when I return.”
She dropped on her knees before a chair, and, shuddering, hid her face in her hands. And almost at once she knew that they were gone, and that she was alone in the room.
Then, whether she prayed most or listened most, or the very intensity of her listening was itself prayer--prayer in its highest form--she never knew; but only that, whenever in the agony of her suspense she raised her head from the chair to hear if there was news, the common sounds of afternoon life in the house and without lashed her with a dreadful irony. The low whirr of a spinning-wheel, a girl's distant chatter, the cluck of a hen in the courtyard, the satisfied grunt of a roving pig, all bore home to her heart the bitter message that, whatever happened, and though nightfall found her lonely in a dishonoured home, life would proceed as usual, the men and the women about her would eat and drink, and the smallest things would stand where they stood now--unchanged, unmoved.
What was that? Only the fall of a spit in the kitchen, or the clatter of a pot-lid. Would they never come? Would she never know? At this moment--what was that? That surely was something. They were returning!
In a moment she would know. She rose to her feet and stared with stony eyes at the door. But when she had listened long--it was nothing.
Nothing! And then--ah, that surely was something--was news--was the end! They were coming now. In a moment she would know. Yes, they were coming. In a moment she would know. She pressed her hands to her breast.
She might have known already, for, had she gone to the door, she would have seen who came. But she could not go. She could not move.
And he, when he came in, did not look at her. He walked from the threshold to the hearth, and--strange coincidence--he set the unsheathed blade he carried in the self-same angle, beside the fire-back, from which she had once taken a sword to attempt his life.
And still he did not look at her, but stood with bowed head.