Part 47 (1/2)
”Look out,” he muttered. ”Some of the servants may be coming.”
”Did you?”
”Would you marry a man that's off his head?”
”He isn't; he was only pretending!”
”That's not what Dr. Downie thought.”
”Dr. Downie! What did he know!”
”He certified him.”
He was backed against the front door now.
”Did you offer Heriot that alternative?”
He paused for a moment. Heriot must be at the station by now, and he had not many spare minutes before the train started.
”No, I did not,” he answered.
The sympathetic widow's hand shot out; there was a smack and then a thud. The smack was caused by a momentary encounter between the hand and his spherical cheek, the thud by a meeting of his head and the door.
”You miserable creature!” she hissed.
With a look such as only the righteous can ever hope to wear, and that in the moment of martyrdom, he watched her rush upstairs sobbing.
And thus the coalition, having served its beneficent purpose, came abruptly to an end. A great deal might be written in this connection, adducing this instance to ill.u.s.trate the wider fields of statecraft, but unfortunately the present narrative is a simple record of facts, and not a philosophical treatise. The immediate consequence of the episode was that on the following morning Mrs. Dunbar set out for the west of Ross-s.h.i.+re to pay a long-promised visit to a third cousin who possessed several thousand acres of moorland in that vicinity.
CHAPTER IX
It was on the following morning that Jean and Frank returned, their faces glowing with country suns.h.i.+ne and spring wind, their hearts quickened with antic.i.p.ation. In the train coming home they had exchanged many confidences. Could he possibly manage to get married before he went out to India? Frank wondered. Would Lucas have to wait till he had sold a few more pictures? wondered Jean. He ran whistling up the steps and rang the bell. She burst radiantly into the somber hall. And then, at twelve o'clock in the morning of an ordinary working week-day, they found the junior partner at home to receive them. Such a portent had never before been seen.
”Where's father?” asked Jean.
Andrew's cheeks twitched nervously; yet on the whole he maintained a compa.s.sionate expression highly honorable to his fraternal instincts.
In a hushed voice he addressed his sister.
”I want to have a word with you,” said he.
He took her apart from her brother and shut the library door securely.
Frank was such a hot-tempered young fellow; and he had suffered one physical outrage already. In a voice as appropriate as his face he gently broke the news--
”Our father has been removed to an asylum.”