Part 40 (2/2)

”His lords.h.i.+p can't see you now, I am sure, sir,” answered the butler; ”lord Forgue is with him.”

Donal turned and went straight up to lord Morven's apartment. As he pa.s.sed the door of his bedroom opening on the corridor, he heard voices in debate. He entered the sitting-room. There was no one there. It was not a time for ceremony. He knocked at the door of the bedroom. The voices within were loud, and no answer came. He knocked again, and received an angry permission to enter. He entered, closed the door behind him, and stood in sight of his lords.h.i.+p, waiting what should follow.

Lord Morven was sitting up in bed, his face so pale and distorted that Donal thought elsewhere he should hardly have recognized it. The bed was a large four-post bed; its curtains were drawn close to the posts, admitting as much air as possible. At the foot of it stood lord Forgue, his handsome, shallow face flushed with anger, his right arm straight down by his side, and the hand of it clenched hard. He turned when Donal entered. A fiercer flush overspread his face, but almost immediately the look of rage yielded to one of determined insult.

Possibly even the appearance of Donal was a relief to being alone with his father.

”Mr. Grant,” stammered his lords.h.i.+p, speaking with pain, ”you are well come!--just in time to hear a father curse his son!”

”Even such a threat shall not make me play a dishonourable part!” said Forgue, looking however anything but honourable, for the heart, not the brain, moulds the expression.

”Mr. Grant,” resumed the father, ”I have found you a man of sense and refinement! If you had been tutor to this degenerate boy, the worst trouble of my life would not have overtaken me!”

Forgue's lip curled, but he did not speak, and his father went on.

”Here is this fellow come to tell me to my face that he intends the ruin and disgrace of the family by a low marriage!”

”It will not be the first time it has been so disgraced!” retorted the son, ”--if fresh peasant-blood be indeed a disgrace to any family!”

”Bah! the hussey is not even a wholesome peasant-girl!” cried the father. ”Who do you think she is, Mr. Grant?”

”I do not need to guess, my lord,” replied Donal. ”I came now to inform your lords.h.i.+p of what I had myself seen.”

”She must leave the house this instant!”

”Then I too leave it, my lord!” said Forgue.

”Where's your money?” returned the earl contemptuously.

Forgue s.h.i.+fted to an attack upon Donal.

”Your lords.h.i.+p hardly places confidence in me,” he said; ”but it is not the less my duty to warn you against this man: months ago he knew what was going on, and comes to tell you now because this evening I chastised him for his rude interference.”

In cooler blood lord Forgue would not have shown such meanness; but pa.s.sion brings to the front the thing that lurks.

”And it is no doubt to the necessity for forestalling his disclosure that I owe the present ingenuous confession!” said lord Morven. ”--But explain, Mr. Grant.”

”My lord,” said Donal calmly, ”I became aware that there was something between lord Forgue and the girl, and was alarmed for the girl: she is the child of friends to whom I am much beholden. But on the promise of both that the thing should end, I concluded it better not to trouble your lords.h.i.+p. I may have blundered in this, but I did what seemed best. This night, however, I discovered that things were going as before, and it became imperative on my position in your house that I should make your lords.h.i.+p acquainted with the fact. He a.s.severed there was nothing dishonest between them, but, having deceived me once, how was I to trust him again!”

”How indeed! the young blackguard!” said his lords.h.i.+p, casting a fierce glance at his son.

”Allow me to remark,” said Forgue, with comparative coolness, ”that I deceived no one. What I promised was, that the affair should not go on: it did not; from that moment it a.s.sumed a different and serious aspect.

I now intend to marry the girl.”

”I tell you, Forgue, if you do I will disown you.”

Forgue smiled an impertinent smile and held his peace: the threat had for him no terror.

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