Part 34 (1/2)

”Haven't you heard?” she said; ”he has gone. It was Mr. Fanning who did it. He paid the bill in full, and the man has gone. He went last night. Mr. Fanning is arranging the whole thing, and the man in possession won't come back, that is, for the present. I begin to see daylight. I am glad you have made up your mind to be sensible, Westenra.”

CHAPTER XXIII

ALBERT

I was so stunned I could not speak at all for a minute, then I said, after a brief pause--

”Do you know if Mr. Fanning is in?”

”No, why should he be in?” replied Miss Mullins in an almost irritable voice, ”he has got his work to do if you have not. Men who are generous on the large scale on which he is generous, cannot afford to be idle--that is, if they are going on adding to their fortunes. He is out and probably in the city, he is a great publisher, you know, and extremely successful. For my part, I respect him; he may be a rough diamond, but he is a diamond all the same.”

Still I did not speak, and I am sure my silence, and the stunned subdued heavy expression on my face, vexed Jane more than any amount of words I might have uttered.

”I will go and see if he has really gone,” I said. ”It is sometimes quite late before he starts for the city, I want to speak to him at once.”

”Now, Westenra, if you in this crisis make mischief,” began Miss Mullins.

”Oh, I won't make mischief,” I said, ”but I must speak to Mr.

Fanning.”

I had almost reached the door when she called me back.

”One moment,” she said.

I turned, impatiently.

”Please don't keep me, Jane, I must see Mr. Fanning before he goes to the city--I will come back afterwards.”

”If I wasn't almost sure what you are going to say to Mr. Fanning, I would let you go,” said Jane, ”but you ought to know--your mother was very ill, worse than I have ever seen her before, last night.”

”Mother ill in the night, and you never told me!” The greater trouble seemed to swallow up the lesser, and for the time I forgot Mr.

Fanning, the man in possession, and everything in the world except mother herself.

”She had a sharp attack,” continued Jane, ”rigors and extreme weakness. I happened most fortunately to go into her room about midnight, and found her in an alarming state. Dr. Anderson was summoned. She is better, much better, but not up yet.”

”But, Jane, why, why did you not wake me?”

”I should, dear, if there had been real danger, but she quickly recovered. You looked so ill yourself last night, that I had not the heart to disturb your sleep. And there is no danger at present, no fresh danger, that is. Unless something happens to cause her a sudden shock, she is comparatively well, but it behoves you, Westenra, to be careful.”

”And suppose I am not careful,” I said, a sudden defiance coming into my voice.

”In that case----” said Miss Mullins. She did not finish her sentence.

She looked full at me, raised her hands expressively, and let them fall to her sides.

Nothing could be more full of meaning than her broken sentence, her action, and the expression of her face.

”But you could not deliberately do it,” she said slowly, ”you could not expose a mother like yours to----”

”Of course I could do nothing to injure mother,” I said, ”I will try and be patient; but Jane, Jane, do you know really what this means?