Part 33 (1/2)
”He saved his life by a lie! That orthy of him,” said Cynthia scornfully
”Nay, child, he spoke the truth, and when Joseph offered to restore the boy to hi But in thethe superscription to the letter Crispin was to bear to those that had reared the child, Joseph bethought him of a foul scheme for Galliard's final destruction And so he has sent him to London instead, to a house in Thames Street, where dwells one Colonel Pride, who bears Sir Crispin a heavy grudge, and into whose hands he will be thus delivered Can aught be done, Cynthia, to arrest this--to save Sir Crispin froht you seek to restore the breath to a dead man,” she answered, and her voice was so oddly calory shuddered to hear it
”Do not delude yourself,” she added ”Sir Crispin will have reached London long ere this, and by now Joseph will be well on his way to see that there is no o is plucked at last frohter?” she cried ”Is my name indeed Ashburn, and have I been reared upon the estates that by criained possession of?
Estates that by crioes to one to his death by your contriving”
A moan escaped her, and she covered her face with her hands Athere--a fair, lissoale of ineffable ereat sigh, and Gregory, who dared not look her way, heard the swish of her gown, followed by a thud as she collapsed and lay swooning on the ground
So disturbed at that was Gregory's spirit that, forgetting his wound, his fever, and the death which he had believed i wide the door, bellowed lustily for Stephen In frightened haste came his henchory's coain as quickly in quest of Catherine--Cynthia's woirl to her cha been lured into a confession that it now seemed to him had been unnecessary, since in his newly found vitality he realized that death was none so near a thing as that scoundrelly fool of a leech had led him to believe
CHAPTER XXIV THE WOOING OF CYNTHIA
Cynthia's sas after all but brief Upon recovering consciousness her first act was to dismiss her woman She had need to be alone--the need of the animal that is wounded to creep into its lair and hide itself And so alone with her sorrow she sat through that long day
That her father's condition was grievous she knew to be untrue, so that concerning hiht have felt had she believed--as he would have had her believe that he was dying
As she pondered the ainst him, and even as she had asked hihter, so now she vowed to herself that she would be his daughter no longer She would leave Castle Marleigh, never again to set eyes upon her father, and she hoped that during the little tiht be spared the ordeal of againa parent for whom respect was dead, and who inspired her with just that feeling of horror she must have for any man who confessed himself a murderer and a thief
She resolved to repair to London to a sister of her mother's, where for her dead mother's sake she would find a haven extended readily
At eventide she came at last from her chamber
She had need of air, need of the balm that nature alone can offer in solitude to poor wounded hu, worthy rather of August than of October, and aimlessly Mistress Cynthia wandered towards the cliffs overlooking Sheringharass, and gazed wistfully seaward, hernow from the sorry theme that had held dominion in it, to theas she sat now, her eyes upon the shi+ overhead, that she had awakened to the knowledge of her love for Crispin And so to hihts, and to the fate her father had sent hiain to her father and the evil he had wrought It is ory would have been as intense as it was, had another than Crispin Galliard been his victim
Her life see on the cliffs
No single interest linked her to existence; nothing, it seemed, was left her to hope for till the end should co, for tiht, and every thought begat a sigh, and then of a sudden--surely her ears had tricked her, enslaved by her i out close behind her
”Why are we pensive, Mistress Cynthia?”
There was a catch in her breath as she turned her head Her cheeks took fire, and for a second were aflame Then they went deadly white, and it seemed that time and life and the very world had paused in its relentless progress towards eternity For there stood the object of her thoughts and sighs, sudden and unexpected, as though the earth had cast him up on to her surface
His thin lips were parted in a smile that softened wondrously the harshness of his face, and his eyes seeht with kindness A ht her voice, and when she had found it, all that she could falter was:
”Sir, how came you here? They told me that you rode to London”
”Why, so I did But on the road I chanced to halt, and having halted I discovered reason why I should return”