'I dare not, sir; she would fly into one of her mad pa.s.sions and strike me.'

'Good heavens!'

'I have work enough with her sometimes; she has always had her tantrums from a child; but I'm used to them, and I know how to humour her. She will never tell Mr. Cyril; I know them both too well for that.'

'You heard all I said, Biddy. You need not deny it. You have been listening at the door.'

'It is not me who would deny it,' she returned boldly; but there was a flush on her withered cheek. 'There is nothing that my mistress could say that she would wish to keep from me. I have been with her all her life. As a baby she slept in my bosom, and I loved her as my own child.

Ah, it was an ill day for Miss Olive when she took up with that good-for-nothing Matthew O'Brien; bad luck to him and his!'

'Nevertheless, he is her husband, Biddy.'

'I don't know about that, sir. I was never married myself, and fourteen years is a long absence. Aren't they more her children than his, when she has slaved and sacrificed herself for them? You meant it well, sir, what you said to the mistress; but I take the liberty of differing from you, and I would sooner bite my tongue out than speak the word that will bring them all to shame.'

'Then I must not look to you for help?'

'I am afraid not, sir. I am on my mistress's side.'

'You are an obstinate old woman, Biddy, and I looked for better sense at your age.'

Nevertheless, he shook her by the hand very kindly, and then she lighted him downstairs.

Mollie came out of the dining-room and looked at him wistfully.

'Is mamma better now, Captain Burnett?'

'Well, no, I am afraid not: but I think you need not trouble. Biddy will look after her.'

'Biddy is dreadfully mysterious, and will hardly let any of us speak to mamma; but I think it is my place, not Biddy's, to wait on her. She has no right to tell me to go downstairs, and to treat me like a child. I am fifteen.'

'Yes; indeed, you are growing quite a woman, Mollie.'

And Michael looked very kindly at Audrey's _protegee_. He and Mollie were great friends.

'Cyril came in some time ago. He had to dress for the party, you know, and Biddy would not let him go into the drawing-room and interrupt you; she was mounting guard all the time. Cyril was quite cross at last, and asked me what on earth was the matter, and why you and mamma were having a private interview; but of course I could not tell him.'

'I suppose not, my dear.'

'He says he shall ask mamma to-morrow, and that he shall bring Miss Ross to see her, because he is sure she is ill. Will you come in and see Kester, Captain Burnett?--he is busy with his Greek.'

But Michael declined; it was late, and he must hurry home and dress for dinner.

He had forgotten all about the Charringtons' dinner-party and dance, and he was a little startled, as he entered the hall, to see Audrey standing before the fire talking to Cyril. Both of them were in evening dress.

Audrey looked very pretty; she wore a white silk dress. He had seen her in it once before, and he had thought then how wonderfully well it became her; and the sparkling cross rested against her soft throat.

Cyril's roses, with their pale pinky tint, gave her just the colour that was needed, and her eyes were very bright; and perhaps her lover's praise had brought that lovely glow to her face.

'You will be late, Michael; the dressing-bell sounded an age ago, and father is in the drawing-room. What have you been doing with yourself all these hours?'

'I had forgotten you were going out,' he returned, parrying her question. 'How nice you look, Audrey! I thought white silk was bridal finery. Cinderella turned into a princess was nothing to you.'

'I feel like a princess with my roses and diamonds;' but she looked at Cyril, not at Michael, as she spoke. Cyril was standing beside her with one arm against the carved mantelpiece; he was looking handsomer than ever. Just then there was the sound of carriage-wheels, and he took up the furred cloak that lay on the settee beside him, and put it gently round her shoulders.

'You must not take cold,' Michael heard him say. There was nothing in the words, but the glance that accompanied this simple remark spoke volumes. Michael drew a deep heavy sigh as he went upstairs. 'Poor fellow! how he worships her!' he thought;' what will be the end of this tangle?' And then he dressed himself hastily and took his place at the table to eat his dinner with what appet.i.te he might, while Mrs. Ross discoursed to him placidly on the baby's beauty and on dear Geraldine's merits as a mother and hostess.

CHAPTER x.x.xIV

'I MUST THINK OF MY CHILD, MIKE'

'Ah! the problem of grief and evil is, and will be always, the greatest enigma of being, only second to the existence of being itself.'--AMIEL.

Michael listened in a sort of dream. He was telling himself all the time that his opportunity was come, and that it was inc.u.mbent on him not to sleep another night under his cousin's roof until he had made known to him this grievous thing.

As soon as they rose from the table, and Dr. Ross was preparing as usual to follow his wife into the drawing-room until the prayer-bell summoned him into the schoolroom, Michael said, a little more seriously than usual:

'Dr. Ross, would you mind giving me half an hour in the study after prayers? I want your advice about something;' for he wished to secure this quiet time before Audrey returned from her party.

The Doctor was an observant man, in spite of his occasional absence of mind, and he saw at once that something was amiss.

'Shall you be able to do without us this evening, Emmie?' he said, with his usual old-fashioned politeness, that his wife and daughters thought the very model of perfection: 'it is too bad to leave you alone when Audrey is not here to keep you company.'

But Mrs. Ross a.s.sured him that she would not in the least mind such solitude; she was reading the third volume of an exciting novel, and would not be sorry to finish it. And as soon as this was settled and the coffee served, the gong sounded, and they all adjourned to the schoolroom.

Michael never missed this function, as he called it. He liked to sit in his corner and watch the rows of boyish faces before him, and try to imagine what their future would be; and, above all things, he loved to hear the fresh young voices uniting in their evening hymn; but on this evening he regarded them with some degree of sadness.

'They have the best of it,' he thought rather moodily; 'they little know what is before them, poor fellows! and the hard rubs fate has in store for them.' And then, as they filed past him and one little fellow smiled at him, he drew him aside and put him between his knees.

'You look very happy, Willie. I suppose you have not been caned to-day?'--a favourite joke of the Captain's.

'No, sir,' returned Willie proudly; 'but Jefferson minor fought me, and I licked him. You may ask the other fellows, and they would tell you it was all fair. He is a head taller than me, and I licked him,' finished Willie, with an air of immense satisfaction on his chubby baby face.

'Ah, you licked him, did you?' returned Michael absently; 'and Jefferson minor is beaten. I hope you shook hands afterwards; fair fight and no malice, Willie. There's a shilling for you because you did not show the white feather in the face of the enemy. You will be at the head of a brigade yet, my boy.' For all Dr. Ross's lads were bitten with the military fever, and from Willie Sayers to broad-shouldered Jeff Davidson each boy nourished a secret pa.s.sion and desire to follow the Captain's footsteps, and were ready to be hewed and slashed into small pieces if only the Victoria Cross might be their reward.

As soon as the curly-haired champion had left him, Michael followed his cousin into the study. Dr. Ross had already lighted his lamp, and roused his fire into a cheerful blaze.

'What is it, Mike? you look bothered,' he asked, as Michael drew up his chair. 'Nothing wrong with the money, I hope?'

'What should be wrong about it?' returned Michael rather disdainfully; 'it is about as safe as the Bank of England. No; it is something very different--a matter that I may say concerns us all. I heard something the other day rather uncomfortable about the Blakes.'

'Nothing discreditable, I hope?' returned the Doctor quickly.

'I am afraid I must answer "Yes" to that question; but, at least, I can a.s.sure you that there is nothing against Blake.'

Then Dr. Ross looked relieved.