The Squire knitted his brows hard, and tried to think, but couldn't.

He could only feel. Release might be in view from the chains that already seemed to have begun to rust on him.

"I can't see my way," he said. "I must think it over."

With her eyes fixed sharply and anxiously on him, she had seemed to be reading his very thoughts. She had influenced him; she could do nothing more by repet.i.tion of her plea; he must have time to think it over--and _would_ have time, whatever she might say; he was that sort of man.

She rose from the seat. "I know you must have time," she said. "I know that the sum I ask for is a large one, especially if you are going to add another seven thousand on to it; but I can't take less. I won't take less. But remember what it buys you, Mr. Clinton, when you think it over. If you refuse me this money which you owe me for what you have done to me, if ever man owed woman anything, I shall speak out and bring it home to you. I would rather have peace for the rest of my days, and ease, than perpetual fighting. But I shall be ready to fight, if you refuse me, for I shall get _something_ out of that."

He rose too. "You needn't go over all that again," he said. "If I consider it right to do this I will do it. If not, no threats will weigh with me."

"Very well," she said. "If you accept, as of course you will, for it _is_ right to do it, you will want to see me again to settle details.

Probably you won't want to pay the money all at once, and we can arrange that. You will want to be a.s.sured that I shan't come down on you again, that my silence will be absolutely unbroken. I can satisfy you as to that too; I have thought out a way. There will be other details to settle. You won't want to see me down here again. You must come to see me in London. I will help you in every way I can."

She gave him an address.

"Now I will go," she said. "Show me a way out without my pa.s.sing the house."

They walked round the lower end of the lake together, neither of them speaking a word. He took her to a gate leading into a lane. "If you follow that to the left," he said, "you will come to the village."

She went through the gate which he held open for her. Then she turned and looked at him out of level eyes, and said before she walked away: "If you do what I ask, you will hear nothing more of me after we have settled matters. If you don't, I will punish you somehow--in addition--for not receiving me into your house."

CHAPTER III

THE STRAIGHT PATH

"Mr. Clinton has had to go to Bathgate, ma'am. He told me to say he would dine at the club and might be late home. He partic'ly asked that you and Miss Joan--Miss Clinton--shouldn't sit up for him."

The old butler gave his message as if there was more behind it than appeared from his words. Mrs. Clinton, standing in the hall, in her travelling cloak, looked puzzled and a little anxious. It was unlike her husband not to be at home to meet her, especially when she and Joan were returning from so comparatively long a visit--and there was something so very interesting to talk about. And, although he frequently lunched at the County Club in Bathgate, he had not dined there half a dozen times since their marriage.

"Is Mr. Clinton quite well?" she asked, preparing to move away.

"Well, ma'am, I don't think he is quite well. We've all noticed it.

Or it seems more as if he was worried about something. But he's not eating well, ma'am, and not sleeping well."

"Poor father!" said Joan, standing by her mother. "We've been too long away from him. We'll cheer him up, and soon put him right, mother."

Mrs. Clinton went to bed at half-past ten, as usual. The Squire came home at eleven o'clock. It was the hour when he expected her to have her light out, if he should come up then.

He went straight to her room. It was in darkness. "Well, Nina," he said from the door, "you're back safely. Sorry I had to be out when you arrived. I'll come to you in a few minutes."

He went along to his dressing-room. Just outside it, in the broad carpeted corridor was Joan. She was in a white dressing-gown, her hair in a thick plait down her back. She looked hardly older than the child she had been five years before.

"Father dear!" she said. "How naughty of you to be away when we came home! Have you heard about it?"

Her beautiful eyes, swimming with tender happiness, looked up into his.

She had come close for his embrace.

"My dear child!" he said, kissing her. "My little Joan!"

"I thought you'd be glad," she said, nestling to him. "I'm so frightfully happy, father."

"Well, run along to bed now," he said. "We'll talk about it to-morrow.

You ought to have been in bed long ago."

"I know. But I had to stop up and tell you. Good-night, father."

He strained her to him. "Good-night, my darling!"

He was not a man of endearments; he had not called her that since she was a tiny child. She flitted along the pa.s.sage, and he went into his room and shut the door.

The old butler came up to put out the lamps in the corridor. He had performed this duty nightly since he had been a very young butler, and had often thought, as he pa.s.sed the closed doors, of those who were behind them. For many years there had been somebody behind most of the doors, except in the rooms reserved for visitors. Now there were only three left out of all the big family in whose service he had grown old.

He had seen all the children, who had crowded the nursery wing, with their nurses and governess, grow up and leave the nest one by one. It had been such a warm, protected nest for them. He had always liked to go up to the floor on which the nurseries were, and think of all the little white-robed sleepers behind those doors as he pa.s.sed them. They were so safe, tucked up for the night, and so well-off in that great guarded house, where nothing that might affright other less fortunate children could touch them.

The nursery wing was empty now. Joan had come down to another room on the first floor; he only had one broad pa.s.sage to see to upstairs. And soon she would have flown. He thought of her with the affection of an old servant as he put out the light outside her room. Little Miss Joan! She was in there with her happiness. He smiled as he turned from that door.

Outside his master's dressing-room his face became solicitous. Mr.

Clinton was not well--worried-like. Well, he was apt to worry over-much about trifles. The old butler knew him by this time. He had seen him weather many storms, and they had never, after all, been more than mere breezes. Whatever was going on behind the door of that room couldn't be very serious. Its occupant was shielded from all real worries, except those he made for himself. He was one of the lucky ones.

Outside the big room of state, in which so many generations of Clintons had been born to the easy lot awaiting them, and so many heads of that fortunate house had died after enjoying their appointed years of honour and invulnerable well-being, his face cleared. Mrs. Clinton had come home; she would put right whatever little thing was wrong. His master couldn't really do without her, though he thought he could. Behind that door she was lying, waiting for him. He put out the lamp.

The house was now dark and silent, though behind two of the three doors there were lights.

The Squire went along the pa.s.sage in his dressing-gown, carrying his bedroom candlestick. He blew out the light directly he got inside the room.

When he had given his wife greeting, he said, "I'm tired to-night. We must talk over this affair of Joan's to-morrow."

"You are pleased, Edward, are you not?" she asked. "He is such a dear boy; and they are very much in love with one another."

"I must hear all about it to-morrow," he said, composing himself for sleep. His usual habit was to go to sleep the moment he got into bed; but he was always ready to talk, if there was anything he wanted to talk about. He would freely express irritation if he was upset about anything, and it sometimes seemed as if he were ready to talk all night. But he would suddenly leave off and say, "Well, good night, Nina. G.o.d bless you!" and be fast asleep five minutes later. He never omitted this nightly benediction. Until he said "G.o.d bless you, Nina,"

it was permitted to her to speak to him. When he had said it, he was officially asleep, and not to be disturbed.

He did not say it to-night after his postponement of discussion, but his movement showed that "good-night" was considered to have been said.

The omission was ominous.

For a very long time there was complete silence. Then the Squire turned in bed, with a sound that might have been a half-stifled groan, but also an involuntary murmur. Again there was a long silence. Mrs.

Clinton lay quite still, in the darkness. Then he turned again, gently, so as not to wake her if she were asleep, and moaned.

Her voice, fully awake, broke through the silence, "Edward, you are not asleep. Porter said you were not well."

He made no reply for a moment. Then he turned towards her and said, "Inverell--he is coming to see me here?"

"Yes. He is coming on Friday."

"You must put him off, Nina. You must put off the whole thing for a time."

He must have expected an expression of surprise, or a question. But none came.