But James seemed not to have heard the command, for he suddenly disappeared through a door, against which he had happened to be standing.

"You go, then, Thomas," said Jane; "and make haste, there's a good man.

He must be anxious to know."

"Shouldn't think he was," said Thomas, "when Missus Elstree knocked ever so long at the libery and got no answer."

Jane's sharp eyes were again directed from one to the other, and then, without further pause, she set her teeth, nipped her lips together, and hurried across the hall to the library door.

She knocked at first softly, but there was no reply; then more loudly, with the same result; and at last, thoroughly alarmed, she beat fiercely upon the panels, calling loudly upon her masters name.

"Go and fetch Mr Elstree, and call up Dr Challen," said Jane, huskily, for there was a horrible fear at her heart, though she resolutely kept it to herself. "Perhaps master may be in a fit," she whispered.

The Rector was there in a few minutes, and after knocking and calling, he, too, turned pale, as the doctor now appeared upon the scene.

"Locked on the inside," said the latter, after a momentary examination.

"The door must be broken open, and at once. Is there a carpenter upon the premises?"

There was no carpenter, but one of the gardeners had some skill in doing odd jobs about the place, and he was known to possess a basket of tools.

His name was therefore suggested.

"Fetch him at once!" exclaimed the Doctor, as excited now as any one present; and amidst an awe-stricken silence, the gardener's advent was awaited.

But it took a good quarter of an hour to seek Alexander McCray, and during that period of breathless expectation, not a soul present thought of the possibility of an entrance being effected by the window. Thomas had peered twice through the key-hole, looking round afterwards with a pale, blank face, when seeing that it would probably be a quicker way of obtaining information than questioning, Dr Challen knelt down himself, to peer for some time through the narrow aperture, when he, too, rose, thoughtful and silent, the Rector refraining from questioning him, and no one else daring to do so. What Thomas had seen he at length communicated in whispers, but they did not reach the Rector, who, with a shuddering sensation oppressing him, kept on, in spite of himself, watching--as if his eyes were specially there attracted--the narrow slit beneath the door, as if expecting that some trace might probably there show itself of what had taken place within the room.

"Is this man coming?" exclaimed the Doctor at last; and another messenger was sent, while the women huddled together, whispering, and more than one thinking that that morning's occurrences might result in a general discharge of servants, and a breaking up of the Castle establishment.

At last, though, there was the sound of footsteps, and very slowly and leisurely the Scotch gardener made his appearance, walking with the c.u.mbersome gait of the men of the scythe and spade--slow, as a rule, as the growth of the plants they tend.

"Now, for Heaven's sake, be smart, my good fellow!" exclaimed the Doctor.

"Ye'll be wanting the door open, will ye?" said Alexander, slowly.

"Yes--yes!" exclaimed the Doctor impatiently.

"And have ye got authoughreety of Sir Moorray to force it open?" said Alexander.

"My good man, this is no time for authority. Make haste, and break open the door."

"I'm no cheecan, gentlemen," said Alexander, with the most aggravating coolness; "but I've got a verra good seetuation here, and I should be sore fashed if I had to luse it throw being rash. Sir Moorray might be verra angered with me for breaking the door."

"My good man, I'd take all responsibility," exclaimed the Rector.

"Pray, be quick!"

"Weel, then, eef that's the case, gentlemen," said Alexander, refreshing his high-bridged nose with a pinch of snuff--"eef that's the case, I'll just go and fetch my tools."

Alexander McCray nodded his head sagely, as he took his departure; and again there was an anxious lapse of time, certainly only of some minutes, but they seemed then to be hours, and, hurrying into the drawing-room, and seizing a poker, the Doctor was himself about to attack the door, when, chisel and mallet in hand, the gardener returned, his rush tool-basket over his shoulder; and then, strenuously exerting himself, he soon made an entrance, first for a chisel and then for a crowbar, with which he strained and strained hard to force open the strongly-made old oak carved door. For a long while the efforts were vain; but at last, with a loud crash, the door gave way, and so suddenly that the gardener fell back with great violence amongst the lookers-on, when, with an unanimous shriek of dismay, the women-servants turned and fled, to gaze from distant doorways for some sc.r.a.p of interest connected with the elucidation.

But before Sandy McCray had gathered himself together, the Rector, followed by Dr Challen and Jane, had entered the room, when Mr Elstree's first act was to catch Jane by the arm and press her back, as with his other hand he drew to the door.

"My good woman, you will be better away," he said, earnestly.

"I'm not afraid, sir," said Jane, quietly; "and perhaps I may be of some use."

"Keep that door closed, then," exclaimed the Doctor; and the next moment he was kneeling upon the carpet, where, motionless, stretched upon his face, and with his fingers tightly clutching the long nap of the Turkey carpet, lay the tall, proud form of Sir Murray Gernon.

"No, not that--not that, thank Heaven!" exclaimed the Doctor, after a brief examination, as, looking up, he answered the Rector's inquiring gaze. "I was afraid so at first, but it is nothing of the kind. Not his own act, sir, but a sudden seizure, and no wonder. Tall, portly man--predisposition to apoplexy. Here, quick, Jane--basin and towels.

Mr Elstree, open that window, and let's have air; then send away those open-mouthed, staring fools outside. Nothing serious, I hope."

As he spoke, he had loosened the baronet's neckband, and torn the sleeve away from his arm, to lay bare and open a vein, his ministrations being followed before very long by a heavy sigh from the patient, other favourable symptoms soon supervening, and in a short time the baronet was p.r.o.nounced out of danger.

"I don't know what people would do if it were not for our profession,"

said Dr Challen, importantly, as he fussed about in the hall, superintending the carrying of Sir Murray to his bed-chamber.

"And a wee bit help from a man as can handle twa or three tules," said Sandy McCray, in a whisper to himself, for he was one of the porters; and then Dr Challen had the further satisfaction of knowing that he had two patients instead of one, both, though, progressing favourably.

Book 1, Chapter XXI.

THE GENTLE Pa.s.sION.

Some days had pa.s.sed, and the Doctor had taken his departure, confining himself now to a couple of calls per diem. Lady Gernon was progressing fast towards recovery, and Sir Murray, very quiet and staid, was again up; but, so far as the servants knew, and did not omit to tattle about, he had had no interview with her ladyship. But the heads of the establishment were not the only ones in that house sore at heart, for Jane Barker, in her times of retirement, shed many a bitter tear. She never asked about him, but there were those amongst the domestics who heard the news, and soon bore it to her, that John Gurdon had left the neighbouring town where he had been staying, and was gone to Liverpool, with the intention of proceeding to Australia: in which announcement there was some little truth and a good deal of fiction, the shade of truth being that John Gurdon was going abroad, though not in the way he had published.

"And never to write and ask me to see him again," sobbed Jane--"never to say 'good-bye.' Oh, what a blessing life would be if there was no courting in it! as is a curse to everybody, as I've seen enough to my cost, without counting my own sufferings."

Jane was bewailing her fate at the open window one night when these thoughts pa.s.sed through her breast for the hundredth time. Certainly, there was a pleasant coolness in the night air, but it is open to doubt whether poor Jane had not nourished a hope that, wrong as it was on her part, besides being unbecoming, John might by chance have repented and turned back just to say a few words of parting. She confessed once that she wished he would, and then she would wish him G.o.d-speed, and if he wanted ten or twenty pounds, she would give notice at the savings' bank, draw it out, and send it to him by letter. But not one word would she say to stop him from going--no, not _one_ word. He should go, and no doubt it would do him good, and break him of all his bad habits, and "perhaps," she said, with a sob, "he may come back a good man, and we may be--"

"Tst, Jane!--tst!"

For a few moments she could not move, the sound was so unexpected. She had hoped that he might come back, but for days past she had given it up, when now, making her heart leap with a joy she could not conceal, came the welcome sound from the darkness beneath where she leaned.

She had not heard him come, for the reason that Mr John Gurdon had been there for an hour before she had leaned out, and he had been stayed from announcing his presence sooner by a light in a neighbouring window; but now, that apparently all was still in the place, he gave utterance to the above signal, one which he had to repeat before it was responded to by a whispered e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.i.o.n.

"How could I come, you cruel woman!" said Gurdon--"how can you ask me?

Hadn't you driven me by your hard-heartedness to make up my mind to go abroad? but only to find when I'd got to the ship that I couldn't go without saying one long 'good-bye.' Oh, Jane!--Jane!--Jane!"

The remaining words were lost to Jane's ear, but she could make out that he was sobbing and groaning softly, and it seemed to her, from the m.u.f.fled sounds, that Gurdon had thrown himself down upon his face, and was trying to stifle the agony of his spirit, lest he should be heard, and so get her into trouble.

Poor Jane! her heart yearned with genuine pity towards the erring man, and her hands involuntarily stretched themselves out as if to take him to her breast, which heaved with sobs of an affection as sincere as was ever felt by the most cultivated of her s.e.x.

"Oh, John!" she sobbed, "don't--don't!--please don't do that!"

"How can I help it?" he groaned. "Why am I such a coward that I don't go and make a hole in the lake, and put myself out of my misery?"

"Oh, pray--pray don't, John!" sobbed poor Jane, whose feelings were stirred to their deepest depth, and, believing in her old lovers earnest repentance, she was all the weak woman now. "I'm 'most heart-broken, dear, without more troubles. You don't know what has been happening lately."

"No," groaned Gurdon, "I don't know. My troubles have been enough for me."

"What with my lady nearly dying, and Sir Murray being locked up in the library, and the door being broken open to find him in a fit, the place is dreadful, without you going on as you do."