"No--none of my friends will be there if I can help it. They're not that sort."

"Have you written to Daniel?"

"'Written to Daniel'! Good G.o.d, no! What should I write to Daniel, but to tell him he's the biggest cur and hound on earth?"

"You've pa.s.sed all that. You're not going back again, Raymond. You know what you said last time when we talked about it."

"If he's ever to be more than a name to me, he must apologise for being a low down brute, first. I've got plenty on my mind without thinking about him. He's going to rue the day he treated me as he has done. I'll bring him and Bridetown Mill to the gutter, yet."

"Don't, don't, please. I thought you felt last time we were talking about him--"

"Drop him--don't mention his name to me--I won't hear it. If you want me to go on with my life with self-respect, then keep his name out of my life. I've cursed him to h.e.l.l once and for all, so talk of something else!"

Jenny Ironsyde saw that her nephew was in a dark temper, and while at heart she felt indignant and ashamed, more for Sabina's sake than his own, she humoured him, spoke of the future and strove to win him back into a cheerful mind.

Then as they were going to dinner, at half-past seven o'clock, the maid who announced the meal, brought with her a telegram. It was directed to 'Ironsyde' only, and, putting on her gla.s.ses, Jenny read it.

Daniel had been very seriously injured in a railway accident at York.

Remorse strikes the young with cruel bitterness. Raymond turned pale and staggered. While he had been cursing his brother, the man lay smitten, perhaps at the door of death. His aunt it was who steadied him and turned to the time-table. Then she went to her store of ready money. In an hour Raymond was on his way. It might be possible for him to catch a midnight train for the North from London and reach York before morning.

When he had gone, Jenny turned to Sabina, who had spoken no word during this scene.

"Much may come of this," she said. "G.o.d works in mysterious ways. I have no fear that Raymond will fail in his duty to dear Daniel at such a time. Come back early to-morrow, Sabina. I shall get a telegram, as soon as Raymond can despatch it, and shall hold myself in readiness to go at once and stop with Daniel. Tell Mister Churchouse what has happened."

The lady spent the night in packing. Her sufferings and anxieties were allayed by occupation; but the long hours seemed unending.

She was ready to start at dawn, but not until ten o'clock came the news from York. Mr. Churchouse was already with her when the telegram arrived. He had driven from Bridetown with Sabina. Daniel Ironsyde was dead and had pa.s.sed many hours before Raymond reached him.

Sabina went home on hearing this news, and Ernest Churchouse remained with Miss Ironsyde.

She was prostrated and, for a time, he could not comfort her. But the practical nature of her mind a.s.serted itself between gusts of grief. She despatched a telegram to Raymond at York, and begged him to bring back his brother's body as soon as it might be done. Concerning the future she also spoke to Ernest.

"He has made no will," she said, "That I know, because when last we were speaking of Raymond, he told me he felt it impossible at present to do so."

"Then the whole estate belongs to Raymond, now?" he asked.

"Yes, everything is his."

CHAPTER XXIII

A LETTER FOR SABINA

A human machine, under stress of personal tribulation and lowered vitality, had erred in a signal box five miles from York, with the result that several of his fellow creatures were killed and many injured. Daniel Ironsyde had only lived long enough to direct the telegram to his home.

Three days later Raymond returned with the body, and once more Bridetown crowded to its windows and open s.p.a.ces, to see the funeral of another master of the Mill.

To an onlooker the scene might have appeared a repet.i.tion in almost every particular of Henry Ironsyde's obsequies.

The spinners crowded on the gra.s.sy triangle under the sycamore tree and debated their future. They wondered whether Raymond would come to the funeral; and a new note entered into all voices when they spoke his name, for he was master now. Mr. Churchouse attended the burial, and Arthur Waldron walked down from North Hill House with his daughter. In the churchyard, where Daniel's grave waited for him beside his father, old Mr. Baggs stood and looked down, as he had done when Henry Ironsyde came to his grave.

"Life, how short--eternity, how long," he said to John Best.

Ernest Churchouse opened the door of the mourning coach as he had done on the previous occasion, and Miss Ironsyde alighted, followed by Raymond. He had come. But he had changed even to the visible eye. The least observing were able to mark differences of voice and manner.

Raymond's nature had responded to the stroke of circ.u.mstance with lightning swiftness. The pressure of his position, thus suddenly relieved, caused a rebound, a liberation of the grinding tension. It remained to be seen what course he might now pursue; yet those who knew him best antic.i.p.ated no particular reaction. But when he returned it was quickly apparent that tremendous changes had already taken place in the young man's outlook on life and that, whatever his future line of conduct might be, he realised very keenly his altered position. He was now free of all temporal cares; but against that fact he found himself faced with great new responsibilities.

Remorse hit him hard, but he was through the worst of that, and life had become so tremendous, that he could not for very long keep his thoughts on death.

At his brother's funeral he allowed his eye to rest on no familiar face and cast no recognising glance at man or woman. He was haggard and pale, but more than that: a new expression had come into his countenance.

Already consciousness of possession marked him. He had grasped the fact of the change far quicker than Daniel had grasped it after their father's death.

He was returning immediately with his aunt to Bridport; but Mr.

Churchouse broke through the barrier and spoke to him as he entered the carriage.

"Won't you see Sabina before you go, Raymond? You must realise that, even under these terrible conditions, we cannot delay. I understand she wrote to you when you came back; but that you have not answered her letter. As things are it seems to me you might like to be quietly and privately married away from Bridetown?"

Raymond hardly seemed to hear.

"I can't talk about that now. A great deal falls upon me at present. I am enormously busy and have to take up the threads of all poor Daniel was doing in the North. There is n.o.body but myself, in my opinion, who can go through with it. I return to London to-night."

"But Sabina?"

Raymond answered calmly.

"Sabina Dinnett will hear from me during the next twenty-four hours," he said.

Ernest gazed aghast.

"But, my dear boy, you cannot realise the situation if you talk like that. Surely you--"

"I realise the situation perfectly well. Good-bye, Uncle Ernest."

The coach drove away. Miss Ironsyde said nothing. She had broken down beside the grave and was still weeping.

Then came Mr. Best, where Mr. Churchouse stood at the lich-gate. He was anxious for information.

"Did he say anything about his plans?" he asked.

"Only that he is proceeding with his late brother's business in the North. I perceive a most definite change in the young man, John."

"For the better, we'll hope. What's hid in people! You never would have thought Mister Raymond would have carried himself like that. It wasn't grief at his loss, but a sort of an understanding of the change. He even looked at us differently--even me."

"He's overwrought and not himself, probably. I don't think he quite grasps the immediate situation. He seems to be looking far ahead already, whereas the most pressing matter should be a thing of to-morrow."