"You will prepare her for it; you will tell her it must be as soon as the arrangements can be made; you will stop all communications with Bayle and old Sir Gordon, and do exactly as I bid you. Look here, once let Julia see that there is no other course, and she will be quiet and sensible enough."

"Once more!" cried Mrs Hallam pa.s.sionately, "spare me this, Robert, and I will be your patient, forgiving wife to the end! I tell you it would break her heart!"

"You understand!" he said. "There, look at her!" he cried, pointing.

"Why, the girl loves him after all."

Julia was coming slowly up the path, with Crellock bending down and talking to her earnestly, till he reached the window, which Hallam unfastened, shrinking back and leaving the room, as if he could not face his child.

As Julia entered, Crellock seemed to have no wish to encounter Mrs Hallam, and he drew back and went round the house to the study window, where he stopped leaning on the verandah-rail and gazing in, as Hallam stood at the cupboard, pouring himself out some more brandy.

He had the gla.s.s in one hand, the bottle in the other, when he caught sight of the figure at the window, and with a start and cry of horror he dropped bottle and gla.s.s.

"Bah! where is your nerve, man?" cried Crellock with a laugh of contempt. "Did you think it was a sergeant with a file of men to fetch you away?"

"You--you startled me," cried Hallam angrily. "All that brandy gone!"

"A good thing too! You've had plenty. Well, have you told her?"

"Yes."

"What did she say?"

"The old thing."

"But you made her understand?"

"Yes. What did Julia say?"

"Oh, very little. Told me she could never love me, of course; but she's a clever, sensible girl."

"And she has consented?"

"Well, not exactly; but it's all right. There will be no trouble there."

Meanwhile Julia had gone straight to her mother and knelt down at her feet, resting her hands upon her knees, in her old child-like position, and gazing up in the pale, wasted face for some minutes without speaking.

"There is no hope, mother," she said at last; "it must be."

Mrs Hallam sat without replying for some minutes; then, taking her child's face between her thin hands she bent down and pressed her lips upon the white forehead.

"Julie," she whispered, "I was wrong. I thought you loved Mr Eaton, and I believed that if you married him it would have cut this terrible knot."

Julia smiled softly, and with her eyes half closed. There was a curious, rapt expression in her sweet face, as if she were dreaming of some impossible joy. Then, as if rousing herself to action, she gave her dark curls a shake, and said quietly:

"If I had loved Mr Eaton it would only have cut the knot as far as I was concerned. Mother, he would have broken my heart."

"No, no; he loved you dearly."

"But he would have taken me from you. No: I did not love him, but I liked him very much. But there, we must think and be strong, for there is no hope, dear mother, now. You are right. And you will be firm and strong?"

"Yes," said Mrs Hallam, rising. "For your sake, my child--my child!"

VOLUME FOUR, CHAPTER FIFTEEN.

CRELLOCK ON GUARD.

That night, after the roughly-prepared meal that topic the place of dinner, and at which mother and daughter resumed their places as of old, Hallam sat for some time with Crellock talking in a low tone, while Mrs Hallam returned to the drawing-room with Julia, both looking perfectly calm and resigned to their fate.

At last Hallam rose, and followed by Crellock, crossed the hall and opened the drawing-room door, where his wife and child were seated with the light of the candles shining softly upon their bended heads.

"It will be all right," he muttered; and he turned round and faced Crellock, who smiled and nodded.

"Nothing like a little firmness," he said, smiling.

Then Crellock went into the verandah to smoke his cigar and play the part of watch-dog in case of some interruption to his plans; and, while Hallam employed himself in his old fashion, drinking himself drunk in the house of Alcohol his G.o.d, the dark calm evening became black night, and a moist, soft wind from the Pacific sighed gently among the trees.

Crellock walked round the house time after time, peering in at the windows, and each time he looked there was the heavy stolid face of Hallam staring before him at vacancy; on the other side of the house Julia gazing up into her mother's face as she knelt at her feet.

It must have been ten o'clock when, as Crellock once more made his round, he saw that Hallam was asleep, and that Mrs Hallam had taken up the candle still burning, and with Julia holding her hand, was looking round the room as if for a last good-night.

Then together they went to the door, hand in hand; the door closed; the light shone at the staircase window, then in their bedroom, where he watched it burn for about a quarter of an hour before it was extinguished, and all was dark.

"I shan't feel satisfied till I have her safe," he said, as he walked slowly back to his old look-out that commanded the road.

The wind came in stronger gusts now, for a few minutes, and then seemed to die quite away, while the clouds that overspread the sky grew so dense that it was hard to distinguish the trees and bushes a dozen yards from where he stood.

He finished his cigar, thinking out his plans the while, and at last coming to the conclusion that it was an unnecessary task this watching, he was about to make one more turn round the verandah, and then enter by the window and go to bed, when he fancied he heard a door close, as if blown by the wind that was once more sighing about the place.

"Just woke up, I suppose," he said, and he walked towards the study window and looked in.

Hallam had not moved, but was sleeping heavily in his old position.

Crellock listened again, but all was perfectly still. It could not have been fancy. Certainly he had heard a door bang softly, and the sound seemed to come from this direction.

He stood thinking, and then went round and tried the front door.

"Fast."

He walked round to the back door, following the verandah all the way, and found that door also fast.

"I couldn't have been mistaken," he said, as he listened again.

Once more the wind was sighing loudly about the place, but the noise was not repeated, and he walked on to the dining-room window; but as he laid his hand upon the gla.s.s door and thrust it open, a current of air rushed in, and there was the same sound: a door blew to with a slight bang.

Crellock closed and fastened the gla.s.s door as he stepped out and ran quickly round to the drawing-room, where it was as he suspected: the gla.s.s door similar to that he had just left was open, and blew to and fro.

"There's something wrong," he said excitedly, his suspicions being aroused; and, dashing in, he upset a chair in crossing the room, and it fell with a crash, but he hurried on into the hall, through to the study, and caught Hallam by the arm.