The man handed the reins to his companion, and then dismounted and opened these gates. John Treverton drove slowly into a winding carriage drive that led up to the house, a great red brick mansion with many long narrow windows, and a massive carved stone shell over the door, which was approached on each side by a flight of broad stone steps.
There was light enough from the stars for John Treverton to see all this as he drove slowly up to the hall door. His coming had evidently been awaited anxiously, as the door was opened before he had alighted from the gig, and an old manservant peered out into the night. He opened the door wide when he saw John Treverton. The gardener—or groom, whichever he might happen to be—led the gig slowly away to a gate at the side of the house, opening into a stable yard. John Treverton went into the hall, which looked very bright and cheerful after his dreary drive—a great square hall hung with family portraits and old armour, and with crimson sheepskins and tawny hides of savage beasts lying about on the black and white marble pavement. There was a roomy old fireplace on one side of this hall, with a great fire burning in it, a fire which was welcome as meat and drink to a traveller this cold night. There were ponderous carved oak chairs with dark red velvet cushions, looking more comfortable and better adapted for the repose of the human frame than such chairs are wont to be, and at the end of the hall there was a great antique buffet adorned with curious bowls and bottle-shaped jars in Oriental China.
John Treverton had time to see these things as he sat before the fire with his long legs stretched out upon the hearth, while the old servant went to announce his arrival to Miss Malcolm.
“A pleasant old place,” he said to himself. “And to think of my never having seen it before, thanks to my father’s folly in having quarrelled with old Jasper Treverton, and never having taken the trouble to heal the breach, as he might have done, I daresay, with some slight exercise of diplomacy. I wonder whether the old fellow is very rich. Such a place as this might be kept up on a couple of thousand a year, but I have a notion that Jasper Treverton has six times as much as that.”
The old butler came downstairs in about five minutes to say that Miss Malcolm would be pleased to see Mr. Treverton, if he liked. His master had fallen asleep, and was sleeping more peacefully than he had done for some time.
John Treverton followed the man up a broad staircase with massive oak bannisters. Here, as in the hall, there were family portraits on the walls, and armour and old china in every available corner. At the top of this staircase was a gallery, lighted by a lantern in the roof, and with numerous doors opening out of it. The butler opened one of these doors and ushered John Treverton into a bright looking lamplit sitting room, with panelled walls. A heavy green damask curtain hung before a door opening into an adjoining room. The mantelpiece was high, and exquisitely carved with flowers and cupids, and was ornamented by a row of eggshell cups and saucers, and the quaintest of oriental teapots. The room had a comfortable homelike look, John Treverton thought—a look that struck him all the more perhaps because he had no settled home of his own, nor had ever known one since his boyhood.
A lady was sitting by the fire, dressed in a dark blue gown, which contrasted wonderfully with the auburn tints of her hair, and the transparent pallor of her complexion. As she rose and turned her face towards John Treverton, he saw that she was, indeed, a very beautiful young woman, and there was something in her beauty which took him a little by surprise, in spite of what he had heard from his companion in the gig.
“Thank God you have come in time, Mr. Treverton,” she said earnestly, an earnestness which John Treverton was inclined to consider hypocritical. What interest could she have in his arrival? What feeling could there be between them but jealousy?
“I suppose she feels so secure about the old man’s will that she can afford to be civil,” he thought as he seated himself by the fireside, after two or three polite commonplaces about his journey.
“There is no hope of my cousin’s recovery, I suppose?” he hazarded presently.
“Not the faintest,” Laura Malcolm answered, very sadly. “The London physician was here for the last time today. He has been down every week for the last two months. He said today that there would be no occasion for him to come any more; he did not think papa—I have always called your cousin by that name—could live through the night. He has been less restless and troubled since then, and he is now sleeping very quietly. He may linger a little longer than the physician seemed to think likely; but beyond that I have no hope whatever.”
This was said with a quiet, restrained manner that was more indicative of sorrow than any demonstrative lamentation could have been. There was something almost like despair in the girl’s look and tone—a dreary hopelessness—as if there were nothing left for her in life when the friend and protector of her girlhood should be taken from her. John Treverton watched her closely as she sat looking at the fire, with her dark eyes shrouded by their long lashes. Yes, she was very beautiful. That was a fact about which there was no possibility of doubt. Those large hazel eyes alone would have given a charm to the plainest face, and in this face
