He walked towards the dining-room door. The sailor followed him, still bareheaded, still with a semi-bewildered expression in his dusky face.
“It ain’t the first time I’ve seen a man shot,” he thought; “but it’s the first time I’ve felt like this.”
Before Mr. Mellish could reach the dining-room, before the servants could disperse and return to their proper quarters, one of the half-glass doors, which had been left ajar, was pushed open by the light touch of a woman’s hand, and Aurora Mellish entered the hall.
“Ah, ha!” thought the ensign’s widow, who looked on at the scene, snugly sheltered by Mr. and Mrs. Lofthouse; “my lady is caught a second time in her evening rambles. What will he say to her goings-on tonight, I wonder?”
Aurora’s manner presented a singular contrast to the terror and agitation of the assembly in the hall. A vivid crimson flush glowed in her cheeks and lit up her shining eyes. She carried her head high, in that queenly defiance which was her peculiar grace. She walked with a light step; she moved with easy, careless gestures. It seemed as if some burden which she had long carried had been suddenly removed from her. But at sight of the crowd in the hall she drew back with a look of alarm.
“What has happened, John?” she cried; “what is wrong?”
He lifted his hand with a warning gesture—a gesture that plainly said: Whatever trouble or sorrow there may be, let her be spared the knowledge of it; let her be sheltered from the pain.
“Yes, my darling,” he answered quietly, taking her hand and leading her into the drawing-room; “there is something wrong. An accident has happened—in the wood yonder; but it concerns no one whom you care for. Go, dear; I will tell you all, by-and-by. Mrs. Lofthouse, you will take care of my wife. Lofthouse, come with me. Allow me to shut the door, Mrs. Powell, if you please,” he added to the ensign’s widow, who did not seem inclined to leave her post upon the threshold of the drawing-room. “Any curiosity which you may have about the business shall be satisfied in due time. For the present, you will oblige me by remaining with my wife and Mrs. Lofthouse.”
He paused, with his hand upon the drawing-room door, and looked at Aurora.
She was standing with her shawl upon her arm, watching her husband; and she advanced eagerly to him as she met his glance.
“John,” she exclaimed, “for mercy’s sake, tell me the truth! What is this accident?”
He was silent for a moment, gazing at her eager face—that face whose exquisite mobility expressed every thought; then, looking at her with a strange solemnity, he said gravely, “You were in the wood just now, Aurora?”
“I was,” she answered; “I have only just left the grounds. A man passed me, running violently, about a quarter of an hour ago. I thought he was a poacher. Was it to him the accident happened?”
“No. There was a shot fired in the wood some time since. Did you hear it?”
“I did,” replied Mrs. Mellish, looking at him with sudden terror and surprise. “I knew there were often poachers about near the road, and I was not alarmed by it. Was there anything wrong in that shot? Was anyone hurt?”
Her eyes were fixed upon his face, dilated with that look of wondering terror.
“Yes; a—a man was hurt.”
Aurora looked at him in silence—looked at him with a stony face, whose only expression was an utter bewilderment. Every other feeling seemed blotted away in that one sense of wonder.
John Mellish led her to a chair near Mrs. Lofthouse, who had been seated, with Mrs. Powell, at the other end of the room, close to the piano, and too far from the door to overhear the conversation which had just taken place between John and his wife. People do not talk very loudly in moments of intense agitation. They are liable to be deprived of some portion of their vocal power in the fearful crisis of terror or despair. A numbness seizes the organ of speech; a partial paralysis disables the ready tongue; the trembling lips refuse to do their duty. The soft pedal of the human instrument is down, and the tones are feeble and muffled, wandering into weak minor shrillness, or sinking to husky basses, beyond the ordinary compass of the speaker’s voice. The stentorian accents in which Claude Melnotte bids adieu to Mademoiselle Deschapelles mingle very effectively with the brazen clamour of the Marseillaise Hymn; the sonorous tones in which Mistress Julia appeals to her Hunchback guardian are pretty sure to bring down the approving thunder of the eighteenpenny gallery; but I doubt if the noisy energy of stage-grief is true to nature, however wise in art. I’m afraid that an actor who would play Claude Melnotte with a pre-Raphaelite fidelity to nature would be an insufferable bore, and utterly inaudible beyond the third row in the pit. The artist must draw his own line between nature and art, and map out the extent of his own territory. If he finds that cream-coloured marble is more artistically beautiful than a rigid presentment of actual flesh and blood, let him stain his marble of that delicate hue until the end of time. If he can represent five acts of agony and despair without once turning his back to his audience or sitting down, let him do it. If he is conscientiously true to his art, let him choose for himself how true he shall be to nature.
John Mellish took his wife’s hand in his own, and grasped it with a convulsive pressure that almost crushed the delicate fingers.
“Stay here, my dear, till I come back to you,” he said. “Now, Lofthouse!”
Mr. Lofthouse followed his friend into the hall, where Colonel Maddison had been making the best use of his time by questioning the merchant-captain.
“Come, gentlemen,” said John, leading the
