on his own account to have a good view of the fire. As he approached it he was stopped and hailed by Reid Summers. 'Have you got a fare?' 'Pray stop a moment.' As Reid didn't look like a highwayman, the cabby stopped. Before, however, Reid could approach to put his and Norah's case so pitifully as to induce the fare to share with them the cab till they reached some place where they could get one for themselves, Maurice, putting his head out to ascertain the meaning of the stoppage, recognised him by the light of the fire. Leaping from the cab, he cried almost savagely, 'Where's Miss Wyndham ?' Reid, not recognising him for a moment, stared at him in a bewilderment which Maurice took for confusion. Where is she?' he asked again more imperiously. 'Oh, Mr. Studdert,' replied Reid, recollecting at last the face and name. He had not the least wish for a quarrel with this lunatic, whose violent potitics and rhetoric at Miles' dinnertable he had good reason to remember. Therefore he said quietly, I really do not know where she is exactly; but she can't be far. I left her in a safe place, while I went to look out for a house to take her to; but when I returned she was gone. I've been searching for her everywhere for the last half-hour or more,' he added, looking all round as he spoke, and then breaking off to exclaim: There she is in the very middle of it!' Then Maurice, taking in the situation at a glance, hurried headlong to her rescue. So it came about that Maurice descended (from a cab) as a Deus ex machinâ. 203 CHAPTER XXVII. ALL IN THE DARK. What, man! ne'er pull your hat upon your brows; Macbeth. THE last chapter explains not only Maurice's appearance, but his manner to Norah. He was as certain of her childlike innocence in the affair as he was of his own very existence, but he was equally certain now of her infatuated love for Reid Summers. That she should fall into such a depth of love in such headlong haste, and with such a base object as this fellow had just shown himself to be, was sufficient degradation for a girl who had been his ideal of womanly perfection. Hence the rough scorn of his manner, which was all the more pronounced because he was struggling desperately at the moment with his yearning and unconquerable love for her. his But this very struggle raised to white heat rage with Reid Summers. He had sufficient self-restraint to repress the open expression of it in Norah's presence, but he was able to repress it only through the hope of an early opportunity of letting the fellow know what he thought of his infamous conduct. He would, in his present mood, most certainly have horsewhipped him, if the redress of a duel had been open to his rival. We may safely leave, therefore, to the reader's imagination the pleasantness of the party that returned together in the cab to Brixome-Maurice sullen to savageness; Norah miserable in the thoughts of her father's anxiety and of the estrangement of Maurice; Reid, who was a mere grown-up spoiled child, thinking himself cruelly ill-used on all sidesby Norah, by fortune, and by the silent and scowling insolence of this Irish lunatic. He felt as though he was in a powder factory, through which he must walk delicately without a nail in his boots or a match in his pockets. As he had met Maurice but once before, and had found him then nearly as furious as now, he imagined this to be his ordinary temper and temperature-212°. Therefore he thought silence safest, and ventured only upon one remark during the drive. I suppose we must stay to-night at Brixome.' But even of this mild suggestion he repented, when Maurice replied to it by thrusting his head out of the window to shout to the driver, Drive to the station.' He would restore Norah to her father that night, if he had to charter a special train from Brixome to Springthorpe. 6 6 Nor was Norah much more fortunate in the replies she received from him. 'Have you seen father?' No; he was away.' 'He will be miserable about me.' |