 Chapter 23 of Aurora Floyd. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Reading done by Jules Harlech of Mississauga, Ontario, Canada. Aurora Floyd by Mary Elizabeth Braddon. Chapter 23 on the threshold of darker miseries. John went straight to his own apartments to look for his wife, but he found the guns put back in their usual places and the room empty. Aurora's maid, a smartly dressed girl, came tripping out of the servants hall where the rattling of knives and forks announced that a very substantial dinner was being done substantial justice to. To answer John's eager inquiries, she told him that Mrs. Millish had complained of a headache and had gone to her room to lie down. John went upstairs and crept cautiously along the carpeted corridor, fearful of every footfall, which might break the repose of his wife. The door of her dressing room was ajar. He pushed it softly open and went in. Aurora was lying upon the sofa, wrapped in a loose white dressing gown. Her masses of ebb and hair uncoiled and falling about her shoulders in serpentine tresses that looked like shining blue-black snakes released from poor Medusa's head to make their escape amid the folds of her garments. Heaven knows what a strange asleep may have been for many a night to Mrs. Millish's pillow, but she had fallen into a heavy slumber on this hot summer day. Her cheeks were flushed with a feverish crimson and one small hand lay under her head, twisted in the tangled masses of her glorious hair. John bent over her with a tender smile. Poor girl, he thought. Thank God she can sleep. In spite of the miserable secrets which have come between us, Talbot Bollstrowed left her because he could not bear the agony that I am suffering now. What cause had he to doubt her? What cause compared to that which I have had a fortnight ago the other night this morning and yet and yet I trust her and will trust her, please God, to the very end. He seated himself in a low easy chair close beside the sofa upon which his sleeping wife lay and, resting his head upon his arm, watched her, thought of her, perhaps prayed for her and after a while fell asleep, snoring in base harmony with Aurora's regular breathing. He slept and snored this horrible man in the hour of his trouble and behaved himself altogether in a manner most unbecoming in a hero. But then he is not a hero. He is stout and strongly built with a fine broad chest and an unromantically robust health. There is more chance of his dying of apoplexy than of fading gracefully in a decline or breaking a blood vessel in a moment of intense emotion. He sleeps calmly with a warm July air floating in upon him from the open window and comforting him with its balmy breath and he fully enjoys the rest of body and mind. Yet even in his tranquil slumber there is a vague something, some lingering shadow of the bitter memories which sleep has put away from him that fills his breath with a dull pain, an oppressive heaviness which cannot be shaken off. He slept until half a dozen different clocks in the rambling old house had come to one conclusion and declared it to be five in the afternoon and he woke with a start to find his wife watching him. Heaven knows how intently with her black eyes filled with solemn thought and a strange earnestness in her face. My poor John, she said, bending her beautiful head and resting her burning forehead upon his hand. How tired you must have been to sleep so soundly in the middle of the day. I have been awake for nearly an hour watching you. Watching me? Lolly? Why? And thinking how good you are to me. Oh John, John, what can I ever do? What can I ever do to atone to you for all? Be happy, Aurora, he said huskily. Be happy and and send that man away. I will, John. He shall go soon, dear tonight. What? Then that letter was to dismiss him, asked Mr. Melish. You know that I wrote to him. Yes, darling, it was to dismiss him. Say that it was so, Aurora. Pay him what money you like to keep the secret that he discovered, but send him away. Lolly, send him away. The sight of him is hateful to me. Dismiss him, Aurora, or I must do so myself. He rose in his passionate excitement, but Aurora laid her hands softly upon his arm. Leave all to me, she said quietly. Believe me that I will act for the best. For the best, at least, if you couldn't bear to lose me and you couldn't bear that, could you, John? Lose you, my God, Aurora. Why do you say such things to me? I wouldn't lose you. Do you hear, Lolly? I wouldn't. I'd follow you to the farthest end of the universe and haven't take pity upon those that came between us. His set teeth, the fierce light in his eyes, and the iron rigidity of his mouth gave an emphasis to his words, which my pen could never give if I used every epithet in the English language. Aurora rose from her sofa and, twisting her hair into a thickly rolled mass at the back of her head, seated herself near the window and pushed back the Venetian shudder. These people dine here today, John, she asked listlessly. The loft houses and Colonel Madison. Yes, darling, and it's ever so much past five. Shall I ring for your afternoon cup of tea? Yes, dear, and take some with me, if you will. I'm afraid that in his inmost heart Mr. Mellish did not cherish any very great affection for the decotions of bond he and gun powder with which his wife doused him. But he would have dined upon cod liver oil had she served the banquet. And he strung his nerves to their extreme tension at her supreme pleasure and affected to highly relish the post meridian dishes of tea which his wife poured out to him in the sacred seclusion of her dressing room. Mrs. Powell heard the comfortable sound of the clinking of the thin egged shell china and the rattling of the spoons as she passed the half open door on her way to her own apartment and was mutely furious as she thought that love and harmony reigned within the chamber where the husband and wife sat at tea. Aurora went down to the drawing room an hour after this gorgeous in maze colored silk and voluminous flouncing of black lace with her hair plated in a diadem upon her head and fastened with three diamond stars which John had bought for her in the rude did a plow and which were cunningly fixed upon wire springs which caused them to vibrate with every chance movement of her beautiful head. You will say perhaps that she was arrayed too godly for the reception of an old Indian officer and a country clergyman and his wife but if she loved handsome dresses better than simpler attire it was from no taste for display but rather from an innate love of splendor and expenditure which was part of her expansive nature. She had always been taught to think of herself as Miss Floyd the banker's daughter and she had been taught also to spend money as a duty which she owed to society. Mrs. Lofthouse was a pretty little woman with a pale face and haze lies. She was the youngest daughter of Colonel Madison and was by birth you know my dear far superior to poor Mrs. Melish who in spite of her wealth is only etc etc etc as Margaret Lofthouse remarked to her female acquaintance. She could not very easily forget that her father was the younger brother of a baronet and had distinguished himself in some terrific manner by bloodthirsty demolition of Sikhs far away in the intractable East and she thought it rather hard that Aurora should possess such cruel advantages through some petty fogging commercial genius on the part of her Glasgow ancestors. But as it was impossible for honest people to know Aurora without loving her Mrs. Lofthouse hardly forgave her her 50,000 pounds and declared her to be the dearest darling in the wide world. While Mrs. Melish freely returned her friendliness and caressed the little woman as she had caressed Lucy bull strolled with a superb yet affectionate condescension such as Cleopatra might have had for her handmaidens. The dinner went off pleasantly enough. Colonel Madison attacked the side dishes specially provided for him and praised the Melish park cook. Mr. Lofthouse explained to Aurora the plan of a new schoolhouse which Mrs. Melish was going to build for her husband's parish. She listened patiently to the rather weary some details in which a bakehouse and a wash house and a tutor chimney seemed to be the leading features. She had heard so much of this before for there was scarcely a church or a hospital or a model lodging house or a refuge for any misery or destitution whatever that had been lately elevated to adorn this earth for which the banker's daughter had not helped to pay. But her heart was wide enough for them all and she was always glad to hear of the bakehouse and the wash house and the tutor chimney all over again. If she was a little less interested upon this occasion than usual Mr. Lofthouse did not observe her inattention for in the simple earnestness of his own mind he thought it's scarcely possible that the schoolhouse topic could fail to be interesting. Nothing is so difficult as to make people understand that you don't care for what they themselves especially affect. John Melish could not believe that the entries for the great Ebor were not interesting to Mr. Lofthouse and the country clergyman was fully convinced that the details of his philanthropic schemes for the regeneration of his parish could not be otherwise than delightful to his host. But the master of Melish Park was very silent and sat with his glass in his hand looking across the dinner table and Mrs. Lofthouse's head at the sunlit treetops between the lawn and the North Lodge. Aurora from her end of the table saw that gloomy glance and a resolute shadow darkened her face expressive of this strengthening of some rooted purpose deep hidden in her heart. She sat long at dessert with her eyes fixed upon an apricot in her plate and the shadow upon her face deepening every moment that poor Mrs. Lofthouse was in utter despair of getting the significant look which was to release her from the bondage of hearing her father's stories of tiger shooting and pig sticking for the two or three hundredth time. Perhaps she never would have got that feminine signal had not Mrs. Powell with a little significant hmm make some observation about the sinking sun. The in science widow was one of those people who declared that there is a perceptible difference in the length of the days upon the 23rd or the 24th of June and who go on in announcing the same fact until the long winter evenings come with the 21st of December and it is time for them to declare the converse of their late proposition. It was some remark of this kind that aroused Mrs. Melish from her reverie and caused her to start up suddenly quite forgetful of the conventional simpering back to her guest. Past eight she said no it's surely not so late. Yes it is lolly John Melish answered looking at his watch a quarter past. Indeed I beg your pardon Mrs. Lofthouse shall we go into the drawing room? Yes dear do said the clergyman's wife and let's have a nice chat. Papa will drink too much claret if he tells the pig sticking stories she added in a confidential whisper. Ask your dear kind husband not to let him have too much claret because he's sure to suffer with his liver tomorrow and say that Lofthouse ought to have restrained him. He always says that it's poor Reginald's fault for not restraining him. John looked anxiously after his wife as he stood with the door in his hand while the three ladies crossed the hall. He bit his lip as he noticed Mrs. Powell's unpleasantly precise figure close at Aurora's shoulder. I think I spoke pretty plainly though this morning he thought as he closed the door and returned to his friends. A quarter past eight 20 minutes past five and 20 minutes past Mrs. Lofthouse was rather a brilliant pianist and was never happier than when interpreting Thalberg and Benedict upon her friends Colliard and Colliards. They were old-fashioned people round Don Caster who believed in Colliard and Colliard and were thankful for the melody to be got out of a good honest grand in a solid rosewood case unadorned with carved glorifications or ormaloo fretwork. At seven and 20 minutes past eight Mrs. Lofthouse was seated at Aurora's piano in the first agonies of a prelude in six flats a prelude which demanded such extraordinary uses of the left hand across the right and the right over the left and such exercise of the thumbs in all sorts of positions in which according to all orthodox theories of the pre Thalbergite school no pianist thumbs should ever be used that Mrs. Mellish felt that her friend's attention was not very likely to wander from the keys. Within the long low-roofed drawing room at Mellish there was a snug little apartment hung with innocent rosewood sprinkled chintzes and furnished with maple wood chairs and tables. Mrs. Lofthouse had not been seated at the piano more than five minutes when Aurora strolled from the drawing room to this inner chamber leaving her guest with no audience but Mrs. Powell. She lingered for a moment on the threshold to look back at the ensigns widow who sat near the piano in a attitude of wrapped attention. She is watching me thought Aurora though her pink eyelids are drooping over her eyes and she seems to be looking at the border of her pocket handkerchief. She sees me with her chin or her nose perhaps how do I know she's all eyes bah am I going to be afraid of her when I was never afraid of him what should I fear except her head changed from its defiant attitude to a drooping posture and a sad smile curved her crimson lips except to make you unhappy my dear my husband yes with a sudden lifting of her head and resumption of its proud defiance my own true husband the husband who has kept his marriage vow as unpolluted as when first it issued from his lips I am writing what she thought remember not what she said for she was not in the habit of thinking aloud nor did I ever know anybody who was. Aurora took up a shell that she had flung upon the sofa and threw it lightly over her head veiling herself with a cloud of black lace through which the restless shivering diamonds shone out like stars in a midnight sky she looked like heck out as she stood in the threshold of the french window lingering for a moment with a deep blade purpose in her heart and a resolute light in her eyes the clock in the steeple of the village church struck three quarters after eight while she lingered for those few moments as the last chime died away in the summer air she looked up darkly at the evening sky and walked with a rapid footstep out upon the lawn toward this southern end of the wood that bordered the park end of chapter 23 on the threshold of darker miseries chapter 24 of Aurora Floyd this is a LibriVox recording all LibriVox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org reading done by Jules Harlick of Mississauga Ontario Canada Aurora Floyd by Mary Elizabeth Braden chapter 24 Captain Prodder carries bad news to his niece's house while Aurora stood upon the threshold of the open window a man was lingering upon the broad stone steps before the door of the entrance hall remonstrating with one of John Melish's servants who held supercilious parley with the intruder and kept him at arm's length with the contemptuous indifference of a well-bred servant the stranger was Captain Samuel Prodder who had arrived at Doncaster late in the afternoon had dined at the reindeer and had come over to Melish Park in a gig driven by a hangar on of that establishment the gig and the hangar on were both in waiting at the bottom of the steps and if there had been anything wanting to turn the balance of the footman's contempt for Captain Prodder's blue coat loose shirt collar and silver watch chain the gig from the reindeer would have done it yes Mrs. Melish is at home the gentleman in the plush replied after surveying the sea captain with a leisurely and critical air which was rather provoking to poor Samuel but she's engaged but perhaps she'll put off her engagement for a bit when she hears who it is as wants to see her answered the captain diving into his capacious pocket she'll tell a different story I dare say when you take her that bit of paste board he handed the man a card or rather let me say a stiff square of thick paste board inscribed with his name so disguised by the flourishing caprices of the engraver as to be not very easily deciphered by unaccustomed eyes the cardboard Captain Prodder's address as well as his name and informed his acquaintances that he was part owner of the Nancy Jane and that all consignments of goods were to be made to him at etc etc the footman took the document between his thumb and finger and examined it as minutely as if it had been some relic of the middle ages a new light dawned upon him as he deciphered the information about the Nancy Jane and he looked at the captain for the first time with some approach to human interest in his continents is it cigars you want to dispose of he asked or bandanas if it's cigars you might come round to our all and show us the article cigars roared Samuel prodder do you take me for a smuggler you here followed one of those hardy seafaring epithets with which polite mr chucks was apt to finish his speeches I'm your missus's own uncle least the way I knew her mother when she was a little gal he added inconsiderable confusion for he remembered how far away his seam captainship thrust him from mrs melish and her well-born husband so just take her at my carton and look sharp about it will you leave a dinner party the footman said coldly and I don't know if the ladies have returned to the drawing room but if you're anyways related to mrs I'll go and see the man strolled leisurely away leaving poor Samuel biting his nails and mutated vexation at having let slip that ugly fact of her relationship that swab in the same cut coat as lord Nelson wore aboard the victory will look down upon her now he knows she's nice to an old sea captain that carries dry goods on commission and can't keep his tongue between his teeth he thought the footman came back while Samuel prodder was upgrading himself for his folly and informed him that mrs melish was not to be found in the house who's that playing upon the piano then asked mr prodder with skeptical bluntness oh that's the clergyman's wife answered the man contemptuously a kitty wong goodness I should thank for she plays too well for a real lady mrs don't play least away only pow liquors and that sort of thing good night he closed the two half glass doors upon captain prodder without further ceremony and shut Samuel out of his niece's house to think that I played hopscotch and swapped marbles for heartbreak with this gals mother thought the captain and that her servant turns up his nose at me and shuts the door in my face it was in sorrow rather than in anger that the disappointed sailor thought this he had scarcely hoped for anything better it was only natural that those about his niece should float at and contemptuously entreat him let him get to her let him come only for a moment face to face with Eliza's child and he did not fear the issue I'll walk through the park he said to the man who had driven him from Don Caster it's a nice evening and there's a pleasant walks under the trees to the wintered you can drive back to the high road and wait for me again that air turnstile I took notice of as we come along the driver nodded smacked his whip and drove his elderly gray pony toward the park gates captain Samuel prodder went slowly and deliberately enough the way that it was appointed for him to go the park was a strange territory to him but while driving past the outer boundaries he had looked admiringly at chance openings in the wood revealing grassy ampy theaters enriched by spreading oaks whose branches made a shadowy tracery upon the sunlit turf he had looked with a seaman's wonder at the inland beauties of the quiet domain and had pondered whether it might not be a pleasant thing for an old sailor to end his days amid such monotonous woodland tranquility far away from the sound of wreck and tempest and the mighty voices of the dreadful deep and in his disappointment at not seeing aurora it was some a consolation to the captain to walk across the dewy grass in the evening shadows in the direction where with the sailor's unerring topographical instinct he knew the turnstile must be situated perhaps he had some hope of meeting his niece in the pathway across the park the man had told him that she was out she could not be far away as there was a dinner party at the house and she was scarcely likely to leave her guests she was wandering about the park most likely with some of them the shadows of the trees grew darker upon the grass as captain prodder drew nearer to the wood but it was that sweet summer time in which there is scarcely one positively dark hour among the 24 and though the village clock chimed the half hour after nine as the sailor entered the wood he was able to distinguish the outlines of two figures advancing toward him from the other end of the long arcade that led in a slanting direction to the turnstile the figures were those of a man and a woman the woman wearing some light colored dress which shimmered in the dusk the man leaning on a stick and obviously very lame is it my niece and one of her visitors thought the captain maybe it is i'll lay by the port of them and let them pass me samuel prodder stepped aside under the shadow of the trees to the left of the grassy avenue through which the two figures were approaching and waited patiently until they drew near enough for him to distinguish the woman's face the woman was mrs melish and she was walking on the left of the man and was therefore nearest to the captain her head was turned away from her companion as if in utter scorn and defiance of him although she was talking to him at that moment her face proud pale and disdainful was visible to the semen in the chill shadowy light of the newly risen moon a low line of crimson behind the black trunks of a distant group of trees marked where the sun had left its last track in a vivid streak that looked like blood captain prodder gazed in loving wonder at the beautiful face turned toward him he saw the dark eyes with their somber depth dark and anger and scorn and the luminous shimmer of the jewels that shone through the black veil upon her haughty head he saw her and his heart grew chill at the sight of her pale beauty in the mysterious moonlight it might be my sister's ghost he thought coming upon me in this quiet place it's the most difficult to believe as its flesh and blood he would have advanced perhaps and addressed his niece had he not been held back by the words which he was speaking as she passed him words that jarred painfully upon his heart telling as they did of anger and bitterness discord and misery yes hey cue she said in a clear voice which seemed to vibrate sharply in the dusk hate you hate you hate you she repeated the hard phrase as if there were some pleasure and delight in uttering it which in her ungovernable anger she could not deny herself what other words do you expect from me she cried with a low mocking laugh which had a tone of deeper misery and more utter hopelessness than any outbreak of womanly weeping would you have me love you or respect you or tolerate you her voice rose with each rapid question merging into an hysterical sob but never melting into tears would you have me tell you anything else than what i tell you tonight i hate and abhor you i look upon you as a primary cause of every sorrow i have ever known of every tear i have ever shed of every humiliation i have ever endured every sleepless night every weary day every despairing hour i have ever passed more than this yes a thousand thousand times more i look upon you as the first cause of my father's wretchedness yes even before my own mad folly and believing in you and thinking you what claud melnut perhaps a curse upon the man who wrote the play and the player who acted in it if it helped to make me what i was when i met you i say again i hate you your present poisons my home your abhorred shadow haunts my sleep no not my sleep for how should i ever sleep knowing that you are near mr conures being apparently weary of walking leaned against the trunk of a tree to listen to the end of this outbreak looking insolent defiance at the speaker but aurora's passion had reached that point in which all consciousness of external things passes away in the complete egoism of anger and hate she did not see his superciliously indifferent look her dilated eyes stared straight before her into the dark recess from which captain prodder watched his sister's only child her restless hands rent the fragile border of her shawl in the strong agony of her passion have you ever seen this kind of woman in a passion impulsive nervous sensitive sanguine with such a one passion is a madness brief thank heavens and expending itself in sharply cruel words and convulsive rendings of laces and ribbons or corners juries might have to sit even oftener than they do it is fortunate for mankind that speaking daggers is often quite as as great a satisfaction to us as using them and that we can threaten very cruel things without meaning to carry them out like the little children who say won't i just tell your mother and the terrible editors who write won't i give you a castigation in the market deepening spirit of the times or the walton on the nays anthonium if you are going to give us much more of this sort of thing said mr conures with aggravating solidity perhaps you won't object to my lighting a cigar aurora took no notice of his quiet insolence but captain prodder involuntarily clenching his fists bounded a step forward in his retreat and shook the leaves of the underwood about his legs what's that exclaimed the trainer my dog perhaps answered aurora he's about here with me cursed the purr blanker muttered mr conures with an unlighted cigar in his mouth he struck a lucifer match against the bark of a tree and the vivid sulfurous light shone full upon his handsome face a rascal thought captain prodder a good looking heartless scoundrel what's this between my niece and him he isn't her husband surely for he don't look like a gentleman but if he ain't her husband who is he the sailor scratched his head in his bewilderment his senses had been almost stupefied by aurora's passionate talk and he had only a confused feeling that there was trouble and wretchedness of some kind or other around and about his niece if i thought he'd done anything to injure her he muttered i'd pound him into such a jelly that his friends would never know his handsome face again as long as there was life in his carcass mr conures threw away the burning match and puffed at his newly lighted cigar he did not trouble himself to take it from his lips as he addressed aurora but spoke between his teeth and smoked in the pauses of his discourse perhaps if you've calmed yourself down a bit he said you'll be as good as to come to business what do you want me to do you know as well as i do answer dorora you want me to leave this place yes forever and to take what you give me and be satisfied yes what if i refuse she turned sharply upon him as he asked this question and looked at him for a few moments in silence what if i refuse he repeated still smoking look to yourself she cried between her set teeth that's all look to yourself what you'd kill me i suppose no answered aurora but i tell all and get the release which i ought to have sought for two years ago oh to be sure said mr conures a pleasant thing for mr melish and our poor papa and a nice bit of gossip for the newspapers i've got a good mind to put you to the test and see if you pluck enough to do it mad lady she stamped her foot upon the turf and tore the lace in her hands throwing the fragments away from her but she did not answer him you'd like to stab me or shoot me or strangle me as i stand here wouldn't you now ask the trainer mockingly yes cried aurora i would she flung her head back with a gesture of disdain as she spoke why do i waste my time in talking to you she said my worst words can inflict no wound upon such a nature as yours my scorn is no more painful to you than it would be to any of the lonesome creatures that creep about the margin of yonder pool the trainer took his cigar from his mouth and struck the ashes away with his little finger no he said with a contemptuous laugh i'm not very thin skinned and i'm pretty well used to this sort of thing into the bargain but suppose as i remark just now we drop this style of conversation and come to business we don't seem to be getting on very fast this way at this juncture captain prodder who in his extreme desire to strangle his niece's companion had advanced very close upon the two speakers knocked off his hat against the lower branches of the tree which sheltered him there was no mistake this time about the rustling of the leaves the trainer started and limped toward captain prodder's hiding place there's someone listening to us he said i'm sure of it this time that fellow Hargraves perhaps i fancy he's a sneak mr. Conyers supported himself against the very tree behind which the sailor stood and beat among the underground with his stick but did not succeed in encountering the legs of the listener if that soft-headed fool is playing the spy upon me cried the trainer savagely he'd better not let me catch him for i'll make him remember it if i do don't i tell you that my dog followed me here exclaimed aurora contemptuously a little rustling of the grass on the other side of the avenue and at some distance from the seamen's place of concealment was heard as mrs. melish spoke that's your dog if you like said the trainer the other was a man come on a little way farther and let's make a finish of this business it's past 10 o'clock mr. Conyers was right the church clock had struck 10 five minutes before but the solemn chimes had fallen unheeded upon auroras here lost amid the angry voices raging in her breast she started as she looked around her at the summer darkness in the woods and the flaming yellow moon which brooded low upon the earth and shed no light upon the mysterious pathways and the water pools in the wood the trainer limped away aurora walking by his side yet holding herself as far aloof from him as the grassy pathway would allow they were out of hearing and almost out of sight before the sea captain could emerge from the state of other stupid faction so far as to be able to look at the business in its right bearings i ought to have knocked him down he muttered at last whether he's her husband or whether he isn't i ought to have knocked him down and i would have done it too added the captain resolutely if it hadn't been that my niece seemed to have a good fiery spirit of her own and to be able to fire a jolly good broadside in the way of hard words i'll find my skull thatcher if i can set captain prodder groping first hat among the brambles and the long grass and then i'll just run up to the turnstile and tell my mate to lay at anchor a bit longer with the horse and shea he'll be wondering what i'm up to but i won't go back just yet i'll keep in the way of my niece and that swab with the game leg the captain found his hat and walked down to the turnstile where he found the young man from the reindeer fast asleep with the reins loose in his hands and his head upon his knees the horse with his head in an empty nose bag seemed as fast asleep as the driver the young man woke at the sound of the turnstile creaking upon its axis and the step of the sailor in the road i ain't going to get aboard just yet said captain prodder i'll take another turn in the wood as the evening so pleasant i've come to tell you i wouldn't keep you much longer for i thought you'd think i was dead i did a most answer the charioteer candidly my word ain't you been at time i met mr and mrs melish in the wood said the captain and i stopped to have a look at him she's a bit of a spitfire ain't she as samuel with affected carelessness the young man from the reindeer shook his head dubiously i don't know about that he said she's a rare favorite hereabouts with poor folks and gentry too they do say as she horse ripped a poor long chap as they got in the stables for ill using her dog and serves him right too added the young man decisively them softies is all as vicious captain prodder pondered rather doubtfully upon this piece of information he was not particularly elated by the image of his sister's child laying a horse whip upon the shoulders of her half-witted servant this trifling incident didn't exactly harmonize with his idea of the beautiful eras playing upon all manner of instruments and speaking half a dozen languages yes repeated the driver they do say as she gave it to fondy a good whopping them and damned if i don't admire her for it aye i answered captain prodder thoughtfully mr melish walks lame don't he he asked after a pause lame cried the driver lord bless your heart not a bit of it john melish is as fine a young man as you'll meet in this riding i and finer too i ought to know i've seen him walk into our house often enough in the race week the captain's heart sank strangely at this information the man with whom he had heard his niece quarreling was not her husband then the squabble had seemed natural enough to the uninitiated sailor while he looked at it in a matrimonial light but seen from another aspect it struck sudden terror to his sturdy heart and blanched the ruddy hues in his brown face who was he then he thought who was it as my niece was talking to after dark alone a mile off her own home a before he could seek for a solution to the unuttered question which agitated and alarmed him the report of a pistol rang sharply through the wood and found an echo under the distant hill the horse pricked up his ears and jibbed a few paces the driver gave a low whistle i thought so he said poachers this side of the woods chock full of game and though squire melis is always threatened to prosecute him folks know pretty well as he'll never do it the broad-shouldered strong limb sailor leaned against the turnstile trembling in every limb what was that which his niece had said a quarter of an hour before when the man had asked her whether she would like to shoot him leave your horse he said in a gasping voice tie him to the style and come with me if if its poachers will will catch him the young man looped the reins across the turnstile he had no very great terror of any inclination for flight latent in the gray horse from the reindeer the two men ran into the wood the captain running in the direction in which his sharp ears told him the shot had been fired the moon was slowly rising in the tranquil heavens but there was very little light yet in the wood the captain stopped near a rustic summer house falling into decay and half buried amid the tangled foliage that clustered about the moldering thatch and the dilapidated woodwork it was here about the shot was fired muttered the captain about a hundred-yard du Nord of the style i could take my oath as it weren't far from this spot i'm standing on he looked about him in the dim light he could see no one but an army might have hidden among the trees that encircled the open patch of turf on which the summer house had been built he listened with his hat off and his big hand pressed tightly on his heart as if to still its tumultuous beating he listened as eagerly as he had often listened far out on a glassy sea for the first faint breath of a rising wind but he could hear nothing except the occasional croaking of the frogs in the pond near the summer house i could have sworn it was about here the shot was fired he repeated god grant as it was poachers after all but it's given me a turn that's made me feel like some cockney lover aboard a steamer between sprixle and cork lord what a blessed old fool i am muttered the captain after walking slowly round the summer house to convince himself that there was no one hidden in it one i'd think i'd never heard the sound of a hot bird of powder before tonight he put on his hat and walked a few paces forward still looking about cautiously and still listening but much easier in his mind than when first he had re-entered the wood he stooped suddenly arrested by a sound which has of itself without any reference to its power of association a mysterious and chilling influence upon the human heart this sound was the howling of a dog the prolonged monotonous howling of a dog a cold sweat broke out upon the sailor's forehead that sound always one of terror to his superstitious nature was doubly terrible tonight it means death he muttered with a groan no dog ever howled like that except for death he turned back and looked about him the moonlight glimmered faintly upon the broad patch of stagnant water near the summer house and upon its brink the captain saw two figures black against the summer atmosphere a prostrate figure lying close to the edge of the water and a large dog with his head uplifted to the sky howling piteously it was the bounden duty of poor john melish in his capacity of host to sit at the head of the table past the cleric jug and listen to colonel madison's stories of the pig sticking and the tiger hunting as long as the indian officer chose to talk for the amusement of his friends and his son-in-law it was perhaps lucky that patient mr loft house was well up in all the stories and knew exactly which departments of each narrative were to be laughed at and which were to be listened with silence and ostrich and attention for john melish made a very bad audience upon this occasion he pushed the filberts toward the colonel at the very moment when the tiger was crouching for a spring upon the rising ground exactly above us sir and when by jove charlie madison felt himself at pretty close quarters with the enemy sir and never thought to stretch his legs under this mahogany or any other man's sir and he spoiled the officer's best joke by asking him for the claret in the middle of it the tigers and the pigs were confusion and weirdness of spirit to mr melish he was yearning for the moment when with any show of decency he might make for the drawing room and find out what aurora was doing in the still summer twilight when the door was opened and a fresh wine brought in he heard the rattling of the keys under mrs lofthouse manipulation and rejoiced to think that his wife was seated quietly perhaps listening to some sonatas in c flat which the rector's wife delighted to interpret the lamps were brought in before colonel madison stories were finished and when john's butler came to ask if the gentleman would like coffee the word the indian officer said yes by all means and a churrut with it no smoking in the drawing room melish petticoat government and window curtains i dare say claret doesn't like my smoke at the rectory and poor lofthouse writes his sermons in the summer house for he can't write without a weed you know and a volume of tillitson or some of those fellows to prick from a george said the facetious gentleman digging his son-in-law in the ribs with his fat old fingers and knocking over two or three wine glasses in his ponderous jacocity how dreary it all seemed to john melish tonight he wondered how people felt who had no social mystery brooding upon their hearth no domestic skeleton cowering in their homely cupboard he looked at the rector's placid face with a pang of envy there was no secret kept from him there was no perpetual struggle rending his heart no dreadful doubts and fears that would not be quite lulled to rest no vague terror incessant and unreasoning no mute argument for ever going forward with plaintiff's counsel and defendants counsel continually pleading the same cause and arriving at the same result heaven take pity upon those who have to suffer such silent misery such secret despair we look at our neighbors smiling faces and say in the bitterness of spirit that a is a lucky fellow and that b can't be as much in debt as his friends say he is that c and his pretty wife are the happiest couple we know and tomorrow b is in the gazette and c is weeping over a dishonored home and a group of motherless children who wonder what mama has done that papa should be so sorry the battles are very quiet but they are forever being fought we keep the fox hidden under our cloak but the teeth of the animal are nonetheless sharp nor the pain less terrible to bear a little more terrible perhaps for being endured silently john melish gave a long sigh of relief when the indian officer finished his third chariot and pronounced himself ready to join the ladies the lamps in the drawing room were lighted and the curtains drawn before the open windows when the three gentlemen entered mrs loft house was asleep upon one of the sofas with the book of beauty lying open at her feet and mrs powell pale and sleepless sleepless as trouble and sorrow and as jealousy and hate as anything that is ravenous and unappeasable sat at her embroidery working laborious monstrosities upon delicate king break muslin the colonel dropped heavily into a luxurious easy chair and quietly abandoned himself to repose mr loft house awoke his wife and consulted her about the propriety of ordering the carriage john melish looked eagerly round the room to him it was empty the rector and his wife the indian officer and the ensign's widow were only so many phosphorescent spectralities fantasium captains in short they were not a rora where's lolly he asked looking from mrs loft house to mrs powell where's my wife i really don't know answered mrs powell with icy deliberation i have not been watching mrs melish the poisoned dart's glanced away from john's preoccupied breast there was no room in his wounded heart for such a petty sting as this where's my wife he cried passionately you must know where she is she's not here is she upstairs is she out of doors to the best of my belief replied the ensign's widow with more than usual precision mrs melish is in some part of the grounds she has been out of doors ever since we left the dining room the french clock upon the mantelpiece chimed at the three quarters after ten as she finished speaking as if to give emphasis to our words and to remind mr melish how long his wife had been absent he bit his lip fiercely and strode toward one of the windows he was going to look for his wife but he stopped as he flung aside the window curtains arrested by mrs powell's uplifted hand hark she said there's something the matter i fear did you hear that violent ringing at the hall door mr melish let fall the curtain and re-entered the room it's aurora no doubt he said they've shut her out again i suppose i beg mrs powell that you will prevent this in the future really ma'am it is hard that my wife should be shut out of her own house he might have said much more but he stopped pale and breathless as the sound of a hub up in the hall and a rush to the room door he opened it and looked out with mrs powell and mr and mrs loft house crowding behind him and looking over his shoulder half a dozen servants were clustered around a roughly dressed seafaring looking man who with his hat off and his disordered hair falling about his white face was telling in broken sentences scarcely intelligible for the speaker's agitation that a murder had been done in the wood end of chapter 24 captain prodder carries bad news to his niece's house