From Kingdom to Colony
At this a low cry escaped from her lips before she could prevent it;
and her husband stepped closer to her side.
"It is nothing--nothing," she said brokenly, in response to his anxious
questioning. "I was but thinking."
"Thinking of what, sweetheart?"
"If any harm should befall you," she answered.
"Why, what harm, think you, should come to me?" And he took her hands,
holding them close, while he tried to look into her averted eyes.
"I--don't know," she said evasively. "These are such dreadful times
that have come to us, that no one can tell what is like to happen.
Oh," with a sudden impetuous burst, more suited to Dorothy than to her
own calm self, "I wish there had never been such a nation as the
English!"
When Joseph Devereux had done speaking, the young man turned his eyes
from the pale face in which he seemed to have been searching for some
hint or suggestion as to what he should now say.
That his quest was fruitless,--that he found nothing, no fleeting
glance or expression, to indicate the girl's present feeling toward
him, was apparent from the look of keen disappointment, well-nigh
despair, that now settled upon his own face, making it almost ghastly
in the uncertain light.
But despite all this, his self-control did not leave him; and after one
more glance into the dark eyes--fixed and set, as though there was no
life animating them--he drew himself erect, and made an odd gesture
with his right hand, flinging it out as if forever thrusting aside all
further thought of her. Then, without looking at her again, he
addressed her father.
"It was not to discuss such matters that I ventured to force my way
into this house, sir," he said with a dignified courtesy hardly to be
looked for in one of his years. "It was only that I could not--or felt
that I should not--go away without holding speech with Mistress
Dorothy. It would seem that she has naught to say to me, and so I have
only to beg her pardon, and take my leave. And, sir, I entreat the
same pardon from you and the other members of your household for any
inconvenience I may have caused you and them."
He bowed to the old gentleman, and turned slowly away. But before he
had taken many steps toward the outer door, Dorothy's voice arrested
him, and he turned quickly about.
"Stay--wait a moment." And leaving her father's side, she went toward
the young man.
"Believe me," she said, speaking very low and very gently, as she
paused while yet a few steps away from him, "I wish you well, not harm."
"Do you still hold to what you told me?" he asked quickly, paying no
heed to her words.
His voice did not reach her father's ears; and the young man's eyes
searched her face as though his fate depended upon what he might read
there.
"Yes!" The answer was as low-pitched as his question, but firm and
fearless. And he saw the fingers of both little hands clench
themselves in the folds of her gown, while the lace kerchief crossed
over her bosom seemed to pulsate with the angry throbbing of her heart.
"And you will never forgive me?" He spoke now in a louder tone, but
with the same pleading look in his pale face.
Dorothy's eyes met his own fairly and steadily, but she said nothing.
He waited a second, and then bending quickly, he clasped both her hands
and carried them to his lips.
"God help me," he said hoarsely, as he released them,--"God help both
of us!"
With this he turned away, and opening the door, went out into the
darkness.
Dorothy stood perfectly still, with her father staring perplexedly into
her white face. It had all passed too quickly for him to
interfere,--to speak, even, had he been so minded.
At the sound of the closing door John Devereux came again into the
hall; and now the noise of horses' hoofs was heard, dying away outside.
"Dot--my child, what is it?" her father exclaimed, his heart stirred by
a presentiment of some ill he could not define. And he moved toward
the mute figure standing like a statue in the centre of the wide hall.
But John was there before him; and as he passed his arm around her, she
started, and a dry, gasping breath broke from her lips,--one that might
have been a sob, had there been any sign of tears in the wild eyes that
seemed to hold no sight as they were turned to her brother's face.
"Dot--little sister," he cried, "tell me--what is the matter?"
And Mary, now close beside them, added quickly, "Tell him, Dot,--tell
him now."
"Tell," Dorothy repeated mechanically, her voice sounding strained and
husky. "Tell--tell him yourself, Mary. Tell him that--" And she
fell, a dead weight, against her brother's breast.
CHAPTER XXV
Whether it was due to ordinary physical causes, or was the result of
mental agitation arising from what has been told herein, cannot well be
determined; but, soon after Dorothy had been carried to her
room,--conscious, but in a condition to forbid all questioning or
explanation--her father was taken with what in the language of that day
was termed a "seizure,"--so serious as to alarm the household, and
divert all thoughts from other affairs.
He had been pacing up and down the drawing-room, now deserted by all
save himself and his son. His hands were clasped behind him, his chin
was sunk upon his breast, and his brows knit as though from anxious
thought.
Jack sat staring into the fire; and both were waiting for the return of
either Mary or Aunt Lettice, both of whom had gone to Dorothy's room to
give her such attention as she might require.
It was Mary who came to announce that the girl was now better, and
that, having taken a sleeping potion administered by Aunt Lettice, she
wished to see her father.
The old gentleman left the room with a brisk step; and Mary's eyes
followed him nervously as she went over and seated herself by her
husband.
They were silent for a time, both of them watching the flames that
arched from the logs over the fiery valleys and miniature cliffs made
by the burnt and charred wood, until Jack asked suddenly, "Why do you
not tell me now, sweetheart?"
Mary well knew what he meant; but she waited a moment, thinking how
best she might reveal the sad and terrible matter she had to disclose.
"Mary,"--he now spoke a little impatiently, and as though to rouse her
from her abstraction--"tell me what all this means."
She stole a hand into his, and then repeated to him all that Dorothy
had told her.
He listened with fast-growing anger; and then, coupled with his first
outburst of rage against the hated redcoat, were reproaches for his
wife, that she had not sooner informed him of the trouble.
"He would never have left the house alive, had I known it before," he
cried savagely. "As it is, I'll ride after him as soon as day comes,
and call him to an accounting for his villany,--the dastardly
scoundrel! And Mary--oh, my wife, how could you keep it from me till
now?"
Her heart sank at this, the first note of reproof or displeasure his
voice had ever held for her.
"You must remember, Jack," she pleaded, "how sorely I was distressed to
know what to do, for I had given my promise to Dot, and could not break
it. And you must know as well that it was not until this very evening
that I learned of the matter."
"True," he admitted. "But"--persistently--"there was the ruby ring,
when the child was first taken ill; how could you keep that from me?"
He spoke reproachfully, but his voice was growing softer, and his anger
was now gone, for Mary was sobbing, her head against his breast. And
this was as strange to him as his harsh words had been to her.
"I'll never--never keep any matter from you again," she protested
brokenly. "I promise it, Jack, for now I see it was very wrong."
"There--there, sweetheart," he said soothingly, as he stroked her
bright hair,--"'t is all well for us now, and will ever be, if you but
keep to what you say. But Dot--poor little Dot!" And his anger came
again.
"Oh, that villain, that cursed villain,--but he shall reckon with me
for this outrage! And 't is well for that scoundrel Weeks that he's
been made to flee the town for his seditious sentiments and preachings."
"But," Mary explained, "Dot said he was forced to do it, at peril of
his life; that he--the Englishman--held a pistol to his head and swore
he'd shoot him if he refused."
"Pah," said Jack, contemptuously, "he'd never have dared go so far as
that. Master Weeks is but a poor coward." Then he asked quickly,
"Think you, Mary, that Dot is telling our father aught of the matter
now?"
"I cannot say," was his wife's irresolute answer. "I fear so, and yet
I cannot but hope so, as well,--for how can another ever tell him?"
"Aye," groaned the young man; "it will come nigh to killing him."
But Dorothy had not told her father anything. No sooner had he come to
her bedside than her eyes filled with a contented light, and slipping
her hand within his close clasp, she fell tranquilly asleep, too
stunned and numbed by physical weakness and contending emotions,--her
senses too dulled from the effects of Aunt Lettice's draught--to find
words wherein to pour out her heart to him.
He left her sleeping quietly, and returned to those below; and soon
thereafter the seizure came, and he fell back in his chair, speechless,
with closed eyes and inert limbs.
It was Mary and Aunt Lettice who ministered to him, with the help of
his son and the faithful Tyntie, who was summoned from Dorothy's room,
where she had been sent to watch the sleeping girl.
Leet was too old and slow of movement to be entrusted with the
summoning of Dr. Paine; and Trent, who slept in one of the outer
buildings, was aroused and despatched forthwith, with orders to use all
possible speed, as they feared the master was already dead or dying.
They carried him at once to his own bed, where he lay unconscious, with
no change in his appearance or breathing; and his son, sitting beside
him, gazed with agonized eyes upon the white face lying against the
pillows, his own face almost as white, and seeming to have aged under
this flood of sorrow now opened in their midst.
It was well along toward morning, although yet dark, with the sky
cloudless and gemmed with stars, before Dr. Paine arrived.
The first thing the bustling little man did was to bleed his patient,
as was then the practice in treating most ailments. Its present
efficacy was soon apparent, for it was not long before the labored,
irregular breathing became more natural and the old man opened his eyes.
But there was an unusual look in them,--one that never went away. And
although after a time he recovered some of his strength, and was able
to go about the house, the hale, rugged health and vigorous manhood
were gone forever, and Joseph Devereux remained but a shadow of his
former self.
His days were all alike,--passed in sitting before the fire downstairs,
or else dozing in his own room; and he had neither care nor thought for
the matters that had once been of such moment to him.
The others were with him constantly, to guard against possible accident
or harm, as well as to do all in their power in smoothing the way for
the loved one they felt was soon to leave them. And he, as well as
themselves, albeit he never spoke of it, seemed to understand
this,--that they, like him, were waiting for the end, when he should be
summoned by the voice none can deny.
And thus he remained day after day, spending much of his time with the
other members of his family,--listening apparently to all they might
say to him or to one another; but sitting with silent lips, and eyes
that seemed to grow larger and more wondrous in expression and light,
as if already looking into that mysterious world,--
"Beyond the journeyings of the sun,