Gertrude felt her heart sink. Not many minutes before she had felt a dread of meeting George Harrington; now that there was a possibility of Saul’s words being true, a curious feeling of sorrow attacked her, and she felt that she would give anything for the man, whose praises the old man had sung, to take her by the hand.
“Well, you might talk,” continued Saul. “I’m not going to bother you, nor to hurry things. I know I’m right. There is no George Harrington, and you are going to be my wife.”
“No, no,” cried Gertrude hastily.
“And I say yes, yes, so don’t be silly. Better than being married to a man you have never seen – some whiskey-drinking, loafing rowdy from the States, who would have ill-used you, degraded you, spent every penny the old man left, and then gone back to America, and left you to starve, if you were not already dead of a broken heart.”
Gertrude listened in silence, wondering at the strange feeling of indignation within her, and the desire to take up the cudgels on George Harrington’s behalf.
“There, I’m speaking strongly,” said Saul, changing his tone, “because, of course, I feel strongly. You have always hung back from me, Gertie, because you did not thoroughly know me. But you are beginning to know me better, and I am going to wait patiently till you lay your hand in mine, and say, ‘Saul, dear, I am yours.’”
Gertie started, and looked at her visitor with lips apart, dazed at the confident way in which he prophesied of the future.
Saul noted it, and smiled to himself.
“It’s easy enough,” he said to himself. “Only got to let ’em feel the curb, and they give in directly.”
“Patience is the thing, Gertie, dear,” he continued aloud. “I suppose it will have to be a year first. There’s all that executor business to go through, and the law will be precious slow, of course, about giving up the property to the rightful heir. I’m the rightful heir, Gertie, there’s no mistake about that, and I think I’m behaving very fairly about you. It’s plain enough, now, that I didn’t come after you on account of your prospects, isn’t it?”
He rose as he spoke with a peculiar smile on his face, and made two quick steps across to where Gertrude was seated.
Her first thought was to spring up and make for the door, but, by a strong effort of will, she mastered herself and sat perfectly rigid in her seat, meeting his eyes without flinching, with the effect of disconcerting him, for he stopped short, and began tapping the crown of his hat. Had she tried to escape, he would have caught her in his arms.
“That’s better,” he said, after an awkward pause. “I like that. You’re getting used to me, Gertie, and I tell you what, my girl, it will be a fine thing for you. Do you now what you ought to do if you are the clever girl I think you to be?”
She shook her head. She dared not trust herself to speak, lest he should note the tremble in her voice.
“Make sure of me while you can. Not many girls have the chance of such a rich husband.”
“If he would only go,” thought Gertrude, fighting hard with the hysterical feeling which threatened to break forth in a fit of sobbing.
For she was moved more than she knew. She had grown to expect, as a part of her life, that she should marry the frank-hearted man whose praise her guardian had constantly sung. She did not love him, but there was the germ of love in her breast waiting to be warmed into life and burst forth as a blossom, while now, speaking quite with the voice of authority, Saul Harrington had come at the end of her weeks of patient watching and expectation, to announce brutally his full conviction of her betrothed’s death. Her heart sank lower and lower, as she felt how probable his words were, and how likely it was that George Harrington had fallen a victim to climate or accident, or in some encounter, leaving her helpless and alone, at the mercy of a man who would lord it in his place, and who openly avowed his intention of making her his wife – another name for what would prove to be his slave.
“Well, Gertie,” he said at last, after terrifying the poor girl by his manner, “I sha’n’t ask you to keep me to dinner to-day. Next time I come you will, won’t you?”
She looked up in his face with her eyes wild with horror and perplexity. What should she do – what could she say? She felt now that she must end her position at The Mynns by making an appeal to Doctor Lawrence or Mr Hampton, and she blamed herself for not doing so sooner. But these thoughts did not help her now, and she remained silent.
“Silence gives consent,” said Saul, laughing meaningly, as he passed his stick into the hand which held his hat, and held out his right. “I must be going now. Good-bye, Gertie.”
She rose at this, and, with a feeling of relief, held out her hand.
“Ah, that’s better,” he said, as he took it; and before the poor girl could realise her position, he had snatched her to his breast, dropping hat and stick to have both hands free.
“Mr Saul!”
“My darling little girl! The devil!”
The last words were accompanied by a yell of pain and horror, as he literally flung Gertrude from him, and made for the door.
For there had been no warning. Unknown to Saul, and forgotten in her agitation by Gertrude, Bruno had been lying beneath the table unseen, but seeing all, till what had seemed to his dumb brute mind a cowardly attack upon his mistress, when, with one quick swing round of his head, he caught Saul by the ankle, held on for a moment, and then stood before Gertrude, uttering a low fierce growl.
“That settles it,” said Saul, trying to recover his equanimity, but speaking in a low voice full of fury. “I don’t want to be hard on you, Gertie, but if that dog is here next time I come, I’ll poison him, as sure as he is alive. I’m master now, and – ”
He stopped short, for the old housekeeper entered the room with a card, the ring at the front door and the answering footsteps having passed unnoticed in the drawing-room.
“For me, Denton?” cried Gertie, eagerly running to the old woman, and clinging to her arm.
“He asked for master, miss,” whispered the old woman. “He did not know. In the dining-room, miss. It’s Master George.”
A mist seemed to float before Gertrude’s eyes, but not before she had read upon the card the name:
“Mr George Harrington.”
Chapter Eight
“Mr George Harrington.”
“Who’s that? What’s that?” cried Saul Harrington sharply, as he saw by Gertrude’s agitation that there was something particular on the way.
“It’s Master George come, sir,” said the old housekeeper.
“What?” he roared; and his face turned sallow. “Impossible!”
Gertrude stood trembling, with the card in her hand, the name thereon seeming to play strange tricks, and growing larger and then dying away, till it seemed to be hidden in a mist, while a chaos of thoughts ran confusedly through her brain. At one moment she looked upon the coming of this stranger with dread, for a stranger he was to her; the next her heart began to beat, and her cheeks flushed, as she recalled that he was her affianced husband, and that he had come to protect her from this man, and that henceforth she would be safe.
She was brought back to the present by the old housekeeper, who, for the second time, touched her arm.
“Miss Gertrude, ma’am, don’t you hear me?” she said. “What shall I tell him?”
“I – I – ”
“Stop!” cried Saul sharply. “You are a young unprotected girl, and as the executors are not here, Gertie, I look upon it as my duty to see after your welfare. How do we know that this is George Harrington? Let me look at that card.”
He snatched the card from the trembling girl’s fingers, and scowled as he read the inscription,