But Tom Candlish had helped Leo when she was in great peril of being drowned; and as the curate learned this he felt his impotence, and was coldly courteous, while, on his side, Tom Candlish was defiant, almost to the point of insolence; and his manner to Leo seemed intimate enough to startle Salis, and make him wonder whether they had met since the scene at the river-side.
Hartley Salis soon had something to divert his attention from this point, for the next day Leo was not very well. She was tired, she said. It had been a very long run, but delightful all the same; and she allowed now that perhaps it would have been better if she had listened to the doctor’s advice.
“I shall be quite well to-morrow,” she cried. “Why, Hartley, how serious you look!”
“Do I?” he said, smiling, for he had been communing with himself as to whether he should ask Leo plainly if she had kept her word.
“Do you? Yes!” she cried angrily; and, without apparent cause, she flashed out into quite a fit of passion. “I declare it is miserable now to be at home. It is like living between two spies.”
“My dear Leo!” began Salis.
“I don’t care: it is. Mary here watches me as a cat does a mouse. You always follow me about whenever I stir from home; and then you two compare notes, and plot and plan together how to make my life a burden.”
“Leo, dear,” said Mary gently, “you are irritable and unwell, or you would not speak like this.”
“I would. I am driven to it by my miserable life at home. I am treated like a prisoner.”
“Leo, my child,” began Salis.
“Yes, that’s it – child! You treat me as if I were a child, and I will not bear it. Anything more cruel it is impossible to conceive.”
“Nonsense, dear,” said Salis, smiling gravely, as he took his sister’s hand.
She snatched it away; not so quickly, though, but that he had time to feel that it was burning hot, as her scarlet cheeks seemed to be, while her eyes were unusually brilliant.
It was no time to question or reproach, and the curate set himself to soothe.
“Why, Leo, my dear,” he said, smiling. “I shall begin to think you are cross.”
“If you mean indignant,” she retorted, “I am. My very soul seems to revolt against the wretched system of espionage you two have established against me.”
“No, no, Leo, dear!” said Mary. “How can you say such things of Hartley, whose every thought is for your good?”
“Good – good – good!” cried Leo; “I’m sick of the very word! Be good! Be a good girl! Oh! it’s sickening!”
Salis made a sign to Mary to be silent, but Leo detected it.
“There!” she cried, with her eyes flashing. “What did I say? You two are always plotting against me. Ah!”
She shivered as from a sudden chill, and drew her chair closer to the fire.
“Do you feel unwell, dear?” said Salis anxiously.
“No, no, no! I have told you both a dozen times over that I am quite well. It is a cold morning, and I shivered a little. Is there anything extraordinary in that?”
“I only felt anxious about you, dear.”
“Then, pray don’t feel anxious, but let me be in peace.”
She caught up a book, and tried to read; while, to avoid irritating her, Salis and Mary resumed their tasks – the one writing, the other busy over her needle; and to both it seemed as if they were performing penance, so intense was the desire to keep on glancing at Leo, while they felt the necessity for avoiding all appearance of noticing her.
She held her book before her, and appeared to be reading, but she did not follow a line; for the letters were blurred, and a curious, dull, aching sensation racked her from head to foot, rising, as it were, in waves which swept through her brain, and made it throb.
This, with its accompanying giddiness, passed off, and with obstinate determination she kept her place, and the pretence of reading was carried on till towards evening.
They had dined – a weary, comfortless meal – at which Leo had taken her place, and made an attempt to eat; but it was evident to the others that the food disgusted her, and almost everything was sent untasted away.
The irritability seemed to have died out, but every attempt to draw her into conversation failed; and after a time the meal progressed in silence, till they drew round the fire at the end to resume their tasks, almost without a word.
Salis was busy over a formal report of the state of the parish for the rector. Mary was hard at work stitching, to help a poor widow who gained a precarious living by needlework, and Leo still had her book before her eyes.
Mary’s were aching, and she was about to ring for the lamp, for the short December afternoon was closing in, and Salis was in the act of wiping his pen, when Leo suddenly let fall her book, to sit up rigidly, staring wildly at them.
“Leo, my child!”
“Well, what is it?” she said; and her voice sounded harsh and strange. “Why did you say that? You knew I should say yes.”
“Yes, yes, of course, my dear; but I did not speak.”
“You did. You said I lied unto you, quite aloud, and” – with a return of her irritable way – “are we never going to have dinner?”
Salis rose from the table where he had been writing, and laid his hand upon his sister’s arm.
“Leo, dear,” he said anxiously; and he gazed in her wild eyes, which softened and looked lovingly in his.
“No,” she said, as she nestled to him and laid her cheek upon his arm; “a bit of a wrench. My shoulder aches, but it will soon be well, dear.”
“Lie back in your chair,” said Salis, as he laid his hand upon her throbbing brow.
“Yes, that’s nice,” she said, smiling as she obeyed. “So cool and refreshing – so cool.”
“Do you feel drowsy? Would you like to have a nap?”
“Yes, if you wish it,” she said. “I am sleepy. Don’t tell them at home, dear.”
Salis started, and his face grew convulsed, as he exchanged glances with Mary, who read his wish, wrote a few lines in pencil, and softly rang the bell.
“Take that at once,” she whispered to Dally Watlock, who entered, round-eyed and staring.
“To Mr Tom Candlish, miss?”
“No, no, girl; to Mr North.”
Mary drew her breath hard as the door closed behind the girl, for she read in her words a tale of deceit and also who had been the messenger, perhaps, in many a love missive sent on either side.
She tried to rise, feeling that this was a time of urgent need; but her eyes became suffused with tears as she sank back helpless in her seat.
“Take my arm, Leo, dear,” said Salis. “You would be better if you went up to your room and lay down.”
“Yes, dear; if you wish it,” she said softly; and she started up, but caught at her brother, and clung to him as if she had been seized by a sudden vertigo, and then stared wildly round.
Salis gave Mary a nod, and then, drawing Leo’s arm through his, led her up to the door of her room, which she entered while he ran quickly down.
“Quite delirious,” he said quickly. “I hope North will not be long. I thought he would have been here this morning.”
He was busy as he spoke preparing for a task which he had performed twice daily since Mary’s convalescence. For, taking her in his arms as easily as if she had been a child, he bore her out of the room and up to Leo’s door.
As