“Thank you, young man. At the same time, few of your fine gentlemen would treat them this way.” Thus saying, he tore them into little strips, and scattered them to the wind.--“All I ask, by way of repayment, now is, that you will listen to a few words I have to say. I have loved you, Walter Lisgard, in spite of yourself, and would have laid down my life for yours. I have concealed from my own heart as well as I could the selfish baseness that underlies your every act--but that is over now. Look you, on the coasts where I have come from, there is many a bay which, if you saw it at high tide, you would say: 'What a beautiful harbour! what smooth and smiling water! This is a place for all men to cast anchor.' But when the tide is going out, you see how you have been deceived. Here is a reef that would wreck a navy; here is a jagged and cruel rock, and there another and another. With every one, you say to yourself, surely this is the last. But for this and for that, there was never a better anchorage; and how beautiful the place is! What luxuriant foliage--what exquisite verdure fringes the shore--just the shores, you know. But when the tide is quite out, it is impossible to like the place any longer. There are nothing _but_ reefs and rocks to be seen then, and a few loathsome reptiles among the slime. Now, Walter Lisgard, I have come upon you at dead low-water, and I don't wish to meet you any more. You will deceive others, of course, who may see you at the flow, but you will never deceive me. I shall go down to Mirk, after a little, to bring away my wife. Take my advice, and don't be there. Above all things, see that your mother does not cross me in that matter, or it will be worse for all concerned. I have nobody now in the world who cares for me save Mary Forest, and they shall not rob me of her. Here is the Hansom in which we can no longer sit together. You are not used to walking, being what is called a gentleman, so you had better take it. All I ask you is, to leave our lodgings before I reach them, since you will arrive there first; or if not--I will take myself off elsewhere; I should be sorry to be under the same roof, with you again, young man.” Then pulling his hat forward upon his brow, in place of farewell, Ralph Derrick turned his back upon Walter Lisgard, and took his way to town on foot. As the captain, sitting alone in no very enviable frame of mind, passed him afterwards upon the road, he could not help remarking to himself how old and bowed the insolent fellow looked. CHAPTER VIII. MISS AYNTON'S THUMB IS TURNED BACK. |I SUPPOSE, Mary, that I shall be sure of getting a letter from Mr Arthur today?” observed my Lady to her maid, as that confidential domestic was proceeding with the duties--which were by no means mysteries--of her toilet, upon the morning after the picnic at Belcomb. He is certain to reply concerning a matter which was important enough to cause the use of the telegraph.” “I suppose so, my Lady: very like.”