Fiction > Serialisations > London, 1893 - David Balfour

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DAVID BALFOUR.
clear of reproach, but free as she had come to me.
Down I sat before the fire, and reflected, and
repented, and beat my brains in vain for any means
of escape. About two of the morning, there were
three red embers left, the house and all the city
was asleep, when I was aware of a small sound of
weeping in the next room. She thought that I
slept, the poor soul ; she regretted her weakness —
and what perhaps (God help her ! ) she called her
forwardness — and in the dead of the night solaced
herself with tears. Tender and bitter feelings,
love and penitence and pity, struggled in my soul ;
it seemed I was under bond to heal that weeping.
" Oh, try to forgive me ! " I cried out, " try, try
to forgive me. Let us forget it all, let us try to
forget it 1 "
There came no answer, but the sobbing ceased.
I stood a long while with my hands still clasped as
I had spoken, then the cold of the night laid
hold upon me with a shudder, and I think my
reason re-awakened.
" You can make no hand of this, Davie,"
thinks I. " To bed with you like a wise lad, and
try if you can sleep. To-morrow you may see
your way."
CHAPTER XXV.
THE RETURN OF JAMES :\IORE
I was called on the morrow out of a late and
troubled slumber by a knocking on my door, ran
to open it, and had almost swooned with the
contrariety of my feeUngs, mostly painful ; for on
the threshold, in a rough wraprascal and an
extraordinary big laced hat, there stood James
More.
I ought to have been glad perhaps without admix-
ture, for there was a sense in which the man came
like an answer to prayer. I had been saying till
my head was weary that Catriona and I must
separate, and looking till my head ached for any
possible means of separation. Here were the
means come to me upon two legs, and joy was the
hindmost of my thoughts. It is to be considered,
however, that even if the weight of the future
were lifted off me by the man's arrival, the present
heaved up the more black and menacing ; so
.that, as I first stood before him in my shirt and
breeches, I believe I took a leaping step backward
like a person shot.
" Ah," said he, " I have found you, Mr.
Balfour." And offered me his large, fine hand, the
which (recovering at the same time my post in the
doorway, as if with some thought of resistance) I
took him by doubtfully. " It is a remarkable
circumstance how our affairs appear to intermingle,"
he continued. " I am owing you an apology for an
unfortunate intrusion upon yours, which I suffered
myself to be entrapped into by my confidence in
that false-face, Prestongrange ; I think shame to
own to you that I was ever trusting to a lawyer."
He shrugged his shoulders with a very French air.
" But indeed the man is very plausible," says he.
" And now it seems that you have busied yourself
handsomely in the matter of my daughter, for
whose direction I was remitted to yourself."
" I think, sir," said I, with a painful air, "that it
will be necessary we two should have an explana-
tion."
" There is nothing amiss ? " he asked. " My
agent, Mr. Sprott "
" For God's sake moderate your voice ? " I cried.
"She must not hear till we have had an explanation."
" She is in this place ? " cries he.
"That is her chamber door," said I.
" You are here with her alone ? " he asked.
"And who else would I have got to stay with
us ? " cries I.
I will do him the justice to admit that he turned
pale.
" This is very unusual," said he. " This is a
ver)' unusual circumstance ; you are right, we must
hold an explanation."
So saying, he passed me bv, and I must own the
tall old rogue appeared at that moment extraordi-
nary dignified. He had now, for the first time,
the view of my chamber, which I scanned (I may
say) with his eyes. A bit of morning sun glinted
in by the window pane, and showed it off; my
bed, my mails, and washing dish, with some
disorder of my clothes, and the unlighted chimney,
made the only plenishing ; no mistake but it
looked bare and cold, and the most unsuitable,
beggarly place conceivable to harbour a young lady.
At the same time came in on my mind the
recollection of the clothes that I had bought for
her ; and I thought this contrast of poverty and
prodigality bore an ill appearance.