United States or Ethiopia ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
You can't play fast and loose with the promise you've given Trenby. So we've just got to face it out." He broke off abruptly. Tiny beads of sweat rimmed his upper lip and his hands hung clenched at his sides. Even Nan hardly realised the effort his restraint was costing him. "What what do you mean, Peter?" she asked haltingly. "I mean that I'm going away that I mustn't see you any more."
Ten minutes later she watched her husband drive away in the direction of Trenby Hall, and composed herself to wait patiently on the march of events. Barry looked pitifully down at the big, helpless figure lying between the sheets of the great four-poster bed. Except for an unwonted pallor and the fact that no movement of the body below the waist was visible, Roger looked very much as usual.
Then David stood up. All fear had gone, he knew not where. He looked even taller than his wont. And the light of God's presence was so close to him that his large, fair face really had a kind of luminosity. "Minister," he answered with a solemn confidence, "minister and friends, my father at his death-hour expressly said that he did not slay Bele Trenby.
The next day there was an organized search for Bele Trenby through the island hamlets and along the coast; but the man was not found far or near; he had disappeared as absolutely as a stone dropped into mid-ocean. Not until the fourth day was there any probable clue found; then a fishing-smack came in, bringing a little rowboat usually tied to Howard Hallgrim's rock.
The idea of marriage with Roger Trenby seemed even more impossible than ever with the knowledge that in a few days Peter would be there, close beside her with that quiet, comprehending gaze of his, while every nerve in her body would be vibrating at the mere touch of his hand.
Almost her first words were of Bele Trenby, for whom she was mourning with the love of a mother for an only son. "What brings you into my sight?" she asked the girl. "Bele is dead and gone, and you are living! and Liot Borson knows all about it!" "How dare you say such a thing, aunt?" "I can dare the truth, though the devil listened to it. As for 'aunt, I am no aunt of yours."
"I don't hold with delays nor interfering between folks that have promised to be man and wife. The Almighty never intended us to play at being providence. If it's ordained for Nan to marry Roger Trenby marry him she will. And the lass is old enough to know her own mind; maybe you're wrong in thinking her heart's elsewhere."
For the first few days succeeding Lord St. John's departure from Trenby Hall, matters progressed comparatively smoothly. Then, as his influence waned with absence, the usual difficulties reappeared, the old hostilities hostilities of outlook and generation arising once more betwixt Nan and Lady Gertrude.
It was a soft, misty day when Trenby called to drive Nan over to the Trevithick Kennels one of those veiled mornings which break about noon into a glory of blue sky and golden sunlight. As she stepped into the waiting car, Roger stopped her abruptly. "Go back and put on something thicker," he commanded. "It'll be chilly driving in this mist." "But it's going to be hot later on," protested Nan.
So I will swither and scruple no longer; I will tell the whole truth about the drowning of Bele Trenby. Bele and I were never friends; but I hated him when he began to meddle between me and Karen Sabiston.
Word Of The Day