The Witchs Head | Page 5

a long job, and travelling was slow in those days. When I got back, Mary was--married to a man called Jones, a friend of yours, Mr. de Talor. He was staying at your house, Ceswick's Ness, when he met her. But perhaps you are better acquainted with that part of the tale than I am."
Mr. de Talor was looking very uneasy again now.
"No, I know nothing about it. Jones fell in love with her like the rest, and the next I heard of it was that they were to be married. It was rather rough on you, eh, Cardus? but, Lord, you shouldn't have been fool enough to trust her."
Mr. Cardus smiled, a bitter smile. "Yes, it was a little rough, but that has nothing to do with my story. The marriage did not turn out well; a curious fatality pursued all who had any hand in it. Mary had two children; and then did the best thing she could do--died of shame and sorrow. Jones, who was rich, went fraudulently bankrupt, and ended by committing suicide. 'Hard-riding Atterleigh' flourished for a while. Then lost his money on horses and a ship-building speculation, and got a paralytic stroke that took away all his speech and most of his reason. I brought him here to save him from the madhouse."
"That was kind of you, Cardus."
"Oh no, he is worth his keep, and besides, he is poor Mary's father. He is under the fixed impression that I am the devil; but that does not matter."
"You've got her children, too, eh?"
"Yes, I have adopted them. The girl reminds me of her mother, though she will never have her mother's looks. The boy is like old Atterleigh. I do not care about the boy. But, thank God, they are neither of them like their father."
"So you knew Jones?" said de Talor, sharply.
"Yes, I met him after his marriage. Oddly enough, I was with him a few minutes before he destroyed himself. There, Mr. de Talor, I will not detain you any longer. I thought that you could perhaps tell me something of the details of Mary's marriage. The story has a fascination for me, its results upon my own life have been so far-reaching. I am sure that I am not at the bottom of it yet. Mary wrote to me when she was dying, and hinted at something that I cannot understand. There was somebody behind who arranged the matter, who assisted Jones' suit. Well, well, I shall find it all out in time, and whoever it is will no doubt pay the price of his wickedness, like the others. Providence has strange ways, Mr. de Talor, but in the end it is a terrible avenger. What! are you going? Queer talk for a lawyer's office, isn't it?"
Here Mr. de Talor rose, looking pale, and, merely nodding to Mr. Cardus, left the room.
The lawyer watched him till the door had closed, when suddenly his whole face changed. The white eyebrows drew close together, the delicate features worked, and in the soft eyes there shone a look of hate. He clenched his fists, and shook them towards the door.
"You liar, you hound!" he said aloud. "God grant that I may live long enough to do to you as I have done to them! One a suicide, and one a paralytic madman; you--you shall be a beggar, if it takes me twenty years to make you so. Yes, that will hit you hardest. O Mary! Mary! dead and dishonoured through you, you scoundrel! O my darling, shall I ever find you again?"
And this strange man dropped his head upon the desk before him, and groaned.
CHAPTER III
OLD DUM'S NESS
When Mr. Cardus came half an hour or so later to take his place at the dinner-table--for in those days they dined in the middle of the day at Dum's Ness--he was not in a good mood. The pool into which the records of an individual existence are ever gathering, which we call our past, will not often bear much stirring, even when its waters are not bitter. Certainly Mr. Cardus's would not. Yet that morning he had stirred it violently enough.
In the long, oak-panelled room, used indifferently as a sitting and dining room, Mr. Cardus found "Hard-riding Atterleigh" and his grand-daughter, little Dorothy Jones. The old man was already seated at table, and Dorothy was busying herself cutting bread, looking as composed and grown-up as though she had been four-and-twenty instead of fourteen. She was a strange child, with her assured air and woman's ways and dress, her curious thoughtful face, and her large blue eyes that shone steadily as the light of a lamp. But just now the little face was more anxious than usual.
"Reginald," she began, as soon as he was in the room (for