'
'Yours, fellow! Your wife, whom you have so long held in cruel bondage
through her fears for her son, has at last shaken off that chain.
James Harper sailed two days ago from Portsmouth for Bombay. I sent
her the news two hours since.'
'Ha! Is that indeed so?' cried Danby, with an irrepressible start of
alarm. 'Why, then----But no matter: here, luckily, comes Mrs Arbuthnot
_and her son_. All's right! She will, I know, stand bail for me, and,
if need be, acknowledge the genuineness of her husband's cheque.'
The fellow's insolence was becoming unbearable, and I was about to
seize and thrust him forcibly from the apartment, when the sound of
wheels was heard outside. 'Hold! one moment,' he cried with fierce
vehemence. 'That is probably the officers: I must be brief, then, and
to the purpose. Pray, madam, do not leave the room for your own sake:
as for you, young sir, I _command_ you to remain!'
'What! what does he mean?' exclaimed Mrs Arbuthnot bewilderedly, and
at the same time clasping her son--who gazed on Danby with kindled
eyes, and angry boyish defiance--tightly to her side. Did the man's
strange words give form and significance to some dark, shadowy,
indistinct doubt that had previously haunted her at times? I judged
so. The rector appeared similarly confused and shaken, and had sunk
nerveless and terrified upon a sofa.
'You guess dimly, I see, at what I have to say,' resumed Danby with a
malignant sneer.
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