BLACK SHEEP!

BY THE AUTHOR OF "LAND AT LAST," "KISSING THE ROD,"
&c. &c.

BOOK III.

CHAPTER VI. A FIRST APPEAL.

"STEWART," said Harriet Routh to her
husband, in a tone of calm, self-possessed
inquiry, on the following day, "what has
happened? What occurred yesterday, which
you had not the courage to face, and deprived
yourself of the power of telling me?"

As Harriet asked him this question, she
unconsciously assumed her former manner.
Something told her that the cause of Routh's
conduct, and of the distress of mind which she
read in his face, was not connected with the
subject that was torturing her. Anything
apart from that, any misfortune, any calamity
even, might draw them together again; might
teach him anew his need of her, her worth to
him—she felt some alarm, but it was strangely
mingled with satisfaction. The sharp agony
she had endured had impaired her faculties so
far, had dulled her clear understanding so far,
that the proportions of the dangers in her path
had changed places, and the first and greatest
danger was this stranger—this beautiful, dreadful
woman. In that direction was the terrible
impotence, the helpless horror of weakness, which
is the worst attribute of human suffering; in
every other, there was the power to exercise her
faculties to rally her presence of mind, to call
on her fertility of resource, to act for and with
him. With him at her side, and in his cause,
Harriet was consciously strong; but from a
trouble in which he should be arrayed against her,
in which he should be her enemy, she shrank,
like a leaf from the shrivelling touch of fire.

She was standing by his side as she asked
him the question, in the familiar attitude which
she had discarded of late. Her composed figure
and pale calm face, the small firm white hand,
which touched his shoulder with the steady
touch he knew so well, the piercing clear blue
eyes, all had the old promise in them, of help
that had never failed, of counsel that had never
misled. He thought of all these things, he felt
all these things, but he no longer thought of,
or remembered, or looked for the love which
had been their motive and their life. He sat
moodily, his face pale and frowning, one clenched
hand upon his knee, the other restlessly drumming
upon the table; his eyes were turned
away from her, and for some time after she had
spoken he kept a sullen silence.

"Tell me, Stewart," she repeated, in a softer
voice, while the hand that touched his shoulder
moved gently to his neck and clasped it. "I
know there is something wrong, very wrong.
Tell me what it is."

He turned and looked full at her.

"Do you remember what you said, Harriet,
when that letter came from Poynings—what
you said about the hydra and its heads?"

"I remember," she answered. Her pale
cheek grew paler; but she drew nearer to his
side, and her fingers clasped his neck more
closely and more tenderly. "I remember.
Another head has sprung up, and is menacing you."

"Yes," he said, half fiercely, half wearily.
"This cursed thing is never to be escaped nor
forgotten, I believe. I can hardly tell you what
has happened, Harry, and even you will hardly
see your way out of this."

A touch of feeling for her was in his voice.
He really did suffer in the anticipation of the
shock she would have to sustain.

"Tell me—tell me," she repeated, faintly, and
with a quick involuntary closing of her eyes,
which would have told a close observer of
constant suffering and apprehension.

"Sit down, Harry." He rose as he spoke,
placed her in his chair, and stood before her,
holding both her hands in his.

"I have found out that the man we knew as
Philip Deane was—was Arthur Felton, George
Dallas's cousin, the man they are inquiring
about, whom they are expecting here."

She did not utter a cry, a groan, or any sort
of sound. She shrank into the chair she was
sitting in, as if she cowered for life in a hiding-
place, her outstretched hands turned cold and
clammy in her husband's grasp. Into her widely
opened blue eyes a look of unspeakable horror
came, and the paleness of her cheeks turned
to ashen grey. Stewart Routh, still standing
before her holding her hands, looked at her as
the ghastly change came over her face, telling—
what words could never tell—of the anguish she
was suffering, and thought for a moment that
she was dying before his face. The breath
came from her lips in heavy gasps, and her low
white brow was damp with cold sluggish drops.