The Greatest Historical Novels & Stories of D. K. Broster. D. K. Broster

that now.

      It was at this moment, during the silence which had fallen, that steps which sounded too authoritative to be those of a servant could be heard approaching along the marble corridor outside. Lord Aveling, at any rate, could assign them to their owner, for he came back from whatever portion of the library he had wandered to, murmuring with a frown, “My father!” On that the door opened, and the Earl came in. His expression was perturbed.

      “I waited for your reappearance, Aveling,” he said to his son; “then I was informed that Mr. Cameron had not left the house, and that you were both closeted in here. And your manner to him had been so strange that I decided to come in person to find out what was amiss.”

      There was dignity about Lord Stowe now; he was no longer a somewhat fussy little gentleman deafened by a macaw, but a nobleman of position. His son seemed undecided whether to speak or no. Ewen spoke.

      “An explanation is certainly owing to you, my lord, and by me rather than by Lord Aveling. His manner to me a while ago was, I regret to say, quite justified by something which occurred between us in Scotland.”

      “And which, if you please,” put in Aveling like lightning, “I wish to remain between us, Mr. Cameron.”

      “That is very unfortunate,” observed Lord Stowe gravely, looking from one to the other. “As you know, I am under a great obligation to Mr. Cameron.”

      “From his past experience of me, my lord, Lord Aveling doubts that,” observed Ewen quietly.

      “Doubts it! Good Gad, Aveling, are you suggesting that I was drunk or dreaming this evening?”

      “No, my lord,” said his son slowly. He was examining his ruffles with some absorption. “Since I gave voice to my doubt, I have . . . revised my opinion. I do not question your very real debt to Mr. Cameron.”

      “I should hope not,” said the Earl with some severity. “And, as I said before, I am extremely anxious to repay it. If I can do this by composing the difference which has arisen between you——”

      “No, you can’t do that, my dear father,” said the young man with vivacity. “Leave that out of the question now, if you will, and ask Mr. Cameron in what way you can best repay that debt. I believe I could give a very good guess at what he will reply.”

      Ewen gave a start and looked at the speaker, upon whose lips hung something like a smile. How did Lord Aveling know—or did he not know? Such intuition savoured almost of the supernatural.

      “Well, Mr. Cameron, what is it?” inquired the Earl. “In what can I attempt to serve you? You have but to name the matter.”

      But Ewen was so bewildered at this volte-face in his enemy, not to mention his uncanny perspicacity, that he remained momentarily tongue-tied.

      “Mr. Cameron’s request is not, I believe, for himself at all,” said Lord Aveling softly. “There is a person upon whose behalf he has done and risked a good deal. I think he wishes, if possible, to enlist you on the same side.”

      “I take it,” said his father, “that you are referring to the unfortunate gentleman, Mr. Cameron’s kinsman, who was to-day condemned to death. Am I right, Mr. Cameron?”

      Ewen bent his head. “I ask too much, perhaps, my lord.” He lifted it again, and speech came to him, and he pleaded earnestly for commutation of the sentence, almost as though the decision had lain in Lord Stowe’s hands. “And surely, my lord,” he finished, “clemency in this case must prove to the advantage, not to the disadvantage, of the Government.”

      The Earl had listened with courtesy and attention. “I will certainly think over what you have said, Mr. Cameron,” he promised, “and if I can convince myself, from what I hear elsewhere, that a recommendation to mercy is advisable, I will take steps in the proper quarters. Come and see me again to-morrow afternoon, if you will give yourself the trouble.—Aveling, you wish me, I gather, to leave you to settle your own difference with Mr. Cameron?”

      “If you please, my lord.” He smiled a little, and opened the door for his father to pass out.

      “Why did you do that? How, in God’s name, did you know?” cried Ewen directly it was shut again.

      The dark mahogany panels behind him threw up Lord Aveling’s slight, shimmering figure. “It was not so difficult to read your mind, Mr. Cameron. I wish I could think that among my friends I numbered one with . . . the same notions that you have. As to my own mind . . . well, perhaps Doctor Cameron made an impression on me this morning other than I had expected, so that, to tell truth, I half-wished that you had been in time with the information which you stole from me.”

      Ewen sat down at the table and took his head between his fists. Once more Keith Windham’s ring glittered in the candle-light.

      “We heard a rumour in Edinburgh,” went on Aveling, “that there was one man and one man only with Doctor Cameron when he was taken, and that he resisted desperately, and was left behind too badly hurt to be taken away by the soldiers. I begin to have a suspicion who that man was . . .”

      Ewen was silent.

      “—Although you said that you arrived too late. . . . But I do not wish to press you to incriminate yourself.”

      “Yes, you have enough against me without seeking any more,” answered Ardroy without raising his head.

      “I think that I have wiped out that score,” said Aveling reflectively. “Indeed, that I have overpaid it.” He was silent for a second or two, and then went on with a very young eagerness, “Mr. Cameron, I am going to ask a favour of you, which may not displease you either. Will you, as a matter of form, cross swords with me—over the table if you prefer it—so that we may each feel that we have offered satisfaction to the other? I was too angry to know what I was saying when I refused your offer of it just now. See, I will shift the candlesticks a little. Will you do it?”

      Ewen got up, rather moved. “I shall be very glad to do it, my lord.” He drew his plain steel-hilted sword; out came the young man’s elegant damascened weapon; the glittering blades went up to the salute, and then kissed for a second above the mahogany.

      “Thank you, sir,” said Aveling, stepping back with a bow, and sheathing again. “Will you forgive me now for what I said about my brother? I am well content that you should keep his ring, and I am sure that the giver would have been pleased that you refused to surrender it, even to save yourself from what I had the bad taste to threaten you with.”

      Sword in hand, Ewen bowed; words, somehow, would not come. So much that was racking had happened this day, and he was not long over a convalescence. The young, delicate face looking gravely and rather sweetly at him across the table swam for a second in the candle-light, and when he tried to return his sword to the scabbard he fumbled over the process.

      “I can see that you are much fatigued, Mr. Cameron,” said Lord Aveling, coming round the table. “Will you take a glass of wine with me before you go?”

      CHAPTER XIX

       KEITH WINDHAM’S MOTHER

       Table of Contents

      (1)

      “A gentleman to see you, sir,” said the voice, not of Ewen’s landlady, Mrs. Wilson, but of the impish boy from the vintner’s shop below. And, coming nearer, he added confidentially, “He ain’t given no name, but he’s mighty fine—a lord, belike!”

      “Where is he, then—show him in at once!” ordered Ewen, picturing Mr. Galbraith, the only person, save Hector, likely to call at this morning hour, left standing at the top of the stairs. And yet what should make the soberly attired Galbraith ‘mighty fine’ at this time of day?

      But the impish boy’s diagnosis was exactly