CHAPTER XVII.
ARTHUR WARDLAW fixed on the speaker a gaze full of horror; his jaw fell;a livid pallor spread over his features; he echoed in a hoarse whisper,"The _Proserpine!"_ and turned his scared eyes upon Wylie, who washimself leaning against the wall, his stalwart frame beginning totremble.
"The sick girl," murmured Wylie, and a cold sweat gathered on his brow.
General Rolleston looked from one to another with strange misgivings,which soon deepened into a sense of some terrible calamity; for now astrong convulsion swelled Arthur Wardlaw's heart; his face workedfearfully; and, with a sharp and sudden cry, he fell forward on thetable, and his father's arm alone prevented him from sinking like a deadman on the floor. Yet, though crushed and helpless, he was notinsensible; that blessing was denied him.
General Rolleston implored an explanation.
Wylie, with downcast and averted face, began to stammer a fewdisconnected and unintelligible words; but old Wardlaw silenced him andsaid, with much feeling, "Let none but a father tell him. My poor, poorfriend--the _Proserpine!_ How can I say it?"
"Lost at sea," groaned Wylie.
At these fatal words the old warrior's countenance grew rigid; his large,bony hands gripped the back of the chair on which he leaned, and werewhite with their own convulsive force; and he bowed his head under theblow, without one word.
His was an agony too great and mute to be spoken to; and there wassilence in the room, broken only by the hysterical moans of the miserableplotter, who had drawn down this calamity on his own head. He was in nostate to be left alone; and even the bereaved father found pity in hisdesolate heart for one who loved his lost child so well; and the two oldmen took him home between them, in a helpless and pitiable condition.