CHAPTER SIXTEEN.
"Dead? Dead to you? Pierce, speak to me," cried Jenny. "What do youmean?"
"What I say. They are a curious mixture of weakness and duplicity."
"Who are, dear?" said Jenny, with a warm colour taking the place of thepallor which her brother's words had produced. "Why will you go ontalking in riddles?"
"Women. Their soft, quiet ways force you to believe in them, and thencomes some sudden enlightening to prove what I say."
Jenny caught him by the shoulder as he sat in his chair, lookingghastly.
"Tell me what you mean," she cried excitedly.
"Only the falling to pieces of your castle in the air," he said, with amocking laugh. "The marriage you arranged between the pauper physicianand the rich heiress. I can easily be strictly honorable now."
"Will you tell me what you mean, Pierce?" cried the girl, angrily."What has happened? Is someone ill at the Manor House?"
"No," he said, bitterly.
"Then why were you sent for?"
"To see an imaginary patient."
"Pierce, if you do not wish me to go into a fit of hysterical passion,"cried the girl, "tell me what you mean. Why--were--you--sent--for?"
"Because," replied Leigh, imitating his sister's manner of speaking,"Mise--Katherine--Wilton--and--Mr Claud--were--supposed--to--be--lying--speechless in their rooms, and--ha-ha-ha! their doors could notbe forced."
"Pierce, what is the matter with you?" cried Jenny, excitedly; "do youknow what you are saying?"
"Perfectly," he cried, his manner changing from its mocking tone to oneof fierce passion. "When I reached the place, a way was found in, andthe birds were flown."
"Birds--flown," cried Jenny, looking more and more as if she doubted herbrother's sanity; "what birds?"
"The fair Katherine, and that admirable Crichton, Claud."
"Flown?" stammered Jenny, who looked now half stunned.
"Well, eloped," he cried, savagely, "to Gretna Green, or a registryoffice. Who says that Northwood is a dull place, without events?"
"Kate Wilton eloped with her cousin Claud!"
"Yes, my dear," said Pierce, striving hard to speak in a careless,indifferent tone, but failing dismally, for every word sounded as iftorn from his breast, his quivering lips bespeaking the agony he felt.
There was silence for a few moments, and then Jenny exclaimed:
"Pierce, is this some cruel jest?"
"Do I look as if I were jesting?" he cried wildly, and springing up hecast aside the mask beneath which he had striven to hide the agony whichracked him. "Jesting! when I am half mad with myself for my folly.Driveling pitiful idiot that I was, ready to believe in the first prettyface I see, and then, as I have said, I find how full of duplicity andfolly a woman is."
"Mind what you are saying, Pierce," cried his sister, who seemed to bestrangely moved; "don't say words which will make you bitterly repent.Tell me again; I feel giddy and sick. I must be going to be taken ill,for I can't have heard you aright, or there must be some mistake."
"Mistake!" he cried, with a savage laugh. "Don't I tell you--I havejust come from there? Has not old Wilton hid me keep silence? And Icame babbling it all to you."
"Stop!" said Jenny thoughtfully; "Kate could not do such a thing. Whenwas it?"
"Who can tell?--late last night--early this morning. What does itmatter?"
"It is not true," cried Jenny, with her eyes flashing. "How dare you,who were ready to go down on your knees and worship her, utter such acruel calumny."
"Very well," he cried bitterly; "then it is not true; I have not beenthere this morning, and have not looked in their empty rooms. Tell me Iam a fool and a madman, and you will be very near the truth."
"I don't care," cried Jenny angrily; "and it's cruel--almost blasphemousof you to say such a thing about that poor sweet girl whom I had alreadygrown to love. She elope with her cousin--run away like a silly girl ina romance! It is impossible."
"Yes, impassible," he said mockingly, as he writhed in his despair andagony.
"Pierce, you ought to be ashamed of yourself. There! I can only talkto you in a commonplace way, though all the time I am longing for wordsfull of scorn and contempt with which to crush you. No, I'm not, mypoor boy, because I can see how _you_ are suffering. Oh, Pierce!Pierce!" she continued, sobbing as she threw her arms about his neck;"how can you torture yourself so by thinking such a thing of her?"
"Good little girl," he said tenderly, moved as he was by her display ofaffection. "I shall begin to respect myself again now I find that mybright, clever little sister could be as much deceived as I."
"I have not been deceived in her. She is all that is beautiful, andgood, and true. Of course, I believe in her, and so do you at heart,only you are half mad now, and deceived."
"Yes, half mad, and deceived!"
"Yes. There is something behind all this--I know," cried Jenny, wildly."They have persecuted her so, and encouraged that wretched boy to payher attentions, till in despair she has run away to take refuge withsome other friends."
"With Claud Wilton!" said Pierce, bitterly.
"Silence, sir! No. Women are not such weak double-faced creatures asyou think. No, it is as I say; and oh! Pierce, dear, he was out latelast night, and when he got back found her going away and followed her."
"Fiction--imagination," he said bitterly. "You are inventing all thisto try and comfort me, little woman, but your woven basket will not holdwater. It leaks at the very beginning. How could you know that he wasout late last night?"
Jenny's cheeks were scarlet, and she turned away her face.
"There, you see, you are beaten at once, Jenny, and that I have somereason for what I have said about women; but there are exceptions toevery rule, and my little sister is one of them. I did not include heramong the weak ones."
To his astonishment she burst into a passionate storm of sobs and tears,and in words confused and only half audible, she accused herself ofbeing as weak and foolish as the rest, and, as he made out, quiteunworthy of his trust.
"Oh! Pierce, darling," she cried wildly, as she sank upon her knees infront of his chair; "I'm a wicked, wicked girl, and not deserving of allyou think about me. Believe in poor Kate, and not in me, for indeed,indeed, she is all that is good and true."
"A man cannot govern his feelings, Sissy," he said, half alarmed now atthe violence of her grief. "I must believe in you always, as my ownlittle girl. How could I do otherwise, when you have been everything tome for so long, ever since you were quite a little girl and I told younot to cry for I would be father and mother to you, both."
"And so you have been, Pierce, dear," she sobbed, "but I don't deserveit--I don't deserve it."
"I don't deserve to have such a loving little companion," he said,kissing her tenderly. "Haven't I let my fancy stray from you, and am Inot being sharply punished for my weal mess?"
She suddenly hung back from him and pressed her hair from her temples,as he held her by the waist.
"Pierce!" she said sharply, and there was a look of anger in her eyes,"he is a horrid wretch."
"People do not give him much of a character," said Leigh bitterly, "butthat would be no excuse for my following him to wring his neck."
"I believe he would be guilty of any wickedness. Tell me, dear; do youthink it possible--such things have been done?"
"What things?" he said, wondering at her excited manner.
"It is to get her money, of course; for it would be his then. Do youthink he has taken her away by force?"
Leigh started violently now in turn, and a light seemed to flash intohis understanding, but it died out directly, and he said half pityingly,as he drew her to him once again:
"Poor little inventor of fiction," he said, with a harsh laugh. "Butlet it rest, Sissy; it will not do. These things only occur in aromance. No, I do not think anything of the kind; and what do you sayto London now?"