"Oh, my darling!" she murmured. "I do so love you, dear, dear
Cynthia!" and she stroked her hair, and kissed her eyelids; Cynthia
passive all the while, till suddenly she started up stung with a new
idea, and looking Molly straight in the face, she said,--
"Molly, Roger will marry you! See if it isn't so! You two good--"
But Molly pushed her away with a sudden violence of repulsion.
"Don't!" she said. She was crimson with shame and indignation. "Your
husband this morning! Mine to-night! What do you take him for?"
"A man!" smiled Cynthia. "And therefore, if you won't let me call
him changeable, I'll coin a word and call him consolable!" But Molly
gave her back no answering smile. At this moment, the servant Maria
entered the consulting-room, where the two girls were. She had a
scared look.
"Isn't master here?" asked she, as if she distrusted her eyes.
"No!" said Cynthia. "I heard him go out. I heard him shut the front
door not five minutes ago."
"Oh, dear!" said Maria. "And there's a man come on horseback from
Hamley Hall, and he says as Mr. Osborne is dead, and that master must
go off to the Squire straight away."
"Osborne Hamley dead!" said Cynthia, in awed surprise. Molly was out
at the front door, seeking the messenger through the dusk, round into
the stable-yard, where the groom sate motionless on his dark horse,
flecked with foam, made visible by the lantern placed on the steps
near, where it had been left by the servants, who were dismayed at
this news of the handsome young man who had frequented their master's
house, so full of sportive elegance and winsomeness. Molly went up to
the man, whose thoughts were lost in recollection of the scene he had
left at the place he had come from.
She laid her hand on the hot damp skin of the horse's shoulder; the
man started.
"Is the doctor coming, Miss?" For he saw who it was by the dim light.
"He is dead, is he not?" asked Molly, in a low voice.
"I'm afeard he is,--leastways, there's no doubt according to what
they said. But I've ridden hard! there may be a chance. Is the doctor
coming, Miss?"
"He is gone out. They are seeking him, I believe. I will go myself.
Oh! the poor old Squire!" She went into the kitchen--went over the
house with swift rapidity to gain news of her father's whereabouts.
The servants knew no more than she did. Neither she nor they had
heard what Cynthia, ever quick of perception, had done. The shutting
of the front door had fallen on deaf ears, as far as others were
concerned. Upstairs sped Molly to the drawing-room, where Mrs. Gibson
stood at the door, listening to the unusual stir in the house.