Maude wound her arm within his. "Do come, Rupert!" she whispered coaxingly. "Think of the disturbance if Cris should find you here and tell!"
"And tell!" repeated Rupert, mockingly. "_Not_ to tell would be impossible to Cris Chattaway. It's what he'd delight in more than in gold. I wouldn't be the sneak Cris Chattaway is for the world."
But Rupert appeared to think it well to depart with his sister. As they were going out, old Canham spoke to George.
"And Mrs. Ryle, sir--how does she bear it?"
"She bears it very well, Mark," answered George, as the tears rushed to his eyes unbidden. The old man marked them.
"There's one comfort for ye, Master George," he said, in low tones: "that he has took all his neighbours' sorrow with him. And as much couldn't be said if every gentleman round about here was cut off by death."
The significant tone was not needed to tell George that he alluded to Mr. Chattaway. The master of Trevlyn Hold was, in fact, no greater favourite with old Canham than he was with George Ryle.
"Mind how you get in, Master Rupert, so they don't fall upon you," whispered Ann Canham, as she held open the lodge door.
"I'll mind," was the boy's answer. "Not that I should care much if they did," he added. "I am getting tired of it."
She stood and watched them up the dark walk until a turn in the road hid them from view, and then closed the door. "If they don't take to treat him kinder, I misdoubt me but he'll do something desperate, as the dead-and-gone heir, Rupert, did," she remarked, sitting down near her father.
"Like enough," was the old man's reply, taking up his pipe again. "He has the true Trevlyn temper, have young Rupert."
"Maude," began Rupert, as they wound their way up the dark avenue, "don't they know you came out?"
"They would not have let me come if they had known it," replied Maude. "I have been wanting to go down all day, but Aunt Diana and Octave kept me in. I begged to go down last night when Bill Webb brought the news; and they were angry with me."
"Do you know what I should have done in Chattaway's place, George?" cried the boy, impulsively. "I should have loaded my gun the minute I heard of it, and shot the beast between the eyes. Chattaway would, if he were half a man."