"You seem to think of nothing but his money. If he had not a penny he would still be a very kind-hearted, pleasant gentleman."
Old McIntyre burst into a hoarse laugh.
"I like to hear you preach," said he. "Without a penny, indeed! Do you think that you would dance attendance upon him if he were a poor man? Do you think that Laura would ever have looked twice at him? You know as well as I do that she is marrying him only for his money."
Robert gave a cry of dismay. There was the alchemist standing in the doorway, pale and silent, looking from one to the other of them with his searching eyes.
"I must apologise," he said coldly. "I did not mean to listen to your words. I could not help it. But I have heard them. As to you, Mr. McIntyre, I believe that you speak from your own bad heart. I will not let myself be moved by your words. In Robert I have a true friend. Laura also loves me for my own sake. You cannot shake my faith in them. But with you, Mr. McIntyre, I have nothing in common; and it is as well, perhaps, that we should both recognise the fact."
He bowed, and was gone ere either of the McIntyres could say a word.
"You see!" said Robert at last. "You have done now what you cannot undo!"
"I will be even with him!" cried the old man furiously, shaking his fist through the window at the dark slow-pacing figure. "You just wait, Robert, and see if your old dad is a man to be played with."
CHAPTER XIII.
A MIDNIGHT VENTURE.
Not a word was said to Laura when she returned as to the scene which had occurred in her absence. She was in the gayest of spirits, and prattled merrily about her purchases and her arrangements, wondering from time to time when Raffles Haw would come. As night fell, however, without any word from him, she became uneasy.
"What can be the matter that he does not come?" she said. "It is the first day since our engagement that I have not seen him."
Robert looked out through the window.
"It is a gusty night, and raining hard," he remarked. "I do not at all expect him."
"Poor Hector used to come, rain, snow, or fine. But, then, of course, he was a sailor. It was nothing to him. I hope that Raffles is not ill."
"He was quite well when I saw him this morning," answered her brother, and they relapsed into silence, while the rain pattered against the windows, and the wind screamed amid the branches of the elms outside.
Old McIntyre had sat in the corner most of the day biting his nails and glowering into the fire, with a brooding, malignant expression upon his wrinkled features. Contrary to his usual habits, he did not go to the village inn, but shuffled off early to bed without a word to his children. Laura and Robert remained chatting for some time by the fire, she talking of the thousand and one wonderful things which were to be done when she was mistress of the New Hall. There was less philanthropy in her talk when her future husband was absent, and Robert could not but remark that her carriages, her dresses, her receptions, and her travels in distant countries were the topics into which she threw all the enthusiasm which he had formerly heard her bestow upon refuge homes and labour organisations.
"I think that greys are the nicest horses," she said. "Bays are nice too, but greys are more showy. We could manage with a brougham and a landau, and perhaps a high dog-cart for Raffles. He has the coach-house full at present, but he never uses them, and I am sure that those fifty horses would all die for want of exercise, or get livers like Strasburg geese, if they waited for him to ride or drive them."
"I suppose that you will still live here?" said her brother.
"We must have a house in London as well, and run up for the season. I don't, of course, like to make suggestions now, but it will be different afterwards. I am sure that Raffles will do it if I ask him. It is all very well for him to say that he does not want any thanks or honours, but I should like to know what is the use of being a public benefactor if you are to have no return for it.