The White Virgin

Quick as thought he threw himself down among the heather, and lay peering between two tufts, till Jessop came into sight directly after, puffing away at a big cigar as he walked sharply along the track, passing the spot where the clerk lay, and evidently going in the direction of the cottage.

Robson looked uneasy, and his forehead began to wrinkle with the thoughts which entered his brain. He was puzzled at first; then suspicious; and at last determined.

He waited until Jessop was well out of sight, and with his mind made up, he was about to scramble to his feet, but he dropped down again, feeling sure he must have been seen, for he was conscious of a figure higher up the slope, coming slowly towards him; and soon after Sturgess, with his arm still in a sling, came close by, went down to the shelf-track, and there seated himself in a nook amongst some ferns. This forced the young clerk to slowly worm himself along among the heath and whortleberry tufts for a couple of hundred yards before the rising ground was well between them, when he went off at a sharp walk in the direction taken by the Major.

Meanwhile Jessop had gone on smoking heavily till he reached the river side, where he stopped gazing down into the sparkling water, evidently thinking deeply, and drawing hard at his cigar, till it was nearly done, when he threw it to fall with a loud hiss into the stream.

Then, with a quiet, satisfied aspect he went on for a few steps, and turned up the tiny gully hard by the Major’s garden.

Fortune favoured him, for Dinah was seated in the shady porch working; and she started up in alarm as he came close up.

“Don’t be frightened,” he said, with a smile, and holding out his hand. “Surely you have not forgotten me?”

“No,” said Dinah, recovering herself, though her heart beat heavily from apprehension. “You called here once before.”

“To be sure I did; but you will shake hands?”

“As a friend of Mr Clive Reed, under the present circumstances, surely, sir, it is better not,” she replied with dignity.

“Sir – under the present circumstances,” he cried bitterly. “The old story. Blackguard again. Ah,” he said, with a stamp of the foot, “is that man to go through the whole of his life spreading malicious slanders about his brother?”

Dinah was silent.

“Then you will not shake hands with one who spared no effort to get himself appointed to stay down here – whose sole thought has been of her whom he met once – only once – but whose impression was fixed so deeply upon his heart that ever since he has thought of her night and day.”

Dinah rose and drew back into the doorway, looking at him with contempt.

“Is this part of some melodrama, Mr Jessop Reed?” she said, “or do you imagine that you are speaking to a weak rustic girl?”

“I am speaking the truth – blunderingly, perhaps,” he cried excitedly, “but in the best way I can. I wonder that I am not dumb before you. How can you be so cruel. You must have seen how you impressed me when I was down here before. That feeling has grown into an overpowering passion. Dinah Gurdon,” he cried, catching her hand, “I came down hereto live – to love you. I cannot help it.”

“And you know that I am your brother’s betrothed,” she said wildly.

“I know that without doubt he has taken advantage of his position here to try and delude you, as he has deluded other poor girls again and again; but you must know the truth. He is not fit to touch your hand – no, not even to stand in your presence. Hush! let me speak. I know all this is cruelly sudden, but you would forgive me if you knew what I have suffered since I saw you last. Dinah, dearest Dinah, give me some little ray of hope to take away with me. You are too beautiful to be cruel – too gentle to send me away despairing. Ah, you are relenting! A word only, and I will go away patiently, and ready to wait till you know me better.”

“I never could know you better than I do at present,” said Dinah firmly, and quietly withdrawing her hand.

“Ah, then I may hope?” he cried.

“For what, sir? – an increase in my feeling of contempt? Your brother spared you, but I formed my own estimate of your nature, and it is true.”

“I – I don’t understand you,” he whispered, “only that your words give me intense pain.”

“I know, too, my father’s estimate of your character. Shall I tell you what he said?”

“If you will. It is joy to hear you speak,” he cried, as he tried to catch her hand again.

“He said, sir, that you were a scoundrel.”

“Of course,” cried Jessop, with a bitter laugh, “from my brother’s slanders.”

“Did your brother slander you when he told me that you married his betrothed?” cried Dinah indignantly, her eyes speaking her disgust. “Should I slander you, sir, if I told you that your words to me – words from a married man, to one whom you know to be his promised wife, are an insult? Have the goodness to go, sir, before my father returns, or I will not be answerable for the consequences. Ah!”

She rushed past Jessop, forcing him on one side, for the Major, warned by Robson, had hurried back, and was coming up the path with his stick quivering in his grasp.

“Don’t – don’t, father,” she panted in her excitement, “for my sake. I have said enough.”

The Major’s face was purple with anger, but he did not speak, only raised his quivering stick, and pointed down toward the pathway, while Dinah clung to his arm.

Jessop shrugged his shoulders, uttered a contemptuous laugh, and calmly took out his case, selected and lit a cigar, closed the case with a snap, pocketed it, and walked by them smoking, insultingly contriving to send a puff of tobacco into the Major’s face as he passed.

The next minute he was on the shelf path with his face convulsed with fury; and he walked on backward toward the mine, biting off pieces of the cigar, and spitting them out savagely.

“That’s it, is it?” he snarled. “Well, we can soon tame all that. He won’t come back here, and all that is vapour. Pretty indignation; but a woman is weak. She knows I want her, and she’ll dream about it, and grow softer till the siege comes to an end. For it shall come to an end, and in my way, my lady. I never fairly attacked a girl yet without winning; and my pretty, sweet darling shall go on her knees to me yet, and what do you mean by that?”

“I want to talk to you, guv’nor,” said Sturgess, who had suddenly clapped him roughly on the shoulder.

“What is it, then? And, confound you, don’t you forget your place, sir.”

“No fear. I’ve done your dirty work, and helped you to get your position here.”

“And your own,” cried Jessop, with a sneer.

“Oh yes, that’s all right; but I’m not going to have you ride roughshod over me in every way.”

“What do you mean, sir?”

“That you’ve got to keep away from the cottage yonder. I’m not going to have you poaching on my preserves.”

“What do you mean?”

“That Dinah Gurdon’s mine – my lass; and that I’d break the neck of any man who came between us two.”

Jessop looked at the man in astonishment for a few minutes, and then burst into a mocking laugh.

“You!” he cried. “Oh, this is too rich.”

“What!” cried Sturgess, who was black with fury.

“You be damned!” cried Jessop; and rudely thrusting the man aside, making him wince as he touched his wounded arm, strode away.

Chapter Thirty Two.

In a Flash

It was a curious blending of the bitter and the sweet when Clive Reed came down to the Blinkdale Moor. To a man of his temperament, it was maddening to find himself completely supplanted at the mine – where Jessop reigned supreme, when Wrigley did not come down; and in spite of the past the young engineer would have insisted upon frequent inspection of the place and statements as to the proceedings, but he dared not go, for at his next visit the Major had excitedly told him of all that had taken place with Jessop, and also of Dinah’s complaint of insult received from Sturgess.

“I promised her that I would leave it to her to tell, my dear boy, but it’s like going into action – one does not care to begin, but the moment one’s blood is up, one doesn’t know where to stop.”