Time went on till a week had gone by without anything occurring to break the monotonous tenor of Burgo\'s life in the Wizard\'s Tower.
His meals were supplied to him in the way already described, and as they were plentiful and good, he had nothing to complain of on that score.
Once a day old Mrs. Sprowle--for that was her name, she told him-- unlocked the door and entered the room in order to do such humble chores as were requisite, at which times "that devil," as she persistently termed the Italian, always kept watch and ward below stairs in company with one of his ferocious hounds. Him Burgo never saw, but more than once, as he lay awake, after putting out his lamp, he was conscious of a stealthy footfall on the stairs, and it seemed to him as if the slide were pushed softly back; but what the Italian\'s motive could be for acting thus--for he did not fail to set it down to him--he was unable to conceive, unless the latter were anxious to satisfy himself that his captive was not utilising the dark hours in an attempt to escape. On the first and second occasions Burgo lay still and made no sign, but the third time he heard the footsteps on the stairs, followed by the faint creak of the sliding panel, impelled by a sudden impulse, he put out his hand, grasped his boot, and aimed it as straight as he could in the dark at the aperture in the door. There was a muttered exclamation--or execration--in a man\'s voice, and then a sound of retreating footsteps. Burgo broke into a burst of genuine laughter. He could hardly remember the time when he had laughed last, it seemed so long ago.
Among the contents of his portmanteau were a meerschaum pipe and a pound packet of Latakia. He had been a smoker for years, and what such things could do towards solacing his imprisonment, they did. Another treasure was a volume containing some half-dozen of Shakespeare\'s plays, which he had brought with him as a refuge against ennui in case of bad weather, or when he could not sleep of nights. Under similar circumstances a French novel would have recommended itself to the majority of Mr. Brabazon\'s friends. But in many ways Burgo was unlike the majority of his friends, and in none more, perhaps, than in his love of reading. It was true that hardly any one ever saw him with a book in his hands, but he was one of those men who can do with very little sleep, and, notwithstanding his multifarious engagements as a man about town, he generally contrived to devote at least a couple of hours out of the twenty-four to good solid reading. It was a fact which would have greatly surprised his club friends had they been told it, which they never were; and yet therein lay the answer to a question which young Hylton propounded one night in the smoking-room after Burgo had just gone: "Can any of you chappies tell me how it is that Brabazon seems to know such a lot about such a lot of things, you know?" But the chappies, one and all, shook their heads. They admitted ungrudgingly that Brabazon did know a lot, but that how he came by his knowledge was a mystery.
That Burgo should have crammed a volume of the Bard into his portmanteau before leaving town vouches something for his taste and quality.
When Mother Sprowle brought him his breakfast on the third morning of his incarceration, she brought with her a Times newspaper two days old, and each morning afterwards she did the same thing. It was a boon for which Burgo felt sufficiently grateful, enabling him, as it did, to while away many an hour--for, barring a few matters as to which he found it impossible to feign the most tepid interest, he read it from beginning to end--which, but for it, would probably have proved tedious in the extreme. He could not but regard it as a proof that there was an unspoken but clearly implied desire on the part of some one to render his captivity as little irksome to him as possible. Was that some one her ladyship, or whom?
But oh--but oh, to be free!
It was the eighth dinner Mother Sprowle had brought him, and Burgo, whose appetite was beginning to fail him for lack of fresh air and exercise, took the dishes from her languidly, like a man who would just as lief have sent them back untasted as not. But when, last of all, the old dame thrust under his nose a tiny envelope addressed "Burgo Brabazon, Esq.," in a feminine hand, there came a flash into his eyes and a look into his face which seemed to make another man of him. Seizing the note, he tore it open, saying to himself in a breathless whisper: "From her ladyship, of course. What can she have to write me about? Not----"
But the note was not from her ladyship, as his first startled glance at it sufficed to tell him.
"Miss Dacia Roylance presents her compliments to Mr. Brabazon," it ran, "and begs to inform him that she purposes calling upon him (unless unforeseen circumstances should intervene) between eight and nine o\'clock this evening, as for some time past Miss Roylance has been extremely desirous of making Mr. Brabazon\'s acquaintance."
Burgo read the note twice over, so dumfounded was he, before he could feel sure that he had taken in the sense aright. Then he held up a finger to the old woman, who was regarding him with one of her equivocal leers, as a signal that she was to remain, after which he stood for a long two minutes with his eyes bent on the floor.
He remembered the name of Dacia Roylance as that of a young lady of whom Tyson had made casual mention as being her ladyship\'s ward or niece, and as having made her appearance at Garion Keep a few days after the arrival of the family. Since then she had scarcely found a moment\'s place in his thoughts. She was nothing to him, nor he to her; they had never even met; he had felt neither curiosity about her, nor the wish to meet her. Now, however----
The old woman coughed; a hint, evidently, that he must not keep her waiting much longer.
Surely so polite a note necessitated an answer similar in kind. He had still the pen and ink which had been brought him the first day, and in his portmanteau were paper and envelopes. Getting together his materials without another moment\'s delay, he cleared a space on the table and wrote as under:
"Mr. Brabazon presents his compliments to Miss Roylance, and in reply to her note just received begs to assure Miss Roylance that it will afford him infinite pleasure to be waited upon by her at whatever hour may best suit her convenience."
Then he put the note into an envelope, fastened it up, addressed it, and gave it to Mrs. Sprowle, who took it with a nod as one who knew.
It is almost needless to say that to Burgo the afternoon seemed to drag its wearisome length along even more slowly than usual. He waited the coming of evening with impatience, asking himself meanwhile a hundred questions, although fully aware of the futility of doing so, seeing that to none of them was any answer forthcoming. By-and-by the afternoon shadows began to lengthen, and then a great bank of cloud crept down from the middle sky, and shut out as with a curtain the flaming splendours of the western heavens. And therewith twilight came at a bound.
Then Burgo lighted his lamp, and sat down resolutely to read--and wait. But for once Shakespeare\'s magic proved of no avail. He read a page and turned over to the next, but, although his eyes mechanically took in the words, his mind remained a blank as far as their meaning was concerned. At length he flung the volume aside, and began to pace the room as he had paced it hundreds of times before, glancing every few minutes at his watch, while sneering cynically at himself for being so weak-minded. "I might be a big school-girl waiting for her first ball-dress to be brought home," he muttered contemptuously; and then he looked at his watch again.
Mother Sprowle had brought him his supper--which he did not touch--and had gone again, and night had settled down in earnest, before Burgo\'s alert ear heard the key turned in the lock belowstairs. He drew himself up, his eyes brightened, and a dark flush mounted to his cheeks. What was he about to see? Some "vision beatific," or some ordinary "young person," the bearer it might be, of some message from Lady Clinton? That Miss Roylance should dare to visit him of her own initiative, and without the consent or sanction of her ladyship, was too much to expect. Still, youth sometimes abounds with sweet audacities.
He listened without moving to the sound of nearing footsteps as they climbed the stairs one by one. These were certainly not the flying footsteps of a young girl. They were slow and somewhat laboured, with a peculiar tapping accompaniment which at once brought to Burgo\'s mind that morning in his uncle\'s house, when he had been puzzled by a somewhat similar sound, which proved to be the tap-tap of the crippled caretaker\'s stick on the oaken stairs as he ascended from the regions below. Burgo had pushed back the slide some time ago. Drawing nearer to it he now stood with his eyes fixed intently on the black square in the door. The tapping became more audible, and then the darkness outside the door was illumined by a faint light, which began to creep up the whitewashed wall of the landing, and a second or two later there appeared a white hand holding aloft a small shaded lamp--involuntarily Burgo drew a step or two nearer--and then a face came into view, and so, by degrees, the figure to which it pertained. Then, with a thrill, Burgo saw that this dark-robed young woman, who had thus strangely elected to visit him, was supported under her left arm by a slender crutch, as also that she was slightly humpbacked, and that one shoulder had the appearance of being somewhat hi............