"I am afraid you are growing nervous, Julian," said Dora tenderly.
She laid her cool white hand upon his forehead, and looked concerned at the touch.
"You are actually feverish. You have been irritated into a fever by that prosy old man. Why do you not superannuate poor old Gretton, and let Bothwell be your steward? He is much cleverer and more business-like than you think, and at the worst he would not prose."
"I never thought Bothwell a fit person to look after my estate, and I think him less so now," answered her husband coldly. "He is the most unpopular man in Bodmin. Do not let us talk about it any more. By the way, you have had a visitor this afternoon," he continued, as his wife handed him his tea. "I saw Heathcote go past the library-window while I was at work with Gretton. What brought him to Penmorval?"
"I asked him to come," answered Dora, very pale, but with a steadfast look in her eyes, and about the firmly-moulded lips.
She had never had a secret from her husband in her life, and although she had made her appeal to Heathcote without his advice or knowledge, she had no intention of leaving him uninformed now that the thing was done.
"You asked him to come to you--Edward Heathcote!" exclaimed Wyllard, with a surprised look. "And may I know what important business necessitated this interview?"
"You have a right to know all about it, Julian," she answered quietly. "I have asked Mr. Heathcote to give me his aid in a matter in which you have seemed unwilling to help me. You were content that my cousin should remain under a hideous stigma--shunned by those who were once his friends. I am not so content; and I have asked the son of my mother's oldest and staunchest friend to help me."
And then she told him, as briefly as possible, what kind of request she had made to Edward Heathcote, and how he had promised to help her.
Julian Wyllard was livid with anger. He set down his cup with a hand that trembled like an aspen-leaf; he rose from his chair, and paced the grassy space in front of the arbour, backwards and forwards half a dozen times, before he uttered a word. And then, coming back to his wife, he looked at her with eyes dilated with jealous frenzy.
"Why call him the son of your mother's old friend?" he exclaimed. "What need of so awkward and ambiguous a phrase? Why not call him your old lover? It is in that character you have thrown yourself upon him; it is as your old lover that you try to arouse his chivalry, that you urge him to do that which your husband's common sense revolted from. A husband is a reasoning animal, you know. He will only attempt the practical, the possible. But throw your glove to the lions, and your lover will leap into the arena and fight for it! And you take advantage of an unquenchable passion, of a despairing love, to attempt the solution of a problem to which the answer may be a rope round your cousin's neck."