"I fear I startled you," he said, with a sardonic smile. "And I fear that in the stillness of the place I have overheard a great part of your conversation. Frank, I must congratulate you on your discretion, so far. But seeing that you are young and impressionable, I am going to move temptation out of your way. Enid, I am going on a journey."
"I trust that it is a long one, and that it will detain you for a considerable period," Enid said, coldly.
"It is neither far, nor is it likely to keep me," Henson smiled. "Williams has just come in with the information that the cab awaits me at the gate. Now, then!"
The last words were flung at Littimer with contemptuous command. The hot blood flared into the young man's face. Enid's eyes flashed.
"If my cousin likes to stay here," she said, "why--"
"He is coming with me," Henson said, hoarsely. "Do you understand? With me! And if I like to drag him--or _you_, my pretty lady--to the end of the world or the gates of perdition, you will have to come. Now, get along before I compel you."
Enid stood with fury in her eyes and clenched hands as Littimer slunk away out of the house, Henson following between his victim and Williams. He said no words till the lodge-gates were past and the growl of the dogs had died into the distance.
"We are going to Littimer Castle," said Henson.
"Not there," Littimer groaned--"not there, Henson! I couldn't--I couldn't go to that place!"
"Littimer or perdition!" he said. "You don't want to go to the latter just yet? Jump in, then!"
If you had asked the first five people on the Littimer Estate what they thought of the lord of the soil you would have had a different answer from every one. One woman would have said that a kinder and better man never lived; her neighbour would have declared Lord Littimer to be as hard as the nether millstone. Farmer George would rate him a jolly good fellow, and tell how he would sit in the kitchen over a mug of ale; whilst Farmer John swore at his landlord as a hard-fisted, grasping miser devoid of the bowels of compassion.
At the end of an hour you would be utterly bewildered, not knowing what to believe, and prepared to set the whole village down as a lot of gossips who seemed to mind everything but its own business. And, perhaps, Lord Littimer might come riding through on his big black horse, small, lithe, brown as mahogany, and with an eye piercing as a diamond-drill. One day he looked almost boyishly young, there would be a smile on his tanned face. And then another day he would be bent in the saddle, huddled up, wizened, an old, old man, crushed with the weight of years and sorrow.