Churchill was seated at a table reading. He started up at Maurice’s entrance, and received him courteously, cordially even, so far as words may express cordiality, but with a sudden troubled look which did not escape Maurice, transient as it was.
‘Glad to see you here again, Clissold; but why didn’t you go straight to the ladies? You’ll find them in the hall. Most of our friends have left us, so you’ll be quite an acquisition this dull weather.’
‘You are very good, but I regret to say that the business which brings me here to-day denies me the right to approach Mrs. Penwyn. I come as a harbinger of trouble.’
Churchill’s face whitened to the lips, and his thin nervous hand fastened with a tight grip upon the edge of the table against which he stood, as if he could scarcely have held himself erect without that support.
‘How frightened he looks!’ thought Maurice. ‘A man of his type oughtn’t to be wanting in moral courage.’
‘And pray what is the nature of your evil tidings?’ Churchill asked, recovering self-control. His resolute nature speedily asserted itself. A faint tinge of colour came back to his sunken cheeks; his eyes lost their look of sudden horror, and assumed a hard, defiant expression.
‘This property—the Penwyn estate—is very dear to you, I think?’ interrogated Maurice.
‘It is as dear to me as a man’s birthright should naturally be to him; and it has been the happy home of my married life.’ This with a touch of tenderness. In no moment of his existence, however troubled, could he speak of Madge without tenderness.
‘Yet Penwyn can be hardly called your birthright, since you inherit it by an accident,’ said Maurice, nervously, anxious to take the edge off his unpleasant communication.
‘What is the drift of these remarks, Mr. Clissold? They seem to me entirely purposeless, and pardon me if I add, somewhat impertinent.’
‘Mr. Penwyn, I am here to inform you that there is a member of your family in existence who possesses a prior claim to this estate.’
‘You are dreaming, sir, or you are deceived by some impostor. I and my child are the sole representatives of the Penwyn family.’
‘There are secrets in every family, Mr. Penwyn. There has been a secret in your family, religiously kept for more than twenty years, but lately brought to light; in some part by my agency.’