If--if Lionel's horse
should have tried to swim the river--and failed--"
"And we are lingering here!" cried Douglas, passionately; "lingering
here and talking, instead of acting! Are those horses ready there?" he
shouted, rushing out to the portico.
His voice was heard in the darkness without, urging on the grooms as
they led out fresh horses from the quadrangle.
"Gordon!" cried Lydia Graham, "you will go out with the others. You
will do your uttermost in the search for Mr. Lionel Dale!"
She said this in a loud, ringing voice, with the imperious tone of a
woman accustomed to command. She was leaning against one angle of the
great chimney-piece, pale as ashes, breathless, but not fainting. To
her, the idea that any calamity had befallen Lionel Dale was very
dreadful--almost as dreadful as it could be to the brother who so truly
loved him; for her own interest was involved in this man's life, and
with her that was ever paramount.
She was well-nigh fainting; but she was too much a woman of the world
not to know that if she had given way to her emotion at that moment,
she would have given rise to disgust and annoyance, rather than
interest, in the minds of the gentlemen present. She knew this, and she
wished to please every one; for in pleasing the many lies the secret of
a woman's success with the few.
Even in that moment of confusion and excitement, the scheming woman
determined to stand well in the eyes of Douglas Dale.
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