My conscience smote me as I went in. I put on an unconscious, easy manner, which was such a dismal failure that it was lucky for me that they were too much engrossed to notice it.
I never before saw a family so stricken down by a domestic misfortune as the group I found in the drawing-room, making a dejected pretence of reading or working. We talked at first--and hollow talk it was--onindifferent subjects, till I could bear it no longer, and plunged boldly into danger.
"I don't see the dog," I began, "I suppose you--you found him all right the other evening, colonel?" I wondered, as I spoke, whether they would not notice the break in my voice, but they did not.
"Why, the fact is," said the colonel, heavily, gnawing his gray moustache, "we've not heard anything of him since; he's--he's run off!""Gone, Mr. Weatherhead; gone without a word!" said Mrs. Currie, plaintively, as if she thought the dog might at least have left an address.
"I wouldn't have believed it of him," said the colonel; "it has completely knocked me over. Haven't been so cut up for years--the ungrateful rascal!""O uncle!" pleaded Lilian, "don't talk like that; perhaps Bingo couldn't help it--perhaps some one has s-s-shot him!""Shot!" cried the colonel, angrily. "By heaven! if I thought there was a villain on earth capable of shooting that poor inoffensive dog, I'd-- Why/should/ they shoot him, Lilian? Tell me that! I--I hope you won't let me hear you talk like that again. /You/ don't think he's shot, eh, Weatherhead?"I said--Heaven forgive me!--that I thought it highly improbable.
"He's not dead!" cried Mrs. Currie. "If he were dead I should know it somehow--I'm sure I should! But I'm certain he's alive. Only last night I had such a beautiful dream about him. I thought he came back to us, Mr. Weatherhead, driving up in a hansom-cab, and he was just the same as ever--only he wore blue spectacles, and the shaved part of him was painted a bright red. And I woke up with the joy--so, you know, it's sure to come true!"It will be easily understood what torture conversations like these were to me, and how I hated myself as I sympathised and spoke encouraging words concerning the dog's recovery, when I knew all the time he was lying hid under my garden mould. But I took it as a part of my punishment, and bore it all uncomplainingly; practice even made me an adept in the art of consolation--I believe I really was a great comfort to them.
I had hoped that they would soon get over the first bitterness of their loss, and that Bingo would be first replaced and then forgotten in the usualway; but there seemed no signs of this coming to pass.
The poor colonel was too plainly fretting himself ill about it; he went pottering about forlornly, advertising, searching, and seeing people, but all, of course, to no purpose; and it told upon him. He was more like a man whose only son and heir had been stolen than an Anglo-Indian officer who had lost a poodle. I had to affect the liveliest interest in all his inquiries and expeditions, and to listen to and echo the most extravagant eulogies of the departed; and the wear and tear of so much duplicity made me at last almost as ill as the colonel himself.
I could not help seeing that Lilian was not nearly so much impressed by my elaborate concern as her relatives, and sometimes I detected an incredulous look in her frank brown eyes that made me very uneasy. Little by little, a rift widened between us, until at last in despair I determined to know the worst before the time came when it would be hopeless to speak at all. I chose a Sunday evening as we were walking across the green from church in the golden dusk, and then I ventured to speak to her of my love. She heard me to the end, and was evidently very much agitated. At last she murmured that it could not be, unless --no, it never could be now.
"Unless, what?" I asked. "Lilian--Miss Roseblade, something has come between us lately; you will tell me what that something is, won't you?""Do you want to know /really/?" she said, looking up at me through her tears. "Then I'll tell you; it--it's Bingo!"I started back overwhelmed. Did she know all? If not, how much did she suspect? I must find out that at once. "What about Bingo?" I managed to pronounce, with a dry tongue.
"You never l-loved him when he was here," she sobbed; "you know you didn't!"I was relieved to find it was no worse than this.
"No," I said, candidly; "I did not love Bingo. Bingo didn't love /me/, Lilian; he was always looking out for a chance of nipping me somewhere. Surely you won't quarrel with me for that!""Not for that," she said; "only, why do you pretend to be so fond of him now, and so anxious to get him back again? Uncle John believes you,but /I/ don't. I can see quite well that you wouldn't be glad to find him. You could find him easily if you wanted to!""What do you mean, Lilian?" I said, hoarsely. "/How/ could I find him?" Again I feared the worst.
"You're in a government office," cried Lilian, "and if you only chose, you could easily g-get g-government to find Bingo! What's the use of government if it can't do that? Mr. Travers would have found him long ago if I'd asked him!"Lilian had never been so childishly unreasonable as this before, and yet I loved her more madly than ever; but I did not like this allusion to Travers, a rising barrister, who lived with his sister in a pretty cottage near the station, and had shown symptoms of being attracted by Lilian.
He was away on circuit just then, luckily; but, at least, even he would have found it a hard task to find Bingo--there was comfort in that.
"You know that isn't just, Lilian," I observed; "but only tell me what you want me to do.""Bub-bub-bring back Bingo!" she said.