CLXXXIV. LAURA AND HER MOTHER.--ANOTHER INTERRUPTION…

CLXXXIV. LAURA AND HER MOTHER.--ANOTHER INTERRUPTION

“Here I am in Paris once more, Perdita--Laura, I mean,” said the old woman, without moving from the seat which she had taken, and without offering to embrace her daughter; “and I am within the fortnight stipulated, too.”

“You have travelled post from Calais or Boulogne, doubtless?” observed Laura, interrogatively: “for your clothes are covered with dust--and it is evident that you were not cooped up in the interior of a diligence. I may therefore conclude that you were successful in your search after Torrens and your designs upon him,” she added, fixing a penetrating glance upon her mother’s countenance.

“I was so far successful that I obtained certain intelligence concerning him,” responded the old woman: “but I failed altogether in my hope of becoming the possessor of his money.”

“And what was the intelligence to which you allude?” demanded Laura, who felt convinced from her mother’s manner that she had not failed in the object of her journey.

“I learnt, beyond all question or doubt, that Torrens really was the murderer of Percival, but that he himself had met with a violent death.”

“Ah! Torrens is no more?” exclaimed Laura: then, bending a look full of deep meaning upon her mother, she said in a tone of equal significancy, “You went to London to be revenged upon him--and he is dead! He has experienced a violent end. Well--I understand you--I read your secret--and you need not be more explicit.”

“By heaven! you wrong me, Laura,” exclaimed the old woman, starting in astonishment and alarm as the justice of her daughter’s horrible suspicion became suddenly apparent--a suspicion that she herself had so incautiously engendered by the mysterious manner in which she had announced Torrens’ death.

“It is not worth while disputing upon the subject,” said Laura, in a tone which convinced her mother--and, indeed, was intended to convince her, that no explanation could now possibly wipe away the suspicion alluded to. “You are doubtless well pleased that Torrens is no more--and that is sufficient.”

“Perdita--Laura, I mean,” said the old woman, speaking as if her tongue were parched, or as if ashes clogged up her throat, “why should you take delight in uttering things to vex and annoy me? For some time past--indeed ever since the date of your connection with Charles Hatfield, a barrier has appeared to rise up between us. We seem to act towards each other as if it were tacitly understood that we are enemies, or that we mutually harboured distrust and suspicion.”

“I am aware of it, mother--and it is all your own fault,” answered Laura. “You sought to exercise over me a sway to which I would not and never will submit; and you menaced me in a manner not easily to be forgotten.”

“But you had your revenge--for you abused me vilely,” retorted Mrs. Mortimer, with a malignant bitterness of accent.

“Acknowledged! And you yourself must admit that you provoked my resentment. But let us not remain here bandying words, which may only lead to an useless quarrel. Circumstances have opened to me a grand career--a career, in which my happiness and my interests may be alike promoted; and I have accepted the destiny thus favourably prepared for me. In a word, I am about to marry a young Italian nobleman whom I feel I can love--whom I already love, indeed--and who possesses a proud title and princely revenues.”

“Ah! you are about to be married?” said Mrs. Mortimer, speaking as if the project were perfectly natural and without an objection: but in her heart--in the depths of her foul and vindictive soul, she was rejoiced,--for this alliance would place her daughter completely in her power.

The reader will remember that the old woman was aware of Laura’s union with Charles Hatfield, but that the young lady herself was totally unsuspicious of that fact being thus known to her mother.

“Yes,” resumed Laura: “I am about to be married. I leave Paris for England to-morrow morning. I return to London, because I am now independent of the Hatfields; and at my leisure I shall devise means to avenge myself for the insults I have received at their hands. It now remains for you and me to decide upon what terms we are to exist in future. Be friendly--and I shall allow you a handsome income: be hostile--and I shall dare all you can do against me.”

“I am sorry that my daughter should think it necessary to propose such alternatives,” said Mrs. Mortimer. “State what you require me to do.”

“To settle in France--wherever you please,” responded Laura; “and I will grant you an allowance of two hundred pounds every three months.”

“The pecuniary portion of the conditions is liberal enough,” said Mrs. Mortimer; “but the rest is as despotic and galling as the terms which Mr. Hatfield made the other day with you.”

“I much regret that prudence should compel me thus to dictate to you,” returned Laura: “there is, however, no alternative. ’Tis for you to yield to my conditions--or open war will at once commence between us.”

“I consent--I agree,” said the old woman, who knew that the time was not yet come for her to show her teeth in defiance of her daughter.

“So much the better!” exclaimed Laura, but in a tone indicating that the matter was one of perfect indifference to her; for she little knew--little suspected how irretrievably her marriage with the Count of Carignano would place her in her mother’s power. “And now I have one question to ask you.”

“Speak, Perdita,” observed the old woman.

“Pray remember that my name is Laura!” cried her daughter, petulantly. “You perceive how necessary it is that we should dwell apart from each other. Your imprudence is really great; and the question I am about to put to you, refers to some matter in which you doubtless compromised yourself. Are you acquainted with the Marquis of Delmour?”

“The Marquis of Delmour!” repeated Mrs. Mortimer, with an expression of countenance denoting the most unfeigned astonishment. “No--certainly not. I have heard of him, it is true; but only in the same way that one hears of any other person conspicuous for rank, wealth, or station. I have never seen the Marquis of Delmour to my knowledge.”

“Perhaps you have been in his company without knowing who he was,” resumed Laura. “At all events, have you recently represented yourself, in any circle or place, as the widow of a General-officer whom you stated to have died in India?”

The system of duplicity which the old woman determined to adopt towards her daughter, had so well prepared her to sustain any questioning or cross-examination on any point, that she did not betray the least surprise, nor did her countenance undergo the slightest change as that interrogatory suddenly brought to her mind the conviction that Mr. Vernon and the Marquis of Delmour must be one and the same person. Without at the moment perceiving how this discovery could be in any way useful to her, but still acting with that reserve and wariness with which she had armed herself in order to meet her daughter, she resolved not to mention a single word of anything that had occurred in London relative to the beautiful Recluse of the Cottage, her father, and Lord William Trevelyan.

Accordingly, and without the least hesitation,--nor quailing, nor changing colour beneath the penetrating gaze which Laura fixed upon her,--she said, “I do not remember ever to have made any such representation as that to which you allude.”

“It is singular--this coincidence,” mused Laura, audibly; “and yet it is of little import to me.”

“It would appear, at all events, that you must be acquainted with this Marquis of Delmour of whom you speak?” said Mrs. Mortimer, in a careless and indifferent tone.

Scarcely were the words uttered, when a violent ringing at the front door was heard; and in a few moments a voice, instantly recognised alike by Laura and her mother, exclaimed to Rosalie, “Has your mistress retired to rest yet? I must see her immediately.”

The abigail, suspecting that it would be better not to allow the Marquis of Delmour--for he the visitor was--to be brought face to face with the handsome young Italian, unhesitatingly conducted the nobleman into the parlour where Laura and Mrs. Mortimer were holding their interview.

But the moment Rosalie had closed the door behind the Marquis, he uttered an ejaculation of mingled astonishment and rage, and springing towards Mrs. Mortimer, exclaimed, “Ah! I meet you again, vile woman! Give me up my daughter--tell me where you have hidden her!”

And he caught her violently by the arm.

“I know what you mean, my lord,” said the old woman, hastily: “but you accuse me wrongfully.”

“Wrongfully!” repeated the Marquis, his countenance white with rage: “no--no! I only accuse you justly--for it must be you who have spirited away my child--my beloved Agnes!”

“It is false!” ejaculated the old woman, with an emphasis which made him release his hold of her and fall back two or three paces.

“False, you say!” he cried. “Oh! then, if you have really not done this flagrant wrong--but if you are in possession of any clue--”

“I am--I am,” interrupted Mrs. Mortimer, seeing in a moment that a reward was to be obtained and her spite against Lord William Trevelyan to be gratified at the same time: for she did cherish the bitterest animosity against that young nobleman, on account of his conduct towards her when, four days previously, she had taken Agnes Vernon to his house in Park Square.

“And yet I cannot conceive you to be innocent in this matter,” exclaimed the nobleman, surveying her with deep distrust and aversion--and all this time taking no notice of Laura, so profoundly were his feelings engrossed by the subject which now occupied his mind: “for wherefore did you visit the cottage where Agnes dwelt?--why did you intrude yourself upon her presence?”

“All that can be readily explained, my lord,” responded Mrs. Mortimer, not losing an atom of her self-possession.

“Then tell me where my daughter is--tell me what has become of her?” cried the nobleman, in an appealing tone; “and if you have been concerned in removing her from the cottage, I will forgive you! Nay, more--I will reward you handsomely.”

“Your daughter is in safety--that much I can inform you at once,” said Mrs. Mortimer.

“Thanks--thanks for this assurance!” cried the old nobleman, clasping his hands together in gratitude for the relief thus imparted to his mind: then, suddenly recollecting the presence of Laura, he turned towards her, and in a tone of mingled suspicion and reproach, said, “But how is it that I find you with the very person of whom I spoke to you somewhat disparagingly two short hours ago?”

“She claims some distant relationship with me, my dear Marquis,” Laura hastened to observe--but without manifesting the slightest embarrassment; while the rapid and intelligent sign which she made to her mother, and which was altogether unperceived by the nobleman, was fully understood by the old woman.

“Ah! that is on account of her name being Mortimer,” said the Marquis, completely satisfied by the answer which Laura had given him--especially as the old woman offered no contradiction. “And now I must request you to accede to some alteration in our plans for to-morrow,” he continued, drawing Laura aside, and speaking to her in a low tone. “On my return just now to the hotel where I am staying, I found a letter containing the afflicting intelligence that a daughter of mine--a daughter whom circumstances have compelled me to keep in the strictest seclusion--had suddenly and most mysteriously disappeared from her dwelling in the neighbourhood of London. This happened five days ago;--but Mrs. Gifford--my dear child’s housekeeper, and I may almost say guardian--did not immediately write to me, hoping that Agnes would return. Oh! you may conceive how deeply this event has grieved me----”

“I sympathise sincerely with you, my dear Marquis,” interrupted Laura, affecting to wipe away tears from her eyes: for it suited her purpose to remain on good terms with the old nobleman until she should have cashed her draft for the sixty thousand pounds. “Yes--I sincerely sympathise with you,” she repeated: “and I can anticipate the proposed alterations in our arrangements. You intend to start immediately for England----”

“Without a moment’s unnecessary delay,” said the Marquis, who was greatly excited by the intelligence he had received from Mrs. Gifford: “the instant I return to my hotel, a post-chaise and four will be in readiness for me. But may I hope that you will follow me to London as speedily as convenient?”

“I shall depart to-morrow, my dear Marquis, at the hour already arranged,” responded Laura; “and deeply do I regret that my preparations are so backward as to render it impossible for me to offer to become your travelling-companion at once.”

“Dearest Laura!” murmured the Marquis, for a single moment losing the remembrance of his affliction in the doting passion he had formed for the beautiful woman who was thus grossly deluding him. “Our separation will not be very long,” he continued; “and I hope that when we meet in London three days hence, I may have good news to tell you respecting Agnes. Now, madam,” he exclaimed aloud, turning towards Mrs. Mortimer, who, while affecting to be examining the mantel-ornaments, was vainly endeavouring to catch the sense of what was passing at a little distance between her daughter and the Marquis; “now, madam,” he said, approaching her with an abruptness that made her start, “I do not think I shall be insulting you if I offer you a hundred guineas for the information which you professed yourself able and willing to give relative to my daughter--my dear and well-beloved Agnes.”

“A hundred guineas, my lord!” exclaimed Mrs. Mortimer, contemptuously: “if you really love that young lady whom you call your daughter, you must surely consider that it is worth five or six times the amount named in order to regain possession of her.”

“Laura dearest:----I mean, Miss Mortimer,” said the nobleman, impatiently, as he turned towards the young lady,--“oblige me with writing materials, and I will speedily satisfy this woman’s rapacity.”

“Perhaps I might also exact a recompense for keeping secret the good understanding which exists between your lordship and ‘dearest Laura,’ and which you so unguardedly betrayed?” observed Mrs. Mortimer, in a tone of bitter sarcasm, and with a malignant glance darted from her snake-like eyes at her daughter.

“Silence, woman!” ejaculated the Marquis, speaking with the emphasis of authority: then, the writing materials being now placed before him, he sate down and wrote a cheque, which he tossed across the table to Mrs. Mortimer, saying, “I am sorry that I have not enough money about my person to satisfy your demands. I am therefore compelled to give you a draft upon my London bankers; and you will perceive that it is for six times as much as I at first offered you,” he added, dwelling on the words which the old woman had herself used to indicate the amount of her expectations.

“Yes--my lord: I see that it is for six hundred pounds,” she observed, coolly and quietly, as she folded up the cheque and secured it about her person. “And now I will tell you what I know concerning your daughter; and I take heaven to witness that I will not mislead you.”

“If you do, my good woman,” interrupted the Marquis, “you will find payment of the cheque stopped at the bank. Go on; and delay not--for my time is precious.”

“In a word, my lord,” said Mrs. Mortimer, the contemptuous manner in which she was treated by the haughty peer being fully counterbalanced by the handsome bonus that had just fallen into her hand,--“Lord William Trevelyan, whom you doubtless know well by name, if not personally, is deeply enamoured of your daughter; and he employed me to take a letter to her. I acquitted myself of the task: but Miss Agnes is a perfect dragon of virtue--and I could make little impression upon her.”

“God be thanked!” ejaculated the Marquis, fervently.

“Well--although Lord William’s passion is honourable enough, I have no doubt, yet Miss Agnes----”

“And is it Lord William who has taken her away?” demanded the Marquis, unable to restrain his impatience or any longer endure the tortures of suspense.

“No, my lord--it was her mother!” said Mrs. Mortimer, watching through profound curiosity the effect which this announcement would produce upon the nobleman.

“Ah! then my worst apprehensions are confirmed!” he exclaimed, in a tone of poignant anguish.

“But do not give way to despair, my lord,” said Mrs. Mortimer: “for Miss Agnes subsequently escaped from the house where her mother placed her----”

“Oh! I then she loves me still--me--her father!” exclaimed the Marquis, in accents of joy: “and she yielded not to the wiles of that woman----But proceed, madam--proceed!” he cried, suddenly interrupting himself, and again speaking in a tone of impatience.

“Having escaped, as I have just said,” resumed Mrs. Mortimer, “Agnes fell into the power of ruffian, from whose hands I was fortunate enough to rescue her; and, not knowing precisely whither to take her, I thought it best to consult Lord William Trevelyan upon the proper course to adopt. His lordship, who is a man of honour--and pray remember to tell him that I say so,” she added, with a slight accent of malignity,--“his lordship immediately placed her in the care of a lady of his acquaintance; and it is to him that you must apply, my Lord Marquis, for the address of your daughter’s new abode.”

“And all that you have told me is true?” exclaimed the old nobleman.

“If it should prove otherwise, your lordship has in your own hands the means of punishing me,” responded Mrs. Mortimer.

“True!” cried the Marquis; “and now I am somewhat consoled by the tidings you have given me. My daughter is safe, and in the society of honourable persons. I thank you, madam.”

He then turned away to shake Laura cordially by the hand ere he took his departure.

“You will leave to-morrow at mid-day, dearest,” he said, in an under tone to her whom he fondly hoped to make his mistress, but who was so grossly deluding him.

“Yes--without fail,” was the reply.

“And on your arrival in town you will instantly send me word at which hotel you take up your temporary residence?” continued the Marquis. “I shall hasten to join you, and hope to have a charming villa ready to receive you.”

“You are too good, my dear Marquis, to think to much of me at a time when your heart is so severely lacerated on account of your daughter,” said Laura, likewise speaking in a whisper.

“There is nothing that I would not do for you, beloved Laura,” responded the infatuated old noble. “You hold already a cheque for sixty thousand pounds: that is nothing to what I will do for you, my dearest angel. And if I allude to pecuniary affairs at all, it is to convince you how anxious I am to ensure your happiness, not only now--but likewise when I shall be no more.”

Thus speaking, the Marquis of Delmour pressed Laura’s hand fervently, and was about to hurry away, when, suddenly recollecting something, he drew her still farther aside, and said in a very low whisper, “Have nothing to do with that woman dearest! I dislike her looks--I mistrust her altogether. She is evidently an adventuress. Oh! how could I have ever supposed even for an instant that such a wretch was the mother of such an angelic being as my Laura?”

Another fond and impassioned look--another pressure of the hand--and the Marquis was gone.

Of all this latter dialogue which took place between that nobleman and Laura, and which was carried on in a very low tone, Mrs. Mortimer, who strained all her auricular faculties to catch even a syllable, succeeded only in overhearing a very short sentence. But that one sentence she did manage to catch; and a highly significant as well as deeply important one was it for her.

And these were the words which she thus caught--“You hold already a cheque for sixty thousand pounds!”

Quickly as the first glass of sparkling wine infuses a delicious sensation throughout the entire frame,--so speedily did that one sentence create a burning joy in the breast of the old woman. She saw through it all:--Laura had wheedled the Marquis out of that immense sum--and now she intended to jilt him, and espouse the Italian noble!

“A cheque for sixty thousand pounds!” thought Mrs. Mortimer within herself, while the Marquis and Laura were still whispering together: “sixty thousand pounds! Well--we shall see! It is better than a paltry six hundred.”

And, while thus musing, she affected to be smelling the flowers on the mantel-piece, until the door suddenly opened and closed again instantaneously--and then she turned round towards Laura, for the Marquis was gone.

“And you assured me that you knew nothing of the nobleman who has just left us?” said Laura, fixing her eyes with cold contempt on her mother.

“I knew him only as Mr. Vernon until I saw him here this evening,” was the answer.

“But it was to him that you had passed yourself as the widow of a General-officer in the Indian army,” persisted Laura: “and yet you denied having ever made such a representation to any one. You perceive, mother, that I cannot trust you: you are full of duplicity and deceit even to me--and still you complain that a coolness subsists between us.”

“I may observe, on my side, Laura,” retorted the old woman, with a subdued and cunning malignity, “that you were not more communicative to me relative to the Marquis of Delmour than I was disposed to be to you. We are therefore even upon that score; and, at all events, let us not dispute. I shall now leave you, Laura--for I am well aware that my room will be preferable to my company. It is my present intention to remain in Paris; and from time to time I will send you tidings of my whereabouts, so that you may duly remit me my quarterly income, as promised just now. The cheque of the Marquis I shall send through the medium of some Parisian banker.”

The old woman then took her departure, a cool “Good-bye” being all the farewell salutation that passed between her daughter and herself as she crossed the threshold of the handsome suite of apartments.

“Thank God! she is gone!” thought Laura, as she hastened to rejoin her handsome Castelcicalan, who was growing impatient of her protracted absence.

“The haughty and self-sufficient creature!” murmured Mrs. Mortimer to herself, an she hastily descended the stairs: “she is completely in my power--at my mercy--in every way!”

And did the old woman remain in Paris in fulfilment of her declared intention?

No:--wearied and exhausted by travel as she already was, but animated with an indomitable energy, Mrs. Mortimer hastened, late though the hour now was, to procure a post-chaise and four; and while Laura was passing a night of voluptuousness and love in the arms of the handsome Count of Carignano, her mother was speeding along the road to Boulogne, on her way back to London.

CLXXXV. THE LAWYER’S HEAD CLERK

It was about four o’clock in the afternoon of the day following the incidents just related, that Mr. James Heathcote, the lawyer, was seated at his writing-table in that private office which we have already described to our readers,--when a low, timid knock at the door fell upon his ears.

“Come in,” he exclaimed, in his short, abrupt, and almost brutal manner, well knowing that the individual about to enter was the poor wretch whom he bullied when in an ill-humour, and whom on all occasions he was wont to make his vile agent and spaniel-like slave.

Creeping up as usual--rather than walking with the natural dignity of a man--towards the table, Mr. Green bowed humbly and waited until his dreaded, but also hated master should deign to give him leave to speak.

“Well, Mr. Green,” said Heathcote, after a pause of a few minutes, during which he waited to see whether his grovelling serf would dare to open his lips until he received permission,--for the lawyer was a man who liked to ascertain the full extent of the power that he wielded over his subordinates, and also to make them feel that he did exercise that power;--“well, Mr. Green, what news this afternoon?”

And, throwing himself back in his arm-chair, he passed his thin, yellow hand through his iron-grey hair.

“If you please, sir, I have several things to report, as you were so much engaged this morning that you could not give the time to hear me,” observed Green, in that subdued and almost affrighted tone of voice which years of servility had rendered habitual to him;--for such is ever the case with those who mistake the most abasing sycophancy for proofs of respect. And here we may observe that it is only in the demoralising and degrading influence of Royal Courts that this disgusting susurration is adopted as a species of homage to the divinity raised up by man’s stupid and most reprehensible idolatry.

“Ah! I recollect--I was busy this morning,” exclaimed Mr. Heathcote. “Well--what have you to report?”

“Please, sir,” resumed the trembling clerk, “Gregson the upholsterer has put his affairs into the hands of Goodman and Meanwell, who have got all his creditors save yourself, sir, to sign a letter of license; and Mr. Goodman has been here this afternoon to say that unless you will give your name also, his client must inevitably go into the Gazette.”

“Then let him go--and to the devil also, if he chooses!” vociferated Mr. Heathcote, flying into a passion--a most unusual thing with one so cool, calculating, and self-possessed as he. “Goodman and Meanwell are what are called honest attorneys--conscientious lawyers--straightforward practitioners;--and they will exert all their energies to carry their client through his difficulties. But I will thwart them, Mr. Green--by God! I will thwart them; Gregson shall go into the Gazette--even if I lose every penny he owes me. I hate your honest attorneys;”--and his lips were curled in bitter irony and demoniac malignity. “Go on, sir!” he exclaimed savagely, as if it were his wretched clerk who had irritated him.

“Thompson, sir--the defendant in Jones’s case, you know,” resumed Mr. Green, “was arrested yesterday--in pursuance of your orders, sir. I took the liberty of mentioning, sir, that his wife had just been confined----”

“Well?” exclaimed Mr. Heathcote, impatiently.

“And that his eldest child was at the point of death, sir,” added Green, more timidly than before.

“Well--what next?” demanded the attorney.

“The poor child has since died, sir.”

“The poor child, indeed! Who cares a fig about a child? Why--you are growing quite soft-hearted, Mr. Green,” said Heathcote, in a tone of cutting irony. “The poor child, indeed! I suppose the wife has died also?” he added, with heartless jocularity.

“Indeed, sir, I am sorry to say you are right in your conjecture,” responded Green, scarcely venturing to make the announcement.

“No!--is it really the case, though?” exclaimed Heathcote, startled for a moment at finding that what he had said as a brutal jest turned out to be a solemn and shocking truth. “Well--what next?” he demanded, mastering those emotions which he was ashamed at having betrayed.

“Thompson himself, sir--driven to despair by these numerous afflictions--cut his throat in prison this afternoon,” added Mr. Green.

“Is this possible?” cried Mr. Heathcote, again excited to a degree more powerful than the clerk had ever before observed: but speedily subduing his feelings, by dint of a strong and almost superhuman effort--so sudden and effective was it--he said, “Well--it is not my fault. Maudlin sentimentalists will perhaps lay his death at my door----”

“I am afraid, sir, that all the three deaths will be attributed to you,” interrupted Green, with an affectation of exceeding meekness, while from beneath his brows he darted a rapid glance of fiend-like expression at his master--a glance which denoted how the man in his secret soul feasted upon the pangs which now rent the heart of the attorney.

“I am tough enough to bear everything that people may say of me, Mr. Green,” observed Heathcote, in his usually cold tone of irony. “But proceed with your communications.”

“Beale’s wife, sir, called this morning--you know Beale?--the man you put into Whitecross Street prison, and whose wife and children have been starving ever since----”

“Really, Mr. Green,” interrupted Heathcote, fixing a stern look upon his clerk, “it would appear that you are purposely entering into minute details this afternoon in order to annoy me. Of course I know who Beale is----”

“Was, sir, if you please,” said Green, with difficulty concealing the savage delight that he took in thus torturing--or, at least, endeavouring to torture, his master.

“What do you mean, sir?” demanded Heathcote, savagely.

“That Beale died in the infirmary at Whitecross Street last night, sir,” responded Green, his tone and manner becoming more abjectly obsequious in proportion as his internal joy augmented at the increasing excitement and irritation of his master.

“The man was doubtless a drunkard, Green,” observed Heathcote, roughly: “and therefore, when no longer able to get liquor, the reaction carried him off.”

“I dare say, sir, that you know best--and I am sure you must be right,” returned the clerk, with a low bow: “but the man’s friends do say that a more sober, hard-working, and deserving fellow did not exist.”

“And therefore I suppose that his death will be laid at my door!” exclaimed Heathcote, now for the first time in his life glancing timidly--almost appealing, at his clerk, as if to implore him to devise some excuse or start some palliation that might ease his troubled conscience.

But Green, whose very obsequiousness and servility afforded him the means of venting his spite on his hated master, pretended to take the observation as an assertion and not an interrogatory, and replied in a humble tone, “Your foresight and knowledge of the world, sir, are beyond all dispute; and, as you say, Beale’s death is certain to be laid at your door. But of course you are perfectly indifferent to the tittle-tattle of scandalous tongues.”

Heathcote rose from his seat--or rather started from it, and walked rapidly up and down the room thrice. He felt sorely troubled; for, hardened as his heart was--obdurate as his soul had become, he could not shut out the whispering voice of conscience which now proclaimed him to be the author of all the deaths that his clerk had enumerated. And, while he was racked by these painful convictions, the thought suddenly flashed to his brain that Green had displayed a savage delight in detailing those horrors; and, man of the world as James Heathcote was, it occurred to him, as a natural sequence to the suspicion just mentioned, that his clerk hated and abhorred him.

Acting under the influence of these impressions, he stopped suddenly short close by the spot where Green was standing; and he fixed his snake-like gaze upon the shabbily-dressed, senile-looking, self-debasing individual, who appeared to be maintaining his eyes bent timidly and reverentially on the floor--as if his master’s emotions were something too sacred to look upon.

“Green!--Mr. Green!” exclaimed Heathcote, laying his hand with such abruptness and also with such violence upon the grovelling wretch’s shoulder, that it made him start convulsively--though he knew all the while that his master had accosted him, and was also gazing on him.

“Yes, sir!” cried the clerk, raising his eyes diffidently toward Heathcote’s countenance.

“Do you conceive that the deaths of those people can be righteously attributed to me?” demanded the lawyer, speaking in a low, measured, and solemn tone, and looking as if he sought to read into the most secret depths of his clerk’s soul: “do you, I say, dare to associate any act or deed of mine with their fate?” he asked, raising his voice, while his face became terrible to gaze upon.

“Who?--I, sir!” ejaculated Green, as if in astonishment at the questions put to him; and his own countenance assumed such a sinister aspect that Heathcote surveyed him with increasing suspicion and distrust.

“Yes--you!” cried the lawyer, ferociously. “Now, mark me, Green,” he continued, in a lower and more composed tone of voice,--“if you dare to harbour ill feelings towards me--if even a scintillation of such feelings should transpire from your words or manner, I will crush you as I would a worm--I will send you to Newgate--abandon you to your fate--and, if necessary, help to have you shipped for eternal exile.”

“My God! how have I deserved these implied reproaches--these terrible menaces?” demanded Green, his countenance expressing real alarm, and his whole frame shivering from head to heel.

“Perhaps you have not deserved them--and in that case they will serve as a warning,” said Heathcote, now becoming suddenly calm and imperiously scornful: “but I think that you did merit all I have uttered--and now you know me better, perhaps, than you knew me before. However, let all this pass. I do not for an instant suppose that I possess your affection; but I will guard against the effects of your hate. Answer me not, sir: you cannot wipe away the impressions which this afternoon’s scene has conjured up in my mind. And now proceed with anything more that you may have to tell me.”

“Fox, the ironmonger, sir,” resumed Green, in a more timid and servile tone than ever, and with a manner so cowed and grovelling that it completely veiled the strong pantings for revenge and the emotions of bitter, burning hate which dwelt in the clerk’s secret soul,--“Fox, the ironmonger, sir, has realised all his property and absconded.”

“Did I not tell you to issue execution against his goods without delay?” demanded Heathcote, angrily.

“I obeyed your commands, sir, as soon as the usual forms were gone through,” responded Green: “but in the interval the man, knowing the steps you were taking against him, sold off everything and ran away--no one can tell whither.”

“Then all your intelligence is evil this afternoon, Mr. Green?” said Heathcote. “What about Mrs. Sefton?”

“The spy that I set to watch her has reported her removal from Kentish Town to a house at Bayswater, sir,” answered Green; “and as she has a young lady with her--a Miss Vernon, it appears--she does not seem to be busying herself in any way that might interfere with your interests.”

“But that insolent young nobleman--that Lord William Trevelyan?” demanded Heathcote.

“I do not think he is troubling himself any more in the business, sir,” answered Green.

“Good and well!” ejaculated the attorney. “These latter tidings constitute something like an agreeable set-off in respect to all your former communications. Hah!” he cried, suddenly interrupting himself, as the clock proclaimed the hour: “five already! Well, you may go now, Green--and see that your spies keep a good look-out upon the movements of Mrs. Sefton and Lord William Trevelyan.”

“I will, sir,” was the reply; and the clerk bowed himself out of the office.

Half an hour afterwards Mr. Green was wending his way towards the aristocratic quarters of the West End; and at length he entered a respectable-looking public-house in the neighbourhood of Portland Place.

Having called for some refreshment, he took up the newspaper to while away the time until the arrival of the person whom he was expecting: but he could not settle his thoughts to the perusal of the journal. He read an article through, from beginning to end; and, when he reached the termination, he had not retained a single idea of the subject.

The fact was that the man’s mind was excited and bewildered by the scene which had taken place that afternoon with his master. He felt that he had been trampled upon--treated with every possible indignity--despised, menaced, and almost spit upon;--and he was compelled to suffer all--to bear everything--to endure those flagrant wrongs, without daring to murmur.

“But I will be avenged--terribly avenged!” thought he within himself, as he bent over the table in the public-house parlour, supporting his head upon his two hands: “yes--even though I should sacrifice myself, I will be avenged sooner or later. For years and years have I been his slave--his menial--his instrument--his tool;--and he has kept me in such utter subjection that it was not until lately I remembered that I really possessed a soul and a spirit of my own. The hard-hearted--cruel--remorseless wretch! I hate and abhor him with a malignant hatred and a savage abhorrence. No words are strong enough--no terms sufficiently potent to convey even to myself an idea of the magnitude of that aversion which I now entertain for him. But if he has me in his power in one way, he is at my mercy in many other others. He little suspects how deep an insight I possess into his affairs--his machinations--his dark plots. He thinks that I behold but the surface: he knows not that I have fathomed to the bottom!”

At this point in the clerk’s musings, the door of the parlour was opened, and a respectable-looking man, dressed in black, but with a white cravat entered the room.

“You are somewhat behind your time, Mr. Fitzgeorge,” said Green, as this individual--who was Lord William Trevelyan’s valet--seated himself by the clerk’s side.

“Only a few minutes,” responded Fitzgeorge. “And now to business without delay. It is fortunate that we are all alone in this parlour at present: otherwise I should have proposed to adjourn to a private room. Have you thought well of the subject I mentioned to you yesterday?”

“I have,” was the answer, delivered in a tone of decision: “and I am prepared to meet your wishes. But remember that I told you how completely I am in the power of the villain Heathcote; and if he were to discover that your noble master received his information through me----”

“He cannot possibly detect your instrumentality in the business, provided you do not betray yourself,” said Fitzgeorge.

“Then I cannot hesitate to serve you,” responded Green.

“Here are a hundred pounds in advance of the sum promised you,” continued the valet, producing bank-notes to the amount named; “and the other moiety shall be paid the moment the information you are about to give me shall have proved to be correct.”

“Ah! it is a long--long time since I could call so much money my own,” said Green, with a deep sigh, as he gazed upon the notes--half doubting whether it were possible that they were about to find their way into his pocket.

“Take up the money and use despatch--for my time is precious,” exclaimed Fitzgeorge.

The clerk followed the first suggestion with amazing alacrity; and his sinister countenance was now as radiant with joy as such a face could be.

“Your master is generous--very generous,” he said, as soon as the notes were secured in his waistcoat-pocket; “and I will serve him to the utmost of my power. The mad-house to which Sir Gilbert Heathcote has been consigned, is kept by Dr. Swinton, and is situated in the neighbourhood of the new church facing the end of the Bethnal Green Road.”

“I am well acquainted with the locality,” said Fitzgeorge. “The church you speak of is in the Cambridge Road, and stands at one of the angles of the Green?”

“Precisely so,” answered the clerk; “and the lunatic asylum looks upon the Green itself, its back windows commanding a view of Globe Town. But here is the exact address,” continued the man, producing a card from his pocket.

“That is all I require,” said Fitzgeorge. “Three days hence you can meet me here again; and if in the meantime I should have discovered that Sir Gilbert Heathcote is really confined in Dr. Swinton’s asylum, the other hundred pounds shall be handed over to you.”

The valet and the clerk then separated.

CLXXXVI. DR. SWINTON

The mad-house kept by Dr. Swinton was a spacious building, with a large garden, surrounded by a high wall, at the back.

It was by no means a gloomy-looking place, although the casements were protected by iron bars: for to mitigate that prison-like effect, the curtains were of a cheerful colour, and the window-sills were adorned with flowers and verdant evergreens in bright red pots. Moreover, the front of the house was stuccoed; and wherever paint was used, the colours were of the gayest kind.

The front door always stood open during the day-time, because there was an inner door of great strength which led into the hall; and a porter in handsome livery was constantly lounging about at the entrance.

The Doctor himself was an elderly person, of highly respectable appearance, and of very pleasing manners when he chose to be agreeable: but no demon could exhibit greater ferocity than he, when compelled to exercise his authority in respect to those amongst his patients who had no friends to care about them.

It was between nine and ten o’clock in the evening of the day following the interview between Fitzgeorge and Heathcote’s head clerk, that a plain carriage and pair drove up to the door of Doctor Swinton’s establishment.

The porter immediately rushed forward to open the door and let down the steps of the vehicle; and two persons alighted.

One was a tall, handsome young man of genteel bearing, and handsomely dressed: the other was some years older, and might be described as respectable without having anything aristocratic in his appearance.

“Have the kindness to say that Mr. Smithson, accompanied by his friend Mr. Granby, requests an interview with your master,” were the words immediately addressed to the porter by the elder of the two visitors, while the other appeared to be gazing about him in a vacant and stolid manner.

“Walk in, gentlemen,” said the obsequious porter, with a low bow: he then rang a bell, and a footman in resplendent livery opened the inner door.

Mr. Granby and Mr. Smithson were now conducted through a spacious hall into an elegantly furnished parlour, lighted by a superb lustre suspended to the ceiling.

“The Doctor will be with you in a minute, gentlemen,” said the domestic, who immediately retired to acquaint his master with their arrival: but the moment the door had closed behind him, a smile of deep meaning instantly appeared upon the lips of the visitors, as they exchanged equally significant looks.

In a few minutes Dr. Swinton appeared--his countenance wearing such a benignant expression that if the Saints at Exeter Hall could only have bribed him to attend on the platform at their May Meetings, they would have secured a sufficiency of outward appearance of philanthropy to draw gold from the purses of even the most cynical. In fact, the doctor was precisely the individual from whose lips might be expected a most touching and lachrymose speech upon the “benighted condition” of the heathen, and the absolute necessity of procuring funds for the purpose of circulating a million of Bibles amongst the poor savages of the Cannibal Islands.

His thin grey hair was combed with precision over his high and massive forehead: a smile played on his lips, showing his well-preserved teeth;--and his eyes beamed with mildness--almost with meekness, as if he had succeeded, by long perseverance, in resigning himself to a profession which militated sadly against a natural benevolence of heart.

He was dressed in deep black; his linen was of the finest material and of snowy whiteness;--he wore a low cravat; and his enormous shirt-frill was prevented from projecting too much by means of a diamond pin that could not have cost less than fifty guineas.

The middle finger of his right hand was adorned with a ring of equal value; and a massive chain with a bunch of gold seals depended from his fob.

We should have observed that the Doctor wore black silk stockings and shoes--it being evening; and we have every cause to believe that the reader may now form a tolerably accurate idea of that gentleman’s personal appearance.

Leaning forward as he walked, and with a kind of mincing gait--half familiar, and half obsequious--Dr. Swinton advanced towards the visitors, only one of whom rose at his approach;--and this was Mr. Smithson, the elder of the two. The other remained in an apparent state of apathetic laziness on the sofa, where he had taken his seat.

“Your most obedient, Mr. Smithson,” said the Doctor, proffering his hand to the individual whom he thus addressed. “This is your friend Mr. Granby, I presume--the gentleman of whom you made mention when you honoured me with a visit this morning.”

“Yes. Doctor--that is indeed my unfortunate friend Granby,” responded Smithson, drawing the physician into the window-recess, and speaking in a whisper.

“He is a fine, handsome young man,” observed the mad-doctor, glancing towards the subject of his remark, and likewise adopting a low tone. “What a pity it is!” he added, turning towards Mr. Smithson, and placing his fore-finger significantly to his forehead.

“A thousand--thousand pities, Doctor!” was the reply, delivered in a mournful voice. “Such a splendid intellect to be thus clouded!--such a genius to be thus crushed--annihilated!”

“No--do not anticipate such a calamity,” hastily interposed the physician. “Rather let us hope that a judicious system--my system, Mr. Smithson--will eventually succeed in effecting a cure. But have you the regular certificates, my dear sir?--because you are well aware that a heavy responsibility rests upon gentlemen of my profession, who receive patients----”

“Everything is straightforward, Doctor,” interrupted Mr. Smithson, producing two papers from his pocket. “These certificates are signed by medical men of eminence, and whose honour is unimpeachable.”

“Oh! assuredly,” exclaimed Swinton, glancing over the documents: “Dr. Prince is an ornament to the profession--and Mr. Spicer is equally well known. I have not the pleasure of their personal acquaintance--but I am no stranger to their high reputation and rigid integrity. So far, so good, my dear sir,” continued the mad-doctor, restoring the certificates to Smithson. “And now, I think, we have little more to say in respect to arrangements----”

“Nothing that I am aware of,” interrupted Mr. Smithson. “When I saw you this morning, you told me that your usual terms for first-class patients were six hundred a-year----”

“Each quarter payable in advance, you will please to recollect, my dear sir,” said the physician, in a tone of bland insinuation. “It is a mere matter of form, you know--just the bare trouble of writing a cheque at the beginning instead of the close of the three months----”

“Oh! pray offer no apology for such an excellent regulation,” interrupted Smithson: “short accounts make long friends.”

“Ah! ah! very good--very good indeed!” said the Doctor, with a jocular cachinnation. “You are quite right, my dear sir--quite right. Shall I give you a stamped receipt?” he asked, as Smithson placed in his hands two bank notes--one for a hundred and the other for fifty pounds.

“You can send me the acknowledgment at your leisure,” answered Smithson. “And now, as I must take my leave, permit me to beseech you to bestow all possible attention upon my unhappy friend, and to spare no expense in rendering him as comfortable as possible. His relations, who have empowered me thus to place him in your establishment, are very wealthy, and will cheerfully augment the allowance, if required. No coercion is necessary with him: he is very tractable and by no means dangerous. At the same time, any thing resembling restraint would only induce him to move heaven and earth to escape. He cannot even endure to have his chamber-door locked at night; and you may safely trust him with a candle. Indeed, he will have a light. As for placing a keeper in his room, such a step would be as unwise as it is uncalled for. But I need not attempt to counsel a gentleman of your great experience and well-known skill----”

“Pardon me, my dear sir,” interrupted Dr. Swinton, drawing himself up at the compliment thus paid to his professional ability;--“but I am always delighted to receive any hints which the friends of my patients are kind enough to give me; and I can assure you that your suggestions shall be fully borne in mind. Of course you will call upon Mr. Granby occasionally?” asked the Doctor, in a tone which was as much as to imply that the less frequent such visits were, the better he thought it would be.

“Yes--I shall call now and then,” responded Smithson, catching the physician’s meaning in a moment: “but not too often--as the visits of friends are likely, no doubt, to produce an injurious effect on those minds which, under the influence of your admirable system, are becoming settled and tranquil. It is however my intention to return in a few days, just to assure myself that Granby is comfortable, and likewise that you are not displeased with your patient.”

“Very good,” said the Doctor; “I shall be delighted to see you. But will you not remain and partake of supper with us? You will then have an opportunity of judging how I treat my patients--for we all sit down to table together,--at least, those who belong to the first class, and who may be termed the parlour boarders. Besides, I forgot to mention to you this morning that the religious principles of my patients are not neglected, and that I keep a regular chaplain in the establishment. If you will stay to supper, you will have the pleasure of hearing him say grace before meat, and deliver a most soul-refreshing exhortation afterwards. Indeed, I may consider myself highly fortunate in having secured the spiritual services and the constant companionship of such a worthy man as the Reverend Mr. Sheepshanks.”

“I should be much gratified by remaining to partake of your hospitality,” answered Smithson,--“and even still more rejoiced to form the acquaintance of such an estimable character as Mr. Sheepshanks; but, unfortunately, my time is precious--and I must depart at once.”

With these words Smithson turned away from the window; and approaching Mr. Granby, who was lounging upon the sofa, seemingly gazing on vacancy, he touched him on the shoulder, saying, “Good bye, my dear friend: you are going to stay here for a few days with Dr. Swinton--and you will find yourself very comfortable.”

“I am already very comfortable,” observed Granby, beginning to play with his fingers in a stolid, silly manner. “Can you talk with the hands, Smithson?”

“Oh! yes--and I will come to-morrow and hold a conversation with you by that method,” was the answer.

“Well--don’t forget,” said Granby; “and bring all my friends with you,--twenty--thirty--forty of them, if you like. I shall know how to entertain them.”

“In that case I will bring them all, my dear fellow,” returned Smithson: then, in a whisper to the Doctor, he observed, “You perceive how childish he is--but perfectly harmless.”

“Ah! I begin to fear with you that his cure will be no easy nor speedily-accomplished matter,” responded the physician, also in a low tone.

“But you will do your best, Doctor, I know,” said Smithson: then, turning once more to his friend, he exclaimed, “Good-bye, Granby--I am off.”

“Well, go--I don’t mean to accompany you,” answered the patient, without moving from his recumbent position, and without even glancing towards Smithson; but maintaining his eyes fixed upon his fingers, with which he appeared to be practising the dumb alphabet. “Go along, I say--I am very comfortable where I am.”

Mr. Smithson heaved a profound sigh, and, bidding the Doctor farewell, hurried to the carriage, with his cambric handkerchief to his eyes.

“Ah! he feels deeply for his afflicted friend,” thought Dr. Swinton, as he remained for a few moments on the threshold of the front door, looking forth into the mild, clear, and beauteous night: “but I shall be the greatest fool in existence if ever I allow Mr. Granby to recover his reason. An annuity of six hundred pounds is not to be thrown away in a hurry. But I must prevent this fellow Smithson from calling more than once or twice a-year at the outside--and then only on stated days, or else with a week’s notice. However, I shall get him here to supper in a short time, and will then cajole him into anything I propose. He is a soft-pated fool himself,--that I can see with half an eye.”

Having arrived at this complimentary conclusion in respect to Mr. Smithson, the Doctor returned to the room where Mr. Granby was still lying upon the sofa, and still playing with his fingers.

CLXXXVII. THE LUNATIC ASYLUM

Almost immediately after the departure of Mr. Smithson, supper was served up in a spacious and handsomely-furnished apartment.

The table literally groaned beneath the load of plate and China spread upon it: a splendid epergne, upon a large silver tray, occupied the middle of the board;--and numerous crystal decanters, containing choice wines of various sorts, sparkled in the flood of golden light poured forth from a magnificent lustre suspended to the ceiling.

Upwards of a dozen persons took their places at the table--all the first-class patients partaking of their meals in the delectable society of the Doctor.

That eminent individual seated himself at the head of the board; and our old friend, Mr. Sheepshanks, occupied the other extremity. The reverend gentleman, though now well stricken in years, was so little altered since the reader last found himself in his company, that no minute description of his personal appearance is again necessary: suffice it to say, that his long, pale countenance was as sanctimoniously hypocritical at ever,--his hair, now quite grey, was combed with its wonted sleekness over his forehead,--and his speech was as drawling in tone and as full of cant in respect to language, as when we beheld him holding forth to the members of the South Sea Islands Bible Circulating Society, or figuring so ignominiously in the Insolvents’ Court.

Mr. Granby, being a new-comer, was placed in the post of honour--namely, on the Doctor’s right hand: but the unfortunate young gentleman did not appear to understand, much lest appreciate the distinction--for he scarcely uttered a syllable, did but little justice to the succulent viands, and remained for the most part of the time gazing in listless vacancy straight before him.

We should however observe that, on first being introduced into the supper-room, he had darted a rapid and searching glance around,--embracing with that sweeping look the countenances of the dozen patients who were already assembled there: but immediately afterwards he resumed his stolid, meaningless expression, as if his mind were indeed a blank and mournful void.

“Now, Mr. Sheepshanks,” said the Doctor, when all were duly seated at the table, “will you ask the usual blessing?”

“With your permission, most respected sir,” replied the reverend gentleman: then, with a countenance as rueful as if he were about to go forth to the place of execution, he drawled out a lengthy grace in such a droning voice, that one of the lunatics fell fast asleep, and did not wake up again until the savoury odour of a plate of roast duck which was placed before him recalled to him his recollection and his supper.

“How do you find yourself this evening, Mr. Sheepshanks?” inquired Dr. Swinton, after having assured himself that all his guests were duly served. “You were complaining of a bilious attack this morning.”

“Alas! yes, kind sir,” responded the reverend gentleman, in a most doleful tone and with a profound sigh: “it pleased the Lord to ordain that the salmon of which I partook bountifully at yesterday’s dinner should disagree with me--or peradventure it was the cucumber;--but, by the aid of the Divine blessing and the black draught, my dear patron, I have pretty well come round again. Nevertheless, I feel my appetite failing me.”

And as he uttered these words, Mr. Sheepshanks helped himself to about a pound and a quarter of pigeon-pie--that being his second attack on the same dish.

“I shall be happy to assist you to some roast duck, Mr. Sheepshanks,” said the Doctor, after a pause of about seven minutes.

“It would be an act of rudeness to decline an offer which bespeaks such delicate attentions on your part, worthy sir,” returned the pious gentleman. “I have just managed to pick a morsel of this savoury pie; and I will endeavour to get through the wing of a duck, with heaven’s assistance.”

“So you shall,” said the Doctor. “In the meantime I recommend you to take a little wine--for your stomach’s sake.”

“Ah! that was salutary advice which Paul gave to Timothy--‘a little wine for the stomach’s sake,’” drawled out the excellent Mr. Sheepshanks;--and to prove that he really thought so, he filled a tumbler with claret and imbibed the delicious draught without a pause.

By this time a plate, containing the wing, leg, and part of the breast of a duck, was placed before him; and, with a hollow groan as if he thought he should never get through it all, he commenced the attack.

We may here observe that the Doctor, who was a widower, was fond of good living himself, and was well pleased when he found any one inclined to keep him company in the enjoyment of the pleasures of the table. For this reason he especially admired the Reverend Mr. Sheepshanks; and he well knew that when his chaplain pretended to have no appetite at all, he was in reality prepared to do ample justice to every dish. Hence the copious supply of duck which the physician had sent him; and that hospitable gentleman heard with secret pleasure the groan which Mr. Sheepshanks had given, and which was a sure indication that the modesty of the reverend glutton would be so far overcome as to induce him to allow the Doctor to help him again presently.

And here we may likewise remark that Swinton was no niggard of his good cheer. If he kept an excellent table, he liked to see justice done to the viands served up; and, as he received handsome remuneration from the friends of his first-class patients, he could well afford to regale them sumptuously, and amass a splendid fortune out of them into the bargain.

In conversation of the trivial kind of which we have just recorded a specimen, did the Doctor and Sheepshanks pass the time during supper,--the patients all maintaining a profound silence, and conducting themselves with the most perfect propriety. Indeed, were it not for a certain vacancy in the eyes of some, and a peculiar but inexplicable expression in the looks of the rest, it were impossible for a stranger to believe that there were any lunatics at all in the room.

After supper Mr. Sheepshanks delivered himself of a long prayer;--but as his libations had been somewhat copious, in spite of his bilious attack, his voice was occasionally so thick as to be unintelligible,--and it appeared as if he at times fancied himself to be an Irvingite speaking in the unknown tongues. Towards the conclusion of his oration, which very much resembled a funeral sermon in those parts where the meaning and sense could be caught, the reverend gentleman became so much affected that he began to weep; and had a maliciously-disposed person been present, he would have probably entertained the derogatory notion that Mr. Sheepshanks was in that maudlin condition vulgarly termed “crying drunk.”

However, the affair passed off to the satisfaction of the worthy Doctor, who, as he thought of all that his chaplain had eaten and drunk during the evening, felt really proud of having beneath his roof a man of such splendid qualifications.

The after-supper oration being concluded, the keepers, all dressed in plain clothes, made their appearance to conduct the patients to their respective chambers; but as this was Granby’s first night in the house, the Doctor volunteered to show him to the apartment prepared for his reception.

The new inmate of the asylum immediately obeyed the hint which the physician gave him relative to the hour for retiring; and he was forthwith escorted up a handsome staircase to a long corridor on the second floor. From this passage, which was carpeted, adorned with statues in recesses, and lighted by lamps hanging to the ceiling, opened several rooms, the doors of which were numbered.

At the entrance to the passage the Doctor pulled a wire which communicated with a bell on the storey overhead; and a matronly, respectable-looking woman made her appearance in answer to the summons.

“Which chamber is Mr. Granby to occupy, Mrs. Probert?” said the Doctor to his housekeeper--for such was the situation filled by the female.

“I have moved the gentleman--you know whom I mean, sir--that was in Number 7----”

“Ah! I understand,” interrupted the physician, with some degree of impatience, as if he were afraid that his housekeeper was about to be more communicative than was necessary in the presence of the stranger. “Well--you have removed a certain person----”

“To Number 12, sir,” replied Mrs. Probert; “and therefore Mr. Granby will please to occupy Number 7.”

“Very good,” said the Doctor. “Now, Mr. Granby, my dear friend--have the kindness to follow me.”

The request was instantaneously obeyed; and the physician conducted his docile patient into the room that had been selected for him, and which was indeed the most spacious, airy, and elegantly furnished bed-chamber in the whole establishment. It was usually appropriated to any new-comer of the first class whose friends appeared to take an interest in him; so that on the occasion of their first visit after his location in the asylum, the doctor might be enabled to show them, with pride, and even triumph, the magnificent apartment in which the patient was lodged. It was afterwards an easy matter to remove him to another and inferior, though still comfortable chamber--so as to make room for another arrival; and it was very seldom that a lunatic ever thought of mentioning to his friends, when they visited him again, the change of apartments that had taken place.

Having introduced Mr. Granby into the elegantly furnished chamber, the Doctor placed the candle upon the table, wished the young gentleman a good night’s rest, and then retired--closing, but not locking, the door behind him.

The moment he had departed, a remarkable and signal change took place in the appearance and manner of Mr. Granby. His countenance lost its stolid vacancy of expression, and became animated with its natural intelligence; and, instead of seeming a dull, drivelling idiot, he stood erect--a fine intrepid young man, conscious of the possession of superior mental faculties, and prepared to carry out effectually the scheme which had already been so successfully commenced.

Indeed, all further mystery in this respect being unnecessary, we may as well at once declare that the fictitious Mr. Granby was the real Lord William Trevelyan--and that Smithson, who had so well performed the part of an afflicted and faithful friend, was none, other than the astute valet, Fitzgeorge.

The young nobleman had made confidants of his two friends, Dr. Prince and Mr. Spicer, who at his request had drawn up and signed the certificates necessary to procure his introduction into the abode of Dr. Swinton.

We must likewise here observe that when the short colloquy had occurred between the Doctor and his housekeeper, it instantly struck Trevelyan that allusion was made by them to Sir Gilbert Heathcote as being the individual whose sleeping-place had been changed from No. 7 to No. 12. He had noticed that the woman had observed a degree of mystery in referring, in the first instance, to the late occupant of the best bed-room--and that the Doctor, as if fearful that walls had ears, or that even a lunatic (such as he believed Trevelyan to be) might learn a dangerous secret, had hastily interposed to prevent Mrs. Probert from making a more direct allusion. All these circumstances induced Trevelyan to conjecture that the late occupant of his room was none other than Sir Gilbert; and, if this were the case, he had acquired the certainty that the baronet was the tenant of a neighbouring apartment in the same corridor.

It was now eleven o’clock; and the young nobleman resolved to wait until a much later hour ere he took any steps in pursuance of the clue which he believed himself to have gained relative to the chamber occupied by his persecuted friend.

He walked to the window, and looked forth through the iron bars, upon the mass of narrow lanes and squalid alleys constituting the suburb known as Globe Town, and all the features of which were brought vividly forward in the powerful moonlight,--for the atmosphere was as bright as if it were of transparent quicksilver.

But in a few minutes, Trevelyan grew wearied of the sameness of the prospect, so still and inanimate at that hour; and he began to examine, more minutely than at first, the chamber in which he found himself.

A massive wardrobe of dark mahogany, and elaborately carved, particularly attracted his notice; and, impelled by that curiosity which frequently seizes upon persons who seek to while away an hour or two by any means that opportunity or accident may afford, he opened the large and heavy doors. There were several shelves inside, filled with blankets and counterpanes, evidently deposited there during the summer-months, when the beds required less clothing than in winter.

Trevelyan was about to close the doors, when he suddenly caught sight of something that appeared to be a roll of papers thrust between the blankets. He drew forth the object of his attention, and found that his conjecture was correct; for he held in his hand a manuscript consisting of several folios of foolscap closely written upon in a genteel and fluent style.

A farther examination of the papers showed him, by means of certain dates, that the manuscript was only recently composed; and an indescribable feeling of interest, superior to any thing like vulgar curiosity, prompted him to read the documents that had thus strangely fallen into his possession.

Besides, he had determined to let a couple of hours slip away ere he took any step in pursuance of the design that had brought him to the mad-house; and he was by no means sorry at having discovered a mode of passing the interval otherwise than by restlessly pacing his chamber or gazing from the window.

He accordingly seated himself at the table, and commenced the perusal of the extraordinary document that will be found in the ensuing chapter.

CLXXXVIII. THE CONFESSIONS OF A LUNATIC

“My blood has been boiling like a lava-stream. It appears to me as if I can now freely respire the fresh air, after having only breathed by gasps. What agony, then, has it been that has thus convulsed my soul?--of what kind was the anguish which has left such strange and unnatural sensations behind? Have I just awakened from a reverie of burning thoughts and appalling visions?--or was there any truth in the hideous things which seem to have passed like a frightful phantasmagoria through my brain? What means this suffocating sob that has struggled upward, and as it were spontaneously from my breast? O God! it appears to me now as if the wildest--most maniacal ideas have crowded into volumes, but become compressed into instants! Do I rave?--am I really here--in a room elegantly furnished--and seated at this table, writing? Is the bright sun-light streaming in at the open casement?--and does the breeze penetrate into the chamber, fanning my feverish cheek and throbbing brow, and wafting to me the delicious perfume of flowers? Is all this true--or a dream? Am I still a denizen of the earth,--that earth of which I seem for some time to have lost all forgetfulness--dwelling during the interval in a chaos peopled with horrible images--ghastly spectres--frightful beings of nondescript shape? Oh, I remember--I found this paper, this pen, and this ink in that large and massive ward-robe so exquisitely carved;--and something tells me that there are persons watching my movements--spying my actions--and who will be angry with me--perhaps ill-treat me--if they behold me writing down my ideas. Oh! I am afraid--I am afraid. My God! where am I? There is a hurry in my brain--my blood again begins to boil--my hand trembles as I write. But wherefore do I write at all? I know not:--and yet it seems to do me good!

“If any persons--any of those men whom I remember to have seen just now--should endeavour to enter the room, I will hide my papers in yonder ward-robe. Or else under the bed?--or between the mattresses? No: in that ward-robe--it is the safest place, I feel confident.

“But why should I not go forth and walk in that garden which I can see from the window?--or else penetrate into the fields at a great distance, and lie down and think? If the breeze coming into this room, does me good, how much more refreshed should I feel were I to ramble about in the open country! Yes--I will go.

“What does this mean? I have tried the door--and it is locked! Who dares to treat me thus--me--a gentleman of birth and fortune? I will not endure such conduct: I will appeal to my brother, the magistrate, for protection. He shall hang the wretches who have perpetrated this insolence.

“O God! what do I see? There are bars at the window! Great heavens! I shall go mad!

* * * * *

“MAD! Yes--that was the last word that I wrote yesterday--I suppose it must have been yesterday--when I so hastily concealed my papers, on hearing some one approach the door. I remember that full well! Yes--it was an elderly man, with a mild and benevolent countenance--dressed in black, with linen beautifully white--and with a massive chain and seals. I looked at him well: but I knew him not. I do not think that I ever saw him before. He sate down by my side--felt my pulse--and asked me several questions. Ah! a thought flashes to my mind: that good old gentleman is a doctor. And now,--yes--I think I can recollect it all,--I abused him--I insulted him very grossly;--and then some men entered and compelled me to go to bed. They undressed me by force. I struggled against them; but it was useless.

“Oh! what does it all mean? Why those men to coerce me?--why that doctor to attend upon me?--and why those bars at the window? Gracious God! it cannot be--no--no--the horrible thought----

“Yes: it must be so--I am really mad!

* * * * *

“Again I sit down, calmly and tranquilly, to write. I have weighed well my condition--have asked myself a thousand questions--have read what I have written above--have striven to recollect all the past--have carefully examined the present--and have dared to think of the future. By all this--and by the bars at the window--I know that I am mad!

“Yes: but I can write the word now without growing excited; and I must practise writing it again, so that I may by degrees gather to my aid such an amount of self-possession as to be able to trace on this paper all that has occurred to me. Then shall I possess a positive memorial--a substantial key to the past; and should I again forget, in an interval of delirium, all that has occurred, I can speedily recommit the mournful history to my memory during a lucid interval like the present.

“Mad--mad--mad--mad! There--now I can write the word without the least excitement; and this is a triumph already achieved. By gaining a complete and accurate knowledge of my real position, I shall know how to act. I am aware that I am in a lunatic asylum: I am also aware that I have passed through intervals of fearful delirium. But I must compose myself as much as possible. I cannot remain in this horrible place;--and if I cannot become really sane again, I may at all events pretend to be so--and then they will let me out. But in order to regain my intellects, or appear to recover my reason, I must remember all that has occurred to me, so as to be enabled to converse calmly and sensibly on the subject. Stay! I will think--I will reflect profoundly for the rest of the day; and to-morrow I will resume my pen.

“God forbid that the doctor or his men--or that prying old housekeeper, should look into the wardrobe! I would not lose my manuscript for worlds.

* * * * *

“June 13th, 1846.

“I have learnt the day of the month. The doctor has been with me for an hour; and he readily complied with my request to be furnished with an almanack. He told me that this is the 13th of June; and henceforth I hope I shall be enabled to keep the dates accurately. When I was at school--but that is many years ago!--I used to make an almanack to calculate how long it was to the holidays; and every evening I scratched out the day that had just passed. Oh! happy--happy age of boyhood--wilt thou never come back? hast thou gone for ever? Now must I erase each day as it passes, and hope that the period of my release is near at hand. That shall be the holiday of my manhood, to which I must look forward with such anxious--fervid--burning hope!

“But to my narrative.

“A hundred thousand pounds became mine on the day that I attained my majority. That was nine years ago! I was my own master: my parents had long been dead--and my guardians attempted not even to advise me--much less control me. They were not relations--mere men of business to whom my fortune had been intrusted, with a view to its accumulation. The moment I became possessed of that wealth, I plunged headlong into the vortex of pleasure. Heavens! in what dissipation did I indulge. Who could drink deeper than I, and walk home steadily afterwards?--who was more sought after and caressed amongst the fair sex?--who was a more constant attendant at race-courses, gaming-houses, and the haunts of fashionable vice and aristocratic debauchery? Fool that I was! I imagined that to spend money profusely, was to enjoy life largely. I had three mistresses at the same time,--three women, having each a separate establishment, maintained at my cost! What were the consequences? At five-and-twenty my constitution was nearly ruined, and eighty thousand pounds of my fortune had been expended. The very principles of my existence seemed to be undermined--disease was gnawing at my vitals--an unbroken career of the wildest dissipation was hurrying me, with race-horse speed, to the tomb!

“Suddenly I awoke, as from a dream. But it was not because remorse touched me,--nor because good counsels were proffered me,--nor because some latent feelings of virtue sprang into existence. Neither was it because my fortune was nearly wasted and my health failing rapidly. No: but it was because I at that epoch saw my Editha for the first time! Oh! how can I retain my calmness now, when I think of her as I then beheld her,--beheld her in all the glory of her matchless beauty--radiant with that loveliness that seemed to surround her with the halo that only angels have! Yes--I was then twenty-five, and Editha Greville was nineteen--that delightful age when the female figure swells into womanly loveliness--round, full, and exquisitely modelled!

“We loved--almost at first sight; and though several weeks passed ere I ventured to declare my passion, I could read in Editha’s eyes that I was far from being displeasing to her. She was an only child; her father was dead; her mother, though a woman of considerable wealth, mixed little in society; and the wildness of my conduct was not therefore fully known to Mrs. Greville. At the same time, she had heard that I was extravagant and imprudent; but when I implored her to bestow upon me the hand of her daughter, she yielded her assent, expressing a hope that I had sown all my wild oats by that time, and should grow steady in a matrimonial state. Thus was it that I became the recognised suitor of Editha; and when some of Mrs. Greville’s friends, who knew me well, represented to her that I was notoriously a half-ruined rake, the old lady had too much confidence in all the promises of reformation which I had made, to revoke the consent she had given to our union. Besides, she saw that Editha was deeply attached to me, and that the beauteous girl’s happiness depended on the smooth progress of love’s course.

“But, alas! painful thoughts forced themselves upon my mind. I felt that my constitution was ruined--and I believed myself to be in a consumption. Faithful to the solemn pledges which I had made to Mrs. Greville, I established a complete change in my habits; and instead of drinking wine to excess, I foreswore all alcoholic liquor whatsoever. Likewise, instead of passing my nights in dissipation, I returned home at an early hour and sought my couch. But the suddenness of this alteration in my habits produced effects which I can only compare to the terrible reaction that a man experiences when waking in the morning after a night of deep debauch. A dead weight fell upon my spirits. I became so low and depressed that horrible thoughts of suicide were constantly floating in my brain. My nervousness was extreme, and intensely painful. An unusually loud knock or ring at the front-door would make me start as if I had committed a crime and was expecting the officers of justice to come and arrest me. I was constantly conjuring up the most shocking visions respecting the future; and when immersed in those reveries, I verily believed that I was contemplating realities--such was the morbid state of my mind!

“It was therefore natural that I should begin to reflect upon the step which I had taken with regard to Editha. I had sought and won the affections of a beautiful creature, who was possessed of a generous heart, an amiable disposition, and a loving soul; and I was shocked to think that such a being, in all the vigorous health of youthfulness, should be led to the altar by one whose constitution was shattered, whose vital energies were almost ruined, and who seemed to be hovering on the very verge of the tomb! Oh! how maddening were these thoughts! I looked upon myself as a villain--a deceiver; and often--often was I on the point of throwing myself at Mrs. Greville’s feet and exclaiming, ‘Pardon me, madam, for having dared to ask the hand of your daughter in marriage! I am but a phantom--a shadow: the finger of Death is upon me,--and if Editha should accompany me to the altar, it is probable that in less than a year she will have to follow me to the tomb!’--But when I thought of Editha’s matchless beauty, and pondered upon the immensity of the love that I experienced for her, I could not command the courage necessary to enable me to resign the hope of possessing such a treasure. Besides, in her society I could smile and be gay: her musical voice was more ravishing to my ears than the inspired strains of an improvisatrice;--her breath was more fragrant than the perfume of flowers--her lips more delicious than the honey-dew upon the blossoms! Oh! no--no: I could not resign my Editha! But no day had been as yet fixed for our marriage--and six weeks had already elapsed since I had proposed and was accepted. Shall I confess the truth? I dared not ask her mother to name the day: I shrank from the idea as if I were meditating a murder--had marked out my victim--but dreaded to settle in my own mind the night and the hour when the assassin-blow should be struck!

“I was lying in bed one morning, reflecting on all these things--for the dark fit of despondency was upon me--when my valet entered the room with the morning’s newspapers. I listlessly unfolded one of the journals, when my eyes suddenly caught sight of an advertisement, headed thus:--‘Manhood, the Reasons of its Early Decline; with Plain Hints for its Complete Resuscitation.’ This book was announced to be an emanation from the pen of T. L. Surtees and Co., Consulting Surgeons, residing in one of the streets leading out of Soho Square; and it appeared by certain quotations of notices from the leading newspapers, that the book was a medical treatise of great utility, merit, and importance. Hope now dawned in upon my soul. Perhaps my constitution was not irretrievably damaged? Perchance I might not be in a consumption, after all? Such were my thoughts, after perusing that advertisement over and over again; and I resolved to lose no time in calling upon the able practitioners who undertook the resuscitation of any constitution, no matter how hopeless the case might seem. Accordingly, having hastily dressed myself, I repaired in a street cab to the address indicated in the advertisement. The house was one of imposing appearance; and the words ‘Surtees and Co., Consulting Surgeons,’ were displayed in deep-black letters, on immense shining zinc-plates. The fawn-coloured Venetian blinds were drawn down; and I said to myself, as I alighted with a fluttering heart, ‘Doubtless these eminent practitioners have patients waiting in every room to consult them.’ Entering the passage, I found an inner door, with a bronze knocker and a ground-glass fan-light, on which were inscribed the same words as those that appeared on the polished zinc-plates. I was immediately admitted by a footman, and conducted up stairs to a drawing-room, every feature of which is at this moment as fresh in my memory as if I were seated and writing there now.

“This apartment at first sight impressed me with an idea of luxurious splendour; but a closer examination into its appointments showed me that the most vulgar taste had presided over its fitting-up. The paper was of crimson and gold; and to the walls were suspended several paintings set in magnificent frames, which only rendered the daubs the more miserably ludicrous. Two of them were covered with plate-glass, as if they were very valuable; whereas they were as wretched as the others. ‘Some unprincipled person,’ thought I, ‘must have imposed upon these worthy doctors, by recommending pictures to which I would not accord house-room. But men of philosophic minds and who are devoted to professional studies, are seldom good judges of works of art.’ Thus ruminating, I continued my examination of the apartment; and I was struck with surprise at the utter vulgarity and absence of taste which characterised the profusion of French porcelain ornaments scattered about. Here was a Chinese Joss, with a moveable head: and there was a pedlar mounted on a gigantic goat. At the corners of the fire-place were two paintings evidently cut out of a picture, and representing little charity-school girls. In the centre of the room stood a loo-table, upon which a writing-desk was placed; and this was surrounded by medical publications, bearing on their title-pages the magical names of those gentlemen whom I was so anxiously waiting to see. I had the curiosity to open one of the works: but I was disgusted with the obscenity of the coloured plates which it contained. A moment’s reflection, however, induced me to believe that there could be nothing indecent in the development of the divine art of surgery; and I felt ashamed of myself for having even for an instant entertained such scruples. As a concluding observation respecting the drawing-room itself, I must remark that its entire appearance indicated the taste of a vulgar upstart, rather than the refined elegance of a polished mind.

“Having waited nearly three quarters of an hour, a footman made his appearance, and, with many obsequious bows, conducted me down stairs into a dining-room most gaudily and extravagantly furnished. The same grovelling vulgarity of taste which I had noticed elsewhere was apparent in the crimson damask curtains with yellow fringes and tassels--the looking-glasses in ponderous frames--the showy daubs suspended to the walls--and the furniture arranged for the purpose of display. Folding-doors admitted me into an inner apartment, of equally vulgar appearance; and beyond was a little room, only a few feet square, and which the footman, as he ushered me in, denominated the surgery.

“I must confess that my heart beat violently as I traversed those two apartments leading to the sanctum where I expected to find myself in the presence of the eminent medical practitioners. I had pictured to myself a couple of old and venerable-looking gentlemen, with genius stamped upon their high bald foreheads, and their eyes expressing all the powers of vigorous intellects. I was therefore somewhat surprised when, on being introduced into the surgery, I beheld only one individual, who was the very reverse of the portraiture I had drawn by anticipation. His features were of the Jewish cast: his complexion was of that swarthy and greasy description peculiar to the lower order of the Hebrew race;--his hair was black and very thick; and his whiskers met beneath his chin. His eyes were dark, and one of them was larger than the other: his bottle-nose was rather on one side; and his countenance altogether was as ignoble, as vulgar, and as unintellectual as ever served as an index to a sordid, grovelling soul. His dress was of the flashy kind which belongs partly to the upstart or parvenu, and partly to the swell-mob’s-man. He wore a blue dress-coat, a gaudy waistcoat, and large loose trousers hollowed at the instep so as to be shaped to the polished leathern boot. A profusion of jewellery decorated his person;--a thick gold chain, with a large key, depended to his watch--his worked shirt was fastened with diamond and blue enamel studs;--and his dirty hands were covered with costly rings, which appeared as ill-placed upon the clumsy, grimy fingers as pearls would be round the neck of a pig.

“Such was the individual in whose presence I found myself; and had I not been at the time in such a desperate state of mind that I was eager to clutch at a straw, I should at once have seen through the man and his system. But I reassured myself with the adage which teaches that we should never judge by outward appearances; and it flashed to my mind that many men remarkable for the brilliancy of their intellect, were far from being prepossessing in either person, manners, or address. Moreover, I never had partaken in the shameful, unjust, and absurd prejudices which too many of my fellow-countrymen entertain in respect to the Jews; and therefore the mere fact of this Mr. Surtees being a member of the Hebrew race produced on my mind no unfavourable impression with regard to him.

“‘Pray be seated,’ said the medical gentleman, with a tone and manner which I at the time mistook for professional independence, but which I have since discovered to be the vulgar insolence of an ignorant, self-sufficient upstart. I took a chair in compliance with the invitation given; and when he had seated himself at his desk, he extended his dirty but jewel-bedizened paw, saying, ‘Vill you obleege me vith yer card?’--I did as requested; but not without a little hesitation, for I had hoped to avoid giving my name and address.--‘Ah! I see,’ said Mr. Surtees, in a musing tone, as he examined the card: ‘Mr. Macdonald,’ he continued, reading my name. ‘By the vay, air you any relation to the Markiss of Burlington? ’cos his family name is the same as your’n.’--I replied that I was not a relative of the nobleman mentioned.--‘Vell, it don’t sinnify,’ proceeded Mr. Surtees. ‘The Markiss is a hexcellent friend of mine. He lays under a sight of hobligations to me. He come to me in the first hinstance vith a constitootion so veared out and shattered that no medical carpenter in all Hingland could have mended it up except me. But in the course of a foo weeks I putt him as right as a trivet; and now he’d go through fire and vater to sarve me. It on’y cost him a couple of thousand pounds to get quite cured; and that was cheap enow, ’evvins knows! But how comed you to call upon me this mornin’? Were it in consekvence of having perooged von of my medical vorks? Ah! them sells vell, them does! Or were it ’cos you seed my adwer_tise_ment in the noospapers?’--I was so completely bewildered by this outpouring of execrable English and vile grammar, that for some moments I was utterly unable to answer the questions put to me. Was it possible that this coarse, ignorant, and self-sufficient vulgarian could be an eminent medical authority--the author of valuable publications--the celebrated surgeon whom the extracts from newspapers[21] quoted in his advertisement, spoke of so highly? I was astounded. But again did hope blind me to what the man really was: again did I reassure myself by the reflection that Mr. Surtees might be an excellent surgeon, although he was a miserable grammarian; and I accordingly recovered my self-possession sufficiently to inform him that I had called in consequence of reading his advertisement in the newspapers.

“The doctor seemed pleased at my answer, and immediately exclaimed, ‘Vell, sir, and vot a blessin’ it is that people do read adwer_tise_ments: ’cos vy? they gets at the knowledge of heminent medikle prektishoners, which has devoted their lives to the hart of ealing all kinds of diseases. You see before you, sir,’ he continued, in a pompous tone, and with arrogant air, ‘a man vot knows hevery hin and hout of the human constitootion. No von knows so vell as myself wot consumption raly is.’--‘Then you have made consumption your particular study, sir?’ I observed, seeing that he paused, in order to elicit some remark from me.--‘Rayther!’ was his laconic answer. ‘The fact is,’ he continued, ‘foo medikle men is aweer what consumption is, nor in vot part of the frame it begins. Vy, I vonce knowed a gentleman, sir, which had a rapid decline begin in the great toe of his left foot, and travel up’ards, till it spread itself over the hentire system. The doctors had all give him up, and the undertaker was actiwally thinking of the good job he should soon have putt into his hand, ven I vos consulted. I made him take seventeen bottles of my bootiful Balm of Zura, and he rekivered in less than a fortnit.’

“Weak, nervous, and attenuated as I was, this anecdote made a deep impression upon me. I forgot the bad grammar--I lost sight of the arrogance and self-sufficient vulgarity: I saw and heard only the man who solemnly assured me that he had redeemed a fellow-creature from the jaws of death, when all other members of the faculty had given up the case as hopeless. Mr. Surtees doubtless perceived that he had worked me up to the pitch suitable to his purposes; and he accordingly said, ‘Vell, my good sir, vill you be so good as to explain wot it is that you’ve come to consult me for?’ I then frankly and candidly confessed that I had expended four-fifths of a large fortune in a career of unbroken dissipation--that my constitution was grievously impaired, if not absolutely ruined--that since I had given up drinking and all other sources of unnatural excitement, I was subject to such frequent fits of despondency that the idea of suicide was almost constantly in my imagination--that I loved and was beloved by a beautiful girl who was possessed of property--but that I felt afraid to contract the matrimonial engagement, lest I should leave her an unprotected widow in the course of a short time. Mr. Surtees listened with great attention; and when I had concluded, he appeared to reflect profoundly. At length he said, ‘Vell, let’s feel yer pulse.’--I extended my hand towards him; and he applied his thumb to a part of my wrist where I did not suppose that a pulse lay: but I concluded at the time that his great proficiency in medicine had led him to discover a new pulse, and that the best mode to test it was with the thumb.--‘Wery veak pulse indeed!’ he said, shaking his head with as much solemnity as the Chinese Joss up in his drawing-room might have been expected to display. ‘But don’t go for to give vay to despair, my dear sir; the case is a bad ’un, I admit--a wery, wery bad ’un; and I can’t say as how that I ever knowed a wusser. Pray, who’s the young lady which you intends to marry? I’ve a motive in axing.’--I thought that as the learned gentleman was already acquainted with my name and address, there could be no harm in answering this new question, the more especially as even if I refused to reply, he could easily institute those enquiries that would lead to a knowledge of the fact: I accordingly satisfied him on that head. ‘Ah! I don’t know her,’ he observed, carelessly: then, after a few moments’ reflection, he said ‘Vell, I undertake to cure you; but the business vill be a hexpensive von. You must write me a cheque for a hundred guineas, my consultation fee; and then I’ll tell you wot you must do next.’--Reassured by the promises he thus held out, I unhesitatingly gave him a draft for the amount demanded. He then opened a drawer, and drew forth a small case containing six bottles. ‘This here is the rale elixir of life,’ he said, in a tone of solemn mystery: ‘it inwigorates the constitootion in no time, and puts a reglar stopper on the adwance of consumption. The Grand Turk has a case sent every veek to him through his Hambassador, and all the crowned heads in Europe is patients of mine, I may say. Take a bottle of this bootiful balm daily; and ven it’s all gone, come back again to me. The price of them six is fifteen guineas; and you can write me out another cheque at vonce.’--I hastened to comply with this demand; and Mr. Surtees bowed me out of the surgery.

“But here I must leave off writing; for I am wearied--my brain begins to grow confused--and my memory fails me. Oh! what a fool--what an idiot I was, not to have seen through the man and his quackery on the occasion of that visit, the particulars of which I have detailed at such length.

* * * * *

“June 18th, 1846.

“I again resume my narrative. Five days have elapsed since I last put pen to paper; and that interval has been one of darkness. Yes--the fit was upon me: but it has passed--and I am now calm and collected once again. I have just read over all that I have written above; and I have laughed heartily at the fidelity and minuteness of my description of the first visit that I paid to the quack-doctor. Let me now continue my narrative; for the incidents are once more all fresh and vivid in my memory.

“I am well aware that the imagination has much to do with our diseases and our cures. Possessed of what I deemed to be a salutary medicine, my spirits rose; and at the close of each of the six days during which the supply of balm lasted, I said to myself, ‘I certainly feel stronger and better.’ The fits of despondency were far less frequent, and less intense: my appetite improved--and the colour came partially back to my cheeks. This change was no doubt effected principally by the steady life which I adopted, and by the increased mental tranquillity which I experienced. I was moreover filled with hope that a complete restoration to health would be accomplished; and thus, while at the time I attributed everything to the medicine, I have not the least doubt that the stuff was utterly valueless in itself. Editha was rejoiced to find my spirits so much improving; and her mother expressed her delight at the regular habits which I had adopted. I did not mention to a soul my visit to Mr. Surtees: that was my secret--and a sense of shame made me cherish it religiously. At the expiration of the week I called upon him again, and on this occasion was at once admitted into his surgery. There was another fee of a hundred guineas--another six bottles of medicine prescribed, and another cheque given for the amount thereof. He asked me if I had read his book yet; and I was compelled to reply in the negative. ‘Vell, never mind,’ he said; ‘I ain’t offended; but you shall have a hopportunlty of perooging it before you come agen. I’ll jest step up into the drawing-room and get you von.’ He accordingly quitted the surgery; and during his temporary absence an irresistible feeling of curiosity prompted me to look at a note which lay open upon the table. I read it; and thus it ran, word for word:--‘Dear Joe, You ax me 2 lend you mi dipplomy for a few days, just to make a show with to a new payshent; but i vunce for all tell you as how i’d rayther not lett it go out of my house. Besides, it’s of no use to you, ’cos it’s made out in the name of La’Vert, and you’ve took the name of Surtees. So no more from your affecshonate brother, &c.’--This note was signed by the name of La’Vert; and therefore it was apparent that the real appellation of my friend Mr. Surtees was Joseph La’Vert. It struck me in a moment that I had become the dupe of a quack; but I had sufficient command over myself to restrain my indignation when he returned to the room. He was accompanied by a woman--I cannot say a lady--whom he introduced to me as his wife. And here I must pause to say a few descriptive words of her.

“Mrs. Surtees was a vulgar, dark-complexioned Jewess, with a long hooked nose. Her flesh seemed as if it had been smeared with oil, and then wiped with a dry towel; but on her cheeks she wore an immoderate quantity of rouge. She was exceedingly stout, with an enormous bust: her hair, rough and wavy, was arranged in bands and plastered down with quince-pips. She was dressed in the most outrageous style, and as she herself expressed it, ’was about to go hout for a haring in the carridge.’ Her gown was of green velvet; her shawl of bright red; and her bonnet of rose pink, adorned with a profusion of artificial flowers, inside and out. She wore very pink silk stockings and short petticoats, as she had conceived the erroneous impression that there was something attractive in her elephantine leg. As a matter of course, she carried a complete jeweller’s shop about her person. She wore no gloves; and her large red hands were covered with rings. Her ear-rings were of gold studded with turquoise; and now her portraiture is complete.

“Scarcely had the ceremony of introduction taken place, when another female bounced into the apartment, and she was immediately presented to me as Mrs. Surtees’ sister. Such a pair was never seen before! They looked like a butcher’s daughters in their Sunday’s best; and they were attired with an evidently studied view to contrast. For the sister’s gown was of blue velvet, her shawl of flaunting yellow hue, and her bonnet white. These ladles, having favoured me with a good long stare and a few observations relative to the weather and such-like common-place topics, quitted the room to enter their vehicle which was waiting at the door. Mr. Surtees had the gallantry to accompany them as far as the carriage; and the moment I was alone again, I had the curiosity to traverse the two rooms and take a peep from the front window. The equipage was in perfect keeping with the appointments of the house and the attire of the occupants. It was a barouche, painted bright blue on the body: but all the under part and wheels were of straw colour. The inside was lined with yellow morocco. It was drawn by two brown cobs, the harness exhibiting a profusion of silver; and the coachman’s livery was of a gaudy blue, with buttons also of silver.

“But while I was making these observations from the window, my ears were saluted with a brief colloquy that took place in the passage between Mr. Surtees and his wife, ere he handed her to the carriage. They doubtless believed that I had remained in the surgery, and little thought that I was near enough to catch all they said.--‘Vell, Joe,’ exclaimed Mrs. Surtees, ‘any monzel[22] vith that pale-faced young feller vich you said were so ’ansome and made me come in to see?’--‘A good moza-motton,’[23] he answered, with a vulgar chuckling laugh.--‘Oh! then, he stumped the guelt?’[24] demanded the woman, joining in the cachinnation.--‘To be sure he did, my love,’ responded this precious consulting-surgeon: ‘and I means to have a good deal more out on him afore I’ve done.’--‘Oh! wery vell, then,’ returned Mrs. Surtees: ‘in this case the boy Abey must have a new polka hat, and little Joe a new welwet dress out of it’--‘All right!’ exclaimed the consulting-surgeon. ‘Come, cut along, and astonish the natives in the park a bit. I shall jine you presently.’ He then handed the two women into the carriage; and I hurried back to the surgery, where I seated myself till his return--so that he could not suspect I had quitted the place during his temporary absence. I longed to tell him all I knew or suspected relative to his real character: but a fear of exposure made me silent--and I took my leave of him with as much civility as I could bring myself to bestow upon such a person.

“I knew that I had been completely and thoroughly victimised: but on reflection, I was glad of it. I saw that the circumstance of taking the medicine had stimulated my imagination, and had thereby aided in improving my health. On my return home, I threw the six bottles away without drinking another drop of the trashy balm; and I sent at once for a respectable physician, who, for a fee of five guineas, gave me proper advice. I then came to the conclusion that it is always better, under any emergency, to have recourse to legitimate assistance than to seek the aid of advertisers--no matter whether the subject involved be medicine, law, or money. My health improved rapidly; and at the expiration of three months I became the happy husband of the equally happy Editha.

Here must I pause for a time: the recollection of my wedding-day has revived memories which overpower me!

* * * * *

“June 20th, 1846.

“I resume my narrative. Twelve months had elapsed after my marriage with the loveliest and most amiable woman in the universe; and nothing had transpired to interrupt our felicity. A boy had blest our union--and I was as happy as a husband and father could possibly be. My health was almost completely re-established; and my habits were regular and domestic. I loathed the idea of those exciting pleasures and feverish enjoyments in the vortex of which I had nearly wrecked everything--health, fortune, and reputation; and Mrs. Greville, who dwelt with us, would often assure me with a smile that I was the very pattern of good husbands. My brother, who had become a magistrate, was a frequent visitor at our house; and all was progressing in peace, comfort, and tranquillity, when an incident suddenly occurred to interfere with that smiling prospect.

“It was late one evening, shortly after my beloved Editha’s recovery from her confinement, that I was informed that a person who refused to give his name desired to speak with me in private. I ordered the servant to show him into the library; and thither I immediately afterwards proceeded. The man whom I encountered there was a short, thick-set fellow, with a forbidding countenance: he was flashily dressed, and had about him an air of jaunty impudence as if he had come upon some evil mission in which he knew that he should succeed. I asked him his business, without inviting him to be seated--for I conceived a dislike to him the instant I set eyes upon his sinister features. ‘Your name is Macdonald?’ he said, flinging himself into a chair in a very free-and-easy manner.--‘There is no necessity for you to acquaint me with that fact,’ I observed, assuming as chilling a tone as possible.--‘Oh! but there is, though!’ he ejaculated: ‘because I must make sure that I am speaking to the right person. Well, you admit your name: now will you tell me whether you’re the gentleman that married Miss Editha Greville?’--‘What means this impudence?’ I demanded angrily. ‘Explain your business, sir, without farther circumlocution.’--‘I’ll come to the point in a minute,’ returned the man, quite unabashed. ‘Fifteen or sixteen months ago you used to visit a certain gentleman who lives not a hundred miles from Soho Square.’--I started and turned pale: for it struck me in a moment that the fellow was alluding to the consulting-surgeon.--‘Well, now I see that it’s all right,’ he exclaimed, doubtless drawing this inference from the confusion of my manner. ‘Of course you would rather it shouldn’t be known that you did visit the gentleman,’ he added emphatically.--‘I do not understand your meaning,’ I replied.--‘Look here, then,’ continued the fellow: ‘it would not be very pleasant to have your brother, your mother-in-law, your friends, your tradesmen, your servants, and even your wife, made acquainted with the fact that you were under Mr. Surtees for some time previous to your marriage.’--‘I never visited him but twice!’ were the words that I gasped out, for horrible sensations were coming rapidly over me.--‘Never mind how often it was,’ cried the man, in a brutal tone: ‘you did call to consult him, and that’s enough for me. Now then, ’tis for you to say how much you’ll give me to keep the secret.’--‘Wretch! extortioner!’ I ejaculated, rage succeeding alarm in my breast--‘It’s of no use to attempt to bully me,’ said the ruffian, with the most cold-blooded composure: ‘I want money, and I mean to get it out of you.’--‘Or else?’ I said, all my wretched feelings returning, as I saw myself threatened with exposure, shame, and irretrievable degradation.--‘Or else,’ he repeated, ‘I shall tell the secret to all the people I have named; and then we shall see whether you will ever hold up your head in society again.’--‘And how much money do you require?’ I asked, my heart sinking within me.--‘Five hundred will do for the present,’ he responded imperiously.--‘For the present?’ I cried, echoing his words: ‘what! do you mean to visit me again for such a purpose?’--‘Not if you shell out at once, and without making any more words about it,’ he said.--There was no alternative save to comply; and I accordingly counted into his hand the Bank-notes for the sum named. In another minute he had taken his departure--and I was left alone to meditate upon the scene that had just occurred.

“It was a long time before I could so far compose my countenance and my feelings as to be able to return to the parlour without exciting the suspicions of my wife and mother-in-law that something unpleasant had taken place. But I managed to conceal the sorrow which the event of the evening had engendered within me; and early on the following morning I paid a visit to Mr. Surtees. He did not appear at first to recollect me--or, at all events, if he did, he was a wonderful adept in playing the part of forgetfulness: but when I mentioned my name, he exclaimed, ‘Vy, is it possible that you’ve come back to consult me again?’--‘Far from it,’ I answered, with a bitterness which I could not hide, and which he failed not to notice; for he bit his lip, and coloured deeply. I then related to him the particulars of the visit I had received on the previous evening, and accused him of being the prime mover in the matter. But he repelled the charge with so much indignation--whether real or feigned I cannot even now determine--that I certainly believed him at the time; and, were I at present writing for the purpose of having my narrative read by the world, I should be loth indeed to have it inferred that Mr. Surtees was in reality mixed up with the case of extortion. Much as I hate and despise him, I will not do him a wanton injustice; and I am therefore bound to state that he was warm and energetic in his assurances of complete innocence respecting the transaction.--‘But how could the man have known that I ever did visit you?’ I asked.--‘Vell things does get abroad in a many most unaccountable vays,’ he responded: ‘but I take my Gosh to witness that I’m as clear of this business as the babe vot’s unborn. Vot can I do to conwince you that such is the fect?’--‘I do not entertain such a dreadful opinion of human nature as to disbelieve you, sir,’ was my rejoinder; and I took my leave. But, distressed and harassed as I was, I could not help noticing the strong and disagreeable odour of fried fish that came up from the lower regions of the dwelling: nor could I avoid a smile as I caught a glimpse of Mrs. Surtees, who was running hastily up stairs, having evidently emerged from the kitchen--for her swarthy countenance was as greasy as it could be, and her appearance was dirty and slovenly in the extreme. Yet, a few hours later in the day, this woman would doubtless turn out in all the flaunting gaud of her rainbow attire and in the profuse display of her costly jewellery!

“I must again repeat that I quitted Mr. Surtees’ abode with the conviction that he was anything but an accomplice in the scheme of extortion; and I said to myself, as I returned homeward, ‘The scene of last night is one of those penalties which we are doomed to pay for the irregularities and evil courses of our youthful years. But, even though Surtees himself be innocent, is not the extortionate deed all the same a result of an infamous system of quackery? Destroy that system--and the quietude of men’s homes could not thus be troubled by the visits of extortioners!’--By degrees my mind grew calmer; and as weeks and months fled away, I had almost ceased to think of the occurrence which had so much ruffled me, when one evening the man reappeared at the house. Again was the ominous message delivered to me while I was seated in the society of my beloved wife and her excellent mother--again did I see the man in private--and again was I compelled to endure his cool insolence and yield to his extortionate demands. Another five hundred pounds was transferred from my pocket to his own;--and once more was I forced to veil the real condition of my feelings when I rejoined the ladies in the parlour. And now, as time slipped away, I did not lose the misgivings that this second visit had excited in my mind--I could not forget that I was in the power of a villain, who was certain to come back again. Months passed; and a third time--I remember it well--it was on Christmas eve,--the fatal message was delivered to me. On this occasion I started so violently and betrayed so much confusion that both my wife and mother-in-law observed my agitation. I however hurried away, without responding to their anxious enquiries; and when once more in the presence of the extortioner, I heaped the bitterest reproaches upon him. He heard me with a coolness and a self-possession that only augmented my wrath; and at length I ceased speaking through sheer exhaustion. He then informed me, in his imperious and rude manner, that he had an opportunity of emigrating under the most favourable services--that he required a thousand pounds--and that if I gave him this sum, he would never trouble me again. I bound him by the most solemn oaths to that pledge; and, to save myself from a shame that would have crushed me down to the very dust and rendered life intolerable, I gave the miscreant a cheque on my bankers for the large amount which he demanded. But on my return to the company of my Editha and Mrs. Greville, I was compelled to invent falsehoods to account for my confusion; and I beheld, with pain and bitter grief, that they both saw that I was deceiving them--that I was concealing the real truth--and that there was something upon my mind![25]

“Oh! yes--and they conjectured truly; for my peace was now so thoroughly disturbed, that I despaired of regaining it. I felt convinced that, in spite of the villain’s solemn vows, he would come back again; and I dreaded to be at home--for every knock at the door made me start nervously. If I walked or rode out, on my return I dreaded lest the servants should inform me that a certain person had called for me during my absence, and would look in again in the evening. Thus my life became a veritable burthen to me; and my sorrow was aggravated by the stern necessity of retaining it all in my own breast. Often and often did I think of inventing some excuse to induce my wife and her mother to consent that we should break up our establishment in London, and repair to the continent. But what apology could I devise for such a strange proceeding?--and, moreover, would not the extortioner find me out, if he set himself to the work? because to imagine any feasible ground for changing our name, was impossible. Thus months passed away, without seeing me determine upon any plan to frustrate the extortioner should he return; and I saw that my Editha’s health and spirits began to fail--because she knew that I was secretly unhappy!

“And the extortioner did come back: and again was I forced to yield to his demands. Two thousand pounds did he obtain from me on this occasion; and when I reminded him of his solemn pledges and sacred vows, he laughed outright in my face. Oh! how I hated--abhorred--loathed that man! I could have slain him on the spot: but I thought of my dear wife and innocent boy, and I restrained my hand. And now my mind became seriously unsettled--a painful nervousness constantly maintained its influence over me--my health gave way again, as rapidly under the heavy weight of sorrow as it did beneath the wearing effects of dissipation. Oh! yes--and what was worse than all, was that my Editha grew paler and thinner day by day--visibly;--and I dared not attempt to console her--I could not force my tongue to frame a lie to assure her that I myself was happy. Thus was our once happy home changed to a scene of gloom: a deep despondency hung upon us all--and I perceived, with ineffable anguish, that Mrs. Greville began to view me with distrust. Perhaps she thought that some crime lay heavy upon my soul: yes--this must have been her impression--or she would doubtless have questioned me. But she did not live long enough to behold the sad catastrophe: a short though severe illness snatched her to the tomb--and, circumstanced as I was, I rejoiced in secret at the event,--for I said to myself, ‘There is at all events one being the less to deceive--one being the less to watch me with mournful and silently appealing looks!’--O God! It was not strange--it was not wonderful if madness were beginning even then to undermine the strong tower of my reason!

“Scarcely were the remains of my mother-in-law consigned to the tomb, when the extortioner reappeared at the house. His demands increased in proportion to the concessions which were made to him by my fears; but I was totally unable to comply with his present exigences. It is true that there was much property still left;--but it was settled on my wife--and I could not command from my own resources the sum needed. This I candidly told him, and besought him to be merciful;--yes, with tears in my eyes did I beseech him. The wretch! the monster! what cared he for my grief--my anguish? He desired me to have recourse to a discounter--gave me the address of a money-lender--and said he should return on the following evening. Accordingly--impelled by my wretched, wretched destiny--I visited the money-lender, who advanced me three thousand pounds on my own acceptance, and at most usurious interest. The whole of that money found its way into the pocket of the extortioner; and when he had taken his departure, I fell down in a fit. For days and days did I keep my bed; and when I awoke to consciousness, it was from a delirium. My dear wife was seated by my bed-side; but, O God!--how pale--how altered--how wan she was with long vigils and deep grief! I questioned her guardedly to ascertain whether in my ravings I had betrayed my secret: but I learnt, beyond all doubt, that I had not. Then I began to breathe more freely; and she, throwing her arms about my neck, exclaimed, while tears streamed in torrents down her cheeks, ‘My beloved husband, you have some dreadful grief preying upon your mind. May I not be made your confidant? I have observed that always after the visits of the man who calls every now and then, and invariably in the evening, you are stricken as with a heavy affliction. Oh! what does it all mean?--I endeavoured to console her--to soothe her--to reassure her as well as I could; but I saw that she only pretended to be solaced, for my sake!

“Well--I recovered: but happiness and I had shaken hands for ever. I felt as if I were followed about by an invisible demon, whose breath poisoned the very atmosphere that I breathed. I know that my brain was reeling--that my reason was tottering that I was going mad! Often did I think seriously of murdering my wife and child, and putting an end to my own existence. But I dared not lay violent hands upon them; and I had too much moral courage still left to seek death so long as there remained a single tie, however feeble, to bind me to life. But a new misfortune was in store for me--for us. A solicitor in whom I and my wife trusted, obtained our signatures to certain deeds under the foulest representations; and by virtue thereof he sold out all the stock standing in Editha’s name in the Bank. He then absconded; and we were suddenly reduced from affluence to comparative penury. I was unable to honour my acceptance; and the discounter would listen to no terms. He said that he had passed it away in the regular course of business, and could not take it up himself. I was arrested and thrown into prison. My friends deserted me, believing that wanton extravagance on my part had led to this catastrophe. Yes: all save my beloved wife deserted me--and she, the angel! remained faithful to me! We had two hundred and fifty pounds a year still left; and on the houses which produced this income, my wife insisted on raising the money necessary to obtain my release. But such a proceeding would have left us beggars; and I could not endure the idea of misery for one--two--three persons! No: the property was so secured that my creditor could not touch it--and I resolved, by the advice of an attorney, to apply for relief to the Insolvents’ Court. I did so; and the creditor opposed me on the ground of extravagance. I could give no account of the manner in which I had disposed of the money he had advanced me--and when the opposing counsel asked me, on my oath, whether I had not lost it at gambling, I greedily snapped at the means of explanation thus furnished, and perjured myself by the utterance of an affirmative. Oh! that miscreant extortioner!--he drove me to ruin--a prison--the Insolvents’ Court--perjury--and lastly to a mad-house! Great God! how can I write thus tranquilly when I think of all the wrongs that I have endured?

* * * * *

“July 23rd, 1846.

“I have been compelled to desist again: but at length I resume my pen. My ideas are rapidly becoming more settled: I think that I shall recover altogether, if I can but manage to escape from this place!

“I stated that I appeared at the Insolvents’ Court, and was opposed by the holder of the bill for three thousand pounds. The Commissioner remanded me to prison for twelve months as a punishment for wanton and profligate expenditure. I shall not dwell upon that long incarceration: it was horrible to a sensitive soul like mine. Even Editha, patient and loving as she was, failed to solace me altogether. There were intervals of anguish so bitter that I fancied myself at times to be already dead and enduring the torments of hell. Dreadful thought! But at length the time passed--and I was once more free. We took a neat little cottage in the suburbs of the metropolis; and tranquility seemed to have been restored to us at last. Our son throve gloriously: Oh! what a handsome boy he became--what a handsome boy he must be now! Nearly two yeas passed--and I was recovering my mental serenity, when one day I met the extortioner in the street. Oh! what a cold shudder came over me as I saw his eyes fixed upon me! It seemed as if a horrible spectre had suddenly started up from the earth to horrify and appal me. I beheld Ruin personified; and a faintness came over me. But I was recalled to a poignant sense of my misery by the well-known voice, that fell upon my ears, making fresh demands upon my purse. I took the man into an obscure public-house close by; and, as there was no one in the room save ourselves at the time, we could converse freely upon the business. Freely, indeed! when every word he uttered fell like drops of molten lead upon my heart--and every syllable I breathed in return hissed from my parched tongue like water passing over red hot iron! What could I do? The fiend insisted upon having money, and swore that he would follow me home. He, however, measured his demands to my means, and insisted upon having three hundred pounds by a given hour the next evening. We parted--and I saw that he dogged me: indeed, he did not attempt to conceal himself nor his intentions as he followed me until I entered my own door--and I knew that it was useless either to turn upon him in a hostile manner, or to attempt to baffle his aim.

“Heaven only knows how I contrived to explain to my wife the reason of my altered appearance--or rather, how I managed to conceal the real cause beneath a falsehood. But I did succeed in reassuring her somewhat; and on the following day I went to the discounter--the same discounter who had lent me money before--to ask him for a loan. It was a desperate step, taken by a desperate man: but, to my surprise, he consented without the slightest hesitation to accommodate me. I received the money--gave my note of hand--and paid the amount to the extortioner. But things had now reached a crisis with me--and I became so unsettled in my mind that Editha was seriously alarmed. I remember that my brother, the magistrate, was sent for; and he visited the house after having been long estranged from me. Then a mist came over my memory; and, when I awoke, I was--here!

“Yes--here, where I now pen these lines! Oh! I have been mad--raving mad; and Heaven knows that I have endured enough to make me so. Such persecution could only end in insanity. But I am better now: nay--I am well--although my friends will not believe it. My brother was here yesterday; and I saw by the way in which he humoured me when I told him I was fast recovering my reason, that he still imagines me to be insane. I implored him to let me see Editha and my boy: he declared that I should have that pleasure next Sunday. He likewise told me that they were well in health, but deeply grieved on my account.

“Now I have made up my mind how to act. I shall escape from this horrible place, and proceed to France. There I shall adopt an assumed name--and thence I shall write to Editha to join me at once with our son. We shall be beyond the reach of the extortioner--and tranquil, if not happy days may yet await us. Yes--this is my hope! But shall I destroy the manuscript upon which I have laboured so arduously, and which has furnished me with an occupation that has done me so much good? No: I cannot consent to annihilate the papers which contain a narrative so fraught with awful warning. But does it not likewise contain my secret?--and is not my name mentioned in the course of the recital? Hark! footsteps approach--I must conceal my papers----”

CLXXXIX. SCENES IN THE LUNATIC ASYLUM

Thus terminated the extraordinary manuscript which Lord William Trevelyan found in the wardrobe, and the perusal of which occupied him nearly two hours.

He was undecided how to dispose of the papers. Should he return them to the place where they had been concealed?--should he destroy them?--should he take them away with him, in the hope of being one day enabled to discover their writer, and by restoring them to him convince him that they had fallen into the possession of an honourable man, who, though having had the curiosity to read them, would, nevertheless, religiously keep the secret which they contained?

For, from the abrupt termination of the manuscript, Lord William very naturally concluded that the unfortunate author had succeeded in effecting his escape from the lunatic-asylum very shortly after he had penned the last words in the narrative; and the young nobleman, therefore, considered it to be possible, though perhaps not very probable, that he might sooner or later encounter Mr. Macdonald in the great and busy world.

Lord William had likewise another motive for retaining the papers.

The reader has seen enough of him to be aware that there was in his disposition much of the same chivalrous spirit and philanthropic principle which characterised the Earl of Ellingham; and it was therefore natural that he should become suddenly impressed with the idea of adopting measures, in due course, for the purpose of fully exposing the atrocious system of quackery that was carried on by pseudo-medical advertisers.

He remembered that the newspapers contained many advertisements announcing such works as the one which had proved the means of ensnaring the unfortunate Mr. Macdonald; and he was resolved to lose no time in employing his solicitor to institute all the necessary inquiries into the characters, histories, proceedings, and social positions of the scoundrels who thus accumulated large fortunes by means of the most atrocious quackery, deceit, rascality, and extortion.

The manuscript which chance had this night thrown in his way, contained so many important particulars, and furnished such a complete clue to the entire ramifications of the dark iniquity which the young nobleman was determined to expose, that he regarded it as a powerful auxiliary to the crusade he was about to undertake; and this consideration, added to the motives already mentioned, decided him in retaining possession of the document.

It was now one o’clock in the morning; and a profound silence reigned throughout the lunatic asylum.

Lord William noiselessly opened the door of his chamber, and looked forth into the long passage, which was partially lighted by a single lamp that had been left burning.

No living being was to be seen; and nothing disturbed the dead stillness of the hour and the place.

It now struck the young nobleman that the door of the chamber which he was anxious to enter--namely, No. 12, in the same passage as his own apartment--was most probably locked; and, in this case, he made up his mind to force it at all risks.

A little farther reflection suggested to him that, inasmuch as he had seen the housekeeper with only a single key in her hand, it was probable that this key was a pass to all the chambers; and he thence inferred that the key of his own room might perhaps fit the lock of the door belonging to No. 12.

At all events this was the first experiment that he resolved to try; and, without any longer delay, he proceeded as cautiously as possible down the passage, until he reached the chamber which he hoped and believed to be the one occupied by his friend.

There was a bolt outside the door: this was immediately drawn back;--and Trevelyan essayed the key.

To his indescribable joy, the key turned easily in the lock; and, with a beating heart, the nobleman entered the room--closing the door behind him.

The chamber was quite dark: but Trevelyan speedily groped his way to the window and drew aside the curtains, so as to permit the powerful moonlight to pour its silver flood into the room.

He now approached the bed--and there, to his delight, he beheld the well-known, though worn and wasted, countenance of his friend Sir Gilbert Heathcote, who was wrapped in slumber.

Lord William shook him gently; the baronet awoke with a sudden start and ejaculation; but at the same instant a friendly voice said, hurriedly, “Fear nothing! ’tis I--Trevelyan--and I am come to deliver you from this accursed place.”

Sir Gilbert, who had raised his head from the pillow, fell back again, and closed his eyes for a few moments. He fancied that he was dreaming. He could not believe that those welcome words had in reality sounded in his ears, or that the moonlight had shown him the form of his friend by the bed-side.

Trevelyan did not choose to interrupt the baronet’s reverie immediately; he comprehended the prudence of allowing him to collect his scattered ideas, and compose his thoughts.

“Is it really you, my dear young friend?” Sir Gilbert asked abruptly; and, starting up in the bed, he seized Trevelyan’s hand, and gazed fixedly upon his countenance.

“Yes, it is no dream,” responded Lord William, pressing the baronet’s hand with all the fervour of his generous friendship; “I am here to effect your escape, and there is no time to be lost.”

Still the baronet could scarcely believe the joyful announcement thus made to him; and Trevelyan, duly impressed with the necessity of tranquilising and reassuring his friend’s mind as much as possible ere the attempt at departure should be made,--fearing likewise that the baronet’s intellect had been somewhat impaired by the sense of wrong and the horrors of imprisonment in a lunatic asylum,--began to speak upon such topics as were calculated to direct his thoughts into a salutary channel.

“My dear Heathcote,” he said, “endeavour to call to your aid as much calmness and self-possession as possible; for a single inadvertence or false step may ruin our project by alarming the house. Remember that the place is as well protected and defended, and probably as well watched, as a gaol: and we must proceed with caution--courage--and coolness.”

“But how did you find your way into the establishment?” enquired Sir Gilbert, his ideas becoming more settled.

“By pretending to be insane,” answered Trevelyan; “and I have succeeded in thoroughly duping the Doctor.”

“Oh! my generous--my noble-hearted friend!” exclaimed the baronet: “how can I ever sufficiently prove my gratitude----”

“Hush! speak not with excitement!” interrupted Trevelyan. “I am only doing towards you what you would unhesitatingly perform for me under the same circumstances. And now--as I am anxious to relieve your mind as much as possible from any uneasiness or suspense that it may experience--I must at once inform you that Mrs. Sefton is in good health, and at this moment in the happy expectation of shortly seeing you again; for she is aware of the scheme which I have adopted to restore you to liberty.”

“Heaven be thanked for these assurances!” exclaimed Sir Gilbert: then, after a few moments’ pause, he said, “I need scarcely ask you to explain how you became acquainted with Mrs. Sefton. She was no stranger to the friendship subsisting between you and me--and I therefore conclude that, alarmed by my sudden and inexplicable disappearance, she sought your counsel and assistance.”

“All has occurred precisely as you conjecture,” answered Trevelyan. “But do you now feel equal to the task----”

“Of making an effort to recover my freedom?” ejaculated Sir Gilbert, leaping from the couch. “Let us not lose another moment! The atmosphere of this place seems oppressive, and heavy to breathe. I pant--I yearn--I long for liberty.”

Thus speaking, the baronet began hastily to put on his attire, and in a few minutes he was dressed.

“Now,” said Trevelyan, “we must decide upon the course to be adopted. Doubtless there is a porter to keep watch all night in the hall?” he added, interrogatively.

“Yes,” answered Sir Gilbert: “and I am also certain that a man patrols the garden. Besides, the keepers inside the house are as wakeful and as watchful as the fiends of Pandemonium; and the least noise will bring half-a-dozen strong and desperate fellows upon us. For my part, I have not the slightest objection to embrace the alternative of fighting our way through all opposition----”

“But the consequences of defeat would be most disastrous,” interrupted Trevelyan. “The Doctor would thereby gain an excuse for coercing both you and me; and although I am as it were my own prisoner, yet I have sworn not to quit these walls unless accompanied by you.”

“Generous friend!” exclaimed Sir Gilbert. “Were we well armed, we might bid defiance to the Doctor and all his gang: but weaponless--powerless as we are----”

“Do not despond, Heathcote,” said Trevelyan, observing that the baronet spoke in a mournful tone: “the task that I have undertaken, I will accomplish! There appear to me to be two modes of procedure. The first is to descend as noiselessly as possible to the hall--seize upon the porter--master him--and then effect our escape by the front-door. The other is to force away the bars from the window of this room--make a rope of the bed-clothing--descend into the garden--and take our chance with the watchman. Either project is attended with the risk of creating an alarm: but it is for you to decide, from your knowledge of the premises and the habits of its inmates, which scheme is the more feasible.”

“The former,” responded Sir Gilbert, after a few moments’ deep reflection. “The watchman in the garden would probably observe us at the window, removing the bars; and an alarm would thus be raised even before we were prepared to attempt an escape by those means. On the other hand, the porter sleeps in the hall:--of this fact I am well assured, because I saw the bed temporarily made up for him there on the night that I was brought hither:--therefore our chances of success lie in that direction.”

“Such also is my idea,” observed Trevelyan. “Let us proceed at once--and permit me to take the lead.”

The young nobleman and the baronet stole cautiously forth from the chamber, treading so lightly that their steps raised not a sound to disturb the silence which prevailed throughout the establishment.

They descended to the first floor in safety: and there they paused for a few minutes on the landing, listening with suspended breath.

The deep and regular respiration of the porter now reached their ears from the hall below; and they thus obtained the assurance that the man slumbered.

Exchanging looks of satisfaction, they descended the last flight of stairs;--and, by the hall lamp, they perceived the porter comfortably ensconced in a truckle-bed that was made up for him in a convenient corner. The light fell on his rubicund countenance, which was surmounted by a cotton nightcap: but the brawny arm that lay outside the coverlid, and the tracing of his form as shaped by the bed-clothes, showed full well that he was a man of herculean stature and proportionate strength.

Nothing daunted--but resolving upon a desperate effort to accomplish the purpose he had in view--Lord William Trevelyan led the way into the hall; and he had just ascertained the fact that there was a bunch of large keys peeping forth from beneath the sleeping porter’s pillow, when the door of the supper-room suddenly opened, and Mr. Sheepshanks staggered forth.

The reverend gentleman carried a candle in his hand; and, by his flushed countenance, vacant stare, and unsteady walk, he was evidently in a pretty advanced state of intoxication. In fact--and there is no necessity to disguise the matter--the pious minister had sate up to enjoy himself alone; and he had carried his libations to such an extent that he was now, at two o’clock in the morning, most awfully drunk.

The moment Lord William caught sight of the inebriate minister, he sprang upon him--placed his hand tightly over his mouth--and, thrusting him back into the supper-room, said in a low but hasty and threatening tone, “Move hence at your peril!”

He then closed and locked the door.

But in the short and decided scuffle an untoward accident had occurred.

The candlestick had dropped from Mr. Sheepshanks’ hand on the marble floor of the hall; and the consequence was that the porter sprang up, and was out of bed in a trice.

Sir Gilbert Heathcote rushed upon him: but not in time to prevent the man from springing a huge rattle and crying, “Help! help!”

Lord William Trevelyan hesitated not a moment how to act. He darted to the truckle-bed--seized the keys from beneath the pillow--and sprang to the door, leaving Sir Gilbert Heathcote wrestling desperately with the porter.

The reader will remember that there were two doors; and the young nobleman had only just time to open the first or inner one, when a rapid glance cast behind showed him his friend Sir Gilbert upon the floor, completely overpowered by the huge porter, who had placed his knee upon the baronet’s chest.

It was Trevelyan’s hope that his friend would have been able to keep the porter engaged in the struggle until he could have opened both the doors, when he would have turned to the scene of strife, to rescue the baronet; but scarcely had he observed that Sir Gilbert was already vanquished, when four of the keepers rushed down stairs into the hall.

With the rapidity and force of a tiger springing upon its prey, Lord William rushed on the huge porter, hurled him to a distance, and raised up the prostrate baronet.

All this was the work of an instant: but in another moment the keepers sprang upon the two friends, and closed with them.

The baronet was again borne down; but Trevelyan, who now saw that the conflict was really becoming desperate, used the bunch of heavy door-keys with such effect that he speedily disabled the two keepers who had assailed him,--stretching one senseless on the floor, and compelling the other to beat a retreat with the blood pouring down his face.

To turn his attention to the two men who were dragging away Sir Gilbert Heathcote, was the intrepid young nobleman’s next step; and in a few moments the baronet, once more rescued from the enemy, was by the side of his intrepid friend.

“Take the keys and open the front door!” cried Trevelyan, impetuously pushing Sir Gilbert towards that extremity of the hall where the means of egress lay. “Escape, in the name of heaven!--think not of me!”

And having thrust the keys into his friend’s hand, Lord William seized the Doctor’s gold-headed cane, which hung to a hat-peg in the hall; and placing himself between the front-door and the keepers, he cried, “Beware how you provoke me--for I shall not hesitate to defend myself to the death!”

But scarcely were these words uttered, when the two keepers from whom he had rescued the baronet, returned to the charge, aided by the burly porter.

The foremost was instantaneously felled by a blow vigorously dealt with the cane; and, following up his advantage quickly as the eye can wink, Trevelyan darted at the other keeper, whom he also levelled on the spot. But in the next moment the gallant young nobleman was in the grasp of the porter; and, dropping the cane as no longer useful in a close tussle, he addressed himself with all his might to this last and most desperate single combat.

The scene was very exciting; and all that we have yet described since the first moment that the conflict commenced, did not occupy more than two minutes.

Scarcely had the intrepid nobleman and the herculean porter closed together, when the Doctor, attired in his dressing-gown and slippers, and with his cotton night-cap on his head, appeared at the bottom of the stairs, holding a chamber-candle in his hand.

At the same instant Sir Gilbert Heathcote had succeeded in opening the front door; and the morning breeze poured into the hall, in a manner doubtless highly refreshing to the porter, who, be it remembered, had nothing on but his shirt--his cap having fallen off in the conflict which he had maintained with the baronet in the first instance.

Two of the discomfited keepers, animated by the presence of the Doctor--or perhaps rendered ashamed of their pusillanimity--now returned to the attack upon Trevelyan, who was just on the point of hurling the porter to the ground. But Sir Gilbert, having made the entrance free, rushed back to help his friend; and the contest was again renewed with desperate energy,--the other two keepers, who had by this time recovered their senses, joining in the struggle.

And hard would it have gone with Trevelyan and the baronet against such odds, had not two new-comers suddenly appeared upon the scene.

For, the front door standing wide open, and the lamp being alight in the hall, two gentlemen who were passing by the house at the time beheld the extraordinary proceedings that were taking place within; and the foremost, perceiving in an instant that the odds were two to five,--namely, Trevelyan and the baronet against the four keepers and the porter,--exclaimed at the top of a stentorian voice, “Be Jasus! Frank, and we’ll just give a helping hand to the waker side!”

With these words, the redoubtable Captain O’Blunderbuss--nerved with all the courage attributed by Sir Walter Scott to Lord Marmion--“plunged into the fight.”

Or, in less poetical language, he darted into the hall--levelled the herculean porter with a well-directed blow between the eyes--and sent a couple of keepers sprawling over the aforesaid porter in an instant.

Frank Curtis, having imbibed just sufficient poteen to subdue his habitual cowardice and arm him with the bastard though not the less effectual valour which strong drink inspires, unhesitatingly followed the example of his gallant leader, and bore his part in the fray; so that in less than a minute a complete diversion was effected in favour of Lord William Trevelyan and Sir Gilbert Heathcote, the enemy being utterly discomfited.

“Villains! murderers! robbers!” shouted the infuriate Doctor, as loud as he could bawl; and then the screams and shrieks of the affrighted female servants were heard echoing from the stairs and landing-places.

“Let us depart!” cried Lord William Trevelyan; and, in a very few moments, he pushed the baronet, the captain, and Frank Curtis, out of the front door,--he himself pausing only for a single second to secure the keys.

In another instant he was outside the house; and closing the door behind him, he locked it so as to prevent the Doctor and his myrmidons from instituting an immediate pursuit.

“Be Jasus! and this is the rummest lar-r-k I iver had in all my life!” ejaculated Captain O’Blunderbuss, panting for breath.

“Come with us, gentlemen,” said Lord William, hastily addressing that gallant officer and Frank Curtis: “you have rendered us a signal service--and we must know you better. We have likewise certain necessary explanations to give you relative to the strange scene in which you took so generous a part. But come away directly--there is not a moment to be lost--a hue and cry may be raised!”

“Be the power-rs! and is it bur-r-glars ye are?” cried the Captain, somewhat regretting the precipitation with which he had mixed himself up in the late affray.

“No--no: far from that!” exclaimed Lord William, laughing heartily at the idea. “But let us get as quickly as we can out of this neighbourhood.”

And away the four gentlemen scampered into the Cambridge Road, down which they sped until they reached Mile End, where they fortunately found a night-cab waiting for a fare.

Into the vehicle they got; and Lord William Trevelyan exclaimed, as an instruction to the driver, “Park Square, Regent’s Park!”

Away the cab went; and both Captain O’Blunderbuss and Frank Curtis, who had heard the aristocratic address thus given, were seized with an insatiable curiosity to learn who their new acquaintances could be.

CXC. A SCENE IN A CAB

“Ginthlemen,” exclaimed the gallant Irishman, “I mane to inthroduce myself and frind to ye without any more bother or pother. My frind, then, ginthlemen, is Misther Frank Cur-r-tis--discinded from a fine family, and once possissed of large estates, all of which, be Jasus! he’s managed to ate up as clane as if dirthy acres were plum-pudding. My name, ginthlemen, is Capthain O’Bluntherbuss, of Bluntherbuss Park, Connemar-r-ra--where I shall be delighted to see ye any time ye may be afther visiting Ould Ireland and I’m at home.”

“Permit me to shake hands with you, Captain O’Blunderbuss,” said the young nobleman; “and with you also, Mr. Curtis. You have rendered me and my friend a service which we cannot easily forget.”

“And which we shall never seek to forget,” added the baronet, emphatically; and then there was a general shaking of hands inside the cab.

Lord William Trevelyan next proceeded to inform his new friends who he and Sir Gilbert Heathcote were; and the reader may conceive the huge delight experienced by Captain O’Blunderbuss and Mr. Frank Curtis when they found themselves in the company of a real nobleman and a real baronet.

“And now, my lor-r-d,” said the gallant officer, “will ye be so obleeging as to explain to us what house that was where all the pother took place, and what was the maning of the pother itself: for, be the holy poker-r! I can’t make head or tail of it!”

“The fact is,” responded Lord William Trevelyan, “it was a mad-house.”

“A mad-house!” ejaculated Mr. Frank Curtis, starting as if stung by a serpent lurking in the straw at the bottom of the cab--while a cold tremor came over him; for it instantly struck him that he and his Irish companion had been instrumental in the escape of a couple of lunatics.

“A mad-house!” repeated the Captain, immediately entertaining the same idea, although not sharing the apprehensions of his friend.

“Neither more nor less,” continued Trevelyan, perfectly unaware of the impression which his words had produced upon the two gentlemen: for, as the inside of the cab was quite dark, he could not observe the change that took place in their countenances.

“You--you--don’t mean to--to--say,” stammered Curtis, fidgetting uncommonly, and thrusting his hand outside the window to grasp the handle of the door: for he began to think that the sooner he emancipated himself from the cab, the better;--“you--you----”

“Hould your tongue, ye spalpeen!” vociferated the Captain, who, fully acquainted with the character of his friend, guessed pretty accurately all that was passing in his mind: for the worthy Irishman, on his part, was determined not to separate from his new friends, whether they were lunatics or not, until he had ascertained if any thing was to be got out of them either in the shape of money or whiskey, or both;--“hould your tongue, ye spalpeen! and let’s hear what his lor-rdship has to say upon the matther.”

“Well, as I was informing you, gentlemen,” resumed Trevelyan, who considered that a proper explanation was fully due to those who had acted such a gallant part in the late proceedings, “the house whence you just now so effectually aided us to escape, is a lunatic-asylum--and the men against whom you fought were the keepers.”

“And who--who were the--the--lunatics?” asked Frank Curtis, perspiring at every pore--for the effects of the whiskey which he had been drinking were completely absorbed in the terror that now influenced him.

“Be Jasus! and I won’t have such questions put to my intimate frind his lor-r-dship, and my parthicular frind the baronet!“ ejaculated Captain O’Blunderbuss, bestowing upon Frank’s ribs such an unmerciful nudge with his elbow that the gentleman who was made the recipient of the said poke writhed horribly in his seat. “Prosade, sir--my lor-r-d, I mane,” added the gallant officer, who, in spite of his civility towards the nobleman and the baronet, firmly believed that they were lunatics, and had usurped titles to which they had not the slightest claim nor right.

“Your companion asked me who were the lunatics,” said Trevelyan, beginning to be somewhat astonished at the manner of his new friends: “well, to tell you the candid truth, myself and Sir Gilbert Heathcote were supposed to be--although I leave you both to judge whether there could have been the slightest ground for such an idea.”

“O Lord!--O Lord!” murmured Frank Curtis; and again his hand, which he had withdrawn when the captain nudged him, was thrust out of the window to grasp the door-latch.

“Are you unwell, my dear sir?” inquired Sir Gilbert Heathcote, in a tone of much concern--for, being seated precisely opposite to Curtis, he had heard the murmured ejaculations which had escaped that individual’s lips.

“Yes--very,” replied Frank, with a hollow groan.

“Be asy, thin, can’t ye?” whispered the Captain savagely in his ear, at the same time favouring him with another barbarous nudge in the ribs. “Oh! it’s nothln’ at all, at all, with my frind, I can assure ye, my lor-r-d and Sir Gilbert,” exclaimed the gallant officer aloud: “he’s throubled with whazing in the throat when he’s been afther dhrinking an exthra dhrop of potheen--and may be the motion of the cab don’t quite agree with him, bad luck to his nonsense! Well, my lor-r-d, ye were afther telling us that your lor-r-dship’s ownself and Sir Gilbert were belaved to be the lunatics?”

“Just so,” answered Trevelyan; “and had not the affair proved a very serious one to my friend Heathcote, I should be inclined to laugh at the ludicrous manner in which it terminated. Heathcote was immured in that asylum under most treacherous circumstances a short time ago--although, I need scarcely inform you, there was not the slightest pretense for the imputation of insanity----”

“Be the holy poker-r! and any one that’s blind could see that same!” ejaculated Captain O’Blunderbuss.

“O Lord!” again moaned Frank Curtis; and he slily and stealthily turned the handle of the cab door.

“Determined to rescue my friend,” continued Lord William Trevelyan, “I induced two medical gentlemen, who are under some obligations to me, and whom I admitted into my confidence, to sign the necessary certificates to consign me to a lunatic asylum----”

“O Lord--O Lord!” groaned Curtis, more deeply than before; for even if he had hitherto entertained any doubt as to the state of Trevelyan’s mind, the singular averment just made was quite sufficient to confirm him in the opinion that he was in company with a decided lunatic.

“What the divvel ails ye, man?” growled Captain O’Blunderbuss. “Prosade, my lor-r-d. I’m dapely intherested in your lor-rdship’s narrative.”

“Having thus obtained the certificates,” continued Trevelyan, “I tutored my valet how to act--and he accordingly consigned me to the care of Dr. Swinton--the old gentleman whom you saw in a dressing-gown and night-cap at the foot of the stairs.”

“An arrant ould scounthrel, I’ve no doubt,” interjected the Captain.

“It was necessary, under the circumstances,” resumed Trevelyan, “to fight Sir Gilbert’s enemies with their own weapons. Cunning against cunning--duplicity against duplicity! That was the plan I adopted; and I affected insanity so well, that the Doctor was completely deceived.”

“Be the power-rs! this is excellent,” ejaculated Captain O’Blunderbuss. “It’s not ivery one that could desayve a mad-docthor so well.”

“I really believe that he imagined me to be as mad as a March hare,” said Trevelyan.

“And so you are!” yelled forth Frank Curtis, suddenly throwing the door wide open and making a desperate attempt to leap from the cab, even at the risk of breaking his neck or fracturing his skull--for his terrors had risen to such a pitch that confinement in the vehicle along with two persons whom he firmly believed to be downright mad-men, had become utterly unendurable:--but the iron grasp of the Captain clutched him by the back part of his collar just as he was on the point of bounding franticly forth into the road--and he was compelled, not however without a struggle, to resume his seat.

This proceeding on the part of Frank Curtis suddenly opened the eyes of both Trevelyan and the baronet to the impressions which the recent proceedings had unmistakeably and naturally made on the minds of their new friends: as if a light had darted in upon them, they now comprehended the cause of Frank Curtis’s singular manner almost ever since they first entered the vehicle;--and they likewise perceived (though they did not rightly interpret) the courtesy which had not only rendered Captain O’Blunderbuss so good a listener to the explanations given by Trevelyan, but had also prompted him to silence and coerce his companion as much as possible.

Accordingly, Trevelyan and Sir Gilbert Heathcote simultaneously broke out into such a hearty fit of laughter that Frank Curtis began to console himself with the idea that they were at least harmless; while Captain O’Blunderbuss set them down as the merriest lunatics he had ever encountered in all his life, and joined with unfeigned cordiality in their glee.

“And so you really thought that we were mad?” exclaimed Trevelyan, as soon as he could compose himself sufficiently to speak.

“Oh! not at all, at all!” cried the Captain.

“But Mr. Curtis firmly believes that we are neither more nor less than lunatics?” said the young nobleman, enjoying the scene.

“Be Jasus! and if he darrs insulth your lor-rdship and your lor-rdship’s frind by even suspicting such a thing, he shall mate me to-morrow mornin’ at twelve paces on Wimbledon Common!” exclaimed the gallant and warlike gentleman.

“Really you excite yourself too much in our behalf, Captain,” observed Trevelyan, who saw plainly enough that O’Blunderbuss was adopting just such a tone and manner as one would use to conciliate and soothe lunatics. “Now tell us the truth, my dear sir,” continued the young nobleman: “do you not think that if we are actually and positively crazy, you and Mr. Curtis cannot boast of being perfectly sane?”

“Be Jasus! and that same is precisely what I’ve often been afther thinking!” cried the Captain, determined to humour the supposed lunatics as much as possible. “As for Frank Curtis here, he’s as mad as the Irish pig that wouldn’t go one particular way save and excipt at such times that it belaved it was being driv another. As for meself, bad luck to me! I’m not blind to my own failings--and I know purty well that I’m as cracked as any damned ould laky tay-kettle.”

The accommodating humour of Captain O’Blunderbuss, who unhesitatingly pronounced himself and his friend Mr. Curtis to be insane, under the impression that such an admission would prove highly gratifying to those to whom it was made, produced such an effect upon the young nobleman and the baronet, that they became almost convulsed with laughter: and it was indeed fortunate that this scene occurred, inasmuch as its extreme ludicrousness tended materially to raise the spirits of Sir Gilbert Heathcote after the wrongs he had suffered and the incarceration he had endured.

It is impossible to say how long the equivoque and the consequent hilarity would have lasted, had not the cab suddenly stopped in front of a handsome house in Park square.

“Now,” thought both Captain O’Blunderbuss and Frank Curtis at the same time, “we shall see the bubble burst very shortly; and it will transpire who our two mad friends really are.”

The summons at the front-door was speedily answered by the appearance of Fitzgeorge in his plain clothes and a couple of footmen in livery, all of whom had waited up the whole night in expectation of the probable return of their master.

As for Fitzgeorge, he ran up to the door of the cab, and perceiving Sir Gilbert inside, exclaimed with unaffected delight, “Thank God! your lordship’s scheme has proved triumphant!”

At these words Captain O’Blunderbuss and Mr. Frank Curtis uttered involuntary ejaculations of astonishment: for they began to think that one of their new friends was really a nobleman after all, and that they might neither of them prove to be lunatics in the long run.

Leaping from the cab, Trevelyan invited the gallant gentleman and his companion to enter the house, observing, with a laugh, “However insane we may all be, we will at least exercise the common prudence of taking a little refreshment after all the hard work and momentous proceedings of the night.”

In a few instants the Captain and Frank found themselves conducted into an elegantly furnished apartment, in the midst of which was a table laid out with costly plate, and spread with a cold repast consisting of dainties that made their months water even to gaze upon. It was likewise a source of great satisfaction to the two gentlemen to behold a buffet well stored with wine and spirits, amongst which latter the Captain had no difficulty in recognising some poteen of the real orthodox colour.

The nobleman and his guests took their seats at table, and did ample justice alike to viands and to wine. Indeed, it was amazingly refreshing to behold the appetite with which the Captain and Frank Curtis addressed themselves to the former, and the zest with which they partook of the latter. They no longer believed that either Trevelyan or Sir Gilbert was mad; and when the former gave them the whole particulars of the story which he had only half finished in the cab, they laughed heartily at the misconceptions they had formed.

Under the influence of the poteen, which was duly produced after supper,--if supper such a meal could called, as it was now long past three o’clock in the morning,--the Captain and Frank Curtis became particularly talkative; when it appeared that, existing under grievous apprehension of certain formidable beings denominated “sheriff’s officers,” they had hired lodgings in the classic region of Globe Town, and that, having spent the evening and best portion of the night at a public-house in the Hackney Road, they were taking a short cut homeward, past the Doctor’s house, when they became the witnesses of the scene wherein they immediately after bore so distinguished a part.

From these and other revelations, which the Captain purposely suffered to ooze out as if quite unintentionally, Trevelyan and Sir Gilbert gleaned sufficient to convince them that their new friends were “gentlemen under a cloud;” and they were not sorry at having ascertained a fact which at once placed them in a position to testify their gratitude for the services of the night.

Accordingly, after exchanging a few words in a low tone with Sir Gilbert, Lord William Trevelyan wrote something upon a slip of paper, and then addressed Captain O’Blunderbuss and Frank Curtis in the following manner:--

“You will pardon me, my friends, for the liberty I am about to take and the observations I am on the point of offering. But it has struck Sir Gilbert Heathcote and myself, from certain words which fell from your lips in the excitement of convivial discourse, that you have experienced some little disappointment respecting the arrival of remittances; and we shall be alike honoured and rejoiced if you will permit us to use the freedom of friends under such circumstances. It is probable that a few hundreds may be of some trifling service to you at this moment; and it will prove a source of unfeigned delight to Sir Gilbert and myself if, in return for the generous aid you afforded us, we can in any way relieve you from a temporary inconvenience.”

Thus speaking, Lord William handed the slip of paper to Captain O’Blunderbuss, who, hastily glancing at it as he folded it up preparatory to consignment to his pocket, observed that it was a cheque for five hundred pounds.

“Be Jasus! my dear frinds,” he exclaimed, addressing himself to the young nobleman and the baronet, “ye do things in such a handsome way that I don’t know how to expriss my thanks at all, at all. Curthis, ye spalpeen!” he cried, suddenly turning round upon his companion, “why the divvel don’t ye jine in making a spache on the occasion?--since my lor-r-d and Sir Gilbert have lint us five hunthred pounds to relave us from our timporary difficulties. But I’ll unthertake to repay that same, my frinds,” he continued, again addressing his words directly to Trevelyan and Heathcote, “the moment I resave my rints from Ould Ir-reland--and bad luck to ’em! So here’s afther wishing us succiss--and be damned to all mad-docthors, say I!”

Having achieved this beautiful peroration, Captain O’Blunderbuss tossed off at a single draught the entire contents of a large tumbler of scalding toddy, and then rose to take his departure.

Frank Curtis, who was in a most glorious state of mental obfuscation--beholding two Trevelyans, two baronets, two captains, and heaven only knows how many wax-candles--was with some difficulty induced to stand upon his legs; and his Irish friend was more troubled still to make him use the aforesaid legs when he did get upon them. However, after some little persuasion and more threatening on the part of the Captain, Frank Curtis suffered himself to be led forth from the hospitable mansion.

As soon as Trevelyan and Sir Gilbert Heathcote were alone, the former related to his friend the particulars of the various interviews which had taken place between himself and Mrs. Sefton--that lady’s discovery of her daughter Agnes--and her removal to the villa at Bayswater.

The baronet was profoundly agitated--but it was with mingled surprise and joy--when he heard those tidings relative to Agnes: he rose and paced the room with uneven steps,--and then, reseating himself, appeared anxious to make certain revelations--or rather, unbosom his mind to his young friend. But, feeling perhaps unequal to the task at that moment, after the long hours of excitement through which he had just passed, he said, abruptly, “Trevelyan, I have matters of importance to confide to you: but it shall be for another occasion! I must now leave you--’tis nearly five o’clock--the morning has dawned some time--and I am impatient to repair to the villa at Bayswater.”

“Will you not take an hour’s repose before you depart?” inquired Lord William Trevelyan.

“Oh! I could not close my eyes in sleep again until I have embraced those who----But pardon me for this excitement--this agitation,” exclaimed Sir Gilbert, interrupting himself suddenly. “To-morrow I will tell you all--everything,” he added, pressing Trevelyan’s hand warmly: “and then you will better comprehend the feelings which move me now. Farewell, my dear friend, for the present.”

Sir Gilbert was about to take his departure, when Fitzgeorge entered the room, and addressing himself to his master, said, “My lord, I had forgotten to inform your lordship that when I returned hither last evening, after leaving you at Dr. Swinton’s, I found the Marquis of Delmour waiting----”

“The Marquis of Delmour!” ejaculated Sir Gilbert Heathcote.

“Yes, sir,” replied Fitzgeorge. “The Marquis appeared to be in a very excited state, and was most anxious to see your lordship,” continued the valet, again addressing himself to his master. “I assured him that your lordship was gone out of town, and might not return for a day or two--whereupon he almost flew into a rage with me for giving him such information. He paced the room in great agitation, and asked me several questions relative to any ladies who might visit at the mansion: but I answered that your lordship was not accustomed to receive visitresses at all. At length he took his departure, stating that he should call again in the morning at ten o’clock, and take his chance of finding your lordship at home.”

“I understand full well the meaning of this visit on the part of the Marquis,” said Sir Gilbert Heathcote to Trevelyan, when the valet had retired; “but I have not time for explanations now. My impatience to repair to Bayswater is intense, unseasonable though the hour is for arousing ladies from their slumbers. One request I have, however, to make, my dear Trevelyan,” added the baronet; “and this is, that you will not, under any circumstances, communicate to the Marquis of Delmour the address of the villa occupied by Mrs. Sefton and Agnes.”

“Be well assured, my dear friend,” answered the young nobleman, “that the secret is safe with me.”

The baronet wrung Trevelyan’s hand with the cordial warmth of deep gratitude and sincere attachment, and then took his departure.

Lord William lay down for a few hours, and enjoyed a sound slumber until nine o’clock, when he rose and dressed himself to receive the Marquis of Delmour.

Punctually as the clock struck ten, a handsome carriage drove up to the door; and the Marquis, hastily alighting, was immediately conducted into the drawing-room where Trevelyan awaited his presence.

CXCI. THE OLD MARQUIS AND THE YOUNG LORD

“My lord, you are a man of honour, I have heard,” began the Marquis, without any prefatory observations; “and I feel assured that you will at once relieve me from a most painful state of suspense. Pardon the excitement which I display--and justify the good opinion I have conceived of you by giving me without delay the information I am about to seek. In a word, where is Agnes--my daughter Agnes--the young lady whom you have seen walking in the garden of the secluded cottage near Norwood?”

“Is that beautiful creature indeed your lordship’s daughter?” exclaimed Trevelyan, not altogether surprised at the announcement: for the agitation which Sir Gilbert Heathcote had shown when the name of the Marquis of Delmour was mentioned, and the request which he had made to the effect that the residence of Mrs. Sefton should be kept secret, had already created in the mind of Lord William a suspicion of the real truth.

“Yes--Agnes is indeed my daughter--and I am proud of her!” cried the Marquis. “But I know that she was inveigled away from the cottage by one who----by her own mother, in fine----and I am likewise aware that you subsequently entrusted her to the care of a lady of your acquaintance. This latter information I obtained from a certain Mrs. Mortimer----”

“The information was correct, my lord,” answered Trevelyan. “And now I must candidly confess that I have a very difficult part to perform: for I will not condescend to a falsehood--and I dare not reveal the truth. This much, however, I unhesitatingly declare--that, by a singular coincidence, the lady to whom I conducted your lordship’s daughter proved to be none other than her mother.”

“Her mother! then she is at this moment in the care of that woman?” ejaculated the Marquis, his excitement increasing: “and you will not tell me where I can find them?”

“That is the truth which, as I said ere now, I dare not repeat,” responded Trevelyan, profoundly touched by the evident grief of the old nobleman.

“Will you be the means of separating a father from his child?” asked the Marquis, now sinking through exhaustion upon a sofa--for hitherto he had remained standing, although Trevelyan had twice courteously indicated the chair that had been placed for his accommodation.

“Were I to yield to your lordship’s desire,” said the young nobleman,--“were I to give you the address of--of--”

“Call her Mrs. Sefton, if you will,” interrupted the Marquis, bitterly: “I know that she passes and has long passed under that name.”

“Well, my lord--were I to give you the address of that lady,” resumed Trevelyan, “I should be adopting a course calculated to separate a mother from her child.”

“But that mother is unworthy of being entrusted with the care of her daughter!” exclaimed the Marquis of Delmour, emphatically.

“My lord, I have not the slightest inclination to enter into matters of a private nature, and regarding your own family,” said Trevelyan, with firmness, yet courtesy--and even with commiseration for the sorrow of the old noble: “much less,” he added, “should I like to be constituted a judge between your lordship and the Marchioness of Delmour--for such I presume Mrs. Sefton to be.”

“Without placing your lordship in any disagreeable or invidious position,” said the Marquis, growing more tranquil as his naturally powerful mind suggested the utter inutility of giving way to excitement, “I may yet address you not only in your capacity of a nobleman endowed with high intelligence and strict notions of integrity, but also as one who--unless I be much deceived--experiences an honourable passion for my daughter. Ah! I perceive by your countenance that such indeed is the sentiment you entertain for Agnes: and now, therefore, as her father will I address you--as her parent, her protector, and her natural guardian, I invoke your attention.”

“It would be disrespectful alike to your age and rank, and also to your position as the father of her whom I sincerely and devotedly love, were I to refuse to hear whatever your lordship may have to communicate,” said Trevelyan, after a few moments reflection.

“Thanks--a thousand thanks!” ejaculated the Marquis: “I shall yet move you in my favour! But tell me--you are acquainted with one whom, if you please, we will continue to call Mrs. Sefton: has she ever communicated to you any particulars of her earlier life?”

“Frankly and candidly,” replied the young nobleman, “she has confided to me a portion of those particulars; and I have this day learnt sufficient to fill up the few blanks which she left in her narrative.”

“You know, then,” resumed his lordship, “that I wedded her against her consent: but I knew not at the time--as God is my judge!--that I was so completely sealing her misery by that marriage. Sophia--that is her Christian name--was young and beautiful when I first saw her--Oh! so beautiful that I became madly in love with her: and you may perhaps be aware that love is selfish--claiming its object at any price, and at any sacrifice. Her father was in deep pecuniary difficulties--nay, more--he had done things which would have dishonoured his name and even endangered his personal safety. I had an enormous fortune at my command--I told him that I adored his daughter--and he promised me her hand. On that occasion he concealed from me the fact that the young lady’s affections were already engaged: indeed, he assured me that love was as yet a stranger to her bosom, but that she had been struck by my appearance, although I was so much her senior. The duplicity of the father was the first fault in that long chain of unpleasant circumstances and untoward incidents: and, relying on all that he had thus told me, I at once advanced a hundred thousand pounds to relieve him from his embarrassments. Soon, however, did I begin to perceive that my visits were rather tolerated than encouraged by his charming daughter Sophia; and then I learnt--but not from her lips--that she loved another. I felt indignant with the father--while I passionately coveted the daughter; and under the influence of those feelings I pressed my suit. I was resolved not to be made a dupe by the sire, and sacrificed by the young lady to a rival. Had she herself frankly and candidly revealed to me the state of her affections--thrown herself upon my mercy--appealed to my honour, I should have acted a generous part, my lord--yes--I should have been generous!”

“But the young lady was coerced by her father, who intimidated her at one time and ridiculed her at another,” observed Trevelyan: “I remember full well that she told me of her sire’s unfeeling conduct towards her.”

“Yes--and to me also she made the same revelation, when it was too late,” continued the Marquis. “However, it was under such inauspicious circumstances that our marriage took place; and again I appeal to heaven to attest the truth of my words when I declare that I treated her with all possible tenderness, affection, and regard.”

“She has done your lordship that justice in narrating those particulars to me,” remarked Trevelyan.

“But I could not render her happy,” resumed the Marquis: “she was constantly weeping--and our honeymoon resembled an interval of mourning after a funeral, rather than a season of felicity succeeding a bridal. Much as I exerted myself to please her--lavish as I was with money to procure her the means of recreation and enjoyment--profuse as I became with the most costly gifts, not only to herself but likewise to all her relatives and friends, I could never win a smile from her lips. Now your lordship will admit that this was more than an unpleasant life to lead--it was absolutely wretched. But your lordship may conceive the deep vexation which I experienced when, having succeeded on one occasion in inducing the Marchioness to appear at a ball given by some friends, I saw her pale countenance suddenly glow with animation and her eye light up with joy as Gilbert Heathcote advanced to solicit her hand for a quadrille. And she smiled, too--yes, she smiled--and, oh! how sweetly upon him, as her elegant figure moved with dignity and grace in the mazy dance. My soul seemed as if it were withering up within me: I am confident that I must have eyed them with the ferocity of a lynx. But Sophia appeared to have forgotten that I was present--that there was such a being in the world as I: her whole attention was devoted to my rival--her whole thoughts were absorbed in the pleasure of his society. She danced with him more than once--she sate next to him at the supper-table--and after the banquet she waltzed with him. I have ever detested that voluptuous--that licentious--that indecent dance: but how I loathed--oh! how I loathed it on this occasion! I tore myself away from the ball-room, and sought a secluded corner in the card-room. There I endeavoured to reason with myself upon the absurdity of my jealous rage--of the ridicule to which any manifestation of the feeling would expose me--and of the contempt I should inevitably draw down upon myself from my wife, did I allow her to perceive how much I was annoyed at what she would doubtless consider a trivial matter. Thus exercising a powerful command over my emotions, I even assumed a smiling countenance when we returned home, and when I congratulated her upon having been in such high spirits. But all her coldness and inanimation had come back, and I thought within myself that she would not appear thus if Gilbert Heathcote were still in her society.”

“My lord, pardon me--but wherefore enter into details which only arouse reminiscences so painful to yourself?” interrupted Trevelyan.

“Bear with me yet a little while,” said the Marquis, speaking in so mild and plaintive a tone that Lord William could not find it in his heart to manifest any impatience or any farther disinclination to hear the old nobleman’s narrative: “bear with me, I say--for I have a motive in entering into these details,” he continued. “At the same time, I will not be too prolix, although there are a thousand little circumstances which recur to my memory, and which might be quoted to prove how patient and enduring I was under the cruel indifference wherewith I was treated. But I will content myself by observing that Sophia smiled only on those occasions when she encountered Gilbert Heathcote in society or in the fashionable promenades: at other times she shrouded herself in a species of dreamy apathy. Her father, perceiving when it was too late how utterly he had wrecked his daughter’s happiness, died of a broken heart: but, strange to say, it was not long after this event that Sophia appeared suddenly to rally a little and seek a more active existence. She began to take frequent airings in the carriage--grew addicted to shopping--accepted every invitation that was sent for balls, routs, card-parties, and concerts--and requested me to take a box at the Opera: in fine, she speedily plunged into the routine of fashionable dissipation. Nevertheless, when alone with me, she was ever cold and reserved--if not positively sullen and morose. In the course of time she was in the way to become a mother--and I hoped that the birth of a child might subdue a portion of her coldness towards me, even if the tie were not strong enough to induce her to love me. But when Agnes--my darling Agnes--was born, her manner varied not one tittle in respect to myself. Time passed on--and at last I began to entertain serious suspicions of the fidelity of my wife--for I found that she had frequent interviews, not altogether accidental, with Sir Gilbert Heathcote, who about that time succeeded to a baronetcy and a tolerable fortune. I remonstrated with the Marchioness upon her imprudence--to give her conduct no harsher name; and then began a series of quarrels, disputes and bickerings, which made my life more wretched than ever. On one of those occasions she reproached me for having married her--and she declared that she never had loved, and never could love me. Alas! I knew it but too well,--knew also that she had loved, and still loved another! And it was likewise after one of those disputes to which I have alluded that a horrible suspicion first entered my mind--a suspicion that the Marchioness had been unfaithful to me, and that Agnes was not my own child.”

“Oh! my lord--continue this painful narrative no farther!” exclaimed Trevelyan. “It shocks me to be thus made the depositary of secrets of so delicate a nature!”

“Again do I implore your patience, Lord William,” cried the Marquis: “and as I have advanced thus far in my sad story, permit me to carry it on to the conclusion. I was observing, then, that a dreadful suspicion seized upon me--and yet I dared not accuse my wife of incontinency. She divined what was passing in the depths of my tortured soul--she conjectured the nature of the apprehension which now began to haunt me like a ghost! Oh! how I longed to question her--to know the worst--or to hear her proclaim the injustice of my suspicion: but, no--I dared not touch upon the subject--my tongue clave to the roof of my mouth whenever I sought to frame the words that should accuse her. And in this manner did we drag on a wretched existence,--I experiencing all the misery of having a young wife who could not love me--and she feeling all the bitterness of her position in being allied to an old husband who had grown so jealous and so suspicious. At last the day came when all my repugnance to utter the fatal accusation suddenly vanished. I had been more than ordinarily provoked--for at a dejeuner given at the house of some friends, the Marchioness received with such evident satisfaction the marked attentions of Sir Gilbert Heathcote, that I felt myself insulted and outraged in the presence of the entire company. Accordingly, when we returned home in the afternoon, a violent scene took place between the Marchioness and myself; and it was then that, in a paroxysm of rage, I proclaimed the suspicion which I had for some time cherished--I accused her of infidelity--I revealed the doubt which existed in my mind relative to my paternal claims to the affections of the infant Agnes. Never--never shall I forget that memorable day! The Marchioness heard me--gazed on me fixedly--appeared stupefied and astounded for nearly a minute,--while her countenance became pale as marble--her lips quivered--and her bosom heaved convulsively. I was terrified at her manner--she appeared at that moment to be Injured Innocence personified--I could have thrown myself at her feet and implored her pardon! But, in a thick and hollow voice, she said, ‘All is now at an end, my lord, between you and me! We part--for ever!’--A dizziness came over me--I felt that I had done wrong--that I had gone too far,--and I would have given worlds to be able to recall the fatal accusation! For I was now as firmly convinced of her innocence, as I had a few minutes before been deeply imbued with suspicion;--and I cursed--I anathematised the rashness that had marked my conduct. It was a painful--a distressing scene: for I remember that I fell upon my knees to implore her forgiveness--to beseech her to remain, if not for my sake, at least for that of the child. But this appeal only excited her the more: and when I adjured her in the name of her infant daughter to stay, she uttered a wild cry and fled, as if suddenly seized with insanity, from the house.”

Here the Marquis paused for a few moments, and passed his handkerchief rapidly over his eyes:--the reminiscences of the past were still powerful enough to move him to tears!

“I shall not now detain you long, my lord,” he resumed. “Whither my wife went, I knew not;--but in a short time I heard that she was living in the strictest seclusion and under a feigned name. Will you not despise me when you learn that I employed a spy to watch her actions--to institute inquiries concerning her pursuits and her conduct? But I will conceal nothing from you--and I candidly admit that such was the course which I adopted: for, though I still believed that she was innocent up to the time when my abrupt accusation drove her from the house, I nevertheless naturally conjectured that, on thus quitting me, she had sought the protection of him whom she loved. I was not therefore surprised to hear that Sir Gilbert Heathcote was a frequent visitor at the abode of Mrs. Sefton--by which name she was now known:--but I was unable to glean any positive evidence of criminality on her part. And did I seek such evidence? Yes--for a raging jealousy had taken possession of me; and I longed to punish her for daring to love my rival as she did! But as time passed on and sober reflection worked its influence upon me, I grew ashamed of the course I had adopted--and I now resolved to hush up to the utmost of my power the unhappy position in which I stood with regard to my wife. For I already felt deeply attached to my little daughter--and I determined that, if human precautions could prevent such a misfortune, she should never have to blush for a mother’s shame. I was strengthened in this resolve by the fact that the Marchioness herself was disposed to shroud the past in secrecy as much as possible: else wherefore the feigned name which she had adopted, and the seclusion in which she dwelt? But in the course of a few months certain events transpired which threatened to lay bare to the public the whole of this most painful history. I must explain myself more fully by stating that my wife’s father had made a will leaving some landed property to me, and which was to descend to the child or children that might spring from my marriage with his daughter. A distant male relative of his now set up a claim to that property; and proceedings were taken in the Court of Chancery, from which it transpired that the Marquis and Marchioness of Delmour were living apart--by mutual consent, as it was alleged--and that their infant child was in the charge of the Marquis himself. I shall not weary you with particulars nor details: suffice it to say that the proceedings took such a turn and were of such a nature as to lead to a decree to this effect--that the claims of the distant relative were rejected--that trustees were appointed by the Court to administer the property, until Agnes should attain the age of twenty-one--and that, as no allegation of misconduct had been made against the Marchioness of Delmour, she should have the charge of her daughter!”

This portion of the Marquis’s narrative will explain to the reader wherefore, when conversing with his daughter at the cottage, as detailed in Chapter CLXI., he said to her, “Two years more, and I shall no longer have any secrets from you:” because at the expiration of that period, Agnes would attain her majority. The decree in Chancery likewise explained the ground upon which Mrs. Sefton--alias the Marchioness of Delmour--had observed to Trevelyan, in Chapter CLXXXI., that “the law was in her favour,” in respect to any endeavour that might be made to wrest Agnes from her care; and the same fact elucidates the meaning of her ladyship’s remark that two years must elapse ere she could venture to dispose of the hand of her daughter in marriage.

“Thus was it,” resumed the Marquis, after a brief pause, “that those accursed proceedings which I did not provoke, and which, when once commenced, I could not arrest,--thus was it that they suddenly placed my infant daughter within the jurisdiction of the Chancery Court, and deprived me of the right of retaining her in my care. It is true that I might have instituted counter-proceedings in respect to this portion of the decree: but then I should have been compelled to attack the reputation of my wife--prove her to be an adultress, if such evidence could be acquired--and cover a noble family with shame, while a species of hereditary taint would cling to the reputation of my Agnes. Now, my lord, you can understand my motive in rearing her under circumstances of such privacy--such secresy,--in dooming her to an existence of seclusion--almost of solitude,--and of adopting all possible precautions to prevent her falling into the hands of her mother. And now, also, that you are acquainted with this most sad--this most unhappy history, I appeal to you whether you will be the means of permitting the innocent Agnes to remain in the care of her unworthy parent. If you really love her, my lord--if you propose to make her your wife when she attains her majority--I put it to your honour and to your good sense whether it be preferable that she should pass the interval of two years with her mother, who occupies so equivocal a position--or with her father, who has ever done his duty towards her.”

Trevelyan was cruelly embarrassed by this appeal, which in reality carried so much weight with it and involved so important a point, that he knew not how to act. Much as he was disposed to make all possible allowances for Mrs. Sefton--as we had better continue to call her,--much as he pitied her in consequence of the wretched marriage into which she had been forced--and great as the excuse was for her connexion with Sir Gilbert Heathcote,--he nevertheless could not avoid being shocked at the idea of the young creature whom he intended to make his wife, remaining in the maternal care.

His good sense and propriety of feeling naturally prompted him, therefore, to advocate the father’s claim to the guardianship of Agnes: but on the other hand, the solemn pledge he had given to Sir Gilbert Heathcote, and likewise his confidence in the good principles of Mrs. Sefton, in spite of her equivocal position--all this forbade him to side at once with the Marquis. Yet how was he to remain neutral?--he who had such a deep and tender interest in the welfare of the lovely--the innocent--the artless Agnes!

While he was still hesitating what course to adopt, and walking up and down the room in an excited manner,--while, too, the Marquis of Delmour, who remained seated upon the sofa, was watching him with the most intense anxiety,--a loud double knock and ring at the front door startled both the noblemen.

“I will not receive any one at present!” exclaimed Trevelyan; and hastily opening the drawing-room door, he hurried out upon the landing, whence he was about to give instructions to the hall-porter to deny him to the visitor, whoever it might be.

But the front-door was already opened; and both the Marquis and Trevelyan heard the hall-porter observing, evidently in reply to a question that had been put to him--“His lordship is particularly engaged, madam, at the present moment: the Marquis of Delmour is with his lordship in the drawing-room.”

“The Marquis of Delmour--eh?” exclaimed a female voice, not unknown to either of the noblemen. “Oh! I am acquainted with the Marquis as well as with my friend Lord William--and I will therefore take the liberty of intruding upon them.”

Before the hall-porter could offer any farther objection, the obtrusive female brushed past him and hurried up the marble staircase--Trevelyan having already retreated into the drawing-room.

In a few moments the young nobleman and the Marquis were equally annoyed by the appearance of Mrs. Mortimer, who, decked out in the gayest style, thus unceremoniously forced her way into their presence.

CXCII. MRS. MORTIMER IN LONDON AGAIN

“This is really most fortunate, my lords!” exclaimed the old woman, as she entered with a smirking countenance and a self-sufficient air. “I wished to see you both as early as convenient this morning--and, behold! I find you together. How is the pretty Agnes? Has not your lordship discovered that I told you the truth, when I referred you to this house for information respecting her?” she inquired, turning towards the Marquis.

“Yes, madam,” he exclaimed, hastily: “and as I shall proceed direct hence to my bankers, to instruct them relative to certain cheques which I recently gave in Paris, you may present your draft in the course of the day with the certainty of receiving the amount. I presume that it was for this purpose you desired to see me!”

“Precisely so, my lord,” responded the old woman, scarcely able to conceal the boundless joy which she now experienced: for the Marquis had given her precisely the very information which she was anxious to obtain--namely, that his banker would in the course of the day be directed to cash the various cheques he had recently given when in Paris!

“And what business can you possibly have to transact with me, madam?” demanded Lord William Trevelyan, in a tone of the most chilling hauteur.

“I thought of doing your lordship a service,” answered Mrs. Mortimer; “and yet the manner in which I am received, is but a sorry recompense for my good intentions.”

“To speak candidly, madam,” said the young noble, “I mistrust your intentions and do not require your services.”

“It is true enough that the presence of the Marquis here has forestalled the purport of my own visit,” observed Mrs. Mortimer, secretly enjoying the vexation which she evidently caused Lord William by remaining in the room. “But I may as well prove to you that those intentions which you affect to mistrust, were really good; and therefore I will at once inform your lordship that I came to relate to you all that took place between the Marquis and me in Paris three days ago. For I thought that I might as well prepare you for a visit on the part of my Lord Delmour; and I was in hopes of being the first to reveal to you the high birth of the young lady whom you had believed to be plain Agnes Vernon.”

“For which officiousness you would have expected a handsome remuneration,” said Lord William, with a contemptuous curling of the lip. “No--madam: you will not obtain a single guinea from me! I can read your character thoroughly--and, grieved as I am to be compelled to address a female in so harsh a manner, I must nevertheless beg you to relieve me of your presence as speedily as possible.”

“I have no wish to intrude myself any longer upon your lordships,” observed Mrs. Mortimer; and, with a respectful curtsey to the Marquis and a stiff inclination of the head to Trevelyan, she took her departure.

“And now, my lord,” said the impatient Marquis, “that we are relieved of the company of that despicable woman--for in no other light can I regard her--may I solicit your decision in the important matter that yet remains to be settled?”

“It grieves me--believe me, my dear Marquis, it pains me to keep you in suspense,” returned Trevelyan: “but on one side my inclination prompts me to act in accordance with your wishes--on the other, my word is pledged to retain the abode of--of----”

“Mrs. Sefton,” interrupted the old nobleman, hastily.

“To retain the address of that lady a profound secret,” added Trevelyan. “But this much I will promise--this much I will undertake:--without delay to repair to Mrs. Sefton and urge her to deliver up Lady Agnes to your care. I have that confidence in her rectitude of principle, which induces me to hope for success when I shall have placed the entire matter before her in its proper light.”

“With this assurance I must rest contented for the present,” observed the Marquis. “But hear the resolution to which I have come,” he continued, rising from his seat, and speaking in a tone of excitement. “Hitherto I have done all I could--aye, and far more than the generality of injured husbands would have done--to cast a veil over the unhappy circumstances which I have this morning related to you. But should she refuse to deliver up my daughter to my care--should she entrench herself behind the decision of the Chancery Court--I shall then remain peaceable no longer. It shall be war--open war--between her and me. I will appeal to the tribunals of my country--I will apply to the Ecclesiastical Court and the House of Lords for a divorce--and I will adopt the necessary proceedings and furnish the proper evidence to induce the Lord Chancellor to deprive the erring mother of the care of her child. Such is my determination, Lord William--and you may use the menace, which is no idle one, to bring that woman to reason.”

With these words the Marquis pressed the hand of the young nobleman, and took his leave hastily.

Mrs. Mortimer, who was seated in a cab at a little distance, watching for the departure of the Marquis, beheld him enter his carriage, which immediately drove away; and the humbler vehicle was thereupon directed to follow the more imposing equipage.

The carriage proceeded into the Strand, and stopped at the door of an eminent banking-house, which the Marquis entered.

Mrs. Mortimer, having dogged him thither, alighted at a little distance and dismissed the cab.

She watched the old nobleman come forth again; and then she repaired to a coffee-house in the neighbourhood where she ordered some refreshment to be served up in a private room. She likewise demanded writing materials; and when she was left to herself, she drew forth the cheque for six hundred pounds which the Marquis of Delmour had given her.

“Now for the grand blow,” she thought within herself, as she carefully examined the draft: “and it must be struck boldly, too! But the aim is worth all the risk:--sixty thousand pounds or transportation--those are the alternatives! I have been possessed of enough money in my life to know how sweet it is--and I have seen enough of transportation to be well aware how bitter it is! And the former is so sweet that it is worth while chancing all the bitters of the latter to obtain it. Besides--apart from the delicious feeling of having a vast fortune at my command--how delightful will it be to over-reach the haughty Perdita--or Laura, as she chooses to call herself!”

And here the old woman’s lips curled into a contemptuous sneer.

“I have hitherto managed matters cleverly enough,” she continued in her musings. “Ah! hah! Lord William Trevelyan thought that I called upon him either to gratify some idle curiosity or to extort money. He little suspected my drift! It was to see whether the Marquis had been to him--to learn whether my information had been found correct--to ascertain whether I might present the draft at the bankers’. And then the old Marquis himself!--it was lucky that I found him there--I was saved the trouble of calling at his mansion to worm out of him whether he had instructed his bankers to pay the cheque,--not my paltry draft for six hundred--but Perdita’s grand amount of sixty thousand! In all this I succeeded admirably: and now for the desperate venture.”

Having thus communed with herself, Mrs. Mortimer partook of a little refreshment; for she was anxious to while away an hour before she went to the bank, so as not to present herself too soon after the visit of the Marquis of Delmour to the establishment.

When she had eaten and drank as drunk as much as she cared for, she addressed herself to the grand project which she had in view, and in furtherance of which she had demanded the private room and the writing materials at the coffee-house.

The writing of the Marquis was execrably bad; and it was not a very difficult matter to add ty to the six, and transform the word hundred into thousand, in the body of the cheque; while the simple addition of 00 to the 600_l._ written in figures in the corner, completed the forgery.

The cheque, therefore, now stood for sixty thousand pounds, instead of six hundred, payable to bearer, no particular name being mentioned as the intended recipient.

When the old woman had thus transformed the document, a glow of triumph animated her hideous countenance: but in a few moments a chill--a cold, creeping tremor came over her--as if a clammy snake were gradually coiling itself around her form, underneath her clothes;--for she remembered all the sensations which she had experienced when she committed the forgery of Sir Henry Courtenay’s name nineteen years previously!

By a desperate effort the old woman shook off the painful feeling that thus influenced her; and, resolving to allow herself no more leisure for reflection, lest her thoughts should make a coward of her, she rang the bell--paid the trifling amount incurred--and took her departure from the coffee-house.

During her walk to the bank, which was close at hand, she rapidly calculated in her mind all the chances of success. The Marquis had unquestionably been thither to give instructions relative to the draft held by Laura as well as that which had been given to herself; and there was not the slightest reason to fear that her daughter had followed so closely on her steps from Paris as to have been able to visit the bank during the hour that had just elapsed. As for the excellence of the forgery--or rather of the alterations, Mrs. Mortimer entertained no apprehension on that score; and thus, all things considered, she deemed failure to be impossible.

With an apparent outward composure, but with a palpitating heart, the old woman entered the bank, and presented her cheque to one of the clerks. He surveyed it narrowly--took it into the private office, or parlour, doubtless to submit it to one of the proprietors of the establishment or some responsible person--and remained away upwards of two minutes.

Two minutes!--but that interval was an age--a perfect age in the imagination of the old woman! It was an interval composed of such intense feelings that the hair of a young person might have turned suddenly grey,--feelings of such burning hope and such awful suspense, of such profound terror and fervid expectation, that while molten lead appeared to drop upon one side of her heart, ice seemed to lay upon the other!

At length the clerk came back; and Mrs. Mortimer darted a rapid--searching--penetrating glance at his countenance.

Nothing save respect and civility could she trace thereon: and she instantly knew that she was safe!

Then came such a revulsion of feeling--such a subsiding of the terrors and such an exaltation of the hopes which she had conceived--that it was as if she were shooting upwards from the profundity of a deluge of dark waters and suddenly breathed the fresh air again and beheld the bright sun and the smiling heavens overhead.

The clerk proceeded to count out bank-notes for the sum specified in the cheque; and as he handed the fortune--yes, literally a fortune--over to the old woman, he considerately gave her a caution to take care of the vile characters who frequently lurked about the doors of banking-houses.

Mrs. Mortimer thanked the clerk for his well-meant advice, and sallied forth from the establishment, with a heart so elate that she could scarcely believe in the success of the tremendous fraud, now that it had passed triumphantly through the ordeal.

But as she was crossing the threshold, she heard a name suddenly mentioned; and, hastily turning her head, she found herself face to face with Jack Rily, the Doctor!

CXCIII. JACK RILY AND MRS. MORTIMER

The individual whom Mrs. Mortimer thus unexpectedly and unpleasantly encountered, had made a considerable improvement in his personal appearance during the few days that had elapsed since she saw him last.

The old fur cap, the greasy velveteen shooting-jacket, the rusty waistcoat, the corduroy trowsers, and the heavy high-lows, were exchanged for a shining silk hat, a complete suit of black clothes, and a pair of Wellington boots: his shirt was likewise new and clean, and he wore a satin stock instead of the blue cotton handkerchief tied loosely round his neck.

He had evidently endeavoured to make himself look as respectable as he could: but the almost African hue of his complexion--the horrible hare-lip, through the opening of which the large white teeth glistened up to the gums--and the yellow fire that seemed to shine in the small and restless eyes, gave him such a peculiar aspect that it was scarcely possible for any one who passed to avoid noticing him.

“Mrs. Mortimer, my beloved tiger-cat, how are you?” he exclaimed, grasping the old woman’s hand and shaking it violently.

“Very well, thank you, Mr. Rily: but pray do not detain me now, there’s a good soul--for I have not a moment to spare----”

“I shan’t detain you, old beauty,” interrupted Jack; “because I’ll just do myself the pleasure of walking along with you. Come--take my arm--you needn’t be ashamed to do so now: I think I’m pretty tidily rigged--eh?”

Thus speaking, he glanced complacently over his own person, and then bestowed a look upon the outward appearance of Mrs. Mortimer, who, as we have already observed, was dressed with unusual gaiety.

“Come, my dear--take my arm,” exclaimed the Doctor.

“Really, Mr. Rily, you must excuse me,” said the old woman, who was most anxious to get away from the vicinity of the bank, but by no means desirous of remaining in the company of the Doctor: “I have a particular matter to attend to immediately! If, however, you desire to see me, I shall be most happy to meet you this evening----”

“This fiddlestick!” interrupted Jack Rily, impatiently. “You know that you never kept the appointment you made with me after that Stamford Street affair the other day--when you went away with the young girl in the cab; and yet you assured me that there was money to be got through her----”

“Well, well--I have not time to talk of the matter now,” said Mrs. Mortimer, angrily: “and I must take my leave of you.”

“Lord bless you! I’m not going to be put off in this fashion, old lady,” cried Jack. “It suits me to have a little further chat with you--and I’m determined the whim shall be gratified. So take my arm at once, and come along. If we stand here palavering, we shall soon have a mob about us--because it isn’t every day that two such handsome people as you and I are seen together,” he added, with a horrible chuckle.

“But perhaps you are not going my way,” said Mrs. Mortimer, still hesitating to take the proffered arm, and deeply vexed at this encounter.

“Oh! yes I am--because I’ll go any way you like,” responded Jack Rily, in the most accommodating spirit.

“Well--you shall be my companion for a short time,” exclaimed Mrs. Mortimer, affecting to laugh in good humour; and, taking his arm, she proceeded with him along the Strand.

“I met our friend Vitriol Bob last night at a public-house,” observed Jack, who seemed quite proud of having the hideous old woman clinging to him. “He looked remarkably savage when he saw me in my bran new toggery--for he thought to himself that the money which purchased it ought to have belonged to him. I hadn’t seen him since the night in Stamford Street; and, as he had the impudence to stare at me in a threatening manner, I went up to him and whispered in his ear, ‘What about old Torrens, Bob?’ He turned quite livid with rage, and ground his teeth together; then, after a few moments’ consideration, he said--also in a whisper--‘If it wasn’t that you knew that secret, I’d serve you out nicely, old fellow: but I’ll be even with you yet, I dare say.’--‘Whenever you like, Bob,’ said I; and then we sate down in different parts of the room and stared at each other all the time we were smoking our pipes. But not another word passed between us; and the other people who were present, knowing that we were excellent pals until lately, wondered what the devil was the matter.”

“And did he bury the dead body, do you know?” inquired Mrs. Mortimer.

“I didn’t put the question to him,” answered Jack Rily. “Nothing more passed between us than what I have just told you: but I have no doubt that he laid old Torrens two or three feet under the kitchen floor in the Haunted House. And now, how do you suppose that I and Vitriol Bob stand with regard to each other?”

“As enemies, I should suppose,” replied Mrs. Mortimer, wondering by what means she could possibly shake off her disagreeable companion.

“As mortal--implacable--unrelenting enemies,” continued the man, lowering his voice: for his loud talking had already attracted the notice of the passers-by in the Strand, and he had just caught sight of a policeman who appeared to be eyeing him rather suspiciously. “Yes--as bitter enemies,” he repeated. “Not that I have any resentment now against Bob: because my revenge is gratified, and I am more than even with him. But as he will take the first opportunity to thrust a knife into my ribs, or dash his vitriol bottle in my face, whenever he catches me in a lonely place,--why, I must be prepared to struggle with him to the very death. So, my old tiger-cat,” added the Doctor, with amazing cheerfulness, considering the gravity of the topic, “whenever he and I do so meet, only one of us will walk away alive. That’s as certain as that you’re leaning on my arm, and that I’m proud of your company.”

“Is Vitriol Bob, as you call him, such a desperate fellow?” inquired Mrs. Mortimer, wishing the Doctor at the hottest place she could think of.

“Why, I’ve told you all about him before,” exclaimed Jack. “And now let me give you a little piece of advice about yourself, old gal----”

“About me!” repeated Mrs. Mortimer, with a shudder occasioned by a presentiment of what she was going to hear.

“Yes--about you, my tiger-cat,” repeated the Doctor. “Remember that Vitriol Bob never forgets or forgives--and he owes you one. That’s all! But, when I think of it, I shall constitute myself your lawful protector--because I never did meet any woman so precious ugly as you are; and ugliness, when joined to ferocity, is beauty in my eyes--as I have before told you.”

“Well, well--we will discuss all these points another time,” said Mrs. Mortimer. “I must leave you here,” she added, stopping suddenly short at the corner of Wellington Street, leading to Waterloo Bridge.

“Your way is mine,” observed Jack Rily, coolly, as he compelled her to walk on. “But, by the bye, what were you doing in that bank at the door of which I met you?”

“I merely went in to see a clerk of my acquaintance,” replied the old woman, cursing in her heart the odious companion who thus pertinaciously attached himself to her.

“Come, that won’t do, old gal!” exclaimed Jack, as he paid the toll for them both at the gate of the bridge. “I am so well acquainted with all the rigs and moves of London life, as to be able to tell in a moment whether a person coming out of a bank has been to receive money, or not. If it’s a gentleman, he feels at his breeches-pocket to see that the cash is all safe--or he buttons his coat over his breast which proves that the notes are in his waistcoat. If it’s a woman, she gripes her reticule precious tight--or smoothes down her dress just over where her pocket is--or else settles her shawl over her bosom, when the notes are there. This last was precisely what you did; and therefore, my old tiger-cat, I know that you’ve got money in the bosom of your dress as well as if I saw you put it there.”

“You’re quite wrong for once in your life, Mr. Rily,” said Mrs. Mortimer, trembling at the remarks which had just fallen upon her ears.

“Then why does your arm shake so as it hangs in mine?” demanded the Doctor, with an imperturbability which frightened the old woman more than if he had actually used threats: for, little as she had seen of him, she was well enough acquainted with his character to perceive that he was meditating mischief.

“My arm did not shake,” cried Mrs. Mortimer, mastering up all her courage and presence of mind, “But here we are at the end of the bridge, and I must bid you good-bye. When shall we meet again?”

“We are not going to separate in a hurry, I can tell you,” said the Doctor: “so don’t think it. You know I love you,” he added with a horrible grin, which opened his harelip so wide that he seemed to be an ogre about to devour her; “and I love much more still the bank-notes that you have got in your bosom. Besides, it is my duty to protect you from Vitriol Bob; and, in addition to all this, I think we shall be able to knock up a very cozie partnership together.”

“And suppose that I decline the honour you intend me?” asked the old woman, assuming a tone of bitter sarcasm in order to induce Rily to believe that she was not afraid--though, in reality, her heart was sinking within her.

“In the case which you have suggested, I shall force you to do as I choose and act as I desire,” coolly responded the Doctor.

“Force me, indeed!” repeated the old woman, withdrawing her arm, and stopping short in the Waterloo Road.

“Yes--force you,” said Jack Rily, compelling her to take his arm again and also to walk on. “You had better not provoke me, because I am not the man to stick at trifles; and if you make a noise and raise a mob, I will swear black and blue that you are my wife--that you have bolted with my money--and that the notes are concealed somewhere about your person. Then, if the police should interfere, you will have to give an account of how you became possessed of the notes aforesaid;--and I dare say, from the estimate I have formed of your character, you would not like to be questioned on that point. In a word, then--unless I am mightily deceived--you have committed some nice little bit of roguery; and I mean to go halves with you.”

This tirade was spun out to such a length and delivered in such a measured tone of coolness, that Mrs. Mortimer, who was perfectly astounded at the menaces with which it opened, had leisure to recover her self-possession: but the rapid survey of her position which she was enabled to take while the Doctor was finishing his harangue, was far from consolatory. She had indeed committed a little roguery, and would indeed be sorry to be questioned by the police; and she knew, moreover, that Jack Rily was quite capable of carrying all his threats into immediate execution.

What, then, was she to do? There was no alternative but to bend to circumstances--make the best of a bad job--and trust to the chapter of accidents so as to avail herself of any occurrence that might turn up in her favour.

“Well--you keep silent, old gal,” said the Doctor, after a short pause. “Is it that you don’t admire me sufficiently to take me as a husband, in the fashion of leaping over the broom-stick?”

“It is of the utmost importance that I should attend to certain pressing matters,” returned Mrs. Mortimer; “and afterwards I shall be happy to fall into all your plans and projects.”

“Well, we will attend to the pressing matters together,” said the Doctor. “A husband and wife must have no secrets from each other. But since we have come this way, and as my abode happens to lie in the immediate neighbourhood, I propose at once to introduce you thereto and install you as mistress of the place. I have got a comfortable crib--for Torrens’s money did wonders for me as you may well suppose.”

At this moment a project flashed to the mind of the old woman. What if she were to yield, without farther hesitation or remonstrance, to the Doctor’s proposals, and watch her opportunity either to murder him or escape when he was asleep? By wheedling herself into his confidence, she would know where he deposited the money which, she feared, must pass from her hands into his own; and she could repossess herself of it, if he were disposed of, or if she were wakeful while he slept.

“I do not mind accompanying you to your lodgings,” she said; “and there we can talk over the whole business much better than in the open street.”

“There! now you are getting into a better frame of mind,” observed Jack Rily. “This way:”--and he turned into the low streets lying on the left-hand side of the Waterloo Road, between Upper Stamford Street and the New Cut.

The neighbourhood alluded to swarms with brothels of the most infamous description; and half-naked women may be seen at all hours lounging about at the doors, and endeavouring to entice into their dens any respectable-looking men who happen to pass that way. Robberies are of frequent occurrence in those houses of ill fame; and the great aim of the vile females inhabiting them, is to entrap persons who are the worse for liquor and whose appearance denotes a well-filled purse. Neighbourhoods of this kind should be shunned by all decent persons, as if a pestilence were raging there!

It was into Roupel-street that Jack Rily conducted Mrs. Mortimer; and when he had introduced her to a small but well furnished parlour, with a bed-chamber communicating by means of folding-doors, he produced a bottle of brandy, saying, “Now let us drink to our happy meeting this day!”

Filling two glasses with the potent liquor, he handed one to the old woman, who swallowed the contents greedily: for she felt that she stood in need of a stimulant.

“Now, my beautiful tiger-cat,” exclaimed the Doctor, as he drew down the blind over the window, “I am about to subject you to a little ceremony which may be perhaps looked upon as the least thing uncourteous; but it must be accomplished all the same. So don’t let us have any bother about it.”

Thus speaking, he approached the cupboard whence he had taken the brandy, and drawing forth a huge clasp-knife, he touched a spring which made the blade fly open and remain fixed as if it were a dagger.

“You do not mean to hurt me?” exclaimed the old woman, now becoming terribly alarmed--so much so, that she sank exhausted into a chair, while her looks were fixed appealingly on the man’s countenance.

“Not unless you grow obstreperous or have any of your nonsense,” said Jack. “I love you too well to harm you,” he added, with a leer that made him more hideously ugly than ever: “but I must have my own way all the same. So just be so kind as to place upon the table the Bank-notes which you have got in the bosom of your gown. It is but fair that I should have a wife who can bring me a dowry--and you must leave it to my generosity,” he went on to say, with a chuckling laugh, “how much I shall settle upon you afterwards.”

While he was thus speaking, Mrs. Mortimer rapidly revolved in her mind all the chances that were for or against her at that moment. Were she to scream and attempt resistance, could she succeed in alarming the neighbourhood before the miscreant would have plunged his dagger into her?--or, indeed, would he have recourse to such an extreme measure at all? These questions she at once decided against herself; and, reverting to her former project of affecting obedience, she thrust her hand into her bosom, dexterously separated a couple of the notes from the rest of the bundle, and threw those two upon the table.

Jack Rily instantly snatched them up; and when he perceived that they were for a thousand pounds each, he could scarcely contain his joy.

Flinging the terrible clasp-knife on the floor, he rushed upon the old woman, who was seized with too sudden and too profound a terror to permit her even to give utterance to the faintest ejaculation--for she thought that he intended to murder her: but her cruel apprehensions fled in another moment when the loathsome monster, throwing his arms about her neck, began to embrace and fondle her as if she were a blooming beauty of seventeen instead of a hideous harridan upwards of sixty. Nevertheless, old and polluted as she was, and inured to all circumstances of disgust as her term of transportation had rendered her, she revolted with a sickening sensation from the pawings and caresses of the hare-lipped wretch who had thus enfolded her in his horrible embrace. She therefore struggled to rid herself of him--to escape from his arms: but he, almost maddened with the joy which the sight of the bank-notes had raised up in his breast, hugged her only the more tightly in proportion as her resistance became the more desperate.

“By heavens! I’ll kiss you again, old gal!” he exclaimed. “I care not how ugly the world may consider you----Be quiet now, can’t you?----to me you’re a paragon of beauty----Perdition! let go of me, you hell-cat----there! now you’re magnificent in your rage--that’s the humour I like to see a woman in----Hey-dey! what’s that?”

And, as he uttered this ejaculation, he suddenly quitted his hold upon Mrs. Mortimer, and pounced upon something that had rolled on the floor.

It was the bundle of Bank-notes, which had fallen from the old woman’s dress during the struggle.

“By Jove! here’s a treasure--a fortune--a King’s ransom!” ejaculated the Doctor, scarcely able to believe his eyes, as he hastily turned over the notes with his hands. “My God! it is impossible!” he cried, his wonderment increasing to such a pitch, that he began to think he must be insane: then, a sudden idea striking him, he turned abruptly towards Mrs. Mortimer, who had sunk back, exhausted and overwhelmed with rage and grief, into the chair. “Ah! I understand it all now,” he said, his voice changing in a moment to the low tone of solemn mystery: “you are a nice old girl, you are! Yes--yes--I understand it at last! These are all queer screens[26]--and you went into the bank to smash[27] some of them. By Jove! it’s glorious.”

Mrs. Mortimer, who was gasping for breath, could make no reply: her mouth was parched--her tongue was as dry as if she had been travelling for hours over a desert without tasting water.

“And yet,” resumed Jack Rily, scrutinising the notes more narrowly still, “these are precious good imitations--too good to be imitations, indeed. I know enough of Bank-notes--aye, and of forged ones too--to see that these are the genuine flimsies. Blood and thunder! what a glorious old wretch you are!” he cried, again surveying her with a joy that was entirely unfeigned and amounted almost to admiration. “I suppose you have committed some splendid forgery. But of course it must be something of that kind,” he added, a sudden reminiscence striking him: “or else you wouldn’t have been so deucedly alarmed when I threatened just now to kick up a row in the streets and attract the notice of the police. So, you perceive, that I was pretty keen in my surmises. I knew you had money concealed in your bosom--and I was equally well convinced you had not obtained it by means that would bear inquiry. However, here it is--in my possession--and it can’t be in safer hands. I’ll just sit down quietly, and count how much there is.”

Thus speaking, the monster picked up his clasp-knife, which he closed and consigned to his pocket; and he next proceeded to inspect the Bank-notes. But when he discovered the enormous sum to which they amounted, his astonishment grew to such an extreme as even to subdue his joy; and, shaking his head slowly, he observed, “This is such a heavy affair that the police will leave no stone unturned to detect the holders of the notes. Whatever we do, must be done at once; and in order that I should be able to judge what course to pursue, you must give me all the particulars of the transaction.”

Mrs. Mortimer was struck by the truth of this observation: for she knew that the moment the forgery was detected, payment of the notes would be stopped, and advertisements announcing the usual caution would be inserted in the newspapers.

“Well, I suppose there is no use in disguising the real truth,” she exclaimed, recovering her self-possession; “and I will tell you all about it in a few words. A certain nobleman----”

“Who is he?” demanded Rily. “Come--speak out plainly.”

“The Marquis of Delmour, since you must know,” returned the old woman.

“And what did he do,” asked the man, impatiently.

“He gave me a cheque for six hundred pounds for a particular service that I rendered him; and he also gave my daughter----”

“Ah! you have got a daughter, eh?” exclaimed Jack Rily. “Is she anything like yourself?”

“She is as beautiful as an angel,” answered Mrs. Mortimer, a scintillation of a mother’s pride flashing at the moment in her bosom: “but as depraved and dissolute as a demoness,” she added almost immediately. “Well, this Marquis of Delmour was wheedled by her out of a cheque for sixty thousand pounds; and though my daughter kept it quiet enough, I found out the secret. So away I sped--back to England I came----”

“Where did all this happen, then?” demanded Jack.

“In Paris--three days ago,” replied Mrs. Mortimer. “On my arrival in London, my course was easy----”

“You may almost say natural,” interrupted the Doctor. “I understand the business plainly enough at present. You altered your six hundred pound draft into one for sixty thousand--and you have thus forestalled your daughter?”

“That is precisely how the matter stands,” said the old woman.

“And when is it likely that your daughter will be in London to present her cheque?” asked the Doctor.

“I should say that I had about twelve hours’ start of her,” was the response; “and then, as she would not travel by night--having a handsome young foreigner as her companion--the circumstance of her stopping to sleep on the road would delay her pretty nearly another twelve hours. Besides, she believes me to be still in Paris--she has not the least idea of my sudden return to England; and therefore she has no particular motive to induce her to adopt any extraordinary speed.”

“Well, well,” cried the Doctor, impatiently: “but all this palaver does not answer my question. When do you expect your daughter will reach London?”

“This evening,” replied the old woman: “too late to present her cheque at the bank. And there are means--yes, there are means,” she continued in a musing tone, “which, if skilfully adopted, would compel my daughter to refrain from offering her draft at all, and likewise force her to leave us in undisturbed possession of the money.”

“And those means?” demanded Jack Rily, his eyes brightening.

“Before I explain myself, let us come to a thorough understanding,” said Mrs. Mortimer. “Will you restore me one-half of the amount you now hold in your possession? I am content to abandon the other half to you.”

“Yes, that is a bargain,” answered Jack Rily; “for I see that you do not relish the idea of living with me altogether, and that you will leave me when this matter is properly settled. Is it not so?”

“Well, such is indeed my intention,” responded the old woman.

“Our relative position now stands in this manner,” continued Jack Rily: “there are sixty thousand pounds’ worth of good notes. With all my connexion amongst fences and receivers of such flimsy, I could not manage to obtain gold for more than two or three thousand in the course of the day; and to-morrow morning your daughter may present her cheque, when a discovery will take place, and all the rest of the notes will be useless. As for going over to the continent, and endeavouring to pass them there, the thing would be ridiculous; for the advertisements in the newspapers would put all the money-changers in Europe upon their guard. Thus far, then, the notes are not worth more than two or three thousand pounds to me. But, on the other hand, you say that you have the means of stopping your daughter’s mouth, and compelling her to put up with the loss. In this case, the whole amount of notes becomes available; and therefore we will share and share alike.”

“Then give me my moiety at once,” said the old woman, with greedy impatience.

“No such thing!” ejaculated Rily: “I must have some guarantee that you act properly in this business; and you can have no hesitation in putting your trust in me, because you have had a proof of my good feeling before. I have not forgotten that you saved my life in the struggle with Vitriol Bob; and the same feeling that made me give you half the spoil then, will prompt me to act with equal fairness now. You are therefore at liberty to depart when you choose, and to go where you like: the notes will remain in my possession--and when you come back to me with the assurance that you have prevented your daughter from taking any step that may lead to an explosion of the whole business, your share shall be immediately forthcoming. I have now put the matter in the proper light; and with such a good understanding, there can be no quarrelling. As to whether you afterwards choose to become my broom-stick wife, I must leave it entirely to yourself: for though I should be as happy as a king in the possession of your old person and sixty thousand pounds, yet I shall be able to console myself for your loss by means of the thirty thousand that will remain to me.”

During this long tirade, all the first portion of which was delivered in a tone of business-like seriousness, Mrs. Mortimer was hastily reflecting upon the improvement that had so unexpectedly taken place in the aspect of her affairs: for she now found herself at liberty to leave the monster whom she loathed and abhorred, and she had every chance of regaining and being able to make use of the moiety of the Bank-notes.

She accordingly assented to the conditions proposed by the Doctor, leaving the broom-stick marriage “an open question;” and having settled her disordered attire, she took her departure--not however before she had been compelled to submit to another hugging on the part of the hare-lipped wretch whose caresses were so revolting and intolerable.