Sharp, dark, and strange lay that familiar face upon the white pillow.

The faintest indication of something like a peevish sneer; it might be only the lines of pain and fatigue; still it had that unpleasant character remaining fixed on its features.

'Oh, Stanley! you say you think you are dying. Won't you send for William Wylder and Chelford, and tell all you know of Mark?'

She saw he was about to say something, and she leaned her head near his lips, and she heard him whisper,--

'It won't serve Mark.'

'I'm thinking of _you_, Stanley--I'm thinking of you.'

To which he said either 'Yes' or 'So.' She could not distinguish.

'I view it now quite differently. You said, you know, in the park, you would tell Chelford; and I resisted, I believe, but I don't now. I had _rather_ you did. Yes, Stanley, I conjure you to tell it all.'

The cold lips, with a livid halo round them, murmured, 'Thank you.'

It was a sneer, very shocking just then, perhaps; but unquestionably a sneer.

'Poor Stanley!' she murmured, with a kind of agony, looking down upon that changed face. 'One word more, Stanley. Remember, it's I, the only one on earth who stands near you in kindred, your sister, Stanley, who implores of you to take this step before it is too late; at least, to consider.'

He said something. She thought it was 'I'll think;' and then he closed his eyes. It was the only motion she had observed, his face lay just as it had done on the pillow. He had not stirred all the time she was there; and now that his eyelids closed, it seemed to say, our interview is over--the curtain has dropped; and so understanding it, with that one awful look that may be the last, she glided from the bed-side, told old Dorothy that he seemed disposed to sleep, and left the room.

There is something awful always in the spectacle of such a sick-bed as that beside which Rachel had just stood. But not quite so dreadful is the sight as are the imaginings and the despair of absence. So rea.s.suring is the familiar spectacle of life, even in its subsidence, so long as bodily torture and mental aberration are absent.

In the meanwhile, on his return to the library, Lord Chelford found his dowager mother in high chat with the attorney, whom she afterwards p.r.o.nounced 'a very gentlemanlike man for his line of life.'

The conversation, indeed, was chiefly that of Lady Chelford, the exemplary attorney contributing, for the most part, a polite acquiescence, and those reflections which most appositely pointed the moral of her ladyship's tale, which concerned altogether the vagaries of Mark Wylder--a subject which piqued her curiosity and irritated her pa.s.sions.

It was a great day for Jos. Larkin; for by the time Lord Chelford returned the old lady had asked him to stay for dinner, which he did, notwithstanding his morning dress, to his great inward satisfaction, because he could henceforward mention, 'the other day, when I dined at Brandon,' or 'old Lady Chelford a.s.sured me, when last I dined at Brandon;' and he could more intimately speak of 'our friends at Brandon,'

and 'the Brandon people,' and, in short, this dinner was very serviceable to the excellent attorney.

It was not very amusing this interchange of thought and feeling between Larkin and the dowager, upon a theme already so well ventilated as Mark Wylder's absconding, and therefore I let it pa.s.s.

After dinner, when the dowager's place knew her no more, Lord Chelford resumed his talk with Larkin.

'I am quite confirmed in the view I took at first,' he said. 'Wylder has no claim upon me. There are others on whom much more naturally the care of his money would devolve, and I think that my undertaking the office he proposes, under his present strange circ.u.mstances, might appear like an acquiescence in the extraordinary course he has taken, and a sanction generally of his conduct, which I certainly can't approve. So, Mr.

Larkin, I have quite made up my mind. I have no business to undertake this trust, simple as it is.'

'I have only, my lord, to bow to your lordship's decision; at the same time I cannot but feel, my lord, how peculiar and painful is the position in which it places me. There are rents to be received by me, and sums handed over, to a considerable--I may say, indeed, a very large amount: and my friend Lake--Captain Lake--now, unhappily, in so very precarious a state, appears to dislike the office, also, and to antic.i.p.ate annoyance, in the event of his consenting to act. Altogether, your lordship will perceive that the situation is one of considerable, indeed very great embarra.s.sment, as respects me. There is, however, one satisfactory circ.u.mstance disclosed in his last letter. His return, he says, cannot be delayed beyond a very few months, perhaps _weeks;_ and he states, in his own rough way, that he will then explain the motives of his conduct to the entire satisfaction of all those who are cognizant of the measures which he has adopted--no more claret, thanks--no more--a delicious wine--and he adds, it will then be quite understood that he has acted neither from caprice, nor from any motive other than self-preservation. I a.s.sure you, my lord, that is the identical phrase he employs--self-preservation. I all along suspected, or, rather, I mean, supposed, that Mr. Wylder had been placed in this matter under coercion--a--a threat.'

'A little more wine?' asked Lord Chelford, after another interval.

'No--no more, I thank you. Your lordship's very good, and the wine, I may say, excellent--delicious claret; indeed, quite so--ninety shillings a dozen, I should venture to say, and hardly to be had at that figure; but it grows late, I rather think, and the trustees of our little Wesleyan chapel--we've got a little into debt in that quarter, I am sorry to say--and I promised to advise with them this evening at nine o'clock.

They have called me to counsel more than once, poor fellows; and so, with your lordship's permission, I'll withdraw.'

Lord Chelford walked with him to the steps. It was a beautiful night--very little moon, but that and the stars wonderfully clear and bright, and all things looking so soft and airy.

'Try one of these,' said the peer, presenting his cigar case.

Larkin, with a glow of satisfaction, took one of these n.o.ble cigars, and rolled it in his fingers, and smelt it.

'Fragrant--wonderfully fragrant!' he observed, meekly, with a connoisseur's shake of the head.

The night was altogether so charming that Lord Chelford was tempted. So he took his cap, and lighted his cigar, too, and strolled a little way with the attorney.

He walked under the solemn trees--the same under whose airy groyning Wylder and Lake had walked away together on that noteworthy night on which Mark had last turned his back upon the grand old gables and twisted chimneys of Brandon Hall.

This way was rather a round, it must be confessed, to the Lodge--Jos, Larkin's peaceful retreat. But a stroll with a lord was worth more than that sacrifice, and every incident which helped to make a colourable case of confidential relations at Brandon--a point in which the good attorney had been rather weak hitherto--was justly prized by that virtuous man.

If the trustees, Smith the pork-butcher, old Captain Snoggles, the Town Clerk, and the rest, had to wait some twenty minutes in the drawing-room at the Lodge, so much the better. An apology was, perhaps, the best and most modest shape into which he could throw the advertis.e.m.e.nt of his dinner at Brandon--his confidential talk with the proud old dowager, and his after-dinner ramble with that rising young peer, Lord Chelford. It would lead him gracefully into detail, and altogether the idea, the situation, the scene and prospect, were so soothing and charming, that the good attorney felt a silent exaltation as he listened to Lord Chelford's two or three delighted sentences upon the illimitable wonders and mysteries glimmering in the heavens above them.

The cigar was delicious, the air balmy and pleasant, his digestion happy, the society unexceptionably aristocratic--a step had just been gained, and his consideration in the town and the country round improved, by the occurrences of the evening, and his whole system, in consequence, in a state so serene, sweet and satisfactory, that I really believe there was genuine moisture in his pink, dove-like eyes, as he lifted them to the heavens, and murmured, 'Beautiful, beautiful!' And he mistook his sensations for a holy rapture and silent worship.

Cigars, like other pleasures, are transitory. Lord Chelford threw away his stump, tendered his case again to Mr. Larkin, and then took his leave, walking slowly homewards.

CHAPTER XL.

THE ATTORNEY'S ADVENTURES ON THE WAY HOME.

Mr. Jos. Larkin was now moving alone, under the limbs of the Brandon trees. He knew the path, as he had boasted to Lord Chelford, from his boyhood; and, as he pursued his way, his mind got upon the accustomed groove, and amused itself with speculations respecting the vagaries of Mark Wylder.

'I wonder what his lordship thinks. He was very close--very' ruminated Larkin; 'no distinct ideas about it possibly; and did not seem to wish to lead me to the subject. Can he _know_ anything? Eh, can he possibly?

Those high fellows are very knowing often--so much on the turf, and all that--very sharp and very deep.'

He was thinking of a certain n.o.ble lord in difficulties, who had hit a client of his rather hard, and whose affairs did not reflect much credit upon their n.o.ble conductor.

'Aye, I dare say, deep enough, and intimate with the Lakes. He expects to be home in two months' time. _He's_ a deep fellow too; he does not like to let people know what he's about. I should not be surprised if he came to-morrow. Lake and Lord Chelford may both know more than they say. Why should they both object merely to receive and fund his money? They think he wants to get them into a fix--hey? If I'm to conduct his business, I ought to know it; if he keeps a secret from me, affecting all his business relations, like this, and driving him about the world like an absconding bankrupt, how can I advise him?'

All this drifted slowly through his mind, and each suggestion had its collateral speculations; and so it carried him pleasantly a good way on his walk, and he was now in the shadow of the dense copsewood that mantles the deep ravine which debouches into Redman's Dell.

The road was hardly two yards wide, and the wood walled it in, and overhung it occasionally in thick, irregular ma.s.ses. As the attorney marched leisurely onward, he saw, or fancied that he saw, now and then, in uncertain glimpses, something white in motion among the trees beside him.

At first he did not mind; but it continued, and grew gradually unpleasant. It might be a goat, a white goat; but no, it was too tall for that. Had he seen it at all? Aye! there it was, no mistake now. A poacher, maybe? But their poachers were not of the dangerous sort, and there had not been a robber about Gylingden within the memory of man.

Besides, why on earth should either show himself in that absurd way?

He stopped--he listened--he stared suspiciously into the profound darkness. Then he thought he heard a rustling of the leaves near him, and he hallooed, 'Who's there?' But no answer came.

So, taking heart of grace, he marched on, still zealously peering among the trees, until, coming to an opening in the pathway, he more distinctly saw a tall, white figure, standing in an ape-like att.i.tude, with its arms extended, grasping two boughs, and stooping, as if peeping cautiously, as he approached.

The good attorney drew up and stared at this gray phantasm, saying to himself, 'Yes,' in a sort of quiet hiss.

He stopped in a horror, and as he gazed, the figure suddenly drew back and disappeared.

'Very pleasant this!' said the attorney, after a pause, recovering a little. 'What on earth can it be?'