He stooped and leaned his ear to Tamar; and when she had done, he laughed. The laugh, though low, sounded wild and hollow in that dark solitude.

'Really, dear Tamar, you must excuse my laughing. You dear old witch, how the plague could you take any such frightful nonsense into your head? I do a.s.sure you, upon my honour, I never heard of so ridiculous a blunder.

Only that I know you are really fond of us, I should never speak to you again. I forgive you. But listen no more to other people's conversation.

I could tell you how it really stands now, only I have not time; but you'll take my word of honour for it, you have made the most absurd mistake that ever an old fool tumbled into. No, Tamar, I can't stay any longer now; but I'll tell you the whole truth when next I go down to Redman's Farm. In the meantime, you must not plague poor Miss Radie with your nonsense. She has too much already to trouble her, though of quite another sort. Good-night, foolish old Tamar.'

'Oh, Master Stanley, it will take a deal to shake my mind; and if it be so, as I say, what's to be done next--what's to be done--oh, what _is_ to be done?'

'I say good-night, old Tamar; and hold your tongue, do you see?'

'Oh, Master Stanley, Master Stanley! my poor child--my child that I nursed!--anything would be better than this. Sooner or later judgment will overtake you, so sure as you persist in it. I heard what Miss Radie said; and is not it true--is not it cruel--is not it frightful to go on?'

'You don't seem to be aware, my good Tamar, that you have been talking slander all this while, and might be sent to gaol for it. There, I'm not angry--only you're a fool. Good-night.'

He shook her hand, and jerked it from him with suppressed fury, pa.s.sing on with a quickened pace. And as he glided through the dark, towards splendid old Brandon, he ground his teeth, and uttered two or three sentences which no respectable publisher would like to print.

CHAPTER XLV.

DEEP AND SHALLOW.

Lawyer Larkin's mind was working more diligently than anyone suspected upon this puzzle of Mark Wylder. The investigation was a sort of scientific recreation to him, and something more. His sure instinct told him it was a secret well worth mastering.

He had a growing belief that Lake, and perhaps he _only_--except Wylder himself--knew the meaning of all this mysterious marching and counter-marching. Of course, all sorts of theories were floating in his mind; but there was none that would quite fit all the circ.u.mstances. The attorney, had he asked himself the question, what was his object in these inquisitions, would have answered--'I am doing what few other men would.

I am, Heaven knows, giving to this affair of my absent client's, gratuitously, as much thought and vigilance as ever I did to any case in which I was duly remunerated. This is self-sacrificing and n.o.ble, and just the conscientious conduct I should expect from myself.'

But there was also this consideration, which you failed to define.

'Yes; my respected client, Mr. Mark Wylder, is suffering under some acute pressure, applied perhaps by my friend Captain Lake. Why should not I share in the profit--if such there be--by getting my hand too upon the instrument of compression? It is worth trying. Let us try.'

The Reverend William Wylder was often at the Lodge now. Larkin had struck out a masterly plan. The vicar's reversion, a very chimerical contingency, he would by no means consent to sell. His little man--little Fairy--oh! no, he could not. The attorney only touched on this, remarking in a friendly way--

'But then, you know, it is so mere a shadow.'

This indeed, poor William knew very well. But though he spoke quite meekly, the attorney looked rather black, and his converse grew somewhat dry and short.

This sinister change was sudden, and immediately followed the suggestion about the reversion; and the poor vicar was a little puzzled, and began to consider whether he had said anything _gauche_ or offensive--'it would be so very painful to appear ungrateful.'

The attorney had the statement of t.i.tle in one hand, and leaning back in his chair, read it demurely in silence, with the other tapping the seal-end of his gold pencil-case between his lips.

'Yes,' said Mr. Larkin, mildly, 'it is so _very_ shadowy--and that feeling, too, in the way. I suppose we had better, perhaps, put it aside, and maybe something else may turn up.' And the attorney rose grandly to replace the statement of t.i.tle in its tin box, intimating thereby that the audience was ended.

But the poor vicar was in rather urgent circ.u.mstances just then, and his troubles had closed in recently with a noiseless, but tremendous contraction, like that iron shroud in Mr. Mudford's fine tale; and to have gone away into outer darkness, with no project on the stocks, and the attorney's countenance averted, would have been simply despair.

'To speak frankly,' said the poor vicar, with that hectic in his cheek that came with agitation, 'I never fancied that my reversionary interest could be saleable.'

'Neither is it, in all probability,' answered the attorney. 'As you are so seriously pressed, and your brother's return delayed, it merely crossed my mind as a thing worth trying.'

'It was very kind and thoughtful; but that feeling--the--my poor little man! However, I may be only nervous and foolish, and I think I'll speak to Lord Chelford about it.'

The attorney looked down, and took his nether lip gently between his finger and thumb. I rather think he had no particular wish to take Lord Chelford into council.

'I think before troubling his lordship upon the subject--if, indeed, on reflection, you should not think it would be a little odd to trouble him at all in reference to it--I had better look a little more carefully into the papers, and see whether anything in that direction is really practicable at all.'

'Do you think, Mr. Larkin, you can write that strong letter to stay proceedings which you intended yesterday?'

The attorney shook his head, and said, with a sad sort of dryness--'I can't see my way to it.'

The vicar's heart sank with a flutter, and then swelled, and sank another bit, and his forehead flushed.

There was a silence.

'You see, Mr. Wylder, I relied, in fact, altogether upon this a--arrangement; and I don't see that any thing is likely to come of it.'

The attorney spoke in the same dry and reserved way, and there was a shadow on his long face.

'I have forfeited his good-will somehow--he has ceased to take any interest in my wretched affairs; I am abandoned, and must be ruined.'

These dreadful thoughts filled in another silence; and then the vicar said--

'I am afraid I have, quite unintentionally, offended you, Mr.

Larkin--perhaps in my ignorance of business; and I feel that I should be quite ruined if I were to forfeit your good offices; and, pray tell me, if I have said anything I ought not.'

'Oh, no--nothing, I a.s.sure you,' replied Mr. Larkin, with a lofty and gentle dryness. 'Only, I think, I have, perhaps, a little mistaken the relation in which I stood, and fancied, wrongly, it was in the light somewhat of a friend as well as of a professional adviser; and I thought, perhaps, I had rather more of your confidence than I had any right to, and did not at first see the necessity of calling in Lord Chelford, whose experience of business is necessarily very limited, to direct you. You remember, my dear Mr. Wylder, that I did not at all invite these relations; and I don't think you will charge me with want of zeal in your business.'

'Oh! my dear Mr. Larkin, my dear Sir, you have been my preserver, my benefactor--in fact, under Heaven, very nearly my last and only hope.'

'Well, I _had_ hoped I was not remiss or wanting in diligence.'

And Mr. Larkin took his seat in his most gentlemanlike fashion, crossing his long legs, and throwing his tall head back, raising his eyebrows, and letting his mouth languidly drop a little open.

'My idea was, that Lord Chelford would see more clearly what was best for little Fairy. I am so very slow and so silly about business, and you so much my friend--I have found you so--that you might think only of me.'

'I should, of course, consider the little boy,' said Mr. Larkin, condescendingly; 'a most interesting child. I'm very fond of children myself, and should, of course, put the entire case--as respected him as well as yourself--to the best of my humble powers before you. Is there any thing else just now you think of, for time presses, and really we have ground to apprehend something unpleasant _to-morrow_. You ought not, my dear Sir--pray permit me to say--you really ought _not_ to have allowed it to come to this.'

The poor vicar sighed profoundly, and shook his head, a contrite man.

They both forgot that it was arithmetically impossible for him to have prevented it, unless he had got some money.

'Perhaps,' said the vicar, brightening up suddenly, and looking in the attorney's eyes for answer, 'Perhaps something might be done with the reversion, as a security, to borrow a sufficient sum, without selling.'

The attorney shook his high head, and whiskers gray and foxy, and meditated with the seal of his pencil case between his lips.

'I don't see it,' said he, with another shake of that long head.

'I don't know that any lender, in fact, would entertain such a security.

If you wish it I will write to Burlington, Smith, and Company, about it--they are largely in policies and _post-obits_.'