"Does it strike you that he is _anxious_ about anything?"

The young man looked surprised.

"No; that is, I mean, he appears to me in excellent spirits. Perhaps, sir, I do not quite apprehend you?"

"Not unlikely," said the old gentleman. "He does not question you?"

"No, sir."

"Yet he suspects me, and I think suspects you," observed M. Varbarriere.

The young man looked pained, but said nothing.

"That room where poor Lady Marlowe was--was so shocked--the green chamber--it is connected with the misfortunes of your family."

"How, sir?"

"Those papers you have heard my lawyer mention as having been lost at Dubois' Hotel in London, by your grandfather, it is my belief were lost in this house and in that room."

A gentleman smoking a cigar must be very much interested indeed when he removes his weed from his lips and rests the hand whose fingers hold it upon his knee, to the imminent risk of its going out while he pauses and listens.

"And how, sir, do you suppose this occurred--by what agency?" inquired the handsome young gentleman.

"The ghost," answered M. Varbarriere, with a solemn sneer.

Guy Strangways knew he could not be serious, although, looking on his countenance, he could discern there no certain trace of irony as he proceeded.

"Many years later, poor Lady Marlowe, entering that room late at night--her maid slept there, and she being ill, for a change, in the smaller room adjoining (you don't know those rooms, but I have looked in at the door)--beheld what we call the ghost, and never smiled or held up her head after," said the portly old gentleman between the puffs of his cigar.

"Beheld the ghost!"

"So they say, and I believe it--what they _call_ the ghost."

"Did she make an alarm or call her husband?"

"Her husband slept in that remote room at the very back of the house, which, as you see, he still occupies, quite out of hearing. You go down-stairs first, then up-stairs; and as he slept the greater part of two hundred feet away from the front of the house, of course he was out of the question;" and M. Varbarriere sneered again solemnly.

"A housekeeper named Gwynn, I am told, knows all about it, but I believe she is gone."

"And do you really think, sir, that my grandfather lost those deeds _here_?"

"I always thought so, and so I told your father, and my information got him into a bad sc.r.a.pe."

"You don't, I know, think it occurred supernaturally?" said Guy, more and more bewildered.

"Supernaturally; of course it was--how else could it be?" answered the old gentleman, with a drowsy irony. "That room has been haunted, as I have heard, by a devil from the time it was built, in the reign of George II. Can you imagine why General Lennox was put to sleep there?"

The young man shook his head. The old one resumed his smoking, leaving his problem unsolved.

"It shall be my business to evoke and to lay that devil," said the elderly gentleman, abruptly.

"Ought not Lady Jane Lennox to be warned if you really think there is any--any _danger_?"

"The danger is to _General_ Lennox, as I suppose."

"I don't understand, sir."

"No, you don't--better not. I told your poor father my belief once, and it proved fatal knowledge to him. In the day that he ate thereof he died. Bah! it is better to keep your mind to yourself until you have quite made it up--you understand?--and even then till the time for action has come, and not even then, unless you want help. Who will sum up the mischief one of those prating fellows does in a lifetime?"

The gentlemen were silent hereupon for a period which I may measure by half a cigar.

"That green chamber--it is a hypocrite," said the solemn old man, looking drowsily on the smoke that was ascending the chimney, into which he threw the b.u.t.t-end of his cigar--"mind you, a hypocrite. I have my theory. But we will not talk; no--_you_ will be less embarra.s.sed, and _I_ more useful, with this reserve. For the purpose I have in view I will do fifty things in which you could and would have no partnership.

Will you peep into that letter, Monsieur?" The ponderous gentleman grew dramatic here. "Will you place your ear to that door, _s'il vous plait_--your eye to that keyhole? Will you oblige me by bribing that domestic with five pounds sterling? Bah! I will be all ear, all eye--omnipresent, omniscient, omnipotent!--by _all_ means for this END--ay, all means--what _you_ call secret, shabby, blackguard;" and the sonorous voice of the old man, for the first time since his arrival, broke into a clangorous burst of laughter, which, subsiding into a sort of growl, died, at last, quite away. The old gentleman's countenance looked more thoughtful and a shade darker than he had seen it. Then rising, he stood with his back to the fire, and fumbled slowly at the heavy links of his watch-chain, like a ghostly monk telling his beads, while he gazed, in the abstraction of deep thought, on the face of the young man.

Suddenly his face grew vigilant, his eyes lighted up, and some stern lines gathered about them, as he looked down full upon his nephew.

"Guy," said he, "you'll keep your promise--your word--your oath--that not one syllable of what pa.s.ses between us is divulged to mortal, and that all those points on which I have enjoined reserve shall be held by you scrupulously secret."

Guy bowed his acquiescence.

"What nonsense was that going on at the piano to-night? Well, you need not answer, but there must be no more of it. I won't burden you with painful secrets. You will understand me hereafter; but no more of _that_--observe me."

The old gentleman spoke this injunction with a lowering nod, and that deliberate and peremptory emphasis to which his metallic tones gave effect.

Guy heard this, leaning in an unchanged att.i.tude on his elbow over the chimneypiece, in silence and with downcast eyes.

"Yes, Guy," said the old man, walking suddenly up to him, and clapping his broad hand upon his shoulder, "I will complete the work I have begun for you. Have confidence in me, don't mar it, and you shall know all, and after I am gone, perhaps admire the zealous affection with which I laboured in your interest. Good-night, and Heaven bless you, dear Guy;"

and so they parted for the night.

Guy Strangways had all his life stood in awe of this reserved despotic uncle--kind, indulgent in matters of pleasure and of money, but habitually secret, and whenever he imposed a command, tyrannical. Yet Guy felt that even here there was kindness; and though he could not understand his plans, of his motives he could have no doubt.

For M. Varbarriere, indeed, his nephew had a singular sort of respect.

More than one-half of his character was enveloped in total darkness to his eyes. Of the traits that were revealed some were positively evil. He knew, by just one or two proofs, that he was proud and vindictive, and could carry revenge for a long time, like a cold stone, in his sleeve.

He could break out into a devil of a pa.s.sion, too, on occasion; he could be as unscrupulous, in certain ways, as Machiavel; and, it was fixed in Guy's mind, had absolutely no religion whatsoever. What were the evidences? M. Varbarriere led a respectable life, and showed his solemn face and person in church with regularity, and was on very courteous relations with the clergy, and had built the greater part of a church in Pontaubrique, where prayers are, I believe, still offered up for him.

Ought not all this to have satisfied Guy? And yet he knew quite well that solemn M. Varbarriere did not believe one fact, record, tradition, or article of the religion he professed, or of any other. Had he denounced, ridiculed, or controverted them?--Never. On the contrary, he kept a civil tongue in his head, or was silent. What, then, were the proofs which had long quite settled the question in Guy's mind? They consisted of some half-dozen smiles and shrugs, scattered over some fifteen years, and delivered impressively at significant moments.

But with all this he was kindly. The happiness of a great number of persons depended upon M. Varbarriere, and they were happy. His wine-estates were well governed. His great silk-factory in the south was wisely and benevolently administered. He gave handsomely to every deserving charity. He smiled on children and gave them small coins. He loved flowers, and no man was more idolised by his dogs.

Guy was attached by his kindness, and he felt that be his moral system exactly what it might, he had framed one, and acted under it, and he instinctively imbibed for him that respect which we always cherish for the man who has submitted his conduct consistently to a code or principle self-imposed by intellect--even erring.

CHAPTER XXV.

Lady Alice talks with Guy Strangways.

When Guy had bid this man good-night and entered his chamber, he threw himself into his easy-chair beside the fire, which had grown low and grey in the grate. He felt both sad and alarmed. He now felt a.s.sured that M. Varbarriere was fashioning and getting together the parts of a machine which was to work evil against their host and his family. His family? His _daughter_ Beatrix. He had no other.