"Well, give him some wine, and let him have dinner, if he has not had it before, and bring in his card just now."

All this occurred without exciting attention or withdrawing Sir Jekyl from any sustained conversation, for he and Lady Alice had been left high and dry on the bank together by the flow and ebb of talk, which at this moment kept the room in a rattle; and Sir Jekyl only now and then troubled her with a word.

"Pullet!" thought Sir Jekyl, he knew not why, uneasily. "Who the devil's Pullet, and what the plague can Pullet want? It can't be Paulett--can it? There's nothing on earth Paulett can want of me, and he would not come at this hour. Pullet--Pullet--let us see." But he _could_ not see, there was not a soul he knew who bore that name.

"He's eating his dinner, sir, the gentleman, sir, in the small parlour, and says you'll know him quite well, sir, when you see him," murmured the butler, "and more--"

"Have you got his card?"

"He said, sir, please, it would be time enough when he had heat his dinner."

"Well, so it will."

And Sir Jekyl drank a gla.s.s of claret, and returned to his ruminations.

"So, I shall know Pullet quite well when I see him," mused the Baronet, "and he'll let me have his card when he has had his dinner--a cool gentleman, whatever else he may be." About this Pullet, however, Sir Jekyl experienced a most uncomfortable suspense and curiosity. A bird of ill omen he seemed to him--an angel of sorrow, he knew not why, in a mask.

While the Baronet sipped his claret, and walked quite alone in the midst of his company, picking his anxious steps, and hearing strange sounds through his valley of the shadow of death, the promiscuous a.s.semblage of ladies and gentlemen dissolved itself. The fair s.e.x rose, after their wont, smiled their last on the sable file of gentlemen, who stood politely, napkin in hand, simpering over the backs of their chairs, and, some of them majestically alone, others sliding their fair hands affectionately within the others' arms, glided through the door in celestial procession.

"I shall leave you to-morrow, Sir Jekyl," began the Bishop, gravely, changing his seat to one just vacated beside his host, and bringing with him his princ.i.p.al chattels, his wine-gla.s.ses and napkin.

"I do hope, my lord, you'll reconsider that," interrupted Sir Jekyl, laying his fingers kindly on the prelate's purple sleeve. A dismal cloud in Sir Jekyl's atmosphere was just then drifting over him, and he clung, as men do under such shadows, to the contact of good and early friendship.

"I am, I a.s.sure you, very sorry, and have enjoyed your hospitality much--_very_ much; but we can't rest long, you know: we hold a good many strings, and matters won't wait our convenience."

"I'm only afraid you are overworked; but, of course, I understand how you feel, and shan't press," said Sir Jekyl.

"And I was looking for you to-day in the library," resumed the Bishop, "anxious for a few minutes, on a subject I glanced at when I arrived."

"I--I _know_," said Sir Jekyl, a little hesitatingly.

"Yes, the dying wish of poor Sir Harry Marlowe, your father," murmured the Bishop, looking into his claret-gla.s.s, which he slowly turned about by the stem; and, to do him justice, there was not a quarter of a gla.s.sful remaining in the bottom.

"I know--to be sure. I quite agree with your lordship's view. I wish to tell you that--quite, I a.s.sure you. I don't--I _really_ don't at all understand his reasons; but, as you say, it is a case for implicit submission. I intend, I a.s.sure you, actually to take down that room during the spring. It is of no real use, and rather spoils the house."

"I am happy, my dear Sir Jekyl, to hear you speak with so much decision on the subject--truly happy;" and the venerable prelate laid his hand with a gentle dignity on the cuff of Sir Jekyl's dress-coat, after the manner of a miniature benediction. "I _may_ then discharge _that_ quite from my mind?"

"Certainly--quite, my lord. I accept your views implicitly."

"And the _box_--the other wish--you know," murmured the Bishop.

"I must honestly say, I can't the least understand what can have been in my poor father's mind when he told me to--to do what was right with it--was not that it? For I do a.s.sure you, for the life of me, I can't think of anything to _be_ done with it but let it _alone_. I pledge you my honour, however, if I ever do get the least inkling of his meaning, I will respect it as implicitly as the other."

"Now, now, that's exactly what I wish. I'm perfectly satisfied you'll do what's right."

And as he spoke the Bishop's countenance brightened, and he drank slowly, looking up toward the ceiling, that quarter of a gla.s.s of claret on which he had gazed for so long in the bottom of the crystal chalice.

Just then the butler once more inclined his head from the back of Sir Jekyl's chair, and presented a card to his master on the little salver at his left side. It bore the inscription, "Mr. Pelter, Camelia Villa,"

and across this, perpendicularly, after the manner of a joint "acceptance" of the firm, was written--"Pelter and Crowe, Chambers, Lincoln's Inn Fields," in bold black pencilled lines.

"Why did not you tell me that before?" whispered the Baronet, tartly, half rising, with the card in his hand.

"I was not haware, Sir Jekyl. The gentleman, said his name exactly like Pullet."

"In the library? Well--tell him I'm coming," said Sir Jekyl; and his heart sank, he knew not why.

"Beg your pardon, my lord, for a moment--my man of business, all the way from London, and I fancy in a hurry. I shall get rid of him with a word or two--you'll excuse me? Dives, will you oblige me--take my place for a moment, and see that the bottle does not stop; or, Doocey, will you?--Dives is doing duty at the foot."

Doocey had hopes that the consultation with the butler portended a bottle of that wonderful Constantia which he had so approved two days before, and took his temporary seat hopefully.

Sir Jekyl, with a general apology and a smile glided away without fuss, and the talk went on much as before.

When the parlour-door shut behind Sir Jekyl, his face darkened. "I know it's some _stupid_ thing," he thought, as he walked down the gallery with rapid steps, toward the study, the sharp air agitating, as he did so, his snowy necktie and glossy curls.

"How d'ye do, Mr. Pelter?--very happy to see you. I had not a notion it was you--the stupid fellow gave me quite another name. Quite well, I hope?"

"Quite well, Sir Jekyl, I thank you--a--quite well," said the attorney, a stoutish, short, wealthy-looking man, with a ma.s.sive gold chain, a resolute countenance, and a bullet head, with close-cut greyish hair.

Pelter was, indeed, an able, pushing fellow, without Latin or even English grammar, having risen in the office from a small clerkship, and, perhaps, was more useful than his gentlemanlike partner.

"Well--a--well, and what has brought you down here? Very glad to see you, you know; but you would not run down for fun, I'm afraid," said Sir Jekyl.

"Au--no--au, well, Sir Jekyl, it has turned out, sir--by gad, sir, I believe them fellows _are_ in England, after all!"

"What do you mean by them fellows?" said Sir Jekyl, with a very dark look, unconsciously repeating the attorney's faulty grammar.

"Strangways and Deverell, you know--I mean them--Herbert Strangways, and a young man named Deverell--they're in England, I've been informed, very private--and Strangways has been with Smith, Rumsey, and Snagg--the office--you know; and there is something on the stocks there."

As the attorney delivered this piece of intelligence he kept his eye shrewdly on Sir Jekyl, rather screwed and wrinkled, as a man looks against a storm.

"Oh!--is that all? There's nothing very alarming, is there, in that?--though, d---- me, I don't see, Mr. Pelter, how you reconcile your present statement with what you and your partner wrote to me twice within the last few weeks."

"Very true, Sir Jekyl; perfectly true, sir. Our information misled us totally; they have been devilish sharp, sir--devilish sly. We never were misled before about that fellow's movements--not that they were ever of any real importance."

"And why do you think them--but maybe you don't--of more consequence now?"

Pelter looked unpleasantly important, and shook his head.

"What _is_ it--I suppose I may _know_?" said Sir Jekyl.

"It looks queerish, Sir Jekyl, there's no denying that--in fact, very queerish indeed--both me and my partner think so. You recollect the deed?"

"No--devil a deed--d---- them all!--I don't remember one of them. Why, you seem to forget it's nearly ten years ago," interrupted the Baronet.

"Ah!--no--not _ten_--the copy of the deed that we got hold of, pretending to be a marriage settlement. It was brought us, you know, in a very odd way, but quite fair."

"Yes, I do remember--yes, to be sure--that thing you thought was a forgery, and put in our way to frighten us. Well, and do you fancy that's a genuine thing now?"

"I always thought it might--I think it _may_--in fact, I think it _is_.