The royalties had eaten heavily and departed, much pleased with their entertainment.

"I thought the supper-table looked like a larder," said Lady Judith, fanning herself indolently, as she half reclined in a great carved oak chair. "Any one but a German would have been nauseated by such a plethora of food."

"But 'twas just what they like," replied Philter. "I saw your ladyship had all his Majesty's favourite dishes."

"I ought to know his tastes, after those wearisome dinners at Richmond Lodge, over which I have groaned in spirit on so many a Sat.u.r.day," said Judith.

"Ah, I grant you, madam, those Richmond dinners are an abomination,"

retorted Philter, who would have forfeited five of his declining years to have been bidden to one.

"The king is as fond of punch as his lamented father, who used to get amicably drunk with Sir Robert every afternoon, after a morning's shooting in the New Park at Richmond last year, when the minister had a temporary lodging on the hill there," said Bolingbroke.

"In spite of the d.u.c.h.ess of Kendal and her Germans, who did their best to cut short that pleasant easy conviviality between his Majesty and Robin," said Philter.

And now Bolingbroke made his adieux, with that blending of stately grace and friendly familiarity which const.i.tutes the charm of the grand manner, and little Philter tripped out at his heels, leaving Lavendale alone with his host and hostess. Judith looked at him furtively from under her drooping lashes, wondering for what purpose he had lingered so long. There had been no word of explanation between them since that broken appointment last summer. They had met only in public, and had simpered and chattered as if the most indifferent acquaintance. And now it seemed very strange to Judith, as a woman of the world, that Lavendale should make himself conspicuous by outstaying all her other guests.

"I have waited till the last, Mr. Topsparkle," said his lordship gravely, "in the hope that, late as the hour is, you would honour me with a few words in private."

"There is no hour in which I am not at your lordship's service," replied Topsparkle, with his airiest manner; yet there was a look of anxiety in his countenance which his wife noted.

"Is your business of such a private nature that even I may not hear it?"

she asked lightly, hiding keenest anxiety under that easy manner.

"Husband and wife are supposed to have no secrets from each other."

"That is a supposition which must have been out of date in the Garden of Eden, madam," said Lavendale. "Be sure Eve had her little mysteries from Adam after that affair of the apple had taught her a prudent reserve."

"Then I wish you good-night, gentlemen, and leave you to a masonic secrecy," said Lady Judith, emerging with slow and languid movements from the depths of the great oak chair, sinking almost to the ground in a stately curtsey to Lavendale, and then gliding from the room, a dazzling vision of powder and patches, diamonds and ostrich feathers, alabaster shoulders and gold brocade.

She was gone, the servants had retired, all save the Swiss porter who dozed in his chair; and Lavendale and Topsparkle were alone in front of the hearth.

"Your lordship may converse at your ease," said Topsparkle, "that fellow has not a word of English."

He employed foreign locutions at times, like Lord Hervey, a modish affectation of the time which distinguished the gentleman who had travelled from the country b.u.mpkin.

"I am going to speak to you of the past, Mr. Topsparkle. I am here to do you a friendly office, if I can."

"Indeed, my lord, I have no consciousness of being at this present moment in need of friendly offices; nor do I think it is any man's business to concern himself about another man's history. The past belongs to him who made it."

"Not always, Mr. Topsparkle. There are occasions when the history of the past concerns the law of the land--when undiscovered crimes have to be brought to light--and when wicked deeds, unrepented of and unatoned, have to be accounted for."

"As in the case of Mr. Jonathan Wild and his young friend Jack Sheppard," said Topsparkle. "Your proposition is indisputable. But did your lordship outstay the company to tell me nothing newer in the way of argument or fact?"

"No, sir; I am here to talk to you of your own crime, committed in this house, forty years ago; suspected at the time by a town which was not slow to give expression to its opinion; confessed only the other night by your tool and accomplice, Louis Fetis."

"The hysterical ravings of a drunken valet are about as trustworthy as the libels of electioneering pamphleteers; and I am surprised that a man of the world like your lordship should concern himself with such folly," said Topsparkle. "The slander was as baseless as it was malicious."

"Yet it drove you from England."

"No, my lord; I left England because I was tired of a country in which the fine arts were still in their infancy. We have been improving since Handel and Bononcini came to London. In William's time there were not half a dozen good musicians in the kingdom. I wonder, Lord Lavendale, that you should take occasion to insult me upon the strength of a slander which I trampled out forty years ago, when my slanderers stood in the pillory."

"Mr. Topsparkle, there are crimes which never can be brought home to the evil-doers; but there are other wrongs more easily proved even after a lapse of years. I cannot prove you a murderer, though I have the strongest moral evidence of your crime: first from the testimony of your victim's grandfather, Vincenti, and secondly from the confession of your accomplice and agent. But one act in your life I can prove to all the world, if it should be necessary to show the town what manner of man you are. I can at least demonstrate your hardness of heart as a father; how you, the sybarite and Croesus, were content to let your daughter expire in poverty."

"I have never acknowledged a daughter."

"But she was none the less your child--the child born in this house--the helpless babe whose unhappy mother you and Fetis poisoned."

"'Tis false--a vile calumny--and you know it."

"'Tis true, and you know it. Your victim is gone beyond the reach of earthly redress--your daughter has been dead twenty years; but there is yet one living to whom, ere that frail, vanishing figure of yours melts from this earth, you may make some atonement for past evil. Your granddaughter, Philip Chumleigh's orphan child, is my friend Herrick Durnford's wife. To her you may yet act a grandfather's part."

"Mr. Durnford ran away with Mr. Bosworth's daughter."

"With Bosworth's supposed daughter only. The likeness which that young lady bears to the picture at Ringwood Abbey is no accident, but the clue to a secret which my friend and I have discovered. Those letters from your confidential servant were on the person of Irene's father when Squire Bosworth found him lying dead on Flamestead common, with his infant daughter by his side."

He showed Mr. Topsparkle the letters from Fetis, scarce trusting them out of his own hand as the gentleman examined them, lest he should fling them into the fire. And then he related the circ.u.mstances of Irene's infancy: the nameless orphan and the little heiress brought up together; and how the Squire had been tricked by a malignant woman--a discarded mistress, eager to seize the first opportunity to do evil to her inconstant lover.

Topsparkle would fain have disbelieved the story; but that extraordinary resemblance between Irene and the picture was an evidence which he could scarce gainsay; while the existence of those letters from Fetis made a link between the past and the present. He had been startled and mystified by that likeness between the living and the dead; for it was something closer and more significant than a mere resemblance of features and complexion; and there was the likeness of character, the hereditary type, the indescribable Italian beauty as distinct from every other race. No, Vyvyan Topsparkle was not inclined to deny the claim of this girl.

"I have no objection to acknowledge this young lady as my granddaughter," he said coolly.

"Do you think she would acknowledge you, did she know the story of your life?" answered Lavendale. "Happily for her she has been spared that knowledge. She knows not how her mother was abandoned by you, how her mother's mother was murdered in this house, where you can endure to live beneath the shadow of your crime."

"Your lordship forgets that I wear a sword!" exclaimed Topsparkle, clutching at the jewelled hilt of his thin Court rapier.

"Keep your sword for opponents who know less of your character than I do, sir," said Lavendale contemptuously.

"You deliberately insult me, and then refuse me satisfaction!"

"I will give you the satisfaction of a public investigation of this dark history, if you choose. Your victim's grandfather, Vincenti, is in England, ready to make his statement before a magistrate."

"That is a lie--a preposterous and impudent lie!" cried Topsparkle.

"Were the grandfather living, he would be over a hundred and ten years of age."

"He is living, and in full possession of his faculties, whatever may be his age. He gave me a written record of Margharita's story, with all the circ.u.mstances of her flight with you, and of her untimely death under this roof."

"I don't believe it. The fellow must have been dead and rotten these twenty years."

"Come to Lavendale Court to-morrow, and you may convince yourself that he still lives--lives and harbours a most bitter hatred of you, Mr.

Topsparkle. Old as he is, I doubt if you would be safe in his company, were you two left alone together."

"What do you want me to do?"

"Not to acknowledge your granddaughter. Kindred with you can do her no honour; and it is better that she should be ignorant of the tie. But something in way of atonement you may do out of your coffers. Durnford and his wife are poor; they have the battle of life before them; and I am too near ruined to be of much use to them in the present or the future. When you make your will, remember your victim's grandchild."

"I will consider the matter at my leisure," replied Topsparkle haughtily, recovering his self-possession now that he saw there was no actual danger to be apprehended from Lavendale.

That blabbing fool Fetis was safe under lock and key, but not until he had blackened his patron's character. It was a hard thing to have the past thus raked up, after forty years: and by this man of all others; Judith's old lover, the one man for whose sake he had suffered the pangs of bitterest jealousy.

"I can scarce urge more than that on my friend's behalf," said Lavendale quietly. "Your conscience--if with advancing years conscience has been awakened--must be the only arbiter in this matter. But there is one thing I would add. Your victim, Margharita, died unavenged; your wife, Lady Judith, would not be wronged with impunity. She has powerful friends, and to harm but a hair of her head would be fatal to him who did the wrong."