"'Like him! there is not the man on earth I hate as I hate _him!_'

"'That's exactly what Towers said: "Paul detests him more than we do."'

"The moment Collins said these words the whole thing flashed full upon me. They were plotting to do for Hawke, and wanted to know how far I might be trusted in the scheme.

"'Look here, Tom,' said I, confidentially; 'don't tell me anything. I don't want to be charged with other men's secrets; and, in return, I'll promise not to pry after them. "Make your little game," as they say at Ascot, and don't ask whether I'm in the ring or not. Do you understand me?'

"'I do, perfectly,' said he. 'The only point Towers really wanted to be sure of is, what of _her?_ What he says is, there's no telling what a woman will do.'

"' If I were merely to give an opinion,' said I, carelessly, 'I 'd say, no danger from that quarter; but, mind, it's only an opinion.'

"'Wake says you'd marry her,' said he, bluntly, and with an abruptness that showed he had at length got courage to say what he wanted.

"'Tom Collins,' said I, seriously, 'let us play fair; don't question me, and I 'll not question _you_.'

"'But you 'll come along with us?' asked he, eagerly.

"'I 'm not so sure of that, now,' said I; 'but if I do, it's on one only condition.'

"'And that is--'

"'That I 'm to know nothing, or hear nothing, of whatever you 're about.

I tell you distinctly that I 'll not pry anywhere, but, in return, treat me as a stranger in whose discretion you cannot trust.'

"'You like sure profits and a safe venture, in fact,' said he, sneeringly.

"'Say one half of that again, Collins,' said I, 'and I'll cut with the whole lot of you. I ask no share. I 'd accept no share in your gains here.'

"'But you 'll not peach on us, Paul?' said he, catching my hand.

"'Never,' said I, 'as long as you are on the square with _me_.'

"After this, he broke out into the wildest abuse of Hawke, making him out--as it was not hard to do--the greatest villain alive, mingling the attack with a variety of details of the vast sums he had latterly been receiving. 'There are,' he said, 'more than two thousand in hard cash in his hands at this moment, and a number of railway shares and some Peruvian bonds, part of his first wife's fortune, which he has just recovered by a lawsuit.' So close and accurate were all these details, so circumstantial every part of the story, that I perceived the plan must have been long prepared, and only waiting for a favorable moment for execution. With this talk he occupied the whole way, till I reached my lodgings.

"'And now, Paul,' said he, 'before we part, give me your word of honor once more.'

"'There 's my pledge,' said I, 'and there 's my hand. So long as I hear nothing, and see nothing, I know nothing.' And we said good-night, and separated.

"So long as I was talking with Collins," continued Paten,--"so long, in fact, as I was taking my own side in the discussion,--I did not see any difficulty in thus holding myself aloof from the scheme, and not taking any part whatever in the game played out before me; but when I found myself alone in my room, and began to conjure up an inquest and a trial, and all the searching details of a cross-examination, I trembled from head to foot. I remember to this hour how I walked to and fro in my room, putting questions to myself aloud, and in the tone of an examining counsel, till my heart sickened with fear; and when at last I lay down, wearied but not sleepy, on my bed, it was to swear a solemn vow that nothing on earth should induce me to go over to Jersey.

"The next day I was ill and tired, and I kept my bed, telling my servant to let no one disturb me on any pretext Towers called, but was not admitted. Collins came twice, and tried hard to see me, but my man was firm, so that Tom was fain to write a few words on a card, in pencil: 'H. is ill at Limmer's; but it is only del. tremens, and he will be all right by Saturday. The boat leaves Blackwall at eleven. Don't fail to be in time.' This was Thursday. There was no time to lose, if I only knew what was best to be done. I 'll not weary you with the terrible tale of that day's tortures; how I thought over every expedient in turn, and in turn rejected it; now I would go to Hawke, and tell him everything; now to the Secretary of State at the Home Office; now to Scotland Yard, to inform the police; then I bethought me of trying to dissuade Towers and the others from the project; and at last I resolved to make a 'bolt'

of it, and set out for Ireland by the night mail, and lie hid in some secluded spot till all was over. About four o'clock I got up, and, throwing on my dressing-gown, I walked to the window. It was a dark, dull day, with a thin rain falling, and few persons about; but just as I was turning away from the window I saw a tall, coarse-looking fellow pass into the oyster-shop opposite, giving a glance up towards me as he went; the next minute a man in a long camlet cloak left the shop, and walked down the street; and, muffled though he was from head to foot, I knew it was Towers.

"I suppose my conscience wasn't all right, for I sank down into a chair as sick as if I 'd been a month in a fever. I saw they had set a watch on me, and I knew well the men I had to deal with. If Towers or Wake so much as suspected me, they 'd make all safe before they ventured further. I looked out again, and there was the big man, with a dark blue woollen comforter round his throat, reading the advertisements on a closed shutter, and then strolling negligently along the street. Though his hat was pressed down over his eyes, I saw them watching me as he went; and such was my terror that I fancied they were still gazing at me after he turned the corner.

"Fully determined now to make my escape, I sat down and wrote a few lines to Collins, saying that a relation of mine, from whom I had some small expectations, was taken suddenly ill, and sent for me to come over and see him, so that I was obliged to start for Ireland by that night's mail. I never once alluded to Jersey, but concluded with a kindly message to all friends, and a hasty good-bye.

"Desiring to have my servant out of the way, I despatched him with this note, and then set about making my own preparations for departure. It was now later than I suspected, so that I had barely time to pack some clothes hastily into a carpet-bag, and cautiously descended the stairs with it in my hand, opened the street door and issued forth. Before I had, however, gone ten yards from the door, the large man was at my side, and in a gruff voice offered to carry my bag. I refused as roughly, and walked on towards the cab-stand. I selected a cab, and said Euston Square; and as I did so, the big fellow mounted the box and sat down beside the driver. I saw it was no use, and, affecting to have forgotten something at my lodgings, I got out, paid the cab, and returned home. How cowardly! you'd say. No, Stocmar, I knew my men: it was _not_ cowardly. I knew that, however they might abandon a project or forego a plan, they would never, never forgive a confederate that tried to betray them. No, no," muttered he, below his breath; "no man shall tell me it was cowardice.

"When I saw that there was no way to turn back, I determined to go forward boldly, and even eagerly, trusting to the course of events to give me a chance of escape. I wrote to Collins to say that my relative was better, and should not require me to go over; and, in short, by eleven o'clock on the appointed Saturday, we all assembled on the deck of the 'St Helier,' bound for Jersey.

"Never was a jollier party met for an excursion of pleasure,--all but Hawke himself; he came aboard very ill, and went at once to his berth.

He was in that most pitiable state, the commencing convalescence of delirium tremens, when all the terrors of a deranged mind still continue to disturb and distress the recovering intellect. As we went down one by one to see him, he would scarcely speak, or even notice us. At times, too, he seemed to have forgotten the circumstance which brought us all there, and he would mutter to himself, 'It was no good job gathered all these fellows together. Where can they be going to? What can they be after?' We had just sat down to dinner, when Towers came laughing into tie cabin. 'What do you think,' said he to me, 'Hawke has just told me confidentially? He said, "I 'm not at all easy about that lot on deck,"--meaning you all. "The devil doesn't muster his men for mere drill and parade, and the moment I land in the island I 'll tell the police to have an eye on them."' We laughed heartily at this polite intention of our host, and joked a good deal over the various imputations our presence might excite. From this we went on to talk over what was to be done if Hawke should continue ill, all being agreed that, having come so far, it would be impossible to forego our projected pleasure: and at last it was decided that I, by virtue of certain domestic relations ascribed to me, should enact the host, and do the honors of the house, and so they filled bumpers to the Regency, and I promised to be a mild Prince.

"'There's the thing for Godfrey,' said Towers, as some grilled chicken was handed round; and taking the dish from the waiter, he carried it himself to Hawke, and remained while he ate it. 'Poor devil!' said he, as he came back, 'he seems quite soft-hearted about my little attentions to him. He actually said, "Thank you, old fellow."'"

Perhaps our reader will thank us if we do not follow Paten through a narrative in which the minutest detail was recorded, nor any, even the most trivial, incident forgotten, graven as they were on a mind that was to retain them to the last. All the levities they indulged in during the voyage,--which was, in fact, little other than an orgie from the hour they sailed to that they landed, dashed with little gloomy visits to that darkened sick berth where Hawke lay,--all were remembered, all chronicled.

The cottage itself--The Hawke's Nest, as it was whimsically called--he described with all the picturesque ardor of an artist It was truly a most lovely spot, nestled down in a cleft between the hills, and so shut in from all wintry influences that the oranges and myrtles overgrew it as though the soil were Italy. The grounds were of that half-park, half-garden order, which combines greensward and flowering border, and masses into one beauteous whole the glories of the forest-tree with the spray-like elegance of the shrub. There was a little lake, too, with an island, over whose leafy copper beeches a little Gothic spire appeared,--an imitation of some richly ornamented shrine in Moorish Spain. What was it that in this dark story would still attract him to the scenery of this spot, making him linger and dally in it as though he could not tear himself away? Why would he loiter in description of some shady alley, some woodbine-trellised path, as though the scene had no other memories but those of a blissful bygone? In fact, such was the sort of fascination the locality seemed to exercise over him, that his voice grew softer, the words faltered as he spoke them, and once he drew his hand across his eyes, as though to wipe away a tear.

"Was it not strange, Stocmar," broke he suddenly in, "I was never able to see her one moment alone? She avoided it in fifty ways! Hawke kept his room for two days after we arrived, and we scarcely ever saw her, and when we did, it was hurriedly and passingly. Godfrey, too, he would send for one of us,--always one, mark you, alone; and after a few muttering words about his suffering, he 'd be sure to say, 'Can _you_ tell me what has brought them all down here? I can't get it out of my head that there ain't mischief brewing.' Now each of us in turn had heard this speech, and we conned it over and over again. 'It's the woman has put this notion in his head,' said Towers. 'I 'll take my oath it came from _her_. Look to _that_, Paul Hunt,' said he to me, 'for you have influence in that quarter.' I retorted angrily to this, and very high words passed between us; in fact, the altercation went so far that, when we met at dinner, we never addressed or noticed each other.

I 'll never forget that dinner. Wake seemed to range himself on Towers's side, and Collins looked half disposed to take mine; everything that was said by one was sure to be capped by some sharp impertinence by another, and we sat there interchanging slights and sneers and half-covert insolences for hours.

"If there had been a steamer for Southampton, I 'd have started next morning. I told Collins so when I went to my room; but he was much opposed to this, and said, 'If we draw back now, it must be with Towers and Wake,--all or none!' We passed nearly the entire night in discussing the point, and could not agree on it.

"I suppose that Hawke must have heard how ill we all got on together.

There was a little girl--a daughter by his first wife--always in and out of the room where we were; and though in appearance a mere infant, the shrewdest, craftiest little sprite I ever beheld. Now this Clara, I suspect, told Hawke everything that passed. I know for certain that she was in the flower-garden, outside the window, during a very angry altercation between Towers and myself, and when I went up afterwards to see Hawke he knew the whole story.

"What a day that was! I had asked Loo to let me speak a few words with her alone, and, after great hesitation, she promised to meet me in the garden in the evening. I had determined on telling her everything. I was resolved to break with Towers and Wake, and I trusted to her clear head to advise how best to do it. The greater part of the morning Towers was up in Hawke's room; he had always an immense influence over Godfrey; he knew things about him none others had ever heard of, and, when he came downstairs, he took the doctor--it was your old Professor, that mad fellow--into the library, and spent full an hour with him. When Towers came out afterwards, he seemed to have got over his angry feeling towards me, and, coming up in all seeming frankness, took my arm, and led me out into the shrubbery.

"'Hawke is sinking rapidly,' said he; 'the doctor says he cannot possibly recover.'

"'Indeed!' said I, amazed. 'What does he call the malady?'

"'He says it's a break-up,--a general smash,--lungs, liver, brain, all destroyed; a common complaint with fellows who have lived hard.' He looked at me steadily, almost fiercely, as he said this, but I seemed quite insensible to his gaze. 'He 'll not leave _her_ a farthing,' added he, after a moment.

"'The greater villain he, then,' said I. 'It was for _him_ she ruined herself.'

"'Yes, yes, that was all true enough once; but _now_, Master Paul,--now there's another story, you know.'

"'If you mean under the guise of a confidence to renew the insults you dared to pass upon me yesterday,' said I, 'I tell you at once I 'll not bear it.'

"'Can't you distinguish between friendship and indifference?' said he, warmly. 'I don't ask you to trust me with your secrets, but let us talk like men, not like children. Hawke intends to alter his will to-morrow.

It had been made in her favor; at least, he left her this place here, and some small thing he had in Wales; he's going to change everything and leave all to the girl.'

"'It can't be a considerable thing, after all,' said I, peevishly, and not well knowing what I said.

"'Pardon me,' broke he in; 'he has won far more than any of us suspected. He has in hard cash above two thou-sand pounds in the house, a mass of acceptances in good paper, and several bonds of first-rate men. I went over his papers this morning with him, and saw his book, too, for the Oaks,--a thing, I suppose, he had never shown to any living man before. He has let us all in there, Paul; he has, by Jove!

for while telling us to put all upon Jeremy, he 's going to win with Proserpine!'

"I confess the baseness of this treachery sickened me.

"'"How Paul will storm, and rave, and curse me when he finds it out,"

said he; "but there was no love lost between us." He never liked you, Hunt,--never.'

"'It's not too late yet,' said I, 'to hedge about and save ourselves.'

"'No, there's time still, especially if _he_ "hops the twig." Now,' said he, after a long pause, 'if by any chance he were to die to-night, _she_ 'd be safe; she'd at least inherit some hundreds a year, and a good deal of personal property.'