Linton placed the letter in a rack upon the chimney, and for some seconds was lost in thought.

"If Lady Janet, sir, would be kind enough to receive the company,"

murmured Phillis, softly.

"Pooh, man, it is of no consequence!" said Linton, roughly, his mind dwelling on a very different theme. "Let who will play host or hostess."

"Perhaps you would come down yourself soon, sir?" asked Phillis, who read in the impatience of Linton's manner the desire to be alone, and coupled that desire with some mysterious purpose.

"Yes, leave me, Phillis; I'm going to dress," said he, hurriedly. "Has _he_ returned yet?"

"No, sir; and we expected him at five o'clock."

"And it is now nine," said the other, solemnly; "four hours later."

"It is very singular!" exclaimed Phillis, who was more struck by the altered expression of Linton's face than by the common-place fact he affected to marvel at.

"Why singular? What is remarkable? That a man should be delayed some time on a business matter, particularly when there was no urgency to repair elsewhere?"

"Nothing more common, sir; only that Mr. Cashel said positively he should be here at five. He had ordered the cob pony to be ready for him,--a sign that he was going to pay a visit at the cottage."

Linton made no reply, but his lips curled into a smile of dark and ominous meaning.

"Leave me, Phillis," said he, at length; "I shall be late with all this c.u.mbrous finery I am to wear."

"Shall I send your man, sir?" said Phillis, slyly eying him as he spoke.

"Yes--no, Phillis--not yet I 'll ring for him later."

And with these words Linton seated himself in a large chair, apparently unconscious of the other's presence.

Mr. Phillis withdrew noiselessly--but not far; for after advancing a few steps along the corridor, he cautiously returned, and listened at the door.

Linton sat for a few seconds, as if listening to the other's retreating footsteps; and then, noiselessly arising from his chair, he approached the door of the chamber, at which, with bent-down head, Phillis watched.

With a sudden jerk of the handle Linton threw open the door, and stood before the terrified menial.

"I was afraid you were ill, sir. I thought your manner was strange."

"Not half so strange as this conduct, Mr. Phillis," said Linton, slowly, as he folded his arms composedly on his breast. "Come in." He pointed, as he spoke, to the room; but Phillis seemed reluctant to enter, and made a gesture of excuse. "Come in, sir," said Linton, peremptorily; and he obeyed. Linton immediately locked the door, and placed the key upon the chimney-piece; then deliberately seating himself full in front of the other, he stared at him long and fixedly. "So, sir," said he, at length, "you have thought fit to become a spy upon my actions. Now, there is but one _amende_ you can make for such treachery,--which is, to confess frankly and openly what it is you want to know, and what small mystery is puzzling your puny intelligence, and making your nights sleepless. Tell me this candidly, and I'll answer as freely."

"I have really nothing to confess, sir. I was fearful lest you were unwell. I thought--it was mere fancy, perhaps--that you were flurried and peculiar this morning; and this impression distressed me so, that--that--"

"That you deemed fit to watch me. Be it so. I have few secrets from any one; I have none from my friends. You shall hear, therefore what--without my knowing it--has made me appear unusually agitated.

It was my intention to leave this house to-morrow, Phillis, and in the preparation for my departure I was arranging my letters and papers, among which I found a very considerable quant.i.ty that prudence would consign to the flames,--that is to say, if prudence were to be one-sided, and had only regard for the interests of one individual where there were two concerned. In plain language, Phillis, I was just about to burn the ma.s.s of doc.u.ments which fill that iron safe, and which it were to the honor and credit of Mr. Phillis should be reduced to charcoal as speedily as may be, the same being nothing more nor less than the accounts of that 'honest steward,' pinned to the real and bona fide bills of Mr. Cashel's tradespeople. There are, it is true, strange little discrepancies between the two, doubtless capable of satisfactory explanation, but which, to plain-thinking men like myself, are difficult to reconcile; and in some one or two instances--a wine merchant's account, for example, and a saddler's bill--savor somewhat of that indiscreet procedure people call forgery. What a mistake--what an inadvertence, Phillis!"

There was something of almost coaxing familiarity in the way Linton uttered the last words; and Phillis grew sick at heart as he listened to them.

"A moment more, an instant later, and I had thrown them into the fire; but your footsteps, as you walked away, sounded too purpose-like; you were so palpably honest that I began to suspect you. Eh, Phillis, was I right?"

Phillis essayed a smile, but his features only accomplished a ghastly grin.

"I will keep them, therefore, where they are," said Linton. "These impulses of rash generosity are very costly pleasures; and there is no such good practical economy as to husband one's confidence."

"I 'm sure, sir, I never thought I should have seen the day--"

"Go on, man; don't falter. What day do you mean?--that on which you had attempted to outwit _me_; or, that on which I should show you all the peril of your attempting it? Ay, and there is peril, Mr. Phillis: a felony whose punishment is transportation for life is no small offence."

"Oh, sir!--oh, Mr. Linton, forgive me!" cried the other, in the most abject voice. "I always believed that my devotion to your interests would claim your protection."

"I never promised to further anything that was base or dishonest," said Linton, with an air of a.s.sumed morality.

"You opened and read letters that were addressed to another; you spied his actions, and kept watch upon all his doings; you wrote letters in his name, and became possessed of every secret of his life by treachery; you--"

"Don't talk so loud, Phillis; say all you have to say to _me._"

"Oh, dear, sir, forgive me the burst of pa.s.sion. I never meant it. My temper carried me away in spite of me." And he burst into tears as he spoke.

"What a dangerous temper, that may at any moment make a felon of its owner! Go, Phillis, there is no need of more between us. You know _me_.

I almost persuaded myself that I knew you. But if I know anything, it is this"--here he approached, and laid his hand solemnly on the other's shoulder--"that I would make h.e.l.l itself the punishment of him who injured me, were I even to share it with him."

Phillis's knees smote each other with terror at the look that accompanied these words; they were spoken without pa.s.sion or vehemence, but there was that in their tone that thrilled to his inmost heart Powerless, and overcome by his emotions, he could not stir from the spot: he wanted to make explanations and excuses, but all his ingenuity deserted him; he tried to utter vows of attachment and fidelity, but shame was too strong for him there also. He would have resorted to menace itself rather than remain silent, but he had no courage for such a hazardous course. Linton appeared to read in turn each change of mood that pa.s.sed across the other's mind; and after waiting, as it were, to enjoy the confusion under which he suffered, said,--

"Just so, Phillis; it is a sad sc.r.a.pe you fell into. But when a man becomes bankrupt either in fame or fortune, it is but loss of time to bewail the past; the wiser course is to start in business again, and make a character by a good dividend. Try that plan. Good-bye!"

These words were a command; and so Phillis understood them, as, with an humble bow, he left the room. Linton again locked the door, and drawing the table to a part of the room from which no eavesdropper at the door could detect it, he once more sat down at it. His late scene with Phillis had left no traces upon his memory; such events were too insignificant to claim any notice beyond the few minutes they occupied; his thoughts were now upon the greater game, where all his fortune in life was staked. He took out the key, which he always wore round his neck, and placed it in the lock; at the same instant the clock on the chimney-piece struck ten. He sat still, listening to the strokes; and when they ceased, he muttered, "Ay, mayhap cold enough ere this!" A slight shuddering shook him as he uttered these words, and a dreamy revery seemed to gather around him; but he arose, and walking to the window, opened it. The fresh breeze of the night rallied him almost at once, and he closed the sash and returned to his place.

"To think that I should hold within my hands the destinies of those whom most of all the world I hate!" muttered he, as he turned the key and threw back the lid. The box was empty! With a wild cry, like the accent of intense bodily pain, he sprang up and dashed both hands into the vacant s.p.a.ce, and then held them up before his eyes, like one who could not credit the evidence of his own senses. The moment was a terrible one, and for a few seconds the staring eyeb.a.l.l.s and quivering lips seemed to threaten the access of a fit; but reason at last a.s.sumed the mastery, and he sat down before the table and leaned his head upon it to think. Twice before in life had it been his lot to lose a fortune at one turn of the die, but never before had he staked all the revengeful feelings of his bad heart, which, baffled in their flow, now came back upon himself.

He sat thus for nigh an hour; and when he arose at last, his features were worn as though by a long illness; and as he moved his fingers through his hair, it came away in ma.s.ses, like that of a man after fever.

CHAPTER XXVI. AN UNDERSTANDING BETWEEN THE DUPE AND HIS VICTIM

So, then, we meet at last.--Harold.

As the rooms began to fill with company, costumed in every variety that taste, fancy, or absurdity could devise, many were surprised that neither was there a host to bid them welcome, nor was there any lady to perform the accustomed honors of reception. The nature of the entertainment, to a certain extent, took off from the awkwardness of this want. In a masquerade, people either go to a.s.sume a part, or to be amused by the representation of others, and are less dependent on the attentions of the master or mistress of the house; so that, however struck at first by the singularity of a _fete_ without the presence of the giver, pleasure, ministered to by its thousand appliances, overcame this feeling, and few ever thought more of him beneath whose roof they were a.s.sembled.

The rooms were splendid in their decoration, lighted _a giomo_, and ornamented with flowers of the very rarest kind. The music consisted of a celebrated orchestra and a regimental band, who played alternately; the guests, several hundred in number, were all attired in fancy costumes, in which every age and nation found its type; while characters from well-known fictions abounded, many of them admirably sustained, and dressed with a pomp and splendor that told the wealth of the wearers.

It was truly a brilliant scene; brilliant as beauty, and the glitter of gems, and waving of plumes, and splendor of dress could make it.

The magic impulse of pleasure communicated by the crash of music; the brilliant glare of wax-lights; the throng; the voices; the very atmosphere, tremulous with sounds of joy,--seemed to urge on all there to give themselves up to enjoyment. There was a boundless, lavish air, too, in all the arrangements. Servants in gorgeous liveries served refreshments of the most exquisite kind; little children, dressed as pages, distributed bouquets, bound round with lace of Valenciennes or Brussels, and occasionally fastened by strings of garnets or pearls; a _jet d'eau_ of rose-water cooled the air of the conservatory, and diffused its delicious freshness through the atmosphere. There was something princely in the scale of the hospitality; and from every tongue words of praise and wonder dropped at each moment.

Even Lady Janet, whose enthusiasm seldom rose much above the zero, confessed that it was a magnificent _fete_, adding, by way of compensation for her eulogy, "and worthy of better company."

Mrs. White was in ecstasies with everything, even to the cherubs in pink gauze wings, who handed round sherbet, and whom she p.r.o.nounced quite "cla.s.sical." The Kenny-f.e.c.ks were in the seventh heaven of delight, affecting little airs of authority to the servants, and showing the strangers, by a hundred little devices, that all the magnificence around was no new thing to _them_. Miss Kennyf.e.c.k, as the Queen of Madagascar, was a most beautiful savage; while Olivia appeared as the fair "Gabrielle,"--a sly intimation to Sir Harvey, whose dress, as Henry IV., won universal admiration. Then there were the ordinary number of Turks, Jews, Sailors, Circa.s.sians, Greeks, Highland Chiefs, and Indian Jugglers,--"Jim" figuring as a Newmarket "Jock," to the unbounded delight and wonderment of every "sub" in the room.

If in many quarters the question ran, "Where is Mr. Cashel?" or, "Which is he?" Lady Janet had despatched Sir Andrew, attired as a "Moonshee,"