"An item, of course, but only an item in the sum total," replied St.

George. "No man can eat and drink above ten thousand a year, and Darcy had considerably more. No; he might have lived as he pleased, had he escaped the acquaintance of honest Tom Gleeson. By the by, Con, is there any truth in the story they tell about this fellow, and that he really was more actuated by a feeling of revenge towards Darcy than a desire for money?"

"I never heard the story. Did you, Mr. O'Reilly?" asked Heffernan.

"Never," said O'Reilly, affecting an air of unconcern, very ill consorting with his pale cheek and anxious eye.

"The tale is simply this: that, as Gleeson waxed wealthy, and began to a.s.sume a position in life, he one day called on the Knight to request him to put his name up for ballot at 'Daly's.' Darcy was thunderstruck, for it was in those days when the Club was respectable; but still the Knight had tact enough to dissemble his astonishment, and would doubtless have got through the difficulty had it not been for Bagenal Daly, who was present, and called out, 'Wait till Tuesday, Maurice, for I mean to propose M'Cleery, the breeches-maker, and then the thing won't seem so remarkable!' Gleeson smiled and slipped away, with an oath to his own heart, to be revenged on both of them. If there be any truth in the story, he did ruin Daly, by advising some money-lender to buy up all his liabilities."

"I must take the liberty to correct you, sir," said O'Reilly, actually trembling with anger. "If your agreeable anecdote has no better foundation than the concluding hypothesis, its veracity is inferior to its ingenuity. The gentleman you are pleased to call a money-lender is my father; the conduct you allude to was simply the advance of a large sum on mortgage."

"Foreclosed, like Darcy's, perhaps," said St. George, his irascible face becoming blood-red with pa.s.sion.

"Come, come, Giles, you really can know nothing of the subject you are talking of; besides, to Mr. O'Reilly the matter is a personal one."

"So it is," muttered St. George; "and if report speaks truly, as unpleasant as personal."

This insulting remark was not heard by O'Reilly, who was deeply engaged in explaining to the lawyer beside him the minute legal details of the circ.u.mstance.

"Shrewd a fellow as Gleeson was," said St. George, interrupting O'Reilly, by addressing the lawyer, "they say he has left some flaw open in the matter, and that Darcy may recover a very large portion of the lost estate."

"Yes; if for instance this bond should be destroyed. He might move in Equity--"

"He 'd move heaven and earth, sir, if it's Bagenal Daly you mean," said St. George, who had stimulated his excitement by drinking freely. "Some will tell you that he is a steadfast, firm friend; but I 'll vouch for it, a more determined enemy never drew breath."

"Very happily for the world we live in, sir," said O'Reilly, "there are agencies more powerful than the revengeful and violent natures of such men as Mr. Daly."

"He's every jot as quick-sighted as he's determined; and when he wagered a hogshead of claret that Darcy would one day sit again at the head of his table in Gwynne Abbey--"

"Did he make such a bet?" asked O'Reilly, with a faint laugh.

"Yes; he walked down the club-room, and offered it to any one present, and none seemed to fancy it; but young Kelly, of Kildare, who, being a new member just come in, perhaps thought there might be some _eclat_ in booking a bet with Bagenal Daly."

"Would you like to back his opinion, sir?" said O'Reilly, with a simulated softness of voice; "or although I rarely wager, I should have no objection to convenience you here, leaving the amount entirely at your option."

"Which means," said St. George, as his eyes sparkled with wine and pa.s.sion, "that the weight of _your_ purse is to tilt the beam against that of _my_ opinion. Now, I beg leave to tell you--"

"Let me interrupt you, Giles; I never knew my Burgundy disagree with any man before, but I d smash every bottle of it to-morrow if I thought it could make so pleasant a fellow so wrong-headed and unreasonable. What say you if we qualify it with some cognac and water?"

"Maurice Darcy is my relative," said St. George, pushing his gla.s.s rudely from him, "and I have yet to learn the unreasonableness of wishing well to a member of one's own family. His father and mine were like brothers! Ay, by Jove! I wonder what either of them would think of the changes time has wrought in their sons' fortunes." His voice dropped into a low, muttering sound, while he mumbled on, "One a beggar and an exile, the other"--here his eye twinkled with a malicious intelligence as he glanced around the board--"the other the guest of Con Heffernan."

He arose as he spoke, and fortunately the noise thus created prevented his words being overheard. "You 're right, Con," said he, "that Burgundy has been too much for me. The wine is unimpeachable, notwithstanding."

The others rose also; although pressed in all the customary hospitality of the period to have "one bottle more," they were resolute in taking leave, doubtless not sorry to escape the risk of any unpleasant termination to the evening's entertainment.

The lawyer and the commissioner agreed to see St. George home; for although long seasoned to excesses, age had begun to tell upon him, and his limbs were scarcely more under control than his tongue. O'Reilly had dropped his handkerchief, he was not sure whether in the drawing or the dinner room, and this delayed him a few moments behind the rest; and although he declared, at each moment, the loss of no consequence, and repeated his "good-night," Heffernan held his hand and would not suffer him to leave.

"Try under Mr. O'Reilly's chair, Thomas.--Singular specimen of a by-gone day, the worthy baronet!" said he, with a shrug of his shoulders. "Would you believe it, he and Darcy have not been on speaking terms for thirty years, and yet how irritable be showed himself in his behalf!"

"He seems to know something of the family affairs, however," said O'Reilly, cautiously.

"Not more than club gossip; all that about Daly and his wager is a week old."

"I hope my father may never hear it," said O'Reilly, compa.s.sionately; "he has all the irritability of age, and these reports invariably urge him on to harsh measures, which, by the least concession, he would never have pursued. The Darcys, indeed, have to thank themselves for any severity they have experienced at our hands. Teasing litigation and injurious reports of us have met all our efforts at conciliation."

"A compromise would have been much better, and more reputable for all parties," said Heffernan, as he turned to stir the fire, and thus purposely averted his face while making the remark.

"So it would," said O'Reilly, hurriedly; then stopping abruptly short, he stammered out, "I don't exactly know what you mean by the word, but if it implies a more amicable settlement of all disputed points between us, I perfectly agree with you."

Heffernan never spoke: a look of cool self-possession and significance was all his reply. It seemed to say, "Don't hope to cheat _me_; however, you may rely on my discretion."

"I declare my handkerchief is in my pocket all this while," said O'Reilly, trying to conceal his rising confusion with a laugh.

"Good-night, once more--you 're thinking of going over to England to-morrow evening?"

"Yes, if the weather permits, I 'll sail at seven. Can I be of any service to you?"

"Perhaps so: I may trouble you with a commission. Good-night."

"So, Mr. Hickman, you begin to feel the hook! Now let us see if we cannot play the fish without letting him know the weakness of the tackle!" said Heffernan, as he looked after him, and then slowly retraced his steps to the now deserted drawing-room.

"How frequently will chance play the game more skilfully for us than all our cleverness!" said he, while he paced the room alone. "That old bear, St. George, who might have ruined everything, has done me good service.

O'Reilly's suspicions are awakened, his fears are aroused; could I only find a clew to his terror, I could hold him as fast by his fears as by this same baronetcy. This baronetcy," added he, with a sneering laugh, "that I am to negotiate for, and--be refused!"

With this sentiment of honest intentions on his lips, Mr. Heffernan retired to rest, and, if this true history is to be credited, to sleep soundly till morning.

CHAPTER XVI. PAUL DEMPSEY'S WALK

With the most eager desire to accomplish his mission, Paul Dempsey did not succeed in reaching "The Corvy" until late on the day after Miss Daly's visit. He set out originally by paths so secret and circuitous that he lost his way, and was obliged to pa.s.s his night among the hills, where, warned by the deep thundering of the sea that the cliffs were near, he was fain to await daybreak ere he ventured farther. The trackless waste over which his way led was no bad emblem of poor Paul's mind, as, cowering beneath a sand-hill, he shivered through the long hours of night. Swayed by various impulses, he could determine on no definite line of action, and wavered and doubted and hesitated, till his very brain was addled by its operations.

At one moment he was disposed, like good Launcelot Gobbo, to "run for it," and, leaving Darcy and all belonging to him to their several fates, to provide for his own safety; when suddenly a dim vision of meeting Maria Daly in this world or the next, and being called to account for his delinquency, routed such determinations. Then he revelled in the glorious opportunity for gossip afforded by the whole adventure. How he should astonish Coleraine and its neighborhood by his revelations of the Knight and his family! Gossip in all its moods and tenses, from the vague indicative of mere innuendo, to the full subjunctive of open defamation! Not indeed that Mr. Dempsey loved slander for itself; on the contrary, his temperament was far more akin to kindliness than its opposite; but the pa.s.sion for retailing one's neighbor's foibles or misfortunes is an impulse that admits no guidance; and as the gambler would ruin his best friend at play, so would the professed gossip calumniate the very nearest and dearest to him on earth. There are in the social as in the mercantile world characters who never deal in the honest article of commerce, but have a store of damaged, injured, or smuggled goods, to be hawked about surrept.i.tiously, and always to be sold in the "strictest secrecy." Mr. Dempsey was a pedler in this wise, and, if truth must be told, he did not dislike his trade.

And yet, at moments, thoughts of another and more tender kind were wafted across Paul's mind, not resting indeed long enough to make any deep impression, but still leaving behind them, as pleasant thoughts always will, little twilights of happiness. Paul had been touched--a mere graze, skin deep, but still touched--by Helen Darcy's beauty and fascinations. She had accompanied him more than once on the piano while he sang, and whether the long-fringed eyelashes and the dimpled cheek had done the mischief, or that the thoughtful tact with which she displayed Paul's good notes and glossed over his false ones had won his grat.i.tude, certain is it he had already felt a very sensible regard for the young lady, and more than once caught himself, when thinking about her, speculating on the speedy demise of Bob Dempsey, of Dempsey's Grove, and all the consequences that might ensue therefrom.

If the enjoyment Mr. Dempsey's various peculiarities afforded Helen suggested on her part the semblance of pleasure in his society, Paul took these indications all in his own favor, and even catechized himself how far he might be deemed culpable in winning the affections of a charming young lady, so long as his precarious condition forbid all thought of matrimony. Now, however, that he knew who the family really were, such doubts were much allayed; for, as he wisely remarked to himself, "Though they are ruined, there 's always nice picking in the wreck of an Indiaman!" Such were the thoughts by which his way was beguiled, when late in the afternoon he reached "The Corvy."

Lady Eleanor and her daughter were out walking when Mr. Dempsey arrived, and, having cautiously reconnoitred the premises, ventured to approach the door. All was quiet and tranquil about the cottage; so, rea.s.sured by this, he peered through the window into the large hall, where a cheerful fire now blazed and shed a mellow glow over the strange decorations of the chamber. Mr. Dempsey had often desired an opportunity of examining these curiosities at his leisure. Not indeed prompted thereto by any antiquarian taste, but, from a casual glance at the inscriptions, he calculated on the amount of private history of the Dalys he should obtain. Stray and independent facts, it is true, but to be arranged by the hand of a competent and clever commentator.

With cautious hand he turned the handle of the door and entered.

There he stood, in the very midst of the coveted objects; and never did humble bookworm gaze on the rich t.i.tles of an ample library with more enthusiastic pleasure. He drew a long breath to relieve his overburdened heart, and glutted his eyes in ecstasy on every side. Enthusiasm takes its tone from individuality, and doubtless Mr. Dempsey felt at that moment something as Belzoni might, when, unexpectedly admitted within some tomb of the Pyramids, he found himself about to unravel some secret history of the Pharaohs.

"Now for it," said he, half aloud; "let us do the thing in order; and first of all, what have we here?" He stooped and read an inscription attached to a velvet coat embroidered with silver,--

"Coat worn by B. D. in his duel with Colonel Matthews,--62,--the puncture under the sword-arm being a tierce outside the guard; a very rare point, and which cost the giver seriously."

"He killed Matthews, of course," added Dempsey; "the pa.s.sage can mean nothing else, so let us be accurate as to fact and date."

So saying, he proceeded to note down the circ.u.mstance in a little memorandum-book. "So!" added he, as he read his note over; "now for the next. What can this misshapen lump of metal mean?"