"Look carefully,--look well for it," said she, her voice trembling at every word.

"Is it of such consequence--"

"It is of such consequence," broke she in, "that he into whose hands it falls can leave you and me beggars on the world!" An effort at awaking by the sick man here made her hastily restore the papers to the desk, which she locked, and replaced upon the table.

"Was it the Henderson did this?" said she aloud, as if asking the question of herself. "Could she have known this secret?"

"Did what? What secret?" asked he, anxiously.

A low, long sigh announced that the sick man was awaking; and in a faint voice he said, "I feel better, Dora. I have had a sleep, and been dreaming of home and long ago. To-morrow, or next day, perhaps, I may be strong enough to leave this. I want to be back there again. Nay, don't refuse me," said he, timidly.

"When you are equal to the journey--"

"I have a still longer one before me, Dora, and even less preparation for it. Harry, I have something to say to you, if I were strong enough to say it,--this evening, perhaps." Wearied by the efforts he had made, he lay back again with a heavy sigh, and was silent.

"Is he worse--is he weaker?" asked his son.

A mournful nod of the head was her reply.

Young Martin arose and stole noiselessly from the room, he scarcely knew whither; he indeed cared not which way he turned. The future threw its darkest shadows before him. He had little to hope for, as little to love. His servant gave him a letter which Ma.s.singbred had left on his departure, but he never opened it; and in a listless vacuity he wandered out into the wood.

It was evening as he turned homeward. His first glance was towards the windows of his father's room. They were wont to be closely shuttered and fastened; now one of them lay partly open, and a slight breeze stirred the curtain within. A faint, sickly fear of he knew not what crept over him. He walked on quicker; but as he drew nigh the door, his servant met him. "Well!" cried he, as though expecting a message.

"Yes, sir, it is all over; he went off about an hour since." The man added something; but Martin heard no more, but hurried to his room, and locked the door.

CHAPTER XXVII. A VERY BRIEF INTERVIEW.

When Jack Ma.s.singbred found himself once more "in town," and saw that the tide of the mighty world there rolled on the same full, boiling flood he had remembered it of yore, he began to wonder where and how he had latterly been spending his life. There were questions of politics--mighty interests of which every one was talking--of which he knew nothing; party changes and new social combinations had arisen of which he was utterly ignorant. But what he still more acutely deplored was that he himself had, so to say, dropped out of the memory of his friends, who accosted him with that half-embarra.s.sed air that says, "Have you been ill?--or in India?--or how is it that we have n't met you about?" It was last session he had made a flash speech,--an effort that his own party extolled to the skies, and even the Opposition could only criticise the hardihood and presumption of so very young a member of the House,--and now already people had ceased to bear him in mind.

The least egotistical of men--and Ma.s.singbred did not enter into this category--find it occasionally very hard to bear the cool "go-by" the world gives them whenever a chance interval has withdrawn them from public view. The stern truth of how little each atom of the social scheme affects the working of the whole machinery is far from palatable in its personal application. Ma.s.singbred was probably sensitive enough on this score, but too consummate a tactician to let any one guess his feelings; and so he lounged down to the "House," and lolled at his Club, and took his airings in the Park with all the seeming routine of one who had never abdicated these enjoyments for a day.

He had promised, and really meant, to have looked after Martin's affairs on his reaching London; but it was almost a week after his return that he bethought him of his pledge, his attention being then called to the subject by finding on his table the visiting-card of Mr. Maurice Scanlan. Perhaps he was not sorry to have something to do; perhaps he had some compunctions of conscience for his forgetfulness; at all events, he sent his servant at once to Scanlan's hotel, with a request that he would call upon him as early as might be. An answer was speedily returned that Mr. Scanlan was about to start for Ireland that same afternoon, but would wait upon him immediately. The message was scarcely delivered when Scanlan himself appeared.

Dressed in deep mourning, but with an easy complacency of manner that indicated very little of real grief, he threw himself into a chair, saying, "I pledge you my word of honor, it is only to yourself I 'd have come this morning, Mr. Ma.s.singbred, for I 'm actually killed with business. No man would believe the letters I've had to read and answer, the doc.u.ments to examine, the deeds to compare, the papers to investigate--"

"Is the business settled, then--or in train of settlement?" broke in Jack.

"I suppose it _is_ settled," replied Scanlan, with a slight laugh. "Of course you know Mr. Martin is dead?"

"Dead! Good heavens! When did this occur?"

"We got the news--that is, Merl did--the day before yesterday. A friend of his who had remained at Baden to watch events started the moment he breathed his last, and reached town thirty hours before the mail; not, indeed, that the Captain has yet written a line on the subject to any one."

"And what of the arrangement? Had you come to terms previously with Merl?"

"No; he kept negotiating and fencing with us from day to day, now asking for this, now insisting on that, till the evening of his friend's arrival, when, by special appointment, I had called to confer with him.

Then, indeed, he showed no disposition for further delay, but frankly told me the news, and said, 'The Conferences are over, Scanlan. I 'm the Lord of Cro' Martin.'"

"And is this actually the case,--has he really established his claim in such a manner as will stand the test of law and the courts?"

"He owns every acre of it; there's not a flaw in his t.i.tle; he has managed to make all Martin's debts a.s.sume the shape of advances in hard cash. There is no trace of play transactions throughout the whole. I must be off, Mr. Ma.s.sing-bred; there 's the chaise now at the door."

"Wait one moment, I entreat of you. Can nothing be done? Is it too late to attempt any compromise?"

"To be sure it is. He has sent off instructions already to serve the notice for ejectment. I 've got orders myself to warn the tenants not to pay the last half-year, except into court."

"Why, are _you_ in Mr. Merl's service, then?" asked Jack, with one of his quiet laughs.

"I am, and I am not," said Scanlan, reddening. "You know the compact I made with Lady Dorothea at Baden. Well, of course there is no longer any question about that. Still, if Miss Mary agrees to accept me, I 'll stand by the old family! There 's no end of trouble and annoyance we could n't give Merl before he got possession. I know the estate well, and where the worst fellows on it are to be found! It's one thing to have the parchments of a property, and it is another to be able to go live on it, and draw the rents. But I can't stay another minute.

Good-bye, air. Any chance of seeing you in the West soon?"

"I 'm not sure I 'll not go over to-morrow," said Jack, musing.

"I suppose you are going to blarney the const.i.tuency?" said Maurice, laughing heartily at his coa.r.s.e conceit. Then suddenly seeing that Ma.s.singbred did not seem to relish the freedom, he hurriedly repeated his leave-takings, and departed.

CHAPTER XXVIII. THE DARK SIDE OF A CHARACTER.

"Ye might ken the style of these epistles by this time, Dinah," said Mr.

Henderson, as he walked leisurely up and down a long low-ceilinged room, and addressed himself to a piece of very faded gentility, who sat at a writing-table. "She wants to hear naething but what she likes, and, as near as may be, in her ain words too."

"I always feel as if I was copying out the same letter every time I write," whined out a weak, sickly voice.

"The safest thing ye could do," replied he, gravely. "She never tires o' reading that everybody on the estate is a fule or a scoundrel, and ye canna be far wrang when ye say the worst o' them all. Hae ye told her aboot the burnin' at Kyle-a-Noe?"

"Yes, I have said that you have little doubt it was malicious."

"And hae ye said that there's not a sixpence to be had out of the whole townland of Kiltimmon?"

"I have. I have told her that, except Miss Mary herself, n.o.body would venture into the barony."

"The greater fule yerself, then," said he, angrily. "Couldna ye see that she'll score this as a praise o' the young leddy's courage? Ye maun just strike it out, ma'am, and say that the place is in open rebellion--"

"I thought you bade me say that Miss Mary had gone down there and spoken to the people--"

"I bade ye say," broke he angrily in, "that Miss Mary declared no rent should be demanded o' them in their present distress; that she threw the warrants into the fire, and vowed that if we called a sale o' their chattels, she 'd do the same at the castle, and give the people the proceeds."

"You only said that she was in such a pa.s.sion that she declared she 'd be right in doing so."

"I hae nae time for hair-splitting, ma'am. I suppose if she had a right she 'd exercise it! Put down the words as I gie them to ye! Ye hae no forgotten the conspeeracy?"

"I gave it exactly as you told me, and I copied out the two paragraphs in the papers about it, beginning, 'Great scandal,' and 'If our landed gentry expect--'"

"That's right; and ye hae added the private history of Joan? They 'll make a fine thing o' that on the trial, showing the chosen a.s.sociate o' a young leddy to hae been naething better than--Ech! what are ye blubberin' aboot,--is it yer feelin's agen? Ech! ma'am, ye are too sentimental for a plain man like me!"