Part 2 (1/2)

He had opened the letter; it contained but a few lines: he held his breath while he read it. First he grew pale, then a shadow came over his face, and then another, and another, darker and darker, shade upon shade, as if an exhalation from the pit was momentarily blackening the air about him. He said nothing; there was but one long, gentle sigh, and in his face a mortal sternness, as he folded the letter again, replaced it, and locked the desk.

Of course, when Mademoiselle de Barras returned from her accustomed walk, she found everything in her room, to all appearances, undisturbed, and just as when she left it. While this young lady was making her toilet for the evening, and while Sir Wynston Berkley was worrying himself with conjectures as to whether Marston's evil looks, when he encountered him that morning in the pa.s.sage, existed only in his own fancy, or were, in good truth, very grim and significant realities, Marston himself was striding alone through the wildest and darkest solitudes of his park, haunted by his own unholy thoughts, and, it may be, by those other evil and unearthly influences which wander, as we know, ”in desert places.” Darkness overtook him, and the chill of night, in these lonely tracts. In his solitary walk, what fearful company had he been keeping! As the shades of night deepened round him, the sense of the neighborhood of ill, the consciousness of the foul fancies or which, where he was now treading, he had been for hours the sport, oppressed him with a vague and unknown terror; a certain horror of the thoughts which had been his comrades through the day, which he could not now shake off, and which haunted him with a ghastly and defiant pertinacity, scared, while they half-enraged him. He stalked swiftly homewards, like a guilty man pursued.

Marston was not perfectly satisfied, though very nearly, with the evidence now in his possession. The letter, the stolen perusal of which had so agitated him that day, bore no signature; but, independently of the handwriting, which seemed, spite of the constraint of an attempted disguise, to be familiar to his eye, there existed, in the matter of the letter, short as it was, certain internal evidences, which, although not actually conclusive, raised, in conjunction with all the other circ.u.mstances, a powerful presumption in aid of his suspicions. He resolved, however, to sift the matter further, and to bide his time.

Meanwhile his manner must indicate no trace of his dark surmises and bitter thoughts. Deception, in its two great branches, simulation and dissimulation, was easy to him. His habitual reserve and gloom would divest any accidental and momentary disclosure of his inward trouble of everything suspicious or unaccountable, which would have characterized such displays and eccentricities in another man.

His rapid and reckless ramble, a kind of physical vent for the paroxysm which had so agitated him throughout the greater part of the day, had soiled and disordered his dress, and thus had helped to give to his whole appearance a certain air of haggard wildness, which, in the privacy of his chamber, he hastened carefully and entirely to remove.

At supper, Marston was apparently in unusually good spirits. Sir Wynston and he chatted gaily and fluently upon many subjects, grave and gay.

Among them the inexhaustible topic of popular superst.i.tion happened to turn up, and especially the subject of strange prophecies of the fates and fortunes of individuals, singularly fulfilled in the events of their afterlife.

”By-the-by, d.i.c.k, this is rather a nervous topic for me to discuss,” said Sir Wynston.

”How so?” asked his host.

”Why, don't you remember?” urged the baronet.

”No, I don't recollect what you allude to,” replied Marston, in all sincerity.

”Why, don't you remember Eton?” pursued Sir Wynston.

”Yes, to be sure,” said Marston.

”Well?” continued his visitor.

”Well, I really don't recollect the prophecy,” replied Marston.

”What! do you forget the gypsy who predicted that you were to murder me, d.i.c.k--eh?”

”Ah-ha, ha!” laughed Marston, with a start.

”Don't you remember it now?” urged his companion.

”Ah, why yes, I believe I do,” said Marston; ”but another prophecy was running in my mind; a gypsy prediction, too. At Ascot, do you recollect the girl told me I was to be Lord Chancellor of England, and a duke besides?”

”Well, d.i.c.k,” rejoined Sir Wynston, merrily, ”if both are to be fulfilled, or neither, I trust you may never sit upon the woolsack of England.”

The party soon after broke up: Sir Wynston and his host, as usual, to pa.s.s some hours at piquet; and Mrs. Marston, as was her wont, to, spend some time in her own boudoir, over notes and accounts, and the worrying details of housekeeping.

While thus engaged, she was disturbed by a respectful tap at her door, and an elderly servant, who had been for many years in the employment of Mr. Marston, presented himself.

”Well, Merton, do you want anything?” asked the lady.

”Yes, ma'am, please, I want to give warning; I wish to leave the service, ma'am;” replied he, respectfully, but doggedly.

”To leave us, Merton!” echoed his mistress, both surprised and sorry for the man had been long her servant, and had been much liked and trusted.

”Yes, ma'am,” he repeated.

”And why do you wish to do so, Merton? Has anything occurred to make the place unpleasant to you?” urged the lady.