Part 86 (1/2)

”They are both in the 'Spotted Dog,' sir, with half a dozen more.”

”Follow me, and guard the door. Will you come, too, gentlemen?”

The ”Spotted Dog” was a low public, with one large room and a sanded floor. Mr. Ransome walked in and left the door open, so that his three companions heard and saw all that pa.s.sed.

”Holland and Cheetham, you are wanted.”

”What for?”

”Wilde's affair. He has come to himself, and given us your names.”

On this the two men started up and were making for the door. Ransome whipped before it. ”That won't do.”

Then there was a loud clatter of rising feet, oaths, threats, and even a knife or two drawn; and, in the midst of it all, the ominous click of a pistol, and then dead silence; for it was Ransome who had produced that weapon. ”Come, no nonsense,” said he. ”Door's guarded, street's guarded, and I'm not to be trifled with.”

He then handed his pistol to the officer outside with an order, and, stepping back suddenly, collared Messrs. Holland and Cheetham with one movement, and, with a powerful rush, carried them out of the house in his clutches. Meantime the policeman had whistled, there was a conflux of bobbies, and the culprits were handcuffed and marched off to the Town Hall.

”Five years' penal servitude for that little lot,” said Ransome.

”And now, Mr. Bolt, I have answered your question to the best of my ability.”

”You have answered it like a man. Will you do as much for us?”

”I'll do my best. Let me examine the place now that none of them are about.”

Bolt and Ransome went together, but Little went home: he had an anxiety even more pressing, his mother's declining health. She had taken to pining and fretting ever since Dr. Amboyne brought the bad news from Cairnhope; and now, instead of soothing and consoling her son, she needed those kind offices from him; and, I am happy to say, she received them. He never spent an evening away from her. Unfortunately he did not succeed in keeping up her spirits, and the sight of her lowered his own.

At this period Grace Carden was unmixed comfort to him; she encouraged him to encroach a little, and visit her twice a week instead of once, and she coaxed him to confide all his troubles to her. He did so; he concealed from his mother that he was at war with the trade again, but he told Grace everything, and her tender sympathy was the balm of his life. She used to put on cheerfulness for his sake, even when she felt it least.

One day, however, he found her less bright than usual, and she showed him an advertis.e.m.e.nt--Bollinghope house and park for sale; and she was not old enough nor wise enough to disguise from him that this pained her. Some expressions of regret and pity fell from her; that annoyed Henry, and he said, ”What is that to us?”

”Nothing to you: but I feel I am the cause. I have not used him well, that's certain.”

Henry said, rather cavalierly, that Mr. Coventry was probably selling his house for money, not for love, and (getting angry) that he hoped never to hear the man's name mentioned again.

Grace Carden was a little mortified by his tone, but she governed herself and said sadly, ”My idea of love was to be able to tell you every thought of my heart, even where my conscience reproaches me a little. But if you prefer to exclude one topic--and have no fear that it may lead to the exclusion of others--”

They were on the borders of a tiff; but Henry recovered himself and said firmly, ”I hope we shall not have a thought unshared one day; but, just for the present, it will be kinder to spare me that one topic.”

”Very well, dearest,” said Grace. ”And, if it had not been for the advertis.e.m.e.nt--” she said no more, and the thing pa.s.sed like a dark cloud between the lovers.

Bollinghope house and park were actually sold that very week; they were purchased, at more than their value, by a wealthy manufacturer: and the proceeds of this sale and the timber cleared off all Coventry's mortgages, and left him with a few hundred pounds in cash, and an estate which had not a tree on it, but also had not a debt upon it.

Of course he forfeited, by this stroke, his position as a country gentleman; but that he did not care about, since it was all done with one view, to live comfortably in Paris far from the intolerable sight of his rival's happiness with the lady he loved.

He bought in at the sale a few heirlooms and articles of furniture--who does not cling, at the last moment, to something of this kind?--and rented a couple of unfurnished rooms in Hillsborough to keep them in.

He fixed the day of his departure, arranged his goods, and packed his clothes. Then he got a letter of credit on Paris, and went about the town buying numerous articles of cutlery.

But this last simple act led to strange consequences. He was seen and followed; and in the dead of the evening, as he was cording with his own hands a box containing a few valuables, a heavy step mounted the stair, and there was a rude knock at the door.