'Your will, monsieur, must ever be my rule,' said I, bowing.

'You have wit, monsieur mon neveu,' said he, 'the best wit--the wit
of silence.  Many might have deafened me with their gratitude.
Gratitude!' he repeated, with a peculiar intonation, and lay and
smiled to himself.  'But to approach what is more important.  As a
prisoner of war, will it be possible for you to be served heir to
English estates?  I have no idea:  long as I have dwelt in England,
I have never studied what they call their laws.  On the other hand,
how if Romaine should come too late?  I have two pieces of business
to be transacted--to die, and to make my will; and, however
desirous I may be to serve you, I cannot postpone the first in
favour of the second beyond a very few hours.'

'Well, sir, I must then contrive to be doing as I did before,' said
I.

'Not so,' said the Count.  'I have an alternative.  I have just
drawn my balance at my banker's, a considerable sum, and I am now
to place it in your hands.  It will be so much for you and so much
less--' he paused, and smiled with an air of malignity that
surprised me.  'But it is necessary it should be done before
witnesses.  Monsieur le Vicomte is of a particular disposition, and
an unwitnessed donation may very easily be twisted into a theft.'

He touched a bell, which was answered by a man having the
appearance of a confidential valet.  To him he gave a key.

'Bring me the despatch-box that came yesterday, La Ferriere,' said
he.  'You will at the same time present my compliments to Dr.
Hunter and M. l'Abbe, and request them to step for a few moments to
my room.'

The despatch-box proved to be rather a bulky piece of baggage,
covered with Russia leather.  Before the doctor and an excellent
old smiling priest it was passed over into my hands with a very
clear statement of the disposer's wishes; immediately after which,
though the witnesses remained behind to draw up and sign a joint
note of the transaction, Monsieur de Keroual dismissed me to my own
room, La Ferriere following with the invaluable box.

At my chamber door I took it from him with thanks, and entered
alone.  Everything had been already disposed for the night, the
curtains drawn and the fire trimmed; and Rowley was still busy with
my bedclothes.  He turned round as I entered with a look of welcome
that did my heart good.  Indeed, I had never a much greater need of
human sympathy, however trivial, than at that moment when I held a
fortune in my arms.  In my uncle's room I had breathed the very
atmosphere of disenchantment.  He had gorged my pockets; he had
starved every dignified or affectionate sentiment of a man.  I had
received so chilling an impression of age and experience that the
mere look of youth drew me to confide in Rowley:  he was only a
boy, his heart must beat yet, he must still retain some innocence
and natural feelings, he could blurt out follies with his mouth, he
was not a machine to utter perfect speech!  At the same time, I was
beginning to outgrow the painful impressions of my interview; my
spirits were beginning to revive; and at the jolly, empty looks of
Mr. Rowley, as he ran forward to relieve me of the box, St. Ives
became himself again.

'Now, Rowley, don't be in a hurry,' said I.  'This is a momentous
juncture.  Man and boy, you have been in my service about three
hours.  You must already have observed that I am a gentleman of a
somewhat morose disposition, and there is nothing that I more
dislike than the smallest appearance of familiarity.  Mr. Pole or
Mr. Powl, probably in the spirit of prophecy, warned you against
this danger.'

'Yes, Mr. Anne,' said Rowley blankly.

'Now there has just arisen one of those rare cases, in which I am
willing to depart from my principles.  My uncle has given me a box-
-what you would call a Christmas box.  I don't know what's in it,
and no more do you:  perhaps I am an April fool, or perhaps I am
already enormously wealthy; there might be five hundred pounds in
this apparently harmless receptacle!'

'Lord, Mr. Anne!' cried Rowley.

'Now, Rowley, hold up your right hand and repeat the words of the
oath after me,' said I, laying the despatch-box on the table.
'Strike me blue if I ever disclose to Mr. Powl, or Mr. Powl's
Viscount, or anything that is Mr. Powl's, not to mention Mr. Dawson
and the doctor, the treasures of the following despatch-box; and
strike me sky-blue scarlet if I do not continually maintain,
uphold, love, honour and obey, serve, and follow to the four
corners of the earth and the waters that are under the earth, the
hereinafter before-mentioned (only that I find I have neglected to
mention him) Viscount Anne de Keroual de St.-Yves, commonly known
as Mr. Rowley's Viscount.  So be it.  Amen.'

He took the oath with the same exaggerated seriousness as I gave it
to him.

'Now,' said I.  'Here is the key for you; I will hold the lid with
both hands in the meanwhile.'  He turned the key.  'Bring up all
the candles in the room, and range them along-side.  What is it to
be?  A live gorgon, a Jack-in-the-box, or a spring that fires a
pistol?  On your knees, sir, before the prodigy!'

So saying, I turned the despatch-box upside down upon the table.
At sight of the heap of bank paper and gold that lay in front of
us, between the candles, or rolled upon the floor alongside, I
stood astonished.

'O Lord!' cried Mr. Rowley; 'oh Lordy, Lordy, Lord!' and he
scrambled after the fallen guineas.  'O my, Mr. Anne! what a sight
o' money!  Why, it's like a blessed story-book.  It's like the
Forty Thieves.'

'Now Rowley, let's be cool, let's be businesslike,' said I.
'Riches are deceitful, particularly when you haven't counted them;
and the first thing we have to do is to arrive at the amount of my-
-let me say, modest competency.  If I'm not mistaken, I have enough
here to keep you in gold buttons all the rest of your life.  You
collect the gold, and I'll take the paper.'

Accordingly, down we sat together on the hearthrug, and for some
time there was no sound but the creasing of bills and the jingling
of guineas, broken occasionally by the exulting exclamations of
Rowley.  The arithmetical operation on which we were embarked took
long, and it might have been tedious to others; not to me nor to my
helper.

'Ten thousand pounds!' I announced at last.

'Ten thousand!' echoed Mr. Rowley.

And we gazed upon each other.

The greatness of this fortune took my breath away.  With that sum
in my hands, I need fear no enemies.  People are arrested, in nine
cases out of ten, not because the police are astute, but because
they themselves run short of money; and I had here before me in the
despatch-box a succession of devices and disguises that insured my
liberty.  Not only so; but, as I felt with a sudden and
overpowering thrill, with ten thousand pounds in my hands I was
become an eligible suitor.  What advances I had made in the past,
as a private soldier in a military prison, or a fugitive by the
wayside, could only be qualified or, indeed, excused as acts of
desperation.  And now, I might come in by the front door; I might
approach the dragon with a lawyer at my elbow, and rich settlements
to offer.  The poor French prisoner, Champdivers, might be in a
perpetual danger of arrest; but the rich travelling Englishman,
St.-Ives, in his post-chaise, with his despatch-box by his side,
could smile at fate and laugh at locksmiths.  I repeated the
proverb, exulting, Love laughs at locksmiths!  In a moment, by the
mere coming of this money, my love had become possible--it had come
near, it was under my hand--and it may be by one of the curiosities
of human nature, but it burned that instant brighter.

'Rowley,' said I, 'your Viscount is a made man.'

'Why, we both are, sir,' said Rowley.

'Yes, both,' said I; 'and you shall dance at the wedding;' and I
flung at his head a bundle of bank notes, and had just followed it
up with a handful of guineas, when the door opened, and Mr. Romaine
appeared upon the threshold.



CHAPTER XVIII--MR. ROMAINE CALLS ME NAMES



Feeling very much of a fool to be thus taken by surprise, I
scrambled to my feet and hastened to make my visitor welcome.  He
did not refuse me his hand; but he gave it with a coldness and
distance for which I was quite unprepared, and his countenance, as
he looked on me, was marked in a strong degree with concern and
severity.

'So, sir, I find you here?' said he, in tones of little
encouragement.  'Is that you, George?  You can run away; I have
business with your master.'

He showed Rowley out, and locked the door behind him.  Then he sat
down in an armchair on one side of the fire, and looked at me with
uncompromising sternness.

'I am hesitating how to begin,' said he.  'In this singular
labyrinth of blunders and difficulties that you have prepared for
us, I am positively hesitating where to begin.  It will perhaps be
best that you should read, first of all, this paragraph.'  And he
handed over to me a newspaper.

The paragraph in question was brief.  It announced the recapture of
one of the prisoners recently escaped from Edinburgh Castle; gave
his name, Clausel, and added that he had entered into the
particulars of the recent revolting murder in the Castle, and
denounced the murderer:-


'It is a common soldier called Champdivers, who had himself
escaped, and is in all probability involved in the common fate of
his comrades.  In spite of the activity along all the Forth and the
East Coast, nothing has yet been seen of the sloop which these
desperadoes seized at Grangemouth, and it is now almost certain
that they have found a watery grave.'


At the reading of this paragraph, my heart turned over.  In a
moment I saw my castle in the air ruined; myself changed from a
mere military fugitive into a hunted murderer, fleeing from the
gallows; my love, which had a moment since appeared so near to me,
blotted from the field of possibility.  Despair, which was my first
sentiment, did not, however, endure for more than a moment.  I saw
that my companions had indeed succeeded in their unlikely design;
and that I was supposed to have accompanied and perished along with
them by shipwreck--a most probable ending to their enterprise.  If
they thought me at the bottom of the North Sea, I need not fear
much vigilance on the streets of Edinburgh.  Champdivers was
wanted:  what was to connect him with St. Ives?  Major Chevenix
would recognise me if he met me; that was beyond bargaining:  he
had seen me so often, his interest had been kindled to so high a
point, that I could hope to deceive him by no stratagem of
disguise.  Well, even so; he would have a competition of testimony
before him:  he knew Clausel, he knew me, and I was sure he would
decide for honour.  At the same time the image of Flora shot up in
my mind's eye with such a radiancy as fairly overwhelmed all other
considerations; the blood sprang to every corner of my body, and I
vowed I would see and win her, if it cost my neck.

'Very annoying, no doubt,' said I, as I returned the paper to Mr.
Romaine.

'Is annoying your word for it?' said he.

'Exasperating, if you like,' I admitted.

'And true?' he inquired.

'Well, true in a sense,' said I.  'But perhaps I had better answer
that question by putting you in possession of the facts?'

'I think so, indeed,' said he.

I narrated to him as much as seemed necessary of the quarrel, the
duel, the death of Goguelat, and the character of Clausel.  He
heard me through in a forbidding silence, nor did he at all betray
the nature of his sentiments, except that, at the episode of the
scissors, I could observe his mulberry face to turn three shades
paler.

'I suppose I may believe you?' said he, when I had done.

'Or else conclude this interview,' said I.

'Can you not understand that we are here discussing matters of the
gravest import?  Can you not understand that I feel myself weighed
with a load of responsibility on your account--that you should take
this occasion to air your fire-eating manners against your own
attorney?  There are serious hours in life, Mr. Anne,' he said
severely.  'A capital charge, and that of a very brutal character
and with singularly unpleasant details; the presence of the man
Clausel, who (according to your account of it) is actuated by
sentiments of real malignity, and prepared to swear black white;
all the other witnesses scattered and perhaps drowned at sea; the
natural prejudice against a Frenchman and a runaway prisoner:  this
makes a serious total for your lawyer to consider, and is by no
means lessened by the incurable folly and levity of your own
disposition.'

'I beg your pardon!' said I.

'Oh, my expressions have been selected with scrupulous accuracy,'
he replied.  'How did I find you, sir, when I came to announce this
catastrophe?  You were sitting on the hearthrug playing, like a
silly baby, with a servant, were you not, and the floor all
scattered with gold and bank paper?  There was a tableau for you!
It was I who came, and you were lucky in that.  It might have been
any one--your cousin as well as another.'

'You have me there, sir,' I admitted.  'I had neglected all
precautions, and you do right to be angry.  Apropos, Mr. Romaine,
how did you come yourself, and how long have you been in the
house?' I added, surprised, on the retrospect, not to have heard
him arrive.

'I drove up in a chaise and pair,' he returned.  'Any one might
have heard me.  But you were not listening, I suppose? being so
extremely at your ease in the very house of your enemy, and under a
capital charge!  And I have been long enough here to do your
business for you.  Ah, yes, I did it, God forgive me!--did it
before I so much as asked you the explanation of the paragraph.
For some time back the will has been prepared; now it is signed;
and your uncle has heard nothing of your recent piece of activity.
Why?  Well, I had no fancy to bother him on his death-bed:  you
might be innocent; and at bottom I preferred the murderer to the
spy.'

No doubt of it but the man played a friendly part; no doubt also
that, in his ill-temper and anxiety, he expressed himself
unpalatably.

'You will perhaps find me over delicate,' said I.  'There is a word
you employed--'

'I employ the words of my brief, sir,' he cried, striking with his
hand on the newspaper.  'It is there in six letters.  And do not be
so certain--you have not stood your trial yet.  It is an ugly
affair, a fishy business.  It is highly disagreeable.  I would give
my hand off--I mean I would give a hundred pound down, to have
nothing to do with it.  And, situated as we are, we must at once
take action.  There is here no choice.  You must at once quit this
country, and get to France, or Holland, or, indeed, to Madagascar.'

'There may be two words to that,' said I.

'Not so much as one syllable!' he retorted.  'Here is no room for
argument.  The case is nakedly plain.  In the disgusting position
in which you have found means to place yourself, all that is to be
hoped for is delay.  A time may come when we shall be able to do
better.  It cannot be now:  now it would be the gibbet.'

'You labour under a false impression, Mr. Romaine,' said I.  'I
have no impatience to figure in the dock.  I am even as anxious as
yourself to postpone my first appearance there.  On the other hand,
I have not the slightest intention of leaving this country, where I
please myself extremely.  I have a good address, a ready tongue, an
English accent that passes, and, thanks to the generosity of my
uncle, as much money as I want.  It would be hard indeed if, with
all these advantages, Mr. St. Ives should not be able to live
quietly in a private lodging, while the authorities amuse
themselves by looking for Champdivers.  You forget, there is no
connection between these two personages.'

'And you forget your cousin,' retorted Romaine.  'There is the
link.  There is the tongue of the buckle.  He knows you are
Champdivers.'  He put up his hand as if to listen.  'And, for a
wager, here he is himself!' he exclaimed.

As when a tailor takes a piece of goods upon his counter, and rends
it across, there came to our ears from the avenue the long tearing
sound of a chaise and four approaching at the top speed of the
horses.  And, looking out between the curtains, we beheld the lamps
skimming on the smooth ascent.

'Ay,' said Romaine, wiping the window-pane that he might see more
clearly.  'Ay, that is he by the driving!  So he squanders money
along the king's highway, the triple idiot! gorging every man he
meets with gold for the pleasure of arriving--where?  Ah, yes,
where but a debtor's jail, if not a criminal prison!'

'Is he that kind of a man?' I said, staring on these lamps as
though I could decipher in them the secret of my cousin's
character.

'You will find him a dangerous kind,' answered the lawyer.  'For
you, these are the lights on a lee shore!  I find I fall in a muse
when I consider of him; what a formidable being he once was, and
what a personable! and how near he draws to the moment that must
break him utterly! we none of us like him here; we hate him,
rather; and yet I have a sense--I don't think at my time of life it
can be pity--but a reluctance rather, to break anything so big and
figurative, as though he were a big porcelain pot or a big picture
of high price.  Ay, there is what I was waiting for!' he cried, as
the lights of a second chaise swam in sight.  'It is he beyond a
doubt.  The first was the signature and the next the flourish.  Two
chaises, the second following with the baggage, which is always
copious and ponderous, and one of his valets:  he cannot go a step
without a valet.'

'I hear you repeat the word big,' said I.  'But it cannot be that
he is anything out of the way in stature.'

'No,' said the attorney.  'About your height, as I guessed for the
tailors, and I see nothing wrong with the result.  But, somehow, he
commands an atmosphere; he has a spacious manner; and he has kept
up, all through life, such a volume of racket about his
personality, with his chaises and his racers and his dicings, and I
know not what--that somehow he imposes!  It seems, when the farce
is done, and he locked in Fleet prison--and nobody left but
Buonaparte and Lord Wellington and the Hetman Platoff to make a
work about--the world will be in a comparison quite tranquil.  But
this is beside the mark,' he added, with an effort, turning again
from the window.  'We are now under fire, Mr. Anne, as you soldiers
would say, and it is high time we should prepare to go into action.
He must not see you; that would be fatal.  All that he knows at
present is that you resemble him, and that is much more than
enough.  If it were possible, it would be well he should not know
you were in the house.'

'Quite impossible, depend upon it,' said I.  'Some of the servants
are directly in his interests, perhaps in his pay:  Dawson, for an
example.'

'My own idea!' cried Romaine.  'And at least,' he added, as the
first of the chaises drew up with a dash in front of the portico,
'it is now too late.  Here he is.'

We stood listening, with a strange anxiety, to the various noises
that awoke in the silent house:  the sound of doors opening and
closing, the sound of feet near at hand and farther off.  It was
plain the arrival of my cousin was a matter of moment, almost of
parade, to the household.  And suddenly, out of this confused and
distant bustle, a rapid and light tread became distinguishable.  We
heard it come upstairs, draw near along the corridor, pause at the
door, and a stealthy and hasty rapping succeeded.

'Mr. Anne--Mr. Anne, sir!  Let me in!' said the voice of Rowley.

We admitted the lad, and locked the door again behind him.

'It's HIM, sir,' he panted.  'He've come.'

'You mean the Viscount?' said I.  'So we supposed.  But come,
Rowley--out with the rest of it!  You have more to tell us, or your
face belies you !'

'Mr. Anne, I do,' he said.  'Mr. Romaine, sir, you're a friend of
his, ain't you?'

'Yes, George, I am a friend of his,' said Romaine, and, to my great
surprise, laid his hand upon my shoulder.

'Well, it's this way,' said Rowley--'Mr. Powl have been at me!
It's to play the spy!  I thought he was at it from the first!  From
the first I see what he was after--coming round and round, and
hinting things!  But to-night he outs with it plump!  I'm to let
him hear all what you're to do beforehand, he says; and he gave me
this for an arnest'--holding up half a guinea; 'and I took it, so I
did!  Strike me sky-blue scarlet?' says he, adducing the words of
the mock oath; and he looked askance at me as he did so.

I saw that he had forgotten himself, and that he knew it.  The
expression of his eye changed almost in the passing of the glance
from the significant to the appealing--from the look of an
accomplice to that of a culprit; and from that moment he became the
model of a well-drilled valet.

'Sky-blue scarlet?' repeated the lawyer.  'Is the fool delirious?'

'No,' said I; 'he is only reminding me of something.'

'Well--and I believe the fellow will be faithful,' said Romaine.
'So you are a friend of Mr. Anne's' too?' he added to Rowley.

'If you please, sir,' said Rowley.

''Tis something sudden,' observed Romaine; 'but it may be genuine
enough.  I believe him to be honest.  He comes of honest people.
Well, George Rowley, you might embrace some early opportunity to
earn that half-guinea, by telling Mr. Powl that your master will
not leave here till noon to-morrow, if he go even then.  Tell him
there are a hundred things to be done here, and a hundred more that
can only be done properly at my office in Holborn.  Come to think
of it--we had better see to that first of all,' he went on,
unlocking the door.  'Get hold of Powl, and see.  And be quick
back, and clear me up this mess.'

Mr. Rowley was no sooner gone than the lawyer took a pinch of
snuff, and regarded me with somewhat of a more genial expression.

'Sir,' said he, 'it is very fortunate for you that your face is so
strong a letter of recommendation.  Here am I, a tough old
practitioner, mixing myself up with your very distressing business;
and here is this farmer's lad, who has the wit to take a bribe and
the loyalty to come and tell you of it--all, I take it, on the
strength of your appearance.  I wish I could imagine how it would
impress a jury!' says he.

'And how it would affect the hangman, sir?' I asked

'Absit omen!' said Mr. Romaine devoutly.

We were just so far in our talk, when I heard a sound that brought
my heart into my mouth:  the sound of some one slyly trying the
handle of the door.  It had been preceded by no audible footstep.
Since the departure of Rowley our wing of the house had been
entirely silent.  And we had every right to suppose ourselves
alone, and to conclude that the new-comer, whoever he might be, was
come on a clandestine, if not a hostile, errand.

'Who is there?' asked Romaine.

'It's only me, sir,' said the soft voice of Dawson.  'It's the
Viscount, sir.  He is very desirous to speak with you on business.'

'Tell him I shall come shortly, Dawson,' said the lawyer.  'I am at
present engaged.'

'Thank you, sir!' said Dawson.

And we heard his feet draw off slowly along the corridor.

'Yes,' said Mr. Romaine, speaking low, and maintaining the attitude
of one intently listening, 'there is another foot.  I cannot be
deceived!'

'I think there was indeed!' said I.  'And what troubles me--I am
not sure that the other has gone entirely away.  By the time it got
the length of the head of the stair the tread was plainly single.'

'Ahem--blockaded?' asked the lawyer.

'A siege en regle!' I exclaimed.

'Let us come farther from the door,' said Romaine, 'and reconsider
this damnable position.  Without doubt, Alain was this moment at
the door.  He hoped to enter and get a view of you, as if by
accident.  Baffled in this, has he stayed himself, or has he
planted Dawson here by way of sentinel?'

'Himself, beyond a doubt,' said I.  'And yet to what end?  He
cannot think to pass the night there!'

'If it were only possible to pay no heed!' said Mr. Romaine.  'But
this is the accursed drawback of your position.  We can do nothing
openly.  I must smuggle you out of this room and out of this house
like seizable goods; and how am I to set about it with a sentinel
planted at your very door?'

'There is no good in being agitated,' said I.

'None at all,' he acquiesced.  'And, come to think of it, it is
droll enough that I should have been that very moment commenting on
your personal appearance, when your cousin came upon this mission.
I was saying, if you remember, that your face was as good or better
than a letter of recommendation.  I wonder if M. Alain would be
like the rest of us--I wonder what he would think of it?'

Mr. Romaine was sitting in a chair by the fire with his back to the
windows, and I was myself kneeling on the hearthrug and beginning
mechanically to pick up the scattered bills, when a honeyed voice
joined suddenly in our conversation.

'He thinks well of it, Mr. Romaine.  He begs to join himself to
that circle of admirers which you indicate to exist already.'



CHAPTER XIX--THE DEVIL AND ALL AT AMERSHAM PLACE



Never did two human creatures get to their feet with more alacrity
than the lawyer and myself.  We had locked and barred the main
gates of the citadel; but unhappily we had left open the bath-room
sally-port; and here we found the voice of the hostile trumpets
sounding from within, and all our defences taken in reverse.  I
took but the time to whisper Mr. Romaine in the ear:  'Here is
another tableau for you!' at which he looked at me a moment with a
kind of pathos, as who should say, 'Don't hit a man when he's
down.'  Then I transferred my eyes to my enemy.

He had his hat on, a little on one side:  it was a very tall hat,
raked extremely, and had a narrow curling brim.  His hair was all
curled out in masses like an Italian mountebank--a most
unpardonable fashion.  He sported a huge tippeted overcoat of
frieze, such as watchmen wear, only the inside was lined with
costly furs, and he kept it half open to display the exquisite
linen, the many-coloured waistcoat, and the profuse jewellery of
watch-chains and brooches underneath.  The leg and the ankle were
turned to a miracle.  It is out of the question that I should deny
the resemblance altogether, since it has been remarked by so many
different persons whom I cannot reasonably accuse of a conspiracy.
As a matter of fact, I saw little of it and confessed to nothing.
Certainly he was what some might call handsome, of a pictorial,
exuberant style of beauty, all attitude, profile, and impudence:  a
man whom I could see in fancy parade on the grand stand at a race-
meeting or swagger in Piccadilly, staring down the women, and
stared at himself with admiration by the coal-porters.  Of his
frame of mind at that moment his face offered a lively if an
unconscious picture.  He was lividly pale, and his lip was caught
up in a smile that could almost be called a snarl, of a sheer, arid
malignity that appalled me and yet put me on my mettle for the
encounter.  He looked me up and down, then bowed and took off his
hat to me.

'My cousin, I presume?' he said.

'I understand I have that honour,' I replied.

'The honour is mine,' said he, and his voice shook as he said it.

'I should make you welcome, I believe,' said I.

'Why?' he inquired.  'This poor house has been my home for longer
than I care to claim.  That you should already take upon yourself
the duties of host here is to be at unnecessary pains.  Believe me,
that part would be more becomingly mine.  And, by the way, I must
not fail to offer you my little compliment.  It is a gratifying
surprise to meet you in the dress of a gentleman, and to see'--with
a circular look upon the scattered bills--'that your necessities
have already been so liberally relieved.'

I bowed with a smile that was perhaps no less hateful than his own.

'There are so many necessities in this world,' said I.  'Charity
has to choose.  One gets relieved, and some other, no less
indigent, perhaps indebted, must go wanting.'

'Malice is an engaging trait,' said he.

'And envy, I think?' was my reply.

He must have felt that he was not getting wholly the better of this
passage at arms; perhaps even feared that he should lose command of
his temper, which he reined in throughout the interview as with a
red-hot curb, for he flung away from me at the word, and addressed
the lawyer with insulting arrogance.

'Mr. Romaine,' he said, 'since when have you presumed to give
orders in this house?'

'I am not prepared to admit that I have given any,' replied
Romaine; 'certainly none that did not fall in the sphere of my
responsibilities.'

'By whose orders, then, am I denied entrance to my uncle's room?'
said my cousin.

'By the doctor's, sir,' replied Romaine; 'and I think even you will
admit his faculty to give them.'

'Have a care, sir,' cried Alain.  'Do not be puffed up with your
position.  It is none so secure, Master Attorney.  I should not
wonder in the least if you were struck off the rolls for this
night's work, and the next I should see of you were when I flung
you alms at a pothouse door to mend your ragged elbows.  The
doctor's orders?  But I believe I am not mistaken!  You have to-
night transacted business with the Count; and this needy young
gentleman has enjoyed the privilege of still another interview, in
which (as I am pleased to see) his dignity has not prevented his
doing very well for himself.  I wonder that you should care to
prevaricate with me so idly.'

'I will confess so much,' said Mr. Romaine, 'if you call it
prevarication.  The order in question emanated from the Count
himself.  He does not wish to see you.'

'For which I must take the word of Mr. Daniel Romaine?' asked
Alain.

'In default of any better,' said Romaine.

There was an instantaneous convulsion in my cousin's face, and I
distinctly heard him gnash his teeth at this reply; but, to my
surprise, he resumed in tones of almost good humour:

'Come, Mr. Romaine, do not let us be petty!'  He drew in a chair
and sat down.  'Understand you have stolen a march upon me.  You
have introduced your soldier of Napoleon, and (how, I cannot
conceive) he has been apparently accepted with favour.  I ask no
better proof than the funds with which I find him literally
surrounded--I presume in consequence of some extravagance of joy at
the first sight of so much money.  The odds are so far in your
favour, but the match is not yet won.  Questions will arise of
undue influence, of sequestration, and the like:  I have my
witnesses ready.  I tell it you cynically, for you cannot profit by
the knowledge; and, if the worst come to the worst, I have good
hopes of recovering my own and of ruining you.'

'You do what you please,' answered Romaine; 'but I give it you for
a piece of good advice, you had best do nothing in the matter.  You
will only make yourself ridiculous; you will only squander money,
of which you have none too much, and reap public mortification.'

'Ah, but there you make the common mistake, Mr. Romaine!' returned
Alain.  'You despise your adversary.  Consider, if you please, how
very disagreeable I could make myself, if I chose.  Consider the
position of your protege--an escaped prisoner!  But I play a great
game.  I condemn such petty opportunities.'

At this Romaine and I exchanged a glance of triumph.  It seemed
manifest that Alain had as yet received no word of Clausel's
recapture and denunciation.  At the same moment the lawyer, thus
relieved of the instancy of his fear, changed his tactics.  With a
great air of unconcern, he secured the newspaper, which still lay
open before him on the table.

'I think, Monsieur Alain, that you labour under some illusion,'
said he.  'Believe me, this is all beside the mark.  You seem to be
pointing to some compromise.  Nothing is further from my views.
You suspect me of an inclination to trifle with you, to conceal how
things are going.  I cannot, on the other hand, be too early or too
explicit in giving you information which concerns you (I must say)
capitally.  Your great-uncle has to-night cancelled his will, and
made a new one in favour of your cousin Anne.  Nay, and you shall
hear it from his own lips, if you choose!  I will take so much upon
me,' said the lawyer, rising.  'Follow me, if you please,
gentlemen.'

Mr. Romaine led the way out of the room so briskly, and was so
briskly followed by Alain, that I had hard ado to get the remainder
of the money replaced and the despatch-box locked, and to overtake
them, even by running ere they should be lost in that maze of
corridors, my uncle's house.  As it was, I went with a heart
divided; and the thought of my treasure thus left unprotected, save
by a paltry lid and lock that any one might break or pick open, put
me in a perspiration whenever I had the time to remember it.  The
lawyer brought us to a room, begged us to be seated while he should
hold a consultation with the doctor, and, slipping out of another
door, left Alain and myself closeted together.

Truly he had done nothing to ingratiate himself; his every word had
been steeped in unfriendliness, envy, and that contempt which (as
it is born of anger) it is possible to support without humiliation.
On my part, I had been little more conciliating; and yet I began to
be sorry for this man, hired spy as I knew him to be.  It seemed to
me less than decent that he should have been brought up in the
expectation of this great inheritance, and now, at the eleventh
hour, be tumbled forth out of the house door and left to himself,
his poverty and his debts--those debts of which I had so
ungallantly reminded him so short a time before.  And we were
scarce left alone ere I made haste to hang out a flag of truce.

'My cousin,' said I, 'trust me, you will not find me inclined to be
your enemy.'

He paused in front of me--for he had not accepted the lawyer's
invitation to be seated, but walked to and fro in the apartment--
took a pinch of snuff, and looked at me while he was taking it with
an air of much curiosity.

'Is it even so?' said he.  'Am I so far favoured by fortune as to
have your pity?  Infinitely obliged, my cousin Anne!  But these
sentiments are not always reciprocal, and I warn you that the day
when I set my foot on your neck, the spine shall break.  Are you
acquainted with the properties of the spine?' he asked with an
insolence beyond qualification.

It was too much.  'I am acquainted also with the properties of a
pair of pistols,' said I, toising him.

'No, no, no!' says he, holding up his finger.  'I will take my
revenge how and when I please.  We are enough of the same family to
understand each other, perhaps; and the reason why I have not had
you arrested on your arrival, why I had not a picket of soldiers in
the first clump of evergreens, to await and prevent your coming--I,
who knew all, before whom that pettifogger, Romaine, has been
conspiring in broad daylight to supplant me--is simply this:  that
I had not made up my mind how I was to take my revenge.'

At that moment he was interrupted by the tolling of a bell.  As we
stood surprised and listening, it was succeeded by the sound of
many feet trooping up the stairs and shuffling by the door of our
room.  Both, I believe, had a great curiosity to set it open, which
each, owing to the presence of the other, resisted; and we waited
instead in silence, and without moving, until Romaine returned and
bade us to my uncle's presence.

He led the way by a little crooked passage, which brought us out in
the sick-room, and behind the bed.  I believe I have forgotten to
remark that the Count's chamber was of considerable dimensions.  We
beheld it now crowded with the servants and dependants of the
house, from the doctor and the priest to Mr. Dawson and the
housekeeper, from Dawson down to Rowley and the last footman in
white calves, the last plump chambermaid in her clean gown and cap,
and the last ostler in a stable waiscoat.  This large congregation
of persons (and I was surprised to see how large it was) had the
appearance, for the most part, of being ill at ease and heartily
bewildered, standing on one foot, gaping like zanies, and those who
were in the corners nudging each other and grinning aside.  My
uncle, on the other hand, who was raised higher than I had yet seen
him on his pillows, wore an air of really imposing gravity.  No
sooner had we appeared behind him, than he lifted his voice to a
good loudness, and addressed the assemblage.

'I take you all to witness--can you hear me?--I take you all to
witness that I recognise as my heir and representative this
gentleman, whom most of you see for the first time, the Viscount
Anne de St.-Yves, my nephew of the younger line.  And I take you to
witness at the same time that, for very good reasons known to
myself, I have discarded and disinherited this other gentleman whom
you all know, the Viscount de St.-Yves.  I have also to explain the
unusual trouble to which I have put you all--and, since your supper
was not over, I fear I may even say annoyance.  It has pleased M.
Alain to make some threats of disputing my will, and to pretend
that there are among your number certain estimable persons who may
be trusted to swear as he shall direct them.  It pleases me thus to
put it out of his power and to stop the mouths of his false
witnesses.  I am infinitely obliged by your politeness, and I have
the honour to wish you all a very good evening.'

As the servants, still greatly mystified, crowded out of the
sickroom door, curtseying, pulling the forelock, scraping with the
foot, and so on, according to their degree, I turned and stole a
look at my cousin.  He had borne this crushing public rebuke
without change of countenance.  He stood, now, very upright, with
folded arms, and looking inscrutably at the roof of the apartment.
I could not refuse him at that moment the tribute of my admiration.
Still more so when, the last of the domestics having filed through
the doorway and left us alone with my great-uncle and the lawyer,
he took one step forward towards the bed, made a dignified
reverence, and addressed the man who had just condemned him to
ruin.

'My lord,' said he, 'you are pleased to treat me in a manner which
my gratitude, and your state, equally forbid me to call in
question.  It will be only necessary for me to call your attention
to the length of time in which I have been taught to regard myself
as your heir.  In that position, I judged it only loyal to permit
myself a certain scale of expenditure.  If I am now to be cut off
with a shilling as the reward of twenty years of service, I shall
be left not only a beggar, but a bankrupt.'

Whether from the fatigue of his recent exertion, or by a well-
inspired ingenuity of hate, my uncle had once more closed his eyes;
nor did he open them now.  'Not with a shilling,' he contented
himself with replying; and there stole, as he said it, a sort of
smile over his face, that flickered there conspicuously for the
least moment of time, and then faded and left behind the old
impenetrable mask of years, cunning, and fatigue.  There could be
no mistake:  my uncle enjoyed the situation as he had enjoyed few
things in the last quarter of a century.  The fires of life scarce
survived in that frail body; but hatred, like some immortal
quality, was still erect and unabated.

Nevertheless my cousin persevered.

'I speak at a disadvantage,' he resumed.  'My supplanter, with
perhaps more wisdom than delicacy, remains in the room,' and he
cast a glance at me that might have withered an oak tree.

I was only too willing to withdraw, and Romaine showed as much
alacrity to make way for my departure.  But my uncle was not to be
moved.  In the same breath of a voice, and still without opening
his eyes, he bade me remain.

'It is well,' said Alain.  'I cannot then go on to remind you of
the twenty years that have passed over our heads in England, and
the services I may have rendered you in that time.  It would be a
position too odious.  Your lordship knows me too well to suppose I
could stoop to such ignominy.  I must leave out all my defence--
your lordship wills it so!  I do not know what are my faults; I
know only my punishment, and it is greater than I have the courage
to face.  My uncle, I implore your pity:  pardon me so far; do not
send me for life into a debtors' jail--a pauper debtor.'

'Chat et vieux, pardonnez?' said my uncle, quoting from La
Fontaine; and then, opening a pale-blue eye full on Alain, he
delivered with some emphasis:


'La jeunesse se flatte et croit tout obtenir;
La vieillesse est impitoyable.'


The blood leaped darkly into Alain's face.  He turned to Romaine
and me, and his eyes flashed.

'It is your turn now,' he said.  'At least it shall be prison for
prison with the two viscounts.'

'Not so, Mr. Alain, by your leave,' said Romaine.  'There are a few
formalities to be considered first.'

But Alain was already striding towards the door.

'Stop a moment, stop a moment!' cried Romaine.  'Remember your own
counsel not to despise an adversary.'

Alain turned.

'If I do not despise I hate you!' he cried, giving a loose to his
passion.  'Be warned of that, both of you.'

'I understand you to threaten Monsieur le Vicomte Anne,' said the
lawyer.  'Do you know, I would not do that.  I am afraid, I am very
much afraid, if you were to do as you propose, you might drive me
into extremes.'

'You have made me a beggar and a bankrupt,' said Alain.  What
extreme is left?'

'I scarce like to put a name upon it in this company,' replied
Romaine.  'But there are worse things than even bankruptcy, and
worse places than a debtors' jail.'

The words were so significantly said that there went a visible
thrill through Alain; sudden as a sword-stroke, he fell pale again.

'I do not understand you,' said he.

'O yes, you do,' returned Romaine.  'I believe you understand me
very well.  You must not suppose that all this time, while you were
so very busy, others were entirely idle.  You must not fancy,
because I am an Englishman, that I have not the intelligence to
pursue an inquiry.  Great as is my regard for the honour of your
house, M. Alain de St.-Yves, if I hear of you moving directly or
indirectly in this matter, I shall do my duty, let it cost what it
will:  that is, I shall communicate the real name of the
Buonapartist spy who signs his letters Rue Gregoire de Tours.'

I confess my heart was already almost altogether on the side of my
insulted and unhappy cousin; and if it had not been before, it must
have been so now, so horrid was the shock with which he heard his
infamy exposed.  Speech was denied him; he carried his hand to his
neckcloth; he staggered; I thought he must have fallen.  I ran to
help him, and at that he revived, recoiled before me, and stood
there with arms stretched forth as if to preserve himself from the
outrage of my touch.

'Hands off!' he somehow managed to articulate.

'You will now, I hope,' pursued the lawyer, without any change of
voice, 'understand the position in which you are placed, and how
delicately it behoves you to conduct yourself.  Your arrest hangs,
if I may so express myself, by a hair; and as you will be under the
perpetual vigilance of myself and my agents, you must look to it
narrowly that you walk straight.  Upon the least dubiety, I will
take action.'  He snuffed, looking critically at the tortured man.
'And now let me remind you that your chaise is at the door.  This
interview is agitating to his lordship--it cannot be agreeable for
you--and I suggest that it need not be further drawn out.  It does
not enter into the views of your uncle, the Count, that you should
again sleep under this roof.'

As Alain turned and passed without a word or a sign from the
apartment, I instantly followed.  I suppose I must be at bottom
possessed of some humanity; at least, this accumulated torture,
this slow butchery of a man as by quarters of rock, had wholly
changed my sympathies.  At that moment I loathed both my uncle and
the lawyer for their coldblooded cruelty.

Leaning over the banisters, I was but in time to hear his hasty
footsteps in that hall that had been crowded with servants to
honour his coming, and was now left empty against his friendless
departure.  A moment later, and the echoes rang, and the air
whistled in my ears, as he slammed the door on his departing
footsteps.  The fury of the concussion gave me (had one been still
wanted) a measure of the turmoil of his passions.  In a sense, I
felt with him; I felt how he would have gloried to slam that door
on my uncle, the lawyer, myself, and the whole crowd of those who
had been witnesses to his humiliation.



CHAPTER XX--AFTER THE STORM



No sooner was the house clear of my cousin than I began to reckon
up, ruefully enough, the probable results of what had passed.  Here
were a number of pots broken, and it looked to me as if I should
have to pay for all!  Here had been this proud, mad beast goaded
and baited both publicly and privately, till he could neither hear
nor see nor reason; whereupon the gate had been set open, and he
had been left free to go and contrive whatever vengeance he might
find possible.  I could not help thinking it was a pity that,
whenever I myself was inclined to be upon my good behaviour, some
friends of mine should always determine to play a piece of heroics
and cast me for the hero--or the victim--which is very much the
same.  The first duty of heroics is to be of your own choosing.
When they are not that, they are nothing.  And I assure you, as I
walked back to my own room, I was in no very complaisant humour:
thought my uncle and Mr. Romaine to have played knuckle-bones with
my life and prospects; cursed them for it roundly; had no wish more
urgent than to avoid the pair of them; and was quite knocked out of
time, as they say in the ring, to find myself confronted with the
lawyer.

He stood on my hearthrug, leaning on the chimney-piece, with a
gloomy, thoughtful brow, as I was pleased to see, and not in the
least as though he were vain of the late proceedings.

'Well?' said I.  'You have done it now!'

'Is he gone?' he asked.

'He is gone,' said I.  'We shall have the devil to pay with him
when he comes back.'

'You are right,' said the lawyer, 'and very little to pay him with
but flams and fabrications, like to-night's.'

'To-night's?' I repeated.

'Ay, to-night's!' said he.

'To-night's WHAT?' I cried.

'To-night's flams and fabrications.'

'God be good to me, sir,' said I, 'have I something more to admire
in your conduct than ever _I_ had suspected?  You cannot think how
you interest me!  That it was severe, I knew; I had already
chuckled over that.  But that it should be false also!  In what
sense, dear sir?'

I believe I was extremely offensive as I put the question, but the
lawyer paid no heed.

'False in all senses of the word,' he replied seriously.  'False in
the sense that they were not true, and false in the sense that they
were not real; false in the sense that I boasted, and in the sense
that I lied.  How can I arrest him?  Your uncle burned the papers!
I told you so--but doubtless you have forgotten--the day I first
saw you in Edinburgh Castle.  It was an act of generosity; I have
seen many of these acts, and always regretted--always regretted!
"That shall be his inheritance," he said, as the papers burned; he
did not mean that it should have proved so rich a one.  How rich,
time will tell.'

'I beg your pardon a hundred thousand times, my dear sir, but it
strikes me you have the impudence--in the circumstances, I may call
it the indecency--to appear cast down?'

'It is true,' said he:  'I am.  I am cast down.  I am literally
cast down.  I feel myself quite helpless against your cousin.'

'Now, really!' I asked.  'Is this serious?  And is it perhaps the
reason why you have gorged the poor devil with every species of
insult? and why you took such surprising pains to supply me with
what I had so little need of--another enemy?  That you were
helpless against them?  "Here is my last missile," say you; "my
ammunition is quite exhausted:  just wait till I get the last in--
it will irritate, it cannot hurt him.  There--you see!--he is
furious now, and I am quite helpless.  One more prod, another kick:
now he is a mere lunatic!  Stand behind me; I am quite helpless!"
Mr. Romaine, I am asking myself as to the background or motive of
this singular jest, and whether the name of it should not be called
treachery?'

'I can scarce wonder,' said he.  'In truth it has been a singular
business, and we are very fortunate to be out of it so well.  Yet
it was not treachery:  no, no, Mr. Anne, it was not treachery; and
if you will do me the favour to listen to me for the inside of a
minute, I shall demonstrate the same to you beyond cavil.'  He
seemed to wake up to his ordinary briskness.  'You see the point?'
he began.  'He had not yet read the newspaper, but who could tell
when he might?  He might have had that damned journal in his
pocket, and how should we know?  We were--I may say, we are--at the
mercy of the merest twopenny accident.'

'Why, true,' said I:  'I had not thought of that.'

'I warrant you,' cried Romaine, 'you had supposed it was nothing to
be the hero of an interesting notice in the journals!  You had
supposed, as like as not, it was a form of secrecy!  But not so in
the least.  A part of England is already buzzing with the name of
Champdivers; a day or two more and the mail will have carried it
everywhere:  so wonderful a machine is this of ours for
disseminating intelligence!  Think of it!  When my father was born-
-but that is another story.  To return:  we had here the elements
of such a combustion as I dread to think of--your cousin and the
journal.  Let him but glance an eye upon that column of print, and
where were we?  It is easy to ask; not so easy to answer, my young
friend.  And let me tell you, this sheet is the Viscount's usual
reading.  It is my conviction he had it in his pocket.'