Page:Once a Week June to Dec 1863.pdf/139

25, 1863.] his rightful heir, and for the mere gratification of an old madman’s whim, the consequences of his injustice must rest on his head, not on mine.”

“Most assuredly,” cried the Frenchman, “that argument is not to be answered. Be happy, my friend, we will bring about a posthumous adjustment of the old man’s errors. The wrong done by this deluded testator shall be repaired before his ashes are carried to their resting-place. Have no fear, my friend; all is prepared, as you know, and, let the time come when it may, we are ready to act.”

Launcelot Darrell gave a long sigh, a fretful, discontented inspiration, that was expressive of utter weariness. This young man had in the course of his life committed many questionable and dishonourable actions; but he had always done such wrong as it were under protest, and with the air of a victim, who is innocently disposed, but too easily persuaded, and who reluctantly suffers himself to be led away by the counsels of evil-minded wretches.

So now he had the air of yielding to the subtle arguments of his friend, the agent for patent mustard.

The two men walked on in silence for some little time. They had left the wood long ago, and were in a broad lane that led towards Hazlewood. Launcelot Darrell strolled silently along with his head bent and his black eyebrows contracted. His companion’s manner had its usual dapper airiness; but every now and then the Frenchman’s sharp greenish blue eyes glanced from the pathway before him to the gloomy face of the artist.

“There is one thing that I forgot, in speaking of Mrs. Monckton,” Monsieur Bourdon said presently; “and that is that I fancy I have seen her somewhere before.”

“Oh, I can account for that,” Launcelot Darrell answered carelessly. “I was inclined to think the same thing myself when I first saw her. She is like George Vane’s daughter.”

“George Vane’s daughter?”

“Yes, the girl we saw on the Boulevard upon the night—”

The young man stopped abruptly, and gave another of those fretful sighs by which he made a kind of sulky atonement for the errors of his life.

“I do not remember the daughter of George Vane,” murmured the Frenchman, reflectively. “I know that there was a young girl with that wearisome old Englishman—a sort of overgrown child, with bright yellow hair and big eyes; an overgrown child who was not easily to be shaken off; but I remember no more. Yet I think I have seen this Mrs. Monckton before to-day.”

“Because I tell you Eleanor Monckton is like that girl. I saw the likeness when I first came home, though I only caught one glimpse of the face of George Vane’s daughter on the Boulevard that night. And, if I had not had reason for thinking otherwise, I should have been almost inclined to believe that the old schemer’s daughter had come to Hazlewood to plot against my interests.”

“I do not understand.”

“You remember George Vane’s talk about his friend’s promise, and the fortune that he was to inherit?”

“Yes, perfectly. We used to laugh at the poor hopeful old man.”

“You used to wonder why I took such an interest in the poor old fellow’s talk. Heaven knows I never wished him ill, much less meant him any harm—”

“Except so far as getting hold of his money,” murmured Monsieur Bourdon, in an undertone.

The young man turned impatiently upon his companion.

“Why do you delight in raking up unpleasant memories?” he said in a half-savage, half-peevish tone. “George Vane was only one amongst many others.”

“Most certainly! Amongst a great many others.”

“And if I happened to play écarté better than most of the men we knew—”

“To say nothing of that pretty little trick with an extra king in the lining of your coat sleeve, which I taught you, my friend.—But about George Vane, about the friend of George Vane, about the promise—”

“George Vane’s friend is my great-uncle, Maurice de Crespigny; and the promise was made when the two were young men at Oxford.”

“And the promise was—”

“A romantic, boyish business, worthy of the Minerva Press. If either of the two friends died unmarried, he was to leave all his possessions to the other.”

“Supposing the other to survive him. But Monsieur de Crespigny cannot leave his money to the dead. George Vane is dead. You need no longer fear him.”

“No, I have no reason to fear him!”

“But of whom then have you fear?”

Launcelot Darrell shook his head.

“Never you mind that, Bourdon,” he said. “You’re a very clever fellow, and a very good-natured fellow, when you please. But it’s sometimes safest to keep one’s own secrets. You know what we talked about yesterday. Unless I take your advice I’m a ruined man.”

“But you will take it? Having gone so far, and taken so much trouble, and confided so much in strangers, you will surely not recede?” said Monsieur Bourdon, in his most insinuating tones.

“If my great-uncle is dying, the crisis has come, and I must decide, one way or the other,” answered Launcelot Darrell, slowly, in a thick voice that was strange to him. “I—I—can’t face ruin, Bourdon. I think I must take your advice.”

“I knew that you would take it, my friend,” the commercial traveller returned, quietly.

The two men turned out of the lane and climbed a rough stile leading into a meadow that lay between them and Hazlewood. The lights burned brightly in the lower windows of Mrs. Darrell’s house, and the clock of the village church slowly struck six as Launcelot and his companion crossed the meadow.

A dark figure was dimly visible, standing at a low wicket-gate that opened from the meadow into the Hazlewood shrubbery.

“There’s my mother,” muttered Launcelot,