Page:Once a Week Volume 5.djvu/13

3 tottering woman too ill to travel; but she was, with some assistance, placed in the chaise, and pillows and cushions arranged for her support. The door was shut, the post-boy cracked his whip, the horses slipped about on the treacherous pebbles, and she and her companion were on their way to London.

Nine o'clock at night: the last night of the year: Robert Mortimer was pacing up and down the library of his house in Grosvenor Square. Two wax lights at either end, and a reading-lamp on a secretary in the middle, imperfectly illuminating the great room, shed a feeble light on the thick Turkey carpet, leather covered chairs, and massive oak tables with which it was furnished; little light was reflected by the gilded backs of the books ranged on the shelves round the walls, by the burnished frames of the costly pictures, or the great mirrors at either side: there was, indeed, but light enough to show the room was dark, to show that the heavy crystal chandelier hanging from the ceiling was lightless, to show that the fire on the hearth was dull.

The sombre gloom of the apartment accorded well with the frame of mind of the occupant. Robert Mortimer paced restless and uneasy, to and fro, with his hands behind his back; his age was about eight and twenty, but he looked somewhat older, his face was pate, his hair dark, and curling over his broad white forehead, already furrowed with deep lines of care; his sharp penetrating grey eyes lighted regular and well defined features—the mouth and chin alone indicated any traces of weakness in his character. Robert Mortimer's was a face of power. He was called a handsome man; his figure was tall, and his carriage erect. He was in his dinner dress. The cup of tea served after that meal stood untasted before him; on the secretary there lay the evening paper unopened; a number of letters, the correspondence accumulated during a fortnight's absence from England, requiring his attention, were lying with unbroken seals upon his desk; but Robert Mortimer, Member of Parliament for Malton, was in no humour for such business on that December night. Nervous, thoughtful, scheming deep schemes, and dreaming of a turn of the wheel of fortune his most ambitious aspirations dared hardly fashion into hopes, with knitted brow and noiseless footstep, the dark pale man paced up and down the room. After a few turns he stopped, threw himself on a couch opposite the lamp, and began to open his letters; but his restless mind refused to give interest or attention to their contents, his uneasy limbs would not be rested on the couch. In moments of profoundly agitating reflection, nature demands not only solitude but motion. Again, with his hands behind his back, Robert Mortimer sought composure in walking backwards and forwards up and down the room. Presently his attention was arrested by a book projecting a little from one of the rows of shelves. An instinct of order led him to push it into its place. In doing so his eye caught the title: it was the first volume of a novel he had written when almost a boy, soon after leaving Eton—the maiden and only effort of his fancy. Upon its appearance it had been highly praised by friendly critics, and certainly showed marks of talent, although the style was high flown, the sentiment false, the morality doubtful. Like all very boyish productions, the pictures of life it contained were the creations of imagination, not the results of experience and observation. He had been proud of it, and the sight of the book now recalled past sensations of pleasure and success, and his lips expanded into a smile. As the book lay in his hands the leaves opened, and there fell on the carpet at his feet an old, yellow, blotted letter, written in great round schoolboy characters. Mortimer stooped, picked it up, and took it to the light. The letter had been long forgotten in the excitement of political life; but the writer was well remembered. It was from almost the only friend he had ever made; it was filled with boyish expressions of admiration and regard, pleasant congratulations on the success of his book, and hopeful auguries of a brilliant future.

He read the letter The writer was long since dead It seemed like a voice from his boyhood. Memories of the past crowded upon his recollection. He read the letter through. "You are the cleverest man in England," it said. Robert Mortimer dropped the letter and musingly repeated the words.

"The cleverest man in England!" A smile of satisfaction lighted his face; his hands closed with a smart clap as he exclaimed with animation—"The cleverest man in Englan ! Yes, to that indictment I may plead—guilty."

He picked up the yellow paper, crumpled it up in his hands, and threw it into the fire. Returning again to the table, his eye fell on the open page of the book. The place at which it lay open was where one of the heroic per-