The Third. Volume. Hume Fergus
not, sir?"
"It will give you great pain."
"All my pain is past," replied Claude quickly. "I can suffer no more than I did when reading these papers. I must call on Mrs. Bezel; I must know the truth, and," added he significantly, "I have your promise to assist me."
"I will do all in my power," answered Hilliston wearily, "but you do not know what are you doing. I am older and more experienced than you, and I give you my best advice. Do not see Mrs. Bezel, and leave the Larcher affair alone."
The result of this well-meant advice was that Claude called the next morning on Mrs. Bezel.
CHAPTER VIII
BOTH SIDES OF THE QUESTION
Man's life has frequently been compared to a river. In childhood it is a trickling thread, in youth a stream, in manhood a majestic river, and finally in old age is swallowed up in the ocean of death. A very pretty parable, but somewhat stale. It is time that life was indicated by a new metaphor. Let us therefore compare the life of man to the ocean itself. Like the ocean life has its calms and storms, its sullen rages, its caressing moments; and like the ocean – for this is the main point of the illustration – it has its profound depths, containing a hundred secrets unknown to the outer world. Francis Hilliston was like the ocean: all knew the surface, few were acquainted with the depths below.
A man who leads a double life need never feel dull. He may be nervous, anxious, fearful lest his secret should be discovered, but the constant vigilance required to hide it preserves him from the curse of ennui. He ever keeps the best side of his nature uppermost; his smiles are for the world, his brow is smoothed to lull suspicion. But to continue the simile of the ocean: in the depths lie many terrible things which never come to the surface; things which he scarcely dare admit even to himself. Francis Hilliston was one of these men.
Everyone knew Hilliston of Lincoln's Inn Fields, or thought they did, which is quite a different thing. He was widely respected in the profession; he was popular in society; hand and glove with prominent and wealthy personages. His house at Kensington Gore was richly furnished; his wife was handsome and fashionable; he gave splendid entertainments, at which none was more jocund than the host himself; he was, outwardly, all that was prosperous and popular. In his professional capacity he was the repository of a thousand secrets, but of all these none was more terrible than the one locked up in his own breast.
Long years of training, constant necessity, had taught him how to control his emotions, to turn his face into a mask of inscrutability; yet he succeeded ill at times, as witness his interview with the two young men. Not all his powers of self-repression could keep his face from turning gray; nor prevent the perspiration beading his brow; nor steady his voice to well-bred indifference. Usually he succeeded in masking his emotion; this time he had failed, and, worst of all, he knew that he had failed.
It was not Claude that he feared, for the young man was not of a suspicious nature; and even had he been so, would certainly have scoffed at the idea of attributing any evil to the one who had been to him a father. Tait, silent, observant, and cynical, was the person to be dreaded. Accustomed by his profession to read faces, Hilliston had seen that the quiet little man was possessed of one of those inquisitive penetrative natures, which suspect all men, and from a look, a gesture, a pause, can draw evidence to support any suspicion they may entertain.
Certainly Tait had no reason to distrust Hilliston when he entered the room, but during the interview he appeared dissatisfied with the lawyer's manner. That Hilliston should attempt to dissuade Claude from prosecuting a search for his father's murderer seemed strange; but that he should betray such marked agitation at the idea of such searching taking place was stranger still. Altogether Tait left the office in a very dissatisfied state of mind. Hilliston had sufficient penetration to note this, and when left alone was at his wit's end how to baffle the unwarrantable curiosity of this intruder.
"I don't mind Claude," he said, pacing up and down the room, "he has not sufficient brain power to find out anything. I do not want him to know. But this Tait is dangerous. He is one of those dogged creatures, who puts his nose to the scent, and never leaves the trail till the prey is captured. It is with him I have to deal, not with Claude."
His agitation almost mastered him, and he hurriedly took a small bottle from a drawer in his desk. Dropping the contents of this into a glass of water, he drank off the draught, and in a short space of time regained his composure, in some measure. Then he sat down to think, and plot, and plan how to baffle the vigilance of Tait.
"That infernal woman has done it all," he muttered savagely; "she has lighted the fire. Let us see how she will put it out. But she cannot put it out," he added, striking his forehead with his clenched fist; "it will blaze and burn. I shall burn with it unless – "
There was a strange smile on his lips, as an idea entered his mind, and he glanced quickly at his watch.
"Four o'clock. Claude can't possibly call on Margaret to-day, so I have yet time to prepare her for his visit. I must silence her at any cost. She must hold her tongue or ruin us both. Great Heavens! to think that she should break out like this after five-and-twenty years. It is enough to drive me mad."
By this time he had put on his gloves, and stretched his hand toward his hat, which stood on a side table. A glance in the glass showed him how old and gray he looked, and the sight was so unexpected that he started in dismay.
"Bah! I look as though I were going to fail," he said to himself, "but I must not fail. I dare not fail. At sixty, rich, honored, respected, I am not going to fall from the pedestal I have reached. I shall reassure Claude. I shall baffle Tait. I shall silence Margaret. The first move in the game is mine."
Calm, dignified, easy, he left his office, and stepped into the brougham waiting at the door. To judge by appearance, one would have thought him the most respectable and upright man in London. No one knew what lurked behind that benevolent expression. His mask had fallen for the moment when Tait was present; now it was on again, and he went forth to deceive the world. Yet he had an uneasy consciousness that one man at least guessed his real character.
"Never mind," he thought, as the footman closed the door of the brougham, "it will be strange if, with my age and experience and reputation and money, I cannot baffle him."
He did not go direct home, as it was yet early, and he had one or two things to do in connection with his new task. First he drove to Tait's chambers, and ascertained from the porter that the two young men were within.
"Never mind sending up my name, I won't disturb them," he said, when the porter requested his card. "I only wished to speak to Mr. Tait about a box at the theater."
"If it is the Lyceum you mean, sir, I have just got two stalls for Mr. Tait."
"Ah! I may see them there," replied Hilliston negligently; and as he drove away reflected: "Good! They have not yet been to Hampstead; nor do they intend to go to-night. Mr. Tait has yet to learn the value of time."
Driving through Piccadilly he stopped at a bookshop, and with some difficulty, for the demand was large, obtained a copy of "A Whim of Fate." He began to read it in the brougham, and skimmed its pages so rapidly that by the time he reached Kensington Gore he had nearly finished the first volume. He did not recognize himself in the character of Michael Dene, and became more convinced than ever that the coincidence of the Larcher affair forming the plot of a novel, was due to the author's reading the case in some old provincial newspaper. On every page it betrayed that, to him, the story was hearsay.
Fortunately Mrs. Hilliston was driving in the Park, so the lawyer shut himself up in his library, and went on reading the story. He did not see his wife till dinner, which took place at eight o'clock, and then descended in his ordinary clothes, looking ill and pale. Something he had read in the novel had startled him more than he cared to confess – even to himself.
"You must excuse my dress, Louise," he said, on taking his seat, "but I have been so engrossed with a novel that I did not hear the dressing bell."
"It has not had a pleasant effect on you," replied his wife, smiling; "you do not look at all well."
"I am not well," said Hilliston, who merely trifled with his food;