He had opened the letter; it contained but a few lines: he held his breath while he read it. First he grew pale, then a shadow came over his face, and then another, and another, darker and darker, shade upon shade, as if an exhalation from the pit was momentarily blackening the air about him. He said nothing; there was but one long, gentle sigh, and in his face a mortal sternness, as he folded the letter again, replaced it, and locked the desk.
Of course, when Mademoiselle de Barras returned from her accustomed walk, she found everything in her room, to all appearances, undisturbed, and just as when she left it. While this young lady was making her toilet for the evening, and while Sir Wynston Berkley was worrying himself with conjectures as to whether Marston"s evil looks, when he encountered him that morning in the pa.s.sage, existed only in his own fancy, or were, in good truth, very grim and significant realities, Marston himself was striding alone through the wildest and darkest solitudes of his park, haunted by his own unholy thoughts, and, it may be, by those other evil and unearthly influences which wander, as we know, "in desert places." Darkness overtook him, and the chill of night, in these lonely tracts. In his solitary walk, what fearful company had he been keeping! As the shades of night deepened round him, the sense of the neighborhood of ill, the consciousness of the foul fancies or which, where he was now treading, he had been for hours the sport, oppressed him with a vague and unknown terror; a certain horror of the thoughts which had been his comrades through the day, which he could not now shake off, and which haunted him with a ghastly and defiant pertinacity, scared, while they half-enraged him. He stalked swiftly homewards, like a guilty man pursued.
Marston was not perfectly satisfied, though very nearly, with the evidence now in his possession. The letter, the stolen perusal of which had so agitated him that day, bore no signature; but, independently of the handwriting, which seemed, spite of the constraint of an attempted disguise, to be familiar to his eye, there existed, in the matter of the letter, short as it was, certain internal evidences, which, although not actually conclusive, raised, in conjunction with all the other circ.u.mstances, a powerful presumption in aid of his suspicions. He resolved, however, to sift the matter further, and to bide his time.
Meanwhile his manner must indicate no trace of his dark surmises and bitter thoughts. Deception, in its two great branches, simulation and dissimulation, was easy to him. His habitual reserve and gloom would divest any accidental and momentary disclosure of his inward trouble of everything suspicious or unaccountable, which would have characterized such displays and eccentricities in another man.
His rapid and reckless ramble, a kind of physical vent for the paroxysm which had so agitated him throughout the greater part of the day, had soiled and disordered his dress, and thus had helped to give to his whole appearance a certain air of haggard wildness, which, in the privacy of his chamber, he hastened carefully and entirely to remove.
At supper, Marston was apparently in unusually good spirits. Sir Wynston and he chatted gaily and fluently upon many subjects, grave and gay.
Among them the inexhaustible topic of popular superst.i.tion happened to turn up, and especially the subject of strange prophecies of the fates and fortunes of individuals, singularly fulfilled in the events of their afterlife.
"By-the-by, d.i.c.k, this is rather a nervous topic for me to discuss," said Sir Wynston.
"How so?" asked his host.
"Why, don"t you remember?" urged the baronet.
"No, I don"t recollect what you allude to," replied Marston, in all sincerity.
"Why, don"t you remember Eton?" pursued Sir Wynston.
"Yes, to be sure," said Marston.
"Well?" continued his visitor.
"Well, I really don"t recollect the prophecy," replied Marston.
"What! do you forget the gypsy who predicted that you were to murder me, d.i.c.k--eh?"
"Ah-ha, ha!" laughed Marston, with a start.
"Don"t you remember it now?" urged his companion.
"Ah, why yes, I believe I do," said Marston; "but another prophecy was running in my mind; a gypsy prediction, too. At Ascot, do you recollect the girl told me I was to be Lord Chancellor of England, and a duke besides?"
"Well, d.i.c.k," rejoined Sir Wynston, merrily, "if both are to be fulfilled, or neither, I trust you may never sit upon the woolsack of England."
The party soon after broke up: Sir Wynston and his host, as usual, to pa.s.s some hours at piquet; and Mrs. Marston, as was her wont, to, spend some time in her own boudoir, over notes and accounts, and the worrying details of housekeeping.
While thus engaged, she was disturbed by a respectful tap at her door, and an elderly servant, who had been for many years in the employment of Mr. Marston, presented himself.
"Well, Merton, do you want anything?" asked the lady.
"Yes, ma"am, please, I want to give warning; I wish to leave the service, ma"am;" replied he, respectfully, but doggedly.
"To leave us, Merton!" echoed his mistress, both surprised and sorry for the man had been long her servant, and had been much liked and trusted.
"Yes, ma"am," he repeated.
"And why do you wish to do so, Merton? Has anything occurred to make the place unpleasant to you?" urged the lady.
"No, ma"am--no, indeed," said he, earnestly, "I have nothing to complain of--nothing, indeed, ma"am."
"Perhaps, you think you can do better, if you leave us?" suggested his mistress.
"No, indeed, ma"am, I have no such thought," he said, and seemed on the point of bursting into tears; "but--but, somehow--ma"am, there is something come over me, lately, and I can"t help, but think, if I stay here, ma"am--some--some--misfortune will happen to us all--and that is the truth, ma"am."
"This is very foolish, Merton--a mere childish fancy," replied Mrs.
Marston; "you like your place, and have no better prospect before you; and now, for a mere superst.i.tious fancy, you propose giving it up, and leaving us. No, no, Merton, you had better think the matter over--and if you still, upon reflection, prefer going away, you can then speak to your master."
"Thank you ma"am--G.o.d bless you," said the man, withdrawing.
Mrs. Marston rang the bell for her maid, and retired to her room. "Has anything occurred lately," she asked, "to annoy Merton?"
"No, ma"am, I don"t know of anything; but he is very changed, indeed, of late," replied the maid.
"He has not been quarreling?" inquired she.
"Oh, no, ma"am, he never quarrels; he is very quiet, and keeps to himself always; he thinks a wonderful deal of himself," replied the servant.
"But, you said that he is much changed--did you not?" continued the lady; for there was something strangely excited and unpleasant in the man"s manner, in this little interview, which struck Mrs. Marston, and alarmed her curiosity. He had seemed like one charged with some horrible secret--intolerable, and which he yet dared not reveal.
"What," proceeded Mrs. Marston, "is the nature of the change of which you speak?"
"Why, ma"am, he is like one frightened, and in sorrow," she replied; "he will sit silent, and now and then shaking his head, as if he wanted to get rid of something that is teasing him, for an hour together."
"Poor man!" said she.
"And, then, when we are at meals, he will, all on a sudden, get up, and leave the table; and Jem Boulter, that sleeps in the next room to him, says, that, almost as often as he looks through the little window between the two rooms, no matter what hour in the night, he sees Mr. Merton on his knees by the bedside, praying or crying, he don"t know which; but, any way, he is not happy--poor man!--and that is plain enough."
"It is very strange," said the lady, after a pause; "but, I think, and hope, after all, it will prove to have been no more than a little nervousness."
"Well, ma"am, I do hope it is not his conscience that is coming against him, now," said the maid.
"We have no reason to suspect anything of the kind," said Mrs.
Marston, gravely, "quite the reverse; he has been always a particularly proper man."
"Oh, indeed," responded the attendant, "goodness forbid I should say or think anything against him; but I could not help telling you my mind, ma"am, meaning no harm."
"And, how long is it since you observed this sad change in poor Merton?"
persisted the lady.
"Not, indeed, to say very long, ma"am," replied the girl; "somewhere about a week, or very little more--at least, as we remarked, ma"am."
Mrs. Marston pursued her inquiries no further that night. But, although she affected to treat the matter thus lightly, it had, somehow, taken a painful hold upon her imagination, and left in her mind those undefinable and ominous sensations, which, in certain mental temperaments, seem to foreshadow the approach of unknown misfortune.
For two or three days, everything went on smoothly, and pretty much as usual. At the end of this brief interval, however, the attention of Mrs.
Marston was recalled to the subject of her servant"s mysterious anxiety to leave, and give up his situation. Merton again stood before her, and repeated the intimation he had already given.