"Poor child!" said Mellot, "sold at first--perhaps sold again now. The plunger has bills out, and she has ready money. I know her settlements."
"She shan"t do it," said the Major quietly: "I"ll write to her to-night."
Elsley looked at him keenly. "You think, then, sir, that you can, by simply writing, stop this intrigue?"
The Major did not answer. He was deep in thought.
"I shouldn"t wonder if he did," said Scoutbush; "two to one on his baulking the plunger!"
"She is at Lord ----"s now, at those silly private theatricals. Is he there?"
"No," said Mellot; "he tried hard for an invitation--stooped to work me and Sabina. I believe she told him that she would sooner see him in the Morgue than help him; and he is gone to the moors now, I believe."
"There is time then: I will write to her to-night;" and Campbell took up his hat and went home to do it.
"Ah," said Scoutbush, taking his cigar meditatively from his mouth, "I wonder how he does it! It"s a gift, I always say, a wonderful gift!
Before he has been a week in a house, he"ll have the confidence of every woman in it,--and "gad, he does it by saying the rudest things!--and the confidence of all the youngsters the week after."
"A somewhat dangerous gift," said Elsley, drily.
"Ah, yes; he might play tricks if he chose: but there"s the wonder, that he don"t. I"d answer for him with my own sister. I do every day of my life--for I believe he knows how many pins she puts into her dress--and yet there he is. As I said once in the mess-room--there was a youngster there who took on himself to be witty, and talked about the still sow supping the milk--the sn.o.b! You recollect him, Mellot? the attorney"s son from Brompton, who sold out;--we shaved his mustachios, put a bear in his bed, and sent him home to his ma--And he said that Major Campbell might be very pious, and all that: but he"d warrant--they were the fellow"s own words,--that he took his lark on the sly, like other men-- the sn.o.b! so I told him, I was no better than the rest, and no more I am; but if any man dared to say that the Major was not as honest as his own sister, I was his man at fifteen paces. And so I am, Claude!"
All which did not increase Elsley"s love to the Major, conscious as he was that Lucia"s confidence was a thing which he had not wholly; and which it would be very dangerous to him for any other man to have at all.
Into the drawing-room they went. Frank Headley had been asked up to tea; and he stood at the piano, listening to Valencia"s singing.
As they came in, the maid came in also. "Mr. Thurnall wished to speak to Major Campbell."
Campbell went out, and returned in two minutes somewhat hurriedly.
"Mr. Thurnall wishes Lord Scoutbush to be informed at once, and I think it is better that you should all know it--that--it is a painful surprise:--but there is a man ill in the street, whose symptoms he does not like, he says."
"Cholera?" said Elsley.
"Call him in," said Scoutbush.
"He had rather not come in, he says."
"What! is it infectious?"
"Certainly not, if it be cholera, but--"
"He don"t wish to frighten people, quite right:" (with a half glance at Elsley;) "but is it cholera, honestly?"
"I fear so."
"Oh, my children!" said poor Mrs. Vavasour.
"Will five pounds help the poor fellow?" said Scoutbush.
"How far off is it?" asked Elsley.
"Unpleasantly near. I was going to advise you to move at once."
"You hear what they are saying?" asked Valencia of Frank.
"Yes, I hear it," said Frank, in a quiet meaning tone.
Valencia thought that he was half pleased with the news. Then she thought him afraid; for he did not stir.
"You will go instantly, of course?"
"Of course I shall. Good-bye! Do not be afraid. It is not infectious."
"Afraid? And a soldier"s sister?" said Valencia, with a toss of her beautiful head, by way of giving force to her somewhat weak logic.
Frank left the room instantly, and met Thurnall in the pa.s.sage.
"Well, Headley, it"s here before we sent for it, as bad luck usually is."
"I know. Let me go! Where is it? Whose house?" asked Frank in an excited tone.
"Humph!" said Thurnall, looking intently at him, "that is just what I shall not tell you."
"Not tell me?"
"No, you are too pale, Headley. Go back and get two or three gla.s.ses of wine, and then we will talk of it."
"What do you mean? I must go instantly! It is my duty,--my parishioner!"
"Look here, Headley! Are you and I to work together in this business, or are we not?"
"Why not, in heaven"s name?"
"Then I want you, not for cure, but for prevention. You can do them no good when they have once got it. You may prevent dozens from having it in the next four-and-twenty hours, if you will be guided by me."
"But my business is with their souls, Thurnall."
"Exactly;--to give them the consolations of religion, as they call it.
You will give them to the people who have not taken it. You may bring them safe through it by simply keeping up their spirits; while if you waste your time on poor dying wretches--"
"Thurnall, you must not talk so! I will do all you ask: but my place is at the death-bed, as well as elsewhere. These perishing souls are in my care."
"And how do you know, pray, that they are perishing?" answered Tom, with something very like a sneer. "And if they were, do you honestly believe that any talk of yours can change in five minutes a character which has been forming for years, or prevent a man"s going where he ought to go,-- which, I suppose, is the place to which he deserves to go?"
"I do," said Frank, firmly.
"Well. It is a charitable and hopeful creed. My great dread was, lest you should kill the poor wretches before their time, by adding to the fear of cholera the fear of h.e.l.l. I caught the Methodist parson at that work an hour ago, took him by the shoulders and shot him out into the street. But, my dear Headley" (and Tom lowered his voice to a whisper), "wherever poor Tom Beer deserved to go to, he is gone to it already. He has been dead this twenty minutes."