THE FATAL WORDS
WHEN Mountjoy had rung for the servant, and the bedroom door had been
unlocked, it was too late to follow the fugitive. Her cab was waiting
for her outside; and the attention of the porter had been distracted,
at the same time, by a new arrival of travellers at the hotel.
It is more or less in the nature of all men who are worthy of the name,
to take refuge from distress in action. Hugh decided on writing to
Iris, and on making his appeal to her father, that evening. He
abstained from alluding, in his letter, to the manner in which she had
left him; it was her right, it was even her duty to spare herself. All
that he asked was to be informed of her present place of residence, so
that he might communicate the result--in writing only if she preferred
it--of his contemplated interview with her father. He addressed his
letter to the care of Mr. Vimpany, to be forwarded, and posted it
himself.
This done, he went on at once to Mr. Henley's house.
The servant who opened the door had evidently received his orders. Mr.
Henley was "not at home." Mountjoy was in no humour to be trifled with.
He pushed the man out of his way, and made straight for the
dining-room. There, as his previous experience of the habits of the
household had led him to anticipate, was the man whom he was determined
to see. The table was laid for Mr. Henley's late dinner.
Hugh's well-meant attempt to plead the daughter's cause with the father
ended as Iris had said it would end.
After hotly resenting the intrusion on him that had been committed, Mr.
Henley declared that a codicil to his will, depriving his daughter
absolutely of all interest in his property, had been legally executed
that day. For a time, Mountjoy's self-control had resisted the most
merciless provocation. All that it was possible to effect, by patient
entreaty and respectful remonstrance, he had tried again and again, and
invariably in vain. At last, Mr. Henley's unbridled insolence
triumphed. Hugh lost his temper--and, in leaving the heartless old man,
used language which he afterwards remembered with regret.
To feel that he had attempted to assert the interests of Iris, and that
he had failed, was, in Hugh's heated state of mind, an irresistible
stimulant to further exertion. It was perhaps not too late yet to make
another attempt to delay (if not to prevent) the marriage.
In sheer desperation, Mountjoy resolved to inform Lord Harry that his
union with Miss Henley would be followed by the utter ruin of her
expectations from her father. Whether the wild lord only considered his
own interests, or whether he was loyally devoted to the interests of
the woman whom he loved, in either case the penalty to be paid for the
marriage was formidable enough to make him hesitate.
The lights in the lower window, and in the passage, told Hugh that he
had arrived in good time at Redburn Road.
He found Mr. Vimpany and the young Irishman sitting together, in the
friendliest manner, under the composing influence of tobacco. Primed,
as he would have said himself, with only a third glass of grog, the
hospitable side of the doctor's character was displayed to view. He at
once accepted Mountjoy's visit as offering a renewal of friendly
relations between them.
"Forgive and forget," he said, "there's the way to settle that little
misunderstanding, after our dinner at the inn. You know Mr. Mountjoy,
my lord? That's right. Draw in your chair, Mountjoy. My professional
prospects threaten me with ruin--but while I have a roof over my head,
there's always a welcome for a friend. My dear fellow, I have every
reason to believe that the doctor who sold me this practice was a
swindler. The money is gone, and the patients don't come. Well! I am
not quite bankrupt yet; I can offer you a glass of grog. Mix for
yourself--we'll make a night of it."
Hugh explained (with the necessary excuses) that his object was to say
a few words to Lord Harry in private. The change visible in the
doctor's manner, when he had been made acquainted with this
circumstance, was not amiably expressed; he had the air of a man who
suspected that an unfair advantage had been taken of him. Lord Harry,
on his side, appeared to feel some hesitation in granting a private
interview to Mr. Mountjoy.
"Is it about Miss Henley?" he asked.
Hugh admitted that it was. Lord Harry thereupon suggested that they
might be acting wisely if they avoided the subject. Mountjoy answered
that there were, on the contrary, reasons for approaching the subject
sufficiently important to have induced him to leave London for
Hampstead at a late hour of the night.
Hearing this, Lord Harry rose to lead the way to another room. Excluded
from his visitor's confidence, Mr. Vimpany could at least remind
Mountjoy that he exercised authority as master of the house. "Oh, take
him upstairs, my lord," said the doctor; "you are at home under my
humble roof!"
The two young men faced each other in the barely-furnished
drawing-room; both sufficiently doubtful of the friendly result of the
conference to abstain from seating themselves. Hugh came to the point,
without wasting time in preparatory words. Admitting that he had heard
of Miss Henley's engagement, he asked if Lord Harry was aware of the
disastrous consequences to the young lady which would follow her
marriage. The reply to this was frankly expressed. The Irish lord knew
nothing of the consequences to which Mr. Mountjoy had alluded. Hugh at
once enlightened him, and evidently took him completely by surprise.
"May I ask, sir," he said, "if you are speaking from your own personal
knowledge?"
"I have just come, my lord, from Mr. Henley's house; and what I have
told you, I heard from his own lips."
There was a pause. Hugh was already inclined to think that he had
raised an obstacle to the immediate celebration of the marriage. A
speedy disappointment was in store for him. Lord Harry was too fond of
Iris to be influenced, in his relations with her, by mercenary
considerations.
"You put it strongly," he said. "But let me tell you, Miss Henley is
far from being so dependent on her father--he ought to be ashamed of
himself, but that's neither here nor there--I say, she is far from
being so dependent on her father as you seem to think. I am not, I beg
to inform you, without resources which I shall offer to her with all my
heart and soul. Perhaps you wish me to descend to particulars? Oh, it's
easily done; I have sold my cottage in Ireland."
"For a large sum--in these times?" Hugh inquired.
"Never mind the sum, Mr. Mountjoy--let the fact be enough for you. And,
while we are on the question of money (a disgusting question, with
which I refuse to associate the most charming woman in existence),
don't forget that Miss Henley has an income of her own; derived, as I
understand, from her mother's fortune, You will do me the justice, sir,
to believe that I shall not touch a farthing of it."
"Certainly! But her mother's fortune," Mountjoy continued, obstinately
presenting the subject on its darkest side, "consists of shares in a
Company. Shares rise and fall--and Companies some times fail."
"And a friend's anxiety about Miss Henley's affairs sometimes takes a
mighty disagreeable form," the Irishman added, his temper beginning to
show itself without disguise. "Let's suppose the worst that can happen,
and get all the sooner to the end of a conversation which is far from
being agreeable to me. We'll say, if you like, that Miss Henley's
shares are waste paper, and her pockets (God bless her!) as empty as
pockets can be, does she run any other risk that occurs to your
ingenuity in becoming my wife?"
"Yes, she does!" Hugh was provoked into saying. "In the case you have
just supposed, she runs the risk of being left a destitute widow--if
you die."
He was prepared for an angry reply--for another quarrel added, on that
disastrous night, to the quarrel with Mr. Henley. To his astonishment,
Lord Harry's brightly-expressive eyes rested on him with a look of
mingled distress and alarm. "God forgive me!" he said to himself, "I
never thought of that! What am I to do? what am I to do?"
Mountjoy observed that deep discouragement, and failed to understand
it.
Here was a desperate adventurer, whose wanderings had over and over
again placed his life in jeopardy, now apparently overcome by merely
having his thoughts directed to the subject of death! To place on the
circumstances such a construction as this was impossible, after a
moment's reflection. The other alternative was to assume that there
must be some anxiety burdening Lord Harry's mind, which he had motives
for keeping concealed--and here indeed the true explanation had been
found. The Irish lord had reasons, known only to himself, for recoiling
from the contemplation of his own future. After the murder of Arthur
Mountjoy, he had severed his connection with the assassinating
brotherhood of the Invincibles; and he had then been warned that he
took this step at the peril of his life, if he remained in Great
Britain after he had made himself an object of distrust to his
colleagues. The discovery, by the secret tribunal, of his return from
South Africa would be followed inevitably by the sentence of death.
Such was the terrible position which Mountjoy's reply had ignorantly
forced him to confront. His fate depended on the doubtful security of
his refuge in the doctor's house.
While Hugh was still looking at him, in grave doubt, a new idea seemed
to spring to life in Lord Harry's mind. He threw off the oppression
that had weighed on his spirits in an instant. His manner towards
Mountjoy changed, with the suddenness of a flash of light, from the
extreme of coldness to the extreme of cordiality.
"I have got it at last!" he exclaimed. "Let's shake hands. My dear sir,
you're the best friend I have ever had!"
The cool Englishman asked: "In what way?"
"In this way, to be sure! You have reminded me that I can provide for
Miss Henley--and the sooner the better. There's our friend the doctor
down-stairs, ready to be my reference. Don't you see it?"
Obstacles that might prevent the marriage Mountjoy was ready enough to
see. Facilities that might hasten the marriage found his mind hard of
access to new impressions.
"Are you speaking seriously?" he said.
The Irishman's irritable temper began to show itself again.
"Why do you doubt it?" he asked.
"I fail to understand you," Mountjoy replied.
Never--as events were yet to prove--had words of such serious import
fallen from Lord Harry's lips as the words that he spoke next.
"Clear your mind of jealousy," he said, "and you will understand me
well enough. I agree with you that I am bound to provide for my
widow--and I mean to do it by insuring my life."
THE END OF THE SECOND PERIOD
THIRD PERIOD