"STILL THE PALE DEAD REVIVES, AND LIVES TO ME."
It was on the second day after Fétis had been deprived of his liberty,
that the post brought a thick packet to Mr. Durnford in Bloomsbury
Square, as he sat with Lavendale over a bottle of claret after the four
o'clock dinner. The writing of the address was unfamiliar to him, and
the characters had a blurred and irregular look, as if the hand that had
traced them had scarce been steady enough to hold a pen.
He broke the seals hurriedly, eager to see the contents, for the
post-mark was that of the next post town to Flamestead and Fairmile.
The letter contained an enclosure consisting of three other letters, the
ink faded, and the paper yellowed by age. These were written in French,
in a niggling mean little hand which Mr. Herrick had never seen before.
On the inside of the cover were these lines in the same illegible and
tremulous scrawl as the outer inscription.
"SIR,----the hand of death is on me. Your wife never injured me,
and I should like to do her a good turn before I die. The enclosed
letters, which Squire Bosworth found on the person of your wife's
father, were discovered by me in his bureau some years ago. They
may help you to a fortune, and induce you to think more kindly of
your humble servant,----BARBARA LAYBURNE."
Herrick hastily unfolded one of the three letters, and looked at the
signature.
"By heaven, Lavendale, 'tis a strange world!" he exclaimed. "This letter
is signed by the man who was here the other night, and his signature in
this conjuncture, before I read a line of this correspondence, assures
me that my suspicion is well founded."
"What suspicion?"
"One which I have hitherto hesitated to confide to you lest you should
deem me a lunatic. I have for some time suspected that the likeness
between Irene and the portrait you and I unearthed at Ringwood Abbey was
something more than an accident--that there was a link between the story
of Topsparkle's past life and my dear one's birth--and here in Philip
Chumleigh's possession are letters bearing the signature of Topsparkle's
tool and accomplice. Before I read them I am convinced they will confirm
all my suspicions."
"Read, Herrick, read. Thou knowest I am more interested in thy fortunes
than in my own--for thine are the more hopeful. Read, Herrick, I burn
with impatience."
Durnford obeyed, and after a careful comparison of dates read the first
letter, which was dated Florence, July 20th, 1705.
"MADEMOISELLE,--It is with the utmost regret that I am constrained
to remonstrate with you upon the contents of your last letter
addressed to your father, under cover to me, and forwarded at your
urgent desire by the Rev. Mother, who, when she so far complied
with your wish, was aware that she transgressed the rules laid down
for her guidance by my honoured master, your guardian and
benefactor, who desired that no communication should ever be
addressed to him by you.
"Your address to a father who has long ceased to exist, can but be
answered by the assurance that the noble Englishman who is generous
enough to pay for your maintenance at the convent recognises no
claim upon him of a nature such as you put forward in your vehement
letter. He has provided for you from your infancy, and will
continue to provide for you so long as you deserve his bounty; but
he cannot submit to be persecuted by appeals to his affection, or
by your foolish desire to know the secret of your birth, a
knowledge which you may be assured could not add to your
satisfaction or peace of mind.
"Be advised, therefore, my dear young lady, by one who is cordially
your friend. Pursue the even tenor of your way, and ask no
indiscreet questions of any one. It would be well for you, perhaps,
if the piety of your surroundings should lead you to renounce the
vanities of a troublesome world, and to devote your life to the
peaceful seclusion of the cloister. Should you make this election,
your noble friend will doubtless contribute handsomely to the
wealth of the convent in which your childhood and girlhood have
been spent so happily.--Accept the assurance of my sincere respect,
FÉTIS."
The second was a year later.
"MADEMOISELLE,--Your noble friend has been informed of a
disgraceful intrigue in which you have engaged with an Englishman,
who gained admission to the convent grounds under peculiar
circumstances, and from whom you have received letters, conveyed to
you by means which, although suspected, have not been as yet fully
discovered by your custodians.
"I warn you that the pursuance of this intrigue must inevitably
lead to your ruin, as your benefactor will consider himself
absolved by your misconduct from all future claims upon him. But I
hope to be able to assure him that you have renounced this folly
and are in a fair way to renounce all other follies, and to devote
your life to the service of God. You have before your eyes daily
so many touching examples of the beauty of such a life, that it
would be only natural your heart should yearn towards the
cloister.--With heartfelt respect, FÉTIS."
The third letter was dated Florence, December, 1707.
"MADAME,--My noble master commands me to inform you that he can
recognise no further claim upon him, and that he can respond to no
appeal from you or your husband, either in the present or in the
future.
"He requests that he may be troubled by no further communications
from you, FÉTIS."
"Devil!" exclaimed Lavendale, when he had heard the last of the letters,
"nay, Satan himself, as I have read of him, has an amiable air as
compared with this fish-blooded profligate--this worn-out _roué_, whose
heart must be of the consistence of a sliced cucumber. I have no doubt
that Irene's mother was Topsparkle's daughter, the infant whom he sent
to Buckinghamshire to be nursed, and doubtless carried off to the
Continent with the rest of his goods and chattels when he left the
country. And to think that he had not even one touch of tenderness for
the child of the woman he murdered! There was no compunction--no
remorse--not one sting of conscience to urge him to generosity. He could
have seen the daughter starve with as unrelenting eyes as he saw the
mother die."
"He is indeed a heartless dastard," said Herrick, "and I have no desire
that my wife should profit by her kindred with him."
"O, but she shall profit, or at any rate he shall wince," cried
Lavendale; "let me be your emissary, Herrick. 'Twill be easier for me to
give him his jobation. I will make those old veins of his tingle; I will
conjure up the vermilion of shame under that vizard of white lead. I
will let him know what an English gentleman thinks of such conduct as
his. God's death, but he shall feel again, as he felt forty years ago on
the hustings at Brentford, when the mob rated him. If Hamlet spoke
daggers to his mother, I will speak rotten eggs and dead puppy-dogs to
this Topsparkle. And he is _her_ husband. _Her_ husband! O, shame! O,
agony! Herrick, I was an ass, a poltroon, not to run away with her!"
That was an old argument which Durnford did not care to reopen. He gave
Lavendale the letters, urged him to be temperate in his interview with
Topsparkle. But little good could come of raking up the unholy past.
There was no evidence strong enough to bring the millionaire's crimes
home to him in any court of justice. Fétis might blab his own and his
master's guilt in a moment of excitement and terror, but face to face
with the law, would doubtless recant. The lapse of forty years gave
Vyvyan Topsparkle the best possible security against the consequences of
his guilt. The history of his crime might be guessed at, but could never
be proved.
"I will talk to the wretch to-night," said Lavendale; "yes, this very
night. It is Lady Judith's assembly, by the bye, and all the world will
be in Soho Square."
"You can scarcely enter upon such a discussion at a party," said
Herrick.
"O, but I will make an opportunity; Topsparkle shall take me to his
private rooms. I am on fire till I tell that ancient reprobate my mind
about him."
"And if he should challenge you?"
"As he challenged Churchill? Why, in that case I shall refuse like
Churchill, and tell him that I only fight with gentlemen. But he will
not challenge me. He will be too much afraid of my revelations when I
tell him how Fétis has confessed to a murder committed at his master's
instigation."
* * * * *
Each side in politics and all shades of opinions were to be found at Mr.
Topsparkle's town house, as they were at Ringwood Abbey. Statecraft was
represented by Walpole, who dropped in for a quarter of an hour, and who
looked daggers at his sometime friend and ally, Mr. Pulteney; by
Carteret and Bolingbroke; while literature had its representatives in
Voltaire, whose epic poem, _La Henriade_, had been already tasted in
private readings by the _élite_ among his subscribers, although not to
be published till next March; in Congreve and Gay; in the Scotch
parson's son, Thomson, whose poem _Winter_ was being read and admired
by everybody; and in that scapegrace Savage, whom Queen Caroline
protected and whom Lady Judith courted out of aggravation to respectable
people. All the modish beauties were there, from the fair daughters and
granddaughters of the house of Marlborough to Mrs. Pulteney, secure in
unbounded influence over her husband and several other slaves, reckless
of his reputation and of her own, and insolent in the consciousness of
superior charms. It was a strange medley gathering; but Lady Judith
never seemed more in her element than in a social pot-pourri of this
kind. She looked gorgeous in amber and gold brocade and the famous
Topsparkle diamonds, the necklace which Caroline had worn at her
coronation, a string of single brilliants as large as small hazel nuts,
of perfect shape and purest water. A cloud of ostrich feathers about her
head and neck softened the glare of her gems and the gaudy colouring of
her gown. She looked like a portrait by Velasquez, fresh from the
painter's easel, in all the brilliancy of colour newly laid on.
Lord Lavendale she received with her easiest air. He found her
surrounded by a circle of beaux and politicians, ambassadors and poets,
keeping them all in conversation, alert and ready with answer and
repartee at every turn of their talk.
The latest ridiculous anecdote about the King had put everybody into a
good humour.
"You must take your fill of laughter and have done with it," said Lady
Judith, "for I expect to hear my trumpeters strike up Handel's march at
any moment, to do honour to our conquering hero's arrival. Their
Majesties promised they would look in upon me after the opera."
"Then I hope you have ordered double your usual supper--plentiful as
your banquets ever are," said Lord Carteret, "for it is a distinguishing
mark of royalty to eat three times as much as the commonalty. The old
Dowager of Orleans was always lamenting her son's excesses at the
table--she has told me of his incautious gluttony with tears of
affectionate concern, which his fatal apoplexy showed to be but too
prophetic--and she assured me also that when the late king's body was
opened it was found he was constructed on a different principle from his
subjects, and had twice their capacity for digestion. It was hereditary
with the Bourbon race to gorge: and our Hanoverians seem of the same
kidney."
Lady Judith turned from his lordship to welcome Mrs. Robinson, who came
fluttering in after her triumphs at the opera, with Lord Peterborough in
attendance upon her steps, proud to be considered her slave, yet ashamed
to confess himself her husband, so strong were the prejudices of that
great world which worshipped Senesino and Farinelli, and squabbled
acrimoniously about the rival merits of Cuzzoni and Faustina.
"My dearest Anastasia, I hear you surpassed yourself in Rinaldo,"
exclaimed Lady Judith. "Topsparkle was there till nearly the end of the
third act, and came away hysterical with rapture." Then turning to
Peterborough, with the fair Anastasia's hand in hers, "Is your lordship
still in love with Bevis Mount and solitude?"
"Could I but tempt your ladyship to visit the wild romantic cottage
where I pass my time, 'twould be no longer a hermit's cell, but the
temple of Cytherea," answered Mordanto gaily, "the mere fact that you
had been there, like a queen on her royal progress, would for ever
idealise that humble dwelling."
"Have a care, my lord, lest I take you at your word some day, and put up
at Bevis Mount for a night on my way from Ringwood to London. 'Twould be
but to take the Winchester road instead of travelling by Salisbury, and
it would be a prodigious joke to descend upon you as unexpectedly as if
I were indeed the goddess and conveyed through the air by a team of
doves."
"You should be received with adoration and rapture; yet I warn you that
_my_ Blenheim would scarce afford shelter for a fine lady's attendants,
although it might be made into a not-unfitting bower for beauty
unattended."
"O, my people should go to an inn, I would bring only Topsparkle to play
propriety. How do _you_ like his lordship's new toy, Anastasia?"
"You mean his cottage near Southampton? I have not seen it," answered
the singer, with a cold proud air.
"Indeed, and can he like a dwelling you have not approved?"
"His lordship is eccentric in many things, my dear Lady Judith," replied
Mrs. Robinson, and then she and her swain moved on and mingled with the
crowd, making way for Lavendale.
"Your ladyship is in unusual spirits to-night," he said, after a few
words of greeting.
"Yes, I am full of contentment. I met some friends of yours at the
playhouse last night, that pretty Mrs. Bosworth and your _fidus
Achates_, Mr. Durnford, and I was told all about their runaway marriage.
'Tis the prettiest thing I have heard of for ages, an heiress to
renounce all her expectations for the lover of her choice. I saw how the
land lay when they were together at Ringwood. But I am forgetting to
congratulate you upon your success as an orator. Lord Carteret told me
just now that you have astonished your own party and scared the
Opposition, that you spoke better than Lord Scarborough, and that you
are reckoned as a new element of strength in Walpole's forces."
"I shall be proud to be the ally of so great a man."
"What, you admire him as heartily as ever? You are not afraid of his
overweening ambition? Lord Townshend has been moaning about the palace
this modern Sejanus has built at Houghton, and which almost dwarfs the
splendour of poor Townshend's own place, which he had hitherto
considered the metropolis of Norfolk. Every stone that augments the
grandeur of Houghton is a stone of offence to Townshend."
"He will have to swallow them, as Saturn swallowed the substitutes for
his children," retorted Lavendale lightly; "Walpole's power has not yet
attained its zenith."
"Do you play?" asked Lady Judith with a wave of her fan towards the
crowded card-room.
Lavendale accepted the gesture as his dismissal.
At this moment the trumpets began to blare the stirring march from
_Judas Maccabeus_, and the hero of Oudenarde came strutting up the
steps, between the flare and flash of torches held by two rows of
powdered footmen.
"You may strut, dapper George, but 'twill all be in vain;
We know 'tis Queen Caroline, not you, that reign,"
muttered Bolingbroke, looking between the heads of the crowd, with
scornful lip and angry eye, full of hatred for the dynasty that had
shown him such scanty favour. "What a vulgar little beast it is, to call
itself royal!--royal, forsooth! a twopenny German Elector transmogrified
into King of Great Britain and Ireland! If ever this country was ripe
for a republic, for a millennium of statesmen and warriors, 'twas when
good old Anne shuffled off this mortal coil. Yet such a nation of sheep
are we that we must needs import a royal family from Hanover rather than
be governed by native talent!"
He turned from the curtseying truckling throng with a bitter sigh and a
bitterer sneer, thinking how fine a triumvirate might have been formed
in the year Fourteen, if he and Oxford and Marlborough had combined
their forces. He told himself that he had been born either too late or
too soon. He should have lived in the old Roman days when talent was
power; or in some enlightened England of centuries to come, when all
hereditary distinctions should be swept away to make a clear stage for
genius and ambition.
Queen Caroline and a brace of young princesses moved about the rooms,
with Lord Hervey and Mr. Topsparkle, Lady Hervey and Mrs. Clayton in
attendance upon her majesty's footsteps; the master of the house proud
to exhibit his curios and elucidate his pictures; Majesty showing
herself supremely gracious, with a superficial smattering of art which
went a long way in so charming a woman and so admirable a Queen. She had
a smile for every one, kissed her hand to a score of friends, approved
of Signor Duvetti's scraping on the violin, of Herr Altstiefel's organ
tones on the 'cello, and of Signora Burletti's birdlike soprano in a
scena of Lulli's and of Signor Omati's buffo bravura. There was a
concert in progress in one of the inner apartments which the royalties
honoured by their presence for at least a quarter of an hour, the
princesses chattering all the time, and Princess Caroline so engrossed
by the whispered nonsense of Lord Hervey, who happened to be standing
behind her chair, as to be unconscious of her mother's reproachful
frowns.
"I wonder whether the mature queen or the precocious princess is fondest
of that man?" whispered Bolingbroke to Pulteney.
"O, the younger lady is fondest. She is romantically in love, while her
mother uses Hervey as she uses all the world, for her own convenience
and advantage," answered Pulteney; "yet I must needs wonder what is the
charm of that sickly face and that effeminate manner, that all the women
should adore him?"
"I think the charm is a kind of finnicking cleverness, a concatenation
of petty talents which women understand. If Hervey had devoted himself
to statecraft, he would have been a second-rate politician. His parts in
great things would have seemed at best respectable; but by concentrating
his abilities upon trivialities he appears a genius--and then, again, a
man has but to flatter and fawn for the women to think him an
intellectual giant, magnified by their vanity--just as a flea under a
microscope seems a monster."
* * * * *
It was three o'clock in the morning, and Lady Judith's assembly was
over, save for a few intimates who lingered in front of the fireplace in
the hall, while the Swiss porter snored in his chair, and the last of
the linkmen waited despairingly for the departure of the latest guest. A
couple of chairs were waiting on the pavement outside--Lord
Bolingbroke's and Lord Lavendale's. Tom Philter was the only other
loiterer, and those spindleshanks of his were to carry him back to
Gray's Inn Lane.
The royalties had eaten heavily and departed, much pleased with their
entertainment.
"I thought the supper-table looked like a larder," said Lady Judith,
fanning herself indolently, as she half reclined in a great carved oak
chair. "Any one but a German would have been nauseated by such a
plethora of food."
"But 'twas just what they like," replied Philter. "I saw your ladyship
had all his Majesty's favourite dishes."
"I ought to know his tastes, after those wearisome dinners at Richmond
Lodge, over which I have groaned in spirit on so many a Saturday," said
Judith.
"Ah, I grant you, madam, those Richmond dinners are an abomination,"
retorted Philter, who would have forfeited five of his declining years
to have been bidden to one.
"The king is as fond of punch as his lamented father, who used to get
amicably drunk with Sir Robert every afternoon, after a morning's
shooting in the New Park at Richmond last year, when the minister had a
temporary lodging on the hill there," said Bolingbroke.
"In spite of the Duchess of Kendal and her Germans, who did their best
to cut short that pleasant easy conviviality between his Majesty and
Robin," said Philter.
And now Bolingbroke made his adieux, with that blending of stately grace
and friendly familiarity which constitutes the charm of the grand
manner, and little Philter tripped out at his heels, leaving Lavendale
alone with his host and hostess. Judith looked at him furtively from
under her drooping lashes, wondering for what purpose he had lingered so
long. There had been no word of explanation between them since that
broken appointment last summer. They had met only in public, and had
simpered and chattered as if the most indifferent acquaintance. And now
it seemed very strange to Judith, as a woman of the world, that
Lavendale should make himself conspicuous by outstaying all her other
guests.
"I have waited till the last, Mr. Topsparkle," said his lordship
gravely, "in the hope that, late as the hour is, you would honour me
with a few words in private."
"There is no hour in which I am not at your lordship's service," replied
Topsparkle, with his airiest manner; yet there was a look of anxiety in
his countenance which his wife noted.
"Is your business of such a private nature that even I may not hear it?"
she asked lightly, hiding keenest anxiety under that easy manner.
"Husband and wife are supposed to have no secrets from each other."
"That is a supposition which must have been out of date in the Garden of
Eden, madam," said Lavendale. "Be sure Eve had her little mysteries from
Adam after that affair of the apple had taught her a prudent reserve."
"Then I wish you good-night, gentlemen, and leave you to a masonic
secrecy," said Lady Judith, emerging with slow and languid movements
from the depths of the great oak chair, sinking almost to the ground in
a stately curtsey to Lavendale, and then gliding from the room, a
dazzling vision of powder and patches, diamonds and ostrich feathers,
alabaster shoulders and gold brocade.
She was gone, the servants had retired, all save the Swiss porter who
dozed in his chair; and Lavendale and Topsparkle were alone in front of
the hearth.
"Your lordship may converse at your ease," said Topsparkle, "that fellow
has not a word of English."
He employed foreign locutions at times, like Lord Hervey, a modish
affectation of the time which distinguished the gentleman who had
travelled from the country bumpkin.
"I am going to speak to you of the past, Mr. Topsparkle. I am here to do
you a friendly office, if I can."
"Indeed, my lord, I have no consciousness of being at this present
moment in need of friendly offices; nor do I think it is any man's
business to concern himself about another man's history. The past
belongs to him who made it."
"Not always, Mr. Topsparkle. There are occasions when the history of the
past concerns the law of the land--when undiscovered crimes have to be
brought to light--and when wicked deeds, unrepented of and unatoned,
have to be accounted for."
"As in the case of Mr. Jonathan Wild and his young friend Jack
Sheppard," said Topsparkle. "Your proposition is indisputable. But did
your lordship outstay the company to tell me nothing newer in the way of
argument or fact?"
"No, sir; I am here to talk to you of your own crime, committed in this
house, forty years ago; suspected at the time by a town which was not
slow to give expression to its opinion; confessed only the other night
by your tool and accomplice, Louis Fétis."
"The hysterical ravings of a drunken valet are about as trustworthy as
the libels of electioneering pamphleteers; and I am surprised that a man
of the world like your lordship should concern himself with such
folly," said Topsparkle. "The slander was as baseless as it was
malicious."
"Yet it drove you from England."
"No, my lord; I left England because I was tired of a country in which
the fine arts were still in their infancy. We have been improving since
Handel and Bononcini came to London. In William's time there were not
half a dozen good musicians in the kingdom. I wonder, Lord Lavendale,
that you should take occasion to insult me upon the strength of a
slander which I trampled out forty years ago, when my slanderers stood
in the pillory."
"Mr. Topsparkle, there are crimes which never can be brought home to the
evil-doers; but there are other wrongs more easily proved even after a
lapse of years. I cannot prove you a murderer, though I have the
strongest moral evidence of your crime: first from the testimony of your
victim's grandfather, Vincenti, and secondly from the confession of your
accomplice and agent. But one act in your life I can prove to all the
world, if it should be necessary to show the town what manner of man
you are. I can at least demonstrate your hardness of heart as a father;
how you, the sybarite and Croesus, were content to let your daughter
expire in poverty."
"I have never acknowledged a daughter."
"But she was none the less your child--the child born in this house--the
helpless babe whose unhappy mother you and Fétis poisoned."
"'Tis false--a vile calumny--and you know it."
"'Tis true, and you know it. Your victim is gone beyond the reach of
earthly redress--your daughter has been dead twenty years; but there is
yet one living to whom, ere that frail, vanishing figure of yours melts
from this earth, you may make some atonement for past evil. Your
granddaughter, Philip Chumleigh's orphan child, is my friend Herrick
Durnford's wife. To her you may yet act a grandfather's part."
"Mr. Durnford ran away with Mr. Bosworth's daughter."
"With Bosworth's supposed daughter only. The likeness which that young
lady bears to the picture at Ringwood Abbey is no accident, but the clue
to a secret which my friend and I have discovered. Those letters from
your confidential servant were on the person of Irene's father when
Squire Bosworth found him lying dead on Flamestead common, with his
infant daughter by his side."
He showed Mr. Topsparkle the letters from Fétis, scarce trusting them
out of his own hand as the gentleman examined them, lest he should fling
them into the fire. And then he related the circumstances of Irene's
infancy: the nameless orphan and the little heiress brought up together;
and how the Squire had been tricked by a malignant woman--a discarded
mistress, eager to seize the first opportunity to do evil to her
inconstant lover.
Topsparkle would fain have disbelieved the story; but that extraordinary
resemblance between Irene and the picture was an evidence which he could
scarce gainsay; while the existence of those letters from Fétis made a
link between the past and the present. He had been startled and
mystified by that likeness between the living and the dead; for it was
something closer and more significant than a mere resemblance of
features and complexion; and there was the likeness of character, the
hereditary type, the indescribable Italian beauty as distinct from every
other race. No, Vyvyan Topsparkle was not inclined to deny the claim of
this girl.
"I have no objection to acknowledge this young lady as my
granddaughter," he said coolly.
"Do you think she would acknowledge you, did she know the story of your
life?" answered Lavendale. "Happily for her she has been spared that
knowledge. She knows not how her mother was abandoned by you, how her
mother's mother was murdered in this house, where you can endure to live
beneath the shadow of your crime."
"Your lordship forgets that I wear a sword!" exclaimed Topsparkle,
clutching at the jewelled hilt of his thin Court rapier.
"Keep your sword for opponents who know less of your character than I
do, sir," said Lavendale contemptuously.
"You deliberately insult me, and then refuse me satisfaction!"
"I will give you the satisfaction of a public investigation of this dark
history, if you choose. Your victim's grandfather, Vincenti, is in
England, ready to make his statement before a magistrate."
"That is a lie--a preposterous and impudent lie!" cried Topsparkle.
"Were the grandfather living, he would be over a hundred and ten years
of age."
"He is living, and in full possession of his faculties, whatever may be
his age. He gave me a written record of Margharita's story, with all the
circumstances of her flight with you, and of her untimely death under
this roof."
"I don't believe it. The fellow must have been dead and rotten these
twenty years."
"Come to Lavendale Court to-morrow, and you may convince yourself that
he still lives--lives and harbours a most bitter hatred of you, Mr.
Topsparkle. Old as he is, I doubt if you would be safe in his company,
were you two left alone together."
"What do you want me to do?"
"Not to acknowledge your granddaughter. Kindred with you can do her no
honour; and it is better that she should be ignorant of the tie. But
something in way of atonement you may do out of your coffers. Durnford
and his wife are poor; they have the battle of life before them; and I
am too near ruined to be of much use to them in the present or the
future. When you make your will, remember your victim's grandchild."
"I will consider the matter at my leisure," replied Topsparkle
haughtily, recovering his self-possession now that he saw there was no
actual danger to be apprehended from Lavendale.
That blabbing fool Fétis was safe under lock and key, but not until he
had blackened his patron's character. It was a hard thing to have the
past thus raked up, after forty years: and by this man of all others;
Judith's old lover, the one man for whose sake he had suffered the pangs
of bitterest jealousy.
"I can scarce urge more than that on my friend's behalf," said Lavendale
quietly. "Your conscience--if with advancing years conscience has been
awakened--must be the only arbiter in this matter. But there is one
thing I would add. Your victim, Margharita, died unavenged; your wife,
Lady Judith, would not be wronged with impunity. She has powerful
friends, and to harm but a hair of her head would be fatal to him who
did the wrong."
"I do not require to be schooled in my duties either to Lady Judith or
any one else," replied Topsparkle, livid with rage under his artificial
carnation, which had been laid on by a less cunning hand than that of
Fétis, and which made hectic spots upon that death-like countenance.
Lavendale sauntered to the door, taking leave of his host with a low
bow; the Swiss started from his slumbers and flung open the
double-doors, and the link-boys ran forward to light the last departing
guest to his chair; and then the heavy doors closed with a clang; and
the great house in Soho Square sank into silence for the rest of the
night.