"No evidence—nothing but pure gold," muttered Leicester, exultingly, as he closed the drawer. "It is well for you, my young friend, that the holder of that precious document does not wish to present his check at once. Liberty is sweet to the young, and this secures a few more days of its enjoyment for you—and for me! Ah, there everything happens most fortunately. Why, a good steamer will put us half over the Atlantic before this little mistake is suspected."
Leicester was a changed man after this; his spirits rose with unnatural exhilaration.
"Now for this grand ball," he said aloud, surveying his fine person in the glass. "Surely a man's wedding garments ought to be fancy dress enough. Another pair of gloves, though. This comes of temptation. I must finger the gold, forsooth."
The ruthless man smiled, and muttered these broken fragments of thought, as he took off the scarcely soiled gloves, and replaced them with a pair still more spotlessly white. He was a long time fitting them on his hand. He fastidiously rearranged other portions of his dress. All sense of the great fraud, that ought to have borne his soul to the earth, had left him when the gold appeared. You could see, by his broken words, how completely lighter fancies had replaced the black deed.
"This Mrs. Gordon—I wonder if she really is the creature they represent her to be. If it were not for this voyage to Europe, now, one might—no, no, there is no chance now; but I'll have a sight at her." Thus muttering and smiling, Leicester left the hotel.
The evening was very beautiful, and Leicester always loved to enter a fashionable drawing-room after the guests had assembled. He reflected that a quiet walk would bring him to Mrs. Gordon's mansion about the time he thought most desirable, and sauntered on, resolved, at any rate, not to reach his destination too early. But sometimes he fell into thought, and then his pace became unconsciously hurried. He reached the upper part of the city earlier than he had intended, and had taken out his watch before a lighted window, to convince himself of the time, when a timid voice addressed him—
"Sir, will you please tell me the name of this street?"
He turned, and saw the little girl whom he had forced to become a witness to his marriage. She shrunk back, terrified, on recognizing him.
"I did not know—I did not mean it," she faltered out.
"What, have you lost your way?" said Leicester, in a voice that made her shiver, though it was low and sweet enough.