"I put his back up," he muttered, as he walked along, "and that is why he wouldn't speak out. Besides, he wasn't going to criminate himself. I was an idiot to take the trouble I did over the affair. Grantham was quite broken down at the time, and couldn't have lasted long under any circumstances. There isn't an office in England that would have taken a year's insurance on his life. He was done for; death was in his face. They have all played into my hands, every one of them."
But notwithstanding the relief he experienced, the events of the day were not of a nature to afford him pleasant reflection. He had been three times defied. First by Charlotte, then by John Dixon, then by Rathbeal. Charlotte he did not fear as an enemy; despite her outbreak, he had been too long accustomed to dominate her to be apprehensive of her. She was in his power, and had pledged herself to silence for two months. John Dixon and Rathbeal stood on a different platform; but even from them he had little if anything to fear. As to John Dixon's account of having seen Robert Grantham's face in a fog, he snapped his fingers at it. It was, at best, a clumsy invention; had he been in Dixon's place, he would have done better. His enemies had put him on his guard--that was all the good they had done for themselves.
When he reached the middle of Westminster Bridge, he paused and looked down into the water. The darkness had lifted a little, and a few stars had come out and were reflected in the river. The lamps upon the banks formed a long line of restless, shifting light, converging to a point in the far distance. An imaginative mind could have woven rare fancies out of the glimmering sheen in the river's heart, which seemed to pulse with spiritual life. Cathedral aisles, with dusky processions winding between, descending into the depths to make room for those that crowded behind. Lights upon a distant battlefield, a confused tangle of horses and fighting men, the wounded and dying crawling into the deep shades. A wash of the waves, and a wild _mèlée_ of dancers was created, lasting but a moment--as, indeed, did all the pictures,--and separating into peaceable units with the broadening out of the water. A ripple, almost musical in its poetic silence, bearing bride and bridegroom to love and joy. A band of rioters, upheaving, with waving limbs inextricably mingled, replaced by an orderly line of hooded monks, gliding on with folded arms.
None of these pictures presented themselves to Mr. Fox-Cordery's imagination. He saw only two figures in the water: one of a dead man floating onward to oblivion; the other of a woman with peaceful, shining face, inviting him, with smiling eyes, to come to her embrace. The wish was father to the thought, and the figures were there as he had conjured them up. The face of the dead man brought no remorse to his soul; he was susceptible only of those affections in which his own personal safety and his own personal desires were concerned. It was for the death of this man and the possession of this woman that he had schemed and toiled. The man he hated, and had pursued to his ruin; the woman he loved and would have bartered his soul for. His passion for her had grown to such a pitch as to make him reckless of consequences; or, more properly speaking, blind to them. Had she yielded to his wooing in years gone by, he would have made a slave of her, and have tyrannized over her as he did over all with whom he had dealings. But she had not favored him, except in the way of friendship, and had given herself to the man he hated and despised. It can scarcely be said that a nature so mean and cruel as his was capable of pure and honest love; but passion and baffled desire took the place of love, and had obtained such complete possession of his senses that he was not master of himself where she was concerned. At his age the fever of the blood should have been cooled, but opposition and disappointment had produced a kind of frenzy in him; and, in addition, he had always been a law unto himself, ready to put his foot upon the neck of any living creature who ventured to obstruct his lightest wish.
A black cloud blotted out the stars; the beautiful face disappeared. Awaking from his reverie, Mr. Fox-Cordery proceeded to cross the bridge. Staggering toward him in the opposite direction was a lad in the last stage of want and destitution; a large-eyed, white-faced lad literally clothed in rags. His trousers were held up by a piece of knotted string, crossing his breast and back; he had no cap on his matted hair; his naked toes peeped out of his boots. That he was faint and ill was evident from his staggering gait, and indeed he hardly knew where he was going, so genuinely desperate was his forlorn condition. It chanced that he stumbled against the dapper form of Mr. Fox-Cordery, who, crying, "What's your game, you young ruffian?" gave him a brutal push, and sent him reeling into the road. The lad had no strength to save himself from falling. Gasping for breath, he clutched at the air, and fell, spinning, upon the stones. Passing callously on, Mr. Fox-Cordery did not observe, and was not observed by a man who, seeing the lad fall, ran forward to assist him. Stooping and raising the lad's head, the man looked into his face.
"Why, Billy!" cried the man compassionately.
The lad opened his eyes, smiled faintly, and answered, "Yes, it's me, Mr. Gran "; and then the dark clouds seemed to fall upon him, and he lay limp and insensible in the man's arms.
[CHAPTER VII.]
Billy turns the Corner.
Robert Grantham for a moment was undecided what to do. No one was near them; he and Billy were just then alone on the bridge. Resolving upon his course of action, he raised Billy in his arms and walked with his burden toward Rathbeal's lodging. Billy was nothing of a weight for a man to carry, being but skin and bone, and Grantham experienced no difficulty in the execution of the merciful task he had taken upon himself. He was not troubled by inquiries from the few persons he encountered. A policeman looked after them, but as Grantham made no appeal to him, and there was no evidence of the law being broken, he turned and resumed his beat. Robert Grantham was a quarter of an hour walking to the house in which Rathbeal lodged. Without hesitating, he pushed the street door open, and ascended the stairs. Rathbeal heard him coming up, and waited for him on the landing.