Chapter Seventeen.
Blackmail?
Grantley Wagram sat alone in his library—thinking.
When a man thus sits, with an open letter in front of him, at which he gazes from time to time, with a contraction of the brows, it is safe to assume that his thoughts are hardly pleasant; and such, indeed, represented the state of the old Squire’s mind.
The correspondence which troubled him was not quite recent—that is to say, it was some days old. But, great Heaven! the issue it involved if the statements therein set forth were true! It speaks volumes for the old man’s marvellous self-control that he should have gone through that period evincing no sign whatever that anything had occurred to threaten his normal urbanity—no, not even to his son; and yet, day and night, awake, and even asleep, the matter had been uppermost in his thoughts. Now, those thoughts for the hundredth time seemed to voice the two words: Only Blackmail! And yet—and yet—he knew that it was blackmail from which there would be no escape.
He took up the letter and scanned it, then let it fall again with a weary sigh. There was a genuine ring about the tone of the communication. No; there could hardly be two Develin Hunts.
Well, a few moments would decide, for the letter which troubled him was subscribed with that name, and the writer promised to call that very morning—in fact, might arrive any moment.
Even then there came a tap at the door, and the servant who entered announced the arrival of a stranger.