"I know, I know—it was with this understanding," he interrupted, "that he confided to me the extent of his indiscretion, for which I have rated him soundly, I assure you. Evelyn is not to know that you overheard them. This is the compact—a very sensible and politic one on your part, under the circumstances, for Evelyn, we all know, is, excuse me my dear, the devil, when fairly aroused. Now, as to this overhearing of yours—might not your mind, laboring under recent coma, and a sort of mental mirage as it were, have had a tendency to magnify and only partially comprehend the conversation thus suddenly forced upon your attention? For I understand you were unable to make yourself heard at all, or even to give signs of life when the curtains of your bed were lifted by the interlocutors."
"This last is true—but that I could not have been mistaken, Claude's own admissions confirm. He denied nothing that I suggested—much was left by me unquestioned."
"Yes," catching wildly at this straw, "he finds himself quite in the dark still, I perceive—as to the accusations brought against him; suppose you make your charges one by one, as it were in the shape of specifications?"
"There are no charges, no accusations brought—nothing of that sort," I said, proudly; "and I must entreat that from this hour, Mr. Bainrothe, this subject be dropped between us utterly. It is wholly unprofitable, believe me."
"You are a person of extraordinary obduracy," he said, "for one of your years. I should like to know how much the Stanbury influence has had to do with strengthening your unwise, unamiable, and stiff-necked resolution! If I were Claude Bainrothe, I should lay heavy damages against you in the courts of law, for your unjustifiable evasion of a formal contract—one your father sanctioned, one of which all your friends are and were cognizant and proud, and which has subjected him, in its rupture, to so much distress and mortification; nay, even as I can prove, pecuniary loss."
"If money can repay your son Claude, for any wrong I have done him, he is welcome to a portion of mine," I said, deeply disgusted, "without intervention of law—painful exposure of any kind. I cherish for him, however, even yet, too much regard and respect to believe him capable of such proceedings. The idea is worthy of the mind it springs from—worthy of the author of all this sorrow and confusion—worthy of Mr. Basil Bainrothe, the arch-conspirator himself."
He turned upon me with clinched hands and blazing eyes. "You shall answer for these words, girl! if not now, years hence," he said; "the seed of your insult has been thrown on fertile soil, I promise you!" and he laughed bitterly.
"I do not fear you," I replied; all disguise was thrown off—it was war to the knife between us now; "never have—never can, in spite of your unmanly threats. Evelyn must protect me henceforth from any further contact with you, however, until I am of age to take in hand my own affairs; Evelyn Erie, my guardian, and your fellow-executor, owes me this safeguard. I trust, Mr. Bainrothe, we shall meet no more."
I left the room—left him in possession of the library, in which he paced up and down for an hour or more, like a caged panther. There was a sealed note for me in his handwriting, under the massive paper-weight on the table, when I entered it again, which he had written and left there before his departure. It ran thus—for I read it derisively, and remember its contents still:
"We have both been wrong, dear Miriam. I, as the elder and more experienced offender—therefore, the more responsible one—claim it as my privilege to be the first to atone. I cannot think, from what I know of you, that you will be long in following my example. Let us forgive one another. Fate has thrown us together, and we must not afford a malicious world the spectacle of our inconsistency, or the satisfaction of seeing us quarrel, after so many years of harmony.