De Vere's voice, which I could only hear at rare intervals, told that he had drunk deeply, and that between wine and his losses a kind of reckless desperation had seized him, which gave to his manner and words a semblance of boldness which his real character lacked completely.
When I knew that Burke and De Vere were the persons near me, I rose to leave the spot; the fear of playing the eavesdropper forbade my remaining. But as I stood up, the mention of my name, uttered in a tone of vengeance by Burke, startled me, and I listened.
'Yes,' said he, striking his hand upon the table, and confirming his assertion with a horrible oath. 'Yes; for him and through him my uncle left me a beggar. But already I have had my revenge; though it shan't end there.'
'You don't mean to have him out again? Confound him, he's a devilish good shot; winged you already—eh?'
Burke, unmindful of the interruption, continued—
'It was I that told my uncle how this fellow was the nephew of the man who seduced his own wife. I worked upon the old man so that he left house and home, and wandered through the country, till mental irritation, acting on a broken frame, became fever, and then death.'
'Died—eh? Glorious nephew you are, by Jove! What next?'
'I'll tell you. I forged a letter in his handwriting to Louisa, written as if on his death-bed, commanding as his last prayer that she should never see Hinton again; or if by any accident they should meet, that she should not recognise him nor know him.'
'Devilish clever, that; egad, a better martingale than that you invented a while ago. I say, pass the wine! red fourteen times—wasn't it fourteen?—and if it had not been for your cursed obstinacy I'd have backed the red. See, fifty naps! one hundred, four, eight, sixteen, thirty-four, or six—which is it? Oh, confounded stupidity!'
'Come, come, Dudley! better luck another time. Louisa's eyes must have been too kindly bent on you, or you 'd have been more fortunate.'