Mr. Phillis did not deign a reply to this speech, but led the way to the suite destined for her Ladyship's accommodation.
CHAPTER XXXII. HOW THE VISITORS FARED
They come—they come!
—Harold.
Linton passed the greater part of the night in letter-writing. Combinations were thickening around him, and it demanded all the watchful activity he could command to prevent himself being overtaken by events. To a confidential lawyer he submitted a case respecting Corrigan's title, but so hypothetically and with such reserve that it betrayed no knowledge of his secret—for he trusted no man. Mary Leicester's manuscript was his next care, and this he intrusted to a former acquaintance connected with the French press, entreating his influence to obtain it the honor of publication, and, instead of remuneration, asking for some flattering acknowledgment of its merits. His last occupation was to write his address to the constituency of his borough, where high-sounding phrases and generous professions took the place of any awkward avowals of political opinion. This finished, and wearied by the long-sustained exertion, he threw himself on his bed. His head, however, was far too deeply engaged to permit of sleep. The plot was thickening rapidly—events, whose course he hoped to shape at his leisure, were hurrying on, and although few men could summon to their aid more of cold calculation in a moment of difficulty, his wonted calm was now disturbed by one circumstance—this being, as he called it to himself—Laura's treachery. No men bear breaches of faith so ill as they who practise them with the world. To most persons the yacht voyage would have seemed, too, a chance occurrence, where an accidental intimacy was formed, to wane and die out with the circumstance that created it. Not so did he regard it. He read a prearranged plan in every step she had taken—he saw in her game the woman's vanity to wield an influence over one for whom so many contended—he knew, too, how in the great world an “éclat” can always cover an “indiscretion”—and that, in the society of that metropolis to which she aspired, the reputation of chaperoning the rich Roland Cashel would be of incalculable service.
If Linton had often foiled deeper snares, here a deep personal wrong disturbed his powers of judgment, and irritated him beyond all calm prudential thoughts. Revenge upon her, the only one he had ever cared for, was now his uppermost thought, and left little place for any other.
Wearied and worn out, he fell asleep at last, but only to be suddenly awakened by the rattling of wheels and the quick tramp of horses on the gravel beneath his window. The one absorbing idea pervading his mind, he started up, muttering, “She is here.” As he opened his window and looked down, he at once perceived his mistake—Mrs. Kennyfeck's well-known voice was heard, giving directions about her luggage—and Linton closed the casement, half relieved and half disappointed.
For a brief space the house seemed astir. Mrs. Kennyfeck made her way along the corridor in a mingled commentary on the handsome decorations of the mansion and Mr. Kennyfeck's stupidity, who had put Archbold's “Criminal Practice” into her bag instead of Debrett's “Peerage,” while Linton could overbear a little quizzing conversation between the daughters, wherein the elder reproached her sister for not having the politeness to bid them “welcome.” The slight commotion gradually subsided, all became still, but only for a brief space. Again the same sound of crashing wheels was heard, and once more Linton flung open his window and peered out into the darkness. It was now raining tremendously, and the wind howling in long and dreary cadences.
“What a climate!” exclaimed a voice Linton knew to be Downie Meek's. His plaint ran thus:—
“I often said they should pension off the Irish Secretary after three years, as they do the Chief Justice of Gambia.”