“Of course,” said Frobisher, coolly; “they could give no other.”
“It's no use betting against you,” cried Upton, pettishly. “You are the luckiest dog in Europe.”
“Come, I 'll give you a chance,” said Frobisher; “double or quit that they hang him.”
“No, no; I 've lost enough on him. I 'll not have it.”
“Well, I suppose we've nothing to wait for now,” yawned Jennings. “Shall we start?”
“Not till we have luncheon, I vote,” cried an infantry sub.; and his suggestion met general approval. And while they are seated at a table where exquisite meats and rarest wines stimulated appetite and provoked excess, let us turn for a few brief moments to him who, still their entertainer, sat in his lone chamber, friendless and deserted.
So rapid had been the succession of events which occupied one single night, that Roland could not believe it possible months had not passed over. Even then, he found it difficult to disentangle the real circumstances from those fancied results his imagination had already depicted; many of the true incidents appearing far more like fiction than the dreamy fancies his mind invented. His meeting with Enrique, for instance, was infinitely less probable than that he should have fought a duel with Linton; and so, in many other cases, his faculties wavered between belief and doubt, till his very senses reeled with the confusion. Kennyfeck's death alone stood out from this chaotic mass, clear, distinct, and palpable, and, as he sat brooding over this terrible fact, he was totally unconscious of its bearing upon his own fortunes. Selfishness formed no part of his nature; his fault lay in the very absence of self-esteem, and the total deficiency of that individuality which prompts men to act up to a self-created standard. He could sorrow for him who was no more, and from whom he had received stronger proofs of devotion than from all his so-called friends; he could grieve over the widowed mother and the fatherless girls, for whose destitution he felt, he knew not how, or wherefore, a certain culpability; but of himself and his own critical position, not a thought arose. The impressions that no effort of his own could convey fell with a terrific shock upon him when suggested by another.
He was seated at his table, trying, for the twentieth time, to collect his wandering thoughts, and determine what course to follow, when a tap was heard at his door, and it opened at the same instant.
“I am come, sir,” said Mr. Goring, with a voice full of feeling, “to bring you sad tidings; but for which events may have, in a measure, prepared you.” He paused, perhaps hoping that Cashel would spare him the pain of continuing; but Roland never spoke.
“The inquest has completed its labors,” said Goring, with increasing agitation; “and the verdict is one of 'wilful murder.'”