He turned away without acknowledging her salutation, and strolled into the grass. What a web of troubles he was involved in, and how hopelessly he turned from this or that expedient to extricate himself! It was but a short time before that, as a member of the committee of his Club, he had succeeded in passing a law by which all play debts should be discharged within twenty-four hours, on penalty of the defaulter being declared excluded from the Club. He was a winner at the time; but now luck had changed: he had lost heavily, and had not the slightest prospect of being able to meet his losses. “How like my fate!” muttered he, in intense passion,—“how like my fate! my whole life has been a game I have played against myself. And that woman, too,”—it was of his wife he spoke,—“who once helped me through many a strait, assumes now to be too pure and too virtuous to be my associate, and stands quietly aloof to see me ruined.”
A long thin streak of light crossed his path as he went; he looked up, and saw it came from between the shutters of the Chief's room. “I wonder how it fares with him!” muttered he. He pondered for some time over the old man's case, his chances of recovery, and the spirit in which convalescence would find him; and then entering the house, he slowly mounted the stairs, one by one, his heart feeling like a load almost too heavy to carry. The unbroken stillness of the house seemed to whisper caution, and he moved along the corridor with noiseless tread till he came to the door of the Judge's room. There he stooped and listened. There were the long-drawn breathings of a heavy sleeper plainly to be heard, but they sounded stronger and fuller than the respirations of a sick man. Sewell gently turned the handle of the door and entered. The suspicion was right. The breathings were those of the hospital nurse, who, seated in a deep arm-chair, slept profoundly. Sewell stood several minutes at the door before he ventured further; at last he crept stealthily forward to the foot of the bed, and, separating the curtains cautiously, he peeped in. The old man lay with his eyes closed, and his long shrivelled arms outside the clothes. He continued to talk rapidly, and by degrees his voice grew stronger and dearer, and had all that resonance of one speaking in a large assembly. “I have now,” said he, “shown the inexpediency of this course. I have pointed out where you have been impolitic; I will next explain where you are illegal. This Act was made in the 23d year of Henry VI., and although intended only to apply to cases of action personal, or indictment of trespass—What is the meaning of this interruption? Let there be silence in the Court. I will have the tribunal in which I preside respected. The public shall learn—the representatives of the press—and if there be, as I am told there are—” His voice grew weaker and weaker, and the last audible words that escaped him were “judgment for the plaintiff.”
Though his lips still moved rapidly, no sound came forth, but his hands were continually in motion, and his lean arms twitched with short convulsive jerks. Sewell now crept quietly round towards the side of the bed, on which several sheets of paper and writing-materials lay. One of the sheets alone was written on; it was in the large bold hand of the old Judge, who even at his advanced age wrote in a vigorous and legible character. It was headed, “Directions for my funeral,” and began thus: “As Irishmen may desire to testify their respect for one who, while he lived, maintained with equal energy the supremacy of the law and the inviolability of the man, and as my obsequies may in some sort become an act of national homage, I write these lines to convey my last wishes, legacies of which my country will be the true executors.
“First, I desire that I may be buried within the nave of St. Patrick's Cathedral. The spot I have selected is to the right of Swift's monument, under the fifth window, and for this purpose that hideous monument to Sir Hugh Brabazon may be removed, and my interment will, in this way, confer a double benefit upon my country. Secondly, as by my will, dated this twenty-eighth day of October, 18—, I have bequeathed, with exception of certain small legacies, all my estate, real and personal, to Dudley Sewell, Esq., late Colonel in her Majesty's service, it is my wish that he alone should—” Here the writing finished.
Three several times Sewell read over the lines, and what a thrill of delight ran through him! It was like a reprieve to a man on the very steps of the scaffold! The Judge was not rich, probably, but a considerable sum of money he still might have, and it was money,—cash. It was not invested in lands or houses or ships; it was all available for that life that Sewell led, and which alone he liked.
If he could but see this will,—it must be close at hand somewhere,—what a satisfaction it would be to read over the details by which at last—at last!—he was to be lifted above the casualties of a life of struggle! He tried three or four drawers of the large ebony cabinet in which the Chief used to throw his papers, with the negligence of a man who could generally rewrite as easily as he could search for a missing document. There were bills and receipts, notes of trials, and letters in abundance—but no will. The cumbrous old writing-desk, which Sir William rarely used, was not in its accustomed place, but stood on the table in the centre of the room, and the keys beside it. The will might possibly be there. He drew nigh the bed to assure himself that the old man was still sleeping, and then he turned towards the nurse, whose breathings were honest vouchers for insensibility; and thus fortified, he selected the key—he knew it well—and opened the desk. The very first paper he chanced upon was the will. It was a large sheet of strong post-paper, labelled “My last Will and Testament.—W. L.” While Sewell stood examining the writing, the door creaked gently, and his wife moved softly and noiselessly into the room. If the sentiment that overcame him was not shame, it was something in which shame blended with anger. It was true she knew him well: she knew all the tortuous windings of his plotting, scheming nature; she knew that no sense of honor, no scruple of any kind, could ever stand between him and his object. He had done those things which, worse than deep crimes, lower a man in the eyes of a woman, and that woman his wife, and that she thus knew and read him he was well aware; but, strangely enough, there is a world of space between being discovered through the results of a long inquiry, and being detected flagrante delicto,—taken in the very act, red-handed in iniquity; and so did this cold-hearted, callous man now feel it.
“What are you doing here?” said she, calmly and slowly, as she came forward.
“I wanted to see this. I was curious to know how he treated us,” said he, trembling as he spoke.
She took the paper from his hand, replaced it in the desk, and locked it up, with the calm determination of one who could not be gainsaid.
“But I have not read it,” whispered he, in a hissing voice.