After a long and most impatient waiting a servant came to Bay that monsieur would receive me, and I followed him up a spacious but dimly lighted stair, and across a long dreary gallery, where a single lamp shone, into a small chamber fitted up like a study. Here, although it was autumn, the “bâtonnier” was seated beside a brisk fire, enjoying his coffee. He was a small man, with a massive, well-shaped head covered with a profusion of snow-white hair, which he wore in such careless fashion as to make his head appear even much larger than it was; his features were pleasing, and his eyes were singularly soft and gentle-looking. With a voice of peculiar sweetness, and in a low tone, he welcomed me and desired me to be seated. This done, he begged me to state the object of my visit.
In the very fewest words I could relate it, I mentioned the sad circumstances about which I came, told my own difficulty in the matter, and asked for advice.
“At any other moment,” said he, when I concluded, “your task would be an easy one. You could report the event to the 'commissaire' of the 'Quarter,' state what you know, and withdraw from the affair altogether. Now, however, the troubles in which we live excite suspicions in every mind. Your name will be associated with the opinions for which this poor man has given his life. The authorities will be on your track at every moment, and every act of your life watched and reported. With whom were you acquainted in Paris?”
“With none.”
He stared with some surprise; and I told him briefly the circumstances of my own situation.
“A strange story indeed!” said he, taking up my card from the chimney-piece. “And your name, for I cannot decipher it here, is—”
“Carew,—Jasper Carew.”
“That name is Irish, if I mistake not,” said he; “at least I remember, some twenty years ago, we had here a distinguished stranger who came from Ireland, and was called Carew. He was the fashionable celebrity of a very famous period.”
“He was my father, sir.”
The old lawyer bowed and smiled; but though the gesture was eminently polite, the shrewd twinkle of his eyes bespoke incredulity. I saw this, and said at once,—