“It is indeed a curious accident that has brought us thus in contact,” exclaimed I, in surprise.
“I should like to give it another name, young gentleman,” said he, thoughtfully, while he walked along at my side for some moments in silence. “Has it ever been explained to you, Mr. Carew,” said he, gravely, “what dangers attend such a course of proceeding as you are now engaged in? How necessarily you must be prepared to give in your adhesion to many things your advisers deem essential, and of which you can have no cognizance personally,—in a word, how frequently you will be forced into a responsibility which you never contemplated or anticipated? Have all these circumstances been placed fairly and clearly before you?”
“Never!” replied I.
“Then suffer me to endeavor, in a very few words, to show you some at least of the perils I allude to.” In a few short and graphic sentences he stated my case, with all its favorable points forcibly and well delineated. He then exhibited its various weaknesses and deficiencies, the assumptions for which no proofs were forthcoming, the positions which were taken without power to maintain them. “To give the required coherence and consistency to these, your advisers will of course take all due precaution; but they will require aid also from you. You will be asked for information you have no means of obtaining, for details you cannot supply. A lawsuit is like a chase: the ardor of pursuit deadens every sense of peril, and in the desire to win you become reckless for the cost. I perceive,” said he, “that you demur to some of this; but remember that as yet you have not entered the field, that you have only viewed the sport from afar, and its passions of hope and fear are all untasted by you!”
“It may be as you say,” said I, “and that hereafter I may seem to feel differently; but for the present I can promise you that to secure a verdict in my favor, not only would I not strain any point myself, but I would not condescend to accept the benefit of such a sacrifice from another. I believe—I have strong reasons to believe—that I am asserting a rightful claim; the arguments that shall be sufficient to convince others that I am wrong will, doubtless, be strong enough to satisfy me.”
He had fixed his eyes steadily on me while I was speaking these words, and I could, easily perceive that the impression they produced on him was favorable. He then led me on to speak of my life and its vicissitudes, and I could detect in many of his questions that he had formed erroneous notions as to various parts of my story. I cannot attempt to explain why it was so; but the fact unquestionably was, that I opened my heart more freely and unreservedly to this stranger than I had ever done to any of those with whom I had before conversed; and when we parted at length, it was like old friends.
The accident of our meeting was not known to others, and there was considerable astonishment excited when it was heard that Hanchett, who had hitherto shown no disposition to engage in the cause, now accepted the brief and exhibited the warmest anxiety for success. His acute intelligence quickly detected many things which had been passed over as immaterial, and by his activity various channels of information were opened which others had not thought of. In these details Ysaffich came more than once before him; and it was remarkable with what shrewdness he read the man's nature, bold, resolute, and unscrupulous as it was. Between the two, the feeling of distrust rapidly ripened into open hatred, each not hesitating to accuse the other of treachery; and thus was a new element of difficulty added to a case whose complications were already more than enough.
My own position at this period was embarrassing in the extreme. Hanchett frequently invited me to his house, and presented me freely to his friends; while Ysaffich continued to suggest doubts of his good faith on every occasion, and by a hundred petty slights showed his implacable enmity towards him. Day after day this breach grew wider and wider, every effort of the one being sure to excite the animosity and opposition of the other. Ysaffich, too, far from endeavoring to repress this spirit on his part, seemed to foster and encourage it, sneering at the old lawyer's caution and reserve, and even insinuating against him darker and more treacherous intentions.
“To what end,” said he, at length, one morning when our discussion had become unusually warm and animated, “to what end the inquiries to which this learned adviser of yours would push us: he wants to discover the Countess of Ga-briac and Raper. Why, bethink you, my worthy friend, that these are the very people we hope never to hear more of; that if by any mischance they could possibly be forthcoming, our whole scheme is blown up at once. We have now enough, or we shall have enough by the end of the month, to go to a jury. There is not a document nor a paper that will not, in some form or other, be supplied. Let us stand or fall by that issue; but, of all things, let us not protract the campaign till the arrival of the forces that shall overwhelm us. If this be your policy, Master Gervois, speak it out freely, and let us be frank with each other.”
There was a tone of bold defiance in this speech that startled me; but the way in which he addressed me, as Gervois, a name he had never called me by for several months, in even our closest intimacy, was like a declaration of open hostility.