The old doctor listened with breathless interest to every word of this speech, and merely muttered at the close the words, “The note, the note!”
“I have promised to restore the paper to the banker,” said Heffernan.
“So you shall,—let me read it,” cried Hickman, eagerly; and he clutched from Heffernan's fingers the document, before the other had seemingly determined whether he would yield to his demand.
“There it is for you, sir,” said the doctor; “make what you can of it;” and he threw the paper across the table.
The note contained merely the words, “Ten thousand pounds.” There was no signature or any date, but the handwriting was Gleeson's.
“Ten thousand pounds,” repeated Heffernan, slowly; “a large sum!”
“So it is,” chimed in Hickman, with a grin of self-satisfaction, while a consciousness that the mystery, whatever it might be, was beyond the reach of Heffernan's skill, gave him a look of excessive cunning, which sat strangely on features so old and time-worn.
“Well, Mr. Hickman,” said Heffernan, as he arose to take leave, “I have neither the right nor the inclination to pry into any man's secrets. This affair of Gleeson's will be sifted to the bottom one day or other, and that small transaction of the ten thousand pounds as well as the rest. It was not to discuss him or his fortunes I came here. I hoped to have seen Mr. O'Reilly, and explained away a very serious misconception. Lord Castlereagh regrets it, not for the sake of the loss of Mr. O'Reilly's support, valuable as that unquestionably is, but because a wrong interpretation would seem to infer that the conduct of the Treasury bench was disingenuous. You will, I trust, make this explanation for me, and in the name of his Lordship.”
“Faith, I won't promise it,” said old Hickman, looking up from a long column of figures which he was for some minutes poring over; “I don't understand them things at all; if Bob wanted to be a lord, 't is more than ever I did,—I don't see much pleasure there is in being a gentleman. I know, for my part, I 'd rather sit in the back parlor of my little shop in Loughrea, where I could have a chat over a tumbler of punch with a neighbor, than all the grandeur in life.”
“These simple, unostentatious tastes do you credit before the world, sir,” said Heffernan, with a well put-on look of admiration.