“I come, sir, in hopes of convincing your friends you are not so very ill; not incurable. Why your eye is steady, your complexion good: a little high with the excitement of this conversation; but, if we can only get over this little delusion, all will be well.”
“What little delusion?”
“About the L. 14,000, you know.”
“What L. 14,000? I have not mentioned L. 14,000 to you, have I?”
“No, sir: you seem to shun it like poison; that is the worst of it. You talk about it to others fast enough: but to Dr. Wycherley and myself, who could cure you of it, you would hide all about it, if you could.”
At this Alfred rose and put his hands in his pockets and looked down grimly on his inquisitor. “Mr. Speers,” said he, “you had better go. There is no credit to be gained by throwing so small an apothecary as you out of that window; and you won't find it pleasant either; for, if you provoke me to it, I shall not stand upon ceremony: I shan't open the window first, as I should for Dr. What's his confounded name.”
At these suggestive words, spoken with suppressed ire and flashing eyes, Speers scuttled to the door crabwise, holding the young lion in check conventionally—to wit, with an eye as valiant as a sheep's; and a joyful apothecary was he when he found himself safe outside the house and beside Dr. Wycherley, who was waiting for him.
Alfred soon cooled, and began to laugh at his own anger and the unbounded impudence of his visitors: but, on the other hand, it struck him as a grave circumstance that so able a man as his father should stir muddy water; should go and talk to these strangers about the money he had misappropriated. He puzzled himself all the time he was dressing: and, not to trouble the reader with all the conjectures that passed through his mind, he concluded at last, that Mr. Hardie must feel very strong, very sure there was no evidence against him but his son's, or he would not take the eighth commandment by the horns like this.
“Injustice carries it with a high hand,” thought Alfred, with a sigh. He was not the youth to imitate his father's shamelessness: so he locked this last incident in his own breast; did not even mention it to Julia.
But now, on reading Peggy's note, his warlike instincts awoke, and, though he despised his correspondent and her motives, he could not let such a chance pass of defeating brazen injustice. It was unfortunate and awkward to have to go to Silverton on his wedding morning; but, after all, there was plenty of time. He packed up his things at once for the wedding tour, and in the morning took them with him in the fly to Silverton: his plan was to come back direct to Albion Villa: so he went to Silverton Grove full dressed, all ready for the wedding.