"Sweet mercy is nobility's true badge."
—Titus Andronicus.
"Before you begin, Fabian, it is only fair to tell you that I will not listen favorably to one word in his defense. Under the farsical term of secretary, Slyme has been a disgrace and a torment to me for years; and last night has finished everything."
"It was very unfortunate, no doubt," says Fabian, regretfully. "What a curse the love of drink is!—a madness, a passion."
"I have told him he must go," says Sir Christopher, who is in a white heat of rage, and is walking up and down the room with an indignant frown upon his face. Just now, stopping short before Fabian, he drops into a seat and says, testily, "Unfortunate! that is no word to use about it. Why, look you how it stands; you invite people to your house to dine, and on your way to your dining-room, with a lady on your arm, you are accosted and insolently addressed by one of your household—your secretary, forsooth—so drunk that it was shameful! He reeled! I give you my word, sir—he reeled! I thought Lady Chetwoode would have fainted: she turned as pale as her gown, and but for her innate pluck would have cried aloud. It was insufferable, Fabian. Waste no more words over him, for go he shall."
"After all these years," says Fabian, thoughtfully, thrumming gently on the table near him with his forefinger.
All night long the storm has raged with unexampled fury, and even yet its anger is fierce and high as when first it hurled itself upon a sleeping world. The raindrops are pattering madly against the window-panes, through the barren branches of the elms the wind is shrieking, now rising far above the heads of the tallest trees, now descending to the very bosom of the earth, and, flying over it, drives before its mighty breath all such helpless things as are defenceless and at its mercy.
Perhaps the noise of this tempest outside drowns the keen sense of hearing in those within, because neither Fabian nor Sir Christopher stir, or appear at all conscious of the opening of a door at the upper end of the library, where they are sitting. It is a small door hidden by a portière leading into another corridor that connects itself with the servants' part of the house.
As this door is gently pushed open, a head protrudes itself cautiously into the room, though, on account of the hanging curtains, it is quite invisible to the other occupants of the apartment. A figure follows the head, and stands irresolutely on the threshold, concealed from observation, not only by the curtain, but by a Japanese screen that is placed just behind Sir Christopher's head.
It is a crouching, forlorn, debased figure, out of which all manliness and fearlessness have gone. A figure crowned by gray hair, yet gaining no reverence thereby, but rather an additional touch of degradation. There is, too, an air of despondency and alarm about this figure to-day new to it. It looks already an outcast, a miserable waif, turned out to buffet with the angry winds of fortune at the very close of his life's journey. There is a wildness in his bloodshot eyes, and a nervous tremor in his bony hand, as it clutches at the curtain for support, that betrays the haunting terror that is desolating him.
"I don't care," says Sir Christopher, obdurately. "I have suffered too much at his hands; I owe him nothing but discomfort. I tell you my mind is made up, Fabian; he leaves me at once, and forever."