"And if not?"
"Well, if not, by George, Simnel, up goes the sponge, and no mistake. There are three writs out against me, and I fancy some of Sloman's people are on. There have been some fellows hanging about my door in South Audley Street; and I fancy, from what Stephens says, they were any thing but the right sort. What are you thinking about?"
"I was thinking," said Mr. Simnel slowly, "that if this Schröder business does not come off,--and I don't think it will,--you'd better send in a certificate from Prater or some one, and get away to the Continent for six months."
"Well, we'll wait and see what to-day brings forth, at all events. If it don't do, I'll very likely take your advice."
After Mr. Beresford had gone, Mr. Simnel sat with his feet on the fender, slowly rubbing his knee. "It must be hurried through at once," he said to himself. "I'll square the settlement to-day; and if Beresford fails with Mrs. Schröder, he must be got out of town and abroad. Vengeance, eh? no, not quite that, my fine fellow. Long before you come back, there'll be somebody with a right to interfere, if any thing like vengeance is threatened."
And how fared it with Kate Mellon all this while? what had happened to the pivot on which so many schemes of love and hate, of worship and revenge, were turning? In a bad way was Kate Mellon mentally and thence physically. The news of Mr. Schröder's death, which she had read accidentally in an "odds and ends" column of a cheap sporting-paper, had come upon her with a terrific shock. She had compared dates, and found that it had happened on the day after the despatch of her letter; and though there was nothing to create any connexion between the circumstances, she felt a kind of horrible impression that by her act she had hastened his end. This preyed upon her mind; and as she had no one in whom to confide--(had Simnel come up in the interval, it is probable that she would have told him all, for the sake of getting a scrap of consolation, of advice--of mere talk--so weightily did the retention of the secret lie on her),--she fretted and worried herself, and each day grew more feverish, more unsettled, more discontented. One horrible thought she had, which swallowed up all the rest--might not she unconsciously have helped her rival to her happiness! If this fair-haired woman cared for Charley, as had been stated (and as she had seen with her own eyes), she could not have cared for her husband. He was now removed, and there was nothing to prevent a marriage between them. Here was a phantom which nothing could lay; a spectre which would haunt her day and night, ever mocking and gibing at her; and she tossed in ceaseless torture, and grew paler and thinner, and took less interest in her business every day.
On the day on which Mr. Beresford and Mr. Simnel had the conversation just narrated, Kate Mellon lay on the sofa in her little drawing-room, listless and drowsy, as was her wont nowadays, and with her head buried in her hands. She roused herself at a loud knock at the door, and bade the person enter. It was old Freeman, the stud-groom.
"Here's Hockley, miss, just coom down from town staäbles. Black harse from Ireland, 'raived last neet."
"What horse, Freeman?"
"Waät harse, eh? Mai bairn, thee'rt gangin' daft wi' soommut; ai heeard not waät! Waät harse? why, black harse we bought of Markis Clonmel--black hoonter which Johnson wrote aboot last week."