"That is impossible; that you can never say. Listen, Miles; I know more of this matter than you suspect. I know every detail of it. Your father made me his confidant, and I know the crime which your brother attempted."
"You do?--the crime!"
"The crime. The base, dastardly, hideous crime, which rendered it impossible for your father to do otherwise than renounce his son, and bid you renounce your brother for ever."
"Ah, my God!" groaned Miles, burying his head in his hands.
"There is no reason to be so excited, my poor boy," said Lord Sandilands, laying his hand gently on him. "You need tell Grace nothing of this; and be sure that this wretched Geoffrey will never trouble you again. He is most probably dead."
"Dead!" shrieked Miles, raising his livid face and staring wildly at his friend. "He lives--here amongst us! I have seen him constantly; he has recognised me, I know. This man of whom we were just speaking,--this man whom you call Gilbert Lloyd,--is my younger brother, Geoffrey Challoner!"
[CHAPTER VIII.]
L'Homme propose.
When a man of Lord Ticehurst's character and disposition makes up his mind to achieve a certain result--in the turf slang of the day, "goes in for a big thing"--he is not easily thwarted, or, at all events, he does not give up his idea without having tried to carry it through. The indiscreet, illiterate, but by no means bad-hearted, young nobleman aforenamed had given himself up, heart and soul, to a passion for the opera-singer known to him as Miss Grace Lambert, and had gone through a psychological examination of his feelings, so far as his brain-power permitted, with the view of seeing how the matter lay, and what would be his best means for securing his ends. The notion of succeeding dishonourably had never entered his head, or at least had not remained there for a moment. In that knowledge of the world which comes, no one knows how, to persons who are ignorant of everything else--that savoir fairewhich is learned unconsciously, and which can never be systematically acquired--Lord Ticehurst was a proficient. He was not, as times go, an immoral man, certainly not a wicked one; but he lived in a loose set, and it did not arise from conscientious scruples that he had not "tried it on" that Grace Lambert should become his mistress. Such a result would have given him considerable éclatamongst his friends, and his religious notions were not sufficiently developed to make him shrink from taking such a step. He did nottake it because he knew it would be useless; because he knew that any such offer would be ignominiously rejected; that he would be spurned from the door, and never permitted again to be in the society of the girl whom he really loved. There was only one way out of it--to offer her marriage. And then the question came, Did he really love her sufficiently for that, and was he prepared to stand the consequences?
Did he really love her? He thought he could put in an answer to that, by Jove! Did he really love her? You should ask old Gil about that! Old Gil knew more of him than anyone else; and he could tell you--not that he knew what it was, what was the reason of it, don't you know?--that for the whole of last season he had been an altered man. He knew that himself--he confessed it; he felt that he had not taken any proper interest in the stable, and that kind of thing; indeed, if he had not had old Gil to look after it, the whole thing would have gone to the deuce. He knew that well enough, but he could not help it. He had been regular spoons on this girl, and he was, and he should be to the end of the chapter, amen. That was all he had got to say about it. His life had been quite a different thing since he had known her. He had left off swearing, and all that cussed low language that he used to delight in once upon a time; and he'd got up early, because he thought there was a chance of meeting her walking in the Park (he had met her once, and solemnly walked between her and Mrs. Bloxam for an hour without saying a word); and he had cut the balletand its professors, with whom formerly he had very liberal relations. The coryphéesand the little rats, whom he had been in the habit of calling by their Christian names, who knew him by the endearing abbreviation of "Ticey," and to whom formerly he was delighted to stand and talk by the hour, received the coldest of bows from their quondam friend, as he stood amongst the wings of the opera-scenery on the chance of a word of salutation from the prima donnaas she hurried from her dressing-room on to the stage. But that word and the glance at her were enough. "It's no good," he used to say; "it won't do after that. If I go away to supper at old Chalkstone's, and find Bella Marshall and Kate Herbert and half-a-dozen of the T.R.D.L. balletthere, 'pon my soul it don't amuse me when they put the lobster-claws at the end of their noses; and I think Bagwax and Clownington and old Spiff--well, damme, they're old enough to know better, and they might think about--well, I don't want to preach about what we're all coming to, and what must be precious near for them."