Charles Tyrrell strove energetically to nerve his mind, and to resist the suggestions of despair. But which way could he look? what could he do? if he thought at all, what were the images presented to his mind? His dead father murdered and followed to the grave by menials alone: his mother with her heart torn and agonized, forcing herself from the bed of sickness to exert herself on his behalf, while every word that she must hear, and every act that she must do, could but serve to wring her heart more painfully, and call up every fearful impression of the past and the future: his promised bride, her he loved better than anything else on earth, with all her young happiness blighted, all her bright prospects gone, mourning ineffectually over his fate, and sorrowing for his ruined character and wounded name: and then the future, the dark, inscrutable, terrible future, that vast interminable cloud, filled with objects that we know not, but which to the eyes of Charles Tyrrell, rolled into every frightful form, and assumed every dark and threatening hue.
With these things and such as these were his thoughts busy about eleven o'clock on the fourth night of his imprisonment, when one of the turnkeys opened the door and Everard Morrison presented himself. Charles advanced and grasped his hand eagerly, saying, "I thought you would come, Morrison, I have been longing for you, to consult with you on various matters."
Morrison was very pale, and there was an anxious and excited look about him, which Charles Tyrrell had seldom seen.
"We are all selfish, Sir Charles," he said; replying to his friend in the respectful tone which he always used, "we are all selfish; and I have been occupied for two days after your note arrived in business of my own; but now let us speak upon your business, Sir Charles."
But Charles Tyrrell required a friend, and the formality with which the other spoke, pained him.
"Do not call me Sir Charles," he said; and forgetting the restraint he had considerately put upon himself in former times, he went on, "I, at least, Morrison, have ever retained for you the same regard which we mutually entertained at school. I have sought you! I have courted you, as far as it was decent or proper for me to do so, and I have not even been offended by coldness, which might have offended others. Why you have acted so, I cannot tell: but--"
"I will tell you at once why I have acted so," replied Everard Morrison, taking his hand and grasping it affectionately, "I have acted so deliberately even at the risk of offending you. My father, when he heard of the intimacy between us, laid before me a picture of my fortunes such as they were, and he showed me, that there were two paths for me to follow: either to seek associations above myself, and take my chance of rising by patronage and assistance to eminence in my profession and to society of a high grade; or to content myself with the middle class, in which I was born, apply myself under him to diligent study and constant exertion, to choose calm mediocrity, and tranquil competence, rather than to accumulate wants and wishes, necessities and cares even while I strove to amend my condition. My choice was easily formed. I chose the humbler path, because I believed it would prove the happier; and the only real sacrifice that I made, was the sacrifice of your society, Tyrrell. I had forgotten none of our boyish friendship; I have forgotten none of it now. Every kind act that you have done me, every generous or noble feeling which I had remarked in your nature have ever been present to me through life. I at one time, indeed, thought that I could effect a compromise, and still cultivate your friendship, without stepping out of my own station. One visit to Harbury Park, however, convinced me that that could not be; for although you were everything that was kind and friendly, your father treated me as the small attorney's son. That trial made me resolve to guard my own demeanour toward you with a sort of iron respect, which I have observed up to the present moment. It was that made me call you Sir Charles; but the matter is now altered. Tyrrell. I can serve you. I can be something more to you than the small attorney. I can be your zealous, your true, I trust, your successful friend. But you must put full confidence in me, Tyrrell."
"Why, you don't think me guilty!" exclaimed Charles Tyrrell.
"Oh no," answered Morrison, "I think you innocent; nay more, Tyrrell, I know you to be innocent; for I know the very spot on which you stood at the moment your father's murder must have taken place."
"Do you know who did it?" exclaimed Charles eagerly, grasping his hand, and gazing intently upon his countenance.