"Oh, for many reasons," answered Mr. Wilkinson musing, and perhaps not exactly liking to state the real basis of his opinion. "The fact is, it is like eating garlic, Mr. Beauchamp, or drinking spirits, or taking any other of those things which a man nauseates at first, but gets very fond of by degrees--when a person grows fond of a rogue, he gradually gets to like him beyond any one else, and soon finds he cannot do without him."
Burrel smiled, though there was a slight sort of mistiness about the conclusion of Mr. Wilkinson's illustration, which he did not exactly like. However, he pressed him no farther; and having learned that Lord Ashborough was carrying on a suit against Sir Sidney Delaware, in regard to the annuity, with somewhat sharper measures than the generality of the profession considered reputable, he obtained the bill for ten thousand pounds which Mr. Tims had presented in lieu of the money due from the earl, and then returned to his uncle's dwelling.
Lord Ashborough was now at home; and although Miss Beauchamp had broke the news of her brother's return, and added a number of reasons and apologies for his not having sooner communicated the fact of his safety, the earl was still both agitated and offended, and his reception of Beauchamp showed a strange mixture of pride, and irritation, and pleasure.
"And pray, Henry, may I ask--" he said, after their first salutations were over--"May I ask, I say--for your movements and their causes may both require the same diplomatic secrecy which you have of late so skilfully displayed--May I ask, I say, why you were pleased to conceal your existence from your nearest relations? Your sister has indeed already favoured me with so many reasons, that I confess I have become puzzled and bewildered by the number, and would fain hear your own motives from your own lips."
Beauchamp was not a man to make any excuse to any one, if he had not a true one ready at his hand. In the present instance, he thought it best to tell Lord Ashborough the simple truth, and then leave him to receive it as an excuse or not, as he might think best; taking care, at the same time, to word it with all due respect and kindness, in deference to the affection which he knew his uncle felt towards him.
"The fact is, my dear sir," he answered, "for the first fortnight or three weeks after you had fancied me drowned, I was not at all aware of such a report. I was first detained at a cottage with a dislocated ancle, and next ill of a fever at Hartford Bridge; and at the time I learned the rumour of my own death, I was under the absolute necessity of going to Paris, in order to pursue the miscreants who committed the horrid murder of which you have heard, at Ryebury. As I was the only person who could prove the facts against them, or lead to their apprehension, the rumour of my death I knew would throw them off their guard; and therefore it was necessary to leave it uncontradicted. Besides"----
"But surely," interrupted Lord Ashborough, who, though strongly inclined to enquire farther concerning the murderers, was resolved to press Beauchamp home in the first instance. "But surely you could have trusted to my discretion in the business.
"Undoubtedly, my lord!" replied Beauchamp; "and I need not tell you that, under any ordinary circumstances, you would have been the very first person to whom I should have communicated my situation, and whom I should have consulted in what I was undertaking."
Lord Ashborough bowed his head with a placable smile, and Beauchamp continued:--"But I could only have done so by writing to you, or by coming to see you. The latter, of course, was out of the question; for I was not willing to trust my secret to your host of servants, and to write was equally impossible, as there were circumstances to explain which could only be done personally."
"How so? Why so?" demanded the earl.