"That will never be," replied Helen, with a very sorrowful look. "The death of that unhappy young man still rests like a heavy weight upon him. You have but to look into his face to see that it is bearing him down to the earth."
"I trust your happiness, dear Helen, may cheer him," answered her lover; "and to secure that shall be Edgar's task."
Advancing towards Clive as he spoke, he put nearly the same questions to him which he had put to Helen, regarding the probable course which Mr. Filmer had pursued.
"I should have thought he was more likely to turn and stand at bay than to fly," replied Mr. Clive; "but if he has fled, it will be far, depend upon it."
"Then the more reason for seeking for him immediately," exclaimed Edgar. "Come, Captain M----, let you and I set out. If I find him, I will venture to apprehend him without warrant, and risk whatever may be the result."
"There may be some risk, it is true," replied Captain M----, "for it does not seem to me that he has committed any offence clearly cognizable by a magistrate. Indeed, I am afraid some of the greatest crimes that men can perpetrate have never yet been placed within the grasp of the law. But let us go; I will take my share of the responsibility." And leaving the little party in the breakfast-room, they went out to pursue their search.
CHAPTER XLIII.
The rooms occupied by Sir Arthur Adelon at Brandon House consisted of a large dressing-room, and an old-fashioned chamber on the first floor, lined with dark oak, supporting a richly ornamented stucco ceiling, where cupids and naiads, and a great number of heterogeneous deities, were flirting away all round the cornices, with plaster of Paris fruits and flowers in their hands. A bed, which rivalled the celebrated one of Ware in its dimensions, with old-fashioned chintz curtains, stood at one side of the room, looking small and modest, from the extent of the space about it. Opposite the foot of the bed was a fire-place, with hand-irons for burning wood, and on each side of it were two doors, one leading into the dressing-room, and the other into a large commodious closet. The windows of the room were three, and the curtains, which were now drawn close, were of the same thick chintz as those which shrouded the bed. There was thus very little light admitted, although the stuff of which the curtains were composed was sufficiently diaphanous for the eye of any one within to mark the change of light and shadow, as the clouds passed through the air without. The door of the dressing-room was open, and one of the windows, partly thrown up, admitted the air of spring, which, to say the truth, was at the time we speak of somewhat sultry and oppressive.
It was but little after the hour of noon when Edgar Adelon and his companion rode away from the stable-yard at Brandon, and at that time Sir Arthur was seated in a chair before the table, with his head resting on his hand, and his eyes half shut. Painful emotions seemed to be passing through his mind, for the muscles of his face moved, and every now and then he would draw a deep and heavy sigh. Who shall say what was in his thoughts? Did he ponder over a life spent in vanities which had proved worse than ashes; of time misused in planting the seeds of very, very bitter fruit? Did he take that review of the long past, which every one, who has a mind capable of thinking, must sometimes ponder on in moments of silent, sleepless solitude? Did he consider how great wealth and lofty station, and high health and education, and every gift and every advantage which can decorate the fate of man, may be all rendered impotent of good to himself and others, by the pampering of one evil passion, by a devotion to one vanity or folly? Perhaps he did; but if so, if his eyes were keen enough, and his sight unsealed sufficiently to judge of the past justly, he saw that his weaknesses and his faults had been seized upon by a superior intellect, to render him, through their means, subservient to the views and purposes of others whose motives he even yet did not clearly distinguish.
"If he did that, he is a scoundrel indeed," said Sir Arthur, in a low murmur. "He is a scoundrel," he added, the next moment; "that is clear: for who but a scoundrel would, for any purpose, suborn evidence against an innocent man?"