"Good God! this is very extraordinary," cried Lord Dewry, taking alarm more from the tone of Manners's voice, and the expression of his countenance, than from anything he had said. "For Heaven's sake, explain yourself, sir. Where is my son? What is your business? Sit down, sir, I beg! What is it you seek?"
By the agitated manner in which the baron spoke, Manners saw that he must proceed cautiously.
"May I ask you, my lord, if you have ever heard of a person named Pharold, a gipsy?" he demanded, intending by this question to lead his hearer's mind away, for a moment, from the real subject of apprehension; but, without at all wishing it, by that very inquiry he redoubled the agitation of the peer.
For an instant the thoughts of Lord Dewry were all in confusion and uncertainty,--doubtful of the end to which Manners's interrogatory tended, and fearful that a man to whom he had given such just cause for anger had become acquainted with some of the dreadful secrets which oppressed his own bosom. His first impulse was to lift his hand to his head, and to gaze with some degree of wildness upon the countenance of his questioner; but almost instantly recalling his firmness, and recollecting the measures he had taken, and the schemes he had laid out, he recovered also his composure, and replied, with a forced smile, "You have alarmed me about my son, Colonel Manners; but you ask me if I know a gipsy of the name of Pharold. I do: my family have, I am afraid, too good reason to know him."
"Then have you any cause to suppose that he bears an ill-will towards your family?" demanded Manners again.
"I have, sir, I have!" replied Lord Dewry; "I have the strongest reasons to believe that he bears us ill-will,--that he has already injured us, and seeks but the opportunity to do more and more for our destruction."
"Does his ill-will particularly point against your son, my lord?" asked Manners, deeply interested by an answer which to him was both mysterious and painful.
"No, no!" exclaimed the peer, starting up from the chair into which he had cast himself when he had invited Manners to be seated--"no, no! certainly not! What is the meaning of this? You have some darker meaning, sir! What of Edward? Tell me, I beseech you, tell me, where is my son?"
"My lord, I am grieved to repeat, that I cannot tell you where he is," replied Manners; "and it is for the purpose of concerting means for discovering him that I now wait upon your lordship. He went out, it appears, to see this gipsy Pharold, and has never returned."
Manners acted for the best; and having not the slightest idea of all that was passing in the bosom of De Vaux's father, he thought that by concealing for a few moments the proof he had obtained of his friend having been murdered, he would allow the mind of the unhappy parent to come by degrees, and less painfully, to a knowledge of the truth: but the result was by no means such as he anticipated; for to Lord Dewry the bare idea of his son having any communication whatever with the eyewitness of that dreadful deed which he had committed in other years, was agonizing in itself; and, without remembering that any one was present to remark the agitation to which he yielded, he clasped his hands together, and strode up and down the saloon, muttering, "Villain! scoundrel! it is all over!" Then, again, recollecting that he was observed, he found it necessary to curb his emotions, and to make anxiety for his son the apparent cause for that agitation which he had already displayed. "Colonel Manners," he said, "you alarm me much. For Heaven's sake, tell me the particulars! Something more than a temporary and ordinary absence must have occurred to excite apprehensions in an officer so much accustomed to danger as yourself. Nor is my sister a woman to yield to idle fears. Tell me, then, what has happened to my son, and why you are led to suppose that there has been any communication between him and a person in regard to whom I have more than suspicions of very terrible deeds--who is, I believe, a villain of the blackest character, and who would scruple at nothing to injure a race who were his first benefactors."