The lawyer, forgetting one half of the awful circumstances of the moment, rubbed his hands with a look of satisfaction. "That will just do, my lord! That will just do!" he exclaimed. "If we can get any proof whatsoever that the money is furnished by this Langford, we will, when it is tendered, which will doubtless be the case to-morrow, seize upon it as the property of a felon, and then proceed against Sir Walter as if he had never had it. Long ere this Langford comes to be tried, by one means or another we can lay the old man by the heels in gaol, and then, by one process or another, mount up such an expense at law as will leave him scarcely a coat to his back."
The Earl smiled, partly with satisfaction at the ready means of gratification which had been found for him in one instance, and partly with contemptuous insight into the workings of the lawyer's mind, feeling that degree of pleasant scorn with which the more powerful but not less evil minds regard the minor operations of the tools they work with in the accomplishment of wicked purposes. The lawyer remarked the expression, and fancied that it was well-pleased admiration of his skill and readiness; and again he rubbed his hands, and chuckled with conceit and pleasure.
The Earl, however, waved his hand somewhat sternly. "Cease, cease," he said: "I can have no laughter here! This house is a house of mourning and of vengeance. We will have no laughter! Your idea is a good one, and you shall be rewarded if the execution answers to the conception. But there is more to be done; there are still greater things to be accomplished--things that are painful to me, but which yet I must do; things I shall remember and regret but which yet I will not shrink from."
As he spoke there came over the strong stern features of the old man's face a dark and awful expression which made even the lawyer shrink and draw back, accustomed as he was to see human passions in all their direst forms. It was the expression, the irrepressible expression of a powerful mind deliberately summoning all its energies to the commission of a crime known, appreciated, and abhorred. The evident effect produced upon the lawyer seemed in some degree to affect his patron, who, ere he spoke further, took two or three gloomy turns up and down the room, and then again drawing near him, said, "But this Langford; what is to be done with Langford? He remains to be dealt with."
The lawyer gazed in the Earl's countenance, doubting in his own mind what he meant; and imagining that the very fact of having aided Sir Walter Herbert was so great a crime in the eyes of the Earl as to call down his vengeance as remorselessly upon the one as upon the other. It was a pitch of vindictiveness at which even his mind was staggered, and he said with some embarrassment, "But, my lord, from what your lordship said just now of those two justices, I fancied you thought the gentleman not guilty."
The Earl gazed upon him steadfastly for so long that the lawyer shrunk beneath his eyes. He then answered deliberately, "I do not think him guilty, but yet I would prove him so."
"But, my lord," stammered the lawyer, "my lord, if the man be innocent! I dare say he did not know he would offend your lordship by helping Sir Walter, otherwise----"
"Hush!" exclaimed the Earl. "It is no such pitiful motive as that which moves me. I have other reasons for my actions, other causes for my determination. Whether the man murdered my son or not is of little import in this question. Hearken to me, my good friend; he must be swept from my path. I have strong and sufficient causes for wishing him hence. He must be removed. He and I cannot live long in the same world together!"
"Good God! my lord," replied the lawyer, this is very terrible. "I really know not how to act, or what to think."
"Think," said the peer, "that if by your means I succeed in this business--if, by your zeal for myself and my family you convict this man of the murder of my son, wealth and distinction shall be yours for the rest of your life, but if you do not----"