Another letter had arrived during his absence. An hour passed before he saw it, but when his eye at length fell on the envelope he was roused to attention. He took out a sheet of blue note-paper, covered with large, clerkly writing.
"DEAR SIR,
"We have at length been able to trace the person concerning whom you are in communication with us. He is at present living in Bristol, and we think is likely to remain there for a short time yet. Will you favour us with a call, or make an appointment elsewhere?
"We have the honour to be, dear Sir,
"Yours faithfully, "TULKS & CROWE."
He paced the room, holding the letter behind his back. It was more than three weeks since the investigation referred to had been committed to Messrs. Tulks & Crowe, private inquiry agents; and long before this he had grown careless whether they succeeded or not. An impulse of curiosity; nothing more. Well, yes; a fondness for playing with secrets, a disposition to get power into his hands—excited to activity just after a long pleasant talk with Lilian. He was sorry this letter had come; yet it made him smile, which perhaps nothing else would have done just now.
"To be weak is miserable, doing or suffering." The quotation was often in his mind, and he had never felt its force so profoundly as this afternoon. The worst of it was, he did not believe himself a victim of inherent weakness; rather of circumstances which persistently baffled him. But it came to the same thing. Was he never to know the joy of vigorous action?—of asserting himself to some notable result?
He could do so now, if he chose. In his hand were strings, which, if he liked to pull them, would topple down a goodly edifice, with uproar and dust and amazement indescribable: so slight an effort, so incommensurable an outcome! He had it in his power to shock the conventional propriety of a whole town, and doubtless, to some extent, of all England. What a vast joke that would be—to look at no other aspect of the matter! The screamings of imbecile morality—the confusion of party zeal—the roaring of indignant pulpits!
He laughed outright.
But no; of course it was only an amusing dream. He was not malignant enough. The old-fashioned sense of honour was too strong in him. Pooh! He would go and dine, and then laugh away his evening somewhere or other.