“Serious matters, indeed!” ejaculated Lord William, also rising; “is it not a serious matter that your brother—your own brother—has suddenly disappeared——”
“I have already told your lordship that I have no control over the actions of Sir Gilbert Heathcote,” said the lawyer; “and I am not to be forced into a discussion on any subject with one who is a complete stranger to me.”
“I repeat, sir, that I am your brother’s intimate friend,” cried the young patrician, indignantly.
“But I repeat, on my side, that you are no friend of mine—nor likely to be,” responded Heathcote. “Will your lordship, therefore, leave me to those pursuits which have better claims upon my time and attention?”
“Better claims! And yet you must surely have some of the ordinary feelings of human nature,” urged the nobleman, in a tone of mingled remonstrance and earnest appeal. “One word more, if you please, sir,” he continued, seeing that Heathcote was again about to interrupt him: “this matter is becoming serious! For eight days has your brother been missed from his place of abode and from the circle of his friends: an investigation into so mysterious an occurrence must necessarily take place—and without delay, too. What will the world think of you, sir—you, the nearest living relative of one who may perhaps be no more—if you refuse your co-operation in this endeavour to ascertain what has become of him? I will even go farther, sir, and declare that a certain degree of odium will attach itself to you——”
“Young man, by what right do you thus insult me?” demanded the lawyer, completely unabashed, and measuring Lord William Trevelyan from head to foot with his keen, searching eyes. “Do you for a single instant dare to assert that if my brother should have met with foul play—as your words just now implied such a suspicion,—do you dare to assert, I ask, that the world would couple the slightest imputation with my good name? Though not of an aristocratic rank, my social position is an honourable one; and such as it is, my own talents—my own energies—my own hard toils, have made it. But because I can see nothing extraordinary in the absence of a man who has no domestic ties to bind him to one place, and who, acting upon a sudden caprice or fancy, may choose to depart from the metropolis, perhaps,—because I behold nothing remarkable in all this, am I to be reproached, vituperated, and even insulted by you, who adopt another view of the matter? Why, my lord, you are far more intimate with Sir Gilbert Heathcote than I, even though he is my brother;—and what would you say, were I to repair to your house—force myself into your presence—refuse to leave when solicited—and actually level the most injurious language, amounting almost to positive imputations, at your head? I appeal to your good sense, if you possess any, to consider the impropriety of your conduct here this morning, and to take your departure at once, before you irritate me more deeply than you have already done.”
“I have listened, sir, with respectful attention to all you have said,” returned Lord William Trevelyan; “and I declare emphatically that I am not satisfied with your reasoning. I impute nothing to you—because I know not what suspicions to entertain in the case. I frankly confess that I am bewildered, not only by the fact of my friend’s unaccountable disappearance, but also by the manner in which you treat that circumstance. You declare that you cannot bring yourself to look seriously on this disappearance: surely it ought to alarm you, when I, who am so well acquainted with your brother, solemnly aver that I have particular reasons for knowing that he would not leave the metropolis in obedience to any sudden fancy or whim, without previously making a communication in a certain quarter.”
“To you, I presume?” said Heathcote, fixing his eyes searchingly upon the patrician.
“No—not to myself,” was the reply: “but to another.”
“And that other?” observed the lawyer interrogatively: for he now began to fear that Trevelyan alluded to Mrs. Sefton, in which case he might repair straight to her abode after quitting that office—he might there meet the clerk whom he had seen on his arrival just now—and he might mar the entire scheme that had been concocted for the purpose of inducing the lady to leave England.