“Now go,” said the lawyer sternly to the prostrate De Talor; “and never let me see your face again!”
“But I haven’t any money; where am I to go?” groaned De Talor.
“Wherever you like, Mr. de Talor—this is a free country; but, if I had control of your destination, it should be—to the devil!”
The wretched man staggered to his feet.
“All right, Cardus; I’ll go, I’ll go. You’ve got it all your own way now. You are damned hard, you are; but perhaps you’ll get it taken out of you some day. I’m glad you never got hold of Mary; it must have been pleasant to you to see her marry Jones.”
In another second he was gone, and Mr. Cardus was left thinking, among other things, of that look in old Atterleigh’s eyes, which he could not get out of his mind. Thus did he finally accomplish the revenge to which he had devoted his life.
CHAPTER IX.
MAD ATTERLEIGH’S LAST RIDE
A month had passed since Mr. de Talor had crept, utterly crushed, from the presence of the man whom Providence had appointed to mete out to him his due. During this time Mr. Cardus had been busy from morning till night. He was always a busy man, writing daily with his own hand an almost incredible number of letters; for he carried on all, or nearly all, his great affairs by correspondence, but of late his work seemed to have doubled.
In the course of that month the society in the neighbourhood of Kesterwick experienced a pleasurable sensation of excitement, for suddenly the De Talor family vanished off the face of the Kesterwick world, and the Ceswick Ness estates, after being advertised, were put up for sale, and bought, so said report, by a London firm of lawyers on behalf of an unknown client. The De Talors were gone, where to nobody knew, nor did they much care to inquire—that is, with the exception of the servants whose wages were left unpaid, and the tradespeople to whom large sums were owing. They inquired vigorously enough, but without the smallest result; the De Talors had gone and left no trace, except the trace of bankruptcy, and Kesterwick knew them no more, but was glad over the sensation made by their disappearance.
But on one Saturday Mr. Cardus’s business seemed to come to a sudden stop. He wrote some letters and put them in the post-bag, and then he went to admire his orchids.