The new-comer, strangely enough, bore no slight resemblance to Carlton Brand. We say strangely, because the lawyer was by no means such a person, in general appearance, as could be readily duplicated. Henry Thornton, his professional brother, had the same tall, lithe figure with evidence of great agility, the same mould of countenance in many respects, and with eyes of hazel only a shade darker than Brand's. But here the resemblance, which might otherwise have been extraordinary, became slighter and eventually disappeared. His complexion was much darker, even brown, from chin to forehead, indicating Southern blood or residence. His hair, curling a little, was of very dark brown, almost black; and his heavy moustache, the only beard he wore, was so nearly black as generally to pass under that designation. In spite of the similarity of form and feature, it may be imagined that these differences told very strongly on the general effect produced by the two men on the mere casual observer; and while there was that indefinable something in the face of Carlton Brand, to which attention has before been called, denoting intellect and true nobility of soul, accompanied by an occasional pitiable weakness or want of self-assertion of the full manhood, there was that quite as plainly to be read in the face of Henry Thornton, which told of dauntless courage and iron will, a brain busy and scheming if not even plotting, and powers which might not always be turned to the service of the candid, the open and the honorable. Lavater would have thought, looking at his face—Well for him and for the world if what he wills is in consonance with honor and justice, for what he wills he will pursue with the unfaltering courage of the lion and the untiring determination of the sleuth-hound!
But Nature, giving to these two men who held no known relationship whatever, so striking a resemblance in some particulars and so great a dissimilarity in others—had not quite ended her freak of comparison. It is doubtful whether either was fully aware of the fact, but the similarity between the tones of their voices, in ordinary times, was quite as marked as that between certain physical features; and any person standing that day without the door, when the two had entered into conversation, might have been puzzled to know whether two persons were really speaking or one was carrying on a monologue. This, only at ordinary times: Thornton's voice was much steadier and more uniform under feeling, and it never broke into tones so low and melancholy as that of the other, when influenced by temporary depression.
Such was Carlton Brand's visitor on that Sunday afternoon, and he it was who but the moment after was seated in the proffered chair near the window and chatting upon current topics with as much nonchalance as if he had merely called upon his entertainer at his little office on Sixth Street, Philadelphia, instead of visiting him at a hotel in a distant city.
There was a little table standing between the two windows of the room and within reach of Thornton as he sat. On the table lay part of that miscellaneous collection of articles which every careless bachelor will persist in scattering about his room at the hotel; and at the edge of what may be called the pile lay a paper more than half unfolded, which caught the observant eye of the visitor. With a quick: "Will you allow me?" which brought an affirmative response, he reached over, took up the paper, unfolded it and read a receipt for a first cabin passage in the Cunard Mail Steamship to sail from New York to Liverpool, on the 8th July, for which $130.50 had been paid by Mr. Carlton Brand.
"The Cunarder for Liverpool next Wednesday," he said, when he had finished running his eye over the passage-ticket.
"Yes," answered the owner, and he answered nothing more.
A strange expression passed over the face of his interrogator—an expression so doubtful that even Lavater, or any other man pretending to read the human countenance like an open book, might have been puzzled to say whether it conveyed pleasure, scorn, wonder, or any one of the thousand different feelings whose outward show glints over our faces as often and as transiently as the cloud-shadows floating over the mountain woods or the mottled sunshine flickering over the wheat-fields. There was something there—something which the other did not appear to notice; and with that fact we must be content.
Five minutes later, Carlton Brand, through the medium of words growing out of the discovery of the passage-ticket, was in confidential conversation with Henry Thornton with reference to the disgrace which had driven him from home and must make him an exile for years if not forever. It may have been a serious weakness, towards one who had never been even on terms of speaking acquaintance with her, to talk to him of Margaret Hayley and to confess the shameful dismissal which he had received. But Henry Thornton knew of the Hayleys if he did not claim an acquaintance with them; he had it in his power to impart information of them and their probable movements during the summer, which the other might have found difficulty in obtaining through any other means; and perhaps that knowledge gave some excuse for reciprocal confidence. At all events that confidence was given, and it elicited a return of apparently equal candor. Before the separation took place, at the end of an interview which lasted more than an hour, a strange bond seemed to have been established and cemented between the two lawyers, very different from any which official intercourse can often rivet. That interview, in fact, appeared to have produced marked effects upon both, for while on the face of Henry Thornton, as he rose to take his farewell, there was a look of entire satisfaction that could not have been without a meaning more or less creditable,—there was in the eye of Carlton Brand less of that troubled expression which had been for days resting there like a shadow, and he breathed as if a weight had been lifted from his breast. To one this new satisfaction and lightness of heart may have been no false presage: to the other, what an omen of unsuspected evil, disaster and death!
They parted at the door of the lawyer's room, with a much warmer grasp of the hand than that with which they had met little more than a hour before; and each held the palm of the other in his for a moment, as those should do who have however slight a bond in common and between whom the waves of a whole wide ocean are so soon to roll.
"A pleasant voyage and a happy return!" said the one, on the threshold.