‘I thought, on the contrary,’ said Wentworth, ‘Scripture was so plain that a wayfaring man, though a fool, could not err therein. But I did not come to discuss such questions. I have to ask you, sir, to pause before you take possession of the estate.’
‘Well, sir,’ said the new heir, ‘you have come and you have asked me.’
‘Yes, and you will pause?’
‘Not for an instant. Why should I? By these distressing visitations of Providence, I have come into the possession of property and a title. It is the Lord’s doing and it is marvellous in my eyes. I never sought this nor expected this.’
Wentworth looked at the speaker. There seemed no particular reason why the Lord should have interfered in this matter on his behalf, he thought; but then Wentworth was not of the elect, and knew little as to what the Lord was about.
CHAPTER XXIX.
THE COLONEL.
Society was startled in the autumn of the year to which these events relate by the announcement that Colonel, otherwise Sir Robert Strahan had been shot in a duel on the Belgian frontier. The world wondered why he had to fight a duel. He had the reputation of being an austere and strait-laced man, a great stickler for the proprieties, a strict observer of conventional forms, regular in his attendances on Church ordinances, and very ready to judge harshly of the failings of others. In all the land there was none so proud and priggish, and his wife rejoiced greatly at the work of her hands in transforming a man of the world into a Christian of the regulation pattern.
There were, it is true, many of his fellow-officers and former companions who wondered at rather than admired the change, who questioned its genuineness, and believed, in heart, the Colonel was still the same as when, in his younger days, he played somewhat notoriously the part of a man about town; but then the world is always uncharitable, and its men and women are of a sceptical turn of mind, and ready to doubt people who affect to be superior to their neighbours; and now their hour of triumph had arrived.
This saintly Colonel was no better than other people. In Brussels, unknown to his wife, he had gambled heavily and incurred great losses. In the public dining-hall of the ancient Spartans there was a notice to the effect that no one was to repeat outside the conversation that took place within. In the club of which the Colonel was a member a similar law of honour prevailed, and as the place was outwardly respectable, and was situated in the most respectable quartier, and as its members were men who moved in the first circles on the Continent, it was assumed, of course, that nothing took place but what was respectable. And it was presumed that if its members kept late hours the fact was due to the interesting conversations of the men on the political and other stirring questions of the times. In reality the place was a gambling den of the worst description, where the losers were far greater in numbers than the winners; and amongst the former was our pious Colonel, who had immense faith in his own play, as in everything else that he did, and whose occasional gains, only by confirming his own good opinion of himself, helped him further into the mire.
Then all at once it became known that the worthy Colonel had other children than his legitimate ones. In certain quarters he passed under a feigned name—as Captain Smith—and children learned to know him under that alias. It was a pleasant retreat for the good man when the old Adam was rather strong and seemed ready to crush the renewed man; and thus he led, as many do, a double life.