Britton grew absolutely furious, and dealt blows and oaths about him with equal liberality. In the midst of all this Learmont was in a state of mind bordering on distraction. He rushed into the midst of the throng, and seizing Britton by the throat, tore him from among the guests, nor relaxed his hold till he had dragged him through the outer saloon, and flung him into a small ante-room, the door of which he locked and placed the key in his pocket. Partly with the fumes of what he had drunk, and partly with the heavy fall Learmont had given him, the smith dropped into a lethargic state of half insensibility and half sleep, so that at all events he was for a time quiet in the room where he was thrown.
Dispirited, angry, and his apparel disarranged, Learmont returned to his ball-room. His guests would not, however, be persuaded to remain, and despite all his protestations that the “madman” was properly secured, he could not restore the confidence or hilarity of the company.
Upon one excuse or another, they one and all departed, and not a single dance took place in the elaborately and expensively prepared ball-room of the ambitious and mortified squire.
With a forced civility he saw the last of his numerous guests to his door. The lights were still blazing in his saloons, but there was silence and loneliness in the midst of all his splendour, which now looked such a mockery of gaiety.
He sunk upon a chair, and buried his face in his hands for many minutes in an agony of painful reflection.
Learmont’s first grand fête was over, and a signal failure.
CHAPTER XXXVI.
Albert Seyton.—The Lonely Search.—A Suggestion.—An Important Visit.
We will now conduct the reader to one of our dramatis personæ that we have unwillingly been compelled to neglect for some time—we mean the gallant and enthusiastic Albert Seyton. As we have recorded the prostration of spirits which ensued, when he lost all trace again of the unfortunate and persecuted Ada, after so providentially, as it were, encountering her in St. James’s Park, terminated in a long and dangerous illness—an illness which brought him to the brink of the grave; but thanks to the tender nursing of his father, and an excellent constitution, he successfully battled with his sickness and after some months, was able, although but the shadow of his former self, to walk abroad, by the assistance of his father.
His deep dejection concerning Ada, however, still clung to him like a blight, and it became clear to his deeply affected father that he should never again see the bloom of health upon the cheek of his son unless the hiding-place of the deceitful Jacob Gray was once more discovered.