"I don't know," said Whitaker; "but it was one that gave Charles Stevens little pleasure to send, and the Bulfinches, father and sons, a deal to receive. It came about in a peculiar way," said the dandy. "Late one afternoon Tom Horn said to me that perhaps I'd better wait, as Mr. Stevens thought he'd have need of me. And so I did. The dusk came on; the light filling up the space under the door of your uncle's room showed me he'd lighted the candles, and I could hear him limping up and down the floor as though he couldn't keep still, Tom Horn was the only other person in the place; he had a candle at his elbow and was scratching away at some figures, and every once in so often he'd give me a look and screw up his face and shake his head. So I said to him, 'What is it?'
"'He said he'd never go to them,' says Tom. 'I've heard him say it many a time.'
"'Go to whom?' says I.
"'To the money-brokers,' says Tom. 'To Harmony Court. To Bulfinch's. So he means to send you.'
"But I couldn't believe it," said Whitaker, "for what could any one want with a messenger to that rats' nest if it wasn't on a matter of business? And what business could Rufus Stevens' Sons have there?" Whitaker took up his tankard and whipped the ale about in it with a circular motion; then he drank deeply of it. "But in a half-hour, maybe, Charles called me in." Whitaker put the tankard down and held up a hand as though in affirmation. "I never saw a man so deathly-looking; the sweat stood on his face and his eyes looked like the eyes of a very old man. He gave me a sealed paper and told me to take it to Amos Bulfinch at once. I said it was late, that I thought their place of business would be closed. But he laughed,—I never thought to hear a laugh that would chill me," said Whitaker, "but that one did,—and he told me to have no fear; they'd be waiting."
"And they were?"
"All three of them. The saintly father—whom the devil take!—and the virtuous sons—may they burn together!—sat and smiled and bade me welcome. They opened the sealed paper in an inner room; and afterwards Nathaniel came out with a second paper, also sealed, which he said was for Mr. Charles Stevens, and to whom it was to be delivered without delay. I did deliver it to him in his own place on Ninth Street, and I left him sitting with it unopened, and—shall I say it?—looking like a man broken and unstrung."
It was after dark when Anthony left Whitaker and walked up Water Street to Christopher Dent's. There was a light in the rooms above the apothecary's; and there was a moving shadow thrown on the curtains, graceful, youthful, appealing, with soft gestures. Anthony sounded the knocker at the side door, and in a few moments he talked with her father in the same room in which she had talked with Mr. Sparhawk some months before.
"You know who I am, so there's no need to go into that," said Anthony. "And I am here because there are matters between us which should be spoken of without delay."
Coldly polite, the old Frenchman indicated a chair, but Anthony said: