When, a few days later, Maubray, who was a shy man, stepped down from his fly, as the vehicle which conveyed him from the neighbouring railway station, though it more resembled a snail, was called, and found himself under the cold, gray, Ionic colonnade which received people at Kincton, with a dismal and exclusive hospitality, his heart sank, a chilly shadow descended upon him, and in the silent panic of the moment he felt tempted to re-enter the vehicle, return to Dr. Sprague, and confess that he wanted nerve to fulfil his engagement.
William was conducted through the hall, up the great stairs, over a sombre lobby and up a second and narrower stair, to a gallery cold and dim, from which his room door opened. Upon this floor the quietude of desertion reigned. He looked from his low window into a small courtyard, formed on three sides by the house itself, and on the fourth by a rear of the offices, behind which a thick mass of autumnal foliage showed itself in the distance. The circumscribed view was dreary and formal. How different from homely, genial old Gilroyd! But that was a dream, and this reality; and so his toilet proceeded rapidly, and he descended, looking by no means like a threadbare dominie, but handsome and presentable, and with the refinement of his good birth and breeding in his features.
“Can I see Mr. Kincton Knox?” inquired William of the servant in the hall.
“I’ll inquire, Sir,” and William was left in that tessellated and pillared apartment, while the servant entered his master’s study, and speedily returning, informed him with a superciliousness which was new to William, and decidedly uncomfortable, that he might enter.
It was a handsome study, stored with handsome books and sundry busts, one of the deceased Horace Kincton Knox, in porphyry, received William on a pedestal near the door, and looked alarmingly like a case of small-pox.
The present master of Kincton, portly, handsome, though threescore years had not passed over him in vain, with a bald forehead, and a sort of simple dignity, as William fancied, rose smiling, and came to meet him with his hand extended, and with a cordial glow about him, as though he had known him for years.
“You are very welcome, Sir—very happy to see you—very happy to make your acquaintance; and how is my good friend, Sprague? a very old friend of mine, though we have dropped out of sight a good deal; and I correspond very little, so we lose sight of one another; but he’s well, and doing well too? I’m very happy to see you.”
There was something homely and reassuring in this kind old man, which was very pleasant to William.
“Doctor Sprague was very well when I left him, and gave me this note, Sir, for you,” replied William, presenting it to his host, who took it, and glanced at it as they stood on the hearthrug together; and as he read it, he observed: