Hereupon, with great alacrity, Mr. Levi began to apply the key to the lock.
“Don't mind. Keep it; and mind, you d——d little swindler, so sure as you stand there, if you play me a trick, I'll blow your brains out, if it were in the police-office!”
Mr. Levi looked hard at him, and nodded. He was accustomed to excited language in certain situations.
“Well,” said he coolly, a second time returning the keys to his pocket, “your friend will be here at twelve to-morrow, and if you please him as well as he expects, who knows wha-at may be? If he leavesh you half hish money, you'll not 'ave many bill transhactionsh on your handsh.”
“May God Almighty have mercy on me!” groans Sir Richard, hardly above his breath.
“You shall have the cheques then. He'll be here all right.”
“I—I forget; did you say an hour?”
Levi repeats the hour. Sir Richard walks slowly to the stairs, down which Levi lights him. Neither speaks.
In a few minutes more the young gentleman is driving rapidly to his town house, where he means to end that long-remembered night.
When he had got to his room, and dismissed his valet, he sat down. He looked round, and wondered how collected he now was. The situation seemed like a dream, or his sense of danger had grown torpid. He could not account for the strange indifference that had come over him. He got quickly into bed. It was late, and he exhausted, and aided, I know not by what narcotic, he slept a constrained, odd sleep—black as Erebus—the thread of which snaps suddenly, and he is awake with a heart beating fast, as if from a sudden start. A hard bitter voice has said close by the pillow, “You are the first Arden that ever did that!” and with these words grating in his ears, he awoke, and had a confused remembrance of having been dreaming of his father.