'M. W.'
Within was what he called his 'notice' to Stanley Lake, and it was thus conceived:—
'Private.
'DEAR LAKE—I understand you are trying to make all safe for next election in Dollington or the county. Now, understand at once, that I won't permit that. There is not a country gentleman on the grand jury who is not your superior; and there is no extremity I will not make you feel—and you know what I mean—if you dare despise this first and not unfriendly warning.
'Yours truly,
'MARK WYLDER.'
Now there certainly was need of Wylder's assurance that nothing unpleasant should happen to the conscious bearer of such a message to an officer and a gentleman. Jos. Larkin did not like it. Still there was a confidence in his own conciliatory manners and exquisite tact. Something, too, might be learned by noting Lake's looks, demeanour, and language under this direct communication from the man to whom his relations were so mysterious.
Larkin looked at his watch; it was about the hour when he was likely to find Lake in his study. The attorney withdrew the little private enclosure, and slipt it, with a brief endorsement, into the neat sheaf of Wylder's letters, all similarly noted, and so locked it up in the iron safe. He intended being perfectly ingenuous with Lake, and showing him that he had 'no secrets—no concealments—all open as the day'—by producing the letter in which the 'notice' was enclosed, and submitting it for Captain Lake's perusal.
When Lawyer Larkin reached the dim chamber, with the Dutch tapestries, where he had for a little while to await Captain Lake's leisure, he began to anticipate the scene now so immediately impending more uncomfortably than before. The 'notice' was, indeed, so outrageous in its spirit, and so intolerable in its language, that, knowing something of Stanley's wild and truculent temper, he began to feel a little nervous about the explosion he was about to provoke.
The Brandon connection, one way or other, was worth to the attorney in hard cash between five and six hundred a-year. In influence, and what is termed 'position,' it was, of course, worth a great deal more. It would be a very serious blow to lose this. He did not, he hoped, care for money more than a good man ought; but such a loss, he would say, he could not afford.