There was a silence, during which pale Captain Lake locked up Mark
Wylder's warning, and the attorney twice cleared his voice.
'I need hardly say, Captain Lake, how I feel in this business. I——'
'Quite so,' said the captain, in his soft low tones. 'I assure you I altogether acquit you of sympathy with any thing so utterly ruffianly,' and he took the hand of the relieved attorney with a friendly condescension. 'The only compensation I exact for your involuntary part in the matter is that you distinctly convey the tenor of my language to Mr. Wylder, on the first occasion on which he affords you an opportunity of communicating with him. And as to my ever again acting as his trustee;—though, yes, I forgot'—he made a sudden pause, and was lost for a minute in annoyed reflection—'yes, I must for a while. It can't last very long; he must return soon, and I can't well refuse to act until at least some other arrangement is made. There are quite other persons and I can't allow them to starve.'
So saying, he rose, with his peculiar smile, and extended his hand to signify that the conference was at an end.
'And I suppose,' he said, 'we are to regard this little conversation, for the present, as confidential?'
'Certainly, Captain Lake, and permit me to say that I fully appreciate the just and liberal construction which you have placed upon my conduct—a construction which a party less candid and honourably-minded than yourself might have failed to favour me with.'
And with this pretty speech Larkin took his hat, and gracefully withdrew.
CHAPTER XLVIII.
IN WHICH I GO TO BRANDON, AND SEE AN OLD ACQUAINTANCE IN THE TAPESTRY ROOM.
To my surprise, a large letter, bearing the Gylingden postmark, and with a seal as large as a florin, showing, had I examined the heraldry, the Brandon arms with the Lake bearings quartered thereon, and proving to be a very earnest invitation from Stanley Lake, found me in London just about this time.