The third house on the opposite side of the road was half a mile distant from the little run. Lights shone bright in the lower windows as the tramp dragged his tired limbs to the stout oaken gate. The gate was fastened only by a latch, and offered no resistance to the intruder. He crept with stealthy footsteps along the smooth gravel walk, sheltered by dark laurels, on which the light flashed cheerily from those bright windows. Sounds of laughter and of music pealed out upon the wintry air. Shadows flitted across the blinds of the broad bay windows. Philip Sheldon crept into a sheltered nook beside the rustic porch, and sank down exhausted in the shadow of the laurels.
He sat there in a kind of stupor. He had lost the power of thought, somehow, on that dreary journey. It seemed almost as if he had left some portion of his being out yonder in the cold and darkness. He had difficulty in remembering why he had come to this place, and what that deed was which he meant to do.
"Hawkehurst," he muttered to himself—"Hawkehurst, the man who leagued against me with Jedd! I swore to be even with him if ever I found the opportunity—if ever! And George refused me a few shillings; my brother, my only brother, refused to stand my friend!"
Hawkehurst and George—his only brother—the images of these two men floated confusedly in his brain: he could scarcely separate them. Sometimes it seemed to him that he was still sitting outside his brother's door, on the staircase in Gray's Inn, hugging himself in his rags, and cursing his unnatural kinsman's cruelty; then in the next moment he remembered where he was, and breathed bitter curses upon that unconscious enemy whose laugh pealed out every now and then amid a chorus of light-hearted laughter.
There was a little Christmas party at Charlottenburgh. Two flys were waiting in the laurel-avenue to convey Mr. Hawkehurst's guests to distant abodes. The door was opened presently, and all the bustle of departure made itself heard by that wretched wayfarer who found it so difficult to keep his hold upon the consciousness of these things.
"What is it?" he said to himself—"a party! Hawkehurst has been giving a party."
He had lived through too much degradation, he had descended into too deep a gulf of wretchedness, to be conscious of the contrast between his present situation and his position in those days when he had played the host, and seen handsome carriages bear prosperous guests away from his door. In that cycle of misery which he had endured, these things and the memory of them had faded from him as completely as if they had been obliterated by the passage of a century. The hapless wretch tried to give sustained attention to all the animated discussion that attended the departure of the merry guests. Half-a-dozen people seemed to be talking at once. Valentine was giving his friends counsel about the way home.
"You will keep to the lower road, you know, Fred. Lawsley's cab can follow yours. You came a couple of miles out of your way. And tell that fellow Battersea Bridge is a mistake."
And then followed Charlotte's friendly questioning about wraps, and hoods, and comforters, and other feminine gear.
"And when are you coming to dine at Fulham?" cried one voice.