"See that some hothouse grapes and a pine are sent to Mr. Gilbert at Graybridge," Roland said to his valet on the morning after Isabel's visit. "I was sorry to hear of his serious illness from his wife last night."
Mr. Lansdell's valet, very busily occupied with a hat-brush, smiled softly to himself as his employer made this speech. The master of Mordred Priory need scarcely have stained his erring soul by any hypocritical phrases respecting the Graybridge surgeon.
"I shouldn't mind laying a twelvemonth's wages that if her husband dies, he marries her within six months," Roland's man-servant remarked, as he sipped his second cup of coffee; "I never did see such an infatuated young man in all my life."
A change came over the spirit of Mr. Lansdell's dreams. The thought, the base and cruel thought, which had never entered Isabel's mind, was not to be shut out of Roland's breast after that midnight interview in the library. Do what he would, struggle against the foul temptation as he might,—and he was not naturally wicked, he was not utterly heartless,—he could not help thinking of what might happen—if—if Death, who carries in his fleshless hand so many orders for release, should cut the knot that bound Isabel Gilbert.
"God knows I am not base enough to wish any harm to that poor fellow at Graybridge," thought Mr. Lansdell; "but if—"
And then the Tempter's hand swept aside a dark curtain, and revealed a lovely picture of the life that might be, if George Gilbert would only be so obliging as to sink under that tiresome low fever which had done so much mischief in the lanes about Graybridge. Roland Lansdell was not a hero; he was only a very imperfect, vacillating young man, with noble impulses for ever warring against the baser attributes of his mind; a spoiled child of fortune, who had almost always had his own way until just now.
"I ought to go away," he thought; "I ought to go away all the more because of this man's illness. There seems something horrible in my stopping here watching and waiting for the result, when I should gain such an unutterable treasure by George Gilbert's death."
But he lingered, nevertheless. A man may fully appreciate the enormity of his sin, and yet go on shining. Mr. Lansdell did not go away from Mordred; he contented himself with sending the Graybridge surgeon a basket of the finest grapes and a couple of the biggest pines to be found in the Priory hothouses; and it may be that his conscience derived some small solace from the performance of this courtesy.
Lord Ruysdale called upon his nephew in the course of the bright summer morning that succeeded Isabel's visit to the Priory; and as the young man happened to be smoking his cigar in front of the porch at the moment when the Earl's quiet cob came jogging along the broad carriage-drive, there was no possibility of avoiding the elderly gentleman's visit. Roland threw aside his cigar, and resigned himself to the prospect of an hour's prosy discussion of things in which he felt no kind of interest, no ray of pleasure. What was it to him that there was every prospect of a speedy dissolution, unless——? There almost always was every prospect of a dissolution unless something or other took place; but nothing special ever seemed to come of all the fuss and clamour. The poor people were always poor, and grumbled at being starved to death; the rich people were always rich, and indignant against the oppression of an exorbitant income-tax. Poor Roland behaved admirably during the infliction of his uncle's visit; and if he gave vague answers and asked irrelevant questions now and then, Lord Ruysdale was too much engrossed by his own eloquence to find out his nephew's delinquencies. Roland only got rid of him at last by promising to dine at Lowlands that evening.
"If there's a dissolution, our party must inevitably come in," the Earl said at parting; "and in that case you must stand for Wareham. The Wareham people look to you as their legitimate representative. I look forward to great things, my boy, if the present ministry go out. I've been nursing my little exchequer very comfortably for the last twelve months; and I shall take a furnished house in town, and begin life again next year, if things go well; and I expect to see you make a figure in the world yet, Roland."