In one sense Boringdon had certainly succeeded in his object. More than he was ever destined to know, his words, his revelation, had brought the man before him sharp up to his bearings. James Berwick was both amazed and discomfited by this unexpected piece of news, and for the moment it made him very ill at ease.
He had been playing with a tortoiseshell paper knife; suddenly it snapped in two, and, with an oath, he threw the pieces down on the table and got up from the chair in which he had been lying back.
"Are you quite sure of your information?" he said slowly. "It's ill waiting for dead men's shoes." Then he felt ashamed of what he had just said, and he added, more to give himself time for thought than anything else: "Have you any reason to suppose that Mrs. Rebell——?" Then he stopped abruptly, realising that he had been betrayed into making a remark which to Boringdon must seem an outrage.
But the other had not apparently taken it in that sense. "No, I have no reason to suppose that Mrs. Rebell has ever thought of such a thing. I think far too well of her to suppose it for a moment," Oliver was speaking very deliberately. "I received the news of the man's state within a very few days of the fire at the Priory, and it has since been confirmed. He has, it seems, some kind of bad chest disease, accelerated, I fancy, by drink. As yet she knows nothing of it. Perhaps I ought to add that I have no reason to suppose that she will accept the offer I mean to make her as soon as a decent interval of time has elapsed. But, on the other hand, I should like to assure you that if she refuses me I intend to go on asking her. Nothing, short of her marriage to someone else, will make me give her up." He repeated, and as he did so Boringdon fixed his eyes on his friend with a peculiar, and what Berwick felt to be a terrible, look: "Nothing—you understand me, Berwick—nothing but her marriage to another man."
The speaker of these strange words took a step forward. For a moment the two stood opposite one another. The man Barbara loved was a brave man, but he quailed before the other's eyes. "I have now told you what I came to say. Of late you seem to have become very intimate with Mrs. Rebell, and I wish to warn you that the day may come when I shall require your good offices. Good-night,"—and without offering to shake hands with Berwick, Boringdon turned on his heel and left the room.
CHAPTER XX.
"Shall I to Honour or to Love give way?