A SPY FROM BUKHAREST
It is an English characteristic to deride the Europe code of social ethics and especially those fine heroics which attended the vindication of what is so often miscalled "honor." Whatever else Gavin Ord lacked, sound common sense he had abundantly; and that came to his aid when he returned from the gypsy's tent to the Manor and debated the odd interview which he had so abruptly terminated. These men, he said, were mere bravadoes; but they might be dangerous none the less. Of Count Odin he knew nothing; but his antipathy to all counts was ineradicable, and he had come to number them together as so many impostors, valiants, and bankrupts. This habit of thinking first led him to the supposition that Lord Melbourne, his host, had been the victim of a little band of swindlers and was about to be blackmailed by them as few even of the most unfortunate degenerates are blackmailed, even in this age of accomplished roguery.
"It is a hundred to one old Georges Odin is dead," he argued; "this son of his got the story somehow and came over here to make what he could by it. The Earl has lost his nerve, and his love for Evelyn is betraying him into cowardice. I shall see him and tell him the truth. If they fire off pistols at me, I must take my luck in my hand. There may be a deeper story—if so, I shall find it out when the time comes. I am now to act for Evelyn's sake and think of no consequences which do not concern her. Very well, I will begin to-morrow and the Earl is my first step. He shall hear everything. When he has done so, I shall know what to do."
He slept upon this, but it was a broken sleep whose interludes found him sitting up in bed listening for any sounds in the house, and repeating in spite of himself the gypsy threats. He could not forget that some one had watched him in his sleep when first he came to Melbourne Hall; and this unforgotten figure his imagination showed to him again, telling him that it crossed the room with cat-like steps or breathed upon his face whenever his eyes were closed. His natural courage made nothing of the darkness; but the suggestion of unknown and undisclosed danger became intolerable as the night advanced; and at the very first call of dawn, he drew the curtains back and waited with a child's longing for the day. When this at length broke above the night's mists floating up from the river, Gavin rose and put on his dressing-gown, being quite sure that sleep had, for the time being, deserted him. True, his odd hallucination that some one was in the room with him no longer troubled him; but certain facts disquieted him none the less; and of these, the belief that his wallet and his papers had been ransacked during the night was not the least alarming. He felt sure that he could not be mistaken. A man of method, he remembered clearly how he had placed his papers and in what order he had left them. Whoever had played the spy's part had done so clumsily, forgetting to reclasp the wallet and leaving the dressing-table in some disorder. This troubled Gavin less than the knowledge that some one had, after all, watched him while he slept and that his dream had not deceived him. "They take me for a spy from Bukharest," he said ... and he could laugh at the delusion.
It would have been about five o'clock of the morning by this time; a glorious hour, full of the sweet breath of day and of that sense of life and being which is the daydawn's gift. Gavin knew little of the habits of grooms, save that they were the people who were supposed to rise with the sun; but when an hour had passed he went out impatiently to the stables, and there the excellent William found him a "rare ould divil of a hoss" and one that "came just short of winnin' the National, to be sure he did." This raw-boned cantankerous brute carried him at a sound gallop twice round the home park; and, greatly refreshed, he returned to the Hall and asked the apologetic Griggs if the Earl were yet down. The answer that "his lordship was awaiting him in the Long Gallery," hardly surprised him. He felt sure that the recognition last night had been mutual.
"Zallony's son has told him," he said; "very well, I will go and ask him to give me Evelyn."
*****
The Earl sat at a little table placed in one of the embrasures of the Gallery. He had aged greatly these last few weeks, and there were lines upon his face that had not been there when Gavin first came to Moretown. A close observer would have said that the habit of sleep had long deserted him. This his eyes betrayed, being glassy in their abstracted gaze and rarely resting upon any object as though to observe it for more than an instant. When Gavin entered, a tremulous hand indicated a chair drawn up near by the table. The Earl was the first to speak and he did so with averted gaze and in a loud voice which failed to conceal the hesitation of his words.
"I hear of your unfortunate accident for the first time, Mr. Ord," he said slowly. "Let me implore you to run no more risks of the kind. The Belfry Tower is too old to write new histories."
Gavin replied with an immediate admission of that which he owed to Evelyn's bravery.