“No one likes to be watched, Mr. Burton.”
“We are all watched by the pure and penetrating eye of the All-seeing One, and if we are not fearful before Him, whom need we shrink from?”
I looked up to see whether it was the secret-police-agent who was preaching to me, or whether my host, in his power of varying the outer manifestations of his character, had not dropped the mystic star for the robe of the minister; he was gazing into the fire with a sad, absorbed expression, as if he saw before him a long procession of mortal crimes, walking in the night of earth, but, in reality, under the full brightness of infinite day. I had seen him before in these solemn, almost prophetic moods, brought on him by the revelation of some new sin, which seemed always in him to awaken regret, rather than the exultation of a detective bent on the successful results of his mission. So soft, so gentle he appeared then, I inwardly wondered that he had the sternness to inflict disgrace and exposure upon the “respectable” guilty—which class of criminals he was almost exclusively employed with—but I had only to reflect upon the admirable equipoise of his character, to realize that with him justice was what he loved best. For those who prowled about society in the garb of lambs and shepherd-dogs, seeking whom they might devour, and laying, perhaps, the proofs of guilt at the doors of the innocent, he had no mercy of the “let us alone” type. A little time we were silent; the dropping of an ember from the grate startled us.
“Why do you think that James watches me? What does he watch me for?”
I asked this, going back to the surprise I had felt when he made the remark.
“You will know soon enough.”
It was useless for me to press the question, since he did not wish to be explicit.
“I did not know,” I continued, “I never dreamed, that James had bad associates in the city. I know that his uncle and cousins do not suspect it. It pains me more than I can express. What shall I do? I have no influence over him. He dislikes me, and would take the most brotherly remonstrance as an insult.”
“I do not wish you, at present, to hint your discovery to him. As for your not suspecting his habits, those habits themselves are recent. I doubt if he had ever ventured a dollar on cards three months ago. He had some gay, even dissolute companions in the city, of whom the worst and most dangerous was Bagley. But he had not joined them in their worst excesses—he was only idle and fond of pleasure—a moth fluttering around the flames. Now he has scorched his wings. He has not spent more than three or four nights as he spent this; and the only money he has lost has been to the person you saw him with to-night. Bagley is one of the vampires who fatten on the characters and purses of young men like James Argyll.”
“Then ought we not to make some earnest effort to save him before it is too late? Oh, Mr. Burton, you who are wise and experienced—tell me what to do.”