“There!” he cried, gayly, “there is a ray of actual sunrise. The fire is out; the room is chilly—the morning has come upon us. We have sat out the night, Richard! Let me show you to your room; we will not breakfast until nine o’clock, and you can catch a couple of hours’ repose in the mean time.” He took up a lamp, and we ascended the stairs. “Here is your chamber. Now, remember, I bid you sleep, and let that clock in your brain run down. It is bad for the young to think too deeply. Good—morning.”
He passed on, as I closed the door of my chamber. His tone had been that of an elder friend, speaking to a young man whom he loved; I had wronged him by that unpleasant idea which had shivered through me.
Closed shutters and thick curtains kept out the broadening light of dawn; yet I found it difficult to compose myself to sleep. That haunting shadow which had flitted from Henry’s grave as I approached it yesterday—the dream which I had in the little chamber, awakening to the reality of the sewing-girl’s escape—I could not banish these any more than I could the discovery made in that house of sin, where the bloated spider of Play weaves his glittering net, and sits on the watch for the gay and brilliant victims who flutter into its meshes.
One feeling I had, connected with that discovery, which I had not betrayed to Mr. Burton—which I would not fairly acknowledge to my own soul—which I quarreled with—drove out—but which persisted in returning to me now, banishing slumber from my eyelids. When I had stood behind those silken curtains, and beheld James Argyll losing money in play, I had experienced a sensation of relief—I might say of absolute gladness—a sensation entirely apart from my sorrow at finding him in such society, with such habits. Why? Ah, do not ask me; I can not tell you yet. Do not wrong me by saying that it was triumph over the fall of my rival in Mr. Argyll’s affections, in business, possibly, and in the regards of those two noble girls whose opinions we both prized so highly. Only do not accuse me of this most apparent reason for my gladness, and I will abide my time in your judgment. But no! I will confess this much to-night myself.
If this stealthy and flying creature whom we two men were hunting from one hiding-place to another, whose wild face had been seen pressing toward the library window on that night of nights, and whose handkerchief the very thorns of the roses had conspired to steal from her, and hold as a witness against her—if this doubtful, eluding creature, flitting darkly in the shadows of this tragedy, had not abstracted that money from Mr. Argyll’s desk, I had dared to guess who might have taken it. Simply and solely—not because I did not like him—but because, to go back to the Friday before that fatal Saturday, I had been late in the parlors. The girls were singing and playing at the piano; I left turning the music for them to go for a volume in the library which I desired to carry off with me to read in my room that night; I opened the door suddenly, and startled James, who was leaning over that desk.
“Have you seen my opera-glass?” said he. “I left it on the desk here.”
I answered him that I had not seen it, got my book, and returned to the music, thinking no more of that trifling occurrence—which I never more should have recalled had it not been for a peculiar expression in James’ face, which I was afterward forced to remember against my will. Yet so little did I wish to wrong him, even in my secret thoughts, that when the investigations were taking place, I was convinced, with all the others, that the unlawful visitor of the garden had, in some manner, possessed herself of the money. It only came back to me as I watched James this night, in the gambling saloon, that, if he ever had been tempted to rob from his uncle more than the unfailing generosity of that good gentleman allowed him, I was glad that it was play which had tempted him to the wrongful act. This was the shadowy nature of my pleasure. Who has complete mastery of his thoughts? Who does not sometimes find them evil, unwarrantable, uncomfortable, and to be ashamed of?
From the perplexity of all these things I sunk into a slight slumber, from which I was almost immediately aroused by the tinkling of the breakfast-bell. I arose, dressed, and, upon descending to the library, was met by a servant, who ushered me at once into a cheerful apartment, where my host sat by the window, reading the morning paper, and where the table only waited my appearance to be graced by a well-ordered meal.
“Lenore usually presides over the tea-urn,” said Mr. Burton, as we sat down. “We have a little affair which answers for two, and which is adapted to the strength of her little hands. It seems pleasantest so; and we both like it—but she has not arisen this morning.”
“I hope she is not more unwell than usual,” I said, with real solicitude.