“I have seen him several times since he has been staying with the Herberts,” pursued the old gentleman, “and my doubts have naturally been excited as to whether it could be the man in question. Curious enough, Bezant, the doctor, was over here yesterday from Swainson; and as I was walking with him, arm-in-arm, we met Captain Thorn. The two recognized each other and bowed, merely as distant acquaintances. ‘Do you know that gentleman?’ said I to Bezant. ‘Yes,’ he answered, ‘it is Mr. Frederick.’ ‘Mr. Frederick with something added on to it,’ said I; ‘his name is Thorn.’ ‘I know that,’ returned Bezant; ‘but when he was in Swainson some years ago, he chose to drop the Thorn, and the town in general knew him only as Mr. Frederick.’ ‘What was he doing there, Bezant?’ I asked. ‘Amusing himself and getting into mischief,’ was the answer; ‘nothing very bad, only the random scrapes of young men.’ ‘Was he often on horseback, riding to a distance?’ was my next question. ‘Yes, that he was,’ replied Bezant; ‘none more fond of galloping across the country than he; I used to tell him he’d ride his horse’s tail off.’ Now, Mr. Archibald, what do you think?” concluded the old clerk; “and so far as I could make out, this was about the very time of the tragedy at Hallijohn’s.”
“Think?” replied Mr. Carlyle. “What can I think but that it is the same man. I am convinced of it now.”
And, leaning back into his chair, he fell into a deep reverie, regardless of the parchments that lay before him.
The weeks went on—two or three—and things seemed to be progressing backward, rather than forward—if that’s not Irish. Francis Levison’s affairs—that is, the adjustment of them—did not advance at all.
Another thing that may be said to be progressing backward, for it was going on fast to bad, instead of good, was the jealousy of Lady Isabel. How could it be otherwise, kept up, as it was, by Barbara’s frequent meetings with Mr. Carlyle, and by Captain Levison’s exaggerated whispers of them. Discontented, ill at ease with herself and with everybody about her, Isabel was living now in a state of excitement, a dangerous resentment against her husband beginning to rise up in her heart. That very day—the one of Captain Levison’s visit to Levison Park—in driving through West Lynne in the pony carriage, she had come upon her husband in close converse with Barbara Hare. So absorbed were they, that they never saw her, though her carriage passed close to the pavement where they stood.
On the morning following this, as the Hare family were seated at breakfast, the postman was observed coming toward the house. Barbara sprang from her seat to the open window, and the man advanced to her.
“Only one miss. It is for yourself.”
“Who is it from?” began the justice, as Barbara returned to her chair. In letters as in other things, he was always curious to know their contents, whether they might be addressed to himself or not.
“It is from Anne, papa,” replied Barbara, as she laid the letter by her side on the table.
“Why don’t you open it and see what she says?”