"My dear sir," his visitor answered, pitying him sincerely, and hiding (like a man) his own deep heart-burn of anxiety, "may I say, without your being in the least degree offended, what I fancy—or at least, I mean a thing that has occurred to me? You will take it for its worth. Most likely you will laugh at it; but taking my chance of that, may I say it? Will you promise not to be angry?"
"I wish I could be angry, Russel. What have I to be angry for?"
"A terrible wrong, if I am right, but not a purely hopeless one. I have not had time to think it out, because I have been hurried so. But, right or wrong, what I think is this—the whole is a foul scheme of Luke Sharp's."
"Luke Sharp! My own solicitor! The most respectable man in Oxford! Overshute, you have made me hope, and then you dash me with balderdash!"
"Well, sir, I have no evidence at all; but I go by something I heard in London, which supplies the strongest motive; and I know, from my own family affairs, what Luke Sharp will do when he has strong motive. I beg you to keep my guess quite secret. Not that I fear a score of such fellows, but that he would be ten times craftier if he thought we suspected him; and he is crafty enough without that, as his principal client, the Devil, knows!"
"I will not speak of it," the Squire answered; "such a crotchet is not worth speaking of, and it might get you into great trouble. With one thing and another now, I am so knocked about, that I cannot put two and two together. But one thing really comforts me."
"My dear sir, I am so glad! What is it?"
"That a man of your old family, Russel, and at the same time of such new ways, is still enabled by the grace of God to retain his faith in the Devil."
"While Luke Sharp lives I cannot lose it," he answered, with a bitter smile. "That man is too deep and consummate a villain to be uninspired. But now, sir, we have no time to lose. You tell me what you have done, and then I will tell you what I have been thinking of, unless you are too exhausted."
For the old man, in spite of fierce anxiety, long suspense, and keen excitement, began to be so overpowered with downright bodily weariness that now he could scarcely keep his head from nodding, and his eyes from closing. The hope which had roused him, when Overshute entered, was gone, and despair took the place of it; tired body and sad mind had but a very low heart to work them. Russel, with a strong man's pity, and the love which must arise between one man and another whenever small vanity vanishes, watched the creeping shades of slumber soften the lines of the harrowed face. As evening steals along a hill-side where the sun has tyrannised, and spreads the withering and the wearying of the day with gentleness, and brings relief to rugged points, and breadth of calm to everything; so the Squire's fine old face relaxed in slumber's halo, and tranquil ease began to settle on each yielding lineament; when open flew the door of the room, and Mary, at the top of her voice, exclaimed—