"My Lord Dreddlington!" exclaimed Gammon, breathless with haste and agitation, the instant he saw his worst apprehensions fulfilled. The earl looked up at him, as it were mechanically, over his glasses, without moving, or attempting to speak.
"I—I—beg your Lordship's pardon!" he added quickly and sternly, advancing towards Lord Dreddlington. "Pardon me, but surely your Lordship cannot be aware of the liberty you are taking—in looking at my private papers!"—and with an eager and not over-ceremonious hand, he took the conveyance out of the unresisting grasp of his noble visitor.
"Sir—Mr. Gammon!"—at length exclaimed the earl, in a faltering voice—"what is the meaning of that?" pointing with a tremulous finger to the conveyance which Mr. Gammon held in his hand.
"What is it? A private—a strictly private document of mine, my Lord"—replied Gammon, with breathless impetuosity, his eye flashing fury, and his face having become deadly pale—"one with which your Lordship has no more concern than your footman—one which I surely might have fancied safe from intrusive eyes in my own private residence—one which I am confounded—yes, confounded! my Lord, at finding that you could for an instant allow yourself—consider yourself warranted in even looking at—prying into—and much less presuming to ask questions concerning it!" He held the parchment all this while tightly grasped in his hands; his appearance and manner might have overpowered a man of stronger nerves than the Earl of Dreddlington. On him, however, it appeared to produce no impression—his faculties seeming quite absorbed with the discovery he had just made, and he simply inquired, without moving from his chair—
"Is it a fact, sir, that you have a rent-charge of two thousand a-year upon my son-in-law's property at Yatton?"
"I deny peremptorily your Lordship's right to ask me a single question arising out of information obtained in such a dis—I mean such an unprecedented manner!" answered Gammon, vehemently.
"Two thousand a-year, sir!—out of my son-in-law's property?" repeated the earl, with a kind of bewildered incredulity.
"I cannot comprehend your Lordship's conduct in attempting neither to justify what you have done, nor apologize for it," said Gammon, endeavoring to speak calmly; and at the same time depositing the conveyance in a large iron safe, and then locking the door of it, Lord Dreddlington, the while, eying his movements in silence.
"Mr. Gammon, I must and will have this matter explained; depend upon it, I will have it looked into and thoroughly sifted," at length said Lord Dreddlington, with returning self-possession, as Gammon observed—
"Can your Lordship derive any right to information from me, out of an act of your Lordship's which no honorable mind—nay, if your Lordship insists on my making myself understood—I will say, an act which no gentleman would resort to"——The earl rose from his chair with calmness and dignity.