"Demme!—distance!—Keep your distance!" cried Titmouse, his voice quivering with agitation.
"Ridiculous simpleton!—You poor rogue!" said Gammon, laughingly. There was, however, murder in his smile; and Titmouse instinctively perceived it. He kept his deadly weapon pointed full at Gammon's breast, but his hand trembled violently. 'T was wonderful that some chance motion of the shaking finger of Titmouse, did not send a bullet through Mr. Gammon's heart.
He stood, for a minute or two, gazing steadfastly, and without moving, at Titmouse; and then, shrugging his shoulders, with a bitter smile returned to his chair, and resumed his seat. Titmouse, however, refused to follow his example.
"So help me God, sir! I will not hurt a hair of your head," said Gammon, earnestly. Still Titmouse remained at the window, pistol in hand. "Why should I hurt you? What have you now to fear, you little idiot?" inquired Gammon, impatiently. "Do you, then, really think you have injured me? Do you positively think me so great a fool, my friend, as really to have trusted you with the precious originals, of which those were only the copies?—Copies which I can replace in a minute or two's time! The originals, believe me, are far away, and safe enough under lock and key!"
"I—I—I don't believe you," gasped Titmouse, dropping the hand that held the pistol, and speaking in a truly dismal tone.
"That does not signify, my excellent little rogue," said Gammon, with an infernal smile, "if the fact be so. That you are a fool, you must by this time even yourself begin to suspect; and you surely can't doubt that you are something like an arrant villain after what has just taken place? Eh? 'T was a bright idea truly—well conceived and boldly executed. I give you all the credit for it; and it is only your misfortune that it was not successful. So let us now return to business. Uncock your pistol—replace it in your cabinet, and resume your seat; or in one minute's time I leave you, and go direct to Lord Dreddlington; and if so, you had better use that pistol in blowing out your own brains—if you have any."
Titmouse, after a moment or two's pause of irresolution, passively obeyed—very nearly on the point of crying aloud with disappointment and impotent rage; and he and Gammon were presently again sitting opposite to one another.
Gammon was cold and collected—yet must it not have cost him a prodigious effort? Though he had told Titmouse that they were copies only which he had destroyed, they were, nevertheless, the ORIGINALS, which, with such an incredible indiscretion, he had trusted into the hands of Titmouse; they were the ORIGINALS which Titmouse had just scattered to the winds; and who, in so doing, had suddenly—but unknowingly—broken to pieces the wand of the enchanter who had long exercised over him so mysterious and despotic an authority!—How comes it, that we not unfrequently find men of the profoundest craft, just at the very crisis of their fortunes, thus unexpectedly, irretrievably, and incredibly committing themselves? In the present instance, the only satisfactory way of accounting for Mr. Gammon's indiscretion, would seem to be by referring it to a sense of security engendered by his utter contempt for Titmouse.
"Are you now satisfied, Mr. Titmouse, that you are completely at my mercy, and at the same time totally undeserving of it?" said Gammon, speaking in a low and earnest tone, and with much of his former kindness of manner. To an observant eye, however, what was at that moment the real expression in that of Gammon? Soothing and gentle as was his voice, he felt as if he could instantly have destroyed the audacious little miscreant before him. But he proceeded with wonderful self-command—"Do not, my dear Titmouse, madly make me your enemy—your enemy for life—but rather your friend—your watchful and powerful friend and protector, whose every interest is identified with your own. Remember all that I have done and sacrificed for you—how I have racked my brain for you day and night—always relying upon your ultimate gratitude. Oh, the endless scheming I have had to practise, to conceal your fatal secret—and of which you shall ere long know more! During these last two years have I not ruinously neglected my own interests, to look after yours?"
Gammon paused, and abruptly added—"I have but to lift my finger, and this splendid dressing-gown of yours, my poor Titmouse, is exchanged for a prison-jacket"——