“Died!” The exclamation was Lord Dynmore’s.
“Yes, died,” the young man retorted bitterly. “Your lordship keeps a watchful eye upon your friends!”
The shaft went home. The earl caught a quick breath, and his face changed. The words awoke a slumbering chord in his memory and recalled—not as might have been expected, old days of frolic and sport spent with the friend whose death was thus coldly flung in his face—but a scene in another world. He saw upon the instant a rock-bound valley, inclosed by hills that rose in giant steps to the snowy line of the Andes; and in its depths a tiny hunter’s camp. He saw an Indian fishing in the brook, and near him a white man wandering away—a letter in his hand. Then had come a shot, an alarm, a hasty striking of the tent, and for many hours—even days—a rapid, dangerous march. In the excitement the letter had been forgotten, to be recalled with its tidings here—and now.
He winced, and muttered, “Good heavens, and I had heard it.” The clergyman caught the words, and his resentment waxed hot. “My uncle’s death,” he continued grimly, in the tone of one rather making than answering an accusation, “occurred a year before the presentation was offered to me by your solicitors!”
“Lord help us!” said the peer in a helpless, bewildered tone. “But are you a clergyman, sir?”
“That is a fresh insult, Lord Dynmore!” he replied warmly.
“Hoity-toity!” retorted my lord, recovering himself, “you are a fine man to talk of insults! And you in my living, without a shadow of title to it! You must have had some suspicion, sir, that all was not right.”
“I think I can answer for Mr. Lindo, there!” interposed the curate, stepping forward for the first time. His face was deeply flushed, and he spoke hurriedly, not looking up; perhaps, because all eyes were on him. “When Mr. Lindo came here, I had reason to expect an older man. I heard by chance from him—I think it was on the evening of his arrival—that he had not long lost an uncle of the same name, and it occurred to me then as just possible that there might have been a mistake. But I particularly observed that he was perfectly free from any suspicion of that kind himself.”
“Pooh! There is nothing in that!” replied the archdeacon snappishly.
“I think there is!” cried the earl in triumph. “A great deal in it. If the idea occurred to a stranger, is it possible that the incumbent’s own mind could be free from it?”