“Don’t talk in that way, Dick—don’t talk in that way!”
“Unless—unless I had taught myself to live for the sake of retribution,” went on the other as if he had not heard his uncle’s words. “And retribution is not vengeance; it is simple repayment—simple justice.” He paused like one deep in thought.
“Do you know, uncle,” he resumed with a startling change of tone—“do you know that a night hardly ever passes without my being visited by Percy Osmond? His cold hand touches mine and I awake to see him standing close beside me. He never speaks, he only looks at me. But oh! that look—so pleading, so reproachful, so soul-imploring! Awake and asleep it haunts me ever. It is a look that says, ‘How much longer shall I lie in my bloodstained shroud, and justice not be done upon my murderer?’ It is a look that says, Another day gone by and nothing done—nothing discovered.’ Then he fades gradually, and I see no more of him till next night; but my hand remains numb and cold for more than an hour after he has left me.”
The General was staring at Richard as if he could hardly believe the evidence of his ears. “Come,” he said very gently, “let us take a turn in the garden. The air of this room is oppressive. Give me your arm, boy. This English winter finds out the weak places in an old man’s joints.”
As they paced the garden arm in arm, Richard (or Lionel—for Lionel it was, as the reader will long ago have surmised) went back to the topic he had last been talking about. “Were I to tell to a physician what I have just told you,” he said, “he would simply put me down as the victim of a mental hallucination; he would tell me that I was suffering from a by no means uncommon form of cerebral excitement. So be it. I suppose I am the victim of a mental hallucination: but call it by what name you will, to me it is a most serious and terrible reality—a visitation that no medicines, no society, no change of scene, can alter or rid me of; that one thing alone can rid me of. When I have accomplished the bitter task that is appointed me to do, then, and then only, will this burden be lifted off my soul: then, and not till then, will Percy Osmond cease to visit me.”
Again he sighed deeply. The General pressed the arm that held his a little more tightly, but did not speak. The case was beyond his simple skill. He was powerless to comfort or console the bruised spirit by his side. In silence they finished their walk.
But comfort and consolation were not altogether denied to Lionel Dering. Edith, and she alone, had power to charm away the cloud from off his brow, the shadow from off his heart. For the time being, all his troubles and anxieties were forgotten. For a little while, when with her, he would seem like the Lionel Dering of other days: buoyant, hopeful, full of energy, and glad with the promise of the happy future before him. But when he had kissed her and said good-night, long before he reached Park Newton, the cloud would be back again as deep as before. The burden which, as he firmly believed, had been laid upon his shoulders seemed to grow heavier from day to day. “Oh that I could cast it from me!” he would often say to himself with a sort of anguish. “Why did I not go to the other side of the world at first? There peace and obscurity would have been mine. But it is too late now—too late!”
CHAPTER XI.
MRS. MCDERMOTT WANTS HER MONEY
Squire Culpepper, was laid up with an attack of his old enemy the gout. Thereby his temper was by no means improved. But to the ordinary pains which attend podagra was superadded another source of irritation and alarm. The shares of the Alcazar Silver Mining Company, in which promising speculation the Squire had invested the whole of his savings, had of late been going down slowly but steadily in the market. It was altogether unaccountable. They had no sooner reached the high-water point of value than they began to fall. But the difficulty had been to know when the high-water mark was reached. The Squire had bought at a low figure—at a remarkably low figure—and when, subsequently, the shares had risen so tremendously in value, he had often been tempted to sell out and realize. But the temptation to keep holding on, in the hope of being able to realize still larger profits, had hitherto proved the stronger of the two.
At first he had looked upon the decline as being merely one of those ordinary market fluctuations such as even the best securities are liable to at times. But at length he took alarm and wrote to his friend Mr. Bird, the secretary of the company, and the man who had persuaded him to invest so heavily in Alcazar securities.