Barbara dead! It did not seem possible to my mind, even then when I had chapter and verse for it; I could not set aside that vision I had always had of her—as the bright young girl who had met me in the wood twenty years before. I realized bitterly enough that in that, as in all other things, I had been tricked; that while I dreamed of her in my prison cell, and hugged that dear remembrance to myself, she had been in the depths of the sea, dead and forgotten. I woke now to the consciousness that the cruel voice of Jervis Fanshawe was still talking to me.
"As for the father—Lucas Savell—he has become a thing of no account. When old Patton died he left the business to Savell—principally, I think, for the sake of the child; and Savell has let it go to rack and ruin. He was a poor creature always—and I think the loss of Barbara finished him. At any rate, he has gone down and down, and they say he drinks. So far as the business is concerned"—Fanshawe shrugged his shoulders and laughed—"well—that's where Murray Olivant comes in."
"In what way?" I asked.
"Oh, he's a keen blade, is Olivant," said Fanshawe, shaking his head at an imaginary Murray Olivant, and chuckling. "He's always had money—and he always will have it; he's like a bird of prey, ready to stick his talons into the choicest morsels he sees round him. He saw Lucas Savell and the business; he advanced money; and so got a hold here and a hold there, until at last the thing was his. It is supposed to belong to Savell—but he dare not call his soul his own. You needn't look surprised; it has all been a process of years, so gradual that others have not noticed it. Lucas Savell is like a sucked orange, and can be cast aside at any moment."
"Why do you hate them so—I mean, apart from Barbara?" I asked.
Always it seemed that when his supposed wrongs were referred to a sort of semi-madness came upon Jervis Fanshawe, so that he lost control of himself, and was at first unable to speak. Such a madness was upon him now; he had to gasp and open his lips once or twice, and to stretch out a hand towards me, and even clutch at his throat a little before he was able to speak at all. And when he did at last, his voice was hoarse and unnatural with excitement.
"They—they ruined me; they stood me in the dock on charges of forgery and fraud; they forgot all my years of service. I had had to get the money from somewhere to satisfy that beast Hockley; I got it from them, meaning to pay it back when the luck changed. It never did change, and Hockley's death finished me. Then, when I came out of prison, old Patton was dead and Savell was established. And I found another man taking my revenge from me, and robbing Savell, and draining him dry. And I wormed myself in with that man, and made myself useful to him—just as you will do, Charlie—just as you're going to do from to-night. He's a fine fellow, this Murray Olivant; he'll break them up, and make a beggar of Savell—and he'll get the girl. Think of that, Charlie; the Barbara for whom you've worn out your heart and your life in prison is dead, and the new Barbara shall be at the beck and call of this man—who won't treat her any too well, I'll warrant. There's a revenge for you!"
I was afraid to ask any direct question as to the boy I had seen with this new Barbara in the wood; I feared that Fanshawe must know at once if I did that I had been down to spy out the land. But I asked, a little wistfully perhaps, a question that artfully concealed what I already knew.
"Is it not possible that this girl—this other Barbara—loves some one else?"
"And what if she does?" he snapped at me; "they've all got fads and fancies, and so much the worse for them. This little fool, for instance, believes herself to be in love with a boy who hasn't a penny—just such a young jackanapes as you were twenty years ago. In fact, he paints, as you tried to do. He's a starveling dog—just as you were."