Ruth Willis bending forward, her gloved fingers clasped upon the open letter that she held, and her pale face on fire, as it were, with eager passion, seemed sadly out of tune with the still beauty of that silvan spot, where first the crystal Start, freed from its moorland cradle, gushed forth as a real river, although of puny dimensions, bearing its watery tribute to the sea. Above, arched the feathery larch, the slender hazel, and the tapering ash. Branches of the mountain-ash projected like the stone frettings of some medieval belfrey. The clear sweet warble of mavis and merle came throbbing softly to the ear from the dim green heart of the summer woodlands. The letter which she had purloined—the theft may have been prompted by the impulse of the moment, and it is charitable to hope that such deeds were new to her—was now hers, to peruse at her leisure. She read it then, did Ruth Willis, again and again, slowly and deliberately, scanning and weighing every word, as though she had been a student of the cuneiform character, puzzling out Babylonian tablets by the aid of vague and tentative keys to the long-dead language of which they bore the impress.
The letter ran thus:
8 Bond’s Chambers,
St Nicholas Poultney, London.
Dear Sir Sykes—It might be as well perhaps that we should come to an understanding at once respecting the business on which I spoke to you at the De Vere Arms some days since. I do not know whether you are aware that I hold evidence substantiating the entire circumstances of the case, which I could at any time reveal. I will mention no names of place or person, since this is unwelcome to you; but in return for my consideration for your interests, and for those whose prosperity and good name are now knit up in yours, I consider myself to possess a claim upon your confidence. I therefore permit myself to think that as your legal adviser I could conduct your affairs so that you should be under no apprehension for the future, provided always that the entire management (professionally) of your estate and property should be placed in my hands. This, after due consideration, I think would be the most expedient manner of settling matters for the advantage of all parties concerned.
Trusting that you may see this arrangement in the same light as myself, and that it may meet with your approval, as the only means of arriving at a definitive understanding, I shall await your reply. I beg to remain, my dear sir, very obediently and faithfully yours,
Enoch Wilkins, Solicitor.
Such was the letter which Sir Sykes Denzil had unguardedly left upon his library table; and it may be admitted that a more impudent epistle has rarely been addressed to a gentleman of equal station to that of the proprietor of Carbery. It was difficult at first sight to believe that a demand so audacious in itself, and so offensively urged, could be intended as anything else than a sorry jest. Yet that the writer was quite in earnest, nay more, that he felt himself assured of not craving in vain for the coveted boon, was palpable to so attentive a critic as was Ruth Willis.
‘If any man had dared to write thus to me,’ she said, slowly hissing out the words between her half-shut teeth, ‘and I had filled the position held by yonder pompous dolt, I would have—ay, given him cause to repent it.’
And the lurid light that glimmered in her dark eyes, and the hardening of her shrewd pale face until it seemed as though of chiselled marble rather than sentient flesh, and the swift and sudden gesture with which she raised and shook her clenched hand, as though it held a dagger—these signs were the revelation of a fierce and unscrupulous nature, kept down by the pressure of circumstances, but ready at pinch of need to flame forth, as the hot lava bubbles and seethes beneath the crust of cold ashes in which the vines of the Italian peasant have struck root.
Again and with deliberate care did the baronet’s ward read the letter through. Then she refolded it and replaced it in her pocket, and then consulted her watch. Only a few minutes had as yet elapsed since her escape—for it was little else—from the mansion.