For as, wearily and painfully, I climbed my staircase, I heard footsteps coming out from my rooms. I hurried to the best of my power; but, ere I reached the first landing, they travelled on cautiously to the second. I followed thither. Doors stood open on to rooms, empty and dark, for the men were still busy in the court below. But in one I saw a twinkling light. I entered, without apology, to find friend Halidane, hastily divesting himself of coat and waistcoat preparatory to going to bed.
‘My dear Brownlow!’ he exclaimed, with effusive cordiality, though, as I fancied, some confusion. ‘What brings you here? What do you want? Alas! I see you are hurt. Let me come down and dress your wounds.—Nay, nay, do not deny me the christian joy of tending on a christian hero in his suffering and distress.’
‘You were in my rooms just now, were you not?’ I asked bluntly.
‘I—why should I be in your rooms? Or rather, indeed, why should I not? I looked in at your door, it being unfastened, hearing you had left the quad, and longing to assist you after your fatigues. But, finding no light, came upstairs at once. I assure you—Ah! do not deny me—let me help you to prepare for rest.’
‘No, thank you,’ I said, convinced, from his very anxiety to allay my suspicions, that he lied. Smug though his countenance was, he could not hide an expression which spelled guilt—at least so I thought. As for his not looking me in the face when he spoke, he never did so—hence nothing could be inferred from that.
I turned to go, while he alternately bepraised my conduct and bemoaned my sufferings—one as fulsomely as the other. He followed me to my door, nervously, as I thought; but I sported him out firmly, if civilly, leaving him in no doubt that I did not covet his presence. I lighted a lamp, and then I hastened to examine the big book. I reasoned with my alarm, for it was not possible that he knew Hartover’s letter lay hidden in it. But alarm remained. I was constantly and radically distrustful of the man. Tired out though I was, before all things I must make sure the letter was safe.
Yes, it was safe enough. With a sigh of relief I locked it away in my desk. But what was that on the shiny surface of the table?—A large drop of tallow.
All my suspicions revived. I opened the lexicon again. I did not know at what page I had put in the letter, but I found out only too soon. Inside the leaf edges was a smear of tallow, which led me to notice a couple more big drops badly defacing the text. Clumsy rogue! For surely there was a candle on his chimney-piece when I saw him upstairs? Still, it might have been the gyp or bed-maker. No; they would certainly be at the fire, and what could they be doing in any man’s room at four o’clock in the morning?
Blaming myself bitterly for my carelessness, I undressed; and lay tossing, sleepless, till dawn, what with exhaustion, excitement, the dread that prying hypocrite had learned my dear boy’s secret, and—must I admit it?—the memory of Alice Dynevor’s kiss.