“‘Mary,’ returned a voice, whose tones were unchanged as when I last heard them in this very room—‘Mary, your services have made me for life your debtor, and to his humble but faithful ally, I trust, in a few days, Edward Clifford will prove his gratitude.’”
“Clifford—the exiled, the discarded, the dead! What! he returned—received—restored to life! Impossible!” exclaimed the confessor springing from his seat, and shivering to pieces on the table the wine glass which he had held untasted in his hand, while Morley recounted his strange adventure.
“True, by every thing sacred!” returned the steward.—“On they passed—I caught a glimpse of his well-remembered features,—years and climate had laid their hewy imprint on them, but in outline, they were those of my former play-fellow. The light and springy figure of the boy were gone—and a stout and compact form now stood before me, and just such as I remember Mr. Clifford’s was some thirty years ago. Holy father, Edward Clifford is alive, and not seven miles from where we sit.”
“I do not put faith in witchcraft,” muttered the priest—“but this strange tale of yours would almost make me a believer. Well—we both, it would appear, are on the eve of ruin. I, in expectations which I conceived to be sure as certainty itself—and your acquisitions, my good friend, methinks are sadly jeopardized.”
“Mine jeopardized!” exclaimed the steward—“More than that, reverend sir—I shall be ruined, beggared, and undone. It is not the blow itself, heavy as it is, but the suddenness of the stroke that annihilates me. Could I but have had the warning of a month—in that brief interval, I might have so arranged, that when I bent to the storm—as bend I must—I might have sought another country, possessor of ten thousand pounds; ay, and carried with me too the rents payable a fortnight hence. If ever calamity fell heavily on man, it has fallen upon me—and by such agency—the only beings upon earth whom I, at the same time, hated and injured most.”
“Yes,” observed the churchman, half in soliloquy and half addressing himself to his companion—“the mystery is cleared—and the old man’s altered bearing is now sufficiently accounted for. Worse yet—the mischief is beyond all remedy. One duped so long and so completely, when once the mind is disabused, becomes ten-fold more suspicious than they who have never been deceived. Mr. Clifford is exactly that sort of character. His thoughts and acts are now as clearly revealed to me, as if I had listened to every communication made by that artful woman, and read the secret letters he has written and received. For how long, did this returned prodigal mention to his female confederate, that these intended disclosures were to be delayed?”
“The phrase was vague,” replied the steward. “In a few days’—ay, that was the term he used.”
“A limited time, indeed, for action—but brief as it is, I will avail myself of the lull, and not await the bursting of the storm,” observed the confessor.
“And will you leave me alone to face the coming tempest?” inquired the steward, with evident alarm and surprise. “Holy father—have I not ever been to you a faithful friend? have I not acted as you directed? have not my own interests been frequently sacrificed to yours? Has not your word with me been law—your advice implicitly followed—your plans zealously carried out? I was ever your ready and your willing agent—and now, in the hour of need and danger, will you desert me?”
A pause of a minute ensued.