"I will explain all to you, when we get home," answered Bergan, wearily. "Mrs. Smilt, I beg your pardon for having been the unintentional cause of such a commotion in your house; I think I can assure you that no harm has been done. Mr. Unwick, are you ready to go?"
At the door, Bergan stopped and looked around for Dick Causton; but he had taken advantage of the discussion between the brothers to sneak out. The fact was a suggestive one to Bergan, taken in connection with Unwick's story of the preceding day. Never before, in spite of his bad habits and fallen estate, had Dick Causton been known to flee from before any man's face.
X.
LIKE A THIEF IN THE NIGHT.
Bergan could not help wasting a little wonder on Doctor Remy's choice of the "Rat-Hole" as a place for transacting business, of whatever character. Yet the explanation was simple. The doctor was there, as he had stated, professionally. One of the habitués of the place had been severely wounded in an encounter with a policeman, some weeks before; and although he had succeeded in escaping unrecognized, the affair had made so much stir that his friends had not deemed it prudent to put him into the hands of any of the city physicians, for treatment. Doctor Remy had therefore been summoned from Berganton, and had not only conducted the case with his usual skill, but, foreseeing a possibility of turning the circumstance to future account, had won the ruffian's warmest gratitude by keeping his secret and declining any fee. Having thus gotten the run of the place, and the good will of its inmates, he had chosen it for the scene of his interviews with Dick Causton, because he had his own excellent reasons for not wishing these interviews to be seen or suspected by anybody in Berganton. And Dick made no objections, inasmuch as various small errands, which he dignified with the title of "business," had taken him to Savalla, for two or three consecutive days; and the "Rat-Hole" was a convenient stopping-place, and, moreover, furnished liquor which had the two-fold merit of being of a better quality than any to be had at the "Gregg Tavern," and of being quaffed at Doctor Remy's expense. Dick was not likely to trouble his head much about the character of any house possessing these strong recommendations.
In regard to the signing of the fraudulent will, he had shown himself a little more scrupulous; his habit of intoxication had not yet accomplished its evil work of obliterating all sense of right, and every consideration of honor. At the first broaching of the subject, he had indignantly refused to listen to it for a moment. Later on—having apparently gotten some new lights on the question in the meantime—he had quietly suffered his objections to give way, one after another, to the doctor's arguments and bribes; to the great satisfaction of the latter, who found his task, on the whole, easier than he had expected.
Yet he might have felt some misgivings, if he had followed Dick out of the house, immediately after the signing of the will, and heard the low, satisfied chuckle with which he tumbled into his superannuated chaise, and started his horse on a jog-trot toward Berganton. The potent draught just swallowed had as yet taken effect only in quickening his sense of the humorous, and putting him on excellent terms with his own self-conceit. His eyes twinkled with amusement, too intense to be denied the occasional vent of a loud burst of laughter, or an appropriate string of proverbs.
"Wer dem Spide zusicht, kann's am besten, my dear Doctor Remy," he muttered; "or, in other words, the looker-on sees more of the game than the player. What would you give to know what I know, I wonder! Just wait till the right time comes; then you'll find out that 'He is worst cheated, who cheats himself.'"
A mile further on, his potations beginning to make themselves felt, he suddenly broke out, with a tipsy laugh and leer;—"'Man kan ei drage haardt med brudet Reb,' mine excellent doctor,—you cannot haul hard with a broken rope! Ha! ha!"
And, although his shamefaced flight from Bergan's presence, on the second day, may seem to indicate that he was not quite certain of the uprightness of all his acts and motives, no sooner was he fairly on the road to Berganton than he began to chuckle again.