“I have only another observation to make, Sir Thomas Gourlay. You remember last Tuesday night, when you drove at an unseasonable hour to the town of———? Now, sir, I use your words, on that subject, to your own knowledge I beg most respectfully to refer you. I have done.”
Sir Thomas Gourlay, when effort was necessary, could certainly play an able and adroit part. There was not a charge brought against him in the preceding conference that did not sink his heart into the deepest dismay; yet did he contrive to throw over his whole manner and bearing such a veil of cold, hard dissimulation as it was nearly impossible to penetrate. It is true, he saw that he had an acute, sensible, independent man to deal with, whose keen eye he felt was reading every feature of his face, and every motion of his body, and weighing, as it were, with a practised hand, the force and import of every word he uttered. He knew that merely to entertain the subject, or to discuss it at all with anything like seriousness, would probably have exposed him to the risk of losing his temper, and thus placed himself in the power of so sharp and impurturbable an antagonist. As the dialogue proceeded, too, a portion of his attention was transferred from the topic in question to the individual who introduced it. His language, his manner, his dress, his tout ensemble were unquestionably not only those of an educated gentleman, but of a man who was well acquainted with life and society, and who appeared to speak as if he possessed no unequivocal position in both.
“Who the devil,” thought he to himself several times, “can this person be? How does he come to speak on behalf of Lady Gourlay? Surely such a man cannot be a brush manufacturer's clerk—and he has very little the look of an impostor, too.”
All this, however, could not free him from the deep and deadly conviction that the friends of his brother's widow were on his trail, and that it required the whole united powers of his faculties for deception, able and manifold as they were, to check his pursuers and throw them off the scent. It was now, too, that his indignation against his daughter and him who had seduced her from his roof began to deepen in his heart. Had he succeeded in seeing her united to Lord Dunroe, previous to any exposure of himself—supposing even that discovery was possible—his end, the great object of his life, was, to a certain extent, gained. Now, however, that that hope was out of the question, and treachery evidently at work against him, he felt that gloom, disappointment, shame, and ruin were fast gathering round him. He was, indeed, every way hemmed in and hampered. It was clear that this stranger was not a man to be either cajoled or bullied. He read a spirit—a sparkle—in his eye, which taught him that the brutality inflicted upon the unfortunate Crackenfudge, and such others as he knew he might trample on, would never do here.
As matters stood, however, he thought the only chance of throwing the stranger off his guard was to take him by a coup de main. With this purpose, he went over, and sitting down to his desk before the drawer that contained his pistols, thus placing himself between the stranger and the door, he turned upon him a look as stern and determined as he could possibly assume; and we must remark here, that he omitted no single consideration connected with the subject he was about to introduce that was calculated to strengthen his determination.
“Now, sir,” said he, “in the first place, may I take the liberty of asking where you have concealed my daughter? I will have no equivocation, sir,” he added, raising his voice—“no evasion, no falsehood, but in one plain word, or in as many as may be barely necessary, say where you have concealed Miss Gourlay.”
“Sir Thomas Gourlay,” replied the other, “I can understand your feelings upon this subject, and I can overlook much that you may say in connection with it; but neither upon that nor any other, can I permit the imputation of falsehood against myself. You are to observe this, sir, and to forbear the repetition of such an insult. My reply is brief and candid: I know not where Miss Gourlay is, upon my honor as a gentleman.”
“Do you mean to tell me, sir, that you and she did not elope in the same coach on Tuesday night last?”
“I do, sir; and I beg to tell you, that such a suspicion is every way unworthy of your daughter.”
“Take care, sir; you were seen together in Dublin.”