In a few moments Melcomb returned to the crush room, and observed the strangers with a well-bred stare. Randolph frowned, and the coxcomb smiled. Mrs. Winter's carriage was called. Melcomb noted the name, and learnt the destination. For the present it was enough. The beau had become too idle and indifferent to be very mischievous. He accepted a sensation if it fell in his path, but he would not go out of his way to seek one. "Hampstead's a great distance," he muttered, and drove to the Argyll Rooms.
CHAPTER X.
"He that has light within his own clear breast,
May sit in the centre, and enjoy bright day;
But he that hides a dark soul and foul thoughts,
Benighted walks under the mid-day sun:
Himself is his own dungeon."
Milton.
Extremely startled was Mrs. Pendarrel by the appearance of the orphans of Trevethlan at the opera. Domestic affairs had temporarily diverted her suspicions respecting them, and her intentions were in a manner dormant. Great, therefore, was her surprise, when following a glance of Mildred's in which she detected some slight emotion, her own eye fell upon a face, like, yes the very image of Henry Trevethlan: the very image of what he was that fatal day, when her hasty and haughty speech drove him from her presence, for once and for ever. With a sort of fascination she gazed upon the stranger, and saw that he returned the regard with a curiosity or wonder, that changed while she looked into hatred and defiance. "Can it be possible?" she asked herself. Several times during the remainder of the performance, she turned towards Mrs. Winter's box, and never failed to catch Randolph's eye. And finally, in leaving the house, she noticed the manner in which both he and Helen started at the announcement of her name, and again met that proud resentment which she remembered so well in the lover of her girlhood.
"Winter!" she mused when she lay down for rest, "Winter! Ay, that is the name of their lawyer. I ought to know it well. And what do they here? Why this apparent privacy? Why seek this veil for their poverty? I must discover. They must be unmasked. Who knows but they are involved? What plan are they devising to save those mouldering towers?"
A long train of reflections passed through Esther's mind as she lay awake that night. In the morning she summoned Michael Sinson to her presence. The young man was already considerably improved in appearance, had lost his rusticity, and acquired a manner "free and easy," with a very excellent opinion of himself. The change might be partly due to certain vague aspirations which pleased his vanity, and at the same time sharpened his natural foresight and cunning. He was abject in deference towards his patroness.
"Sinson," said she, when he came before her, "you know Mr. Trevethlan well?"