“Tired to death of the walls of the house, which seems a dungeon to me, I dashed out this morning, at daylight, as soon as I found I could safely leave her; and, strolling down to the office, who should I find there but your father, perched at the desk, and seemingly inclined to resume all his former practice?”
“Indeed! my father—so early? What could be the matter? Did he tell you?
“Yes, i'faith, he is in tribulation about you. He fancies you are in a fair way to destruction. You can't conceive what he fancies. It seems, according to his account, that you are a night-stalker. He dwells at large upon your nightly absences from home, and then about your appearance, which, to say truth, is very wretched. You scarcely look like the same man. Edgerton. Have you been sick? What's the matter with you?”
“I am NOT altogether well,” he said, evasively.
“Yes, but mere indisposition would never produce such a change, in so short a period, in any man! Your father is disposed to ascribe it to other causes.”
“Ah! what does he think?”
I fancied there was mingled curiosity and trepidation in this inquiry.
“He suspects you of gaming and drinking; but I assured him, very confidently, that such was not the case. On one of these heads I could speak confidently, for I met Kingsley the other night—the night of Mother Delaney's party—who was hot and heavy against you because you refused to lend him money for such purposes. I was more indulgent, lent him the money, went with him to the house, and returned home with a pocket full of specie, sufficient to set up a small banking-operation of my own.”
“You! can it be possible!”
“True; and no such dull way of spending an evening either. I got home in the small hours, and found Julia delirious. I haven't had such a fright for a stolen pleasure, Heaven knows when. There was the doctor, and there my eternal mother-in-law, and my poor little wife as near the grave as could be! But the circumstance of refusing the money to Kingsley, knowing his object, made me confident that gaming was not the cause of your night-stalking, and so I told the old gentleman.”