“And leave my father in this condition? Yes, I am summoned on a matter of life and death.”
The other was puzzled by the non-professional phrase. “An urgent case” would have been intelligible. But he made no comment. Neither of the Lanyons was a man to discuss his private concerns with his acquaintance. Sylvester continued,—
“I am more than satisfied to leave him in your hands, Simmons. You know that. But you would be doing me a good turn if you sent me two or three telegrams to-morrow. I hope to get back at night.”
“Willingly,” replied Simmons; and after a few more words, the two men shook hands and parted. Miss Lanyon, whose simple gospel it was that whatever Matthew or Sylvester did was right, demanded no explanations when Sylvester announced his intention of going to London; but when he was gone, she cried a bit to herself in a sympathetic feminine way. Men were unaccountable beings in her eyes. They represented mysterious forces which she had been brought up, in her young days, to regard with respectful awe. There was a trace of orientalism in the attitude of our grandmothers towards the male sex. It lingers still in old-fashioned, sequestered places.
It was late when Sylvester's cab stopped at his house in Weymouth Street. He attempted to open the door with his latch-key, but the chain was up, and he had to ring and wait in the drizzling rain until a shivering and tousled servant came down. At another time he would have felt a chill of desolation at entering the dark and fireless house, so cold in its unwelcome. But to-night he was strung to a high pitch; and the loneliness of his surroundings failed to touch the usually responsive chord. He went upstairs to his room, dominated by a fixed idea. He would stop the marriage, thus tardily doing his father's bidding, and have Roderick arrested on a charge of forgery. If his father died, his murder would thus, at least, be avenged.
Early the next morning he went to Roderick's chambers. The servant, who was setting the breakfast table, informed him that Mr. Usher had not yet been called.
“Wake him and say that Dr. Lanyon particularly wishes to see him,” said Sylvester.
The servant retired and returned a few moments afterwards with a request that he would wait for Mr. Usher in the studio. She conducted him thither and having put a match to the fire, departed. The room was bare, the hangings taken down, the knick-knacks packed in cases lying untidily about the floor, the pictures stacked against the walls,—all in preparation for the coming change in Roderick's way of living.
Presently a door opened, and Roderick appeared in dressing-gown and slippers. His cheeks were sunken, his eyes bloodshot. He looked like a man hag-ridden. He drew a quick, short breath at the first sight of Sylvester's threatening face. All his jauntiness had gone. He went a step or two towards his visitor and said curtly,—
“Well?”