Silently the cards were dealt and played. It was evidently the closing game, upon which much depended—how much, for James, I could only guess by the increasing pallor and absorption of his countenance.
“I wish I could see his opponent’s face,” I whispered to my companion.
“You would see nothing but the face of the devil coolly amusing himself. Bagley never gets excited. He has ruined a dozen young men already.”
The last card was thrown down; the two players arose simultaneously.
“Well, Bagley,” said James, with a desperate laugh, “you will have to wait for the money until I—”
“Marry the young lady,” said the other; “that is the agreement, I believe; but don’t consent to a long engagement.”
“I shall find some means to pay these last two debts before that happy consummation, I hope. You shall hear from me within a month.”
“We will make a little memorandum of them,” said his opponent; and as they went together to a writing-desk, Mr. Burton drew me away.
I could hardly breathe when we got into the street, I was so suffocated with rage at hearing the reference made by those two men, under that unholy roof, to the woman so revered and sacred in my thoughts. I was certain that Miss Argyll was the young lady whose fortune was to pay these “debts of honor,” contracted in advance upon such security. If his strong hand had not silently withheld me, I do not know but I should have made a scene, which would have been as unwise as useless. I was thankful, afterward, that I was prevented, though I chafed under the restraint at the time. Neither of us spoke until we were in the house of my host, where a fire in the library awaited us. Before this we seated ourselves, neither of us feeling sleepy after our night’s adventures.
“How did you know that Argyll was at that house? I had no idea that he intended coming to the city today,” I said.
“He had no intention until he learned of your sudden departure. He came down in the next train, to see what you were about. He is uneasy about you, Mr. Redfield, didn’t you know it? As he could ascertain nothing satisfactory about your doings, or mine, he had nothing better on his hands, this evening, than to look up his friend Bagley.”
“How do you know all this?”
The detective half smiled, his piercing eyes fixed reflectively on the fire.
“I should be poorly able to support my pretensions, if I could not keep the circle of my acquaintance under my observation. I was informed of his arrival in town, upon my return from Brooklyn, and have known of his whereabouts since. I could tell you what he had for supper, if it would interest you.”
The uneasy feeling which I had several times experienced in Mr. Burton’s society, came over me again. I spoke a little quickly:
“I wonder if you have your secret agents—spirits of the air, or electricity, they might almost seem to be—hovering always on my steps.”
He laughed, but not unpleasantly, looking me through with those steel-blue rays:
“Would it trouble you to fancy yourself under surveillance?”
“I never liked fetters, of any kind. I yield my choice of will and action to nobody. However, if anyone finds satisfaction in playing the part of my shadow, I don’t know that I shall suffer any restraint upon that account.”
“I don’t think it would disturb you seriously,” he said.
“No one likes to be watched, Mr. Burton.”
“We are all watched by the pure and penetrating eye of the All-seeing One, and if we are not fearful before Him, whom need we shrink from?”
I looked up to see whether it was the secret-police-agent who was preaching to me, or whether my host, in his power of varying the outer manifestations of his character, had not dropped the mystic star for the robe of the minister; he was gazing into the fire with a sad, absorbed expression, as if he saw before him a long procession of mortal crimes, walking in the night of earth, but, in reality, under the full brightness of infinite day. I had seen him before in these solemn, almost prophetic moods, brought on him by the revelation of some new sin, which seemed always in him to awaken regret, rather than the exultation of a detective bent on the successful results of his mission. So soft, so gentle he appeared then, I inwardly wondered that he had the sternness to inflict disgrace and exposure upon the “respectable” guilty—which class of criminals he was almost exclusively employed with—but I had only to reflect upon the admirable equipoise of his character, to realize that with him justice was what he loved best. For those who prowled about society in the garb of lambs and shepherd-dogs, seeking whom they might devour, and laying, perhaps, the proofs of guilt at the doors of the innocent, he had no mercy of the “let us alone” type. A little time we were silent; the dropping of an ember from the grate startled us.
“Why do you think that James watches me? What does he watch me for?”
I asked this, going back to the surprise I had felt when he made the remark.
“You will know soon enough.”
It was useless for me to press the question, since he did not wish to be explicit.
“I did not know,” I continued, “I never dreamed, that James had bad associates in the city. I know that his uncle and cousins do not suspect it. It pains me more than I can express. What shall I do? I have no influence over him. He dislikes me, and would take the most brotherly remonstrance as an insult.”
“I do not wish you, at present, to hint your discovery to him. As for your not suspecting his habits, those habits themselves are recent. I doubt if he had ever ventured a dollar on
