“Then ought we not to make some earnest effort to save him before it is too late? Oh, Mr. Burton, you who are wise and experienced—tell me what to do.”
“Why do you feel so much interest in him? You do not like him.”
“I could not see the merest stranger go down toward destruction without stretching forth my hand. There is no great friendship between us, it is true; but James is nearly connected with the happiness and reputation of the family I honor most on earth. For its sake, I would make the utmost endeavor.”
“For the interests of justice, then, it is well that I am not related to the Argylls by the personal ties which affect you. I will tell you one thing—James does not gamble so much from weakness of will to resist temptation, as he does to forget, for a time, under the influence of the fascinating excitement, an anxiety which he carries about with him.”
“You’re a close observer, Mr. Burton. James has, indeed, been deeply troubled lately. I have noticed the change in him—in his appetite, complexion, manners, in a thousand trifles—a change which grows upon him daily. He is gnawed upon by secret doubts—now raised by hopes, now depressed by fears, until he is fitful and uncertain as a light carried in an autumn wind. But I can tell you that he is all wrong in indulging this vain hope, which creates the doubt. I know what it is, and how utterly without foundation. It is weakness, wickedness in him to allow a passion which ought only to ennoble him and teach him self-control, to chase him to such ruin as I saw tonight.”
“That is your way of viewing the matter, Mr. Redfield. We all see things according to the color of the spectacles we happen to wear. Then you think it is a growing certainty that Miss Argyll, even under her present relief from past vows, will never favor his suit, nor that of any man, which is driving her cousin to these reckless habits?”
I was half-offended with him for mentioning her name in that manner; but I knew that mine was an extreme, if not a morbid sensitiveness, where she was concerned, and I swallowed my resentment, answering,
“I fear it is.”
“That may explain his disquiet to you—so be it.”
Still Mr. Burton was keeping something back from me—always keeping something back. I did not feel at all sleepy. I was full of eager thought. I reviewed, with a lightning glance, all that he had ever said—all James had recently done or said—and, I swear, had it not been for the almost affectionate kindness of his general manner to me, and my belief in his candor, which would not allow him to play the part of a friend while acting the part of an enemy, I should have felt that Mr. Burton suspected me of that appalling crime which I was so busily seeking to fix upon the head of a frail, frightened woman! Again the idea, and not for the first time, crept through my veins, chilling me from head to foot. I looked him full in the eyes. If he had such a thought, I would pluck it out from behind that curtain of deception, and make him acknowledge it. If he had such a thought, James had introduced it to his mind. I knew that James had had some interviews with him, of which I was only cognizant by casual observations dropped by my host. How many more conclaves they may have held, was left to my imagination to conjecture. What was this man before me playing this double part for?—a friend to each, but never to both together. The reader may smile, and answer that it is the very calling and existence of a detective to play a double part; and that I ought not to be chagrined to find him exercising his fine talents upon me. Perhaps James also had reason to fancy himself this man’s confidant and friend, who was playing us, one against the other, for purposes of his own. It was the thought that Mr. Burton, before whom more than any other person in this world, except my mother, I had been wiled to lay open my soul, could suspect me of any hidden part in that dark tragedy, which chilled me to the marrow.
But no!—it was impossible! I saw it now in the frank and smiling eyes which met my searching and lengthy gaze.
“There!” he cried, gayly, “there is a ray of actual sunrise. The fire is out; the room is chilly—the morning has come upon us. We have sat out the night, Richard! Let me show you to your room; we will not breakfast until nine o’clock, and you can catch a couple of hours’ repose in the meantime.” He took up a lamp, and we ascended the stairs. “Here is your chamber. Now, remember, I bid you sleep, and let that clock in your brain run down. It is bad for the young to think too deeply. Good—morning.”
He passed on, as I closed the door of my chamber. His tone had been that of an elder friend, speaking to a young man whom he loved; I had wronged him by that unpleasant idea which had shivered through me.
Closed shutters and thick curtains kept out the broadening light of dawn; yet I found it difficult
