Mr Haredale surveyed him with a look of cold contempt. 'You may evade an explanation, I know,' he said, folding his arms. 'But I
must have it. I can wait.'
'Not at all. Not at all, my good fellow. You shall not wait a moment,' returned his friend, as he lazily crossed his legs. 'The ******st thing in the world. It lies in a nutshell. Ned has written her a letter--a boyish, honest, sentimental composition, which remains as yet in his desk, because he hasn't had the heart to send it. I have taken a liberty, for which my parental affection and anxiety are a sufficient excuse, and possessed myself of the contents. I have described them to your niece (a most enchanting person, Haredale; quite an angelic creature), with a little colouring and description adapted to our purpose. It's done. You may be quite easy. It's all over. Deprived of their adherents and mediators; her pride and jealousy roused to the utmost; with nobody to undeceive her, and you to confirm me; you will find that their intercourse will close with her answer. If she receives Ned's letter by to-morrow noon, you may date their parting from to-morrow night. No thanks, I beg; you owe me none.
I have acted for myself; and if I have forwarded our compact with all the ardour even you could have desired, I have done so selfishly, indeed.'
'I curse the compact, as you call it, with my whole heart and soul,' returned the other. 'It was made in an evil hour. I have bound myself to a lie; I have leagued myself with you; and though I
did so with a righteous motive, and though it cost me such an effort as haply few men know, I hate and despise myself for the deed.'
'You are very warm,' said Mr Chester with a languid smile.
'I AM warm. I am maddened by your coldness. 'Death, Chester, if your blood ran warmer in your veins, and there were no restraints upon me, such as those that hold and drag me back--well; it is done; you tell me so, and on such a point I may believe you. When I am most remorseful for this treachery, I will think of you and your marriage, and try to justify myself in such remembrances, for having torn asunder Emma and your son, at any cost. Our bond is cancelled now, and we may part.'
Mr Chester kissed his hand gracefully; and with the same tranquil face he had preserved throughout--even when he had seen his companion so tortured and transported by his passion that his whole frame was shaken--lay in his lounging posture on the seat and watched him as he walked away.
'My scapegoat and my drudge at school,' he said, raising his head to look after him; 'my friend of later days, who could not keep his mistress when he had won her, and threw me in her way to carry off the prize; I triumph in the present and the past. Bark on, ill-
favoured, ill-conditioned cur; fortune has ever been with me--I
like to hear you.'
The spot where they had met, was in an avenue of trees. Mr Haredale not passing out on either hand, had walked straight on.
He chanced to turn his head when at some considerable distance, and seeing that his late companion had by that time risen and was looking after him, stood still as though he half expected him to follow and waited for his coming up.
'It MAY come to that one day, but not yet,' said Mr Chester, waving his hand, as though they were the best of friends, and turning away. 'Not yet, Haredale. Life is pleasant enough to me;
dull and full of heaviness to you. No. To cross swords with such a man--to indulge his humour unless upon extremity--would be weak indeed.'
For all that, he drew his sword as he walked along, and in an absent humour ran his eye from hilt to point full twenty times.
But thoughtfulness begets wrinkles; remembering this, he soon put it up, smoothed his contracted brow, hummed a gay tune with greater gaiety of manner, and was his unruffled self again.