Cleve was very angry, but he was also alarmed; for Mr. Dingwell looked quite capable of any treason against the Verney interest to which his avarice or his spites might prompt him. A wild, cold, wandering eye; a play of the nostrils, and a corrugation of the brows that gave to his smile, or his laugh, a menace that was villanous, and almost insane—warned the young man of the quality of the beast, and invited him to the exercise of all his self-control.

"I am quite certain, Mr. Dingwell, that my uncle will do whatever is reasonable and fair, and I am also sure that he feels his obligations to you. I shall take care that he hears all that you have said, and you understand that I literally have neither power nor influence in his decision."

"Well, he feels his obligations," said Mr. Dingwell. "That is pleasant."

"Certainly; and, as I said, whatever is fair and reasonable I am certain he will do," said Cleve Verney.

"Fair and reasonable—that is exactly the thing—the value; and you know—

And I'll make it bring what I say; and I make it a rule to treat money matters in the grossest terms, because that is the only language which is at once intelligible and direct—and grossness I believe to be the soul of business; and so, sir, tell him with my compliments, I shall expect five hundred pounds at ten o'clock in the morning, in Bank of England notes."

At this moment the servant announced the Rev. Isaac Dixie, and Mr. Dingwell stood up, and, looking with a kind of amusement and scorn round the room upon the dusty portraits, made a sharp bow to Cleve Verney, and saying,—

"That's all; good morning, sir"—with another nod, turned about, and walked jauntily out of the room.

CHAPTER XIII.

Dingwell was beset with dangers and devils of his own; but he stood in his magic circle, making mouths and shaking his fist, and cursing at them. He seemed to have no imagination to awe, or prudence to restrain him. He was aware, and so was Cleve, that Larkin knew all about his old bankruptcy, the judgments against him, the impounded forgeries on which he had been on the brink of indictment, and his escape from prison; and yet he railed at Larkin, and defied the powerful Verneys, as if he had been an angel sent to illuminate, to lecture, and to rule them.

Mr. Larkin was usually an adroit and effectual tamer of evil beasts, in such case as this Mr. Dingwell. He waved his thin wand of red-hot iron with a light and firm hand, and made every raw smoke in turn, till the lion was fit to lie down with the lamb. But this Dingwell was an eccentric brute; he had no awe for the superior nature, no respect for the imposing airs of the tamer—not the slightest appreciation even of his cautery. On the contrary, he seemed to like the sensation, and amuse himself with the exposure of his sores to the inspection of Mr. Larkin, who began to feel himself drawn into an embarrassing and highly disreputable confidence.

Mr. Larkin had latterly quite given up the idea of frightening Mr. Dingwell, for when he tried that method, Mr. Dingwell had grown uncomfortably lively and skittish, and, in fact, frightened the exemplary Mr. Larkin confoundedly. He had recapitulated his own enormities with an elation and frightful merriment worthy of a scandalous corner at a Walpurges ball; had demonstrated that he perfectly understood the game of the serious attorney, and showed himself so curiously thick of skin, and withal so sportive and formidable a rhinoceros, that Mr. Larkin then and there learned a lesson, and vowed no more to try the mesmerism that succeeded with others, or the hot rod of iron under which they winced and gasped and succumbed.

Such a systematic, and even dangerous defiance of everything good, he had never encountered before. Such a person exactly as this Mr. Dingwell he could not have imagined. There was, he feared, a vein of insanity in that unfortunate man.

He had seen quite enough of the horrid adroitness of Mr. Dingwell's horse-play, and felt such qualms whenever that animal capered and snorted, that he contented himself with musing and wondering over his idiosyncrasies, and adopted a soothing treatment with him—talked to him in a friendly, and even tender way—and had some vague plans of getting him ultimately into a mad-house.

But Mr. Dingwell was by this time getting into his cab, with a drapery of mufflers round him, and telling the man through the front window to drive to Rosemary Court; he threw himself back into a corner, and chuckled and snorted in a conceited ecstasy over his victory, and the money which was coming to minister to no good in this evil world.

Cleve Verney leaned back in his chair, and there rose before him a view of a moonlighted wood, an old château, with its many peaked turrets, and steep roofs, showing silvery against the deep, liquid sky of night, and with a sigh, he saw on the white worn steps, that beautiful, wonderful shape that was his hope and his fate; and as he leaned on his hand, the Reverend Isaac Dixie, whose name had strangely summoned this picture from the deep sea of his fancy, entered the room, smiling rosily, after his wont, and extending his broad hand, as he marched with deliberate strides across the floor, as much as to say—"Here I am, your old tutor and admirer, who always predicted great things for you; I know you are charmed, as I am; I know how you will greet me."

"Ha! old Dixie," and Cleve got up, with a kind of effort, and not advancing very far, shook hands.

"So you have got your leave—a week—or how long?"

"I've arranged for next Sunday, that's all, my dear Mr. Verney; some little inconvenience, but very happy—always happy."

"Come, I want to have a talk with you," said Cleve, drawing the clergyman to a chair. "Don't you remember—you ought, you know—what Lord Sparkish (isn't it?) says in Swift's Polite Conversations—''Tis as cheap sitting as standing.'"

The clergyman took the chair, simpering bashfully, for the allusion was cruel, and referred to a time when the Reverend Isaac Dixie, being as yet young in the ways of the world, and somewhat slow in apprehending literary ironies, had actually put his pupil through a grave course of "Polite Conversation," which he picked up among some odd volumes of the works of the great Dean of St. Patrick's, on the school-room shelf at Malory.

"And for my accomplishment of saying smart things in a polite way, I am entirely obliged to you and Dean Swift," said Cleve, mischievously.

"Ah! ah! you were always fond of a jest, my dear Mr. Verney; you liked poking fun, you did, at your old tutor; but you know how that really was—I have explained it so often; still, I do allow, the jest is not a bad one."

But Cleve's mind was already on quite another subject.

"And now, Dixie," said he, with a sharp glance into the clergyman's eyes, "you know, or at least you guess, what it is I want you to do for me?"

The clergyman looked down by his gaiter, with his head a little a-one-side, and his mouth a little pursed; and said he, after a momentary silence,—

"I really, I may say, unaffectedly, assure you that I do not."

"You're a queer fellow, old Dixie," said Cleve; "you won't be vexed, but you are always a little bit too clever. I did not tell you exactly, but I told you enough to enable you to guess it. Don't you remember our last talk? Come now, Dixie, you're no muff."

"I hope not, my dear Cleve; I may be, but I don't pretend to that character, though I have still, I apprehend, much to learn in the world's ways."

"Yes, of course," said the young man; and tapped his small teeth that glittered under his moustache, with the end of his pencil-case, while he lazily watched the face of the clergyman from under his long lashes.

"And I assure you," continued the clergyman, "if I were to pretend that I did apprehend your intentions, I should be guilty of an inaccuracy amounting, in fact, to an untruth."

He thought he detected something a little mocking in the handsome face of the young gentleman, and could not tell, in the shadow of the window-curtain, whether those even white teeth were not smiling at him outright; and a little nettled, but not forgetting himself, he went on,—

"You know, my dear Cleve, it is nothing on earth to me—absolutely; I act merely to oblige—merely, I mean, to be useful—if in my power, consistently with all other considerations, and I speak, I humbly, but confidently hope, habitually the truth"——

"Of course you do," said the young gentleman, with emphasis, and growing quite serious again. "It is very kind, I know, your coming all this way, and managing your week's absence; and you may for the present know just as little or as much of the matter as you please; only mind, this is—not of course in any wrong sense—a dark business—awfully quiet. They say that, in England, a talent for speaking may raise a man to anything, but I think a talent for holding one's tongue is sometimes a better one. And—I'm quite serious, old Dixie—I'll not forget your fidelity to me, upon my honour—really, never; and as you know, I may yet have the power of proving it."

The Rev. Isaac Dixie folded his hands, and hung his head sideways in a meek modesty, and withal smiled so rosily and gloriously, as he sate in front of the window, that had it happened an hour before sunrise, the sparrows in the ivy all along the stable walls, would undoubtedly have mistaken it for the glow of Aurora, and commenced their chirping and twittering salutations to the dawn an hour too soon.

"It is very gratifying, very, you cannot readily estimate, my dear, and—may I not say?—my illustrious pupil, how gratifying to me, quite irrespective of all those substantially kind intentions which you are pleased to avow in my behalf, to hear from your lips so frank and—may I say,—almost affectionate a declaration; so just an estimate of my devotion to your interests, and I may say, I hope, of my character generally?"

The Rector of Clay was smiling with a huge bashfulness, and slowly folding and rubbing one hand over the other, with his head gently inclined, and his great blue chin upon his guileless, single-breasted, black silk bosom, as he spoke all this in mellow effusion.

"Now, Dixie," said the young man, while a very anxious expression for the first time showed itself in his face, "I want you to do me a kindness—a kindness that will tie me to you all the days of my life. It is something, but not much; chiefly that you will have to keep a secret, and take some little trouble, which I know you don't mind; but nothing serious, not the slightest irregularity, a trifle, I assure you, and chiefly, as I said, that you will have to keep a secret for me."

Dixie also looked a good deal graver as he bowed his acquiescence, trying to smile on, and still sliding his hands softly, one over the other.

"I know you guess what it is—no matter—we'll not discuss it, dear Dixie; it's quite past that now. You'll have to make a little trip for me—you'll not mind it; only across what you used to call the herring-pond; and you must wait at the Silver Lion at Caen; it is the best place there—I wish it was better—not a soul will you see—I mean English, no one but quite French people; and there is quite amusement, for a day or so, in looking over the old town. Just wait there, and I'll let you know everything before you have been two days there. I've got your passport; you shall have no trouble. And you need not go to a bank; there's gold here; and you'll keep it, and spend it for me till I see you; and you must go to-day."

"And, of course, I know it is nothing wrong, my dear Cleve; but we are told to avoid even the appearance of evil. And in any case, I should not, of course, for the world offend your uncle—Lord Verney, I may call him now—the head of the family, and my very kind patron; for I trust I never forget a kindness; and if it should turn out to be anything which by any chance he might misinterpret, I may reckon upon your religious silence, my dear Cleve, as respects my name?"

"Silence! of course—I'd die before I should tell, under any pressure. I think you know I can keep a secret, and my own especially. And never trust my honour more if your name is ever breathed in connexion with any little service you may render me."

He pressed the Rev. Isaac Dixie's hand very earnestly as he spoke.

"And now, will you kindly take charge of this for me, and do as I said?" continued Cleve, placing the gold in Dixie's not unwilling hand. "And on this paper I have made a note of the best way—all about the boat and the rest; and God bless you, my dear Dixie, good-bye."

"And God bless you, my dear Cleve," reciprocated the clergyman, and they shook hands again, and the clergyman smiled blandly and tenderly; and as he closed the door, and crossed the hall, grew very thoughtful, and looked as if he were getting into a possible mess.

Cleve, too, was very pale as he stood by the window, looking into the sooty garden at the back of Verney House.

CHAPTER XIV.

In the ancient town of Caen, in the Silver Lion, the Rev. Isaac Dixie that evening made himself partially understood, and altogether comfortable. He had an excellent dinner, and partook, moderately of course, of the very best vintage in the crypt of that venerable inn. Why should he not? Was he not making harmless holiday, and guilty of no extravagance; for had not Mr. Cleve Verney buckled a long purse to his girdle, and told him to dip his fingers in it as often and as deep as he pleased? And if he undertook the task—trod out Cleve Verney's corn, surely it was no business of his to call for a muzzle, and deny himself his heart's content.

In that exquisite moonlight, having had his cup of coffee, the Rev. Isaac Dixie made a loitering promenade: everything was bewitching—a little wonderful, he fancied—a little strange—from his shadow, that looked so sharp on the white road, to the gothic fronts and gables of old carved houses, emitting ruddy glimmerings from diamond casemates high in air, and half-melting in the deep liquid sky, gleaming with stars over his head.

All was perfectly French in language and costume: not a note of the familiar English accent mingled in the foreign hum of life. He was quite at his ease. To all censorious eyes he walked invisible; and, shall I tell it? Why not? For in truth, if his bishop, who abhors that narcotic, and who, I am sure, never reads novels, and therefore cannot read it here, learns nothing of it, the telling can hurt nobody. He smoked three great cheroots, mild and fragrant, that evening, in the ancient streets of Caen, and returned to his inn, odorous of that perfume.

It would have been altogether a delicious excursion, had there not been a suspense and an anxiety to trouble the divine. The Rev. Isaac Dixie regretted now that he had not asked Cleve to define his object. He suspected, but did not know its nature. He had no idea how obstinately and amazingly the problem would recur to his mind, and how serious would grow his qualms as the hour of revelation drew near.

The same moon is shining over the ancient streets of Caen, and over smoke-canopied Verney House, and over the quaint and lonely Château de Cresseron. In a tapestried room in this old French house candles were burning, the window open, and Margaret Fanshawe sitting at it, and looking out on the moonlit woods and waters, and breathing the still air, that was this night soft as summer, in the raptures of a strange dream: a dream no more; the uncertainty is over, and all her griefs. No longer is she one of that forlorn race that hath but a short time to live, and is full of misery. She is not born to trouble, as the sparks fly upward, but translated. Is it so? Alas! alas! the angelic voice has not yet proclaimed "that God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain; for the former things are passed away." These words are for the glorified, who have passed the gates of death.

In this bliss, as in all that pertains to love, reason has small share. The heart rejoices as the birds sing. A great suspense—the greatest care that visits the young heart—has ended in a blessed certainty, and in so far the state resembles heaven; but, as in all mortal happiness, there mingles in this also a sadness like distant music.

Old Sir Booth Fanshawe is away on one of his mysterious journeys, and cannot return for three or four days, at soonest. I do not know whether things are beginning to look brighter with Sir Booth, or whether his affairs are being "managed" into utter ruin. Meanwhile, the evil spirit has departed from the house, and the spirit of music has come, music with yet a cadence of sadness in it.

This fair, quaint landscape, and beautiful moonlight! Who ever looks on such a scene that does not feel a melancholy mingling in his delight?

Thus, in the visions of the Seer who lies in Stratford-on-Avon, moonlight and love and melancholy are related; and so it is, and will be, to the end of time, till mortal love is no more, and sadness ends, and the moon is changed to blood, and all things are made new.

And now over the moonlit water, through the boughs of the old trees, the still night air is thrilled with a sweet contralto—a homely song—the echo of childish days and the nursery. Poor Milly! her maid who died so early, whose lover was a young sailor, far away, used to sing it for her in the summer evenings, when they sat down under the hawthorns, on Winnockhough, looking toward the sea, though the sea was many a mile away:—

And now the song is ended, and, listening, nature seems to sigh; and looking toward the old château, the front next you is in shadow, the window is open, and within you see two ladies. The elder is standing by the girl, who sits still at the open window, looking up into the face of her old friend—the old friend who has known, in the early days of romance, what love is, for whom now "the bloom is shed, and mingling with the mould," but who remembers sadly the blush and glory of its light that died five-and-thirty years ago upon Canadian snows.

Gently the old lady takes her hand, and sits beside her girlish kinswoman, and lays her other hand over that, and smiles with a strange look of affection, and admiration, and immeasurable compassion, that somehow seems to translate her, it is so sad and angelic. I cannot hear what she is saying, but the young lady looks up, and kisses her thin cheek, and lays her head upon her old shoulder.

Behind, high over the steep roofs and pinnacles, and those glimmering weather-vanes, that seem sometimes to melt quite away, hangs the moon, unclouded—meet emblem of a pure love—no longer crossed by the sorrows of true love's course—Dian the Chaste, with her sad, pure, and beautifully misleading light—alas! the emblem, also, of mutation.

In a few concise and somewhat dry sentences, as old prison stones bear the records which thin hands, long since turned to dust, have carved, the world's corridors and corners bear the tracings of others that were busy two thousand years ago; and the inscriptions that tell the trite story of human fears and sadness, cut sharp and deep in the rock, tell simply and briefly how Death was the King of Terrors, and the shortness of Life the bitter wonder, and black Care the companion of the wayfarers who marched by the same route to the same goal, so long ago. These gigantic griefs and horrors are all in a nutshell. A few words tell them. Their terror is in their truth. There is no use in expanding them: they are sublimely simple. Among the shadowy men and women that people these pages, I see them everywhere—plots too big and complicated to be got, by any compression, within the few pages and narrow covers of the book of their lives: Care, in her old black weeds, and Death, with stealthy foot and blow like thunder.

Twelve months had come and gone for ever since the Reverend Isaac Dixie made that little trip to Caen, every month bringing his portion of blossom, fruit, or blight to every mortal. All had gone well and gloriously in this Verney Peerage matter.

The death of the late Honourable Arthur Verney was proved; and the Honourable Kiffyn Fulke Verney, as next heir, having complied with the proper forms, duly succeeded to the ancient peerage of the Verneys. So the dream was accomplished more splendidly, perhaps, than if the prize had come earlier, for the estates were in such condition as they had never attained to since the great rebellion; and if Viscount Verney was not among the more potent of his peers, the fault was not in the peerage and its belongings.

I don't know that Lord Verney was on the whole a happier man than the Honourable Kiffyn had been. He had become somewhat more exacting; his pride pronounced itself more implacably; men felt it more, because he was really formidable. Whatever the Viscount in the box might be, the drag he drove was heavy, and men more alert in getting out of his way than they would, perhaps, had he been a better whip.

He had at length his heart's desire; but still there was something wanting. He was not quite where he ought to be. With his boroughs, and his command of one county, and potent influence in another, he ought to have been decidedly a greater man. He could not complain of being slighted. The minister saw him when he chose; he was listened to, and in all respects courteously endured. But there was something unsatisfactory. He was not telling, as he had expected. Perhaps he had no very clear conceptions to impress. He had misgivings, too, that secretly depressed and irritated him. He saw Twyndle's eye wander wildly, and caught him yawning stealthily into his hand, while he was giving him his view of the affair of the "the Matilda Briggs," and the right of search. He had seen Foljambe, of the Treasury, suddenly laugh at something he thought was particularly wise, while unfolding to that gentleman, in the drawing-room, after dinner, his ideas about local loans, in aid of agriculture. Foljambe did not laugh outright. It was only a tremulous qualm of a second, and he was solemn again, and rather abashed. Lord Verney paused, and looked for a second, with stern inquiry in his face, and then proceeded politely. But Lord Verney never thought or spoke well of Foljambe again; and often reviewed what he had said, in secret, to try and make out where the absurdity lay, and was shy of ventilating that particular plan again, and sometimes suspected that it was the boroughs and the county, and not Kiffyn Lord Verney, that were listened to.

As the organ of self-esteem is the region of our chief consolations and irritations (and its condition regulates temper), this undivulged mortification, you may be sure, did not make Lord Verney, into whose ruminations was ever trickling, through a secret duct, this fine stream of distilled gall, brighter in spirits, or happier in temper.

Oh! vanity of human wishes! Not that the things we wish for are not in themselves pleasant, but that we forget that, as in nature every substance has its peculiar animalcule and infestings, so every blessing has, too minute to be seen at a distance, but quite inseparable, its parasite troubles.

Cleve Verney, too, who stood so near the throne, was he happy? The shadow of care was cast upon him. He had grown an anxious man. "Verney's looking awfully thin, don't you think, and seedy? and he's always writing long letters, and rather cross," was the criticism of one of his club friends. "Been going a little too fast, I dare say."

Honest Tom Sedley thought it was this pending peerage business, and the suspense; and reported to his friend the confident talk of the town on the subject. But when the question was settled, with a brilliant facility, his good humour did not recover. There was still the same cloud over his friend, and Tom began to fear that Cleve had got into some very bad scrape, probably with the Hebrew community.

CHAPTER XV.

Mr. Larkin had repeatedly congratulated the Verney peer, and his young friend and patron, Cleve, upon his own masterly management, and the happy result of the case, as he called it. And although, with scriptural warning before him, he would be the last man in the world to say, "Is not this great Babylon that I have builded?" Yet he did wish Lord Viscount Verney, and Cleve Verney, M.P., distinctly to understand that he, Mr. Larkin, had been the making of them. There were some things—very many things, in fact, all desirable—which those distinguished persons could effect for the good attorney of Glyngden, and that excellent person in consequence presented himself diligently at Verney House.

On the morning I now speak of, he was introduced to the library, where he found the peer and his nephew.

"I ventured to call, my lord—how do you do, Mr. Verney?—to invite your lordship's attention to the position of Mr. Dingwell, who is compelled by lack of funds to prolong his stay in London. He is, I may say, most anxious to take his departure quietly and expeditiously, for Constantinople, where, I venture to think, it is expedient for all parties, that his residence should be fixed, rather than in London, where he is in hourly danger of detection and arrest, the consequence of which, my lord;—it will probably have struck your lordship's rapid apprehension already,—would be, I venture to think, a very painful investigation of his past life, and a concomitant discrediting of his character, which although, as your lordship would point out to me, it cannot disturb that which is already settled, would yet produce an unpleasant effect out of doors, which, it is to be feared, he would take care to aggravate by all means in his power, were he to refer his detention here, and consequent arrest, to any fancied economy on your lordship's part."

"I don't quite follow you about it, Mr. Larkin," said Lord Verney, who generally looked a little stern when he was puzzled. "I don't quite apprehend the drift—be good enough to sit down—about it—of your remarks, as they bear upon Mr. Dingwell's wishes, and my conduct. Do you, Cleve?"

"I conjecture that Dingwell wants more money, and can't be got out of London without it," said Cleve.

"Eh? Well, that did occur to me; of course, that's plain enough—about it—and what a man that must be! and—God bless me! about it—all the money he has got from me! It's incredible, Mr.—a—Larkin, three hundred pounds, you know, and he wanted five, and that absurdly enormous weekly payment besides!"

"Your lordship has exactly, as usual, touched the point, and anticipated, with your wonted accuracy, the line at the other side; and indeed, I may also say, all that may be urged by way of argument, pro and con. It is a wonderful faculty!" added Mr. Larkin, looking down with a contemplative smile, and a little wondering shake of the head.

"Ha, ha! Something of the same sort has been remarked in our family about it," said the Viscount, much pleased. "It facilitates business, rather, I should hope—about it."

The attorney shook his head, reflectively, raising his hands, and said, "No one but a professional man can have an idea!"

"And what do you suggest?" asked Cleve, who was perhaps a little tired of the attorney's compliments.

"Yes, what do you suggest, Mr.—Mr. Larkin? Your suggestion I should be prepared to consider. Anything, Mr. Larkin, suggested by you shall be considered," said Lord Verney grandly, leaning back in his chair, and folding his hands.

"I am much—very much—flattered by your lordship's confidence. The former money, I have reason to think, my lord, went to satisfy an old debt, and I have reason to know that his den has been discovered by another creditor, from whom, even were funds at his disposal to leave England to-night, escape would be difficult, if not impossible."

"How much money does he want?" asked Mr. Cleve Verney.

"A moment, a moment, please. I was going to say," said Lord Verney, "if he wants money—about it—it would be desirable to state the amount."

Mr. Larkin, thus called on, cleared his voice, and his dove-like eyes contracted, and assumed their rat-like look, and he said, watching Lord Verney's face,—

"I am afraid, my lord, that less than three hundred——"

Lord Verney contracted his brows, and nodded, after a moment.

"Three hundred pounds. Less, I say, my lord, will not satisfy the creditor, and there will remain something still in order to bring him back, and to keep him quiet there for a time; and I think, my lord, if you will go the length of five hundred——"

"'Gad, it's growing quite serious, Mr.—Mr. Sir, I confess I don't half understand this person, Mr. Ding—Dong—whatever it is—it's going rather too fast about it. I—I—and that's my clear opinion—" and Lord Verney gazed and blinked sternly at the attorney, and patted his fragrant pocket-handkerchief several times to his chin—"very unreasonable and monstrous, and, considering all I've done, very ungrateful."

"Quite so, my lord; monstrously ungrateful. I can't describe to your lordship the trouble I have had with that extraordinary and, I fear I must add, fiendish person. I allude, of course, my lord, in my privileged character as having the honour of confidential relations with your lordship, to that unfortunate man, Dingwell. I assure you, on one occasion, he seized a poker in his lodgings, and threatened to dash my brains out."

"Very good, sir," said Lord Verney, whose mind was busy upon quite another point; "and suppose I do, what do we gain, I ask, by assisting him?"

"Simply, my lord, he is so incredibly reckless, and, as I have said, fiendish, that if he were disappointed, I do think he will stick at nothing, even to the length of swearing that his evidence for your lordship was perjured, for the purpose of being revenged, and your generosity to him pending the inquiry, or rather the preparation of proofs, would give a colour unfortunately even to that monstrous allegation. Your lordship can have no idea—the elevation of your own mind prevents it—of the desperate character with whom we have had to deal."

"Upon my life, sir, a pleasant position you seem to have brought me into," said Lord Verney, flushing a good deal.

"My lord, it was inevitable," said Mr. Larkin, sadly.

"I don't think he could have helped it, really," said Cleve Verney.

"And who says he could?" asked Lord Verney, tartly. "I've all along said it could not well be helped, and that's the reason I did it, don't you see? but I may be allowed to say, I suppose, that the position is a most untoward one; and so it is, egad!" and Lord Verney got up in his fidget, and walked over to the window, and to the chimney-piece, and to the table, and fiddled with a great many things.

"I remember my late brother, Shadwell Verney—he's dead, poor Shadwell—had a world of trouble with a fellow—about it—who used to extort money from him—something I suppose—like this Mr. Ringwood—or I mean—you know his name—till he called in the police, and put an end to it."

"Quite true, my lord, quite true; but don't you think, my lord, such a line with Mr. Dingwell might lead to a fraycas, and the possible unpleasantness to which I ventured to allude? You have seen him, Mr. Verney?"

"Yes; he's a beast, he really is; a little bit mad, I almost think."

"A little bit mad, precisely so; it really is, my lord, most melancholy. And I am so clearly of opinion that if we quarrel definitively with Mr. Dingwell, we may find ourselves in an extremely difficult position, that were the case my own, I should have no hesitation in satisfying Mr. Dingwell, even at a sacrifice, rather than incur the annoyance I anticipate. If you allow me, my lord, to conduct the matter with Mr. Dingwell, I think I shall succeed in getting him away quietly."

"It seems to me a very serious sum, Mr. Larkin," said Lord Verney.

"Precisely so, my lord; serious—very serious; but your lordship made a remark once in my hearing which impressed me powerfully: it was to the effect that where an object is to be accomplished, it is better to expend a little too much power, than anything too little." I think that Mr. Larkin invented this remark of Lord Verney's, which, however, his lordship was pleased to recognise, notwithstanding.

So the attorney took his departure, to call again next day.

"Clever man that Mr.—Mr. Larkin—vastly clever," said Lord Verney. "I rather think there's a great deal in what he says—it's very disgusting—about it; but one must consider, you know—there's no harm in considering—and—and that Mr.—Dong—Dingleton, isn't it?—about it—a most offensive person. I must consider—I shall think it over, and give him my ideas to-morrow."

Cleve did not like an expression which had struck him in the attorney's face that day, and he proposed next day to write to Mr. Dingwell, and actually did so, requesting that he would be so good as to call at Verney House.

Mr. Dingwell did not come; but a note came by post, saying that the writer, Mr. Dingwell, was not well enough to venture a call.

What I term Mr. Larkin's rat-like eyes, and a certain dark and even wicked look that crosses the attorney's face, when they appear, had left a profound sense of uncertainty in Cleve's mind respecting that gentleman's character and plans. It was simply a conviction that the attorney meditated something odd about Mr. Dingwell, and that no good man could look as he had looked.

There was no use in opening his suspicion, grounded on so slight a thing as a look, to his uncle, who, though often timid and hesitating, and in secret helpless, and at his wits' end for aid in arriving at a decision, was yet, in a matter where vanity was concerned, or a strong prejudice or caprice involved, often incredibly obstinate.

Mr. Larkin's look teased Cleve. Larkin might grow into an influence very important to that young gentleman, and was not lightly to be quarrelled with. He would not quarrel with him; but he would see Dingwell, if indeed that person were still in London; a fact about which he had begun to have some odd misgivings. The note was written in a straight, cramp hand, and Mr. Larkin's face was in the background always. He knew Mr. Dingwell's address; an answer, real or forged, had reached him from it. So, full of dark dreams and conjectures, he got into a cab, and drove to the entrance of Rosemary Court, and knocked at Miss Sarah Rumble's door.

That good lady, from the shadow, looked suspiciously on him.

"Is Mr. Dingwell at home?"

"Mr. Dingwell, sir?" she repeated.

"Yes. Is he at home?"

"Mr. Dingwell, sir? No sir."

"Does not Mr. Dingwell live here?"

"There was a gentleman, please, sir, with a name like that. Go back, child," she said, sharply to Lucy Maria, who was peeping in the background, and who might not be edified, perhaps, by the dialogue. "Beg parding, sir," she continued, as the child disappeared; "they are so tiresome! There was an old gentleman lodging here, sir, please, which his name was like that I do remember."

Cleve Verney did not know what to think.

"Is there anyone in the house who knows Mr. Dingwell? I've come to be of use to him; perhaps he could see me. Will you say Mr. Verney?"

"Mr.—what, sir, please?"

"Verney—here's my card; perhaps it is better."

As the conversation continued, Miss Rumble had gradually come more and more forward, closing the door more and more as she did so, so that she now confronted Cleve upon the step, and could have shut the door at her back, had he made any attempt to get in; and she called over her shoulder to Lucy Maria, and whispered something, and gave her, I suppose, the card; and in a minute more Miss Rumble opened the door wide, and showed "the gentleman" upstairs, and told him on the lobby she hoped he would not be offended, but that she had such positive orders as to leave her no choice; and that in fact Mr. Dingwell was in the drawing-room, and would be happy to see him, and almost at the same moment she threw open the door and introduced him, with a little courtesy, and—

"This way, please, sir; here's the gentleman, please, sir."

There he did find Mr. Dingwell, smoking a cigar, in his fez, slippers, and pea-green silk dressing-gown, with a cup of black coffee on the little table beside him, his Times and a few magazines there also. He looked, in vulgar parlance, "seedy," like an old fellow who had been raking the night before, and was wofully tired, and in no very genial temper.

"Will you excuse an old fellow, Mr. Verney, and take a chair for yourself? I'm not very well to-day. I suppose, from your note, you thought I had quitted London. It was not to be expected so old a plant should take root; but it's sometimes not worth moving 'em again, and they remain where they are, to wither, ha, ha, ha!"

"I should be sorry it was for any such purpose; but I am happy to find you still here, for I was really anxious to call and thank you."

"Anxious—to thank me! Are you really serious, Mr. Verney?" said Dingwell, lowering his cigar again, and looking with a stern smile in his visitor's face.

"Yes, sir; I did wish to call and tell you," said Cleve, determined not to grow angry; "and I am here to say that we are very much obliged."

"We?"

"Yes; my uncle and I."

"Oh, yes; well, it is something. I hope the coronet becomes him, and his robes. I venture to say he has got up the masquerading properties already; it's a pity there isn't a coronation or something at hand; and I suppose he'll put up a monument to my dear friend Arthur—a mangy old dog he was, you'll allow me to say, though he was my friend, and very kind to me; and I, the most grateful fellow he ever met; I've been more grieved about him than any other person I can remember, upon my soul and honour—and a devilish dirty dog he was."

This last reflection was delivered in a melancholy aside, after the manner of a soliloquy, and Cleve did not exactly know how to take this old fellow's impertinence.

"Arthur Verney—poor fellow! your uncle. He had a great deal of the pride of his family, you know, along with utter degradation. Filthy dog!—pah!" And Mr. Dingwell lifted both his hands, and actually used that unpleasant utensil called a "spittoon," which is seen in taverns, to give expression, it seemed, to his disgust.

"But he had his pride, dear Arthur; he was proud, and wished for a tombstone. When he was dying, he said, 'I should like a monument—not of course in a cathedral, for I have been living so darkly, and a good deal talked about; but there's an old church or abbey near Malory (that I'm sure was the name of the place) where our family has been accustomed to bury its quiet respectabilities and its mauvais sujets; and I think they might give me a pretty little monument there, quite quietly.' I think you'll do it, for you're a grateful person, and like thinking people; and he certainly did a great deal for his family by going out of it, and the little vanity of a monument would not cost much, and, as he said himself, no one would ever see it; and I promised, if I ever had an opportunity, to mention the subject to your uncle."

Cleve bowed.

"'And,' said he, 'there will be a little conflict of feeling. I am sure they'd like the monument, but they would not make an ostentation of me. But remind them of my Aunt Deborah. Poor old girl! she ran away with a fiddler.' Egad, sir! these were his very words, and I've found, on inquiring here, they were quite true. She ran away with a fiddler—egad! and I don't know how many little fiddlers she had; and, by Jove! he said if I came back I should recognise a possible cousin in every street-fiddler I met with, for music is a talent that runs in families. And so, when Atropos cut his fiddlestring, and he died, she took, he said, to selling mutton pies, for her maintenance, in Chester, and being properly proud as a Verney, though as a fiddler's widow necessitous, he said she used to cry, behind her little table, 'Hot mutton pies!' and then, sotto voce, 'I hope nobody hears me;' and you may rely upon that family anecdote, for I had it from the lips of that notorious member of your family, your uncle Arthur, and he hoped that they would comply with the tradition, and reconcile the Verney pride with Verney exigencies, and concede him the secret celebration of a monument."

"If you are serious——"

"Serious about a monument, sir! who the devil could be lively on such a subject?" and Mr. Dingwell looked unaccountably angry, and ground his teeth, and grew white. "A monument, cheap and nasty, I dare say; it isn't much for a poor devil from whom you've got everything. I suppose you'll speak to your uncle, sir."

"I'll speak to him, sir."

"Yes, do, pray, and prevail. I'm not very strong, sir, and there's something that remains for you and me to do, sir."

"What is that?"

"To rot under ground, sir; and as I shall go first, it would be pleasant to me to be able to present your affectionate regards to your uncle, when I meet him, and tell him that you had complied with his little fancy about the monument, as he seemed to make a point that his name should not be blotted totally from the records of his family."

Cleve was rather confirmed in his suspicions about the sanity of this odious old man—as well he might—and, at all events, was resolved to endure him without a row.

"I shall certainly remember, and mention all you have said, sir," said Cleve.

"Yes," said the old man, in a grim meditation, looking down, and he chucked away the stump of his cigar, "it's a devilish hard case, Kismet!" he muttered.

"I suppose you find our London climate very different from that you have grown accustomed to?" said Cleve, approaching the point on which he desired some light.

"I lived in London for a long time, sir. I was—as perhaps you know—junior partner in the great Greek house of Prinkipi and Dingwell—d——n Prinkipi! say I. He ran us into trouble, sir; then came a smash, sir, and Prinkipi levanted, making a scapegoat of me, the most vilified and persecuted Greek merchant that ever came on 'Change! And, egad! if they could catch me, even now, I believe they'd bury me in a dungeon for the rest of my days, which, in that case, would not be many. I'm here, therefore, I may say, at the risk of my life."

"A very anxious situation, indeed, Mr. Dingwell; and I conclude you intend but a short stay here?"

"Quite the contrary, sir. I mean to stay as long as I please, and that may be as long as I live."

"Oh! I had thought from something that Mr. Larkin said," began Cleve Verney.

"Larkin! He's a religious man, and does not put his candle under a bushel. He's very particular to say his prayers; and provided he says them, he takes leave to say what he likes beside."

Mr. Dingwell was shooting his arrows as freely as Cupid does; but Cleve did not take this satire for more than its worth.

"He may think it natural I should wish to be gone, and so I do," continued the old man, setting down his coffee cup, "if I could get away without the trouble of going, or was sure of a tolerably comfortable berth, at my journey's end; but I'm old, and travelling shakes me to pieces, and I have enemies elsewhere, as well as here; and the newspapers have been printing sketches of my life and adventures, and poking up attention about me, and awakening the slumbering recollection of persons by whom I had been, in effect, forgotten, every-where. No rest for the wicked, sir. I'm pursued; and, in fact, what little peace I might have enjoyed in this, the closing period of my life, has been irreparably wrecked by my visit and public appearance here, to place your uncle, and by consequence you, in the position now secured to you. What do you think of me?"

"I think, sir, you have done us a great service; and I know we are very much obliged," said Cleve, with his most engaging smile.

"And do you know what I think of myself? I think I'm a d——d fool, unless I look for some advantage."

"Don't you think, sir, you have found it, on the whole, advantageous, your coming here?" insinuated Cleve.

"Barren, sir, as a voyage on the Dead Sea. The test is this—what have I by it? not five pounds, sir, in the world. Now, I've opened my mind a little to you upon this subject, and I'm of the same mind still; and if I've opened Aladdin's garden to you, with its fruitage of emeralds, rubies, and so forth, I expect to fill my snuff-box with the filings and chippings of your gigantic jewellery."

Cleve half repented his visit, now that the presence of the insatiable Mr. Dingwell, and his evident appetite for more money, had justified the representations of the suspected attorney.

"I shall speak to Mr. Larkin on the subject," said Cleve Verney.

"D——n Larkin, sir! Speak to me."

"But, Mr. Dingwell, I have really, as I told you before, no authority to speak; and no one has the least power in the matter but my uncle."

"And what the devil did you come here for?" demanded Mr. Dingwell, suddenly blazing up into one of his unaccountable furies. "I suppose you expected me to congratulate you on your success, and to ask leave to see your uncle in his coronet—ha, ha, ha!—or his cap and bells, or whatever he wears. By —— sir, I hope he holds his head high, and struts like a peacock, and has pleasant dreams; time enough for nightmares, sir, hereafter, eh? Uneasy rests the head that wears the crown! Good evening, sir; I'll talk to Mr. Larkin."

And with these words Mr. Dingwell got up, looking unaccountably angry, and made a half-sarcastic, half-furious bow, wherewith he dismissed Mr. Cleve Verney, with more distinct convictions than ever that the old gentleman was an unmitigated beast, and more than half a lunatic.

CHAPTER XVI.

"No, you'll not come Saint Denis nor any other martyr over us, my dear boy; we know very well how you stand in that quarter."

"It's pleasant to have one's domestic relations so happily arranged by such very competent persons. I'm much obliged to all the world for the parental interest it takes in my private concerns."

"And it also strikes some people that a perfectly safe seat in the House of Commons is not to be had for nothing by every fellow who wishes it."

"But suppose I don't wish it."

"Oh! we may suppose anything."

Tom Sedley laughed as he said this, and Cleve looked at him sharply, but saw no uncomfortable meaning in his face.

"There is no good in talking of what one has not tried," said he. "If you had to go down to that tiresome House of Commons every time it sits; and had an uncle like mine to take you to task every time you missed a division—you'd soon be as tired of it as I am."

"I see, my dear fellow, you are bowed down under a load of good luck." They were at the door of Tom Sedley's lodgings by this time, and opening it, he continued, "I've something in my room to show you; just run up with me for a minute, and you'll say I'm a conjuror."

Cleve, not to be got into good spirits that evening, followed him upstairs, thinking of something else.

"I've got a key to your melancholy, Cleve," said he, leading the way into his drawing-room. "Look there," and he pointed to a clever copy in crayons of the famous Beatrice Cenci, which he had hung over his chimney-piece.

Tom Sedley laughed, looking in Cleve's eyes. A slight flush had suddenly tinged his visitor's face, as he saw the portrait. But he did not seem to enjoy the joke, on the contrary, he looked a little embarrassed and angry. "That's Guido's portrait—well, what about it?" he asked, rather surlily.

"Yes, of course; but who is it like?"

"Very few, I dare say, for it is very pretty; and except on canvas, there is hardly such a thing as a pretty girl to be seen. Is that all? for the life of me, I can't see where the conjuring lies."

"Not in the picture, but the likeness; don't you see it?"

"No" said Cleve. "I must go; are you coming?"

"Not see it!" said Tom. "Why if it were painted for her, it could not be more like. Why, it's the Flower of Cardyllian, the Star of Malory. It is your Miss Fanshawe—my Margaret—our Miss Margaret Fanshawe. I'm making the fairest division I can, you see; and I would not be without it for all the world."

"She would be very much gratified if she heard it. It is so flattering to a young lady to have a fellow buy a coloured lithograph, and call it by her name, and crack jokes and spout mock heroics over it. It is the modern way of celebrating a lady's name. Don't you seriously think, Sedley, it would be better to smash it with a poker, and throw it into the fire, than go on taking such liberties with any young lady's name?"

"Upon my honour, Cleve, you mistake me; you do me great injustice. You used to laugh at me, you know, when I'm quite sure, thinking over it now, you were awfully gone about her yourself. I never told any one but you why I bought that picture; it isn't a lithograph, but painted, or drawn, or whatever they call it, with chalks, and it cost five guineas; and no one but you ever heard me mention Miss Fanshawe's name, except the people at Cardyllian, and then only as I might mention any other, and always with respect."

"What does it signify?" interrupted Cleve, in the middle of a forced yawn. "I'm tired to-day, and cross—don't you see; and man delights not me, nor woman neither. So, if you're coming, come, for I must go."

"And, really, Cleve, the Cardyllian people do say (I've had letters) that you were awfully in love with her yourself, and always haunting those woods of Malory while she was there, and went away immediately she left, and have never been seen in Cardyllian since."

"Those Cretans were always liars, Tom Sedley. That comes direct from the club. I can fancy old Shrapnell in the light of the bow-window, composing his farrago of dreams, and lies, and chuckling and cackling over it."

"Well, I don't say that Shrapnell had anything to do with it; but I did hear at first they thought you were gone about little Agnes Etherage."

"Oh! they found that out—did they?" said Cleve. "But you know those people—I mean the Cardyllian people—as well, or better than I, and really, as a kindness to me, and to save me the trouble of endless explanations to my uncle, I would be so much obliged if you would not repeat their follies—unless, of course, you happen to believe them."

Cleve did not look more cheerful as he drove away in a cab which he took to get rid of his friend Tom Sedley. It was mortifying to find how vain were his clever stratagems, and how the rustic chapmen of that Welsh village and their wives had penetrated his diplomacy. He thought he had killed the rumours about Malory, and yet that grain of mustard seed had grown while his eye was off it, with a gigantic luxuriance, and now was large enough to form a feature in the landscape, and quite visible from the windows of Ware—if his uncle should happen to visit that mansion—overtopping the roofs and chimneys of Cardyllian. His uncle meditated an early visit to Cardyllian, and a short stay at Ware, before the painters and gilders got possession of the house; a sort of ovation in demi-toilette, grand and friendly, and a foretaste of the splendours that were coming. Cleve did hope that those beasts would be quiet while Lord Verney was (as he in his grand manner termed it) "among them." He knew the danger of a vague suspicion seizing on his mind, how fast it clung, how it fermented like yeast, fantastic and obstinate as a foolish woman's jealousy—and as men sometimes will, he even magnified this danger. Altogether, Cleve was not causelessly anxious and alarmed. He had in the dark to navigate a channel which even in broad daylight tasked a good steersman.

When Cleve reached Verney House it was eight o'clock. Lord Verney had ordered his brougham at half-past, and was going down to the House; he had something to say on Lord Frompington's bill. It was not very new, nor very deep, nor very much; but he had been close at it for the last three weeks. He had amused many gentlemen—and sometimes even ladies—at many dinner parties, with a very exact recital of his views. I cannot say that they were exactly his, for they were culled, perhaps unconsciously, from a variety of magazine articles and pamphlets, which happened to take Lord Verney's view of the question.

It is not given to any mortal to have his heart's desire in everything. Lord Verney had a great deal of this world's good things—wealth, family, rank. But he chose to aim at official station, and here his stars denied him.