A few minutes more, and Marston, from the parlor-window, beheld Rhoda and
the elegant French girl walking together towards the woodlands. He
watched them gloomily, himself unseen, until the crowding underwood
concealed their receding figures. Then, with a sigh, he turned, and
reascended the great staircase. "I shall sift this mystery to the bottom," thought he. "I shall foil the
conspirators, if so they be, with their own weapons; art with art;
chicane with chicane; duplicity with duplicity." He was now in the long passage, which we have just spoken of, and
glancing back and before him, to ascertain that no chance eye discerned
him, he boldly entered mademoiselle's chamber. Her writing desk lay upon
the table. It was locked; and coolly taking it in his hands, Marston
carried it into his own room, bolted his chamber-door, and taking two or
three bunches of keys, he carefully tried nearly a dozen in succession,
and when almost despairing of success, at last found one which fitted the
lock, turned, and opened the desk. Sustained throughout his dishonorable task by some strong and angry
passion, the sight of the open escritoire checked and startled him for a
moment. Violated privilege, invaded secrecy, base, perfidious espionage
upbraided and stigmatized him, as the intricacies of the outraged
sanctuary opened upon his intrusive gaze. He felt for a moment shocked
and humbled. He was impelled to lock and replace the desk where he had
originally found it, without having effected his meditated treason; but
this hesitation was transient; the fiery and reckless impulse which had
urged him to the act returned to enforce its consummation. With a guilty
eye and eager hands, he searched the contents of this tiny repository of
the fair Norman's written secrets. "Ha! the very thing," he muttered, as he detected the identical letter
which he himself had handed to Mademoiselle de Barras but a few days
before. "The handwriting struck me, ill-disguised; I thought I knew it;
we shall see." He had opened the letter; it contained but a few lines: he held his
breath while he read it. First he grew pale, then a shadow came over his
face, and then another, and another, darker and darker, shade upon shade,
as if an exhalation from the pit was momentarily blackening the air about
him. He said nothing; there was but one long, gentle sigh, and in his
face a mortal sternness, as he folded the letter again, replaced it, and
locked the desk. Of course, when Mademoiselle de Barras returned from her accustomed
walk, she found everything in her room, to all appearances, undisturbed,
and just as when she left it. While this young lady was making her
toilet for the evening, and while Sir Wynston Berkley was worrying
himself with conjectures as to whether Marston's evil looks, when he
encountered him that morning in the passage, existed only in his own
fancy, or were, in good truth, very grim and significant realities,
Marston himself was striding alone through the wildest and darkest
solitudes of his park, haunted by his own unholy thoughts, and, it may
be, by those other evil and unearthly influences which wander, as we
know, "in desert places." Darkness overtook him, and the chill of night,
in these lonely tracts. In his solitary walk, what fearful company had
he been keeping! As the shades of night deepened round him, the sense of
the neighborhood of ill, the consciousness of the foul fancies or which,
where he was now treading, he had been for hours the sport, oppressed
him with a vague and unknown terror; a certain horror of the thoughts
which had been his comrades through the day, which he could not now
shake off, and which haunted him with a ghastly and defiant pertinacity,
scared, while they half-enraged him. He stalked swiftly homewards, like
a guilty man pursued. Marston was not perfectly satisfied, though very nearly, with the
evidence now in his possession. The letter, the stolen perusal of which
had so agitated him that day, bore no signature; but, independently of
the handwriting, which seemed, spite of the constraint of an attempted
disguise, to be familiar to his eye, there existed, in the matter of the
letter, short as it was, certain internal evidences, which, although not
actually conclusive, raised, in conjunction with all the other
circumstances, a powerful presumption in aid of his suspicions. He
resolved, however, to sift the matter further, and to bide his time. Meanwhile his manner must indicate no trace of his dark surmises and
bitter thoughts. Deception, in its two great branches, simulation and
dissimulation, was easy to him. His habitual reserve and gloom would
divest any accidental and momentary disclosure of his inward trouble of
everything suspicious or unaccountable, which would have characterized
such displays and eccentricities in another man. His rapid and reckless ramble, a kind of physical vent for the paroxysm
which had so agitated him throughout the greater part of the day, had
soiled and disordered his dress, and thus had helped to give to his whole
appearance a certain air of haggard wildness, which, in the privacy of
his chamber, he hastened carefully and entirely to remove. At supper, Marston was apparently in unusually good spirits. Sir Wynston
and he chatted gaily and fluently upon many subjects, grave and gay. Among them the inexhaustible topic of popular superstition happened to
turn up, and especially the subject of strange prophecies of the fates
and fortunes of individuals, singularly fulfilled in the events of their
afterlife. "By-the-by, Dick, this is rather a nervous topic for me to discuss," said
Sir Wynston. "How so?" asked his host. "Why, don't you remember?" urged the baronet. "No, I don't recollect what you allude to," replied Marston, in all
sincerity. "Why, don't you remember Eton?" pursued Sir Wynston. "Yes, to be sure," said Marston. "Well?" continued his visitor. "Well, I really don't recollect the prophecy," replied Marston. "What! do you forget the gypsy who predicted that you were to murder me,
Dick--eh?" "Ah-ha, ha!" laughed Marston, with a start. "Don't you remember it now?" urged his companion. "Ah, why yes, I believe I do," said Marston; "but another prophecy was
running in my mind; a gypsy prediction, too. At Ascot, do you
recollect the girl told me I was to be Lord Chancellor of England, and
a duke besides?" "Well, Dick," rejoined Sir Wynston, merrily, "if both are to be
fulfilled, or neither, I trust you may never sit upon the woolsack
of England." The party soon after broke up: Sir Wynston and his host, as usual, to
pass some hours at piquet; and Mrs. Marston, as was her wont, to, spend
some time in her own boudoir, over notes and accounts, and the worrying
details of housekeeping. While thus engaged, she was disturbed by a respectful tap at her door,
and an elderly servant, who had been for many years in the employment of
Mr. Marston, presented himself. "Well, Merton, do you want anything?" asked the lady.