"I am NOT altogether well," he said, evasively.
"Yes, but mere indisposition would never produce such a change, in
so short a period, in any man! Your father is disposed to ascribe
it to other causes."
"Ah! what does he think?"
I fancied there was mingled curiosity and trepidation in this
inquiry.
"He suspects you of gaming and drinking; but I assured him, very
confidently, that such was not the case. On one of these heads I
could speak confidently, for I met Kingsley the other night--the
night of Mother Delaney's party--who was hot and heavy against
you because you refused to lend him money for such purposes. I was
more indulgent, lent him the money, went with him to the house,
and returned home with a pocket full of specie, sufficient to set
up a small banking-operation of my own."
"You! can it be possible!"
"True; and no such dull way of spending an evening either. I
got home in the small hours, and found Julia delirious. I haven't
had such a fright for a stolen pleasure, Heaven knows when. There
was the doctor, and there my eternal mother-in-law, and my poor
little wife as near the grave as could be! But the circumstance
of refusing the money to Kingsley, knowing his object, made me
confident that gaming was not the cause of your night-stalking,
and so I told the old gentleman."
"And what did he say?"
"Shook his head mournfully, and reasoned in this manner: 'He has
no pecuniary necessities, has no oppressive toils, and has never
had any disappointment of heart. There is nothing to make him behave
so, and look so, but guilt--GUILT!'"
I repeated the last word with an entire change in the tone of my
voice. Light, lively, and playful before, I spoke that single word
with a stern solemnity, and, bending toward him, my eye keenly
traversed the mazes of his countenance.
"HE HAS IT!" I thought to myself, as his head drooped forward, and
his whole frame shuddered momentarily.
"But"--here my tones again became lively and playful--I even
laughed--"I told the old man that I fancied I could hit the nail more
certainly on the head. In short, I said I could pretty positively
say what was the cause of your conduct and condition."
"Ah!" and, as he uttered this monosyllable, he made a feeble effort
to rise from his seat, but sunk back, and again fixed his eye upon
the floor in visible emotion.
"Yes! I told him--was I not right?--that a woman was at the bottom
of it all!"
He started to his feet. His face was averted from me.
"Ha! was I not right? I knew it! I saw through it from the first;
and, though I did not tell the old man THAT, I was pretty sure that
you were trespassing upon your neighbor's grounds. Ha! what say you?
Was I not right? Were yon not stealing to forbidden places--playing
the snake, on a small scale, in some blind man's Eden? Ha! ha! what
say you to that? I am right, am I not? eh?"