There was a moment of strained silence, then, as Barnabas sank back
on the rickety chair, Mr. Chichester laughed softly, and stepped
into the room.
"Salvation, was it, and a new life?" he inquired, "are you the one
to be saved, Ronald, or Smivvle here, or both?"
Ronald Barrymaine was dumb, his eyes sought the floor, and his pale
cheek became, all at once, suffused with a burning, vivid scarlet.
"I couldn't help but overhear as I came upstairs," pursued
Mr. Chichester pleasantly, "and devilish dark stairs they are--"
"Though excellent for eavesdropping, it appears!" added Barnabas.
"What?" cried Barrymaine, starting up, "listening, were
you--s-spying on me--is that your game, Chichester?" But hereupon
Mr. Smivvle started forward.
"Now, my dear Barry," he remonstrated, "be calm--"
"Calm? I tell you nobody's going to spy on me,--no, by heaven!
neither you, nor Chichester, nor the d-devil himself--"
"Certainly not, my dear fellow," answered Mr. Smivvle, drawing
Barrymaine's clenched fist through his arm and holding it there,
"nobody wants to. And, as for you, Chichester--couldn't come at a
better time--let me introduce our friend Mr. Beverley--"
"Thank you, Smivvle, but we've met before," said Mr. Chichester dryly,
"last time he posed as Rustic Virtue in homespun, to-day it seems he
is the Good Samaritan in a flowered waistcoat, very anxiously bent
on saving some one or other--conditionally, of course!"
"And what the devil has it to do with you?" cried Barrymaine
passionately.
"Nothing, my dear boy, nothing in the world,--except that until
to-day you have been my friend, and have honored me with your
confidence."
"Yes, by heavens! So I have--utterly--utterly,--and what I haven't
told you--y-you've found out for yourself--though God knows how.
N-not that I've anything to f-fear,--not I!"
"Of course not," smiled Mr. Chichester, "I am--your friend, Ronald,
--and I think you will always remember that." Mr. Chichester's tone
was soothing, and the pat he bestowed upon Barrymaine's drooping
shoulder was gentle as a caress, yet Barrymaine flinched and drew
away, and the hand he stretched out towards the bottle was trembling
all at once.
"Yes," Mr. Chichester repeated more softly than before, "yes, I am
your friend, Ronald, you must always remember that, and indeed
I--fancy--you always will." So saying, Mr. Chichester patted the
drooping shoulder again, and turned to lay aside his hat and cane.
Barrymaine was silent, but into his eyes had crept a look--such a
look as Barnabas had never seen--such a look as Barnabas could never
afterwards forget; then Barrymaine stooped to reach for the bottle.
"Well," said he, without looking up again, "s-suppose you are my
friend,--what then?"
"Why, then, my dear fellow, hearing you are to be saved--on a
condition--I am, naturally enough, anxious to know what that
condition may be?"
"Sir," said Barnabas, "let me hasten to set your anxiety at rest. My
condition is merely that Mr. Barrymaine gives up two evil
things--namely, brandy and yourself."