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You are receiving letters daily. Do they concern the business of King James?" "In a measure; or, rather, they are from one concerned in it." Ostermore's eyes were on the ground again. There fell a pause, Mr. Caryll frowning slightly and full of curiosity as to what might be coming. "How soon, think you," asked his lordship presently, "you will be in case to travel?"
Caryll let pass, as typical, the ludicrous want of logic in Ostermore's strictures of his Grace of Wharton, and the application by him to the duke of opprobrious terms that were no whit less applicable to himself. "Then, that being so, what cause for these alarms some six months later?"
He went over the ground again slowly, inch by inch, exerting constant pressure, until he was suddenly rewarded by a click. The small trap disclosed itself. He pulled it up, and took some papers from the recess. He spread them before him. They were the documents he sought the king's letter to Ostermore, and Ostermore's reply, signed and ready for dispatch.
He is in the library at this moment, going through his lordship's desk." Mr. Caryll started. That mention of Ostermore's desk brought vividly before his mind the recollection of the secret drawer wherein the earl had locked away the letter he had received from King James and his own reply, all packed as it was, with treason.
He must avert these discoveries if it lay within his power to do so, or else he must submit to a lifetime of remorse should Ostermore survive to be attainted of treason. He had made an end a definite end long since of his intention of working Ostermore's ruin; he could not stand by now and see that ruin wrought as a result of the little that already he had done towards encompassing it.
The only ray to illumine the black desert of Ostermore's existence was the affection of his ward, Hortensia Winthrop, because in that one instance he had sunk his egotism a little, sparing a crumb of pity for once in his life for the child's orphanhood. Had Ostermore been other than the man he was, his existence must have proved a burden beyond his strength.
He took out a drawer on the right took it out bodily then introduced his hand into the opening, running it along the inner side of the desk until, no doubt, he touched a spring; for suddenly a small trap was opened. From this cavity he fished out two documents one the flimsy tissue on which King James' later was penned; the other on heavier material Lord Ostermore's reply.
"It was in consequence of that that my father was enabled to purchase the estate." Mr. Caryll accounted it no lie that he suppressed the fact that the father to whom he referred was but his father by adoption. Relief spread instantly upon Lord Ostermore's countenance. Clearly, he saw, here was pure coincidence, and nothing more. Indeed, what else should there have been?
"Oh, you were right, Justin; right, and I was entirely wrong wickedly wrong. I should have left vengeance to God. He is wreaking it. Ostermore's whole life has been a punishment; his end will be a punishment. I understand it now. We do no wrong in life, Justin, for which in this same life payment is not exacted. Ostermore has been paying. I should have been content with that.
Lord Ostermore's secretaire stood open, and leaning over it, his back towards them was a short, stiffly-built man in a snuff-colored coat. He turned at the sound of the closing door, and revealed the pleasant, chubby face of Mr. Green. "Ha!" said Mr. Caryll. "Mr. Green again. I declare, sir, ye've the gift of ubiquity."
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