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Bainrothe, this subject be dropped between us utterly. It is wholly unprofitable, believe me." "You are a person of extraordinary obduracy," he said, "for one of your years. I should like to know how much the Stanbury influence has had to do with strengthening your unwise, unamiable, and stiff-necked resolution!
Crouched in the shadow, powerless to move or think, I heard, with inexpressible terror, the door of the study open, and the voice and step of Bainrothe in the hall, approaching me. Had he heard me? Would he come? Was I betrayed? I felt my hair rise on my head as these questions rang like a tocsin through my brain, and I think, at that moment, I had a foretaste of the chief agony of death.
My father had placed an iron chest in a secure niche in the dining-room, behind the great central mirror, made for the purpose of concealing it, and to which he alone had access. Here he had kept a store of plate, money, jewels, and papers, so as to defy all burglarious interference or foreign scrutiny, and, in dying, had bequeathed the secret of the patent lock to Mr. Bainrothe alone.
He had been already more than a year in Copenhagen when I discovered how it was between them, or rather thought I had done so, from seeing one night when she came into my room in her night-dress, which was accidentally parted at the bosom, the betrothal-ring, so peculiar as not readily to be mistaken, which Claude Bainrothe had once given to me, suspended from the button of her chemisette by a small gold chain, so as to lie constantly against her heart.
Bainrothe alone let in a little light upon the subject by one remark, unintentionally, no doubt: "The fact is, Miriam, you are getting too much wound up with that Stanbury family, and you would be perfectly entangled there in another year.
For the first time during our interview, his eyes quivered drooped fell before mine; but, recovering instantly, he gave me a clear, cool stare in return for the quiet look of scorn he encountered. I saw at once the hopeless nature of the case. "You will show me your accounts, Mr. Bainrothe," I observed, haughtily; "I require this at least!"
All the persecution I had sustained since my father's death, at the hands of Evelyn and Basil Bainrothe all my wrongs, beginning at the heart-betrayal of Claude, and ending with the immurement I was suffering now at the hands of his father all my strange life at Beauseincourt, with its episode of horror, its one reality of perfect happiness too fair to last, its singular revelations, its warm and deep attachments, my fearful and nightmare-like experience on the burning ship, the level raft, with the green wares curling above it, the rescue, the snare into which I had inevitably fallen, the Inquisition-walls closing around me all were there in one vivid and overwhelming mental summary!
Ladies! Mr. Bainrothe! fill your glasses. Franklin, the sherry. Morton, the port. Which will you have, Bainrothe? or do you prefer Rhine wines?" "A glass of Hockheimer, if you have it convenient, Franklin. Those heavy wines are too heating for our summers, I think, Mr. Monfort. You yourself would do well to follow my example." "Thank you," said my father, loftily.
Confess that it was the voice of Basil Bainrothe I heard at my cabin-door, and that Captain Van Dorne was imposed upon by that specious scoundrel, even to the point of being conscientiously compelled to falsehood. "I deny nothing I acknowledge nothing," she said, deliberately. "You and your friends can settle this between yourselves when they arrive.
Attend to the bolt, Franklin, at once; I am very sure of what I have said." And so the parley ended. I am certain that Mr. Bainrothe came no more by night to his treasure-cave, but there was a mocking smile on his lip when Evelyn told him, before me, some time later, that I had caused a bolt to be placed on the pantry-door, for fear of burglars that was significant to my mind.
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