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"Indeed, sir," said Redclyffe, laughing, "I hardly know whither I want to go; being a stranger, and yet knowing nothing of the public places of the house. To the library, perhaps, if you will be good enough to direct me thither." "Willingly, my dear sir," said the clerical personage; "the more easily too, as my own quarters are close adjacent; the library being my province.
Again Redclyffe was struck with the impression that there was something marked, something individually addressed to himself, in the old man's words; at any rate, it appealed to that primal imaginative vein in him which had so often, in his own country, allowed itself to dream over the possibilities of his birth.
Wellwood and the Ashfords, that he never had any time for himself, except what must be spent in writing to Amabel. There was a feeling upon him, that he must have time to commune with himself, and rest from this turmoil of occupation, in the solitude of which Redclyffe had hitherto been so full.
Redclyffe was in one of his most genial moods, and Lord Braithwaite seemed to be the same; so kindly they were both disposed to one another, that the American felt that he might not longer refrain from giving his friend some light upon the character in which he appeared, or in which, at least, he had it at his option to appear.
But Redclyffe had a sort of repulsion within himself; and he questioned whether it would be fair to his proposed host to accept his hospitality, while he had this secret feeling of hostility and repugnance, which might be well enough accounted for by the knowledge that he secretly entertained hostile interests to their race, and half a purpose of putting them in force.
As the pensioner looked at this strange sight, the lustre of the precious and miraculous hair gleaming and glistening, and seeming to add light to the gloomy room, he took from his breast pocket another lock of hair, in a locket, and compared it, before their faces, with that which brimmed over from the coffer. "It is the same!" said he. "And who are you that know it?" asked Redclyffe, surprised.
And, besides this, although Redclyffe was ashamed of the feeling, he had a secret dread, a feeling that it was not just a safe thing to trust himself in this man's power; for he had a sense, sure as death, that he did not wish him well, and had a secret dread of the American. But he laughed within himself at this feeling, and drove it down.
Redclyffe, as has been intimated, had an unavowed unavowed to himself suspicion that the master of the house cherished no kindly purpose towards him; he had an indistinct feeling of danger from him; he would not have been surprised to know that he was concocting a plot against his life; and yet he did not think that Lord Braithwaite had the slightest hostility towards him.
We smile at the critical point of a spasmodic tragedy, complacently as the Lucretian philosopher looking down from the cliff on the wild sea; we yawn over the wailings of Werter and Raphael, but we ponder gravely over the last chapters of the Heir of Redclyffe, and feel a curious sensation in the throat perhaps the slightest dimness of vision when we read in The Newcomes how that noble old soldier crowned the chivalry of a stainless life, dying in the Gray Brother's gown.
The chairs were so heaped with books and papers, that Guy had to make a clearance of one before his visitor could sit down, but there was nothing else to complain of, not even a trace of cigars; but knowing him to be a great reader and lover of accomplishments, Philip wondered that the only decorations were Laura's drawing of Sintram, and a little print of Redclyffe, and the books were chiefly such as were wanted for his studies, the few others having for the most part the air of old library books, as if he had sent for them from Redclyffe.
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