Blind Love | Page 4

and addressed Sir Giles in these terms:
"I beg to thank you, sir, for complying with my conditions. You have satisfied me of your good faith. At the same time, it is possible that you may hesitate to trust a man who is not yet able to admit you to his confidence. The perilous position in which I stand obliges me to ask for two or three days more of delay, before I can safely make an appointment with you. Pray be patient--and on no account apply for advice or protection to the police."
"Those last words," Sir Giles declared, "are conclusive! The sooner I am under the care of the law the better. Take my card to the police-office."
"May I say a word first, sir?"
"Do you mean that you don't agree with me?"
"I mean that."
"You were always an obstinate man Dennis; and it grows on you as you get older. Never mind! Let's have it out. Who do you say is the person pointed at in these rascally letters?"
The head clerk took up the first letter of the two and pointed to the opening sentence: "Sir Giles Mountjoy, I have a disclosure to make in which one of the members of your family is seriously interested." Dennis emphatically repeated the words: "one of the members of your family." His employer regarded him with a broad stare of astonishment.
"One of the members of my family?" Sir Giles repeated, on his side. "Why, man alive, what are you thinking of? I'm an old bachelor, and I haven't got a family."
"There is your brother, sir."
"My brother is in France--out of the way of the wretches who are threatening me. I wish I was with him!"
"There are your brother's two sons, Sir Giles."
"Well? And what is there to be afraid of? My nephew, Hugh, is in London--and, mind! not on a political errand. I hope, before long, to hear that he is going to be married--if the strangest and nicest girl in England will have him. What's wrong now?"
Dennis explained. "I only wished to say, sir, that I was thinking of your other nephew."
Sir Giles laughed. "Arthur in danger!" he exclaimed. "As harmless a young man as ever lived. The worst one can say of him is that he is throwing away his money--farming in Kerry."
"Excuse me, Sir Giles; there's not much chance of his throwing away his money, where he is now. Nobody will venture to take his money. I met with one of Mr. Arthur's neighbours at the market yesterday. Your nephew is boycotted."
"So much the better," the obstinate banker declared. "He will be cured of his craze for farming; and he will come back to the place I am keeping for him in the office."
"God grant it!" the clerk said fervently.
For the moment, Sir Giles was staggered. "Have you heard something that you haven't told me yet?" he asked.
"No, sir. I am only bearing in mind something which--with all respect--I think you have forgotten. The last tenant on that bit of land in Kerry refused to pay his rent. Mr. Arthur has taken what they call an evicted farm. It's my firm belief," said the head clerk, rising and speaking earnestly, "that the person who has addressed those letters to you knows Mr. Arthur, and knows he is in danger--and is trying to save your nephew (by means of your influence), at the risk of his own life."
Sir Giles shook his head. "I call that a far-fetched interpretation, Dennis. If what you say is true, why didn't the writer of those anonymous letters address himself to Arthur, instead of to me?"
"I gave it as my opinion just now, sir, that the writer of the letter knew Mr. Arthur."
"So you did. And what of that?"
Dennis stood to his guns.
"Anybody who is acquainted with Mr. Arthur," he persisted, "knows that (with all sorts of good qualities) the young gentleman is headstrong and rash. If a friend told him he was in danger on the farm, that would be enough of itself to make him stop where he is, and brave it out. Whereas you, sir, are known to be cautious and careful, and farseeing and discreet." He might have added: And cowardly and obstinate, and narrow-minded and inflated by stupid self-esteem. But respect for his employer had blindfolded the clerk's observation for many a long year past. If one man may be born with the heart of a lion, another man may be born with the mind of a mule. Dennis's master was one of the other men.
"Very well put," Sir Giles answered indulgently. "Time will show, if such an entirely unimportant person as my nephew Arthur is likely to be assassinated. That allusion to one of the members of my family is a mere equivocation, designed to throw me off my guard. Rank,