The Evil Guest | Page 7

of
Normandy.
Marston knew Sir Wynston well; and he rightly calculated that
whatever effect his experience of the world might have had in
intensifying his selfishness or hardening his heart, it certainly could
have had none in improving a character originally worthless and
unfeeling. He knew, moreover, that his wealthy cousin was gifted with
a great deal of that small cunning which is available for masking the
little scheming of frivolous and worldly men; and that Sir Wynston
never took trouble of any kind without a sufficient purpose, having its
center in his own personal gratification.
This visit greatly puzzled Marston; it gave him even a vague sense of
uneasiness. Could there exist any flaw in his own title to the estate of
Gray Forest? He had an unpleasant, doubtful sort of remembrance of

some apprehensions of this kind, when he was but a child, having been
whispered in the family. Could this really be so, and could the baronet
have been led to make this unexpected visit merely for the purpose of
personally examining into the condition or a property of which he was
about to become the legal invader? The nature of this suspicion affords,
at all events, a fair gauge of Marston's estimate of his cousin's character.
And as he revolved these doubts from time to time, and as he thought
of Mademoiselle de Barras's transient, but unaccountable
embarrassment at the mention of Rouen by Sir Wynston--an
embarrassment which the baronet himself appeared for a moment to
reciprocate--undefined, glimmering suspicions of another kind
flickered through the darkness of his mind. He was effectually puzzled;
his surmises and conjectures baffled; and he more than half repented
that he had acceded to his cousin's proposal, and admitted him as an
inmate of his house.
Although Sir Wynston comported himself as if he were conscious of
being the very most welcome visitor who could possibly have
established himself at Gray Forest, he was, doubtless, fully aware of the
real feelings with which he was regarded by his host. If he had in
reality an object in prolonging his stay, and wished to make the
postponement of his departure the direct interest of his entertainer, he
unquestionably took effectual measures for that purpose.
The little party broke up every evening at about ten o'clock, and Sir
Wynston retired to his chamber at the same hour. He found little
difficulty in inducing Marston to amuse him there with a quiet game of
piquet. In his own room, therefore, in the luxurious ease of dressing
gown and slippers he sat at cards with his host, often until an hour or
two past midnight. Sir Wynston was exorbitantly wealthy, and very
reckless in expenditure. The stakes for which they played, although
they gradually became in reality pretty heavy, were in his eyes a very
unimportant consideration. Marston, on the other hand, was poor, and
played with the eye of a lynx and the appetite of a shark. The ease and
perfect good-humor with which Sir Wynston lost were not unimproved
by his entertainer, who, as may readily be supposed, was not sorry to
reap this golden harvest, provided without the slightest sacrifice, on his

part, of pride or independence. If, indeed, he sometimes suspected that
his guest was a little more anxious to lose than to win, he was also quite
resolved not to perceive it, but calmly persisted in, night after night,
giving Sir Wynston, as he termed it, his revenge; or, in other words,
treating him to a repetition of his losses. All this was very agreeable to
Marston, who began to treat his visitor with, at all events, more
external cordiality and distinction than at first.
An incident, however, occurred, which disturbed these amicable
relations in an unexpected way. It becomes necessary here to mention
that Mademoiselle de Barras's sleeping apartment opened from a long
corridor. It was en suite with two dressing rooms, each opening also
upon the corridor, but wholly unused and unfurnished. Some five or six
other apartments also opened at either side, upon the same passage.
These little local details being premised, it so happened that one day
Marston, who had gone out with the intention of angling in the
trout-stream which flowed through his park, though at a considerable
distance from the house, having unexpectedly returned to procure some
tackle which he had forgotten, was walking briskly through the corridor
in question to his own apartment, when, to his surprise, the door of one
of the deserted dressing-rooms, of which we have spoken, was
cautiously pushed open, and Sir Wynston Berkley issued from it.
Marston was almost beside him as he did so, and Sir Wynston made a
motion as if about instinctively to draw back again, and at the same
time the keen ear of his host