CHAPTER IV.

FASCINATION.

A few days after the private interview between Mr. Van Duren and his lodger, Mr. Billing, the lawyer, called on Mr. Byrne by appointment, and took down that gentleman's instructions with respect to the disposition of his property. Three days later, Mr. Billing called with the all-important document, and found waiting to receive him in Mr. Byrne's parlour, the testator himself, Mr. Van Duren, who had most kindly consented to act as one of the executors, and a certain Mr. Dexter, an old personal friend of Mr. Byrne, who was to act as executor number two.

Then, at the testator's request, the will was read aloud by Mr. Billing. By its provisions Mr. Byrne bequeathed, equally between his son Gerald and his daughter Miriam, the whole of his property, amounting in the aggregate to thirty thousand pounds, the same being partly invested in government three per cents., and partly in the shares of certain railways and other public companies. When the reading was over, Mr. Byrne put his signature to the will in a hand that was remarkably firm and clear for his age. The two executors then appended their signatures. Mr. Billing took charge of the document, and the ceremony was at an end. After that, a couple of bottles of old port were produced, the testator's health was drunk, and there was a little hand-shaking and the expression of many good wishes, and after that the three gentlemen went away, and Mr. Byrne was left to solitude and the company of his own thoughts.

His own thoughts, such as they might be, seemed of an eminently satisfactory nature. Miriam was out--had been sent out purposely during the process of will-signing. Thus it fell out that Mr. Byrne now found himself temporarily deprived of the services of his daughter. But that did not trouble him in the least. He liked to be waited upon--as most men do--but he was not above looking after his own comforts when there was no one else to do it for him. All through life he had been in the habit of celebrating any pleasant little event, or successful stroke of business, by taking something "on the strength of it," as he termed it; and it was hardly likely that he should pretermit such an excellent observance on the present occasion. Accordingly, he no sooner found himself alone than he proceeded to charge and light the inevitable pipe, and to mix for himself the inevitable tumbler of grog. With his chair tilted back on its hind legs, his feet on the table, his wig awry, his pipe in his mouth, and his steaming glass before him, Mr. Byrne was quietly meditating over the day's proceedings, when, without any preliminary knock, the door that gave egress on to the landing was softly opened, and the head of Pringle, Mr. Van Duren's clerk, was thrust into the room. His glassy eyes fixed themselves on Byrne, but without any apparent sign of intelligence lighting up their dull depths. For a few seconds the two men stared at each other without speaking. Byrne was, in fact, too much taken aback to utter a word. "Beg pardon. I thought the governor was here," said Pringle at last. "See he isn't. Sorry to intrude." With that he withdrew his head and shut the door as softly as he had opened it.

"That drunken fool has seen enough to spoil everything!" cried Byrne, as he started to his feet. "What an ass I must have been not to lock the door! My only chance is that he may have had so much to drink as to have forgotten all about what he saw by to-morrow morning."

Pringle, having shut the door of Mr. Byrne's room, stood still on the mat, while he indulged in one of his noiseless, malicious laughs. "I thought the old boy was after some private little game of his own," he said; "and I thought I shouldn't be long before I spotted him. A disguise--eh? And no more deaf, I'll swear, than I am! Haven't I listened at the keyhole, and heard him and the girl talking quite natural and easy like? And then Van Duren's sweet on the girl, but the girl looks too wide awake to be sweet on him, without she thinks him rich, and wants a husband. I can't make out just yet what it all means, but, anyhow, I don't think it means much good to Van Duren, and so long as it don't mean any good to him I sha'n't interfere. I'll watch and say nothing, and if I only find that the pair of them are weaving a net round Van Duren, won't I give them a helping hand! That is," he added, as if suddenly correcting himself, "that is, provided it don't interfere with my own little game."

He went slowly downstairs to the office on the ground-floor. The gas was lighted, but there was no one in the room. "Van Duren and Billing have gone out together. If Van thinks I'm going to wait for him, he's mistaken. I'll just shut up shop, and go to tea. Now, what could Van and the other one want in the old boy's room upstairs? That's a puzzler. Is there some little game on that they are all mixed up in? Or are Van and the other trying to best the old 'un? Or is the old 'un trying to best Van and the other one?" Shaking his head, as though the questions he had put to himself were beyond his powers of solution, he took a ledger under each arm, and carried them slowly downstairs--all Pringle's movements were slow--into the fireproof room in the basement of the house, where Van Duren's books and papers were habitually kept.

This fireproof room was on the same floor as the rooms inhabited by Bakewell and his wife, who had charge of the whole premises, but was separated from them by a brick passage of some length. Opposite the foot of the stairs was a door that opened into this passage, in which a tiny jet of gas was kept burning through the day. At the end of the passage was a strong iron door, which opened into the fireproof room. There was only one key to this door, and that was kept by Van Duren himself. But it was part of Bakewell's duties to go up to his master's bedroom every morning, obtain the key in question, open the door--which was allowed to stand open all day--lock it again at ten o'clock at night, and take back the key to his master's bedroom. When Van Duren went out of town, which he did frequently, the key was given in charge of Pringle. The key of the safe itself never left Van Duren's possession for more than a few minutes at a time. A small, square apartment with a brick roof, and fitted up with shelves and book-racks, with sundry boxes in one corner, and in the other a large patent safe: such was Mr. Van Duren's fireproof room. Like the passage that led to it, it was entirely shut out from daylight, and the gas was kept burning in it all day long.

When Pringle had deposited the ledgers in their proper places, he turned the gas a little higher, and then stood for a few moments listening intently. Not a sound broke the silence. "If one was buried six feet deep in the earth, one couldn't be quieter than one is here," said Pringle, with a shudder. "It's just like a vault, particularly when one knows that there's nothing but dead men's bones all round. No fear of an interruption," he added. "Bakewell's out, and his wife ain't over-fond of this part of the house."

His next proceeding was a very singular one. From an inner pocket of his waistcoat he extracted a key, which key be proceeded to insert into the lock of the patent safe in the corner. "Not quite the thing yet," he muttered, as he tried the key. "Wants another touch of the file here and there. Grainger's three thousand will fall due in about a month's time. I must have everything ready by then. It's sure not to be all in bills. There will be a few hundreds in gold. Then there will be Van's private stock, and other things. Altogether, a pretty little haul."

He withdrew the key from the lock and put it back into his secret pocket. "If he had not treated me like a dog, if he had treated me as one man ought to treat another, I should never have thought of this thing. He thinks that he has me in his power, and that I dare not turn; but he will find himself mistaken. I'm not quite a worm, though he tramples on me as if I were. He will find that I can turn, and sting too, when the proper time comes."

He went back upstairs, turned down the gas in the office, and taking his hat and his faded gingham umbrella, he left the house.

Jonas Pringle was from fifty to fifty-five years old. He was bald, except for a straggling fringe of hair round the back of his head, and had weak, watery eyes, that gave him the appearance, to strangers, of being habitually in tears. He always dressed in black, and always wore an old-fashioned dress coat. But his black clothes were never otherwise than very shabby and threadbare, and shiny with old age at the elbows and knees. He wore a thick black silk neckcloth, above which peered the frayed edge of a dirty collar. Among Pringle's intimates at the Pig and Whistle (his favourite evening haunt) there was a story current that he had not had a new hat for twenty years.

This evening he went mooning slowly along the streets, muttering under his breath, as was his habit, and glancing up with a queer, sudden stare into the face of every woman that passed him. Years before, he had lost his daughter, an only child: lost her, that is, in the sense of her being stolen from him by a villain. It was a fixed article of Pringle's belief that he should one day find his daughter again, and he had got into the habit, when walking along the streets, of looking into the face of each woman that he met, ever hoping that among them he might some time see again the face of his lost Jessie.

It was quite impossible for Pringle to get as far as his lodgings without making one or two calls for refreshment by the way. There were certain houses where his face was well known as that of a regular frequenter, and where they knew, without his having to be at the trouble of asking for it, the particular article (twopennyworth of gin, neat) with which to supply him.

"He's been at it again," remarked Pringle, parenthetically, to the landlord of one of the dirty little taverns which he favoured with his patronage. "He was raving about all morning like a bear with a sore head. Nothing pleased him, nothing one could do was right."

"Ay, ay. I shouldn't stand it if I was you," answered the publican.

"I sha'n't stand it much longer; you may take your oath of that," said Pringle. "There'll be a day of reckoning before long: mark my words, if there ain't."

About the very time that Jonas Pringle was giving utterance to this mysterious threat, the man to whom he referred was sitting alone, thinking deeply--thinking of Miriam Byrne, of her manifold charms of fortune and person, and trying to screw up his courage to the point of asking her to become his wife. He had fully made up his mind that he would so ask her, but he wished with all his heart that the task were well over. In all business transactions he was one of the most prompt and decisive of men, and, it may be added, one of the hardest; but the thought of having to tell this dark-eyed beauty of twenty that he loved her and would fain marry her, fluttered his nerves strangely. That it must be done, and done soon, he had quite made up his mind; but none the less did the thought of having it to do trouble him. To old Byrne he had thrown out one or two hints already, and had not been repulsed. In fact, the old man seemed desirous of seeing his daughter comfortably settled in life, and would perhaps be more likely to encourage the addresses of a man like Van Duren, who knew the world and the value of money, rather than those of some empty-headed popinjay of Miriam's own age, who would, in all probability, first spend her fortune and then neglect her. Ah! if he could only win her for himself--win her and her fortune too--what a happy stroke of luck that would be! He admired the girl for her beauty, admired her more than any woman he had ever met before, and even if she had not been worth a penny, he might in some moment of rashness have flung all other considerations to the winds, and have asked her to marry him. But knowing what he knew about her, would he not be an idiot to let such a golden opportunity slip through his fingers without trying to grasp it and claim it for his own? "If I can find a chance of doing so, I'll propose to her to-morrow," he said to himself, emphatically, as he rose from the table. "I cannot afford to lose another day."

At seven o'clock next evening Mr. Van Duren knocked at the door of his lodgers' sitting-room. His summons was answered by Miriam in person. He started with surprise as his eyes fell on her. He had never seen her dressed as she was to-night. Anyone might have thought that she knew he was going to call upon her, that she suspected what he had made up his mind to say. Had she deliberately laid herself out to fascinate him, to enthral his senses, to make him forget reason and prudence, and all the cautious rules with which his life had heretofore been hedged round, she could not, with all her thought, have done more towards effecting that end than the caprice of a moment was likely to do for her without thought at all. And it was but the whim of a moment that had induced her to attire herself after the fashion in which she presented herself to the eyes of Van Duren to-night.

She wore a long, trailing robe of amber silk, which fitted her very loosely, and was fastened round her waist with a gay Persian scarf of many colours. The sleeves of this dress were cut very short, and Miriam's bare arms were decorated with bracelets of tiny, tinted shells and small coins intermixed. A fringe of coins was bound round her forehead, and fastened at the back with a gilt arrow. Her hair fell to her waist in two long plaits, with which more coins and shells were intermixed. As she walked across the room, and as she reclined on the sofa, the tips of two Turkish slippers, embroidered with gold thread and silks of various colours, could be seen peeping from under the edge of her robe. In her ears hung two tiny bells, that looked like gold, but were only gilt, which tinkled faintly when she moved her head; round her throat was clasped a double string of large amber beads.

"Good evening, Miss Byrne," said Van Duren, as soon as he had recovered his presence of mind. "I have had a small consignment of fruit from France, and I have ventured to hope that you would do me the favour of accepting a box of it."

"You are kindness itself," said Miriam. "But don't stand there, please." Then, when she had shut the door behind him, she added: "How you have so quickly found out two of my pet weaknesses--flowers and candied fruits--is more than I can understand." Then she took the box from his hand. "Many, many thanks. Why, the casket itself is quite a work of art!"

Van Duren crossed to where Mr. Byrne was sitting in his easy-chair by the fire. He had neither spoken nor stirred from the moment of hearing the knock at the door. Van Duren laid his hand on the old man's shoulder. "How are you this evening, Mr. Byrne?" he said, speaking close to the other one's ear.

"Oh, hearty, hearty: never better," answered Byrne, in a querulous voice. "If it wasn't for this nasty cough, and this pain in my side, and one or two other trifles, I should be as right as a trivet."

"We shall soon have the warm weather here now, and that will help you along."

"Of course it will. In another month's time I shall be out and about again, as strong and active as the best of you."

"Poor papa never will allow that he is worse," said Miriam, in a low voice. "He has certainly been weaker and feebler for the last day or two, but he will persist in saying that he is quite the opposite."

"The old boy can't last long," thought Van Duren to himself: "another reason why I ought not to delay."

Next minute, without exactly knowing how it happened, he found himself sitting opposite Miriam, who had resumed he favourite position--a half-sitting, half-reclining one--on the sofa, and was eating daintily a sugared apricot. How round and white her arms looked, contrasted against the deep amber of her robe, from under which the tiny Turkish slippers peeped tantalizingly! She was certainly very lovely, but about her loveliness to-night there was something wild and weird that at once attracted to itself a certain element of savagery that lay latent in the character of her admirer, but which the quiet, humdrum life he had led of late years had all but buried out of sight. An Englishman of the timid conventional type would either have been repelled or frightened had he seen the lady of his love decked out after Miriam's strange fashion, but it only served to draw Van Duren more closely to her. It seemed to him that, could he but have had his own way in the matter, he would never have let her dress otherwise than as he saw her to-night. As he gazed at her, all the pulses of his being seemed to throb with newer life. His eyes brightened, the lines of his hard mouth softened, and for once, as Miriam avowed afterwards to her father, the man looked almost handsome.

Miriam's guitar was resting against the sofa, within reach of her hand. Said Van Duren--

"You were singing and playing the other evening, Miss Byrne, as I went upstairs to my own room, but I have never had the pleasure of hearing you when in your company."

"Then you ought to consider yourself very fortunate," replied Miriam, "for I am really not worth listening to."

"Will you afford me an opportunity of judging for myself?"

"If you put it as a definite request, of course I cannot refuse you. I have accepted your bribe beforehand," she added, with a smile, pointing to the box of fruit.

"I should really like to hear you."

"Then you shall hear me. After that you will be satisfied. You will never want to hear me again."

"That's as it may be," said Van Duren, as he drew his chair several inches nearer the sofa.

"What shall I murder for you?" asked Miriam, as she took up the guitar.

The phrase was an ugly one, and was spoken without thought. Van Duren started as if some one had smitten him suddenly from behind. He shot a look full of suspicion and terror at Miriam; but her eyes were bent on the guitar, one or two strings of which seemed to want screwing up.

"What shall I sing for you?" she said, amending her phraseology this time.

Van Duren recovered himself with an effort.

"The guitar has always been associated in my mind," he said, "with love-songs and serenades, with moonlight and romance."

"Then here's a little serenade for you. I, who sing, am supposed to be a cavalier. If your imagination will carry you so far, you can fancy yourself to be the lady thus lovingly addressed."

She struck a chord or two on the guitar, and began as follows:--

"What throbs through the song of the nightingale? What makes the red heart of the rose turn pale? Love, burning love. What makes me grow drowsy 'neath midsummer skies? What makes me a slave to my lady's dark eyes? Love, burning love."

One verse will be quite enough for the reader. Miriam's voice was a rich, clear contralto, which she managed with considerable skill. Now and again as she sang, she shot a glance out of her dangerous black eyes at the rapt listener sitting opposite to her. Her father, in his easy-chair by the fire, gave no further sign of existence than by the troublesome cough which seized him every few minutes, and shook him like a leaf.

As the last line thrilled from Miriam's lips, Van Duren sank down on one knee before her, and tried to seize her hand. With a little involuntary shudder, she drew it away from him. Then he grasped a fold of her dress, and pressed it passionately to his lips.

"Miriam Miriam! do not repulse me, but listen to me!" he cried. "You, who can give such passionate expression to the words of a mere love-song, must have felt and known that I loved you from the first moment that I saw you. I cannot ask or expect that you should give me back such a love as I now offer you. But try to like me a little--consent to be my wife--and I will do all that lies in the power of mortal man to make you happy!"

"Oh, Mr. Van Duren, you do indeed surprise me!" was all Miriam said. But she was not surprised in the least.

"I am richer than the world gives me credit for being," pursued Van Duren. "I have led a quiet, saving life for years; but all that shall be changed if you will only become mine. I can afford to let my wife live as a lady ought to live; I can afford to----"

"Oh, Mr. Van Duren, you must not talk in that way."

"I am quite aware," he pleaded, "that there is a very wide difference between your age and mine, but----"

"That would make no difference in my feelings towards any one for whom I really cared."

"If you would only try to care a little for me!"

"It all seems so strange, Mr. Van Duren."

"What is it that seems so strange, dearest?"

"Why, that a man like you, who have seen so much of the world, who must have seen and known so many ladies, both in England and abroad, should really profess to care about a foolish, frivolous girl like me."

"You are neither foolish nor frivolous. Besides which, you are different from any one whom I ever met before. More than all, you are my fate."

"Your fate, Mr. Van Duren!"

"Yes, the one woman out of all the wide world whom, uncounted ages ago, it was fated, or fore-ordained, that I should love."

"Now you are going further than I can follow you," said Miriam, with a smile. "Perhaps, at the same time, it was fore-ordained that I should reject your suit."

"You do not know how terribly in earnest I am, or you would not laugh at me."

"Indeed, Mr. Van Duren, I am not laughing at you. But pray resume your seat."

"Not till you have told me the best or the worst. Not till you have given me some word of hope, or told me that I must never hope again."

"Mr. Van Duren," said Miriam, with more earnestness than she had yet used, "your offer has come upon me so suddenly that I know not what to say. I think you can hardly expect me to give you an answer to so serious a question without giving me time to consider what that answer must be. Not now, not to-night--can I answer you either one way or the other. Two or three days at the least I must claim, to think over all that you have said to me, and to discover, if it be possible for me to do so, what my feelings are in a matter that concerns my future welfare so closely."

"I can but bow to your decision," said Van Duren. "I hope I may accept it as a good augury that you have not rejected my suit at once and entirely; that you have deemed it worthy of being taken into consideration."

"Ah, Mr. Van Duren, I am afraid that you are not such a novice as you would wish to make out: I am afraid that you understand more of our sex and their ways than you would care to have known."

Then, as if to change the subject, she took up her guitar and began to play. A little while later Van Duren took his leave.

"Very well managed, my dear," said Mr. Byrne, approvingly, wheeling round his chair as soon as the door was closed upon their visitor; "only neither of you seemed to think much about me in the matter."

"I suppose Mr. Van Duren thinks that if he can obtain my consent, yours will follow as a matter of course."

"He is welcome to think what he likes, so long as you succeed in getting out of him the particular information that I want. So far, all has gone off well. In three days' time you will accept him provisionally--accept him on trial, that is, for a month or six weeks, before finally binding yourself to anything. In the course of that month you ought to be able to worm out of him the all-important secret, without which all that we have done up to the present time will be of no avail whatever."

"I understand perfectly what you want, papa, but I cannot tell you how utterly distasteful to me is the whole wretched business."

"Tut, tut, girl, you mustn't talk in that way! Think of the two hundred pounds that will be yours--absolutely your own--if we succeed."

"I do think of it, papa. But even that can hardly reconcile me at times to go through with what I have promised. You don't know the feeling of repulsion, of absolute loathing, that came over me to-night when that man tried to take my hand. Think what it is to be made love to by a murderer; think of this, and pity me!"

"Of course I pity you, and feel for you," said the old man, soothingly. "But our needs are great, and the money will be very useful--you can't but admit that."

"Oh yes, I admit that. But I was never afraid of poverty."

"I am not afraid of it--but I certainly don't like it. But what do you intend doing with your two hundred pounds, Miriam? Better let me invest it for you."

"If I succeed in getting the two hundred pounds---which at present is by no means certain--I shall----"

"Yes: what?"

"I shall furnish a couple of rooms--furnish them very nicely, mind you--and marry James."

"You will!" gasped the old man.

"I shall, most certainly. It is the thought of that and nothing else that strengthens me to go through with this dreadful business. No meaner prize would tempt me."

She stooped and kissed her father lightly on the forehead, and then went quickly out of the room, as if afraid that what she had said might provoke a discussion that would have been unpleasant to both of them.