Vassall Morton Part 46

Speyer was silent for a moment.

"I know the letters are of use to you. You can play a profitable game with them; but I can stop your game at any moment I please."

"I can get four thousand dollars for them to-morrow," said Speyer.

"Then why are you here in jail?"

"Vinal offers it; here it is." And taking a note from his pocket, Speyer read Vinal's proposal to buy the letters.

"Let me see it," said Morton, taking the note from Speyer's hand.

"This, of itself, is evidence against him. With your leave, I will keep it. Now hear my offer. Give me the letters, and I will pay your fine. Then go with me to Boston, and I will make Vinal pay you on the spot every dollar that he has offered, on condition that you promise to leave the United States, and never return."

Speyer reflected. He came to the conclusion that Morton did not mean to expose Vinal; but only, like himself, to extort money from him; and wished that he, Speyer, should leave the country in order to get rid of a compet.i.tor. Morton's object was quite different. He could not foresee to what extremities Speyer's extortion might drive its victim; and he aimed to check it, by no means out of any tenderness for Vinal, but lest his wife might suffer from its consequences.

Speyer, on his part, fevered with jealousy, was chafing to be at large again.

"When will you pay my fine?"

"Now."

"Then I accept your proposal."

"Can I rely on your promise to leave the country, and make no further drafts on Vinal?"

Speyer cast a glance at him, as if he had read his mind.

"I will promise."

"Will you swear?"

Speyer readily took the oath, insisting that Morton should swear in turn to keep his part of the condition.

"Now let me see the letters."

"I must send to my lodgings for them. If you will come back in two hours, you shall have them."

"I should have thought you would keep them by you."

"No; but they are safe. Come back at twelve with the money for my fine, and they shall be here for you."

Morton had no sooner left the room, than Speyer despatched an underling of the jail to buy for him a few sheets of the thin, half-transparent paper in common use for European correspondence. This being brought, he opened his trunk, and delving to the bottom, drew up a leather case, from which he took the letters in question. Laying the thin paper over them, he proceeded to trace with a pen an exact facsimile. He was well practised at such work, and after one or two failures, succeeded perfectly. Folding his counterfeits after the manner of the originals, he placed them in the envelopes belonging to the latter; and within a half hour after his task was finished, Morton reappeared.

Speyer gave him one of the facsimiles. He read it attentively, without seeing the imposture. The handwriting, though disguised, was evidently Vinal's; but it had neither the signature of the writer, nor Morton's name. The place of each was supplied by a cipher.

"Reference is made here to another letter. Where is it?"

Speyer gave him the second counterfeit. The envelope bore a postmark of a few days later than the first. The note contained merely the names of Morton and Vinal, with ciphers affixed, referring to those in the first letter.

"Have you no more of Vinal's papers?"

Speyer shook his head. Indeed, the letters, if genuine, would have been amply sufficient to place their writer in Morton's power. The latter at once took the necessary measures to gain the prisoner's release. Speyer no sooner found himself at liberty than he hastened to search out the fair object of his anxieties, promising to meet Morton on the steamboat for Boston in the afternoon. His doubts were strong whether the other would keep faith with him; but he amply consoled himself with the thought that, at the worst, he still had means to bring Vinal to terms.

CHAPTER LIX.

What spectre can the charnel send So dreadful as an injured friend?--_Rokeby_.

"Strange," thought Vinal, "that I hear nothing from him."

It was three days since he had written to Speyer; and his chief anxiety was, lest his note should have miscarried. Pain and long confinement had wrought heavily upon him. Every emotion, every care, thrilled with a morbid keenness upon his brain and nerves; but hitherto he had ruled his sensitive organism with an iron self-control, and calmed its perturbations with a fort.i.tude which in a better man would have been heroic.

His wife was in the room, and, as his eye rested on her, it kindled with a kind of troubled delight, for he loved her strongly, after his fashion. He had remarked of late a singular a.s.siduity and tenderness in her devotion to him. Her position, in fact, was not unlike that of one who, broken and overborne by some irreparable sorrow, had renounced the world and its happiness, to embrace a new life, and build up for herself a new hope in the calm sanctuary of a convent. In the same spirit, Edith Leslie, bidding farewell to her girlish dream of life, its morning rose tint, and cloud draperies of gold and purple, gave herself to the practical duties before her, and sought, in their devoted fulfilment, to strengthen herself against the flood which for a time had overwhelmed her.

Vinal, who, acute as he was, could not understand the state of mind from which her peculiar kindness of manner towards him rose, pleased himself with the idea that his rival's return was not so great a shock to her as he had at first feared, and that, after all, she was more fond of him than of Morton. This notion consoled his disturbed thoughts not a little. Still he was abundantly anxious and hara.s.sed.

"If Morton should suspect! He has not come to see me; but that is natural enough, under the circ.u.mstances. And if he does suspect, he can have no proof. No one here suspects me. They say it was strange that my European correspondent should have made such a mistake; but that is all. No one dreams that I had a hand in it; and why should they? No one knew of Edith's engagement to him, except herself, her father, and her confidantes. I suppose she has confidantes--all girls have them. I wish their epitaphs were written, whoever they are. Well,

'Come what come may, Time and the hour run through the roughest day.'

But this is a dangerous business--a cursed business. Why does not Speyer write?"

As his thoughts ran in this strain, he looked up, and his eye caught that of his wife. She was struck with his troubled expression.

"You look anxious and care-worn. Are you ill?"

"Come to me, Edith," said Vinal, with a faint smile.

She came to the side of his chair, and he took her hand.

"Edith, I am not well to-day. My head swims. This long confinement is eating away my life by inches."

"In a week more, I trust, you will be able to move again. The country air will give you new life. But why do you look so troubled?"

"Dreams, Edith,--bad dreams, like Hamlet's, I suppose. It is very strange,--I cannot imagine why it is,--but to-day I have felt oppressed, weighed down, shadowed as if a cloud hung over me. I am not myself. A man is a mere slave to his nervous system, and when that is overthrown, his whole soul is shaken with it. The country is my hope, Edith. We will go there together, soon, and begin life anew."

A knock at the door interrupted him.

"Come in," cried Vinal, in his usual quick, decisive tone.

A servant entered.

"Well, what is it?"

"A gentleman wishes to see you, sir."

"Did he give his name?"