"Well done?" said Diabolus.
"That was a clever hit!" chimed in his assistant, complacently,
after he had put the sealed envelope into his portfolio for
safe-keeping, and burned the torn one he had removed. "Nobody but an
idiot or a madman would persist in following a girl up after such a
quietus."
He replied to Frederic's note to himself shortly and with disdain,
using the third person throughout, and informing Mr. Chilton with
unmistakable distinctness that Miss Aylett had offered no opposition
whatever to her brother's will in this unfortunate affair. So far as
he--Mr. Aylett--could judge, her views coincided exactly with his
own. Mr. Chilton's letters and presents should be returned to him at
an early day, and thus should be finished the closing chapter of a
volume which ought never to have been begun.
All this done to his mind, he set the door of his room ajar, and
watched for Mabel's passage to hers.
He had not to wait long. The young ladies had fallen into habits of
early retiring of late--a marked change from their olden fashion of
singing and talking out the midnight hour. Himself unseen, Mr.
Aylett scrutinized the two mounting the stairs side by side--Rosa's
dark, mobile face, arch with smiles, while she chattered over a bit
of country gossip she had heard that afternoon from a visitor, and
the weary calm of Mabel's visage, the drooping eyelids, and, when
appealed to directly by her volatile comrade, the measured, not
melancholy cadence of her answer, The girl had had a sore fight, and
won a Pyrrhian victory. She was not vanquished, but she was worsted.
Some men, upon appreciating what this meant, and how her grief had
been wrought, would have had direful visitings of conscience,
surrendered themselves to the mastery of doubts as to the
righteousness and humanity of stringent action such as he had just
consummated. He was not unmoved. He really loved his only sister, as
proud, selfish men love those of their own lineage who have never
disputed their supremacy, and derogated from their importance. He
said something under his breath before he called her, but the curse
was not upon himself.
"The low-bred hound!" he muttered. "This is his doing!"
Mabel halted at the stair-head, the blood suddenly and utterly
forsaking her cheeks when he spoke her name, although his address
was purposely kind, and, he thought, inviting.
"Can you spare me a moment?" he continued, smilingly, to win her
advance. "I will not detain you long. I know you are agonizing to
have your talk out, Miss Rosa."