第160章

ALLAN AT BAY.

Two o'clock came; and Pedgift Junior, punctual to his time, came with it. His vivacity of the morning had all sparkled out; he greeted Allan with his customary politeness, but without his customary smile; and, when the headwaiter came in for orders, his dismissal was instantly pronounced in words never yet heard to issue from the lips of Pedgift in that hotel: "Nothing at present.""You seem to be in low spirits," said Allan. "Can't we get our information? Can nobody tell you anything about the house in Pimlico?""Three different people have told me about it, Mr. Armadale, and they have all three said the same thing."Allan eagerly drew his chair nearer to the place occupied by his traveling companion. His reflections in the interval since they had last seen each other had not tended to compose him. That strange connection, so easy to feel, so hard to trace, between the difficulty of approaching Miss Gwilt's family circumstances and the difficulty of approaching Miss Gwilt's reference, which had already established itself in his thoughts, had by this time stealthily taken a firmer and firmer hold on his mind. Doubts troubled him which he could neither understand nor express.

Curiosity filled him, which he half longed and half dreaded to satisfy.

"I am afraid I must trouble you with a question or two, sir, before I can come to the point," said Pedgift Junior. "I don't want to force myself into your confidence. I only want to see my way, in what looks to me like a very awkward business. Do you mind telling me whether others besides yourself are interested in this inquiry of ours?""Other people _are_ interested in it," replied Allan. "There's no objection to telling you that.""Is there any other person who is the object of the inquiry besides Mrs. Mandeville, herself?" pursued Pedgift, winding his way a little deeper into the secret.

"Yes; there is another person," said Allan, answering rather unwillingly.

"Is the person a young woman, Mr. Armadale?"Allan started. "How do you come to guess that?" he began, then checked himself, when it was too late. "Don't ask me any more questions," he resumed. "I'm a bad hand at defending myself against a sharp fellow like you; and I'm bound in honor toward other people to keep the particulars of this business to myself."Pedgift Junior had apparently heard enough for his purpose. He drew his chair, in his turn, nearer to Allan. He was evidently anxious and embarrassed; but his professional manner began to show itself again from sheer fo rce of habit.

"I've done with my questions, sir," he said; "and I have something to say now on my side. In my father's absence, perhaps you may be kindly disposed to consider me as your legal adviser.

If you will take my advice, you will not stir another step in this inquiry.""What do you mean?" interposed Allan.

"It is just possible, Mr. Armadale, that the cabman, positive as he is, may have been mistaken. I strongly recommend you to take it for granted that he _is_ mistaken, and to drop it there."The caution was kindly intended; but it came too late. Allan did what ninety-nine men out of a hundred in his position would have done--he declined to take his lawyer's advice.

"Very well, sir," said Pedgift Junior; "if you will have it, you must have it."He leaned forward close to Allan's ear, and whispered what he had heard of the house in Pimlico, and of the people who occupied it.

"Don't blame me, Mr. Armadale," he added, when the irrevocable words had been spoken. "I tried to spare you."Allan suffered the shock, as all great shocks are suffered, in silence. His first impulse would have driven him headlong for refuge to that very view of the cabman's assertion which had just been recommended to him, but for one damning circumstance which placed itself inexorably in his way. Miss Gwilt's marked reluctance to approach the story of her past life rose irrepressibly on his memory, in indirect but horrible confirmation of the evidence which connected Miss Gwilt's reference with the house in Pimlico. One conclusion, and one only--the conclusion which any man must have drawn, hearing what he had just heard, and knowing no more than he knew--forced itself into his mind. A miserable, fallen woman, who had abandoned herself in her extremity to the help of wretches skilled in criminal concealment, who had stolen her way back to decent society and a reputable employment by means of a false character, and whose position now imposed on her the dreadful necessity of perpetual secrecy and perpetual deceit in relation to her past life--such was the aspect in which the beautiful governess at Thorpe Ambrose now stood revealed to Allan's eyes!

Falsely revealed, or truly revealed? Had she stolen her way back to decent society and a reputable employment by means of a false character? She had. Did her position impose on her the dreadful necessity of perpetual secrecy and perpetual deceit in relation to her past life? It did. Was she some such pitiable victim to the treachery of a man unknown as Allan had supposed? _She was no such pitiable victim._ The conclusion which Allan had drawn--the conclusion literally forced into his mind by the facts before him--was, nevertheless, the conclusion of all others that was furthest even from touching on the truth. The true story of Miss Gwilt's connection with the house in Pimlico and the people who inhabited it--a house rightly described as filled with wicked secrets, and people rightly represented as perpetually in danger of feeling the grasp of the law--was a story which coming events were yet to disclose: a story infinitely less revolting, and yet infinitely more terrible, than Allan or Allan's companion had either of them supposed.