CHAPTER XXIII
Lionel Crawford did not go straight to the room where Dora was. He turned into the coffee-room, and there stood a while pondering. Though he was a visionary, a dreamer, a philosopher, he had, before he became immersed in his present studies and pursuits, been, comparatively speaking, a man of the world. For although he had never mingled much in society, he had a tolerable knowledge of what people said and did. What would people say of such conduct as Lavirotte's? They would call it abominable. What would people say of Lavirotte? They would call him a scoundrel. Here was a dilemma. If this strange, this unknown girl, were not to marry Lavirotte but the other man, there seemed on the face of it to be no reason why he might not still marry Dora. It was quite certain his grand-daughter had no hint that Lavirotte's affections had strayed from her. This liking for Miss Creagh might have been only the errant fancy of an hour-of a day-of a week. It might turn out that the landlord had exaggerated the position of Miss Creagh in the matter, and that the encounter had been the result of heated blood, arising from some other cause. If things had only run on smoothly, without this wretched interruption of the fight, how satisfactory all would be. Here was Lavirotte, the owner of the tower, and he, the seeker for the treasure, already bound together in a kind of business contract. And here, then, as a second bond of union between the two, had come Dora. His grand-daughter was to be the other's wife if things had not been disturbed. If Lavirotte and he had shared the treasure equally between them, and then these two young people were married, the whole of the enormous fortune hidden under St. Prisca's Tower would, when he died, be theirs. It would be a thousand pities that such a match should be broken off. The most ordinary prudence pointed at the absurdity of such a step. It would be his duty to his grand-daughter, Lavirotte, and himself, to take care that no such misfortune might befall. The agreement which existed between him and Lavirotte had never been reduced to writing. Neither of them had desired that it should. He knew that such an agreement would not be binding in law. If the finding and retaining of all the treasure was contrary to the law, no instrument embodying the disposal of all the property between him and Lavirotte would hold for one moment. It would be a cruel shame if, after all his years of inquiry and anxiety, when he was working on the mere traditional rumour that a great hoard was concealed somewhere in the city, the labour of that time and the labour of his later years in the tower should all go for nothing, or next to nothing. Lavirotte had been sceptical as to the existence of the treasure; had given him to understand he would not sink a penny in the speculation. If any difficulty arose between him and the owner of the tower now, that door might remain shut for a hundred years, until they were all dead, until the clue to the secret had been destroyed for ever. By some means or other this catastrophe must be avoided. It was too hideous even to think of. He must prevent it at any cost. How was he to prevent it? It was plainly his first business to see Lavirotte and ascertain all he could from him. No doubt the Frenchman would be more communicative to him than to others in whom he had no interest whatever. Of course Lavirotte would not recognise in him the grandfather of Dora, but they had been acquainted some time and were partners in his secret, in his great undertaking. No doubt by this time the girl was becoming impatient for news of some kind. He would go to her first and reassure her, and then seek an interview with Lavirotte. When he entered the room where Dora was, she came to him eagerly and caught his hand and said: "Have you seen him-is he better? What did he say?" "I have not seen Dominique yet," said the old man, using the other's Christian name for the first time. "Oh, you are good to call him Dominique. You have something to tell me." "I have nothing very new to tell you. It is quite true he is progressing most favourably, and there is no cause for alarm. This place is full of strangers, and the landlord thinks you will be most comfortable if you remain in this room a little longer until I see Dominique." "You will not be long. I am so impatient to know all-to see him if I may." "I will make all the haste I can," and with these words the old man left the room. When Lionel Crawford entered the injured man's room the latter was prepared to see him, as word had been sent up before that Crawford was coming. "It was exceedingly kind of you to come, Mr. Crawford," said the wounded man; "but, in the name of all that is mysterious, how did you find out I was hurt, or are you here merely by some extraordinary coincidence?" "Let us not waste time now," said the old man, "with idle matters. I am in a hurry. By a mere accident, which I will explain to you later, I found out you were ill. I lost no time in coming, as, for several reasons, I was anxious to see you." "I suppose," said Lavirotte, "you heard something of what has occurred since you came to this place?" "I will be candid with you," said Crawford, "and tell you all I heard." When he had finished, he said: "Is it true in substance?" The prostrate man admitted it was true in substance, and went on to explain: "I will tell you a little more about it than you seem to have heard, and what I am going to tell you will lessen me a good deal in your regard, for it will show you that the wind is constant compared to me. It is true I was engaged to someone in London. It is true that while I was engaged I fell in love with Miss Creagh. She would not have me. She accepted my dearest friend, Eugene O'Donnell, and in a moment of absolute madness I tried to take his life. He has forgiven me. We are friends again, and now I have only one great fear. It is that what has occurred may come to the ears of the girl I am engaged to in London, and so prejudice me in her opinion. For, you see, when I proposed to her she had a fortune of five thousand pounds, and now she has lost all that fortune in the terrible crash of Vernon and Son. If she heard of all this, it might make her think-in fact, it would look like it-that I made love to her when she had a fortune, and gave her up as soon as I found it swept away." "So that," said the other anxiously, "if you were up and about once more, and were free to travel, you would go to London, and, if you were in a position to do so, marry Miss Harrington." "That," said Lavirotte eagerly, "is the only thing I could do which would atone to her in any way for my vile fickleness. It would, at the same time, prove to my dear friend, O'Donnell, that I had not only abandoned all my pretensions to Miss Creagh, but that by marrying and going to London I had put a final barrier between myself and her, and gone into voluntary exile as a punishment for my crime. But, you see, as to marrying at present, that is completely out of the question. I was too poor before this affair, and now the whole town will turn against me, and I shall be obliged to leave the place. There will be no getting a crust for me here now." "But," said the old man, enthusiastically, "we must be very near our great fortune now. I work day and night, night and day. By day in the pit, by night on the top of the tower. I cannot be far off now. Another six months and I surely must reach the chests in which the great treasure is hidden." His voice had fallen to a whisper, and the intense excitement with which he contemplated his final triumph had caused the sweat to break out upon his forehead. He grasped the counterpane convulsively. He could scarcely breathe. This was the first time for years he had spoken of the matter. It was the second time in all his life. "You shall be rich," he said. "And I shall be rich. I have tried over and over again to estimate what may be the value of that hoard, and the more I think of it the greater, I am persuaded, it must be. At first I thought two hundred thousand pounds might be the outside limit. But the more I read the more it grew, until at last I have come to the conclusion that it must be somewhere between a million and a million and a half." The excitement of the old man was intense. His eyes were fixed, his attitude and manner that of one fascinated by some glorious vision. The splendour of the image he had conjured up drew him wholly away from the present time and his surroundings. He had forgotten Lavirotte, his own long journey, Dora, everything but the one colossal figure of wealth triumphant gleaming before his mental vision. The wounded man shook his head sadly and slowly on his pillow. "If I am to wait, Mr. Crawford," said he, dreamily, "until we reach the goal at which you aim, I greatly fear I must starve. This illness will exhaust all the money I have. Popular opinion will drive me from this town. I see nothing before me but ruin." The words seemed to recall the old man to the immediate circumstances of his position, but he did not clearly recover all he had said to Lavirotte before. "All my money is not yet gone. Does no means suggest itself to you of putting a little capital to some advantage? I don't think you can hope for much from your present occupation. Without any danger to our great project I could, I think, find a few hundred pounds if they would be of any permanent use to you." "A little while ago," said Lavirotte, in a melancholy tone, "I thought if I could get a few hundred pounds I should be able to put it to very profitable use. I have a voice, if this accident has not taken it away, and all my friends said that if I could devote a couple of years exclusively to its cultivation, I might succeed as a singer." "You are not yet too old," said the other, with interest. "Take the money and try the experiment." "But I can have no excuse for taking from you money which I may never be able to repay." "You want no excuse," said Lionel Crawford, catching the injured man's hand. "Why should I not help the future husband of my grandchild?" "Your grandchild!" cried Lavirotte, in astonishment. "Who is she?" "Dora Harrington."
CHAPTER XXIV
This announcement of Lionel Crawford head an electrical effect upon Dominique Lavirotte. Notwithstanding Dr. O'Malley's strict orders to the contrary, the Frenchman sat bolt upright in the bed, looking ghastly in his bandages, and stared at the old man. "You, Dora's grandfather!" he cried. His eyes starting in their sockets, and bloodless lips remaining open when he had spoken. "You, Dora's grandfather! You are telling me a hideous lie. For what purpose are you telling me this hideous lie?" "Hush!" cried the old man, alarmed lest Lavirotte in his excitement should make allusion in similarly loud tones to his great secret. "You must not excite yourself. Someone may hear you, and then how should we be?" Lavirotte stared still, but uttered no word. The power of speech was taken from him by the nature of the statement made by the other man. Had this dark-visaged ogre come here to worm the history of his perfidy to Dora from him, in order to be avenged on him out of a confession from his own mouth? Was this man about to add to his mental tortures a storm of intolerable abuse, or, taking advantage of his helpless state, finish the work which the night of that encounter had left undone? "You seem to misunderstand my intention altogether. I assure you all I have said and have to say is for your good, for our good, for the good of our great object." Like all other men who have ever been possessed by the idea of discovering hidden treasure, all pursuits and considerations seemed of comparatively little moment compared with the thought which possessed him. Like all other such men, he dreaded more than anything else the chance that his secret might become known to anyone not absolutely essential to success. Lavirotte fell back, relieved and exhausted. There was no mistaking the wild earnestness of this strange-eyed enthusiast. "Go on," he said faintly. "There can be nothing simpler or, I think, better, than I suggest," continued Lionel Crawford. "I cannot say, I do not know, how long yet it may take me to get down to where the plate and jewels lie buried. It may be a year, it may be more or less, six months at least, and not farther off than a year-and-a-half. You are, unfortunately, sceptical of the existence of any such treasure. I am as sure it is there as though I myself had buried it." "Why not then use the money you speak of in employing men to dig for it under your superintendence?" asked Lavirotte, peevishly. "Do not talk so loud." Lavirotte had, because of his weakness, spoken almost in a whisper. "Do not talk such nonsense. Employ men to dig, and have the whole thing town-talk in twenty-four hours! Let a lot of mere day labourers within the magic spell, within touch of the thing I have brooded over and kept secretly apart from all the rest of the world for years and years! What profanation! I would rather forego all hope of ever enjoying final triumph than let the shrine of my dreams be defiled by unsympathetic hands!" The old man was once again back in dreamland, and unconscious that the present had any real existence, save that it was the roadway to the future. "But if there is any likelihood of long delay in-in finding this treasure" (Lavirotte believed his visitor would come on the chests of precious articles belonging to the great Lord Tuscar on the same day that someone else found the philosopher's stone), "you will want all the money you have, and cannot afford to give it to me for the purpose of spending it on a speculation which may be as likely to succeed as-," he was about to say "your own," but substituted, "the search for the North Pole. It seems to me that there is no earthly use in my even thinking of such a thing. I am beaten by fate, and the best thing I can do is to give in." This speech instantly recalled the old man to the subject in hand and the immediate surroundings of the case. Apart from his ruling passion-the hidden gold and stones-he was simple, almost childlike. But anything which touched his darling project roused up in him a fiery spirit of intelligence no one under ordinary circumstances could anticipate. "No, no!" cried he. "You must not even think of giving in. You must make up your mind to succeed. You must succeed, not only for your own sake, but for the sake of Dora as well." A faint smile came over Lavirotte's face. "Tell me more. Tell me more. You give me hope. You make me aspire." The peevishness was fading out of Lavirotte's manner and face. "It may be possible for me to redeem my character and my credit yet." "Of course it is quite possible, quite easy for you to do so. There is not the least difficulty about the matter. Is it a bargain?" After a little more talk it was arranged that Lavirotte should take the money as an advance on his share of the great Tuscar hoard. "And now," said Lavirotte, "dear Mr. Crawford, don't you think that in this matter of making love to one girl while I was engaged to another, I deserved the very severest instead of the most merciful treatment at your hands?" "Well," said the old man, "that's all past and gone now, and we all grow wiser as we grow older. It will, I suppose, be some days before you are up and about again. The landlord of this place has been very wise, and by his aid I have been able to keep all knowledge of the circumstances of your case from Dora. There is no need why she should hear anything about it now, and as you are on the way to recovery, and we need not be anxious about your health, I fancy the best thing we can do is to get her away as quickly as possible from this. What do you think?" "I don't know," said Lavirotte, gloomily. "You see, if she does not hear the truth now it will be like practising another deceit upon her. I shall have to act a part, and not a very creditable one." Crawford became uneasy. He knew too little of Dora to be able to judge how she would receive the whole story, and it seemed now to him a matter of the first importance that he should lose no possible hold of Lavirotte. "You see," said he, "she will be shocked to learn that you have been hurt in an encounter, and are not ill in a natural way as she supposes. Then you will have to explain almost everything, and it might be better that portion of the explanation should be postponed." Lavirotte moved restlessly. "It is very difficult," he said. "I own it is very difficult. One hardly can know what to do. I want to spare her, of course, if I can; and I want to put myself right with her if I can." "Then," said the old man, with a sudden gleam of intelligence in his eyes, "let mercy for her prevail. You see you have been in fault. Suffer your own explanation to lie over for the present in order to spare her feelings. Later on you can put yourself right with her." Lavirotte sighed, and then asked, languidly: "What do you propose?" "That I should take her back with me to London at once, telling her that you are not allowed to see her in your present state of health; but that immediately on your recovery you will follow us to London, and that, in the meantime, I will take care of her." "Perhaps, after all," said the injured man, "that is the best plan." Now that the prospect of an immediate meeting between him and Dora grew dim, he lost interest in the conversation, and the excitement of anticipation being withdrawn, the weakness of his condition asserted itself. After some more talk, it was finally agreed between the two men that Lionel Crawford's suggestion should be carried out. Then it became the duty of the latter to inform Dora of this decision. He found the girl in a state of the greatest excitement and anxiety. "Oh!" she cried, "I thought you would never come. May I not see him now?" The old man took her by the hands and led her back to the seat she had risen from on his entrance. "My dear child," he said, "there is not the least cause for your anxiety about Dominique's health. He is progressing most favourably. But it would be exceedingly unwise that he should see you now." "But you said I might see him. You promised I might see him!" "Since I told you so I have been with him and learned more of his case. Although he is most anxious to see you, he is persuaded that doing so would be injurious now. He will be all right in a few days. We have talked the whole matter over. I intend assisting him to a much better position than he now holds. I am authorised by him to make all preparations for your marriage." The young girl coloured, partly by surprise and partly by bashfulness. Lionel Crawford saw that these words had made an impression favourable to his views. "If we want to get him well and make him happy soon," he continued, "he and I agree that the best thing to be done is that you and I should instantly set out for London." "But it is very hard to have to go without seeing him," said the girl, confused by the new and unexpected turn affairs had taken, and elated by the assurance that the difficulties of her lover's worldly position were at an end, and that when next they met it would be to part no more. The old man saw that he had carried his point. He rose briskly, and said: "The sooner we are off the better. There is no use in our staying here an hour. Being so near him when you may not see him would only add to your uncomfortableness. I will go and see at once how and when we are to get back. Wait for me here." As he reached the bar, he found two young men there. One was in the employment of the railway at Rathclare, the other in the post-office of that town. Their backs were towards him, and they did not hear him entering the room. "Maher told me," said the Railway, "that an old man and a young girl have come to see Lavirotte. That's the girl, no doubt, he made love to in London. Maher wouldn't tell me their names; but I'll find out all about them when I get to London." "You may not find it so easy, my young man," thought Lionel Crawford. "I have kept a secret for years."