"I 'm sure I could never think it would."
"No; not even from being aware that one of his chief claims upon the wife was the unhandsome way he spoke of the husband."
"He seldom mentions you," said she, superciliously.
"I am not so scrupulous about him, then; I have not forgotten his conduct when that fellow got his skull cracked at the Nest. I saw it all, Madam; but I have a trick of seeing and saying nothing that might have suggested some alarm to you ere this."
"You have many tricks, but not one that alarms me," said she, coldly; "the wholesome fear of consequences will always be enough to keep you harmless."
He almost sprang at her at these words; indeed, he came so close that his hot breath brushed her face. "It is a favorite taunt of yours to sneer at my courage," said he, fiercely; "you may do it once too often."
She shrugged her shoulders contemptuously, and slowly arose from where she sat.
"Where are you going?" asked he, roughly.
"I have many things to say yet; I want to hear more, too, about the old man's illness."
"I have told you all I know. Good-night."
He turned away without acknowledging her salutation, and strolled into the grass. What a web of troubles he was involved in, and how hopelessly he turned from this or that expedient to extricate himself! It was but a short time before that, as a member of the committee of his Club, he had succeeded in passing a law by which all play debts should be discharged within twenty-four hours, on penalty of the defaulter being declared excluded from the Club. He was a winner at the time; but now luck had changed: he had lost heavily, and had not the slightest prospect of being able to meet his losses. "How like my fate!" muttered he, in intense passion,--"how like my fate! my whole life has been a game I have played against myself. And that woman, too,"--it was of his wife he spoke,--"who once helped me through many a strait, assumes now to be too pure and too virtuous to be my associate, and stands quietly aloof to see me ruined."
A long thin streak of light crossed his path as he went; he looked up, and saw it came from between the shutters of the Chief's room. "I wonder how it fares with him!" muttered he. He pondered for some time over the old man's case, his chances of recovery, and the spirit in which convalescence would find him; and then entering the house, he slowly mounted the stairs, one by one, his heart feeling like a load almost too heavy to carry. The unbroken stillness of the house seemed to whisper caution, and he moved along the corridor with noiseless tread till he came to the door of the Judge's room. There he stooped and listened. There were the long-drawn breathings of a heavy sleeper plainly to be heard, but they sounded stronger and fuller than the respirations of a sick man. Sewell gently turned the handle of the door and entered. The suspicion was right. The breathings were those of the hospital nurse, who, seated in a deep arm-chair, slept profoundly. Sewell stood several minutes at the door before he ventured further; at last he crept stealthily forward to the foot of the bed, and, separating the curtains cautiously, he peeped in. The old man lay with his eyes closed, and his long shrivelled arms outside the clothes. He continued to talk rapidly, and by degrees his voice grew stronger and dearer, and had all that resonance of one speaking in a large assembly. "I have now," said he, "shown the inexpediency of this course. I have pointed out where you have been impolitic; I will next explain where you are illegal. This Act was made in the 23d year of Henry VI., and although intended only to apply to cases of action personal, or indictment of trespass--What is the meaning of this interruption? Let there be silence in the Court. I will have the tribunal in which I preside respected. The public shall learn--the representatives of the press--and if there be, as I am told there are--" His voice grew weaker and weaker, and the last audible words that escaped him were "judgment for the plaintiff."