The Confessor, with admirable skill, at once changed his tactics, and adopted another course.
“Mr. O’Halloran, to use the mildest term it admits, your visit has been imprudent. Mark in the old man’s illness the consequences of your rashness! Why did you not notice your intention? Could I have induced your grandsire to receive you, I would have done so willingly, and thus have prevented a shock that may prove--and I fear it will--fatal! For God’s sake, be advised by me. Leave the park, and let your relative receive immediate attention. You see the first effect--would you, should he recover the first shock, expose him to a second? When he is well enough to write, I pledge my word, you shall receive an instant communication. If you persevere, death will inevitably ensue; and how, may I ask, will you, forewarned as you are, excuse the rashness, the madness, that occasioned it?”
The specious arguments of the Jesuit prevailed, and I acceded to his proposition. I could not tell the cause that overpowered my grandfather’s feeble strength; nor could I even guess whether it were anger, or an outbreaking of revived affection. In my doubts, I agreed to the monk’s proposal--saw the old man carried in a chair to the house--and quitted the domain, perfectly unconscious whether my visit had mitigated or confirmed his animosity.
In one brief hour that question was put to rest, and a letter, addressed to me at the Fox and Hounds, apprised me that my grandfather considered my mother an _enfant perdu_, and that his displeasure was unmitigable!
In a remote apartment of Mr. Clifford’s mansion, that evening, two men might have been discovered in earnest conversation; one had a countenance sallow, cunning, and repulsive; and a figure remarkable for its height and irregular proportions; the other was a middle-sized elderly man, with a certain air and intelligence that might stamp him a pawnbroker, money-dealer, thieves’ attorney, or any other profession appertaining to the “wide-awake” school. Heed I say the twain were the Confessor and house-steward of my grandfather? Both exhibited unequivocal appearances of anxiety and annoyance; and though there were wines upon the table, neither seemed inclined to use them.