All he had ever suffered before was mild in comparison with this dire paroxysm.  Now, for the first time, was he made acquainted with his real capacity for pain, and how near he might be to madness and yet retain intellect enough to weigh every scruple, and calculate every chance and consequence, in his torture.

Sir Bale, in the meantime, had walked out a little more excited than he would have allowed.  He was still convinced that Feltram had stolen the note, but not quite so certain as he had been.  There were things in his manner that confirmed, and others that perplexed, Sir Bale.

The Baronet stood upon the margin of the lake, almost under the evening shadow of the house, looking towards Snakes Island.  There were two things about Mardykes he specially disliked.

One was Philip Feltram, who, right or wrong, he fancied knew more than was pleasant of his past life.

The other was the lake.  It was a beautiful piece of water, his eye, educated at least in the excellences of landscape-painting, acknowledged.  But although he could pull a good oar, and liked other lakes, to this particular sheet of water there lurked within him an insurmountable antipathy.  It was engendered by a variety of associations.

There is a faculty in man that will acknowledge the unseen.  He may scout and scare religion from him; but if he does, superstition perches near.  His boding was made-up of omens, dreams, and such stuff as he most affected to despise, and there fluttered at his heart a presentiment and disgust.

His foot was on the gunwale of the boat, that was chained to its ring at the margin; but he would not have crossed that water in it for any reason that man could urge.

What was the mischief that sooner or later was to befall him from that lake, he could not define; but that some fatal danger lurked there, was the one idea concerning it that had possession of his fancy.

He was now looking along its still waters, towards the copse and rocks of Snakes Island, thinking of Philip Feltram; and the yellow level sunbeams touched his dark features, that bore a saturnine resemblance to those of Charles II, and marked sharply their firm grim lines, and left his deep-set eyes in shadow.

Who has the happy gift to seize the present, as a child does, and live in it?  Who is not often looking far off for his happiness, as Sidney Smith says, like a man looking for his hat when it is upon his head?  Sir Bale was brooding over his double hatred, of Feltram and of the lake.  It would have been better had he struck down the raven that croaked upon his shoulder, and listened to the harmless birds that were whistling all round among the branches in the golden sunset.

CHAPTER VIII

Feltram’s Plan

This horror of the beautiful lake, which other people thought so lovely, was, in that mind which affected to scoff at the unseen, a distinct creation of downright superstition.