BOOK SIXTH.

MYSTERIES OF THE NIGHT.

CHAPTER I.

THE UNKNOWN HAND.

Marcus Wilkeson made no effort to discover the writer of the anonymous letter, because he knew that such an effort would be in vain.  He called on Mr. Minford once in two or three days now.  The inventor always took occasion to refer to the letter, and assured Marcus that it was not worth remembering, or talking about.  “Why, then, did he talk about it?” Marcus asked himself.  His eyes were not blind to watchful and suspicious glances which the old man directed to him, at times, under cover of those shaggy, overhanging eyebrows.  Nor could he help noticing a strange reserve in the bearing of Pet toward him.  It was not mere modesty, or timid gratitude, but DOUBT, as he read the signs.  Marcus was convinced that the father had put his child on guard against something, though he might not have mentioned the existence of the anonymous letter.  This thought distressed him acutely.

But his troubles, as well as his joys, he kept to himself.  The miser puts his broken bank notes and his good gold under the same lock and key.

One evening, early in April, Overtop and Maltboy observed a peculiar expression of sadness on the face of their friend.  He had eaten nothing at dinner, but had drunk more than his usual allowance of sherry.  He had kept his eyes fixed on the table as in a revery, and had scarcely spoken a word.  Miss Wilkeson, in her solemn state opposite the boiled chickens, was hardly less social.

After dinner, Marcus took to his pipe with a strange sullenness, and smoked furiously.  His two friends, closely regarding him, saw that he was unhappy, but wisely forbore to make him more unhappy still by obtruding their condolence on him.  The day had been rainy and cold.  They knew that Marcus’s spirits were barometrically sensitive to the weather, like those of most persons who look at it through a window.

They had noticed, as they came home, that he was reading that sweetest of elegies, the “In Memoriam” of Tennyson.  And the two friends thought that the melancholy weather and the melancholy poem together fully accounted for the gloom on his brow.

Marcus sat for some minutes meditating.  Then he heaved a sigh, which was distinctly audible to his two friends.  Then he left the room without saying a word, and went up stairs.

Presently he was heard to come down; but, instead of returning to the little parlor, he went into the street, and closed the door with a sharp slam.  At the same moment, the cold rain of the April night beat noisily against the window.

“Sly old fellow!” said Maltboy.

“Up to something, depend on it,” said Overtop.

Marcus walked rapidly toward the inventor’s house.  “My fate is decided to-night,” he muttered.