Mr. Gammon's first interview with the earl, after his illness and bereavement, had become a matter of absolute necessity--and was at his Lordship's instance; his wishes being conveyed through the Duke of Tantallan, who had intimated to him that it was indeed indispensable, if only to settle some matters of business, of pressing exigency, connected with the failure of the Artificial Rain Company. The duke was with his noble kinsman at the time of Mr. Gammon's calling--having intended to be present at the interview. They awaited his arrival in the earl's library. It is very difficult to describe the feelings with which Mr. Gammon anticipated and prepared for the appointed interview with the man on whom he had inflicted such frightful evil, towards whom he felt that he had acted the part of a fiend. How had he dealt with the absolute and unrestrained confidence which the earl had reposed in him! The main prop and pillar of the earl's existence--family pride--Gammon had snapped asunder beneath him; and as for fortune--Gammon knew that the earl was absolutely ruined. Not, however, that Gammon really felt any commiseration for his victim: his anxiety was only as to how he should extricate himself from liability in respect of it. And had not a man of even his marble heart cause for apprehension, in approaching the earl on that occasion, to be interrogated concerning Titmouse--to look the earl in the face, and deny what had passed between them;--and that, too, when the rigid investigation was pending which might, within a few short weeks, convict and expose him to the scorn--the indignation--of society, as a monster of fraud and falsehood?
The earl sat in his library, dressed in deep black, which hung upon his shrunk attenuated figure, as upon an old skeleton. He looked twenty years older than he had appeared two short months before. His hair, white as snow, his pallid emaciated cheek, his weak and wandering eye, and a slight tremulous motion about his head and shoulders--all showed the mere wreck of a man that he had become, and would have shocked and subdued the feelings of any beholder. What a contrast he presented to the portly and commanding figure of the Duke of Tantallan, who sat beside him, with a brow clouded by anxiety and apprehension! At length--"Mr. Gammon, my Lord," said the servant, in a low tone, after gently opening the door.