After considering it for a while, he remembered the dinner that he had given to his friend Sarrazin on his return from the United States, and the departure of the lawyer to his club, with a purpose in view which interested them both. It was the same club to which Herbert belonged. Randal wrote at once to Mr. Sarrazin, mentioning what had happened, and acknowledging the anxiety tha t weighed on his mind.
Having instructed Malcolm to take the letter to the lawyer's house, and, if he was not at home, to inquire where he might be found, Randal adopted the readiest means of composing himself, in the servant's absence, by lighting his pipe.
He was enveloped in clouds of tobacco-smoke--the only clouds which we can trust never to prove unworthy of our confidence in them--when Mrs. Presty's letter caught his attention. If the month had been January instead of July, he would have thrown it into the fire. Under present circumstances, he took it up and read it:
"I bear no malice, dear Randal, and I write to you as affectionately as if you had kept your temper on the occasion when we last met.
"You will be pleased to hear that Catherine was as thoroughly distressed as you could wish her to be, when it became my disagreeable duty to mention what had passed between us, by way of accounting for your absence. She was quite unable to rally her spirits, even with dear Captain Bennydeck present to encourage her.
"'I am not receiving you as I ought,' she said to him, when we began dinner, 'but there is perhaps some excuse for me. I have lost the regard and esteem of an old friend, who has cruelly wronged me.' From motives of delicacy (which I don't expect you to understand) she refrained from mentioning your name. The prettiest answer that I ever heard was the answer that the Captain returned. 'Let the true friend,' he said, 'take the place in your heart which the false friend has lost.'
"He kissed her hand. If you had seen how he did it, and how she looked at him, you would have felt that you had done more toward persuading my daughter to marry the Captain than any other person about her, myself included. You had deserted her; you had thrown her back on the one true friend left. Thank you, Randal. In our best interests, thank you.
"It is needless to add that I got out of the way, and took Kitty with me, at the earliest opportunity--and left them by themselves.
"At bed-time I went into Catherine's room. Our interview began and ended in less than a minute. It was useless to ask if the Captain had proposed marriage; her agitation sufficiently informed me of what had happened. My one question was: 'Dearest Catherine, have you said Yes?' She turned shockingly pale, and answered: 'I have not said No.' Could anything be more encouraging? God bless you; we shall meet at the wedding."
Randal laid down the letter and filled his pipe again. He was not in the least exasperated; he was only anxious to hear from Mr. Sarrazin. If Mrs. Presty had seen him at that moment, she would have said to herself: "I forgot the wretch was a smoker."
In half an hour more the door was opened by Malcolm, and Mr. Sarrazin in person answered his friend.
"There are no such incorrigible gossips," he said, "as men in the smoking-room of a club. Those popular newspapers began the mischief, and the editor of one of them completed it. How he got his information I am not able to say. The small-talk turned on that report about the charming widow; and the editor congratulated himself on the delicacy of his conduct. 'When the paragraph reached me,' he said, 'the writer mentioned that Mrs.
Norman was that well-known lady, the divorced Mrs. Herbert Linley. I thought this rather too bad, and I cut it out.' Your brother appears to have been present--but he seldom goes to the club, and none of the members knew him even by sight. Shall I give you a light? Your pipe's out."
Randal's feelings, at that moment, were not within reach of the comforting influence of tobacco.
"Do you think your brother has gone to Sydenham?" Mr. Sarrazin asked.
Randal answered: "I haven't a doubt of it now."