The Malefactor Part 15

Aynesworth ceased tugging at the strap of his portmanteau, and rose slowly to his feet. A visitor had entered his rooms--apparently unannounced.

"I must apologize," the newcomer said, "for my intrusion. Your housekeeper, I presume it was, whom I saw below, told me to come up."

Aynesworth pushed forward a chair.

"Won't you sit down?" he said. "I believe that I am addressing Mr.

Lumley Barrington."

Not altogether without embarra.s.sment, Barrington seated himself.

Something of his ordinary confidence of bearing and demeanor had certainly deserted him. His manner, too, was nervous. He had the air of being altogether ill at ease.

"I must apologize further, Mr. Aynesworth," he continued, "for an apparently ill-timed visit. You are, I see, on the eve of a journey."

"I am leaving for America tomorrow," Aynesworth answered.

"With Sir Wingrave Seton, I presume?" Barrington remarked.

"Precisely," Aynesworth answered.

Barrington hesitated for a moment. Aynesworth was civil, but inquiring.

He felt himself very awkwardly placed.

"Mr. Aynesworth," he said, "I must throw myself upon your consideration.

You can possibly surmise the reason of my visit."

Aynesworth shook his head.

"I am afraid," he said, "that I must plead guilty to denseness--in this particular instance, at any rate. I am altogether at a loss to account for it."

"You have had some conversation with my wife, I believe?"

"Yes. But--"

"Before you proceed, Mr. Aynesworth," Barrington interrupted, "one word. You are aware that Sir Wingrave Seton is in possession of certain doc.u.ments in which my wife is interested, which he refuses to give up?"

"I have understood that such is the case," Aynesworth admitted.

"Will you pardon me if I add that it is a matter which I can scarcely discuss?"

Barrington shrugged his shoulders.

"Let it go, for the moment," he said. "There is something else which I want to say to you."

Aynesworth nodded a little curtly. He was not very favorably impressed with his visitor.

"Well!"

Barrington leaned forward in his chair.

"Mr. Aynesworth," he said, "you have made for yourself some reputation as a writer. Your name has been familiar to me for some time. I was at college, I believe, with your uncle, Stanley Aynesworth."

He paused. Aynesworth said nothing.

"I want to know," Barrington continued impressively, "what has induced you to accept a position with such a man as Seton?"

"That," Aynesworth declared, "is easily answered. I was not looking for a secretarys.h.i.+p at all, or anything of the sort, but I chanced to hear his history one night, and I was curious to a.n.a.lyze, so far as possible, his att.i.tude towards life and his fellows, on his reappearance in it.

That is the whole secret."

Barrington leaned back in his chair, and glanced thoughtfully at his companion.

"You know the story of his misadventures, then?" he remarked.

"I know all about his imprisonment, and the cause of it," Aynesworth said quietly.

Barrington was silent for several moments. He felt that he was receiving but scanty encouragement.

"Is it worth while, Mr. Aynesworth?" he asked at length. "There is better work for you in the world than this."

Again Aynesworth preferred to reply by a gesture only. Barrington was watching him steadily.

"A political secretarys.h.i.+p, Mr. Aynesworth," he said, "might lead you anywhere. If you are ambitious, it is the surest of all stepping stones into the House. After that, your career is in your own hands. I offer you such a post."

"I am exceedingly obliged to you," Aynesworth replied, "but I scarcely understand."

"I have influence," Barrington said, "which I have never cared to use on my own account. I am willing to use it on yours. You have only to say the word, and the matter is arranged."

"I can only repeat," Aynesworth said, "that I am exceedingly obliged to you, Mr. Barrington, but I cannot understand why you should interest yourself so much on my behalf."

"If you wish me to speak in plain words," Barrington said, "I will do so. I ask you to aid me as a man of honor in the restoration of those letters to my wife."

"I cannot do it," Aynesworth said firmly. "I am sorry that you should have come to me with such an offer. It is quite out of the question!"

Barrington held out his hand.

"Do not decide too hastily," he said. "Remember this. Sir Wingrave Seton had once an opportunity of putting those letters to any use he may have thought fit. He ignored it. At that time, their tenor and contents might easily have been explained. After all these years, that task would be far more difficult. I say that no man has a right to keep a woman's letters back from her years after any friends.h.i.+p there may have been between them is over. It is not the action of an honorable man. Sir Wingrave Seton has placed himself outside the pale of honorable men."

"Your judgment," Aynesworth answered quietly, "seems to me severe. Sir Wingrave Seton has been the victim of peculiar circ.u.mstances."

Barrington looked at his companion thoughtfully. He was wondering exactly how much he knew.

"You defend him," he remarked. "That is because you have not yet found out what manner of man he is."

"In any case," Aynesworth answered, "I am not his judge. Mr.

Barrington," he added, "You must forgive me if I remind you that this is a somewhat unprofitable discussion."

A short silence followed. With Barrington it did not appear to be a silence of irresolution. He was leaning a little forward in his chair, and his head was resting upon his hand. Of his companion he seemed for the moment to have become oblivious. Aynesworth watched him curiously.

Was he looking back through the years, he wondered, to that one brief but lurid chapter of history; or was it his own future of which he was thinking,--a future which, to the world, must seem so full of brilliant possibilities, and yet which he himself must feel to be so fatally and miserably insecure?

"Mr. Aynesworth," he said at last, "I suppose from a crude point of view I am here to bribe you."