David Elginbrod Part 49

"There's a puzzle for you, Mr. Sutherland," said Mr. Arnold, as he entered. "Decipher that inscription, and gain the favour of Lady Emily for ever."

As he spoke he put the ring in Hugh's hand. Hugh recognized it at once.

"Ah! this is Lady Euphrasia's wonderful ring," said he.

Euphra cast on him one of her sudden glances.

"What do you know about it?" said Mr. Arnold, hastily.

Euphra flashed at him once more, covertly.

"I only know that this is the ring in her portrait. Any one may see that it is a very wonderful ring indeed, by only looking at it,"

answered Hugh, smiling.

"I hope it is not too wonderful for you to get at the mystery of it, though, Mr. Sutherland?" said Lady Emily.

"Lady Emily is dying to understand the inscription," said Euphrasia.

By this time Hugh was turning it round and round, trying to get a beginning to the legend. But in this he met with a difficulty. The fact was, that the initial letter of the inscription could only be found by looking into the crystal held close to the eye. The words seemed not altogether unknown to him, though the characters were a little strange, and the words themselves were undivided. The dinner bell rang.

"Dear me! how the time goes in your room, Lady Emily!" said Mr.

Arnold, who was never known to keep dinner waiting a moment. "Will you venture to go down with us to-day?"

"I fear I must not to-day. To-morrow, I hope. But do put up these beauties before you go. I dare not touch them without you, and it is so much more pleasure seeing them, when I have you to tell me about them."

"Well, throw them in," said Mr. Arnold, pretending an indifference he did not feel. "The reality of dinner must not be postponed to the fancy of jewels."

All this time Hugh had stood poring over the ring at the window, whither he had taken it for better light, as the shadows were falling. Euphra busied herself replacing everything in the box.

When all were in, she hastily shut the lid.

"Well, Mr. Sutherland?" said Mr. Arnold.

"I seem on the point of making it out, Mr. Arnold, but I certainly have not succeeded yet."

"Confess yourself vanquished, then, and come to dinner."

"I am very unwilling to give in, for I feel convinced that if I had leisure to copy the inscription as far as I can read it, I should, with the help of my dictionary, soon supply the rest. I am very unwilling, as well, to lose a chance of the favour of Lady Emily."

"Yes, do read it, if you can. I too am dying to hear it," said Euphra.

"Will you trust me with it, Mr. Arnold? I will take the greatest care of it."

"Oh, certainly!" replied Mr. Arnold--with a little hesitation in his tone, however, of which Hugh was too eager to take any notice.

He carried it to his room immediately, and laid it beside his ma.n.u.script verses, in the hiding-place of the old escritoire. He was in the drawing-room a moment after.

There he found Euphra and the Bohemian alone.--Von Funkelstein had, in an incredibly short s.p.a.ce of time, established himself as Hausfreund, and came and went as he pleased.--They looked as if they had been interrupted in a hurried and earnest conversation--their faces were so impa.s.sive. Yet Euphra's wore a considerably heightened colour--a more articulate indication. She could school her features, but not her complexion.

CHAPTER XXIII.

THE WAGER.

He...stakes this ring; And would so, had it been a carbuncle Of Phoebus' wheel; and might so safely, had it Been all the worth of his car.

Cymbeline.

Hugh, of course, had an immediate attack of jealousy. Wis.h.i.+ng to show it in one quarter, and hide it in every other, he carefully abstained from looking once in the direction of Euphra; while, throughout the dinner, he spoke to every one else as often as there was the smallest pretext for doing so. To enable himself to keep this up, he drank wine freely. As he was in general very moderate, by the time the ladies rose, it had begun to affect his brain. It was not half so potent, however, in its influences, as the parting glance which Euphra succeeded at last, as she left the room, in sending through his eyes to his heart.

Hugh sat down to the table again, with a quieter tongue, but a busier brain. He drank still, without thinking of the consequences.

A strong will kept him from showing any signs of intoxication, but he was certainly nearer to that state than he had ever been in his life before.

The Bohemian started the new subject which generally follows the ladies' departure.

"How long is it since Arnstead was first said to be haunted, Mr.

Arnold?"

"Haunted! Herr von Funkelstein? I am at a loss to understand you,"

replied Mr. Arnold, who resented any such allusion, being subversive of the honour of his house, almost as much as if it had been depreciative of his own.

"I beg your pardon, Mr. Arnold. I thought it was an open subject of remark."

"So it is," said Hugh; "every one knows that."

Mr. Arnold was struck dumb with indignation. Before he had recovered himself sufficiently to know what to say, the conversation between the other two had a.s.sumed a form to which his late experiences inclined him to listen with some degree of interest.

But, his pride sternly forbidding him to join in it, he sat sipping his wine in careless sublimity.

"You have seen it yourself, then?" said the Bohemian.

"I did not say that," answered Hugh. "But I heard one of the maids say once--when--"

He paused.

This hesitation of his witnessed against him afterwards, in Mr.

Arnold's judgment. But he took no notice now.--Hugh ended tamely enough:

"Why, it is commonly reported amongst the servants."

"With a blue light?--Such as we saw that night from the library window, I suppose."

"I did not say that," answered Hugh. "Besides, it was nothing of the sort you saw from the library. It was only the moon. But--"

He paused again. Von Funkelstein saw the condition he was in, and pressed him.

"You know something more, Mr. Sutherland."