_ CHAPTER LXXIV. MIDNIGHT
Gradually the sneer faded from Abel's face, and he walked up and down the room, no longer carelessly, but fitfully; stopping sometimes--again starting more rapidly--then leaning against the mantle, on which the clock pointed to midnight--then throwing himself into a chair or upon a sofa; and so, rising again, walked on.
His head bent forward--his eyes grew rounder and harder, and seemed to be burnished with the black, bad light; his step imperceptibly grew stealthy--he looked about him carefully--he stood erect and breathless to listen--bit his nails, and walked on.
The clock upon the mantle pointed to half an hour after midnight. Abel Newt went into his chamber and put on his slippers. He lighted a candle, and looked carefully under the bed and in the closet. Then he drew the shades over the windows and went out into the other room, closing and locking the door behind him.
He glided noiselessly to the door that opened into the entry, and locked that softly and bolted it carefully. Then he turned the key so that the wards filled the keyhole, and taking out his handkerchief he hung it over the knob of the door, so that it fell across the keyhole, and no eye could by any chance have peered into the room.
He saw that the blinds of the windows were closed, the windows shut and locked, and the linen shades drawn over them. He also let fall the heavy damask curtains, so that the windows were obliterated from the room. He stood in the centre of the room and looked to every corner where, by any chance, a person might be concealed.
Then, moving upon tip-toe, he drew a key from his pocket and fitted it into the lid of a secretary. As he turned it in the lock the snap of the bolt made him start. He was haggard, even ghastly, as he stood, letting the lid back slowly, lest it should creak or jar. With another key he opened a little drawer, and involuntarily looking behind him as he did so, he took out a small piece of paper, which he concealed in his hand.
Seating himself at the secretary, he put the candle before him, and remained for a moment with his face slightly strained forward with a startling intentness of listening. There was no sound but the regular ticking of the clock upon the mantle. He had not observed it before, but now he could hear nothing else.
Tick, tick--tick, tick. It had a persistent, relentless, remorseless regularity. Tick, tick--tick, tick. Every moment it appeared to be louder and louder. His brow wrinkled and his head bent forward more deeply, while his eyes were set straight before him. Tick, tick--tick, tick. The solemn beat became human as he listened. He could not raise his head--he could not turn his eyes. He felt as if some awful shape stood over him with destroying eyes and inflexible tongue. But struggling, without moving, as a dreamer wrestles with the nightmare, he presently sprang bolt upright--his eyes wide and wild--the sweat oozing upon his ghastly forehead--his whole frame weak and quivering. With the same suddenness he turned defiantly, clenching his fists, in act to spring.
There was nothing there. He saw only the clock--the gilt pendulum regularly swinging--he heard only the regular tick, tick--tick, tick.
A sickly smile glimmered on his face as he stepped toward the mantle, still clutching the paper in his hand, but crouching as he came, and leering, as if to leap upon an enemy unawares. Suddenly he started as if struck--a stifled shriek of horror burst from his lips--he staggered back--his hand opened--the paper fell fluttering to the floor. Abel Newt had unexpectedly seen the reflection of his own face in the mirror that covered the chimney behind the clock.
He recovered himself, swore bitterly, and stooped to pick up the paper. Then with sullen bravado, still staring at his reflection in the glass, he took off the glass shade of the clock, touched the pendulum and stopped it; then turning his back, crept to his chair, and sat down again.
The silence was profound, not a sound was audible but the creaking of his clothes as he leaned heavily against the edge of the desk and drew his agitated breath. He raised the candle and bent his gloomy face over the paper which he held before him. It was a note of his late firm indorsed by Lawrence Newt & Co. He gazed at his uncle's signature intently, studying every line, every dot--so intently that it seemed as if his eyes would burn it. Then putting down the candle and spreading the name before him, he drew a sheet of tissue paper from a drawer and placed it over it. The writing was perfectly legible--the finest stroke showed through the thin tissue. He filled a pen and carefully drew the lines of the signature upon the tissue paper--then raised it--the fac-simile was perfect.
Taking a thicker piece of paper, he laid the note before him, and slowly, carefully, copied the signature. The result was a resemblance, but nothing more. He held the paper in the flame of the candle until it was consumed. He tried again. He tried many times. Each trial was a greater success.
Tearing a check from his book he filled the blanks and wrote below the name of Lawrence Newt & Co., and found, upon comparison with the indorsement, that it was very like. Abel Newt grinned; his lips moved: he was muttering "Dear Uncle Lawrence."
He stopped writing, and carefully burned, as before, the check and all the paper. Then covering his face with his hands as he sat, he said to himself, as the hot, hurried thoughts flickered through his mind,
"Yes, yes, Mrs. Lawrence Newt, I shall not be master of Pinewood, but I shall be of your husband, and he will be master of your property. Practice makes perfect. Dear Uncle Lawrence shall be my banker."
His brain reeled and whirled as he sat. He remembered the words of his friend the General: "Abel Newt was not born to fail."
"No, by God!" he shouted, springing up, and clenching his hands.
He staggered. The walls of the room, the floor, the ceiling, the furniture heaved and rolled before his eyes. In the wild tumult that overwhelmed his brain as if he were sinking in gurgling whirlpools--the peaceful lawn of Pinewood--the fight with Gabriel--the running horses--the "Farewell forever, Miss Wayne"--the shifting chances of his subsequent life--Grace Plumer blazing with diamonds--the figure of his father drumming with white fingers upon his office-desk--Lawrence and Gabriel pushing him out--they all swept before his consciousness in the moment during which he threw out his hands wildly, clutched at the air, and plunged headlong upon the floor, senseless. _