The other alternative was to assume that there
must be some anxiety burdening Lord Harry's mind, which he had motives
for keeping concealed--and here indeed the true explanation had been
found. The Irish lord had reasons, known only to himself, for recoiling
from the contemplation of his own future. After the murder of Arthur
Mountjoy, he had severed his connection with the assassinating
brotherhood of the Invincibles; and he had then been warned that he
took this step at the peril of his life, if he remained in Great
Britain after he had made himself an object of distrust to his
colleagues. The discovery, by the secret tribunal, of his return from
South Africa would be followed inevitably by the sentence of death.
Such was the terrible position which Mountjoy's reply had ignorantly
forced him to confront. His fate depended on the doubtful security of
his refuge in the doctor's house.
While Hugh was still looking at him, in grave doubt, a new idea seemed
to spring to life in Lord Harry's mind. He threw off the oppression
that had weighed on his spirits in an instant. His manner towards
Mountjoy changed, with the suddenness of a flash of light, from the
extreme of coldness to the extreme of cordiality.
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