The Veiled Man by Ambrose Pratt — Read

Above the western wing of Cawthorne Castle, which wing comprised the oldest yet least weather-beaten portion of the structure, there rose a small square tower, whose narrow-slitted windows commanded a wide view of the country-side. Simon Vicars often found his master seated before some one of those, either gazing in silent meditation at the town, or dreamily considering the inland hills. At such times the veiled man was not an easy person to intrude upon. Contemplation of the exterior world always fascinated him, yet as invariably embittered him. He liked to observe unseen the moving ways of men, to watch laborers at their occupation in the distant fields, to see a waggon crawl along the road, to mark the more rapid sweep of a horseman pressed with business, or to listen to the faintly clamorous echoes of the docks.

But his pleasure in the pastime was so intimately blent with envy and other mordant humors that more than once Simon had hesitated on the stairway to listen to his master's unconsciously uttered groans; and at times even the little valet had stolen away, terrified by maledictions, which, though muttered in an underbreath, announced a soul in torture sharp enough to sting it to inflict some measure of its pain upon another. Simon knew the world about him very well, and he had himself experienced the gloomy joy of kicking an understrapper when overtaken by misfortune. It was not that he stood in any wise in physical dread of the veiled man; but Mr. Deen could wield at will a tongue with gall, and Simon's temper was an evil one. He did not want to quarrel with his master if he could help it. He cherished a presentiment that if all went well the veiled man's secrets would yet be his, and his faith in the pecuniary value of his master's secrets was as firmly rooted as his belief in Providence.