Presently Evelyn came in again. Her air was wild and frightened; her
trembling hands were stained with mud, seen by the light of the lantern
she bore, and which she again hung in its accustomed place, stealing
quietly away into the darkened hall, to grope her way up-stairs. All
this while the farce of sending for Dr. Craig was being enacted, and
Morton was out on his fruitless mission in the rain!
Again it was morning, and I saw them together in the library, while I
still slept, consulting, planning, plotting, writing, erasing,
whispering; soon to separate, however, this time. Their arrangements
being completed without restraint, for again the old man was absent,
doing the duties of another, who, knowing not the motive of such request
or bribe, was content to work the will of a conspirator, and pass the
day in idleness at home, for the sake of a purse of gold. Here ended my
clairvoyance, if such it was.
All this may have been imaginary--part of it probably was--but the sense
of the dream was no doubt what my untrammeled judgment would have
suggested as truth, and what later--but let me not digress or anticipate
here, in the thickest of my troubles, the jungle-pass of my story as it
were, but strike on through a self-made path, it may be, to the light
that shines beyond the forest, even if it lead into the desert!
Something in Evelyn's suggestion had struck me as the best to pursue
under the circumstances, although at first I so boldly repudiated the
idea of Mr.
Pages:
195
196
197
198
199
200
201
202
203
204
205
206
207
208
209
210
211
212
213
214
215
216
217
218
219