I had been reading newspapers eagerly all day, when he came, and, from a
contradictory mass of evidence, had gleaned some grains of truth. One
fact was beyond contradiction--a second Samson had drawn down the ruins
of a temple, not on the heads of his foes alone, but his friends as
well, blinded, as he of old, by the treachery of that basest of all
Delilahs, a fawning public!
Yes, we were ruined; the only hope now was in the honesty of Mr. Basil
Bainrothe. Should the gold I saw him hiding away not have been
appropriated to the purchase of bank-stocks--should it have been saved
for me--we might still rejoice in wealth beyond our deserts, and equal
to our desires.
We still might keep the old, beloved roof above our heads, preserve one
unbroken circle of family domestics--live without labor, or terror of
the future. But would this be? I waited, as I still think I should have
done, for Mr. Bainrothe to take the initiative in this proceeding.
Impatient and sick-hearted, I saw day after day glide past, without an
effort on his part to explain or ameliorate my condition--one now of
excessive and wearing anxiety.
At last he came. For the first time in his life when a matter of
business was in question, he asked for me. I went to him alone at my own
instance, and somewhat to Evelyn's chagrin, I thought.
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