A Night Alarm.
Colonel and Mrs. Cleeve had departed again, and the time went on.
Foxwood Court was comparatively quiet. The opening visits on all sides
had been paid and returned, and there was a lull in the dinner
parties. The weather continued most intensely hot; and people were
glad to be still.
Never had poor Lucy Andinnian felt the estrangement from her husband
so cruelly as now. At first the excitement of resentment had kept her
up, and the sojourn of her father and mother, together with the almost
daily gaiety, had served to take her out of herself: it was only at
night during the lonely hours, when trouble prevented sleep, that she
had felt its keenest sting. But now: now when she and Karl were alone,
save for Miss Blake: when she sat in her lonely room hour after hour,
and had leisure to realize her true position, Lucy gave way to all the
abandonment of grief her trial brought. It was indeed a bitter one; a
fiery trial: and when she looked back to it in after days, she could
never imagine how she had contrived to bear it.
Love is an all-powerful master: an overfilling tyrant. In the first
torments of awakened jealousy, it is all very well to take refuge in
revengeful anger, and snap our fingers metaphorically at the beloved
one, and say he may go promener. The reaction comes. Jealousy, alas,
does not tend to extinguish love, but rather to increase it. Lucy
Andinnian found it so to her cost. Her love for Karl had in no whit
abated: and the very fact of knowing he paid these stolen night visits
to the Maze, while it tortured her jealousy, in no way diminished her
love. She was growing pale and thin; she questioned whether she had
done wisely in undertaking this most cruel task of bearing in silence
and patience, hoping it might bring him back to his true allegiance;
for she knew not whether she could endure on to the end.
There were moments when in her desolation she almost wished she was
reconciled to her husband on any terms, even to the extent of
condoning the wrong and the evil. The strict reader must pardon her,
for she was very desolate. The idea always went away at once, and she
would arouse herself with a shiver. Perhaps, of all phases of the
affair, the one that told most upon her, that she felt to be more
humiliating than the rest, was the fact of its having been brought
close to her home, to its very gates: and a thousand times she asked
herself the ambiguous question--Why could not Sir Karl rid the Maze of
its inmates, and convey them to a distance?
She might have schooled her heart to care for Karl less had they been
separated: he at the North Pole, say: she at the South. But they were
living under the same roof, and met hourly. They went to church
together, and paid visits with each other, and sat at the same
breakfast and dinner tables. For their public intercourse was so
conducted that no suspicion of the truth should get abroad, within
doors or without. As to Karl, he was waiting on his side with what
patience he might until his wife's mood should alter; in fact, he had
no other alternative; but he treated her with the most anxious
kindness and consideration. That she had taken the matter up with
unjustifiable harshness, he thought; but he excused it, knowing
himself to be the real culprit for having married her. And thus they
went on; Lucy's spirit wounded to the core, and her anguished heart
pining for the love that she believed was not hers.
She was sitting one Saturday evening under the acacia tree, in the
delicate muslin she had worn in the day, when Karl came down from his
dressing-room ready for dinner, and crossed the lawn to her. He had
been to Basham, and she had not seen him since the morning.
"You are very pale, Lucy."
"My head aches badly: and it was so pleasant to remain here in the
cool that I did not go in to dress," she said to him in a tone of
apology.
"And why should you?" returned Karl. "That is as pretty a dress as any
you have. What has given you the headache?"
"I--always have it now, more or less," had been on the tip of her
tongue; but she broke off in time. "The heat, I think. I got very hot
to-day, walking to Margaret Sumnor's."
"It is too hot for walking, Lucy. You should take the carriage."
"I don't like the parade of the carriage when I go to Margaret's."
"Would you like a little pony-chaise? I will buy you one if you----"
"No, thank you," she interrupted hastily, her tone a cold one. "I
prefer to walk when I go about Foxwood. The heat will pass away
sometime."
"You were saying the other day, Lucy, to some one who called, that you
would like to read that new book on the Laplanders. I have been
getting it for you."
He had a white paper parcel in his hand, undid it, and gave her a
handsomely-bound volume. She felt the kindness, and her sad face
flushed slightly.
"Thank you; thank you very much. It was good of you to think of me."
"And I have been subscribing to the Basham library, Lucy, and brought
home the first parcel of books. It may amuse you to read them."
"Yes, I think it will. Thank you, Sir Karl."
She had never called him "Karl" when they were alone, since the
explosion. Now and then occasionally before people, she did,
especially before her father and mother. But he understood quite well
that it was only done for appearance' sake.
The dinner hour was at hand, and they went in. Very much to the
surprise of both, Mr. Cattacomb was in the drawing-room with Miss
Blake. Lucy had neither heard nor seen him: but the acacia tree was
out of sight of the front entrance.
"I have been telling Mr. Cattacomb--he came to me in the heat, on
business of St. Jerome's--that you will be charitable enough to give
him some dinner," said Miss Blake, introducing Mr. Cattacomb to Sir
Karl in form--for it was the first time he had met that reverend man.
Of course Karl could only return a civil answer; but he had not been
at all anxious for the acquaintanceship of Mr. Cattacomb, and was
determined not to treat him precisely as though he had been an invited
guest.
"I think you may perhaps prefer to take in your friend Miss Blake, as
Lady Andinnian is a stranger to you," he said, when Hewitt announced
dinner. "We are not on ceremony now."
And Sir Karl caught his wife's hand within his. "I was not going to
leave you to _him_, Lucy," he whispered.
So they went parading in to dinner arm-in-arm, this estranged man and
wife, brushing past Hewitt and the tall new footman, who wore powdered
hair.
"It is just as though he did care for me!" thought Lucy, glancing at
her husband as he placed her in her seat at the table's head.
Mr. Cattacomb and Miss Blake, seated opposite each other, talked a
great deal, Karl scarcely at all. When alone, the dinners at the Court
were simply served, Sir Karl carving. He was attentive to his
impromptu guest, and sent him of the best: but he thought he had never
in all his life been in company with so affected and vain a man as
that belauded clergyman. Once, with the fish before him, Karl fell
into a reverie. He woke up with a start, looking about him like a man
bewildered.
"Some more fish, Lucy, my darling?"
Lucy's plate had gone away long before. They all saw that he had been,
so to speak, unconscious of what he said. He rallied then; and did not
lose himself again.
Dinner over, Mr. Cattacomb, making an apology, hurried away for some
slight service at St. Jerome's, Miss Blake accompanying him as a
matter of course. Lucy disappeared: and Karl, thus abandoned, went to
his smoking-room. Not to smoke; but to muse upon the acute angles of
his position--as he was too much given to do. Karl Andinnian was as a
man in a net: as things looked at present, there seemed to be no
chance of freedom from it, no hope of it at present or in the future.
And his ill-fated brother again! The past night he, Karl, had dreamt
one of those ugly dreams. He thought he saw Adam fleeing from his
pursuers; a number of them, and they all looked like warders of
Portland Prison. Panting, crying, Adam rushed in, seized hold of Karl,
and begged him, as he valued salvation hereafter, to hide and save
him. But the warders burst in and surrounded them. Poor Karl woke up
as usual in fright and agony. This dream had been recurring to his
mind all day: it was very vivid now in the silent evening hour after
sunset.
"I'd give my life to place him in safety," ran his thoughts. "Not much
of a gift, either, for I verily believe this constant, distressing
suspense will kill me. If he were but safe in some distant land! He
might--Why, what is Lucy doing?"
Opposite this south window there was a beautiful vista through the
trees of the grounds beyond. Sir Karl had seen his wife running
swiftly from one walk to another, and suddenly stoop--as he fancied.
Looking still, he found she did not get up again.
"She must have fallen," he exclaimed, and rushed out.
He was with her in a minute. She was getting up after her fall, but
her ankle felt intolerably painful. Karl was very tender: he had her
in his arms, and took her to a leafy arbour close by. There he put her
to sit down, and held her to him for support.
"I have twisted my ankle," she said. "It's nothing."
But the tears of pain stood in her eyes. He soothed her as he would
have soothed her in the bygone days; holding her in his firm
protection, whispering terms of sweet endearment. What with the
ankle's sharp twinges, what with his loving words, and what with her
chronic state of utter wretchedness, poor Lucy burst into sobs, and
sobbed them out upon his breast.
"My darling! The ankle is giving you pain."
"The ankle's nothing," she said. "It will soon be well." But she lay
there still and sobbed pitiably. He waited in silence until she should
grow calmer, his arm round her. A distant nightingale was singing its
love-song.
"Lucy," began Karl, then, "I would ask you--now that we seem to be for
the moment alone with the world and each other--whether there is any
_sense_ in living in the way we do? Is there any happiness for either
of us? I want you to forgive all, and be reconciled: I want you to see
the matter in its proper light, apart from prejudice. The past is past
and cannot be recalled: but it leaves no just reason in the sight of
God or man for our living in estrangement."
Her head was hidden against him still. She did not lift her eyes as
she whispered her answer.
"Is there no reason for it now, Karl? Now, at the present time. None?"
"No. As I see it, NO; on my word of honour as a gentleman. The notion
you have taken up is an unsound and utterly mistaken one. You had
grave cause to complain: granted: to resent; I admit it all: but
surely it was not enough to justify the rending asunder of man and
wife. The past cannot be undone--Heaven knows I would undo it if I
could. But there is no just cause for your visiting the future upon me
in this way, and making us both pay a heavy penalty. Won't you forgive
and forget? Won't you be my own dear wife again? Oh, Lucy, I am full
of trouble, and I want your sympathy to lighten it."
Her whole heart yearned to him. He drew her face to his and kissed her
lips with the sweetest kisses. In the bliss and rest that the
reconciliation brought to her spirit, Lucy momentarily forgot all
else. Her kisses met his; her tears wet his cheeks. What with one
emotion and another--pain, anguish, grief and bliss, the latter
uppermost--poor Lucy felt faint. The bitter past was effaced from her
memory: the change seemed like a glimpse of Paradise. It all passed in
a moment, or so, of time.
"Oh, Karl, I should like to be your wife again!" she confessed. "The
estrangement we are living in is more cruel for me than for you. Shall
it be so?"
"Shall it!" repeated Karl. "Is there need to ask me, Lucy?"
"It lies with you."
"With me! Why, how? How does it lie with me? You know, my darling----"
A slight ruffle, as if some one were brushing past the shrubs in the
opposite path, caused Sir Karl to withdraw his arm from his wife. Miss
Blake came up: a note in her hand. Sir Karl politely, in thought,
wished Miss Blake at York.
"As I was coming in, Sir Karl, I overtook a woman with this note,
which she was bringing you. It was the servant at the Maze--or some
one very like her."
Miss Blake looked full at Sir Karl as she spoke, wishing no doubt that
looks were daggers. She had added the little bit of information, as to
the messenger, for Lucy's especial benefit. Karl thanked her coolly,
and crushed the note, unopened, into his pocket. Lucy, shy, timid
Lucy, was limping away. Miss Blake saw something was wrong and held
out her arm.
"What is the matter, Lucy? You are in pain! You have been crying!"
"I slipped and hurt my ankle, Theresa. It was foolish to cry, though.
The pain is much less already."
Miss Blake helped her indoors in lofty silence. Anything like the
contempt she felt for the weakness of Lucy Andinnian, she perhaps had
never felt for any one before in all her life. Not for the weakness of
crying at a hurt: though that was more befitting a child than a woman:
but for the reprehensible weakness she was guilty of in living on
terms of affection with her husband. "Must even sit in a garden arbour
together hand in hand, listening to the nightingales," shrieked Miss
Blake mentally, with rising hair. "And yet--she knows what I disclosed
to her!"
The note was from Mrs. Grey. Had Miss Blake herself presided at its
opening, she could not reasonably have found fault with it. Mrs. Grey
presented her compliments to Sir Karl Andinnian, and would feel
obliged by his calling to see her as soon as convenient, as she wished
to speak with him on a little matter of business concerning the house.
There was nothing more. But Karl knew, by the fact of her venturing on
the extreme step of writing to the Court, that he was wanted at the
Maze for something urgent. It was several days since he had been
there: for he could not divest himself of the feeling that some one of
these nightly visits of his, more unlucky than the rest, might bring
on suspicion and betrayal. To his uneasy mind there was danger in
every surrounding object. The very sound of the wind in the trees
seemed to whisper it to him as he passed; hovering shades of phantom
shape glanced out to his fancy from the hedges.
He stayed a short while pacing his garden, and then went indoors. It
was getting dusk. Miss Blake had her things off and was alone in the
drawing-room. The tea waited on the table.
"Where's Lucy?" he asked.
"She went to her room to have her ankle seen to. I would have done
anything for her, but she declined my services."
Karl knocked at his wife's little sitting-room door, and entered. She
was leaning on the window-sill, and said her ankle felt much better
after the warm water, and since Aglaé had bound it up. Karl took her
hand.
"We were interrupted, Lucy, when I was asking an important question,"
he began--"for indeed I think I must have misunderstood you. How does
the putting an end to our estrangement lie with me?"
"It does lie with you, Karl," she answered, speaking feelingly and
pleasantly, not in the cold tone of reserve she had of late maintained
when they were alone. "The estrangement is miserable for me; you say
it is for you; and the efforts we have to make, to keep up the farce
before the household and the world, make it doubly miserable for both
of us. We cannot undo our marriage: but to continue to live as we are
living is most unsatisfactory and deplorable."
"But it is you who insisted on living so, Lucy--to my surprise and
pain."
"Could I do otherwise?" she rejoined. "It is a most unhappy business
altogether: and at times I am tempted to wish that it had been always
kept from me. As you say--and I am willing to believe you, and do
believe you--the past is past: but you know how much of the
consequences remain. It seems to me that I must give way a little:
perhaps, having taken my vows as your wife, it may be what I ought to
do; a duty even in God's sight."
"Do you recollect your words to me on the eve of our wedding-day,
Lucy, when I was speaking of the possibility that a deeper blow might
fall: one that would dishonour us both in the world's eyes, myself
primarily, you through me, and cause you to repent of our union? You
should never repent, you said; you took me for richer for poorer, for
better or for worse."
"But I did not know the blow would be of this kind," murmured Lucy.
"Still, I will do as you wish me--forget and forgive. At least if I
cannot literally forget, for that would not be practicable, it shall
be as though I did, for I will never allude to it by word or deed.
That will be my concession, Karl. You must make one on your side."
"Willingly. What is it?"
"Clear the Maze immediately of its tenants."
He gave a slight start, knitting his brow. Lucy saw the proposal was
unpalatable.
"Their being there is an insult to me, Karl," she softly said, as if
beseeching the boon. "You must get them away."
"I cannot, Lucy," he answered, his face wrung with pain. "I wish I
could! Don't you understand that I have no control over this?"
"I think I understand," she said, her manner growing cold. "You have
said as much before. Why can you not? It seems to me, if things be as
you intimate, that the matter would be easily accomplished. You need
only show firmness."
He thought haw little she understood. But he could not bear to enlarge
upon it, and said nothing.
"There are houses enough, and to spare, in the world, Karl."
"Plenty of them."
"Then why not let the Maze be left?"
"More things than one are against it, Lucy. There are wheels within
wheels," he added, thinking of Smith the mysterious agent. "One great
element against it is the risk--the danger."
"Danger of exposure, do you mean?"
"Of discovery. Yes."
Never had Karl Andinnian and his wife been so near coming to an
enlightenment on the misunderstanding that lay between them and their
peace. It passed off--just as many another good word passes off,
unsaid, in life.
"My hands are tied, Lucy. If wishing the Maze empty would effect it,
it would be vacant to-morrow. I can do nothing."
"I understand," she said bitterly, even as she had said once before,
all the old resentful indignation rising up within her. "I understand,
Sir Karl. There are complications, entanglements; and you cannot free
yourself from them."
"Precisely so."
"_Is_ the sin of the past?" she asked with flashing eyes and a rising
colour; her voice betraying her frame of mind. He gazed at her, unable
to understand.
"Why of course it is past, Lucy. What can you mean?"
"Oh, you know, you know. Never mind. We must go on again as we have
been going on."
"No, Lucy."
"YES, Sir Karl. As long as those people remain in the Maze, tacitly to
insult me, I will never be more to you than I am now."
It was a strangely harsh decision; and one he could not account for.
He asked for her reasons in detail, but she would not give any. All
she said further was, that if he felt dissatisfied, she could--and
should--seek the protection of her father and declare the truth.
So they parted again as they had parted before. Hemmed in on all
sides, afraid to move an inch to the left or the right, Karl could
only submit; he could do nothing.
"I was charged by Miss Blake to tell you that tea is ready," he said,
turning on his heel to quit the room.
"Ask her to send me a cup by Aglaé, please. I shall stay here to rest
my ankle." And as Karl closed the door upon her, poor Lucy burst into
a flood of tears, and sobbed as though her heart would break.
Underlying all else in her mind was a keen sense of insult, of slight,
of humiliation: and she asked herself whether she ought to bear it.
Pacing the gravel path round the trees of the Maze after dark had
fallen--as much dark as a summer's night ever gives us--were Karl
Andinnian and Mrs. Grey. She, expecting him, went to wait for him just
within the gate: as she did the evening Miss Blake had the
satisfaction of watching and seeing. It was a still, hot night, and
Mrs. Grey proposed that they should walk round the outer circle once,
before going in: for she had things to say to him.
"Why have you 'kept away these last few days, Karl?" she asked, taking
the arm he offered her. "Adam has been so vexed and impatient over it:
but I should not have ventured to write to you for only that--I hope
you were not angry with me."
He told her he was not angry. He told her why he had kept away--that
an instinct warned him it might be imprudent to come in too often. It
seemed to him, he added, that the very hedges had eyes to watch him.
She shivered a little, as though some chill of damp had struck her;
and proceeded to relate what she had to say.
By a somewhat singular coincidence, a copy of the same newspaper that
contained the mysterious paragraph had been bought at the little
newsvendor's in Foxwood by Ann Hopley, who was fond of reading the
news when her day's work was over. She saw the paragraph, took alarm,
and showed it to her master and mistress.
"It has nearly frightened me to death, Karl," said Mrs. Grey. "The
paper was a week old when Ann bought it: and I am glad it was, or I
should have been living upon thorns longer than I have been."
He told her that he had seen it. And he did what he could to reassure
her, saying it was probably but an unmeaning assertion, put in from
dearth of news.
"That is just what Mr. Smith says," she replied. "He thinks it is from
the brain of some poor penny-a-liner."
"Mr. Smith!" exclaimed Karl. "How do you know?"
"Adam would see him about it, and I sent for him. He, Smith, says
there's nothing for it now but staying here; and Adam seems to be of
the same opinion."
"Were you present at their interview?"
"No. I never am. The man is keeping us here for purposes of his own. I
feel sure of it. He has been a good friend to us in many ways: I don't
know what we should have done without him; but it is his fault that we
are staying on here."
"Undoubtedly it is."
"Adam is just as careless and gay as ever in manner, but I think the
announcement in the newspaper has made him secretly uneasy. He is not
well to-night."
"What is the matter with him?"
"It is some inward pain: he has complained of it more than once
lately. And he has been angry and impatient of an evening because you
did not come. It is so lonely for him, you know."
"I do know it, Rose. Nothing brings me here at all but that."
"It was he who at last made me write to you to-day. I was not sorry to
do it, for I had wanted to see you myself and to talk to you. I think
I have discovered something that may be useful; at least that we may
turn to use. First of all--Do you remember a year or two ago there was
a public stir about one Philip Salter?"
"No. Who is Philip Salter?"
"Philip Salter committed a great crime: forgery, I think: and he
escaped from the hands of the police as they were bringing him to
London by rail. I have nearly a perfect recollection of it," continued
Mrs. Grey, "for my uncle and aunt took great interest in it, because
they knew one of the people whom Salter had defrauded. He was never
retaken. At least, I never heard of it."
"How long ago was this?"
"More than two years. It was in spring-time, I think."
Karl Andinnian threw his recollection back. The name, Philip Salter,
certainly seemed to begin to strike on some remote chord of his
memory; but he had completely forgotten its associations.
"What of him, Rose?" he asked.
"This," she answered, her voice taking even a lower tone: "I should
not be surprised if this Mr. Smith is the escaped man, Philip Salter!
I think he may be."
"This man, Smith, Philip Salter!" exclaimed Karl. "But what grounds
have you for thinking it?"
"I will tell you. When Mr. Smith came over a day or two ago, it was in
the evening, growing dusk. Adam saw him in the upstairs room. They
stood at the window--perhaps for the sake of the light, and seemed to
be looking over some memorandum paper. I was walking about outside,
and saw them. All at once something fell down from the window. I ran
to pick it up, and found it was a pocket-book, lying open. Mr. Smith
shouted out, 'Don't touch it, Mrs. Grey: don't trouble yourself,' and
came rushing down the stairs. But I had picked it up, Karl; and I saw
written inside it the name, Philip Salter. Without the least intention
or thought of prying, I saw it: 'Philip Salter.' Mr. Smith was up with
me the next moment, and I gave him the pocket-book, closed:"
"His Christian name is certainly Philip," observed Karl after a pause
of thought. "I have seen his signature to receipts for rent--'Philip
Smith.' This is a strange thing, Rose."
"Yes--if it be true. While he is planted here, spying upon Adam, he
may be hiding from justice himself, a criminal."
Karl was in deep thought. "Was the name in the pocket-book on the
fly-leaf, Rose--as though it were the owner's name?"
"I think so, but I cannot be sure. It was at the top of a leaf
certainly. If we could but find it out--find that it is so, it might
prove to be a way of release from him," she added; "I mean some way or
other of release might come of it. Oh, and think of the blessing of
feeling free! I am sure that, but for him, Adam would contrive to
escape to a safer land."
There was no time to say more. The night was drawing on, and Karl had
to go in to his impatient brother. Impatient! What should we have been
in his place? Poor Adam Andinnian! In his banned, hidden, solitary
days, what interlude had he to look forward to but these occasional
visits from Karl?
"I will think it over, Rose, and try and find something out," said
Karl as they went in. "Have you told Adam?"
"No. He is so hot and impulsive, you know. I thought it best to speak
to you first."
"Quite right. Say nothing to him at present."
In quitting the Maze that evening, Adam, in spite of all Karl could
say or do, would walk with him to the gate: only laughing when Karl
called it dangerous recklessness. There were moments when the same
doubt crossed Karl's mind that had been once suggested to him by Mr.
Plunkett--Was Adam always and altogether sane? This moment, was one.
He absolutely stood at the gate, talking and laughing in an undertone,
as Karl went through it.
"Rubbish, Karlo, old fellow," said he to the last remonstrance. "It's
a dark night, and not a soul within miles of us. Besides, who knows me
here?"
Karl had locked the gate and was putting the key in his pocket, when a
sound smote his ear and he turned it to listen. The tramp, tramp, as
of policemen walking with measured steps was heard, coming from the
direction of the railway-station, and with it the scuffle and hum of a
besetting crowd. It brought into his mind with a rush and a whirl that
fatal night some twelve months before, when he had heard the tramp of
policemen on the other side the hedge--and their prisoner, though he
knew it not, was his brother, Adam Andinnian.
"Adam, do you hear!" he cried hoarsely. "For the love of heaven, hide
yourself." And Sir Adam disappeared in the Maze.
What with the past recollection, what with his brother's near
presence, what with the approach of these police--as he took them to
be--what with the apprehension ever overlying his heart, Karl was
seized with a panic of terror. Were they coming in search of Adam? He
thought so: and all the agony that he often went over in his dreams,
he suffered now in waking reality. The hubbub of exposure; the public
disgrace; the renewed hard life for him at Portland Island; even
perhaps--Karl's imagination was vivid just then--the scaffold in the
distance as an ending! These visions surging through his brain, Karl
flew to the other side of the road--lest his being on the side of the
Maze might bring suspicion on it--and then walked quietly to his own
entrance gates. There he stood, and turned to await the event, his
head beating, his pulses leaping.
With a relief that no tongue could express, Karl saw them pass the
Maze and come onwards. Presently, in the night's imperfect light, he
distinguished a kind of covered stretcher, or hand-barrow, borne by a
policeman and other men, a small mob following.
"Is anything amiss!" he asked, taking a few steps into the road, and
speaking in the quietest tones he could just then command.
"It's poor Whittle, Sir Karl," replied the policeman--who knew him.
There were a few scattered cottages skirting the wood beyond the
Court, and Karl recognized the name, Whittle, as that of a man who
lived in one of them and worked at the railway-station.
"Is he ill?" asked Karl.
"He is dead, Sir Karl. He was missed from his work in the middle of
the afternoon and not found till an hour ago: there he was, stretched
out in the field, dead. We got Mr. Moore round, and he thinks it must
have been a sun-stroke."
"What a sad thing!" cried Karl, in his pitying accents. "Does his wife
know?"
"We've sent on to prepare her, poor woman! There's four or five little
children, Sir Karl, more's the pity!"
"Ay; I know there are some. Tell her I will come in and see her in the
morning."
A murmur of approbation at the last words arose from the bystanders.
It seemed to them an earnest that the new baronet, Sir Karl, would
turn out to be a kind and considerate man; as good for them perhaps as
Sir Joseph had been.
He listened to the tramp, tramp, until it had died away, and then
turned in home with all his trouble and care: determined to search the
newspapers--filed by Sir Joseph--before he went to rest, for some
particulars of this Philip Salter.
"Oh that Adam were but safe in some less dangerous land!" was the
refrain, ever eating itself into his brain.