STRANGE COMPLICATIONS.
Exert all the powers of your mind, and conceive, if you can, what that
mother felt whose only son sickened, and, after racking her heart with
hopes and fears, died before her eyes, and was placed in his coffin and
carried to his rest. Yet One in the likeness of a man bade the bearers
stand still, then, with a touch, made the coffin open, the dead come
back, blooming with youth and health, and handed him to his mother.
That picture no mortal mind can realize; but the effort will take you
so far as this: you may imagine what Walter Clifford felt when, almost
at the climax of despair, he received from that living tomb the good
and beautiful creature who was the light of his eyes and the darling of
his heart.
How he gloated on her! How he murmured words of comfort and joy over her
as the cage carried her and Hope and him up again into the blessed
sunshine! And there, what a burst of exultation and honest rapture
received them!
Everybody was there. The news of Hope's signal had been wired to the
surface. An old original telegraph had been set up by Colonel Clifford,
and its arms set flying to tell him. That old campaigner was there, with
his spring break and mattresses, and an able physician. Bartley was
there, pale and old, and trembling, and crying. He fell on his knees
before Hope and Grace. She drew back from him with repulsion; but he
cried out, "No matter! no matter! They are saved! they are saved!"
Walter carried her to his father, and left Bartley kneeling. Then he
dashed back for Hope, who did not move, and found him on his knees
insensible. A piece of coal, driven by one of the men's picks, had struck
him on the temple. The gallant fellow had tried to hide his hurt with his
handkerchief, but the handkerchief was soaked with blood, and the man,
exhausted by hunger, violent emotions, and this last blow, felt neither
his trouble nor his joy. He was lifted with tender pity into the break,
and the blood stanched, and stimulants applied by the doctor. But Grace
would have his head on her bosom, and her hand in Walter's. Fortunately,
the doctor was no other than that physician who had attended Colonel
Clifford in his dangerous attack of internal gout. We say fortunately,
for patients who have endured extremities of hunger have to be treated
with very great skill and caution. Gentle stimulants and mucilages must
precede solid food, and but a little of anything be taken at a time.
Doctor Garner began his treatment in the very break. The first spoonful
of egg and brandy told upon Grace Hope. Her deportment had been strange.
She had seemed confused at times, and now and then she would cast a look
of infinite tenderness upon Walter, and then again she would knit her
brow and seem utterly puzzled.
But now she gave Walter a look that brought him nearer to her, and she
said, with a heavenly smile, "You love me best; better than the other."
Then she began to cry over her father.
"Better than the other," said Walter, aloud. "What other?"
"Be quiet," said the doctor. "Do you really think her stomach can be
empty for six days, and her head be none the worse? Come, my dear,
another spoonful. Good girl! Now et me look at you, Mr. Walter."
"Why, what is the matter with _him_?" said the Colonel. "I never saw him
look better in all my life."
"Indeed! Red spots on his cheek-bones, ditto on his temples, and his
eyes glaring."
"Excitement and happiness," said Walter.
The doctor took no notice of him. "He has been outraging nature,"
said he, "and she will have her revenge. We are not out of the wood
yet, Colonel Clifford, and you had better put them all three under
my command."
"I do, my good friend; I do," said Colonel Clifford, eagerly. "It is your
department, and I don't believe in two commanders."
They drew up at the great door of Clifford Hall. It seemed to open of
itself, and there were all the servants drawn up in two lines.
They all showed eager sympathy, but only John Baker and Mrs. Milton
ventured to express it. "God bless you all!" said Colonel Clifford. "But
it is our turn now. They are all in the doctor's hands. My whole
household obey him to the letter. It is my order. Doctor Garner, this is
Mrs. Milton, my housekeeper. You will find her a good lieutenant."
"Mrs. Milton," said the doctor, sharply, "warm baths in three rooms, and
to bed with this lot. Carry Mr. Hope up; he is my first patient. Bring me
eggs, milk, brandy, new port-wine. Cook!"
"Sir?"
"Hammer three chickens to pieces with your rolling-pin, then mince them;
then chuck them into a big pot with cold water, stew them an hour, and
then boil them to a jelly, strain, and serve. Meantime, send up three
slices of mutton half raw; we will do a little chewing, not much."
The patients submitted like lambs, only Walter grumbled a little, but at
last confessed to a headache and sudden weariness.
Julia Clifford took special charge of Grace Hope, the doctor of William
Hope, and Colonel Clifford sat by Walter, congratulating, soothing, and
encouraging him, until he began to doze.
* * * * *
Doctor Garner's estimate of his patients proved correct. The next day
Walter was in a raging fever.
Hope remained in a pitiable state of weakness, and Grace, who in theory
was the weaker vessel, began to assist Julia in nursing them both. To be
sure, she was all whip-cord and steel beneath her delicate skin, and had
always been active and temperate. And then she was much the youngest, and
the constitutions of such women are anything but weak. Still, it was a
most elastic recovery from a great shock.
But the more her body recovered its strength, and her brain its
clearness, the more was her mind agitated and distressed.
Her first horrible anxiety was for Walter's life. The doctor showed no
fear, but that might be his way.
It was a raging fever, with all the varieties that make fever terrible to
behold. He was never left without two attendants; and as Hope was in no
danger now, though pitiably weak and slowly convalescent, Grace was often
one of Walter's nurses. So was Julia Clifford. He sometimes recognized
them for a little while, and filled their loving hearts with hope. But
the next moment he was off into the world of illusions, and sometimes
could not see them. Often he asked for Grace most piteously when she was
looking at him through her tears, and trying hard to win him to her with
her voice. On these occasions he always called her Mary. One unlucky day
that Grace and Julia were his only attendants he became very restless and
wild, said he had committed a great crime, and the scaffold was being
prepared for him. "Hark!" said he; "don't you hear the workmen? Curse
their hammers; their eternal tip-tapping goes through my brain. The
scaffold! What would the old man say? A Clifford hung! Never! I'll save
him and myself from that."
Then he sprang out of bed and made a rush at the window. It was open,
unluckily, and he had actually got his knee through when Grace darted to
him and seized him, screaming to Julia to help her. Julia did her best,
especially in the way of screaming. Grace's muscle and resolution impeded
the attempt no more; slowly, gradually, he got both knees upon the
window-sill. But the delay was everything. In came a professional nurse.
She flung her arms round Walter's waist and just hung back with all her
weight. As she was heavy, though not corpulent, his more active strength
became quite valueless; weight and position defeated him hopelessly; and
at last he sank exhausted into the nurse's arms, and she and Grace
carried him to bed like a child.
Of course, when it was all over, half a dozen people came to the rescue.
The woman told what had happened, the doctor administered a soothing
draught, the patient became very quiet, then perspired a little, then
went to sleep, and the cheerful doctor declared that he would be all the
better for what he called this little outbreak. But Grace sat there
quivering for hours, and Colonel Clifford installed two new nurses that
very evening. They were pensioners of his--soldiers who had been
invalided from wounds, but had long recovered, and were neither of them
much above forty. They had some experience, and proved admirable
nurses--quiet, silent, vigilant as sentinels.
That burst of delirium was the climax. Walter began to get better
after that. But a long period of convalescence was before him; and the
doctor warned them that convalescence has its very serious dangers,
and that they must be very careful, and, above all, not irritate nor
even excite him.
All this time torments of another kind had been overpowered but never
suppressed in poor Grace's mind; and these now became greater as Walter's
danger grew less and less.
What would be the end of all this? Here she was installed, to her
amazement, in Clifford Hall, as Walter's wife, and treated, all of a
sudden, with marked affection and respect by Colonel Clifford, who had
hitherto seemed to abhor her. But it was all an illusion; the whole house
of cards must come tumbling down some day.
Some days before the event last described Hope had said to her,
"My child, this is no place for you and me."
"No more it is, papa," said Grace. "I know that too well."
"Then why did you let them bring us here?"
"Papa," said Grace, "I forgot all about _that_."
"Forgot it!"
"It seems incredible, does it not? But what I saw and felt thrust what I
had only heard out of my mind. Oh, papa! you were insensible, poor dear;
but if you had only seen Walter Clifford when he saved us! I took him for
some giant miner. He seemed ever so much bigger than the gentleman I
loved--ay, and I shall love him to my dying day, whether or not he
has--But when he sprang to my side, and took me with his bare, bleeding
arms to his heart, that panted so, I thought his heart would burst, and
mine, too, could I feel another woman between us. All that might be true,
but it was unreal. That he loved me, and had saved me, _that_ was real.
And when we sat together in the carriage, your poor bleeding head upon my
bosom, and his hand grasping mine, and his sweet eyes beaming with love
and joy, what could I realize except my father's danger and my husband's
mighty love? I was all present anxiety and present bliss. His sin and my
alarms seemed hundreds of miles off, and doubtful. And even since I have
been here, see how greater and nearer things have overpowered me. Your
deadly weakness--you, who were strong, poor dear--oh, let me kiss you,
dear darling--till you had saved your child; Walter's terrible danger.
Oh, my dear father, spare me. How can a poor, weak woman think of such
different woes, and realize and suffer them all at once? Spare me, dear
father, spare me! Let me see you stronger; let me see _him_ safe, and
then let us think of that other cruel thing, and what we ought to say to
Colonel Clifford, and what we ought to do, and where we are to go."
"My poor child," said Hope, faintly, with tears in his eyes, "I say no
more. Take your own time."
Grace did not abuse this respite. So soon as the doctor declared Walter
out of immediate danger, and indeed safe, if cautiously treated, she
returned of her own accord to the miserable subject that had been
thrust aside.
After some discussion, they both agreed that they must now confide their
grief to Colonel Clifford, and must quit his home, and make him master of
the situation, and sole depository of the terrible secret for a time.
Hope wished to make the revelation, and spare his daughter that pain. She
assented readily and thankfully.
This was a woman's first impulse--to put a man forward.
But by-and-by she had one of her fits of hard thinking, and saw that
such a revelation ought not to be made by one straightforward man to
another, but with all a woman's soothing ways. Besides, she had already
discovered that the Colonel had a great esteem and growing affection for
her; and, in short, she felt that if the blow could be softened by
anybody, it was by her.
Her father objected that she would encounter a terrible trial, from
which he could save her; but she entreated him, and he yielded to her
entreaty, though against his judgment.
When this was settled, nothing remained but to execute it.
Then the woman came uppermost, and Grace procrastinated for one
insufficient reason and another.
However, at last she resolved that the very next day she would ask John
Baker to get her a private interview with Colonel Clifford in his study.
This resolution had not been long formed when that very John Baker tapped
at Mr. Hope's door, and brought her a note from Colonel Clifford asking
her if she could favor him with a visit in his study.
Grace said, "Yes, Mr. Baker, I will come directly."
As soon as Baker was gone she began to bemoan her weak procrastination,
and begged her father's pardon for her presumption in taking the matter
out of his hands. "You would not have put it off a day. Now, see what I
have done by my cowardice."
Hope did not see what she had done, and the quick-witted young lady
jumping at once at a conclusion, opened her eyes and said,
"Why, don't you see? Some other person has told him what it was so
important he should hear first from me. Ah! it is the same gentleman that
came and warned me. He has heard that we are actually married, for it is
the talk of the place, and he told me she would punish him if he
neglected her warning. Oh, what shall I do?"
"You go too fast, Grace, dear. Don't run before trouble like that. Come,
go to Colonel Clifford, and you will find it is nothing of the kind."
Grace shook her head grandly. Experience had given her faith in her own
instincts, as people call them--though they are subtle reasonings the
steps of which are not put forward--and she went down to the study.
"Grace, my dear," said the Colonel, "I think I shall have a fit of
the gout."
"Oh no," said Grace. "We have trouble enough."
"It gets less every day, my dear; that is one comfort. But what I meant
was that our poor invalids eclipse me entirely in your good graces. That
is because you are a true woman, and an honor to your sex. But I should
like to see a little more of you. Well, all in good time. I didn't send
for you to tell you that. Sit down, my girl; it is a matter of business."
Grace sat down, keenly on her guard, though she did not show it in the
least. Colonel Clifford resumed,
"You may be sure that nothing has been near my heart for some time but
your danger and my dear son's. Still, I owe something to other sufferers,
and the poor widows whose husbands have perished in that mine have cried
to me for vengeance on the person who bribed that Burnley. I am a
magistrate, too, and duty must never be neglected. I have got detectives
about, and I have offered five hundred guineas reward for the discovery
of the villain. One Jem Davies described him to me, and I put the
description on the placard and in the papers. But now I learn that
Davies's description is all second-hand. He had it from you. Now, I must
tell you that a description at second-hand always misses some part or
other. As a magistrate, I never encourage Jack to tell me what Jill says
when I can get hold of Jill. You are Jill, my dear, so now please verify
Jack's description or correct it. However, the best way will be to give
me your own description before I read you his."
"I will," said Grace, very much relieved. "Well, then, he was a man not
over forty, thin, and with bony fingers; an enormous gold ring on the
little finger of his right hand. He wore a suit of tweed, all one color,
rather tight, and a vulgar neck-handkerchief, almost crimson. He had a
face like a corpse, and very thin lips. But the most remarkable things
were his eyes and his eyebrows. His eyes were never still, and his brows
were very black, and not shaped like other people's; they were neither
straight, like Julia Clifford's, for instance, nor arched like Walter's;
that is to say, they were arched, but all on one side. Each brow began
quite high up on the temple, and then came down in a slanting drop to the
bridge of the nose, and lower than the bridge. There, if you will give me
a pencil I will draw you one of his eyebrows in a minute."
She drew the eyebrow with masterly ease and rapidity.
"Why, that is the eyebrow of Mephistopheles."
"And so it is," said Grace, naïvely. "No wonder it did not seem
human to me."
"I am sorry to say it is human. You can see it in every convict jail.
But," said he, "how came this villain to sit to you for his portrait?"
"He did not, sir. But when he was struggling with me to keep me from
rescuing my father--"
"What! did the ruffian lay hands on you?"
"That he did, and so did Mr. Bartley. But the villain was the leader of
it all; and while he was struggling with me--"
"You were taking stock of him? Well, they talk of a Jew's eye; give me a
woman's. My dear, the second-hand description is not worth a button. I
must write fresh notices from yours, and, above all, instruct the
detectives. You have given me information that will lead to that man's
capture. As for the gold ring and the tweed suit, they disappeared into
space when my placard went up, you may be sure of that, and a felon can
paint his face. But his eyes and eyebrows will do him. They are the mark
of a jail-bird. I am a visiting justice, and have often noticed the
peculiarity. Draw me his eyebrows, and we will photograph them in Derby;
and my detectives shall send copies to Scotland Yard and all the convict
prisons. We'll have him."
The Colonel paused suddenly in his triumphant prediction, and said, "But
what was that you let fall about Bartley? He was no party to this foul
crime. Why, he has worked night and day to save you and Hope. Indeed, you
both owe your lives to him."
"Indeed!"
"Yes. He set the men on to save you within ten minutes of the explosion.
He bought rope by the mile, and great iron buckets to carry up the débris
that was heaped up between you and the working party. He raved about the
pit day and night lamenting his daughter and his friend; and why I say he
saved you, 'twas he who advised Walter. I had this from Walter himself
before his fever came on. He advised and implored him not to attempt to
clear the whole shaft, but to pick sideways into the mine twenty feet
from the ground. He told Walter that he never really slept at night, and
in his dreams saw you in a part of the mine he calls the hall. Now,
Walter says that but for this advice they would have been two days more
getting to you."
"We should have been dead," said Grace, gravely. Then she reflected.
"Colonel Clifford," said she, "I listened to that villain and Mr. Bartley
planning my father's destruction. Certainly every word Mr. Bartley _said_
was against it. He spoke of it with horror. Yet, somehow or other, that
wretched man obtained from him an order to send the man Burnley down the
mine, and what will you think when I tell you that he assisted the
villain to hinder me from going to the mine?" Then she told him the whole
scene, and how they shut her up in the house, and she had to go down a
curtain and burst through a quick-set hedge. But all the time she was
thinking of Walter's bigamy and how she was to reveal it; and she
related her exploits in such a cold, languid manner that it was hardly
possible to believe them.
Colonel Clifford could not help saying, "My dear, you have had a great
shock; and you have dreamt all this. Certainly you are a fine girl, and
broad-shouldered. I admire that in man or woman--but you are so delicate,
so refined, so gentle."
Grace blushed and said, languidly, "For all that, I am an athlete."
"An athlete, child?"
"Yes, sir. Mr. Bartley took care of that. He would never let me wear a
corset, and for years he made me do calisthenics under a master."
"Calisthenics?"
"That is a fine word for gymnastics." Then, with a double dose of
languor, "I can go up a loose rope forty feet, so it was nothing to me to
come down one. The hedge was the worst thing; but my father was in
danger, and my blood was up." She turned suddenly on the Colonel with a
flash of animation, "You used to keep race-horses, Walter told me." The
Colonel stared at this sudden turn.
"That I did," said he, "and a pretty penny they cost me."
"Well, sir, is not a race-horse a poor mincing thing until her blood gets
up galloping?"
"By Jove! you are right," said he, "she steps like a cat upon hot bricks.
But the comparison is not needed. Whatever statement Mrs. Walter Clifford
makes to me seriously is gospel to me, who already know enough of her to
respect her lightest word. Pray grant me this much, that Bartley is a
true penitent, for I have proof of it in this drawer. I'll show it you."
"No, no, please not," said Grace, in no little agitation. "Let me take
your word for that, as you have taken mine. Oh, sir, he is nothing to me
compared with what I thought you wished to say to me. But it is I who
must find the courage to say things that will wound you and me still
more. Colonel Clifford, pray do not be angry with me till you know all,
but indeed your house is not the place for my father or for me."
"Why not, madam," said the Colonel, stiffly, "since you are my
daughter-in-law?"
She did not reply.
"Ah!" said he, coloring high and rising from his chair. He began to walk
the room in some agitation. "You are right," said he; "I once affronted
you cruelly, unpardonably. Still, pray consider that you passed for
Bartley's daughter; that was my objection to you, and then I did not know
your character. But when I saw you come out pale and resolved to
sacrifice yourself to justice and another woman, that converted me at
once. Ask Julia what I said about you."
"I must interrupt you," said Grace. "I can not let such a man as you
excuse yourself to a girl of eighteen who has nothing but reverence for
you, and would love you if she dared."
"Then all I can say is that you are very mysterious, my dear, and I wish
you would speak out."
"I shall speak out soon enough," said Grace, solemnly, "now I have begun.
Colonel Clifford, you have nothing to reproach yourself with. No more
have I, for that matter. Yet we must both suffer." She hesitated a
moment, and then said, firmly, "You do me the honor to approve my conduct
in that dreadful situation. Did you hear all that passed? did you take
notice of all I said?"
"I did," said Colonel Clifford. "I shall never forget that scene, nor the
distress, nor the fortitude of her I am proud to call my daughter."
Grace put her hands before her face at these kind words, and he saw the
tears trickle between her white fingers. He began to wonder, and to feel
uneasy. But the brave girl shook off her tears, and manned herself, if
we may use such an expression.
"Then, sir," said she, slowly and emphatically, though quietly, "did
you not think it strange that I should say to my father, 'I don't
know?' He asked me before you all, 'Are you a wife?' Twice I said to my
father--to him I thought was my father--'I don't know.' Can you account
for that, sir?"
The Colonel replied, "I was so unable to account for it that I took Julia
Clifford's opinion on it directly, as we were going home."
"And what did she say?"
"Oh, she said it was plain enough. The fellow had forbidden you to own
the marriage, and you were an obedient wife; and, like women in general,
strong against other people, but weak against one."
"So that is a woman's reading of a woman," said Grace. "She will
sacrifice her honor, and her father's respect, and court the world's
contempt, and sully herself for life, to suit the convenience of a
husband for a few hours. My love is great, but it is not slavish or
silly. Do you think, sir, that I doubted for one moment Walter Clifford
would own me when he came home and heard what I had suffered? Did I think
him so unworthy of my love as to leave me under that stigma? Hardly. Then
why should I blacken Mrs. Walter Clifford for an afternoon, just to be
unblackened at night?"
"This is good sense," said the Colonel, "and the thing is a mystery. Can
you solve it?"
"You may be sure I can--and woe is me--I must."
She hung her head, and her hands worked convulsively.
"Sir," said she, after a pause, "suppose I could not tell the truth to
all those people without subjecting the man I loved--and I love him now
dearer than ever--to a terrible punishment for a mere folly done years
ago, which now has become something much worse than folly--but how?
Through his unhappy love for me!"
"These are dark words," said the Colonel. "How am I to understand them?"
"Dark as they are," said Grace, "do they not explain my conduct in that
bitter trial better than Julia Clifford's guesses do, better than
anything that has occurred since?"
"Mrs. Walter Clifford," said the Colonel, with a certain awe, "I see
there is something very grave here, and that it affects my son. I begin
to know you. You waited till he was out of danger; but now you do me the
honor to confide something to me which the world will not drag out of
you. So be it; I am a man and a soldier. I have faced cavalry, and I can
face the truth. What is it?"
"Colonel Clifford," said Grace, trembling like a leaf, "the truth will
cut you to the heart, and will most likely kill me. Now that I have gone
so far, you may well say, 'Tell it me;' but the words once past my lips
can never be recalled. Oh, what shall I do? What shall I do?"
The struggle overpowered her, and almost for the first time in her life
she turned half faint and yet hysterical; and such was her condition that
the brave Colonel was downright alarmed, and rang hastily for his people.
He committed her to the charge of Mrs. Milton. It seemed cruel to demand
any further explanation from her just then; so brave a girl, who had gone
so far with him, would be sure to tell him sooner or later. Meantime he
sat sombre and agitated, oppressed by a strange sense of awe and mystery,
and vague misgiving. While he brooded thus, a footman brought him in a
card upon a salver: "The Reverend Alleyn Meredith." "Do I know this
gentleman?" said the Colonel.
"I think not, sir," said the footman.
"What is he like?"
"Like a beneficed clergyman, sir."
Colonel Clifford was not in the humor for company; but it was not his
habit to say not at home when he was at home; and being a magistrate, he
never knew when a stranger sent in his card, that it might not be his
duty to see him; so he told the footman to say, "that he was in point of
fact engaged, but was at this gentleman's service for a few minutes."
The footman retired, and promptly ushered in a clergyman who seemed the
model of an archdeacon or a wealthy rector. Sleek and plump, without
corpulence, neat boots, clothes black and glossy, waistcoat up to the
throat, neat black gloves, a snowy tie, a face shaven like an egg, hair
and eyebrows grizzled, cheeks rubicund, but not empurpled, as one who
drank only his pint of port, but drank it seven days in the week.
Nevertheless, between you and us, this sleek, rosy personage, archdeacon
or rural dean down to the ground was Leonard Monckton, padded to the
nine, and tinted as artistically as any canvas in the world.
* * * * *
The first visit Monckton had paid to this neighborhood was to the mine.
He knew that was a dangerous visit, so he came at night as a decrepit old
man. He very soon saw two things which discouraged farther visits. One
was a placard describing his crime in a few words, and also his person
and clothes, and offering 500 guineas reward. As his pallor was
specified, he retired for a minute behind a tent, and emerged the color
of mahogany; he then pursued his observations, and in due course fell in
with the second warning. This was the body of a man lying upon the slack
at the pit mouth; the slack not having been added to for many days was
glowing very hot, and fired the night. The body he recognized
immediately, for the white face stared at him; it was Ben Burnley
undergoing cremation. To this the vindictive miners had condemned him;
they had sat on his body and passed a resolution, and sworn he should not
have Christian burial, so they managed to hide his corpse till the slack
got low, and then they brought him up at night and chucked him like a dog
on to the smouldering coal; one-half of him was charred away when
Monckton found him, but his face was yet untouched. Two sturdy miners
walked to and fro as sentinels, armed with hammers, and firmly resolved
that neither law nor gospel should interfere with this horrible example.
Even Monckton, the man of iron nerves, started back with a cry of dismay
at the sight and the smell.
One of the miners broke into a hoarse, uneasy laugh. "Yow needn't to
skirl, old man." he cried. "Yon's not a man; he's nobbut a murderer. He's
fired t' mine and made widows and orphans by t' score," "Ay," said the
other, "but there's a worse villain behoind, that found t' brass for t'
job and tempted this one. We'll catch him yet; ah, then we'll not trouble
judge, nor jury, nor hangman neether."
"The wretches!" said Monckton. "What! fire a mine! No punishment is
enough for them." With this sentiment he retired, and never went near the
mine again. He wired for a pal of his and established him at the Dun Cow.
These two were in constant communication. Monckton's friend was a very
clever gossip, and knew how to question without seeming curious, and the
gossiping landlady helped him. So, between them, Monckton heard that
Walter was down with a fever and not expected to live, and that Hope was
confined to his bed and believed to be sinking. Encouraged by this state
of things, Monckton made many artful preparations, and resolved to levy a
contribution upon Colonel Clifford.
At this period of his manoeuvres fortune certainly befriended him
wonderfully; he found Colonel Clifford alone, and likely to be
alone; and, at the same time, prepared by Grace Clifford's half
revelation, and violent agitation, to believe the artful tale this
villain came to tell him.