This was my wife's story, as I drew it from her among tears and sobs. Her
name was Clara Huddlestone: it sounded very beautiful in my ears; but not
so beautiful as that other name of Clara Cassilis, which she wore during
the longer and, I thank God, the happier portion of her life. Her father,
Bernard Huddlestone, had been a private banker in a very large way of
business. Many years before, his affairs becoming disordered, he had been
led to try dangerous, and at last criminal, expedients to retrieve himself
from ruin. All was in vain; he became more and more cruelly involved, and
found his honor lost at the same moment with his fortune. About this
period, Northmour had been courting his daughter with great assiduity,
though with small encouragement; and to him, knowing him thus disposed in
his favor, Bernard Huddlestone turned for help in his extremity. It was
not merely ruin and dishonor, nor merely a legal condemnation, that the
unhappy man had brought upon his head. It seems he could have gone to
prison with a light heart. What he feared, what kept him awake at night or
recalled him from slumber into frenzy, was some secret, sudden, and
unlawful attempt upon his life. Hence, he desired to bury his existence
and escape to one of the islands in the South Pacific, and it was in
Northmour's yacht, the "Red Earl," that he designed to go. The yacht
picked them up clandestinely upon the coast of Wales, and had once more
deposited them at Graden, till she could be refitted and provisioned for
the longer voyage. Nor could Clara doubt that her hand had been stipulated
as the price of passage. For, although Northmour was neither unkind, nor
even discourteous, he had shown himself in several instances somewhat
overbold in speech and manner.
I listened, I need not say, with fixed attention, and put many questions
as to the more mysterious part. It was in vain. She had no clear idea of
what the blow was, nor of how it was expected to fall. Her father's alarm
was unfeigned and physically prostrating, and he had thought more than
once of making an unconditional surrender to the police. But the scheme
was finally abandoned, for he was convinced that not even the strength of
our English prisons could shelter him from his pursuers. He had had many
affairs in Italy, and with Italians resident in London, in the latter
years of his business; and these last, as Clara fancied, were somehow
connected with the doom that threatened him. He had shown great terror at
the presence of an Italian seaman on board the "Red Earl," and had
bitterly and repeatedly accused Northmour in consequence. The latter had
protested that Beppo (that was the seaman's name) was a capital fellow,
and could be trusted to the death; but Mr. Huddlestone had continued ever
since to declare that all was lost, that it was only a question of days,
and that Beppo would be the ruin of him yet.
I regarded the whole story as the hallucination of a mind shaken by
calamity. He had suffered heavy loss by his Italian transactions; and
hence the sight of an Italian was hateful to him, and the principal part
in his nightmare would naturally enough be played by one of that nation.
"What your father wants," I said, "is a good doctor and some calming
medicine."
"But Mr. Northmour?" objected Clara. "He is untroubled by losses, and yet
he shares in this terror."