"Anyhow, my dear Handel," said he presently, "soldiering won't do. If

you were to renounce this patronage and these favors, I suppose you

would do so with some faint hope of one day repaying what you have

already had. Not very strong, that hope, if you went soldiering!

Besides, it's absurd. You would be infinitely better in Clarriker's

house, small as it is. I am working up towards a partnership, you know."

Poor fellow! He little suspected with whose money.

"But there is another question," said Herbert. "This is an ignorant,

determined man, who has long had one fixed idea. More than that, he

seems to me (I may misjudge him) to be a man of a desperate and fierce

Advertisement..

character."

"I know he is," I returned. "Let me tell you what evidence I have seen

of it." And I told him what I had not mentioned in my narrative, of that

encounter with the other convict.

"See, then," said Herbert; "think of this! He comes here at the peril

of his life, for the realization of his fixed idea. In the moment of

realization, after all his toil and waiting, you cut the ground from

under his feet, destroy his idea, and make his gains worthless to him.

Do you see nothing that he might do, under the disappointment?"

"I have seen it, Herbert, and dreamed of it, ever since the fatal night

of his arrival. Nothing has been in my thoughts so distinctly as his

putting himself in the way of being taken."

"Then you may rely upon it," said Herbert, "that there would be great

danger of his doing it. That is his power over you as long as he remains

in England, and that would be his reckless course if you forsook him."

I was so struck by the horror of this idea, which had weighed upon

me from the first, and the working out of which would make me regard

myself, in some sort, as his murderer, that I could not rest in my

chair, but began pacing to and fro. I said to Herbert, meanwhile, that

even if Provis were recognized and taken, in spite of himself, I should

be wretched as the cause, however innocently. Yes; even though I was so

wretched in having him at large and near me, and even though I would

far rather have worked at the forge all the days of my life than I would

ever have come to this!

But there was no staving off the question, What was to be done?




Most Popular