T. W. Speight

“ Ormsby, for having omitted to give expression to my sincere regrets at the great and irreparable loss you have recently sustained. Poor dear Mrs. Drelincourt! I cannot tell you how shocked I was when I read the account of her terrible end in one of the newspapers sent me by my mother."
"Yes, it was indeed a tragical affair," replied Mr. Ormsby, with what he meant for a heartfelt sigh, and a sudden elongation of his visage. "I was her favorite brother, Torn--her favorite brother! What I have suffered God alone knows. I don't think I shall ever be quite my own man again. Poor Kate! Poor Kate!" ”

“ But Ormsby went on without heeding him.
"For twenty years my sister's blood has cried aloud for vengeance, but, thank Heaven, it has not cried in vain! For twenty years the gallows has been waiting, and at length it shall be satisfied. The day you are hung, Drelincourt, shall be kept by me and mine as a holiday and festival, and so shall every anniversary of it be kept as long as I live." ”

“ Marsh at liberty."
"Then you are satisfied in your own mind," said Sir John, "that he is not really the criminal he seems so desirous of making himself out to be?"
"On that point I am fully satisfied."
"What, then, can be the fellow's motive for such an insane proceeding?" demanded Ormsby--reasonably enough. "Is he a madman, or merely a fool?"
"He is very far from being either one or the other."
"But this is such a terrible crime for any sane man to charge himself with?" interpolated Sir John.
"You say, Drelincourt, that one of our first steps must be to set him at liberty," resumed Ormsby. ”

“ For a little while after reading the letter Mrs. Jenwyn felt like a stunned person. Some time was needed to enable her to realize her good fortune--if such it should prove to be; and, indeed, at first she hardly knew whether to feel glad or sorry, not being able just yet to discern to what extent it might affect the relations between herself and Anna.
But presently she took comfort. Why need it affect them in any way--this legacy by a man she had never set eyes on, even if it should prove to be hers? Why should not matters go on as they had hitherto done? ”

“ Ormsby, may I ask whether you are still in the same mind with regard to Miss Drelincourt? Are you still as firmly determined as before to persist in your suit?"
"No, that I am not," responded Guy, with some emphasis. "What I have just learned has put that notion wholly out of the question. I'm sorry for poor dear Anna that matters have gone so far between us; but what can I do, Mrs. Jenwyn? Tell me that. It's not altogether my fault--now, is it?--that things have come to the pass they have."
"Certainly not, Mr. Ormsby. You are merely one more victim to the force of circumstances. ”

“ Jenwyn: Did Anna seem to take to young Ormsby in the way you think my wife would have liked her to do--that is to say, did he succeed in entangling her affections? For I have no doubt he was ready enough to follow up his sister's precious scheme."
"That is more than I can say, sir, with any degree of certainty. Sometimes I am inclined to think one thing, and sometimes another. Miss Anna is not an easy person to read."
"Not an easy person to read? One of the most transparent and simple minded girls in existence." ”

“ Oh, Anna, Anna, where are your eyes, that you cannot see through this shallow, selfish pretender--a cad at heart, if ever there was one--who cares no more for you than for the flower in his buttonhole, who seeks you only for your money, and who would break your heart when once he had made you his wife, as surely as the sun will rise tomorrow morning! ”

“ I could linger here for hours. Look how that shaft of sunlight quivers through the crowns of yonder elms. But thou hast no eye for such effects, Rodd; thou art woefully lacking in artistic insight. See! a squirrel. What a pretty rascal it is?"
Roden had risen. "I am waiting for you, Felix," he said coldly. "But perhaps you wish me to leave you here and go back alone."
Although Roden Marsh addressed his foster brother as "Felix" when they were alone, in the presence of others he always spoke of and to him as "Mr. Drelincourt." ”

“ This fellow Gumley must be saved at all risks. Of course, it was he who stole the jewels; and yet for the sake of a wretch like this I shall have to lie and perjure myself again and again. To me such a necessity is more hateful than I can express. The mere thought of such comradeship in crime sends a shudder down my spine. For all that, he must be saved! All may go well if only the rest of the jewels remain undiscovered. In that case, my lie about the locket ought to be enough to clear him. ”

“ Sunbridge Jail, Thursday, 6 A.M.
My Dear Foster Brother:
When we were lads together you saved my life at the imminent risk of your own. The time has now come when I can cancel the debt by saving yours.
To me life is a concern of little moment. So far as I know, I have not a single relative living, and were I to die tomorrow, there is not a being in the world, with the exception, maybe, of yourself, to whom that event would cause one pang of regret.
You, my dear Felix, are possessed of nearly everything which tends to make existence sweet to most persons. ”

“ He rose and pushed back his chair.
"Will you not see Anna for a few minutes, sir, while you are here?" queried the matron. "She always seems brighter and better for some time after one of your visits; indeed, except myself, you are the only person from whose presence at these times she does not shrink with a sort of nervous dread, as though doubtful whether they might not be about to do her some bodily harm. It was rather singular, was it not, sir, that Mrs. Drelincourt's presence at these times always had a peculiarly disturbing effect upon her?" ”

“ The silence was broken by Drelincourt's clear, level accents.
"My dear Ormsby, you speak in enigmas."
"Enigmas? Stuff! They are a sort of rubbish I never deal in; more in your line, by far. Man alive! I tell you we have got hold of the wretch, the double dyed villain who did the deed, and have laid him safely by the heels in Sunbridge jail. And, after all, Drelincourt, whom do you think the fellow turns out to be?"
"Guessing riddles is not in my line."
"Why, that scoundrel Gumley." ”

“ If the notion of my wife's death, and of the vast difference such an event would make to me, had not been a factor--embryonic, if you will--in my mind, if it had not found receptivity there, would it ever have evolved itself in action in the way it has done?"
"For all that, a man who, while sleep walking, kills another cannot be deemed guilty of murder," protested Rodd dogmatically. ”

“ Through what mischance has Gumley been caught in the toils after all these years? Why has he confessed to the robbery of the jewels? Why---- But these are idle questions. I must see Rodd and get him to fathom this mystery for me."
Therewith he rang the bell. "Tell Mr. Marsh that I wish to see him at once in the library," he said to Wicks. Then to himself he added: "In all the world there is but one soul to whom I can freely talk and from whom I have no concealments."
When he entered the library, three minutes later, he found Roden Marsh already there. ”

“ Drelincourt, his back supported by a tree, stood looking on in silence till the flame had burned itself out, and nothing was left save a little fine ash, which a wandering breeze presently caught up and frolicked off with into the depths of the wood.
"This also I found," resumed Roden. "It was lying open on the writing table in your dressing room at the Towers for anybody to see. It is in your writing, and is dated today." ”

“ No sane man would seriously think of sacrificing himself for such a scoundrel. Let him hang! Such canaille as he are fit fruit for the gallows."
"My dear Rodd, how strangely you must have misread me all these years, if you think it possible that, deliberately and knowingly, I could allow this man to pay the penalty of a crime of which he is as innocent as you are! ”

“ All his life Rodd had done his foster brother's bidding, and he did it now.
"How strangely calm I feel now that the suspense is over and I know the worst!" mused Drelincourt, when Rodd had left the room. "My pulse beats as evenly as an infant's. Tonight I shall sleep as I have not slept for weeks. Now that my doom stares me straight in the face, now that I hear a footstep on the threshold audible to myself alone, of what little consequence the world and its business have all at once become to me! Already life and the things which make life sweet have put on an altogether different aspect ”

“ From the moment John Clisby stated that he had seen Ormsby kiss Anna she had known that matters must have come to a serious pass between them.
She sat for a few moments as if considering. Then she said: "If Anna has indeed given you such a promise as you say she has, the matter at once assumes a very different complexion. All the more needful is it that Mr. Drelincourt should at once be communicated with, in order that either he or her trustees may be in a position to decide where and with whom Anna's home shall be during the remaining term of her minority." ”

“ This I may add, that when I last parted from you I had no faintest prevision of what was so soon to happen. Perhaps it never would have happened had circumstances not called me away from Combe Fenton.
Yet who shall say it is not best for the happiness of both that the discovery should have been made before the time had gone by for remedying it! That is the light in which I trust you will endeavor to regard it.
In conclusion, my dear Miss Drelincourt, I can only ask you to believe in the sincerity of my contrition should my conduct be the cause of any temporary unhappiness to you. ”

“ Drelincourt not to reveal the secret of your birth, except under very exceptional circumstances; on the other was a mother's heart hungering and crying out for her child. There is no one left alive to whom the death of Anna Drelincourt will be a matter of much moment. Mr. Felix Drelincourt will grieve about her for a little while, but her fortune will make a handsome addition to his income, and he may perhaps derive some consolation from that. ”

“ In my case the stake is more, infinitely more, than is involved in the premature ending of a life by which I have never set any special store. There's the pity of it! If the issues of our actions affected ourselves alone, we could afford to suffer in silence, and bow our necks to the stroke with something like equanimity; but the Eumenides who wait on wrong doing ever contrive to stab us through the hearts of our dearest and our best."
Young Deane's furtive glances followed Drelincourt every time the latter's back was turned on him. ”

“ Everybody about her accommodated themselves to circumstances as she believed them to be. The doctor trusted to time. It was all he could do.
Any attempt at a cure on his part, as he was not slow to recognize, might have been productive of more harm than good, and possibly have entailed consequences he would have been loath to face. He watched the case with the deepest interest, but beyond prescribing a harmless draft or two, he left nature to work after her own fashion.
At the end of a fortnight Anna fell into another trance-like sleep, and awoke from it her proper self. ”