Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: June 25, 2025
God bless and comfort another who is dear to you! and believe me with true undying remorse your once attached friend, "Hartledon." It was a curious letter to write; but men of Lord Hartledon's sensitive temperament in regard to others' feelings often do strange things; things the world at large would stare at in their inability to understand them.
It was pleasant to have him there a welcome change from Hartledon's recent monotony; and even Maude, with her boasted dislike, felt prejudice melting away. Boasted dislike, not real, it had been. None could dislike Percival. He was not Edward, and it was him Maude had loved. Percival she never would love, but she might learn to like him.
"Now," said Pike, "I've come up to know about this business of Lord Hartledon's, and I will know it, or leave you as dead as he is. And I'll have you took up for murder, into the bargain," he rather illogically continued, "as an accessory to the fact." David Ripper was in a state of horror; all idea of concealment gone out of him. "I couldn't help it," he gasped.
The doubt was sufficiently strong to cause him to tear up the letter. But he was not satisfied with Lord Hartledon's own behaviour; had not been for some few months; and he then wrote a second letter, suspending matters until they should meet again. It was in effect what was asked for by the countess-dowager; and he wrote a cold proud letter to that lady, stating what he had done.
What power had he of injuring Lord Hartledon? what secret did he possess of his, that might be used against him? Turning it about in her mind, and turning it again, searching her imagination for a solution, Lady Hartledon at length arrived at one, in default of others. She thought this man must know some untoward fact by which the present Lord Hartledon's succession was imperilled.
At times he would moan in his sleep as one in pain; but if told of this, had always some laughing answer ready for her he had dreamed he was fighting a lion or being tossed by a bull. This was the pleasantest phase of Lady Hartledon's married life. Her health did not allow of her entering into gaiety; and she and her husband passed their time happily together.
One glance at Lord Hartledon's face told him what he half expected to see that the word of emancipation had not yet been spoken. "Don't blame me, Carr. I shall speak to-night before I sleep, on my word of honour. Things have come to a crisis now; and if I wished to hold back I could not. I would say what a fool I have been not to speak before; only you know I'm one already." Thomas Carr laughed.
It was not for the mistake that we discharged him; indeed, not for anything at all connected with Calne. He did seem to have gone about his business there in a very loose way, and to have paid less attention to our interests than to the gossip of the place; of which there was a tolerable amount just then, on account of Lord Hartledon's unfortunate death.
Thomas Carr's letters were no more sacred with her than Lord Hartledon's. No woman living was troubled with scruples so little as she. It proved to have been written by a Dr. Mair, in Scotland, and was dated several years back. But now did Lord Hartledon really know he had that dangerous letter by him? If so, what could have possessed him to preserve it?
Not that the intimacy in itself was suspicious; birds of a feather flocked together; but the most simple and natural thing connected with Gorton would have borne suspicion to Hartledon's mind now. He had barely passed the gate when some shouting arose in the road behind him. A man, driving a cart recklessly, had almost come in contact with another cart, and some hard language ensued.
Word Of The Day
Others Looking