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 with
Italy, and with Italians resident in London, in the later 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.
Pages:
237
238
239
240
241
242
243
244
245
246
247
248
249
250
251
252
253
254
255
256
257
258
259
260
261