everything, and ask her advice. It was a great and at the moment it
seemed to him an overwhelming temptation. But only for the moment.
He had given his word to the captain--more, he had given his youthful
FAITH. And, to his credit, he never swerved again. It seemed to him,
too, in his youthful superstition, as he looked at the abandoned
portmanteau, that he had again to take up his burden--his "trust."
It was nearly four o'clock when the spell was broken. A large packet,
bearing the printed address of a London and American bank, was brought
to him by a special messenger; but the written direction was in
the captain's hand. Randolph tore it open. It contained one or two
inclosures, which he hastily put aside for the letter, two pages of
foolscap, which he read breathlessly:--
DEAR TRENT,--Don't worry your head if I have slipped my cable without
telling you. I'm all right, only I got the news you are bringing me,
JUST AFTER YOU LEFT, by Jack Redhill, whom I had sent to Dornton Hall
to see how the land lay the night before. It was not that I didn't trust
YOU, but HE had ways of getting news that you wouldn't stoop to. You
can guess, from what I have told you already, that, now Bobby is gone,
there's nothing to keep me here, and I'm following my own idea of
letting the whole blasted thing slide. I only worked this racket for
the sake of him. I'm sorry for him, but I suppose the poor little beggar
couldn't stand these sunless, God-forsaken longitudes any more than
I could. Besides that, as I didn't want to trust any lawyer with my
secret, I myself had hunted up some books on the matter, and found that,
by the law of entail, I'd have to rip up the whole blessed thing, and
Bill would have had to pay back every blessed cent of what rents he had
collected since he took hold--not to ME, but the ESTATE--with interest,
and that no arrangement I could make with HIM would be legal on account
of the boy. At least, that's the way the thing seemed to pan out to me.
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