Kitabı oku: «Dorrien of Cranston», sayfa 10
Chapter Eighteen.
Father and Son
“Do you mind coming this way, Roland?” said the General soon after breakfast the next morning. “Neville writes to say,” he went on, closing the library door behind them, “that they are going to give a ball on a large scale on Friday – it’s Clara’s birthday – and is very anxious for you to go to Ardleigh to-morrow, and stay over it. This is Wednesday, so I suppose you may count upon nearly a week of it up there, to which, I daresay, you won’t object,” he added, with some significance.
“Well, I don’t much care about it. I might manage the ball, but the fact is it will be rather inconvenient to go and stay there just now. Besides, I seem to have only just left.”
The General frowned slightly.
“I hope you’ll think better of it, Roland. You cannot really have anything to keep you from going, and Neville will take it ill if you refuse. You and Clara got on very well together when you were staying there before, didn’t you?”
“Extremely well. Couldn’t have got on better,” assented Roland. They were coming to the point, he thought, but he would let his father work up to it in his own way. Let the adversary show his hand by all means, his own would be so much the easier to play.
For a few moments they sat in silence. The General’s brows were knit as he sat thoughtfully balancing a paper-cutter between his fingers. Then looking up quickly, and speaking with the air of a man who has thought it out and quite made up his mind, he said:
“I don’t know why we should fence any more with each other, Roland. It will perhaps be best, as we are alone together, to be plain and above-board. But, first of all, I may state that I have strong reasons for wishing you to accept this invitation.”
“Indeed, sir. May I ask what they are?” The General made a movement of impatience. “Now, can you not guess them, Roland?”
“I might – I don’t say that I couldn’t. But guessing is at best unsatisfactory work, and apt to lead to cross-purposes,” said Roland very quietly. “As you said just now, why should we fence? What is it you wish me to do?”
The General gave a slight shake of the head, half deprecatory, half perplexed. He had not foreseen the extent of the other’s quiet self-possession, and there was a determination underlying his eldest son’s tone which he did not at all like.
“Well, Roland, just listen to me. You have been back in England some months now, and, I presume, intend to remain. Does it never occur to you that one with your position and prospects might employ life better than by lounging through it aimlessly as you are doing now?”
“It certainly has occurred to me. Though in the matter of position, I do not feel particularly exalted – and as for prospects, with all respect, sir, I would remind you that I am without any at present.”
“This is mere fencing,” answered his father testily. “By the way, your talents in that line would be of invaluable service to you at the Bar. Now, you must be perfectly well aware that your position is one of considerable importance, seeing that you must one day occupy my place here.”
“It’s very good of you to say so, sir,” replied Roland quietly. “But,” he added to himself, “if you don’t flatly contradict that statement before another hour has gone over our heads, why, the age of miracles is recommencing.”
“Things being so,” continued his father, “it is right that you should recognise your position as my eldest son. Now did you ever contemplate the contingency of marriage?”
“I have thought of it – yes.”
“Ah!” and the General’s brow cleared perceptibly. “Now, we are not so badly off about here in the matter of choice; we are fortunate in having for neighbours some good families – very good families, indeed. But I think it would be hard to find among them anyone more thoroughly suitable than Clara Neville. She is exceedingly good-looking, most accomplished and agreeable, and has plenty of sound common-sense; in short, any man might be proud of her as a wife.”
“She is, indeed, all you say,” assented Roland mercilessly, a sort of grim humour impelling him to draw his father thoroughly out.
“Ah! I should always have given you credit for being a man of taste, Roland,” rejoined the General, with more kindness in his tone than he had used for a long time. “Then, too, she is the daughter of one of my oldest – I may say my oldest – friends, and she will inherit Ardleigh. You have seen for yourself what Ardleigh is. It is a splendid property, and adjoins this. Such an opportunity of combining the two may never – will never occur again,” he continued, speaking more to himself than to his son. “And, Roland, only think what a man with such a stake in the county as Cranston and Ardleigh might do. Why, his influence would be unbounded. Any career leading to the highest distinction would be open to him.”
In spite of the knowledge that he himself would be the chief sufferer, Roland, as he sat listening to his father, could not help feeling a kind of pity for the disappointment which awaited the latter, when his ambitious schemes were ruthlessly shattered, as they were destined to be in a moment.
“So now you see why I wish you to accept this invitation,” went on the General. “The alliance will be a most suitable one in every way, and most desirable.”
“But aren’t we getting on rather fast?” said Roland, thinking he saw a straw, and clutching at it instinctively. “What reason have we to suppose that Clara Neville regards me with any more favour than she does any other man?”
“I feel sure of this, Roland: if she doesn’t, it’ll be your own fault entirely,” was the reply.
Well, that straw had gone down with him. There was now no alternative – he must declare himself. It is just possible that, in one of weaker calibre, the temptation to procrastinate might have prevailed. The moment was not a favourable one for making his statement – indeed, it could hardly be more unfavourable; what would be easier than to put it off for a day or two? But he entertained no such idea.
“You saw a great deal of each other, I believe,” went on the General, anxious over his silence. “And you have just told me you got on excellently well together?”
“So we did, and I trust we always shall. And I am sorry to be obliged to spoil your very attractive plans. I have the greatest regard for Miss Neville, but as for thinking of her as my wife, why, I can’t imagine the possibility of such a thing.”
It was out. The bolt had fallen. For a few moments the two sat facing each other without a word. At last the General spoke, but his voice sounded very harsh and constrained.
“Do you really mean this, Roland, or is it merely the outcome of some passing fancy of yours? Now, do nothing in a hurry. Take time – think it well over. I cannot believe that a sensible man like yourself can be blind to all the immeasurable advantages that the course I recommend would bring.”
“There is one advantage which has been left out of that course, father,” said Roland in a much softer tone than any he had yet employed. “That is – Love,” and he paused. “Ah! well, I am very sorry to have disappointed you,” he went on, as his father made no reply, “and on that account, and on that only, I wish it could have been otherwise. It is unfortunate, very, that you should have put this idea before me just now, for as a matter of fact this very day I intended to communicate to you my intention of marrying Olive Ingelow, the second daughter of the rector of Wandsborough.”
The trumpet had been blown, and that with no uncertain sound. War was declared. In declining to agree to his father’s plan, Roland had strayed dangerously far from his supports; in revealing his own he had burnt his boats behind him.
“So that is your intention, is it?” said his father in icy, cutting tones, when he had recovered from the effect of the audacity of the statement.
“Yes, it is. And I venture to hope, sir, that it may have your sanction.”
“Do you? But I have not the pleasure of the acquaintance of this young – lady, with whose relationship you are anxious to honour us,” was the satirical reply.
“I hope you very soon will have. Then you will see that she is in every way our equal as to birth, thoroughly well educated, and as sweet-tempered as she is beautiful. Now, father, you will not go against me in this,” he concluded, his face softening as he thought of Olive.
The General had risen from his seat and was pacing the room.
“My sanction?” he repeated, and it was evident that he was labouring to repress his strong excitement. “My sanction – that is what you want, is it? Then know this, Roland. As sure as you sit there you shall never have it – never. And what’s more, unless you give me your word, before you leave this room, to break off this affair unconditionally, now, at once and for all, you and I are strangers henceforth – total strangers. Do you hear?”
“I do.”
“Don’t think that I have been ignorant of your doings all this time. Don’t think that it has not been patent to us all how you preferred the society of these low adventurers to that of your own family.” There was a look on Roland’s face which would have warned most men to stop, but his father was not one of them. “And as for this – this young person you have chosen as an instrument for disgracing us, why, you must surely recollect that both your mother and myself witnessed her disreputable, immodest behaviour, and that on the public high road – ”
“Just stop, sir – stop. What the devil do you mean by talking like this? Remember who you are talking about, please.” Roland had sprung to his feet, and stood confronting his father. His face was ghastly white, but his eyes glowed like two living coals, and his hands were clenched with the firmness of a vice. “Stop, do you hear? By God, if any other man had said that – ” And he paused, restraining himself with an effort.
“So, so, sir,” cried the General furiously. “So you dare to stand there and threaten your father! So you dare to talk to me in this tone! You dare to stand there in your damned strength and talk to a man twice your age in that strain – I wonder Heaven does not strike you dead as you do it. But go – get away out of my sight, let me never see you again. One who can so far forget all sense of duty is no son of mine. Go! Do you hear – go?” and he pointed towards the door, his hands shaking in a perfect palsy of rage.
Roland walked to the door.
“Yes, I will go,” he said, “and that before I forget myself. Good-bye. I recall anything that may have sounded like a threat. Good-bye.”
“Go – go!” articulated the General, almost voiceless with rage, shaking his hand at the door. “I’d call down a curse upon you, but it’s needless, for you’re sure to come to the gallows some day, and after that to hell. Go. Be off with you!” The other turned deliberately and went out. On the stairs he encountered his mother.
“What is it, Roland? What has happened? You and your father have had a dreadful quarrel, I’m afraid,” she said, her cold nature roused to a state of unwonted anxiety. “Oh! dear! What is it all about?”
“Nothing, madam – except that the sweetly affectionate care and the pious home-training of my younger days is bearing its natural fruit,” was his caustic reply, for he felt a very hell of fierce wrath blazing within. “And now, let me congratulate you upon having things at last exactly as you have long wished them to be.”
He passed her. The hall door shut behind him with an angry slam, and thus Roland Dorrien went out from the presence of his father – never to look upon him again in this world.
Mrs Dorrien found her husband sitting in the study in a state of terrible exhaustion. He was a strong man for his age, but the frightful passion to which he had given way had seriously shaken him.
“Has – that – villain – gone?” he asked at length.
“Roland? – Yes. But wait – don’t be in a hurry to talk. Keep quiet for a little while,” she answered sadly.
“The deep-dyed scoundrel! Eleanor, if you had heard what he said to me as he stood there! Now listen to me. He is dead to us henceforth, stone dead. And tell the others – Hubert and Nellie – that if ever they mention his name in my hearing, or hold any communication with him whatever, that day they go after him.”
Mrs Dorrien assented sadly. She had got what she knew to be the secret wish of her heart. Her Hubert – her darling boy – would be Dorrien of Cranston; for she knew her husband too well to suppose he would ever relent. But it may be, furthermore, that her hard, cold nature felt a twinge of regret as she thought of this unloved son and realised that she would never see him again, and if her conscience cried loudly of maternal neglect and duties unfulfilled, we may be very sure she stifled it.
Yet this sin of omission was destined to bring upon her an awful retribution.
Chapter Nineteen.
“And Thus We Parted There.”
Roland Dorrien walked from his father’s door with quick, angry strides. Everything had turned out exactly as he had expected, and the halle of his ancestors would know him no more. Why should he regret it? Within them he had known nothing but coldness – had met with scant measure of affection – and now he was leaving them for ever. He passed out through the park gates with the Dorrien arms engraved upon the stone pillars – a mailed hand grasping by the neck a writhing serpent, which, with crest reared and fangs gaping wide and threatening, was in keeping with the motto underneath, “I strike” – and reached the high road. Even then he smiled satirically as he reflected that the lodge-keeper’s obsequious curtsey would probably be much less profound were the good woman aware that it was only Roland Dorrien, the disinherited heir, who walked past, instead of, as she supposed, her future lord.
Suddenly he became aware of a scuffle in the park behind him, and, turning, he beheld the deer look up from their feeding and trot away in alarmed groups. Then the cause of this appeared – something red and white, tearing at full speed down the drive. A moment more, and the object dashed against him, panting, and nearly knocking him down.
“Why, Roy!” he cried in concern. “Dear old Roy! I had clean forgotten you. And they were quite capable of having you knocked on the head if they had known you were there. Perhaps he did try, as it was,” he went on, with a dark look in the direction of the Hall.
But his reflections on the General were in this case unmerited. What had happened was this. Roy, who had been incarcerated in a disused coach-house, finding that his master did not come to emancipate him at the usual time, had raised his voice in doleful protest, but when his subtle ears detected the sound of his master’s receding footsteps, whose firm tread could mean nothing else than “gone for good,” his piteous howls increased tenfold, emphasised by a series of frantic plunges against the large double doors. Now, it happened that Johnston, the head-gardener, who hated Roy’s master with an undying hatred on account of more than one snubbing which his own impudent presumption had earned for him, and by an inverse rendering of the proverb, likewise hated Roy, thought it an excellent opportunity of wreaking his spite on the dog. So, arming himself with a broomstick, he proceeded to the scene of poor Roy’s restraint.
“Hold yer rouw, ye beast – wull ye!” said Johnston spitefully, just opening a crack in the door and raising the stick cunningly. But Roy was not quite such a fool. He had withdrawn from the door and crouched away at the back of the room, growling savagely.
“Aha, ye cowardly beastie,” jeered the man. “Iss-ss!” and he poked at him with the stick.
Roy wae now walking to and fro, growling, and every time drawing nearer and nearer to the door, but keeping carefully out of reach of the blows which the biped brute every now and then aimed at him. Suddenly, with a terrific snarl, he made a rush. The trap-door let into the large ones flew open as he flung himself against it, and Johnston, knocked aside by the unexpected weight, rolled sprawling in the dust, and the dog was free. Pausing a moment to make his teeth meet in the thigh of his enemy as he lay, now thoroughly frightened, Roy darted off like an arrow on the track of his master, and came up with him, as we have seen.
“My dear old beauty!” said Roland, passing his hand lovingly over the smooth head, and looking down into the soft, faithful eyes. “You’re worth a regiment of mere human animals! And yet they call you only a dumb, soulless brute. Well, you won’t be sorry to shake the Cranston dust off your paws, anyhow. Come along!”
He turned into the footpath across the fields, which saved a mile of hot, shelterless high road, and his face never relaxed its hard frown as he went over that terrible interview again. “Well, the old man and I opened our minds to one another with a refreshing candour, at any rate,” he said, half aloud. – “Hallo!”
He stood staring blankly, not quite certain whether he was dreaming or not. For there, as if she had started out of the earth itself, was Olive – Roy meanwhile leaping around her and thrusting his importunate nose into her hand, and otherwise claiming his meed of attention.
Roland paused for a moment, staggered. She was looking very lovely, in the neatest of cool walking-dresses, and the blood rose softly to the bewitching face as she met his astonished gaze. She had seen him long before he had caught sight of her, and half shyly, half mischievously had noted the effect of the surprise. But overhearing his last reflection, the glad look changed into one of concern.
“What has happened, dear?” she began.
Instead of immediately replying he gave a couple of quick looks around, and – a few seconds afterwards Olive was readjusting a somewhat displaced hat, a soft, bright blush suffusing her face.
“There! I feel better now?” cried he who had treated her so unceremoniously, speaking with quick vehemence. “What has happened? Squalls – breakers – high seas – everything. To put it tersely, my venerable ancestor and I have been exchanging opinions of each other in terms far more forcible than polite.” But Olive looked very grave.
“Oh, Roland. Was it about – about – I mean anything to do with ourselves?”
“H’m! H’m! Well, as to that, it was about things in general. But don’t distress yourself, darling. It was bound to come sooner or later, and for some time past the South Cone has been hoisted on that particular coast. And now we have agreed to keep carefully out of each other’s way henceforth.”
“But you’ll make it up again, dear. People get in a rage with each other and quarrel, but it doesn’t last for ever. It would be awful if it did.”
“But this will. Olive, you don’t know him, and I’m afraid, darling, you don’t half know me. He would have to sing very abjectly small indeed, before I could forgive what he said – certainly no consideration of loss or gain would induce me to do so. So here I stand – as here I came – nobody.”
“You are everybody to me, love,” she answered bravely and cheerfully. “All will come right one of these days, and even if not, we cannot do without each other, whatever we can do without.”
Sunshine after storm: balm to the wounded spirit. It is probable that, for the time being, all considerations were forgotten, except that they were alone together. The summer air breathed warm and free around them. Underfoot the grass, recently mown, was short and turfy, beneath the shade of the trees couched a few lazy, ruminating sheep, and the drowsy roll of a mill-wheel, with its accompanying drip-drip of water, was just audible, but everything was soft and slumbrous in the silent meadows. They were alone – and he who had just bartered away his splendid birthright for the love of this girl beside him, felt that he had his reward. He could hardly believe that not an hour had passed since that tornado scene of wrathful passion in yonder Hall, which they could just discern through the trees.
“But, Olive, how on earth did you put in an appearance here just in the nick of time?” he asked presently.
“Pure accident. I had been visiting two bed-ridden crones whom Margaret had promised to go and see, but couldn’t. The path leading home struck into yours – so – so I couldn’t help being behind you and hearing your wicked words – and they were dreadfully wicked,” she answered mischievously. “But – hark!”
A male voice was heard approaching, alternately whistling and singing snatches of a popular song of the day, then a tall, active figure cleared the stile in front of them and drew up short.
“Hallo!”
“Oh, Eusty, you disgraceful defaulter. Is that how you keep your promises?” cried Olive. “Didn’t you vow you would come and meet me, and now I’ve had to walk through two fields full of horrid cows all by myself – and it’s no thanks to you that I haven’t been frightened to death.”
“Oh, here – ahem – I say, hold hard!” cried the Oxonian, quizzically surveying the pair. “All by yourself – eh? Well, it strikes me, young woman, you’ve fallen in with a pretty substantial escort.”
“But not until I had passed the cows, you detestable boy,” replied she, with a tinge of colour in her bright, laughing face.
“I say, Dorrien, she implies that you’re nobody,” went on her brother, without heeding her. “Says she had to come along all by herself. Rough on you, that – eh?”
Roland laughed, and coming to the rescue turned the scale of “chaff” against Eustace, who was fain to acknowledge at last that he was in a minority, and to cry quarter.
“Hallo, Dorrien, don’t sheer off,” cried Eustace, as, having reached the town, a halt suddenly took place. “Tack in and get your eye-teeth into some cold sirloin, anglicè– lunch!”
But the other shook his head.
“Oh, stow all that,” went on the reckless youth in response to some excuse. “Now, don’t let’s have any more talk over it, but ’bout ship and steer for the ecclesiastical hang-out. There are only our two selves. The reverend Padre won’t be in till this afternoon, and the other girls have gone out to lunch at the Gaskells. Olive, tell him he must. He’ll obey orders from you.”
Roland hesitated. He had frequently dropped in in this informal way, and now the temptation to sit for an hour at the same table with Olive, with the prospect of a whole afternoon of her society, was strong. But he remembered that his negotiations with her father were still pending, and he had a shrewd idea that the next interview might not go off quite so pleasantly. Meanwhile, it might strike the rector in the light of a shabby thing, were he in a sort of way to steal a march upon him in his absence. So he heroically and steadfastly refused. Had he known what was to happen within the next twenty-four hours he would probably have yielded.
“I’ll look round later,” he said. “I want to see the rector as soon as he comes in. That’ll do instead, Eustace, won’t it?”
“Hang it! I suppose it must!” was the careless reply.
And then he bade good-bye to Olive. Only a pressure of the hand, and a look into each other’s eyes – no sweet, clinging embrace. An unceremonious good-bye, as between people who expect to meet again in the course of the same day, no murmured word of love and trust and moving farewell. Yet perhaps it was better so. A little nod and a bright smile as she turned away, and thus they parted, these two. Little recked they how and where they would meet again.
Roland turned away in a very restless, dissatisfied frame of mind. Everything seemed to be working round unfavourably. The rector might not return home till late, and meanwhile he was condemned to these hours of waiting. Though cool enough in an emergency, he was of a nervous disposition, and uncertainty and inaction in a matter of this kind was intolerable. Everything assumed an exaggerated aspect. What if the rector should, after all, refuse his consent? Hitherto he had not believed Dr Ingelow would offer any serious opposition; now, on turning things over, it seemed first possible, then only too probable, that he might. And Olive – he felt pretty certain she would, however reluctantly, refuse to disregard her father’s wishes, once they were clearly laid down; nor in his heart of hearts would he have desired that she should, paradoxical as it may seem. Lovers are proverbially selfish, and it might be that Roland Dorrien was less so than the general man. He had lived his life very much alone, with the result that he had thought much, and developed a maturity of judgment considerably beyond his years. How could he expect this girl to give up her bright, happy home – how happy he himself had had ample opportunity of observing – to wound, beyond all healing, those who had surrounded her life with every tenderness and care, at the bidding of one whom, six months ago, she had hardly heard of? He knew that he had won her heart as no man would ever again win it, yet he would despise himself were he to require such a sacrifice of her. No, the only thing would be to wait for more favourable times.
So the afternoon wore on, and his restlessness increased more and more. He could not read, thinking was worse, and there was no one to talk to. Well, he would stroll round towards the Rectory again. This time luck favoured him. As he approached it he caught sight of Dr Ingelow coming from the opposite direction, and the two met at the gate.
“Ah, I was half expecting you yesterday,” said the rector, as they shook hands. “But come into the study. There we shan’t be disturbed.”
“And I fully intended to have returned yesterday,” replied Roland, when they were seated. “But the fact is, my father didn’t get back till late, and I had no opportunity of speaking to him until this morning.”
“Yes. And – ”
“The result was precisely what I expected. He was utterly unreasonable and impracticable. In short, Dr Ingelow, I don’t see how I can avoid explaining that he has a violent prejudice against you and yours. That may have had a great deal to do with it, but he had reasons of his own, which, as they concern others, I am hardly at liberty to mention. Anyhow, I could not for a moment think of falling in with his views, and the result was a regular row.”
“Do you mean that you quarrelled?” asked the rector.
“If a tolerably brisk interchange of compliments, and a mutual agreement to keep carefully out of each other’s way for the rest of our mutual lives constitute a quarrel – and I rather think they do – why, then I must admit we did,” was the grim reply, and his face grew dark over the recollection thus revived.
“Excuse me, Dorrien – you see I always consider myself to a certain extent privileged – but I can see at a glance that you’re a quick-tempered man. Now, isn’t it just possible that you were rather hasty?” said the rector, in his kindest manner, bending a searching glance upon the young man. “I mean,” he went on in response to a decided shake of the head, “you may have forgotten that, however harsh – even unjust, as you think – your father may be, you still owe him a certain amount of respect – of duty. Nothing can get rid of that fact.”
Roland looked up quickly.
“Duty?” he echoed, with an intensity of bitterness which was not lost upon the other. “Duty! My dear sir, I can assure you that that very word formed subject matter for a pretty lively discussion between us, ending as I have described. However, to drop these wretched family details, which must be most tedious to you, you see now I have done my best to meet your wishes, and if I have failed it has been through no fault of my own – that I can say with a perfectly clear conscience.” He spoke with a suppressed eagerness which had been absent from his speech in their first interview. Then the last thing he had anticipated was failure in this quarter; now it was different.
The rector shook his head deprecatorily.
“I don’t like to hear you take that tone. I fear your view of the relation between father and son cannot be borne out. The Fifth Commandment is explicit on the point. But there, this isn’t the time for sermonising, you’ll say,” he added with a grave, kind smile. “Only, the idea of a breach of this relationship is, to my mind, one of the most painful things in the world.”
Roland looked unconvinced. He conjectured rightly that the good priest’s early youth had been fortunate in its natural guardians, and now his own children adored him, which made all the difference.
“You will think me bold in stating that the religious side of the question does not weigh with me in the least – circumstances alter cases,” was his reply. “And at any rate, Dr Ingelow, you will allow that I have never tried to win your favour by feigning a religion which I did not feel. However, to confine ourselves to the matter in hand. I have tried my utmost to satisfy you in what you asked, and have failed. But as I am perfectly in a position to marry independently of my father’s consent, I trust your answer will be favourable.”
Outwardly calmness itself, the rector was in reality much perplexed. A terrible family quarrel had taken place, indirectly owing to him and his – a reflection sufficiently distressing to one of his refinement of feeling. Then, again, this young man must not be allowed to throw up his prospects for life in a fit of rash impulse and hot temper. No – at all costs this must be prevented.
“We will waive the question of duty,” he said. “But is there no chance of a reconciliation? Surely there is. When you get to my age you will realise that life is too short for these prolonged feuds; quarrels between blood relations are of all things the most heart-rending, and the day may come when you will bitterly regret this one. And then, to take a lower ground. How can you, in a moment of anger, and all for the sake of a few hasty words, throw up your really splendid prospects? And how can I be a party to your doing so. Surely you must see that it is impossible.”
“There is no chance of any reconciliation,” answered Roland deliberately. “I would hardly forgive one or two of the things he dared to say, even if he were to go down on his knees and beg me to – and I think even you would hardly expect him to do that. As for what you are good enough to call ‘a few hasty words,’ I tell you we exchanged opinions of each other that would have made your hair stand on end could you have heard us; nor was that all. In the matter of prospects, I have always considered my chances of ever possessing Cranston to be so very vague and shadowy as not seriously worth reckoning in the light of prospects. And then, look what such ‘prospects’ would involve. Perhaps twenty years of absolute slavery to the whims and caprices of the hardest and most unloving of masters. Only think of that! And at fifty I might find myself in possession, and Heaven knows I should deserve to. So, in renouncing these most shadowy prospects, this morning, I could not feel that I was actually undergoing any real loss. But I thought I had made all this clear to you yesterday – I mean as regarded the uncertainty of any prospects beyond the actual means in my possession,” he added in an anxious tone.
