That the
man who had written this letter should be his friend--that very fact
was a disgrace to him. Sowerby so well knew himself and his own
reputation, that he did not dare to suppose that his own word would
be taken for anything,--not even when the thing promised was an act
of the commonest honesty. "The old bills shall be given back into
your own hands," he had declared with energy, knowing that his friend
and correspondent would not feel himself secure against further fraud
under less stringent guarantee. This gentleman, this county member,
the owner of Chaldicotes, with whom Mark Robarts had been so anxious
to be on terms of intimacy, had now come to such a phase of life that
he had given over speaking of himself as an honest man. He had become
so used to suspicion that he argued of it as of a thing of course. He
knew that no one could trust either his spoken or his written word,
and he was content to speak and to write without attempt to hide this
conviction. And this was the man whom he had been so glad to call
his friend; for whose sake he had been willing to quarrel with Lady
Lufton, and at whose instance he had unconsciously abandoned so many
of the best resolutions of his life. He looked back now, as he walked
there slowly, still holding the letter in his hand, to the day when
he had stopped at the school-house and written his letter to Mr.
Pages:
728
729
730
731
732
733
734
735
736
737
738
739
740
741
742
743
744
745
746
747
748
749
750
751
752