NUMBER SEVENTEEN. CHAPTER I. DRUMMOND AND CARLINA. THE door had scarcely closed upon her, when the smiling lawyer, Drummond, began walking up and down the room, more like a lunatic than the extremely keen, cold-blooded man he was. The butler came in and asked if he should clear away. Drummond swore at him and ordered him away. The butler went downstairs and swore to the footman, not at him. The butler swore that there was not a better master in England than Mr. Drummond, and the footman agreed. For Drummond, with all his villanies, was a very kind man. He used to tell a most intimate acquaintance that he could not bear the sight of sin or sorrow. He committed a vast deal of the one, and saw much of the other. What was he to do now?-that was the question before him. His aim in life had been to marry Mrs. Arnaud. He had risked his liberty for that; he had become a criminal for that; now the chance, as he thought, had come, and he dared not act. If he told her the truth, she would repudiate him if he withheld the truth, what chance had he? She might, at any moment, say that he had continued to deceive her after her confidence with him; and he would be as far away from her as ever. He sat back in his chair, and thought. He was a man eternally thinking and never acting. The time had come for him to act, |
