Torwood's trust

Obvious typographical errors have been silently corrected. Variations in hyphenation have been standardised but all other spelling and punctuation remains unchanged.
A Novel.
EVELYN EVERETT-GREEN.
‘Out of this nettle, danger, we pluck this flower, safety ... I protest, our plot is as good a plot as ever was laid.’ Henry IV., Pt. I., Act II., Sc. III.
IN THREE VOLUMES
VOL. II.
TORWOOD’S TRUST.
iss Marjory’s carefully planned dinner was a marked success, and was followed by a very pleasant evening, spent partly in the sweet, old-fashioned and faultlessly kept garden, and partly in the cool, softly lighted drawing-room.
Miss Marjory’s guest and deputy landlord made himself most agreeable. He talked politics and science with Miss Marjory, told anecdotes and traveller’s tales to Ethel, and discussed town talk with Horace, who had not long left London for Whitbury.
When Tor reached his room that night, it was with the consciousness that he had made at least one valuable friend, but at the same time with the fear that his position was gradually growing less and less secure. Troublesome reflections would crowd into his mind, and it was anything but a pleasant possibility that loomed before him, the thought that he might be branded as a felon and taste the sweets of convict-life! That would be rather a heavy penalty to pay for the fraud he had practised for friendship’s sake; and yet it was just possible that an adverse fate might drive matters even to such a crisis as that. What then would become of his intended proposal to Maud? She would be as hopelessly beyond his reach as if she were the wife of Lewis Belassis. The reflection was not inspiriting, but Tor shook himself, ‘pulled himself together,’ and smiled at his own depression.
‘Never say die! What can have come to me? There’s no reason why I should be betrayed, or betray myself. Old Belassis will have enough on his hands, I should say, after my hints, without trying to upset my claim. I wonder what Miss Marjory knows about him. I must have some more conversation with her to-morrow. She is a clever woman, I am sure; and will, I think, stand my friend.’