“He who bought my necklace. In sooth I know little of money, but from what I have read, it should be worth a much larger sum. I heard Gray call it real pearl.”
“No doubt—no doubt—I will go myself. You will see me again very soon, and it will go hard, but I will make the hoary robber disgorge his ill-gotten prey.”
So saying, Sir Francis bade Ada and his wife a temporary adieu, and hurried to the shop of the Jew who had taken such an unworthy advantage of Ada’s want of knowledge of the value of a really costly pearl necklace.
CHAPTER LXI.
Albert Seyton’s Destitution.—A Lone and Wearied Spirit.—The Application to Learmont, and the Meeting with Sir Francis Hartleton.
We have been compelled for a long time to leave the gallant and noble-hearted Albert Seyton to follow out his fortunes unchronicled in order to depict the various changing scenes in the life of Ada, who, now that she is conducted to a haven of rest for a while, we can leave in calm contentment, although not yet, fair persecuted girl, are thy trials done! The sunshine of peace and joy that now surrounds you is but a prelude to a storm. We will not, however, anticipate but allow the events of our tale to flow on in their natural course like a mighty river, which, as it nears the ocean which is the goal of its destiny, sweeps onwards with it every little tributary stream and murmuring rivulet that has borrowed a brief existence from it.
After the death of his father, the scanty means of support which the elder Seyton had arising from the tardy justice of the government ceased at once, and no answer was returned by the corrupt minister to Albert’s application, not for a continuance of his father’s pension, but for honourable employment.
One by one he was compelled to part with the several remnants of convertable property which his father had left behind him. His whole time was occupied in searching for Ada, until hope sickened into despair and a deep gloom began to spread itself like a vapour before the sun over his heart, which in happier circumstances would have throbbed with every free, noble, and generous emotion.
Twice he had called upon Sir Francis Hartleton, but had not been so fortunate as to meet with him, and the second disappointment, although it was purely accidental, Albert took seriously to heart, and in the gloomy confusion of his imagination, arising from the grief that oppressed him, cemented it into an intentional slight, and never called again. The consequence of this was, that at the time of Ada’s introduction to the house of the kind and humane magistrate, she was entirely ignorant of Albert’s place of abode and condition in life.
Several times since his father’s death the young man had shifted his residence, for he could not bear that his rapidly decreasing means should become a subject of remark, even although a pitying one, and now he tenanted a small room in a narrow court, near the Savoy steps in the Strand.