The more he considered the matter the more inexplicable Mr. Dalton’s fierce spite against him appeared. It seemed so almost childishly unreasonable that he would not even listen while he told him of his prospects. He seemed to talk as if he was aware of something very shameful and degrading connected with him, and yet he could not understand how Mr. Dalton, here in America, could possibly know aught of his previous history, or the shadow of shame that had hung over his early life.
Then, too, his declaring that “no change of whatever nature” in his prospects could affect his answer seemed to imply some deep and bitter personal hatred that, not being conscious of ever having done him an injury, he could not fathom.
“It surely could not be,” he thought, “because Richard Forrester had so kindly remembered him at the time of his death, and it was a petty feeling of jealousy.”
He had not touched the money which Editha had so nobly insisted upon investing for him. It still lay accumulating in the bank, and would remain there until the end of time for any use that he would make of it.
And so, after perplexing his brain over the matter, only to become more deeply puzzled, he resolved to let it drop, hoping that everything would come out right in the end.
Notwithstanding Mr. Dalton’s sarcastic and almost insulting language and manner to him, Earle did not cherish the least feeling of ill-will toward him.
At the time a feeling of indignation and impatience at his injustice would momentarily arouse his hot blood, but this soon passed, and he sincerely pitied him for being the slave of such unholy passions as he manifested.
The next morning, feeling very uneasy and apprehensive of he knew not what, he called, as Editha had desired.
He could not shake off the feeling that he was about to meet some dreadful impending fate; it seemed almost as if a voiceless, wordless warning was impressing him, and he found himself involuntarily repeating the words of one who said:
“Often do the spirits