“I am sure I cannot imagine; and yet you—you cannot mean——”
“Yes, I do mean it,” he answered, reading her thought. “It was no other than that wretch who robbed your father’s house several years ago, and for whom Earle suffered the penalty. It was Tom Drake, that man whom you met after your visit to John Loker’s, and who afterwards entered your house the second time and compelled you by his mesmeric power to go away with him.”
Editha shuddered, and yet she could hardly believe her ears. She had always been afraid of meeting that dreadful man again, and now to know that he was away in England and a captive, was a great relief to her.
“It does not seem possible,” she said.
“It is righteous judgment that he should at last be taken by the very one who unjustly served out the sentence that ought to have been pronounced upon him threefold,” was the stern reply.
“Tell me how it happened, please—that is, if you know?”
“Yes; Earle wrote me a good deal about it. It seems that the fellow did not deem the United States a safe place for him after John Loker’s confession was made public—the description of himself was too accurate for that—so he fled to England, and has undoubtedly been carrying on his nefarious operations there ever since. About a month after I left Wycliffe, Earle was awakened one night by the sound as of some one stepping cautiously around in his dressing-room. His revolver was in reach, and he instantly secured it. The next moment a man passed into his room. It was not a very dark night, and as the robber glided between the bed and the window his figure was clearly outlined, and Earle, aiming low, fired at him. He fell with a groan. It was but the work of a minute to strike a light and go to the prostrate man, who was too badly wounded to make any resistance, and he found that his fallen foe was none other than his and your enemy Tom Drake.
“What a strange adventure; and—Earle was in great danger,” Editha whispered, with a deep-drawn breath.
“Yes; but the strangest of all is yet to come,” pursued Mr. Tressalia. “Instead of giving the wretch up to the authorities, as any one else would have done in spite of his fearful sufferings, he enjoined strictest silence upon the servants, called in the old family physician and swore him to secrecy, and is now nursing the wretch back to health as tenderly as if he was his own brother.”
“This is just like Earle’s nobility—he is ‘a noble of nature’s own creating!’” said Editha, admiringly; and her face glowed with pride for this grand act of one whom she so fondly loved.