And the education of the youth is not forgotten. On an elevated position commanding a fine view of the town stands the new schoolhouse, a pretty and imposing structure with surroundings in keeping with such an institution.
And to this habitation the young lawyer was to be consigned. He could not see his way out of the arrangement to which he had partially given his consent. And when Mr. Sharpley's letters were read and re-read, Phillip Lawson was in no enviable state of mind. To do or not to do—to do was invariably the answer. Then there arose another side to the question, which the young man hardly durst think of.
"I may stay here until my hair is gray, and what matters it? I have no reason to think that there ever will be any hope for me in that respect."
Here Phillip fell to musing, and what his musings were, we may divine from the foregoing speech. He considered Mr. Tracy in several ways, and though he felt a little uneasiness in the matter attributed it to the morbid state of his own mind.
"With a wider field I can do something," murmured the lawyer, as he gathered up the loose sheets of paper lying around and threw them into the waste basket.
But Phillip Lawson only saw one side of the proceeding—the alluring, tempting side.
There was, indeed, a complication of schemes already concocted, and each one was to follow in a well conceived and nicely arranged order—"a wheel within a wheel," as Hubert Tracy coolly expressed himself.
Perhaps no more diabolical scheme could have been more cleverly planned to ruin the character of a fellow-being. But it is ever thus, and shall be until the arch fiend, who first plotted in the Amaranthine bowers of Eden, shall be cast out forever beyond the reach of mortal ear.
Had Phillip Lawson now received the timely warning of one kind friend—but there was none to warn. If he asked the advice of some older members of the profession, the answer invariably was: "Try it, my boy, if you think you will succeed." So the outcome of it all was that the young man had made up his mind to try it, and, after a long conversation with Hubert Tracy, resolved to inform Mr. Sharpley of his intention at the earliest opportunity.
But Tracy was not so deeply enthusiastic as might be expected. He seemed quite indifferent as to the result, and the change would have puzzled as wise a head as Mr. Lawson's. Great was the surprise of the latter when a few mornings earlier Mr. Tracy called to bid good-bye. He was ready to take the train for Halifax, whence he was to sail for England.