“Any letters for the Squire have been opened by his executors. I recollect none from abroad—do you, Captain Oliphant?” said the tutor.
The Captain, still with his back turned, said— “No; it never came into my hands.”
“Mrs Ingleton would hardly be likely to have opened it. It would be only a short time before her death.”
“It’s singular,” said the Mayor. “My clerk posted it. He should have registered it, but omitted.”
“How was it directed?” asked the captain, turning at last, and pale after his exertions.
“Roger Ingleton, senior, Maxfield, England.”
“Hum! Did your clerk know it contained money?”
“Which means, did he purloin it? Well, sir, we shall see. An English bank-note can be traced. That’s one advantage you have over us on the other side.”
Mr Armstrong during this short colloquy experienced a curious depression of spirits. He was thinking, not of the bank-notes, or the American mayor, or even of Captain Oliphant, but of Rosalind and Jill and Tom; and the thought of them just at this moment made him feel very melancholy.
As for the captain, if his thoughts for a moment turned in the same direction, they came back instantly, with a strong revulsion of hate against the man who stood in his way at every turn; who seemed to read him through, to unmask him silently whenever he sought to take refuge in a lie, to pin him ruthlessly down to the consequences of his own delinquencies. But for Armstrong he might have been a free man—free of his debts, free of his frauds, clear in his children’s eyes, able to hold up his head to all the world. As it was, everything seemed to conspire with his enemy to pinion him and hold him fast, a prey to the Nemesis that was on its way! What would he not give to have this stumbling-block out of the path, and feel himself free to breathe and hope once more?