“But they are powerless here.”
“In the presence of a steadier villany they are. That foul Sizzum is quite sure of his prey. John Brent, what can be done? I do not know which I feel most bitterly for, the weary, deluded old gentleman, doubting his error, or that noble girl. Poor, friendless souls!”
“Friendless!” said Brent. “She has made a friend in me. And in you too, if you are the man I know.”
“But what can we do?”
“I will never say that we can do nothing until she repels our aid. If she wants help, she must have it.”
“Help! how?”
“I will find a way or make one. Sidney’s thought is always good. You and I can never die in a better cause than this. And now, Dick, do not let us perplex ourselves with baseless talk and plans. We will see them again to-night, when Sizzum is not by. It cannot be that she is in sympathy with these wretches.”
“No; that horrible ogre, Sizzum, is evidently disgusting to her; but here he has her in his den. It is stronger than any four walls in the world,—all this waste of desert.”
“Don’t speak of it; you sicken me.”
Something more in earnest than the tenderest pity here. I saw that the sudden doom of love had befallen my friend. In fact, I have never been quite sure but that the same would have been my fate, if I had not seen him a step in advance, and so checked myself. His time had come. Mine had not. Will it ever?