A. W. ST. IVES
P.S. I have reason to believe that Clifton is more seriously offended than I ever knew him before. When I refused going to the play with him, he persisted in saying I might change my mind before night, and that he would come again in that hope. His manner of parting with me, after being told Frank was entrusted with a business which we had not dared confide to him, was, as I have described, unusual, and accompanied with more coldness and reserve than either of us had ever before assumed. It is now eight o'clock, and I have not seen him since. If he have resolution enough to keep away the whole evening, which I suspect he will have, the proof of the truth of my conjectures will be indubitable.
I know not, when he comes to hear the business, whether he will be convinced that he was less proper to transact it than Frank; otherwise I should not be sorry, could he but certainly feel himself wrong: for it is by a repetition of such lessons that the good we intend must be effected.
Be it as it will, let us neither recede nor slacken our endeavours. I suspect that every worthy task must be a task of difficulty, and often of danger.
LETTER LXX
Anna Wenbourne St. Ives to Louisa Clifton
London, Grosvenor Street
Frank is returned; and, as usual, crowned with success.
I had been puzzling myself to no purpose, concerning Mr. Mac Fane being one of our old acquaintance. It appears he was the accomplice of the highwayman, Webb, the brother of Peggy, who was shot by Frank at Turnham Green. He forebore to tell me, in part because he had not time to connect and relate the grounds of his suspicion; though his chief reason was lest a whisper, heard by Laura or any other, should have betrayed and overturned his whole scheme.
He went immediately to question Mrs. Clarke, concerning her nephew. She knew not what was become of him; for, after having determined to go abroad, he changed his mind; and, being reproved and discountenanced by her, he had forborne his visits. She had even refused to hear his name mentioned. But she believed her niece, Peggy, had some knowledge of him; though she was not certain.