For, although Northmour was neither unkind, nor
even discourteous, he had shown himself in several instances somewhat
overbold in speech and manner.
I listened, I need not say, with fixed attention, and put many questions
as to the more mysterious part. It was in vain. She had no clear idea of
what the blow was, nor of how it was expected to fall. Her father's alarm
was unfeigned and physically prostrating, and he had thought more than
once of making an unconditional surrender to the police. But the scheme
was finally abandoned, for he was convinced that not even the strength of
our English prisons could shelter him from his pursuers. He had had many
affairs in Italy, and with Italians resident in London, in the latter
years of his business; and these last, as Clara fancied, were somehow
connected with the doom that threatened him. He had shown great terror at
the presence of an Italian seaman on board the "Red Earl," and had
bitterly and repeatedly accused Northmour in consequence. The latter had
protested that Beppo (that was the seaman's name) was a capital fellow,
and could be trusted to the death; but Mr. Huddlestone had continued ever
since to declare that all was lost, that it was only a question of days,
and that Beppo would be the ruin of him yet.
I regarded the whole story as the hallucination of a mind shaken by
calamity.
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