Within the Maze: A Novel, Vol. 1 (of 2)Wood, Henry, Mrs.
General
Within the Maze: A Novel, Vol. 1 (of 2)
Wood, Henry, Mrs.
English fiction -- 19th century
This he said. But Mrs. Andinnian pointed out to him that his position
would not be so very materially altered. Such was her conviction. That
she herself, by connivance with one of the warders, had mainly
contributed to the step Adam had taken, that she had been the first to
put it into his head, and set him on to attempt it, she was all too
remorsefully conscious of. Now that he had escaped, and was entered in
the prison rolls as dead, and lay hidden away in some hole or corner,
not daring to come out of it, or to let into it the light of day, she
saw what she had done. Not even to her might his hiding-place be
disclosed. She saw that his future life must be, at the very best,
that of a nameless exile--if, by good fortune, he could make his
escape from his own land. If? His person was rather a remarkable one,
and well known to his enemies the police force. Not one, perhaps, but
had his photograph. A fugitive in some barren desert, unfrequented by
man, where he must drag on a solitary life of expatriation! Not much
of his income would be needed for this.
"You will have to occupy Foxwood as its master; you must be Sir Karl
to the world as you are now," spoke Mrs. Andinnian; "and it is your
children who will inherit after you. There is no reason whatever for
breaking off your marriage, or for altering any of the arrangements.
You will have to pay a certain sum yearly to Adam out of the estate.
He will not need it long, poor fellow; a man's life, banned to the
extent his will be, eats itself away soon."
Hemmed in by perplexities of all kinds, Karl's interview with his
mother ended, and he went forth with his care and trouble. His own
trouble would have been enough, but it was as nothing to that felt for
his brother. He dared not tell the truth to Colonel Cleeve or to Lucy,
or impart the slightest hint that his brother was alive; he almost as
little dared, for Lucy's sake, to break off the marriage. And so it
took place.
After that, he heard no more until he was again at Foxwood, summoned
thither by his mother's illness. Mrs. Andinnian had fretted herself
sick. Night and day, night and day was the fear of her son's discovery
ever before her mind; she would see the recapture in her dreams:
remorse wore her out, and fever supervened. She would have given all
she possessed in the world could he be safely back at Portland Island
without having attempted to quit it. Karl, on his arrival, found her
in this sad state: and it was then she disclosed to him a further
complication in the case, which she had but recently learnt herself.
Sir Adam Andinnian was married.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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