Phantom Fortune, a Novel by M. E. (Mary Elizabeth) Braddon
page 277 of 654 (42%)
page 277 of 654 (42%)
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would come darkness and death. The blow that had paralysed one side of
her body must needs, if repeated, bring total extinction. She who believed in no after life saw in her maimed and wasting arm the beginning of death. She who recognised only the life of the body felt that one half of her was already dead. But months had gone by, and Louis Asoph had made no sign. She began to hope that his boasted documents and witnesses were altogether mythical. And yet the engines of the law are slow to put in motion. He might be working up his case, line upon line, with some hard-headed London lawyer; arranging and marshalling his facts; preparing his witnesses; waiting for affidavits from India; working slowly but surely, underground like the mole; and all at once, in an hour, his case might be before the law courts. His story and the story of Lord Maulevrier's infamy might be town talk again; as it had been forty years ago, when the true story of that crime had been happily unknown. Yes, with the present fear of this Louis Asoph's revelations, of a new scandal, if not a calamity, Lady Maulevrier felt that it was a good thing to have her younger granddaughter's future in some measure secured. John Hammond had said of himself to Lesbia that he was not the kind of man to fail, and looking at him critically to-day Lady Maulevrier saw the stamp of power and dauntless courage in his countenance and bearing. It is the inner mind of a man which moulds the lines of his face and figure; and a man's character may be read in the way he walks and holds himself, the action of his hand, his smile, his frown, his general outlook, as clearly as in any phrenological development. John Hammond had a noble outlook: bold, without impudence or self-assertion; self-possessed, without vanity. Yes, assuredly a man to wrestle with difficulty, and to conquer fate. |
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