CHAPTER VI.

PLOTS DEVELOPING.


"Charles, Charles! Where is Charles?"

This name and inquiry were often repeated by Miss Mandeville as she still
lay "between life and death," on her couch of fever, pain and
unconsciousness, and the tones of her voice were so full of sorrow, the
father's heart melted at last, and he began to relent. And when, after a
pause, his daughter would continue:

"He is gone! gone!--gone forever!--ah, my poor heart!"--in accents more
sadly plaintive than any words that had over fallen upon the parent's ear,
he said to himself:

"It must not be! Hadley shall be, sent for; she loves him, and his voice
may call her back to consciousness. I cannot bear to think of her leaving
the world in ignorance of her father's good will; better a thousand times
that Hadley should be with her for a few hours. He may not be guilty after
all. Why ought I to believe Duffel's word before his? Yes, and before that
of my own daughter, too? and that without a word of explanation! No, it is
unnatural. I wonder I have been blinded so long! Yes, Hadley shall be
heard, and if he can show a clean hand, Eveline shall no longer mourn over
his absence and my rashness."

This was going a step farther than Mr. Mandeville had ever gone before: for
he had never been known to recede from a position once taken or to change