Mannion! I had never suspected that the note shown to me at North Villa1 might have come from him. And yet, the secrecy2 with which it had been delivered; the person to whom it was addressed; the mystery connected with it even in the servant’s eyes, all pointed3 to the discovery which I had so incomprehensibly failed to make. I had suffered a letter, which might contain written proof of her guilt4, to be taken, from under my own eyes, to Margaret Sherwin! How had my perceptions become thus strangely blinded? The confusion of my memory, the listless incapacity of all my faculties5, answered the question but too readily, of themselves.
“Robert Mannion!” I could not take my eyes from that name: I still held before me the crowded, closely-written lines of his writing, and delayed to read them. Something of the horror which the presence of the man himself would have inspired in me, was produced by the mere6 sight of his letter, and that letter addressed to me. The vengeance7 which my own hands had wreaked8 on him, he was, of all men the surest to repay. Perhaps, in these lines, the dark future through which his way and mine might lie, would be already shadowed forth9. Margaret too! Could he write so much, and not write of her? not disclose the mystery in which the motives10 of her crime were still hidden? I turned back again to the first page, and resolved to read the letter. It began abruptly12, in the following terms:—
“St. Helen’s Hospital.
“You may look at the signature when you receive this, and may be tempted14 to tear up my letter, and throw it from you unread. I warn you to read what I have written, and to estimate, if you can, its importance to yourself. Destroy these pages afterwards if you like — they will have served their purpose.
“Do you know where I am, and what I suffer? I am one of the patients of this hospital, hideously15 mutilated for life by your hand. If I could have known certainly the day of my dismissal, I should have waited to tell you with my own lips what I now write — but I am ignorant of this. At the very point of recovery I have suffered a relapse.
“You will silence any uneasy upbraidings of conscience, should you feel them, by saying that I have deserved death at your hands. I will tell you, in answer, what you deserve and shall receive at mine.
“But I will first assume that it was knowledge of your wife’s guilt which prompted your attack on me. I am well aware that she has declared herself innocent, and that her father supports her declaration. By the time you receive this letter (my injuries oblige me to allow myself a whole fortnight to write it in), I shall have taken measures which render further concealment18 unnecessary. Therefore, if my confession19 avail you aught, you have it here:— She is guilty: willingly guilty, remember, whatever she may say to the contrary. You may believe this, and believe all I write hereafter. Deception20 between us two is at an end.
“I have told you Margaret Sherwin is guilty. Why was she guilty? What was the secret of my influence over her?
“To make you comprehend what I have now to communicate, it is necessary for me to speak of myself; and of my early life. To-morrow, I will undertake this disclosure — to-day, I can neither hold the pen, nor see the paper any longer. If you could look at my face, where I am now laid, you would know why!”
“When we met for the first time at North Villa, I had not been five minutes in your presence before I detected your curiosity to know something about me, and perceived that you doubted, from the first, whether I was born and bred for such a situation as I held under Mr. Sherwin. Failing — as I knew you would fail — to gain any information about me from my employer or his family, you tried, at various times, to draw me into familiarity, to get me to talk unreservedly to you; and only gave up the attempt to penetrate21 my secret, whatever it might be, when we parted after our interview at my house on the night of the storm. On that night, I determined22 to baulk your curiosity, and yet to gain your confidence; and I succeeded. You little thought, when you bade me farewell at my own door, that you had given your hand and your friendship to a man, who — long before you met with Margaret Sherwin — had inherited the right to be the enemy of your father, and of every descendant of your father’s house.
“Does this declaration surprise you? Read on, and you will understand it.
“I am the son of a gentleman. My father’s means were miserably24 limited, and his family was not an old family, like yours. Nevertheless, he was a gentleman in anybody’s sense of the word; he knew it, and that knowledge was his ruin. He was a weak, kind, careless man; a worshipper of conventionalities; and a great respecter of the wide gaps which lay between social stations in his time. Thus, he determined to live like a gentleman, by following a gentleman’s pursuit — a profession, as distinguished25 from a trade. Failing in this, he failed to follow out his principle, and starve like a gentleman. He died the death of a felon26; leaving me no inheritance but the name of a felon’s son.
“While still a young man, he contrived27 to be introduced to a gentleman of great family, great position, and great wealth. He interested, or fancied he interested, this gentleman; and always looked on him as the patron who was to make his fortune, by getting him the first government sinecure28 (they were plenty enough in those days!) which might fall vacant. In firm and foolish expectation of this, he lived far beyond his little professional income — lived among rich people without the courage to make use of them as a poor man. It was the old story: debts and liabilities of all kinds pressed heavy on him — creditors29 refused to wait — exposure and utter ruin threatened him — and the prospect30 of the sinecure was still as far off as ever.
“Nevertheless he believed in the advent31 of this office; and all the more resolutely32 now, because he looked to it as his salvation34. He was quite confident of the interest of his patron, and of its speedy exertion35 in his behalf. Perhaps, that gentleman had overrated his own political influence; perhaps, my father had been too sanguine36, and had misinterpreted polite general promises into special engagements. However it was, the bailiffs came into his house one morning, while help from a government situation, or any situation, was as unattainable as ever — came to take him to prison: to seize everything, in execution, even to the very bed on which my mother (then seriously ill) was lying. The whole fabric37 of false prosperity which he had been building up to make the world respect him, was menaced with instant and shameful39 overthrow40. He had not the courage to let it go; so he took refuge from misfortune in a crime.
“He forged a bond, to prop41 up his credit for a little time longer. The name he made use of was the name of his patron. In doing this, he believed — as all men who commit crime believe — that he had the best possible chance of escaping consequences. In the first place, he might get the long-expected situation in time to repay the amount of the bond before detection. In the second place, he had almost the certainty of a legacy42 from a rich relative, old and in ill-health, whose death might be fairly expected from day to day. If both these prospects43 failed (and they did fail), there was still a third chance — the chance that his rich patron would rather pay the money than appear against him. In those days they hung for forgery44. My father believed it to be impossible that a man at whose table he had sat, whose relatives and friends he had amused and instructed by his talents, would be the man to give evidence which should condemn45 him to be hanged on the public scaffold.
“He was wrong. The wealthy patron held strict principles of honour which made no allowance for temptations and weaknesses; and was moreover influenced by high-flown notions of his responsibilities as a legislator (he was a member of Parliament) to the laws of his country. He appeared accordingly, and gave evidence against the prisoner; who was found guilty, and left for execution.
“Then, when it was too late, this man of pitiless honour thought himself at last justified46 in leaning to the side of mercy, and employed his utmost interest, in every direction, to obtain a mitigation of the sentence to transportation for life. The application failed; even a reprieve47 of a few days was denied. At the appointed time, my father died on the scaffold by the hangman’s hand.
“Have you suspected, while reading this part of my letter, who the high-born gentleman was whose evidence hung him? If you have not, I will tell you. That gentleman was your father. You will now wonder no longer how I could have inherited the right to be his enemy, and the enemy of all who are of his blood.
“The shock of her husband’s horrible death deprived my mother of reason. She lived a few months after his execution; but never recovered her faculties. I was their only child; and was left penniless to begin life as the son of a father who had been hanged, and of a mother who had died in a public madhouse.
“More of myself to-morrow — my letter will be a long one: I must pause often over it, as I pause to-day.”
“Well: I started in life with the hangman’s mark on me — with the parent’s shame for the son’s reputation. Wherever I went, whatever friends I kept, whatever acquaintances I made — people knew how my father had died: and showed that they knew it. Not so much by shunning48 or staring at me (vile as human nature is, there were not many who did that), as by insulting me with over-acted sympathy, and elaborate anxiety to sham38 entire ignorance of my father’s fate. The gallows49-brand was on my forehead; but they were too benevolently50 blind to see it. The gallows-infamy51 was my inheritance; but they were too resolutely generous to discover it! This was hard to bear. However, I was strong-hearted even then, when my sensations were quick, and my sympathies young: so I bore it.
“My only weakness was my father’s weakness — the notion that I was born to a station ready made for me, and that the great use of my life was to live up to it. My station! I battled for that with the world for years and years, before I discovered that the highest of all stations is the station a man makes for himself: and the lowest, the station that is made for him by others.
“At starting in life, your father wrote to make me offers of assistance — assistance, after he had ruined me! Assistance to the child, from hands which had tied the rope round the parent’s neck! I sent him back his letter. He knew that I was his enemy, his son’s enemy, and his son’s son’s enemy, as long as I lived. I never heard from him again.
“Trusting boldly to myself to carve out my own way, and to live down my undeserved ignominy; resolving in the pride of my integrity to combat openly and fairly with misfortune, I shrank, at first, from disowning my parentage and abandoning my father’s name. Standing52 on my own character, confiding53 in my intellect and my perseverance54, I tried pursuit after pursuit, and was beaten afresh at every new effort. Whichever way I turned, the gallows still rose as the same immovable obstacle between me and fortune, between me and station, between me and my fellowmen. I was morbidly55 sensitive on this point. The slightest references to my father’s fate, however remote or accidental, curdled56 my blood. I saw open insult, or humiliating compassion57, or forced forbearance, in the look and manner of every man about me. So I broke off with old friends, and tried new; and, in seeking fresh pursuits, sought fresh connections, where my father’s infamy might be unknown. Wherever I went, the old stain always broke out afresh, just at the moment when I had deceived myself into the belief that it was utterly58 effaced59. I had a warm heart then — it was some time before it turned to stone, and felt nothing. Those were the days when failure and humiliation60 could still draw tears from me: that epoch61 in my life is marked in my memory as the epoch when I could weep.
“At last, I gave way before difficulty, and conceded the first step to the calamity62 which had stood front to front with me so long. I left the neighbourhood where I was known, and assumed the name of a schoolfellow who had died. For some time this succeeded; but the curse of my father’s death followed me, though I saw it not. After various employments — still, mind, the employments of a gentleman!— had first supported, then failed me, I became an usher63 at a school. It was there that my false name was detected, and my identity discovered again — I never knew through whom. The exposure was effected by some enemy, anonymously64. For several days, I thought everybody in the school treated me in an altered way. The cause came out, first in whispers, then in reckless jests, while I was taking care of the boys in the playground. In the fury of the moment I struck one of the most insolent65, and the eldest66 of them, and hurt him rather seriously. The parents heard of it, and threatened me with prosecution67; the whole neighbourhood was aroused. I had to leave my situation secretly, by night, or the mob would have pelted68 the felon’s son out of the parish.
“I went back to London, bearing another assumed name; and tried, as a last resource to save me from starvation, the resource of writing. I served my apprenticeship69 to literature as a hack-author of the lowest degree. Knowing I had talents which might be turned to account, I tried to vindicate70 them by writing an original work. But my experience of the world had made me unfit to dress my thoughts in popular costume: I could only tell bitter truths bitterly; I exposed licenced hypocrisies71 too openly; I saw the vicious side of many respectabilities, and said I saw it — in short, I called things by their right names; and no publisher would treat with me. So I stuck to my low task-work; my penny-a lining72 in third-class newspapers; my translating from Frenchmen and Germans, and plagiarising from dead authors, to supply the raw material for bookmongering by more accomplished73 bookmongers than I. In this life, there was one advantage which compensated74 for much misery75 and meanness, and bitter, biting disappointment: I could keep my identity securely concealed76. Character was of no consequence to me; nobody cared to know who I was, or to inquire what I had been — the gallows-mark was smoothed out at last!
“While I was living thus on the offal of literature, I met with a woman of good birth, and fair fortune, whose sympathies or whose curiosity I happened to interest. She and her father and mother received me favourably77, as a gentleman who had known better days, and an author whom the public had undeservedly neglected. How I managed to gain their confidence and esteem78, without alluding79 to my parentage, it is not worth while to stop to describe. That I did so you will easily imagine, when I tell you that the woman to whom I refer, consented, with her father’s full approval, to become my wife.
“The very day of the marriage was fixed80. I believed I had successfully parried all perilous82 inquiries83 — but I was wrong. A relation of the family, whom I had never seen, came to town a short time before the wedding. We disliked each other on our first introduction. He was a clever, resolute33 man of the world, and privately84 inquired about me to much better purpose in a few days, than his family had done in several months. Accident favoured him strangely, everything was discovered — literally85 everything — and I was contemptuously dismissed the house. Could a lady of respectability marry a man (no matter how worthy86 in her eyes) whose father had been hanged, whose mother had died in a madhouse, who had lived under assumed names, who had been driven from an excellent country neighbourhood, for cruelty to a harmless school-boy? Impossible!
“With this event, my long strife87 and struggle with the world ended.
“My eyes opened to a new view of life, and the purpose of life. My first aspirations88 to live up to my birth-right position, in spite of adversity and dishonour89, to make my name sweet enough in men’s nostrils90, to cleanse91 away the infamy on my father’s, were now no more. The ambition which — whether I was a hack-author, a travelling portrait-painter, or an usher at a school — had once whispered to me: low down as you are in dark, miry ways, you are on the path which leads upward to high places in the sunshine afar-off; you are not working to scrape together wealth for another man; you are independent, self-reliant, labouring in your own cause — the daring ambition which had once counselled thus, sank dead within me at last. The strong, stern spirit was beaten by spirits stronger and sterner yet — Infamy and Want.
“I wrote to a man of character and wealth; one of my friends of early days, who had ceased to hold communication with me, like other friends, but, unlike them, had given me up in genuine sorrow: I wrote, and asked him to meet me privately by night. I was too ragged92 to go to his house, too sensitive still (even if I had gone and had been admitted) to risk encountering people there, who either knew my father, or knew how he had died. I wished to speak to my former friend, unseen, and made the appointment accordingly. He kept it.
“When we met, I said to him:— I have a last favour to ask of you. When we parted years ago, I had high hopes and brave resolutions — both are worn out. I then believed that I could not only rise superior to my misfortune, but could make that very misfortune the motive11 of my rise. You told me I was too quick of temper, too morbidly sensitive about the slightest reference to my father’s death, too fierce and changeable under undeserved trial and disappointment. This might have been true then; but I am altered now: pride and ambition have been persecuted93 and starved out of me. An obscure, monotonous94 life, in which thought and spirit may be laid asleep, never to wake again, is the only life I care for. Help me to lead it. I ask you, first, as a beggar, to give me from your superfluity, apparel decent enough to bear the daylight. I ask you next, to help me to some occupation which will just give me my bread, my shelter, and my hour or two of solitude95 in the evening. You have plenty of influence to do this, and you know I am honest. You cannot choose me too humble96 and obscure an employment; let me descend23 low enough to be lost to sight beneath the world I have lived in; let me go among people who want to know that I work honestly for them, and want to know nothing more. Get me a mean hiding-place to conceal17 myself and my history in for ever, and then neither attempt to see me nor communicate with me again. If former friends chance to ask after me, tell them I am dead, or gone into another country. The wisest life is the life the animals lead: I want, like them, to serve my master for food, shelter, and liberty to lie asleep now and then in the sunshine, without being driven away as a pest or a trespasser97. Do you believe in this resolution?— it is my last.
“He did believe in it; and he granted what I asked. Through his interference and recommendation, I entered the service of Mr. Sherwin.—
“I must stop here for to-day. To-morrow I shall come to disclosures of vital interest to you. Have you been surprised that I, your enemy by every cause of enmity that one man can have against another, should write to you so fully81 about the secrets of my early life? I have done so, because I wish the strife between us to be an open strife on my side; because I desire that you should know thoroughly99 what you have to expect from my character, after such a life as I have led. There was purpose in my deceit, when I deceived you — there is purpose in my frankness, when I now tell you all.”
“I began in Mr. Sherwin’s employment, as the lowest clerk in his office. Both the master and the men looked a little suspiciously on me, at first. My account of myself was always the same — simple and credible100; I had entered the counting-house with the best possible recommendation, and I acted up to it. These circumstances in my favour, joined to a manner that never varied101, and to a steadiness at my work that never relaxed, soon produced their effect — all curiosity about me gradually died away: I was left to pursue my avocations102 in peace. The friend who had got me my situation, preserved my secret as I had desired him; of all the people whom I had formerly103 known, pitiless enemies and lukewarm adherents104, not one ever suspected that my hiding-place was the back office of a linen-draper’s shop. For the first time in my life, I felt that the secret of my father’s misfortune was mine, and mine only; that my security from exposure was at length complete.
“Before long, I rose to the chief place in the counting-house. It was no very difficult matter for me to discover, that my new master’s character had other elements besides that of the highest respectability. In plain terms, I found him to be a pretty equal compound by nature, of the fool, the tyrant105, and the coward. There was only one direction in which what grovelling106 sympathies he had, could be touched to some purpose. Save him waste, or get him profit; and he was really grateful. I succeeded in working both these marvels107. His managing man cheated him; I found it out; refused to be bribed108 to collusion; and exposed the fraud to Mr. Sherwin. This got me his confidence, and the place of chief clerk. In that position, I discovered a means, which had never occurred to my employer, of greatly enlarging his business and its profits, with the least possible risk. He tried my plan, and it succeeded. This gained me his warmest admiration109, an increase of salary, and a firm footing in his family circle. My projects were more than fulfilled: I had money enough, and leisure enough; and spent my obscure existence exactly as I had proposed.
“But my life was still not destined110 to be altogether devoid111 of an animating112 purpose. When I first knew Margaret Sherwin, she was just changing from childhood to girlhood. I marked the promise of future beauty in her face and figure; and secretly formed the resolution which you afterwards came forward to thwart113, but which I have executed, and will execute, in spite of you.
“The thoughts out of which that resolution sprang, counselled me more calmly than you can suppose. I said within myself: ‘The best years of my life have been irrevocably wasted; misery and humiliation and disaster have followed my steps from my youth; of all the pleasant draughts114 which other men drink to sweeten existence, not one has passed my lips. I will know happiness before I die; and this girl shall confer it. She shall grow up to maturity115 for me: I will imperceptibly gain such a hold on her affections, while they are yet young and impressible, that, when the time comes, and I speak the word — though my years more than double hers, though I am dependent on her father for the bread I eat, though parents’ voice and lover’s voice unite to call her back — she shall still come to my side, and of her own free will put her hand in mine, and follow me wherever I go; my wife, my mistress, my servant, which I choose.
“This was my project. To execute it, time and opportunity were mine; and I steadily116 and warily117 made use of them, hour by hour, day by day, year by year. From first to last, the girl’s father never suspected me. Besides the security which he felt in my age, he had judged me by his own small commercial standard, and had found me a model of integrity. A man who had saved him from being cheated, who had so enlarged and consolidated118 his business as to place him among the top dignitaries of the trade; who was the first to come to the desk in the morning, and the last to remain there in the evening; who had not only never demanded, but had absolutely refused to take, a single holiday — such a man as this was, morally and intellectually, a man in ten thousand; a man to be admired and trusted in every relation of life!
“His confidence in me knew no bounds. He was uneasy if I was not by to advise him in the simplest matters. My ears were the first to which he confided119 his insane ambition on the subject of his daughter — his anxiety to see her marry above her station — his stupid resolution to give her the false, flippant, fashionable education which she subsequently received. I thwarted120 his plans in nothing, openly — counteracted121 them in everything, secretly. The more I strengthened my sources of influence over Margaret, the more pleased he was. He was delighted to hear her constantly referring to me about her home-lessons; to see her coming to me, evening after evening, to learn new occupations and amusements. He suspected I had been a gentleman; he had been told I spoke122 pure English; he felt sure I had received a first-rate education — I was nearly as good for Margaret as good society itself! When she grew older, and went to the fashionable school, as her father had declared she should, my offer to keep up her lessons in the holidays, and to examine what progress she had made, when she came home regularly every fortnight for the Sunday, was accepted with greedy readiness, and acknowledged with servile gratitude123. At this time, Mr. Sherwin’s own estimate of me, among his friends, was, that he had got me for half nothing, and that I was worth more to him than a thousand a-year.
“But there was one member of the family who suspected my intentions from the first. Mrs. Sherwin — the weak, timid, sickly woman, whose opinion nobody regarded, whose character nobody understood — Mrs. Sherwin, of all those who dwelt in the house, or came to the house, was the only one whose looks, words, and manner kept me constantly on my guard. The very first time we saw each other, that woman doubted me, as I doubted her; and for ever afterwards, when we met, she was on the watch. This mutual124 distrust, this antagonism125 of our two natures, never openly proclaimed itself, and never wore away. My chance of security lay, not so much in my own caution, and my perfect command of look and action under all emergencies, as in the self-distrust and timidity of her nature; in the helpless inferiority of position to which her husband’s want of affection, and her daughter’s want of respect, condemned126 her in her own house; and in the influence of repulsion — at times, even of absolute terror — which my presence had the power of communicating to her. Suspecting what I am assured she suspected — incapable127 as she was of rendering128 her suspicions certainties — knowing beforehand, as she must have known, that no words she could speak would gain the smallest respect or credit from her husband or her child — that woman’s life, while I was at North Villa, must have been a life of the direst mental suffering to which any human being was ever condemned.
“As time passed, and Margaret grew older, her beauty both of face and form approached nearer to perfection than I had foreseen, closely as I watched her. But neither her mind nor her disposition129 kept pace with her beauty. I studied her closely, with the same patient, penetrating130 observation, which my experience of the world has made it a habit with me to direct on every one with whom I am brought in contact — I studied her, I say, intently; and found her worthy of nothing, not even of the slave-destiny which I had in store for her.
“She had neither heart nor mind, in the higher sense of those words. She had simply instincts — most of the bad instincts of an animal; none of the good. The great motive power which really directed her, was Deceit. I never met with any human being so inherently disingenuous131, so naturally incapable of candour even in the most trifling132 affairs of life, as she was. The best training could never have wholly overcome this vice98 in her: the education she actually got — an education under false pretences133 — encouraged it. Everybody has read, some people have known, of young girls who have committed the most extraordinary impostures, or sustained the most infamous134 false accusations135; their chief motive being often the sheer enjoyment136 of practising deceit. Of such characters was the character of Margaret Sherwin.
“She had strong passions, but not their frequent accompaniment — strong will, and strong intellect. She had some obstinacy137, but no firmness. Appeal in the right way to her vanity, and you could make her do the thing she had declared she would not do, the minute after she had made the declaration. As for her mind, it was of the lowest schoolgirl average. She had a certain knack138 at learning this thing, and remembering that; but she understood nothing fairly, felt nothing deeply. If I had not had my own motive in teaching her, I should have shut the books again, the first time she and I opened them together, and have given her up as a fool.
“All, however, that I discovered of bad in her character, never made me pause in the prosecution of my design; I had carried it too far for that, before I thoroughly knew her. Besides, what mattered her duplicity to me?— I could see through it. Her strong passions?— I could control them. Her obstinacy?— I could break it. Her poverty of intellect?— I cared nothing about her intellect. What I wanted was youth and beauty; she was young and beautiful and I was sure of her.
“Yes; sure. Her showy person, showy accomplishments139, and showy manners dazzled all eyes but mine — Of all the people about her, I alone found out what she really was; and in that lay the main secret of my influence over her. I dreaded141 no rivalry142. Her father, prompted by his ambitious hopes, kept most young men of her class away from the house; the few who did come were not dangerous; they were as incapable of inspiring, as she was of feeling, real love. Her mother still watched me, and still discovered nothing; still suspected me behind my back, and still trembled before my face. Months passed on monotonously143, year succeeded to year; and I bided144 my time as patiently, and kept my secret as cautiously as at the first. No change occurred, nothing happened to weaken or alter my influence at North Villa, until the day arrived when Margaret left school and came home for good.
“Exactly at the period to which I have referred, certain business transactions of great importance required the presence of Mr. Sherwin, or of some confidential145 person to represent him, at Lyons. Secretly distrusting his own capabilities146, he proposed to me to go; saying that it would be a pleasant trip for me, and a good introduction to his wealthy manufacturing correspondents. After some consideration, I accepted his offer.
“I had never hinted a word of my intentions towards her to Margaret; but she understood them well enough — I was certain of that, from many indications which no man could mistake. For reasons which will presently appear, I resolved not to explain myself until my return from Lyons. My private object in going there, was to make interest secretly with Mr. Sherwin’s correspondents for a situation in their house. I knew that when I made my proposals to Margaret, I must be prepared to act on them on the instant; I knew that her father’s fury when he discovered that I had been helping147 to educate his daughter only for myself, would lead him to any extremities148; I knew that we must fly to some foreign country; and, lastly, I knew the importance of securing a provision for our maintenance, when we got there. I had saved money, it is true — nearly two-thirds of my salary, every year — but had not saved enough for two. Accordingly, I left England to push my own interests, as well as my employer’s; left it, confident that my short absence would not weaken the result of years of steady influence over Margaret. The sequel showed that, cautious and calculating as I was, I had nevertheless overlooked the chances against me, which my own experience of her vanity and duplicity ought to have enabled me thoroughly to foresee.
“Well: I had been some time at Lyons; had managed my employer’s business (from first to last, I was faithful, as I had engaged to be, to his commercial interests); and had arranged my own affairs securely and privately. Already, I was looking forward, with sensations of happiness which were new to me, to my return and to the achievement of the one success, the solitary149 triumph of my long life of humiliation and disaster, when a letter arrived from Mr. Sherwin. It contained the news of your private marriage, and of the extraordinary conditions that had been attached to it with your consent.
“Other people were in the room with me when I read that letter; but my manner betrayed nothing to them. My hand never trembled when I folded the sheet of paper again; I was not a minute late in attending a business engagement which I had accepted; the slightest duties of other kinds which I had to do, I rigidly150 fulfilled. Never did I more thoroughly and fairly earn the evening’s leisure by the morning’s work, than I earned it that day.
“Leaving the town at the close of afternoon, I walked on till I came to a solitary place on the bank of the great river which runs near Lyons. There I opened the letter for the second time, and read it through again slowly, with no necessity now for self-control, because no human being was near to look at me. There I read your name, constantly repeated in every line of writing; and knew that the man who, in my absence, had stepped between me and my prize — the man who, in his insolence151 of youth, and birth, and fortune, had snatched from me the one long-delayed reward for twenty years of misery, just as my hands were stretched forth to grasp it, was the son of that honourable152 and high-born gentleman who had given my father to the gallows, and had made me the outcast of my social privileges for life.
“The sun was setting when I looked up from the letter; flashes of rose-light leapt on the leaping river; the birds were winging nestward to the distant trees, and the ghostly stillness of night was sailing solemnly over earth and sky, as the first thought of the vengeance I would have on father and son began to burn fiercely at my heart, to move like a new life within me, to whisper to my spirit — Wait: be patient; they are both in your power; you can now foul153 the father’s name as the father fouled154 yours — you can yet thwart the son, as the son has thwarted you.
“In the few minutes that passed, while I lingered in that lonely place after reading the letter, I imagined the whole scheme which it afterwards took a year to execute. I laid the whole plan against you and your father, the first half of which, through the accident that led you to your discovery, has alone been carried out. I believed then, as I believe now, that I stood towards you both in the place of an injured man, whose right it was, in self-defence and self-assertion, to injure you. Judged by your ideas, this may read wickedly; but to me, after having lived and suffered as I have, the modern common-places current in the world are so many brazen155 images which society impudently156 worships — like the Jews of old — in the face of living Truth.
“Let us get back to England.
“That evening, when we met for the first time, did you observe that Margaret was unusually agitated157 before I came in? I detected some change, the moment I saw her. Did you notice that I avoided speaking to her, or looking at her? it was because I was afraid to do so. I saw that, with my return, my old influence over her was coming back: and I still believe that, hypocritical and heartless though she was, and blinded though you were by your passion for her, she would unconsciously have betrayed everything to you on that evening, if I had not acted as I did. Her mother, too! how her mother watched me from the moment when I came in!
“Afterwards, while you were trying hard to open, undetected, the sealed history of my early life, I was warily discovering from Margaret all that I desired to know. I say ‘warily,’ but the word poorly expresses my consummate158 caution and patience, at that time. I never put myself in her power, never risked offending, or frightening, or revolting her; never lost an opportunity of bringing her back to her old habits of familiarity; and, more than all, never gave her mother a single opportunity of detecting me. This was the sum of what I gathered up, bit by bit, from secret and scattered159 investigations160, persevered161 in through many weeks.
“Her vanity had been hurt, her expectations disappointed, at my having left her for Lyons, with no other parting words than such as I might have spoken to any other woman whom I looked on merely as a friend. That she felt any genuine love for me I never have believed, and never shall: but I had that practical ability, that firmness of will, that obvious personal ascendancy162 over most of those with whom I came in contact, which extorts163 the respect and admiration of women of all characters, and even of women of no character at all. As far as her senses, her instincts, and her pride could take her, I had won her over to me but no farther — because no farther could she go. I mention pride among her motives, advisedly. She was proud of being the object of such attentions as I had now paid to her for years, because she fancied that, through those attentions, I, who, more or less, ruled everyone else in her sphere, had yielded to her the power of ruling me. The manner of my departure from England showed her too plainly that she had miscalculated her influence, and that the power, in her case, as in the case of others, was all on my side. Hence the wound to her vanity, to which I have alluded164.
“It was while this wound was still fresh that you met her, and appealed to her self-esteem in a new direction. You must have seen clearly enough, that such proposals as yours far exceeded the most ambitious expectations formed by her father. No man’s alliance could have lifted her much higher out of her own class: she knew this, and from that knowledge married you — married you for your station, for your name, for your great friends and connections, for your father’s money, and carriages, and fine houses; for everything, in short, but yourself.
“Still, in spite of the temptations of youth, wealth, and birth which your proposals held out to her, she accepted them at first (I made her confess it herself) with a secret terror and misgiving165, produced by the remembrance of me. These sensations, however, she soon quelled166, or fancied she quelled; and these, it was now my last, best chance to revive. I had a whole year for the work before me; and I felt certain of success.
“On your side, you had immense advantages. You had social superiority; you had her father’s full approbation167; and you were married to her. If she had loved you for yourself, loved you for anything besides her own sensual interests, her vulgar ambition, her reckless vanity, every effort I could have made against you would have been defeated from the first. But, setting this out of the question, in spite of the utter heartlessness of her attachment169 to you, if you had not consented to that condition of waiting a year for her after marriage; or, consenting to it, if you had broken it long before the year was out — knowing, as you should have known, that in most women’s eyes a man is not dishonoured170 by breaking his promise, so long as he breaks it for a woman’s sake — if, I say, you had taken either of these courses, I should still have been powerless against you. But you remained faithful to your promise, faithful to the condition, faithful to the ill-directed modesty171 of your love; and that very fidelity172 put you in my power. A pure-minded girl would have loved you a thousand times better for acting173 as you did — but Margaret Sherwin was not a pure-minded girl, not a maidenly174 girl: I have looked into her thoughts, and I know it.
“Such were your chances against me; and such was the manner in which you misused175 them. On my side, I had indefatigable176 patience; personal advantages equal, with the exception of birth and age, to yours: long-established influence; freedom to be familiar; and more than all, that stealthy, unflagging strength of purpose which only springs from the desire of revenge. I first thoroughly tested your character, and discovered on what points it was necessary for me to be on my guard against you, when you took shelter under my roof from the storm. If your father had been with you on that night, there were moments, while the tempest was wrought177 to its full fury, when, if my voice could have called the thunder down on the house to crush it and every one in it to atoms, I would have spoken the word, and ended the strife for all of us. The wind, the hail, and the lightning maddened my thoughts of your father and you — I was nearly letting you see it, when that flash came between us as we parted at my door.
“How I gained your confidence, you know; and you know also, how I contrived to make you use me, afterwards, as the secret friend who procured178 you privileges with Margaret which her father would not grant at your own request. This, at the outset, secured me from suspicion on your part; and I had only to leave it to your infatuation to do the rest. With you my course was easy — with her it was beset179 by difficulties; but I overcame them. Your fatal consent to wait through a year of probation168, furnished me with weapons against you, which I employed to the most unscrupulous purpose. I can picture to myself what would be your indignation and your horror, if I fully described the use which I made of the position in which your compliance180 with her father’s conditions placed you towards Margaret. I spare you this avowal181 — it would be useless now. Consider me what you please; denounce my conduct in any terms you like: my justification182 will always be the same. I was the injured man, you were the aggressor; I was righting myself by getting back a possession of which you had robbed me, and any means were sanctified by such an end as that.
“But my success, so far, was of little avail, in itself; against the all-powerful counter-attraction which you possessed183. Contemptible184, or not, you still had this superiority over me — you could make a fine lady of her. From that fact sprang the ambition which all my influence, dating as it did from her childhood, could not destroy. There, was fastened the main-spring which regulated her selfish devotion to you, and which it was next to impossible to snap asunder185. I never made the attempt.
“The scheme which I proposed to her, when she was fully prepared to hear it, and to conceal that she had heard it, left her free to enjoy all the social advantages which your alliance could bestow186 — free to ride in her carriage, and go into her father’s shop (that was one of her ambitions!) as a new customer added to his aristocratic connection — free even to become one of your family, unsuspected, in case your rash marriage was forgiven. Your credulity rendered the execution of this scheme easy. In what manner it was to be carried out, and what object I proposed to myself in framing it, I abstain187 from avowing188; for the simple reason that the discovery at which you arrived by following us on the night of the party, made my plan abortive189, and has obliged me since to renounce190 it. I need only say, in this place, that it threatened your father as well as you, and that Margaret recoiled191 from it at first — not from any horror of the proposal, but through fear of discovery. Gradually, I overcame her apprehensions192: very gradually, for I was not thoroughly secure of her devotion to my purpose, until your year of probation was nearly out.
“Through all that year, daily visitor as you were at North Villa, you never suspected either of us! And yet, had you been one whit194 less infatuated, how many warnings you might have discovered, which, in spite of her duplicity and my caution, would then have shown themselves plainly enough to put you on your guard! Those abrupt13 changes in her manner, those alternate fits of peevish195 silence and capricious gaiety, which sometimes displayed themselves even in your presence, had every one of them their meaning — though you could not discern it. Sometimes, they meant fear of discovery, sometimes fear of me: now, they might be traced back to hidden contempt; now, to passions swelling196 under fancied outrage197; now, to secret remembrance of disclosures I had just made, or eager anticipation198 of disclosures I had yet to reveal. There were times at which every step of the way along which I was advancing was marked, faintly yet significantly, in her manner and her speech, could you only have interpreted them aright. My first renewal199 of my old influence over her, my first words that degraded you in her eyes, my first successful pleading of my own cause against yours, my first appeal to those passions in her which I knew how to move, my first proposal to her of the whole scheme which I had matured in solitude, in the foreign country, by the banks of the great river — all these separate and gradual advances on my part towards the end which I was vowed200 to achieve, were outwardly shadowed forth in her, consummate as were her capacities for deceit, and consummately201 as she learnt to use them against you.
“Do you remember noticing, on your return from the country, how ill Margaret looked, and how ill I looked? We had some interviews during your absence, at which I spoke such words to her as would have left their mark on the face of a Jezebel, or a Messalina. Have you forgotten how often, during the latter days of your year of expectation, I abruptly left the room after you had called me in to bear you company in your evening readings? My pretext202 was sudden illness; and illness it was, but not of the body. As the time approached, I felt less and less secure of my own caution and patience. With you, indeed, I might still have considered myself safe: it was the presence of Mrs. Sherwin that drove me from the room. Under that woman’s fatal eye I shrank, when the last days drew near — I, who had defied her detection, and stood firmly on my guard against her sleepless203, silent, deadly vigilance, for months and months — gave way as the end approached! I knew that she had once or twice spoken strangely to you, and I dreaded lest her wandering, incoherent words might yet take in time a recognisable direction, a palpable shape. They did not; the instinct of terror bound her tongue to the last. Perhaps, even if she had spoken plainly, you would not have believed her; you would have been still true to yourself and to your confidence in Margaret. Enemy as I am to you, enemy as I will be to the day of your death, I will do you justice for the past:— Your love for that girl was a love which even the purest and best of women could never have thoroughly deserved.
“My letter is nearly done: my retrospect204 is finished. I have brought it down to the date of events, about which you know as much as I do. Accident conducted you to a discovery which, otherwise, you might not have made, perhaps for months, perhaps not at all, until I had led you to it of my own accord. I say accident, positively205; knowing that from first to last I trusted no third person. What you know, you knew by accident alone.
“But for that chance discovery, you would have seen me bring her back to North Villa at the appointed time, in my care, just as she went out. I had no dread140 of her meeting you. But enough of her! I shall dispose of her future, as I had resolved to dispose of it years ago; careless how she may be affected206 when she first sees the hideous16 alteration207 which your attack has wrought in me. Enough, I say, of the Sherwins — father, mother, and daughter — your destiny lies not with them, but with me.
“Do you still exult208 in having deformed209 me in every feature, in having given me a face to revolt every human being who looks at me? Do you triumph in the remembrance of this atrocity210, as you triumphed in the acting of it — believing that you had destroyed my future with Margaret, in destroying my very identity as a man? I tell you, that with the hour when I leave this hospital your day of triumph will be over, and your day of expiation211 will begin — never to end till the death of one of us. You shall live — refined educated gentleman as you are — to wish, like a ruffian, that you had killed me; and your father shall live to wish it too.
“Am I trying to awe212 you with the fierce words of a boaster and a bully213? Test me, by looking back a little, and discovering what I have abstained214 from for the sake of my purpose, since I have been here. A word or two from my lips, in answer to the questions with which I have been baited, day after day, by those about me, would have called you before a magistrate215 to answer for an assault — a shocking and a savage216 assault, even in this country, where hand to hand brutality217 is a marketable commodity between the Prisoner and the Law. Your father’s name might have been publicly coupled with your dishonour, if I had but spoken; and I was silent. I kept the secret — kept it, because to avenge218 myself on you by a paltry219 scandal, which you and your family (opposing to it wealth, position, previous character, and general sympathy) would live down in a few days, was not my revenge: because to be righted before magistrates220 and judges by a beggarman’s exhibition of physical injury, and a coward’s confession of physical defeat, was not my way of righting myself. I have a lifelong retaliation221 in view, which laws and lawgivers are powerless either to aid or to oppose — the retaliation which set a mark upon Cain (as I will set a mark on you); and then made his life his punishment (as I will make your life yours).
“How? Remember what my career has been; and know that I will make your career like it. As my father’s death by the hangman affected my existence, so the events of that night when you followed me shall affect yours. Your father shall see you living the life to which his evidence against my father condemned me— shall see the foul stain of your disaster clinging to you wherever you go. The infamy with which I am determined to pursue you, shall be your own infamy that you cannot get quit of — for you shall never get quit of me, never get quit of the wife who has dishonoured you. You may leave your home, and leave England; you may make new friends, and seek new employments; years and years may pass away — and still, you shall not escape us: still, you shall never know when we are near, or when we are distant; when we are ready to appear before you, or when we are sure to keep out of your sight. My deformed face and her fatal beauty shall hunt you through the world. The terrible secret of your dishonour, and of the atrocity by which you avenged222 it, shall ooze223 out through strange channels, in vague shapes, by tortuous224 intangible processes; ever changing in the manner of its exposure, never remediable by your own resistance, and always directed to the same end — your isolation225 as a marked man, in every fresh sphere, among every new community to which you retreat.
“Do you call this a very madness of malignity226 and revenge? It is the only occupation in life for which your mutilation of me has left me fit; and I accept it, as work worthy of my deformity. In the prospect of watching how you bear this hunting through life, that never quite hunts you down; how long you resist the poison-influence, as slow as it is sure, of a crafty227 tongue that cannot be silenced, of a denouncing presence that cannot be fled, of a damning secret torn from you and exposed afresh each time you have hidden it — there is the promise of a nameless delight which it sometimes fevers, sometimes chills my blood to think of. Lying in this place at night, in those hours of darkness and stillness when the surrounding atmosphere of human misery presses heavy on me in my heavy sleep, prophecies of dread things to come between us, trouble my spirit in dreams. At those times, I know, and shudder228 in knowing, that there is something besides the motive of retaliation, something less earthly and apparent than that, which urges me horribly and supernaturally to link myself to you for life; which makes me feel as the bearer of a curse that shall follow you; as the instrument of a fatality229 pronounced against you long ere we met — a fatality beginning before our fathers were parted by the hangman; perpetuating230 itself in you and me; ending who shall say how, or when?
“Beware of comforting yourself with a false security, by despising my words, as the wild words of a madman, dreaming of the perpetration of impossible crimes. Throughout this letter I have warned you of what you may expect; because I will not assail231 you at disadvantage, as you assailed232 me; because it is my pleasure to ruin you, openly resisting me at every step. I have given you fair play, as the huntsmen give fair play at starting to the animal they are about to run down. Be warned against seeking a false hope in the belief that my faculties are shaken, and that my resolves are visionary — false, because such a hope is only despair in disguise.
“I have done. The time is not far distant when my words will become deeds. They cure fast in a public hospital: we shall meet soon!
“ROBERT MANNION.”
“We shall meet soon!”
How? Where? I looked back at the last page of writing. But my attention wandered strangely; I confused one paragraph with another; the longer I read, the less I was able to grasp the meaning, not of sentences merely, but even of the simplest words.
From the first lines to the last, the letter had produced no distinct impressions on my mind. So utterly was I worn out by the previous events of the day, that even those earlier portions of Mannion’s confession, which revealed the connection between my father and his, and the terrible manner of their separation, hardly roused me to more than a momentary233 astonishment234. I just called to remembrance that I had never heard the subject mentioned at home, except once or twice in vague hints dropped mysteriously by an old servant, and little regarded by me at the time, as referring to matters which had happened before I was born. I just reflected thus briefly235 and languidly on the narrative236 at the commencement of the letter; and then mechanically read on. Except the passages which contained the exposure of Margaret’s real character, and those which described the origin and progress of Mannion’s infamous plot, nothing in the letter impressed me, as I was afterwards destined to be impressed by it, on a second reading. The lethargy of all feeling into which I had now sunk, seemed a very lethargy of death.
I tried to clear and concentrate my faculties by thinking of other subjects; but without success. All that I had heard and seen since the morning, now recurred237 to me more and more vaguely238 and confusedly. I could form no plan either for the present or the future. I knew as little how to meet Mr. Sherwin’s last threat of forcing me to acknowledge his guilty daughter, as how to defend myself against the life-long hostility239 with which I was menaced by Mannion. A feeling of awe and apprehension193, which I could trace to no distinct cause, stole irresistibly240 and mysteriously over me. A horror of the searching brightness of daylight, a suspicion of the loneliness of the place to which I had retreated, a yearning241 to be among my fellow-creatures again, to live where there was life — the busy life of London — overcame me. I turned hastily, and walked back from the suburbs to the city.
It was growing towards evening as I gained one of the great thoroughfares. Seeing some of the inhabitants of the houses, as I walked along, sitting at their open windows to enjoy the evening air, the thought came to me for the first time that day:— where shall I lay my head tonight? Home I had none. Friends who would have gladly received me were not wanting; but to go to them would oblige me to explain myself; to disclose something of the secret of my calamity; and this I was determined to keep concealed, as I had told my father I would keep it. My last-left consolation242 was my knowledge of still preserving that resolution, of still honourably243 holding by it at all hazards, cost what it might.
So I thought no more of succour or sympathy from any one of my friends. As a stranger I had been driven from my home, and as a stranger I was resigned to live, until I had learnt how to conquer my misfortune by my own vigour244 and endurance. Firm in this determination, though firm in nothing else, I now looked around me for the first shelter I could purchase from strangers — the humbler the better.
I happened to be in the poorest part, and on the poorest side of the great street along which I was walking — among the inferior shops, and the houses of few stories. A room to let was not hard to find here. I took the first I saw; escaped questions about names and references by paying my week’s rent in advance; and then found myself left in possession of the one little room which I must be resigned to look on for the future — perhaps for a long future!— as my home.
Home! A dear and a mournful remembrance was revived in the reflections suggested by that simple word. Through the darkness that thickened over my mind, there now passed one faint ray of light which gave promise of the morning — the light of the calm face that I had last looked on when it was resting on my father’s breast.
Clara! My parting words to her, when I had unclasped from my neck those kind arms which would fain have held me to home for ever, had expressed a promise that was yet unfulfilled. I trembled as I now thought on my sister’s situation. Not knowing whither I had turned my steps on leaving home; uncertain to what extremities my despair might hurry me; absolutely ignorant even whether she might ever see me again — it was terrible to reflect on the suspense245 under which she might be suffering, at this very moment, on my account. My promise to write to her, was of all promises the most vitally important, and the first that should be fulfilled.
My letter was very short. I communicated to her the address of the house in which I was living (well knowing that nothing but positive information on this point would effectually relieve her anxiety)— I asked her to write in reply, and let me hear some news of her, the best that she could give — and I entreated246 her to believe implicitly247 in my patience and courage under every disaster; and to feel assured that, whatever happened, I should never lose the hope of soon meeting her again. Of the perils248 that beset me, of the wrong and injury I might yet be condemned to endure, I said nothing. Those were truths which I was determined to conceal from her, to the last. She had suffered for me more than I dared think of, already!
I sent my letter by hand, so as to ensure its immediate249 delivery. In writing those few simple lines, I had no suspicion of the important results which they were destined to produce. In thinking of to-morrow, and of all the events which to-morrow might bring with it, I little thought whose voice would be the first to greet me the next day, whose hand would be held out to me as the helping hand of a friend.
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villa
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| n.别墅，城郊小屋 | |
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secrecy
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| n.秘密，保密，隐蔽 | |
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pointed
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| adj.尖的，直截了当的 | |
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guilt
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| n.犯罪；内疚；过失，罪责 | |
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faculties
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| n.能力( faculty的名词复数 )；全体教职员；技巧；院 | |
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mere
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| adj.纯粹的；仅仅，只不过 | |
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vengeance
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| n.报复，报仇，复仇 | |
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wreaked
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| 诉诸（武力），施行（暴力），发（脾气）( wreak的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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forth
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| adv.向前；向外，往外 | |
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motives
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motive
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| n.动机，目的；adv.发动的，运动的 | |
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abruptly
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| adv.突然地，出其不意地 | |
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abrupt
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| adj.突然的，意外的；唐突的，鲁莽的 | |
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tempted
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| v.怂恿（某人）干不正当的事；冒…的险（tempt的过去分词） | |
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hideously
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| adv.可怕地，非常讨厌地 | |
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hideous
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| adj.丑陋的，可憎的，可怕的，恐怖的 | |
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conceal
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| v.隐藏，隐瞒，隐蔽 | |
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concealment
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| n.隐藏, 掩盖，隐瞒 | |
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confession
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deception
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| n.欺骗，欺诈；骗局，诡计 | |
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penetrate
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| v.透(渗)入；刺入，刺穿；洞察，了解 | |
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determined
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| adj.坚定的；有决心的 | |
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descend
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| vt./vi.传下来，下来，下降 | |
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miserably
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| adv.痛苦地；悲惨地；糟糕地；极度地 | |
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distinguished
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felon
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contrived
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sinecure
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creditors
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prospect
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advent
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resolutely
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| adj.坚决地，果断地 | |
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resolute
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| adj.坚决的，果敢的 | |
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salvation
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exertion
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sanguine
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| adj.充满希望的，乐观的，血红色的 | |
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fabric
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sham
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shameful
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| adj.可耻的，不道德的 | |
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overthrow
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| v.推翻，打倒，颠覆；n.推翻，瓦解，颠覆 | |
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prop
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legacy
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| n.遗产，遗赠；先人(或过去)留下的东西 | |
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43
prospects
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| n.希望，前途(恒为复数) | |
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44
forgery
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| n.伪造的文件等，赝品，伪造（行为） | |
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45
condemn
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| vt.谴责，指责；宣判(罪犯)，判刑 | |
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46
justified
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| a.正当的，有理的 | |
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47
reprieve
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| n.暂缓执行（死刑）；v.缓期执行；给…带来缓解 | |
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48
shunning
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| v.避开，回避，避免( shun的现在分词 ) | |
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49
gallows
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| n.绞刑架，绞台 | |
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50
benevolently
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| adv.仁慈地，行善地 | |
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51
infamy
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| n.声名狼藉，出丑，恶行 | |
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52
standing
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| n.持续，地位；adj.永久的，不动的，直立的，不流动的 | |
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53
confiding
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| adj.相信人的，易于相信的v.吐露（秘密，心事等）( confide的现在分词 )；（向某人）吐露（隐私、秘密等） | |
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54
perseverance
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| n.坚持不懈，不屈不挠 | |
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55
morbidly
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| adv.病态地 | |
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56
curdled
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| v.（使）凝结( curdle的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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57
compassion
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| n.同情，怜悯 | |
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58
utterly
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| adv.完全地，绝对地 | |
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59
effaced
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| v.擦掉( efface的过去式和过去分词 )；抹去；超越；使黯然失色 | |
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60
humiliation
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| n.羞辱 | |
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61
epoch
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| n.(新)时代；历元 | |
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62
calamity
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| n.灾害，祸患，不幸事件 | |
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63
usher
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| n.带位员，招待员；vt.引导，护送；vi.做招待，担任引座员 | |
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64
anonymously
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| ad.用匿名的方式 | |
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65
insolent
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| adj.傲慢的，无理的 | |
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66
eldest
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| adj.最年长的，最年老的 | |
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67
prosecution
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| n.起诉，告发，检举，执行，经营 | |
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68
pelted
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| （连续地）投掷( pelt的过去式和过去分词 )； 连续抨击； 攻击； 剥去…的皮 | |
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69
apprenticeship
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| n.学徒身份；学徒期 | |
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70
vindicate
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| v.为…辩护或辩解，辩明；证明…正确 | |
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71
hypocrisies
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| n.伪善，虚伪( hypocrisy的名词复数 ) | |
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72
lining
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| n.衬里，衬料 | |
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73
accomplished
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| adj.有才艺的；有造诣的；达到了的 | |
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74
compensated
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| 补偿，报酬( compensate的过去式和过去分词 )； 给（某人）赔偿（或赔款） | |
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75
misery
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| n.痛苦，苦恼，苦难；悲惨的境遇，贫苦 | |
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76
concealed
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| a.隐藏的，隐蔽的 | |
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77
favourably
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| adv. 善意地，赞成地 =favorably | |
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78
esteem
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| n.尊敬，尊重；vt.尊重，敬重；把…看作 | |
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79
alluding
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| 提及，暗指( allude的现在分词 ) | |
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80
fixed
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| adj.固定的，不变的，准备好的；(计算机)固定的 | |
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81
fully
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| adv.完全地，全部地，彻底地；充分地 | |
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82
perilous
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| adj.危险的，冒险的 | |
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83
inquiries
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| n.调查( inquiry的名词复数 )；疑问；探究；打听 | |
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84
privately
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| adv.以私人的身份，悄悄地，私下地 | |
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85
literally
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| adv.照字面意义，逐字地；确实 | |
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86
worthy
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| adj.(of)值得的，配得上的；有价值的 | |
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87
strife
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| n.争吵，冲突，倾轧，竞争 | |
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88
aspirations
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| 强烈的愿望( aspiration的名词复数 )； 志向； 发送气音； 发 h 音 | |
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89
dishonour
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| n./vt.拒付（支票、汇票、票据等）；vt.凌辱，使丢脸；n.不名誉，耻辱，不光彩 | |
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90
nostrils
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| 鼻孔( nostril的名词复数 ) | |
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91
cleanse
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| vt.使清洁，使纯洁，清洗 | |
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92
ragged
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| adj.衣衫褴褛的，粗糙的，刺耳的 | |
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93
persecuted
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| （尤指宗教或政治信仰的）迫害(~sb. for sth.)( persecute的过去式和过去分词 )； 烦扰，困扰或骚扰某人 | |
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94
monotonous
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| adj.单调的，一成不变的，使人厌倦的 | |
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95
solitude
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| n. 孤独; 独居,荒僻之地,幽静的地方 | |
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96
humble
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| adj.谦卑的，恭顺的；地位低下的；v.降低，贬低 | |
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97
trespasser
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| n.侵犯者；违反者 | |
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98
vice
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| n.坏事；恶习；[pl.]台钳，老虎钳；adj.副的 | |
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99
thoroughly
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| adv.完全地，彻底地，十足地 | |
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100
credible
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| adj.可信任的，可靠的 | |
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101
varied
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| adj.多样的，多变化的 | |
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102
avocations
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| n.业余爱好，嗜好( avocation的名词复数 )；职业 | |
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103
formerly
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| adv.从前，以前 | |
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104
adherents
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| n.支持者，拥护者( adherent的名词复数 )；党羽；徒子徒孙 | |
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105
tyrant
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| n.暴君，专制的君主，残暴的人 | |
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106
grovelling
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| adj.卑下的，奴颜婢膝的v.卑躬屈节，奴颜婢膝( grovel的现在分词 )；趴 | |
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107
marvels
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| n.奇迹( marvel的名词复数 )；令人惊奇的事物（或事例）；不平凡的成果；成就v.惊奇，对…感到惊奇( marvel的第三人称单数 ) | |
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108
bribed
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| v.贿赂( bribe的过去式和过去分词 )；向（某人）行贿，贿赂 | |
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109
admiration
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| n.钦佩，赞美，羡慕 | |
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110
destined
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| adj.命中注定的；(for)以…为目的地的 | |
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111
devoid
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| adj.全无的，缺乏的 | |
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112
animating
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| v.使有生气( animate的现在分词 )；驱动；使栩栩如生地动作；赋予…以生命 | |
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113
thwart
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| v.阻挠，妨碍，反对；adj.横(断的) | |
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114
draughts
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| n. <英>国际跳棋 | |
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115
maturity
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| n.成熟；完成；(支票、债券等)到期 | |
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116
steadily
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| adv.稳定地；不变地；持续地 | |
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117
warily
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| adv.留心地 | |
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118
consolidated
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| a.联合的 | |
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119
confided
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| v.吐露（秘密，心事等）( confide的过去式和过去分词 )；（向某人）吐露（隐私、秘密等） | |
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120
thwarted
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| 阻挠( thwart的过去式和过去分词 )； 使受挫折； 挫败； 横过 | |
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121
counteracted
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| 对抗，抵消( counteract的过去式 ) | |
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122
spoke
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| n.（车轮的）辐条；轮辐；破坏某人的计划；阻挠某人的行动 v.讲，谈（speak的过去式）；说；演说；从某种观点来说 | |
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123
gratitude
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| adj.感激，感谢 | |
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124
mutual
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| adj.相互的，彼此的；共同的，共有的 | |
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125
antagonism
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| n.对抗，敌对，对立 | |
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126
condemned
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| adj. 被责难的, 被宣告有罪的 动词condemn的过去式和过去分词 | |
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127
incapable
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| adj.无能力的，不能做某事的 | |
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128
rendering
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| n.表现，描写 | |
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129
disposition
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| n.性情，性格；意向，倾向；排列，部署 | |
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130
penetrating
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| adj.（声音）响亮的，尖锐的adj.（气味）刺激的adj.（思想）敏锐的，有洞察力的 | |
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131
disingenuous
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| adj.不诚恳的，虚伪的 | |
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132
trifling
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| adj.微不足道的；没什么价值的 | |
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133
pretences
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| n.假装( pretence的名词复数 )；作假；自命；自称 | |
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134
infamous
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| adj.声名狼藉的，臭名昭著的，邪恶的 | |
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135
accusations
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| n.指责( accusation的名词复数 )；指控；控告；（被告发、控告的）罪名 | |
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136
enjoyment
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| n.乐趣；享有；享用 | |
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137
obstinacy
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| n.顽固；（病痛等）难治 | |
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138
knack
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| n.诀窍，做事情的灵巧的，便利的方法 | |
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139
accomplishments
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| n.造诣；完成( accomplishment的名词复数 )；技能；成绩；成就 | |
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140
dread
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| vt.担忧，忧虑；惧怕，不敢；n.担忧，畏惧 | |
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141
dreaded
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| adj.令人畏惧的；害怕的v.害怕，恐惧，担心( dread的过去式和过去分词) | |
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142
rivalry
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| n.竞争，竞赛，对抗 | |
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143
monotonously
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| adv.单调地，无变化地 | |
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144
bided
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| v.等待，停留( bide的过去式 )；居住；等待；面临 | |
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145
confidential
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| adj.秘（机）密的，表示信任的，担任机密工作的 | |
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146
capabilities
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| n.能力( capability的名词复数 )；可能；容量；[复数]潜在能力 | |
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147
helping
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| n.食物的一份&adj.帮助人的，辅助的 | |
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148
extremities
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| n.端点( extremity的名词复数 )；尽头；手和足；极窘迫的境地 | |
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149
solitary
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| adj.孤独的，独立的，荒凉的；n.隐士 | |
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150
rigidly
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| adv.刻板地，僵化地 | |
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151
insolence
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| n.傲慢；无礼；厚颜；傲慢的态度 | |
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152
honourable
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| adj.可敬的；荣誉的，光荣的 | |
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153
foul
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| adj.污秽的；邪恶的；v.弄脏；妨害；犯规；n.犯规 | |
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154
fouled
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| v.使污秽( foul的过去式和过去分词 )；弄脏；击球出界；（通常用废物）弄脏 | |
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155
brazen
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| adj.厚脸皮的，无耻的，坚硬的 | |
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156
impudently
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157
agitated
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| adj.被鼓动的，不安的 | |
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158
consummate
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| adj.完美的；v.成婚；使完美 [反]baffle | |
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159
scattered
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| adj.分散的，稀疏的；散步的；疏疏落落的 | |
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160
investigations
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| （正式的）调查( investigation的名词复数 )； 侦查； 科学研究； 学术研究 | |
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161
persevered
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| v.坚忍，坚持( persevere的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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162
ascendancy
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| n.统治权，支配力量 | |
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163
extorts
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| v.敲诈( extort的第三人称单数 )；曲解 | |
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164
alluded
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| 提及，暗指( allude的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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165
misgiving
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| n.疑虑，担忧，害怕 | |
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166
quelled
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| v.（用武力）制止，结束，镇压( quell的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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167
approbation
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| n.称赞；认可 | |
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168
probation
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| n.缓刑(期)，(以观后效的)察看；试用(期) | |
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169
attachment
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| n.附属物，附件；依恋；依附 | |
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170
dishonoured
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| a.不光彩的，不名誉的 | |
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171
modesty
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| n.谦逊，虚心，端庄，稳重，羞怯，朴素 | |
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172
fidelity
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| n.忠诚，忠实；精确 | |
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173
acting
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| n.演戏，行为，假装；adj.代理的，临时的，演出用的 | |
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174
maidenly
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| adj. 像处女的, 谨慎的, 稳静的 | |
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175
misused
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| v.使用…不当( misuse的过去式和过去分词 )；把…派作不正当的用途；虐待；滥用 | |
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176
indefatigable
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| adj.不知疲倦的，不屈不挠的 | |
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177
wrought
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| v.引起；以…原料制作；运转；adj.制造的 | |
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178
procured
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| v.（努力）取得， （设法）获得( procure的过去式和过去分词 )；拉皮条 | |
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179
beset
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| v.镶嵌；困扰，包围 | |
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180
compliance
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| n.顺从；服从；附和；屈从 | |
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181
avowal
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| n.公开宣称，坦白承认 | |
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182
justification
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| n.正当的理由；辩解的理由 | |
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183
possessed
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| adj.疯狂的；拥有的，占有的 | |
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184
contemptible
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| adj.可鄙的，可轻视的，卑劣的 | |
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185
asunder
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| adj.分离的，化为碎片 | |
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186
bestow
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| v.把…赠与，把…授予；花费 | |
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187
abstain
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| v.自制，戒绝，弃权，避免 | |
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188
avowing
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| v.公开声明，承认( avow的现在分词 ) | |
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189
abortive
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| adj.不成功的，发育不全的 | |
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190
renounce
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| v.放弃；拒绝承认，宣布与…断绝关系 | |
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191
recoiled
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| v.畏缩( recoil的过去式和过去分词 )；退缩；报应；返回 | |
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192
apprehensions
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| 疑惧 | |
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193
apprehension
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| n.理解，领悟；逮捕，拘捕；忧虑 | |
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194
whit
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| n.一点，丝毫 | |
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195
peevish
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| adj.易怒的，坏脾气的 | |
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196
swelling
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| n.肿胀 | |
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197
outrage
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| n.暴行，侮辱，愤怒；vt.凌辱，激怒 | |
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198
anticipation
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| n.预期，预料，期望 | |
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199
renewal
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| adj.(契约)延期，续订，更新，复活，重来 | |
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200
vowed
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| 起誓，发誓（vow的过去式与过去分词形式） | |
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201
consummately
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| adv.完成地，至上地 | |
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202
pretext
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| n.借口，托词 | |
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203
sleepless
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| adj.不睡眠的，睡不著的，不休息的 | |
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204
retrospect
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| n.回顾，追溯；v.回顾，回想，追溯 | |
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205
positively
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| adv.明确地，断然，坚决地；实在，确实 | |
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206
affected
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| adj.不自然的，假装的 | |
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207
alteration
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| n.变更，改变；蚀变 | |
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208
exult
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| v.狂喜，欢腾；欢欣鼓舞 | |
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209
deformed
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| adj.畸形的；变形的；丑的，破相了的 | |
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210
atrocity
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| n.残暴，暴行 | |
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211
expiation
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| n.赎罪，补偿 | |
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212
awe
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| n.敬畏，惊惧；vt.使敬畏，使惊惧 | |
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213
bully
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| n.恃强欺弱者，小流氓；vt.威胁，欺侮 | |
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214
abstained
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| v.戒（尤指酒），戒除( abstain的过去式和过去分词 )；弃权（不投票） | |
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215
magistrate
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| n.地方行政官，地方法官，治安官 | |
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216
savage
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| adj.野蛮的；凶恶的，残暴的；n.未开化的人 | |
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217
brutality
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| n.野蛮的行为，残忍，野蛮 | |
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218
avenge
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| v.为...复仇，为...报仇 | |
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219
paltry
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| adj.无价值的，微不足道的 | |
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220
magistrates
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| 地方法官，治安官( magistrate的名词复数 ) | |
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221
retaliation
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| n.报复，反击 | |
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222
avenged
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| v.为…复仇，报…之仇( avenge的过去式和过去分词 )；为…报复 | |
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223
ooze
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| n.软泥，渗出物；vi.渗出，泄漏；vt.慢慢渗出，流露 | |
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224
tortuous
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| adj.弯弯曲曲的，蜿蜒的 | |
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225
isolation
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| n.隔离，孤立，分解，分离 | |
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226
malignity
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| n.极度的恶意，恶毒；（病的）恶性 | |
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227
crafty
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| adj.狡猾的，诡诈的 | |
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228
shudder
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| v.战粟，震动，剧烈地摇晃；n.战粟，抖动 | |
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229
fatality
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| n.不幸，灾祸，天命 | |
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230
perpetuating
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| perpetuate的现在进行式 | |
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231
assail
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| v.猛烈攻击，抨击，痛斥 | |
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232
assailed
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| v.攻击( assail的过去式和过去分词 )；困扰；质问；毅然应对 | |
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233
momentary
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| adj.片刻的，瞬息的；短暂的 | |
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234
astonishment
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| n.惊奇，惊异 | |
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235
briefly
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| adv.简单地，简短地 | |
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236
narrative
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| n.叙述，故事；adj.叙事的，故事体的 | |
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237
recurred
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| 再发生，复发( recur的过去式和过去分词 )； 治愈 | |
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238
vaguely
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| adv.含糊地，暖昧地 | |
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239
hostility
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| n.敌对，敌意；抵制［pl.］交战，战争 | |
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240
irresistibly
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| adv.无法抵抗地，不能自持地；极为诱惑人地 | |
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241
yearning
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| a.渴望的；向往的；怀念的 | |
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242
consolation
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| n.安慰，慰问 | |
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243
honourably
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| adv.可尊敬地，光荣地，体面地 | |
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244
vigour
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| （=vigor）n.智力，体力，精力 | |
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245
suspense
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| n.（对可能发生的事）紧张感，担心，挂虑 | |
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246
entreated
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| 恳求，乞求( entreat的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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247
implicitly
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| adv. 含蓄地, 暗中地, 毫不保留地 | |
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248
perils
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| 极大危险( peril的名词复数 )； 危险的事（或环境） | |
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249
immediate
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| adj.立即的；直接的，最接近的；紧靠的 | |
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