He had just given orders that a
young man who would call in the course of the evening should be brought
to him at once, and he was incidentally considering this young man, as
he reflected upon matters recalled to his mind by his impending
arrival. They were matters he had thought of with gradually increasing
seriousness for some months, and they had, at first, been the result of
the letters from Stornham, which each "steamer day" brought. They had
been of immense interest to him--these letters. He would have found them
absorbing as a study, even if he had not deeply loved Betty. He read in
them things she did not state in words, and they set him thinking.
He was not suspected by men like himself of concealing an imagination
beneath the trained steadiness of his exterior, but he possessed more
than the world knew, and it singularly combined itself with powers of
logical deduction.
If he had been with his daughter, he would have seen, day by day, where
her thoughts were leading her, and in what direction she was developing,
but, at a distance of three thousand miles, he found himself asking
questions, and endeavouring to reach conclusions. His affection for
Betty was the central emotion of his existence.
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