The Evil Genius: A Domestic Story — page 218: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

THE EVIL GENIUS. 007 that the place of her destination had not been communicated toe him. Asked if she had left no directions relating to her corre- ‘spondence, he had replied that his instructions were to forward all letters to her lawyer. On the point of inquiring next for the name and address, Bennydeck’s sense of duty and sense of shame (roused at last) filled him with a timely contempt for himself. In feeling tempted to write to Catherine—in encour- aging fond thoughts of her among scenes which kept her in his memory—he had been false to the very principles to which he had appealed at their farewell interview. She had set him the right example, the example which he was determined to follow, in leaving the place. Before he could falter in his resolution he gave notice of his departure. The one hope for him now was to find a refuge from himself in acts of mercy. Consolation was waiting for him in his home. His unopened correspondence offered a harmless occupation to his thoughts, in the meanwhile. One after another he read the letters with an attention, constantly wandering and con- stantly recalled, until he opened the last of them that remained. Ina moment more his interest was absorbed. The first sen- tences in the letter told him that the deserted creature whom he had met in the garden—the stranger to whom he had offered help and consolation in the present and in the future—was no other than the lost girl of whom he had been so long in search; the daughter of Roderick Westerfield, once his dearest and old- est friend. In the pages that followed, the writer confided to him her sad story; leaving it to her father’s friend to decide whether she was worthy of the sympathy which he had offered to her when he thought she was a stranger. This part of her letter was necessarily a repetition of what Bennydeck had read in the confession which Catherine kad ad- dressed to him. That generous woman had been guilty of one, and but one, concealment of the truth. In relating the circum- stances under which the elopement from Mount Morven had taken place, she had abstained, in justice to the sincerity of Sydney’s repentance, from mentioning Sydney’s name, ‘* An- other instance,” the captain thought, bitterly, as he closed the letter, ‘‘of the virtues which might have made the happiness of my life!” But he was bound to remember—and he did remember— that there was now a new interest, tenderly associating itself with his life tocome. The one best way of telling Sydney how dear she was to him already, for her fether’s sake, would be to answer her in person. He hurried away to London by the first train, and drove at once to Randal’s place of abode to ask for Sydney’s address. Wondering what had become of the postscript to his letter, which had given Bennydeck the information of which he was now in search, Randal complied with his friend’s request, and then veutured to allude to the report of the captain’s marriage eshngagement,. ‘* Am I tocongratulate you?” he asked, CORNICLO® SS (CO) im