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interview between him and Mr. Nicholls, the future would likewise be safe from a discovery of our secret It was therefore a terrible shock to my mother and afterwards to me when we learned that he had already accomplished the act we so much dreaded and that the clergyman we had called in at my father’s urgent request, had been entrusted with the paper that was to proclaim our shame to the world. But the disappointment, great as it was, had little time to exert its force on me, for with my brother’s recital of what had taken place at my father’s death-bed there came a new dread which I find it difficult to name but which you will understand when I say that it led me to give Mr. Barrows the warning of which he has spoken. My brother — I cannot speak of him with calmness — is a man to be feared, Miss Sterling. Not that I would not be a match for him in all matters of open enmity; but in ways of secrecy and deep dealing, he is master, and all the more to be dreaded that he makes it impossible for one to understand him or measure the depths of turpitude to which he would descend. When, therefore I heard him say he should have that will back before it could pass into the hands of Mr. Nicholls, I trembled; and as the night [Ссылки могут видеть только зарегистрированные пользователи. Зарегистрироваться...] passed and morning came without showing any diminution in the set determination of his expression, I decided upon visiting Mr. Barrows, in [Ссылки могут видеть только зарегистрированные пользователи. Зарегистрироваться...] the hope of influencing him to return the will of his own accord. But I soon saw that in spite of [Ссылки могут видеть только зарегистрированные пользователи. Зарегистрироваться...] the weakness I detected in him there was small prospect of his doing this; and [Ссылки могут видеть только зарегистрированные пользователи. Зарегистрироваться...] turning my steps home again, I confronted my mother and my brother and asked them what they meant to do; they told me, that is, they told me partly; and I, with that worse dread in my soul, was fain to be satisfied with the merely base and dishonorable scheme they meditated. To take Mr. Barrows at a disadvantage, to argue with him, threaten him, and perhaps awe him by place and surroundings to surrender to them the object of their desires, [Ссылки могут видеть только зарегистрированные пользователи. Зарегистрироваться...] did not seem to me so dreadful, when I thought of what they might have done or might yet attempt to do if I stood in their way too much. So, merely stipulating that they would allow [Ссылки могут видеть только зарегистрированные пользователи. Зарегистрироваться...] me to accompany them to the mill, I let matters take their course, and true to my own secret desire to retain their confidence and so save him, and if possible them, from any act that would entail consequences of a really serious nature, I gave them my assistance to the extent of receiving Mr. Barrows at the door and conducting [Ссылки могут видеть только зарегистрированные пользователи. Зарегистрироваться...] him through the mill to the room which my brother had designated to me as the one in which they proposed to hold their conference.
“But the task was uncongenial, and at the first words which Guy chose to employ against Mr. Barrows, I set down my lantern on the floor and escaped to the outer air again. Money, station, fame before the world, seemed to me but light matters at that moment, and if I had followed my first impulse I should have rushed back to the assistance of Mr. Barrows. But considerations terrible and strange prevented me from fo