He feared future complications--naturally; a man of limited means, in a
public position, his time not his own. Yes. He owned to me in the
parlour of my farmhouse that he had been very much concerned then at the
possible consequences. But as he was making this artless confession I
said to myself that, whatever consequences and complications he might
have imagined, the complication from which he was suffering now could
never, never have presented itself to his mind. Slow but sure (for I
conceive that the Book of Destiny has been written up from the beginning
to the last page) it had been coming for something like six years--and
now it had come. The complication was there! I looked at his unshaken
solemnity with the amused pity we give the victim of a funny if somewhat
ill-natured practical joke.
"Oh hang it," he exclaimed--in no logical connection with what he had
been relating to me. Nevertheless the exclamation was intelligible
enough.
However at first there were, he admitted, no untoward complications, no
embarrassing consequences. To a telegram in guarded terms dispatched to
de Barral no answer was received for more than twenty-four hours.
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