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Conrad, Joseph, 1857-1924

"Chance"

Marvellous
arrangement. It works automatically, and, when you look at it, the
perfection makes you sick; which for a mere mechanism is no mean triumph.
Sick and scared. It had nearly scared that poor girl to her death. Fancy
having to take such a thing by the hand! Now I understood the remorseful
strain I had detected in her speeches.
"By Jove!" I said. "They are about to let him out! I never thought of
that."
Fyne was contemptuous either of me or of things at large.
"You didn't suppose he was to be kept in jail for life?"
At that moment I caught sight of Flora de Barral at the junction of the
two streets. Then some vehicles following each other in quick succession
hid from my sight the black slight figure with just a touch of colour in
her hat. She was walking slowly; and it might have been caution or
reluctance. While listening to Fyne I stared hard past his shoulder
trying to catch sight of her again. He was going on with positive heat,
the rags of his solemnity dropping off him at every second sentence.
That was just it. His wife and he had been perfectly aware of it.


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