vernal rains and the summer heats had insensibly destroyed them. This packet I carried with me, knowing the value which you set upon them, and there being no receptacle equally safe, but your own cabinet, which was locked.
"Having, as I said, reached this house, and being left alone, I bethought me of the treasure I possessed. I was unacquainted with the reasons for which these papers were so precious: they probably had some momentous and intimate connection with your own history. As such, they could not be of little value to me; and this moment of inoccupation and regrets was as suitable as any other to the task of perusing them. I drew them forth, therefore, and laid them on the table in this chamber.
"The rest is known to you. During a momentary absence, you entered. Surely no interview of ancient friends ever took place in so unexpected and abrupt a manner! You were dead—I mourned for you as one whom I loved, and whom Fate had snatched for ever from my sight. Now, in a blissful hour, you had risen; and my happiness in thus embracing you is ten-fold greater than would have been experienced if no uncertainties and perils had protracted our meeting."
CHAPTER XXVI.
Here ended the tale of Sarsefield. Humiliation and joy were mingled in my heart. The events that preceded my awakening in the cave were now luminous and plain. What explication was more obvious? What but this solution ought to have been suggested by the conduct I had witnessed in Clithero?
Clithero!—Was not this the man whom Clithero had robbed of his friend? Was not this the lover of Mrs. Lorimer—the object of the persecutions of Wiatte? Was it not now given me to investigate the truth of this stupendous tale—to dissipate the doubts which obstinately clung to my imagination respecting it?
Q 3
