above the necessity of her protection, and brought within view of that station so much loftier than her own, from which she had once rejoiced to know that the offspring of a marriage which had darkened her life was excluded. For indeed it had been only on Waife's promise that he would not repeat the attempt that had proved so abortive, to enforce Sophy's claim on Guy Darrell, that Arabella Crane had in the first instance resigned the child to his care. His care—his—an attainted outcast! As long as Arabella Crane could see in Sophy but an object of compassion, she might haughtily protect her; but could Sophy become an object of envy, would that protection last? No, he did not venture to confide in Mrs. Crane further than to say that he and Sophy had removed from Montfort village to the vicinity of London. Time enough to say more when Mrs. Crane returned to England; and then not by letter, but in personal interview.
Once a month the old man went to London to inquire at the General Post-office for any communications his correspondent might there address to him. Only once, however, had he heard from Mrs. Crane since the announcement of his migration, and her note of reply was extremely brief, until in the fatal month of June, when Guy Darrell and Jasper Losely had alike returned, and on the same day, to the metropolis; and then the old man received from her a letter which occasioned him profound alarm. It apprised him not only that his terrible son was in England—in London; but that Jasper had discovered that the persons embarked for America were not the veritable Waife and Sophy, whose names they had assumed. Mrs. Crane ended with these ominous words: "It is right to say now that he has descended deeper and deeper. Could you see him, you would wonder that I neither abandon him nor my resolve. He hates me worse than the gibbet. To me, and not to the gibbet, he shall pass—fitting punishment to both. I am in London, not in my old house, but near him. His confidant is my hireling. His life and his projects are clear to my eyes—clear as if he dwelt in glass. Sophy is now of an age in which, were she placed in the care of some person whose respectability could not be impugned, she could not be legally forced away against her will; but if under your roof, those whom Jasper has induced to institute a search, that he has no means to institute very actively himself, might make statements which (as you are already aware) might persuade others, though well-meaning, to assist him in separating her from you. He might publicly face even a police court, if he thus hoped to shame the rich man into buying off an intolerable scandal. He might, in the first instance, and more
