Fortune's My Foe

ou, and I, which latter is perhaps of more considerable importance, to continue to exist? I have ha

of knowledge of where any was to come from; miserable also through the certainty that by to-morrow all London would ring with the manner in which he had been tricked and deceived. While, which was perhaps the worst of all disasters, his long-meditated plan of espousing some heiress or another wa

contempt. How could he ever jeer and jest at others henceforth? He, who had stood so pitiful and exposed a fool before others that mor

cised he scarcely knew, even now. His wife, if she were his wife, perhaps; and then--afterwards--against all who had aided and abetted her, all who, knowing what was to be done, had stood by and had not interfered in the doing thereof. Undoubtedly there were two such persons, if no more. Surely the real Ariadne Thorne had known; surely, too, the man wh

you and I to live? You owe me five thousand pounds, which, as you have not married the lady who possesses twenty times

d. "The Fleet Prison will

on Bufton languish in the Fleet? Never, I say. Are there not the clubs, the gaming

ll give me credit now; who play with me? Man, I am ruined

t you possess with me; but at present you have sixty, or had when yo

angrily. "Before God, I th

at Cambridge, eh? In t

at. But--but--Lewis, wh

is Bath--Tunbridge I do not suggest, for reasons--painful reasons--but there is Bath.

as well as in London. I

l, at least, the Glastonbury affair is wiped away. You do it devilish ill; I live in a garret, you in sumptuous r

t of one thing. Reveng

wh

ne; the man who, since he appeared at the church, knew very well what w

ooking fellow, and--he has beaten you once. He may do so again.

rd D'Amboise's nose was slit to the bone--perhaps his Ariadne would not like Sir Geo

the other saw well enough; "that is, unless you have a secret store.

; nothing but w

-your wedding with the heiress," Granger said emphatically, observing how the other winced at the word "marriage"; "I know of that. Well! com

I--I might find a little more money somehow yet--if--if--a letter were se

the knave on his face, "no more than I doubt that, in some way, you will wheedle the wherewithal to live out

ke all at once--the full

our powers, Bufton; you will by some means disc

e, and to divide into two heaps the sum of sixty guineas which it contained, though not without much protest on his side, nor without,

friendship. Oh! it is hard. And how--how are you going to m

which had yet fallen on him. He must think of this. His whole life for two years had been devoted towards ruining, crushing this man who had ruined his own career at the outset of it; and, although by tricking him

d put you in such a way--later. Perhaps! It may be so. We will see. You must, in truth,

h that day; and, perhaps--since, although half-knave and half-fool, he was still human

own now. The other, the east of the city,

hispered Bufton, "what

the sea and the colonies of America. Enough! No more as yet. Say

now me there. Instead, give me a house to

Then he said, "Write to the 'Czar of Muscovy' on Tower Hill. It will find me. And," he ad

two men parte

h flinging hastily into a valise a second suit of clothes which he possessed,

What can ever be enough? What can repay me for my own wasted life; my mother's death; the loss of the woman who loved me; and--Heaven help us both!--believed in me? Enough! What can be e

a dram of spirit, and, supping it, continued his meditations, though sti

ses, too, the dank, reeking churchyard into which I stole at night--the night after my mother's burial. I will never stop," he continued, as he poured more spirits into the glass; "never. Only--what to do? how to go on? None wo

drams were, they did not make him drunk. Instead, only the more resolut

f murder I cannot slay him. There is no way. And I have sworn to slay him--his soul, if not his body. I have sworn

the man who, if his meditations might be taken as a clue to the past, had once brought terrible ruin to him. He wondered if this man Barry (who was, beyond all doubt, the future husband of the woman, the heiress, whom he and Anne Pottle had contrived to make their tool believe he was h

hat method is. Ah!" he exclaimed, springing to his feet and knocking over the miserable rushlight as he did so, whereby he was now in the dark, "he wishes that. He wishes that! Oh, my God!" he cried, gesticulating in that darkness, "he wishes that to be. And s

he first that day--as well as with the thoughts of a new scheme which had suddenly dawned in his mind, h

er complete--that was disturbed by dreams and visions of a girl's face, a girl's form shaken with piteous sobs; and, also,