Мертвая комната. Уровень 2 / The Dead Secret

”

“Oh, Lenny, the servants and the neighbors were right – the woman was mad. Anyway, however, it was certainly a singular event in our family. All old houses have their romance – and that is the romance of our house. But years and years have passed since then. I have no fear that my dear, good father will spoil our plans. Just give him a new garden at Porthgenna, where he can walk, and give him new north rooms to live in! But all this is in the future; let us get back to the present time. When shall we go to Porthgenna, Lenny?”

“We have three weeks more to stay here, Rosamond.

“Yes; and then we must go back to Long Beckley.”

“So, Rosamond, write to Mr. Horlock then – and appoint a meeting in two months' time at the old house.”

Rosamond sat down at the table, and dipped her pen in the ink with a little flourish of triumph.

“In two months,” she exclaimed joyfully, “I shall see the dear old place again!”

Chapter VII

Andrew Treverton's misanthropy was genuine.

At school, Andrew became fond of one among his school-fellows. Nobody could discover the smallest reason for it, but it was nevertheless a notorious fact that Andrew's pocket-money was always at this boy's service. But when his purse grew light in his friend's hand, the hero of his simple admiration abandoned him to embarrassment, to ridicule, and to solitude, without a word of farewell.

Andrew left home to travel. The life he led, the company he kept, during his long residence abroad, did him permanent and fatal harm. When he at last returned to England, he believed in nothing. At this period of his life, his only chance for the future lay in the good results which his brother's influence over him produced. But the quarrel occasioned by Captain Treverton's marriage broke it off forever. From that time, for all social interests and purposes, Andrew was a lost man.

“My dearest friend forsook and cheated me,” he said. “My only brother has quarreled with me for the sake of an actress. What to expect of the rest of mankind after that? I have suffered twice for my belief in others – I will never suffer again. My business in this world is to eat, drink, sleep, and die! “

After his brother's marriage, Andrew lived in the neighborhood of Bayswater. He bought a cottage and he was living like a miser.