"That is your own fault. Why didn't you select the same cloth?" asked his father.
"It is some new cloth that has just come in."
"You can make it up next time," said Mr. Kenyon; "your suit seems to me to be a very nice one."
This was all the satisfaction Roland got.
The next day he met Mr. Crimp in the street.
"Well, does your father object to Oliver's order?" he asked with a smile.
Roland was too provoked to notice what he regarded as an impertinent question.
There are some men who seem to be utterly destitute of principle. These are the men who in cold blood show themselves guilty of the most appalling crimes if their interest requires it. They are more detestable than those who, a prey to strong passion, are hurried into the commission of acts which in their cooler moments they deeply regret.
To the first class belonged Mr. Kenyon, who, as we have already seen, had committed his wife to the horrible confinement of a mad-house that he might be free to spend her fortune. Hitherto he had not injured Oliver, though he had made his life uncomfortable; but the time was coming when our hero would be himself in peril. It was because he foresaw that Oliver might need to be removed that he began to treat him with unusual indulgence.
"Should anything happen," he said to himself, "this will disarm suspicion."
The time came sooner than he anticipated. Action was precipitated by a most unlooked for occurrence, which filled the soul of the guilty husband with terror.
One day he stopped at the post-office to enquire for letters.
"There is no letter for you, Mr. Kenyon, but here is one for Oliver. Will you take it?"
Mr. Kenyon was curious to learn with whom his step-son corresponded, and said:
It was put into his hands. No sooner did he scan the handwriting and the postmark than he turned actually livid.
It was in the handwriting of his wife, whom all the world supposed to be dead, and it was postmarked Charleston.
"Good Heavens! What a narrow escape!" he ejaculated, the perspiration standing in large drops on his brow. "Suppose Oliver had received this letter, I might have been lynched. I must go home and consider what is to be done. How could Dr. Fox be so criminally--idiotically careless as to suffer such a letter to leave his establishment?"