have been sacrificed through his uncle’s perception of a feminine weakness which had irked him throughout the London season—in fact, ever since Mrs. Talmage Eglinton had made her mysterious appearance on the fringe of society. The card, however, on which the General had staked and apparently lost had been distinctly “the game” if he, Forsyth, had only played up to it himself by sticking like wax to poor hunted Beaumanoir.
But why was Beaumanoir being hunted? That easy-mannered unfortunate, who had exchanged a life of reckless irresponsibility for sordid penury, and the latter for the headship of a historic house, had performed all these demivoltes without making a visible enemy save himself. Why should he have incurred a remorseless hatred which aimed at nothing less than his life?
“The Star-spangled Banner looms largely on the horizon of all this,” the young man mused aloud. “Can you explain that phase of the mystery, Uncle Jem?”
“The hub of the wheel, I take it, is my old friend Leonidas Sherman, or, rather, the three millions sterling which he is on his way to this country with,” said the General briskly. “Big
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