He saw before him the pale, agitated, irresolute features of
'Lige Curtis,--not the man HE had injured, but the man who had injured
HIM, whose spirit was aimlessly and wantonly--for he had never
attempted to get back his possessions in his lifetime, nor ever tried
to communicate with the possessor--striking at him in the shadow. And
it was THAT man, that pale, writhing, frightened wretch whom he had once
mercifully helped! Yes, whose LIFE he had even saved that night from
exposure and delirium tremens when he had given him the whiskey. And
this life he had saved, only to have it set in motion a conspiracy to
ruin him! Who knows that 'Lige had not purposely conceived what they had
believed to be an attempt at suicide, only to cast suspicion of murder
on HIM! From which it will be perceived that Harcourt's powers of moral
reasoning had not improved in five years, and that even the impartiality
he had just shown in his description of 'Lige to Grant had been
swallowed up in this new sense of injury. The founder of Tasajara, whose
cool business logic, unfailing foresight, and practical deductions were
never at fault, was once more childishly adrift in his moral ethics.
And there was Clementina, of whose judgment Grant had spoken so
persistently,--could she assist him? It was true, as he had said, he
had never talked to her of his affairs. In his sometimes uneasy
consciousness of her superiority he had shrunk from even revealing his
anxieties, much less his actual secret, and from anything that might
prejudice the lofty paternal attitude he had taken towards his daughters
from the beginning of his good fortune.
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