"The men have not been there for a month or more. The difficulty was
to get them to remove their property. However, we are rid of them
now. The only relic of their occupation is a Bible with half the
pages torn out, and the rest scrawled with records of bets, recipes
for sudorific and other medicines, and a mass of unintelligible
memoranda. One inscription, in faded ink, runs, 'To Robert Mellish,
from his affectionate mother, with her sincere hope that he may ever
walk in the ways of this book.' I am afraid that hope was not
fulfilled."
"How wicked of him to tear a Bible!" said Alice, seriously. Then she
laughed, and added, "I know I shouldn't; but I can't help it."
"The incident strikes me rather as being pathetic," said Lucian, who
liked to show that he was not deficient in sensibility. "One can
picture the innocent faith of the poor woman in her boy's future,
and so forth."
"Inscriptions in books are like inscriptions on tombstones," said
Alice, disparagingly. "They don't mean much."
"I am glad that these men have no further excuse for going to
Wiltstoken. It was certainly most unfortunate that Lydia should have
made the acquaintance of one of them."
"So you have said at least fifty times," replied Alice,
deliberately.
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