CHAPTER XXXI.
A FRIEND IS WOMAN.
THE reader will again accompany us to the time when we find Annette
and Nicholas in the hands of Graspum, who will nurture them for
their increasing value.
Merciless creditors have driven Marston from that home of so many
happy and hospitable associations, to seek shelter in the obscure
and humble chamber of a wretched building in the outskirts of the
city. Fortune can afford him but a small cot, two or three broken
chairs, an ordinary deal table, a large chest, which stands near the
fire-place, and a dressing-stand, for furniture. Here, obscured from
the society he had so long mingled with, he spends most of his time,
seldom venturing in public lest he may encounter those indomitable
gentlemen who would seem to love the following misfortune into its
last stage of distress. His worst enemy, however, is that source of
his misfortunes he cannot disclose; over it hangs the mystery he
must not solve! It enshrines him with guilt before public opinion;
by it his integrity lies dead; it is that which gives to mother
rumour the weapons with which to wield her keenest slanders.
Having seized Marston's real estate, Graspum had no scruples about
swearing to the equity of his claim; nor were any of the creditors
willing to challenge an investigation; and thus, through fear of
such a formidable abettor, Marston laboured under the strongest, and
perhaps the most unjust imputations. But there was no limit to
Graspum's mercenary proceedings; for beyond involving Marston
through Lorenzo, he had secretly purchased many claims of the
creditors, and secured his money by a dexterous movement, with which
he reduced the innocent children to slavery.
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