WYLDER'S HAJVD.
261
pressed fury, passing on with a quickened pace. As he
glided through the dark, toward splendid old Brandon,
he ground his teeth and uttered two or three sentences
which no respectable publisher would like to print.
CHAPTER XLIV.
DEEP AND SHALLOW.
Lawyer Larkin's mind was working more diligently
than any one suspected upon this puzzle of Mark Wylder.
The investigation was a sort of scientific recreation to
him, and something more. His sure instinct told him it
was a secret well worth mastering.
He had a growing belief that Lake, and perhaps he only
— except Wylder himself— knew the meaning of all this
mysterious marching and counter-marching. Of course;
all sorts of theories were floating in his mind; but there
was none that would quite fit all the circumstances. The
attorney, had he asked himself the question, what was his
object in these inquisitions, would have answered—lam
doing what few other men would. I am, Heaven knows,
giving to this affair of my absent client's, gratuitously, as
much thought and vigilance as ever I did to any case in
which I was duly remunerated. This is self-sacrificing
and noble, and just the conscientious conduct I should ex-
pect from myself."
But there was also this consideration, which you failed
to define.
"Yes; my respected client, Mr. Mark Wylder, is suf-
fering under some acute pressure, applied perhaps by my