It seems,
however, to be a rule in life, and in fiction, that interest flags when
trouble ceases. Now the troubles of our good people were pretty well
over, and we will put it to the reader whether they had not enough.
Grace Clifford made an earnest request to Colonel Clifford and her father
never to tell Walter he had been suspected of bigamy. "Let others say
that circumstances are always to be believed and character not to be
trusted; but I, at least, had no right to believe certificates and things
against my Walter's honor and his love. Hide my fault from him, not for
my sake but for his; perhaps when we are both old people I may tell him."
This was Grace Clifford's petition, and need we say she prevailed?
Walter Clifford recovered under his wife's care, and the house was so
large that Colonel Clifford easily persuaded his son and daughter-in-law
to make it their home. Hope had also two rooms in it, and came there when
he chose; he was always welcome; but he was alone again, so to speak,
and not quite forty years of age, and he was ambitious.
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