It seemed to him a sort of earnest
that Providence intended his rescue from worse consequences;
the way being thus left open for the hope of secrecy. That Raffles
should be afflicted with illness, that he should have been led
to Stone Court rather than elsewhere--Bulstrode's heart fluttered
at the vision of probabilities which these events conjured up.
If it should turn out that he was freed from all danger of disgrace--
if he could breathe in perfect liberty--his life should be more
consecrated than it had ever been before. He mentally lifted
up this vow as if it would urge the result he longed for--
he tried to believe in the potency of that prayerful resolution--
its potency to determine death. He knew that he ought to say,
"Thy will be done;" and he said it often. But the intense desire
remained that the will of God might be the death of that hated man.
Yet when he arrived at Stone Court he could not see the change
in Raffles without a shock. But for his pallor and feebleness,
Bulstrode would have called the change in him entirely mental.
Instead of his loud tormenting mood, he showed an intense, vague terror,
and seemed to deprecate Bulstrode's anger, because the money was
all gone--he had been robbed--it had half of it been taken from him.
He had only come here because he was ill and somebody was hunting him--
somebody was after him he had told nobody anything, he had kept
his mouth shut.
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