Читать книгу Charles Peace, or The Adventures of a Notorious Burglar онлайн

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Peace paid frequent visits to the post-office to inquire for letters; none, however, arrived. He could not in any way account for Bessie Dalton’s silence.

Had she turned against him?

Or had her picked-up friend persuaded her to leave Bradford?

These were questions he was unable to answer.

Something had occurred—​of that he felt certain.

Perhaps Bristow had set the girl against him.

“But no,” he ejaculated. “She’s not such a fool as to listen to the counsels of that drunken brute.”

He dispatched another epistle to her lodgings at Bradford.

In a day or two after this it was returned to the post-office at Sheffield.

On the envelope was marked, “Gone away. Not known where.”

His worst fears were confirmed. He uttered anathemas loud and deep not only against Bessie Dalton, but the whole sex generally. He was wild with fury, and, like M. Mallet, tore up the letter in a thousand pieces.

“The perfidious, worthless, little hussy,” he ejaculated. “The ungrateful, deceitful minx to serve me like this. Gone away, and not known where. Oh, she’s made a bolt of it, that’s quite certain. There’s no dependence to be placed on women—​they are all alike. Once out of your sight you stand but a poor chance. Still, hang it all, I never expected she would have served me like this.”