Sampson's; and to pull down his notice would look like siding
with the boy against those he had injured: "Besides," said he, "why
should you and I burk inquiry? Ill as he has used me, I am his father,
and not altogether without anxiety. Suppose those doctors should be right
about him, you know?"
Jane had for some time been longing to call at Albion Villa and
sympathise with her friend; and now curiosity was superadded: she burned
to know whether the Dodds knew of or approved this placard. She asked her
father whether he thought she could go there with propriety. "Why not?"
said he cheerfully, and with assumed carelessness.
In reality it was essential to him that Jane should visit the Dodds.
Surrounded by pitfalls, threatened with a new and mysterious assailant in
the eccentric, but keen and resolute Sampson, this artful man, who had
now become a very Machiavel--constant danger and deceit had so sharpened
and deepened his great natural abilities--was preparing amongst other
defences a shield; and that shield was a sieve; and that sieve was his
daughter. In fact, ever since his return, he had acted and spoken at the
Dodds through Jane, but with a masterly appearance of simplicity and mere
confidential intercourse.
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