Nothwithstanding all which, there remained in his mind an image of Mark
Wylder, in the straw and darkness of a solitary continental
mad-house--squalid, neglected, and becoming gradually that which he was
said to be. And he always shaped him somehow after the outlines of a
grizzly print he remembered in his boyish days, of a maniac chained in a
Sicilian cell, grovelling under the lash of a half-seen gaoler, and with
his teeth buried in his own arm.

Quite impossible! Mark Wylder was the last man in the world to submit to
physical coercion. The idea, besides, could not be reconciled with the
facts of the case. It was all a blundering chimera.

Mr. Larkin walked down direct to Gylingden, and paid a rather awful visit
to Mr. Driver, of the post-office. A foreign letter, addressed to him,
had most positively been lost. He had called to mention the circumstance,
lest Mr. Driver should be taken by surprise by official investigation.
Was it possible that the letter had been sent by mistake to Brandon--to
Captain Lake? Lake and Larkin, you know, might be mistaken. At all
events, it would be well to make your clerks recollect themselves. (Mr.
Larkin knew that Driver's 'clerks' were his daughters.) It is not easy to
meet with a young fellow that is quite honest. But if they knew that they
would be subjected to a sifting examination on oath, on the arrival of
the commissioner, they might possibly prefer finding the letter, in which
case there would be no more about it. Mr. Driver knew him (Mr. Larkin),
and he might tell his young men if they got the letter for him they
should hear no more of it.

The people of Gylingden knew very well that, when the rat-like glitter
twinkled in Mr. Larkin's eyes, and the shadow came over his long face,