He had watched by the dead body, on its
bed of rotten leaves, through that night and the whole of the next day;
then, changing clothes with it, he had fled under cover of the ensuing
darkness, and got away eventually to town.
He had found the house in Earl Street a wretched hovel, tenanted by a
few abjects, whom the money found on Balfour--which he had received on
leaving prison--was amply sufficient to buy out. Once alone in this
tenement, he had easily possessed himself of the spoil so long secreted,
and, furnished with it, he had hastened down to Crompton--the news of
Carew's death having reached London on the very day that he found
himself in a position to profit by it. The very plan which he had
suggested to Balfour, whose name he also assumed, he himself put into
execution. He made a private offer for the disused mine, which was
gladly accepted by those who had the disposal of the property, acting
under the advice of Parson Whymper. Trevethick, the only man that had
attached any importance to the possession of it, was dead; and it was
not likely that any one at the sale should bid one-half of the sum which
this stranger was prepared to give for the mere gratification of his
whim. The mine itself, indeed, had scarcely been mentioned in the
transaction; it merely formed a portion in the lot comprising the few
barren acres on which this capricious purchaser had expressed his fancy
to build a home.
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