In the prospect _before_ the marriage he saw nothing more serious
involved than the practice of a deception, in no important degree
different--except in the end to be attained by it--from the deceptions
which his vagabond life had long since accustomed him to contemplate and
to carry out. In the prospect _after_ the marriage he dimly discerned,
through the ominous darkness of the future, the lurking phantoms of
Terror and Crime, and the black gulfs behind them of Ruin and Death.
A man of boundless audacity and resource, within his own mean limits;
beyond those limits, the captain was as deferentially submissive to the
majesty of the law as the most harmless man in existence; as cautious
in looking after his own personal safety as the veriest coward that ever
walked the earth. But one serious question now filled his mind. Could
he, on the terms proposed to him, join the conspiracy against Noel
Vanstone up to the point of the marriage, and then withdraw from
it, without risk of involving himself in the consequences which his
experience told him must certainly ensue?
Strange as it may seem, his decision in this emergency was mainly
influenced by no less a person than Noel Vanstone himself.
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