He writes shortly and bitterly about Sir Percival's
explanations, only saying that he has no right to offer an opinion
on the conduct of those who are above him. This is sad, but his
occasional references to himself grieve me still more. He says
that the effort to return to his old habits and pursuits grows
harder instead of easier to him every day and he implores me, if I
have any interest, to exert it to get him employment that will
necessitate his absence from England, and take him among new
scenes and new people. I have been made all the readier to comply
with this request by a passage at the end of his letter, which has
almost alarmed me.
After mentioning that he has neither seen nor heard anything of
Anne Catherick, he suddenly breaks off, and hints in the most
abrupt, mysterious manner, that he has been perpetually watched
and followed by strange men ever since he returned to London. He
acknowledges that he cannot prove this extraordinary suspicion by
fixing on any particular persons, but he declares that the
suspicion itself is present to him night and day. This has
frightened me, because it looks as if his one fixed idea about
Laura was becoming too much for his mind. I will write
immediately to some of my mother's influential old friends in
London, and press his claims on their notice.
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