Grit Lawless by Ethel Mills

Colonel Grey lay in bed smoking his customary before-breakfast cigar. He was not an early riser -- or, as he expressed it, he had had so much early rising during his life that he was justified in taking his leisure.

He was unaccountably thinking of Lawless and the letters. He still half-trusted and half-doubted his man. That is to say, at times his belief in him was unbounded, and again at other moments, according to his mood, he mistrusted the man's honesty of purpose. Reckless, impecunious, an admitted adventurer, were not the chances even that if he got hold of the letters he would turn them to his own purposes? With such a source of profit in his possession, would he be likely to give it up for the sum originally agreed upon between them? Colonel Grey could not altogether conquer his suspicions; the man's past life had prejudiced him.