Read "Beaumaroy Home from the Wars" by Antonio Hope online for free on Textopian. Full text with search, annotations, highlights, and AI-powered reading aids.
What has been related of Mr. Saffron's life before he ascended the throne on which he still sat in the Tower represented all that Beaumaroy knew of his old friend before they met -- indeed he knew scarcely as much. He told the brief story to Doctor Mary in the parlour. She heard him listlessly; all that was not much to the point on which her thoughts were set, and did not answer the riddle which the scene in the Tower put to her. She was calm now -- and ashamed that she had ever lost her calmness.
"Well, there was the situation as I understood it when I took on the job -- or quite soon afterwards. He thought that he was being pursued; in a sense he was. If these Radbolts found out the truth, they certainly would pursue him, try to shut him up, and prevent him from making away with his money or leaving it to anybody else. I didn't at all know at first what a tidy lot he had. He hated the Radbolts; even after he ceased to know them as cousins, he remained very conscious of them always; they were enemies, spies, secret service people on his track -- poor old boy! Well, why should they have him and his money? I didn't see it. I don't see it to this day."