Toppleton's Client

<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_268" id="Page_268"></SPAN></span></p> <h2>CHAPTER XVII.</h2> <div class='chaptertitle'>EPILOGUE.</div> <div class='unindent'><span class="smcap">A single</span> year has passed since the episode which brought our last chapter to a close.</div> <p>The new Barncastle of Burningford is well and happy in the paths of pleasantness and peace, into which he was so unexpectedly and so unwittingly brought. His daughter has become engaged to a promising scion of a neighbouring house of large means and high estate in the social world. Hopkins Toppleton is in New York, busy at the practice of the law, developing a genius in the profession he had adopted for the convenience of his partners at which they stand amazed; steadily forging his way to the front, his energy, his aggressiveness, and extraordinary fertility of resource dazzling all beholders.</p> <p>As for the weary spirit,&mdash;alas for him! He still whistles, wearily, through space, hopeless and forlorn, but at all times a welcome visitor<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_269" id="Page_269"></SPAN></span> to Burningford, whither he personally went, shortly after Toppleton's departure for New York, to lay his petition at the feet of Barncastle himself. He knows now what has happened to his young counsel, and his regret for himself is tempered by his regret for what he has brought upon him who so nobly undertook to champion his cause, for the quondam Toppleton has concealed from his first client the happiness that he feels over the strange metamorphosis in his fortunes, lest, comparing it with his own miserable condition, the exile may become more unhappy than ever.</p> <div class='center'><br/><br/>THE END.</div> <div style="break-after:column;"></div><br />