Thenceforward nothing was heard of him there, save that
he wrote occasionally to his cousin, Sophia Radbolt, and her husband,
both of whom he most cordially hated, whose claims to his notice, regard,
or assistance he had, of late years at least, hotly resented. Yet he
wrote to them--wrote them vaunting and magniloquent letters, hinting
darkly of great doings and great riches. In spite of their opinion of
him, the Radbolts came to believe perhaps half of what he said; he was
old and without other ties; their thirst for his money was greedy.
Undoubtedly the Radbolts would dearly have loved to get hold of him
and--somehow--hold him fast.
When he came to Tower Cottage--it was in the first year of the war--he
was precariously sane; it was only gradually that his fundamental and
constitutional vices and foibles turned to a morbid growth. First came
intensified hatred and suspicion of the Radbolts--they were after him and
his money! Then, through hidden processes of mental distortion, there
grew the conviction that he was of high importance, a great man, the
object of great conspiracies, in which the odious Radbolts were but
instruments.
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