You will laugh -
but do you keep a Diary?'
'A line for a day; not more.'
'A line for a day would be quite as much as my uneventful life
would need, Heaven knows,' said Jasper, taking a book from a desk,
'but that my Diary is, in fact, a Diary of Ned's life too. You
will laugh at this entry; you will guess when it was made:
'"Past midnight. - After what I have just now seen, I have a morbid
dread upon me of some horrible consequences resulting to my dear
boy, that I cannot reason with or in any way contend against. All
my efforts are vain. The demoniacal passion of this Neville
Landless, his strength in his fury, and his savage rage for the
destruction of its object, appal me. So profound is the
impression, that twice since I have gone into my dear boy's room,
to assure myself of his sleeping safely, and not lying dead in his
blood."
'Here is another entry next morning:
'"Ned up and away. Light-hearted and unsuspicious as ever. He
laughed when I cautioned him, and said he was as good a man as
Neville Landless any day. I told him that might be, but he was not
as bad a man. He continued to make light of it, but I travelled
with him as far as I could, and left him most unwillingly. I am
unable to shake off these dark intangible presentiments of evil -
if feelings founded upon staring facts are to be so called."
'Again and again,' said Jasper, in conclusion, twirling the leaves
of the book before putting it by, 'I have relapsed into these
moods, as other entries show.
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