Excerpt from Number Seventeen, Vol. 2 of 2: A Novel A lie, nay more, a felony had been on his mind for nearly twenty years. That fact had made him drink at night, and go to sleep forgetting the matter. But if a man drinks at night he is crapulous in the morn ing, and so Drummond always woke with a nightmare more ghastly than any which came to him in his dreams. He wanted to marry Mrs. Arnaud. Why? That is beyond our power to tell. There was nothing very particular about Mrs. Arnaud. We know her well, but she has nothing about her to make a man desire to marry her. She is a fine showy woman with every possible good quality, save that of consistent truthfulness. But the man who desired, or desires, to marry Mrs. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.