His mind was crowded with images and conjectures, which were a language to his hopes and fears, just as we hear tones from the vibrations which shake our whole system. The deep humiliation with which he had winced under Caleb Garth’s knowledge of his past and rejection of his patronage, alternated with and almost gave way to the sense of safety in the fact that Garth, and no other, had been the man to whom Raffles had spoken. It seemed to him a sort of earnest that Providence intended his rescue from worse consequences; the way being thus left open for the hope of secrecy. That Raffles should be afflicted with illness, that he should have been led to Stone Court rather than elsewhere⁠—Bulstrode’s heart fluttered at the vision of probabilities which these events conjured up. If it should turn out that he was freed from all danger of disgrace⁠—if he could breathe in perfect liberty⁠—his life should be more consecrated than it had ever been before. He mentally lifted up this vow as if it would urge the result he longed for⁠—he tried to believe in the potency of that prayerful resolution⁠—its potency to determine death. He knew that he ought to say, “Thy will be done;” and he said it often. But the intense desire remained that the will of God might be the death of that hated man.