The Adventures of Ferdinand Count Fathom Chapter 17

In which the watchful wife, suspecting the designs of her daughter’s lover, employs a cunning spy to monitor the young lady’s comings and goings, thus setting a trap that entangles all parties in a web of correspondence and suspicion. Our hero, with equal parts artifice and caution, navigates the intrigues laid before him, seeking to extricate himself from a passion grown wearisome while the afflicted mother plots revenge, her wrath tempered only by the prudence of a trusted counsellor.