George Manville Fenn (continued 6)

“Yes; that was when some tattling fool told you about my losses over that race, and I suppose made out that I was in a hurry to win the heiress, so as to make ducks and drakes of her money.”

“You hurt me,” she said softly; “no one ever hinted at such a degrading idea.”

“Just when a fellow had gone into the thing for once in a way. Of course I was unlucky, and a good job too. If I had won I might have been tempted to try again. Now I have done with racing and betting and the rest of it for ever.”

“I had not thought of that affair, John, when I spoke as I did. I promised you I would forget it, and I had forgotten it, believe me.”

“Oh yes, of course,” he said bitterly.

“I am speaking frankly and openly to you, John,” continued Miss Carr gently; “and I want you to think as I do, that, in taking so grave a step as that which joins two people together for life, it should be taken only as one makes a step from which there is no recall.”

“Miriam!” he exclaimed, and he seemed to stop short in front of her, “I am a hot, impetuous fellow, and I love you passionately, as you know, and have known since the day when first we met. Have I ever given up the pursuit?”

“No,” she said, half-laughingly. “You did not let me rest, nor did our friends, until we were engaged.”

“Of course not. There, come now, you look more like your own dear self. I want to ask you a question.”

“Yes, John. What is it?”

He cleared his voice and hesitated, but only to speak out firmly at last.

“Do you think—have you ever thought me such a cur that I wanted you for the sake of your money?”

“John, this is the second time that you have brought up my fortune to-day. There is no need to answer such a question.”

“But I beg—I desire—I insist upon knowing,” he cried passionately.

“You have your answer in the fact that you are standing before me talking as you are. If I believed for an instant that you had such sordid thoughts, our engagement would be at an end. I would sooner give you the money than be your wife.”

“Of course, yes: of course, my own dear, noble girl!” he cried excitedly. “Then why all this waiting—why keep me at arm’s length? Come now, darling, let us settle it at once.”

“No, John,” she said calmly. “I cannot yet consent.”

“Your old excuse,” he cried, striding up and down the room.

“I never held out hopes to you that it would be soon,” she replied; and I felt that she must be looking at him wistfully.

“But why—why all this waiting, dear?” he said, evidently struggling with his anger, and striving to speak calmly.

“I have told you again and again, dear John, my sole reason.”

“And what is that?” he said bitterly; “it must have been so trifling that I forget it.”

“You do not forget it, indeed,” she said tenderly. “I ask you to wait, because I wish, when I marry you, to be sure that I am offering you a true and loving wife.”

“Oh, if that’s all,” he said laughingly, “I’m satisfied as you are; and on my soul, Miriam, I wish you had not a penny, so that all ideas of self-interest might be set aside!”

“They are set aside, dear John,” she said calmly.

“Well then, love, let there be an end to this miserable waiting and disappointment. If I did not know thoroughly your sweet disposition, and that you are so far above all silly coquettish ways, I should say that you were trifling with me, to make me more eager for the day.”

“You know me better.”

“I do, my darling,” he said in a low impassioned voice, which I heard quite plainly, though I had gone to the window and was looking out into the street. “Then let us settle it at once. I am in your hands, Miriam, as I have been from the day I first set eyes upon you. At present I am wretched—miserable—my whole thoughts are of you, and I feel at times half-mad—that I cannot wait. Do you wish to torture me?”

“No.”

“Then be my dear honoured wife in a week’s time—a fortnight? What, still shaking your head? Well, then, there: I am the most patient of lovers—in a month from to-day?”

“No, no, I cannot,” she said; and in place of being so calm she spoke now passionately. “You must wait, dear John, you must wait.”

“Then there is something,” he cried, in a low, angry voice. “Some wretch has been maligning me.”

“Indeed no.”

“You have been told that I am wasteful and a spendthrift?”

“I should not have listened to any such charge.”

“Then that I am weak, and untrustworthy, and gay?”

“I should have told anyone who hinted such a thing that it was a lie.”

“Then,” he cried hoarsely, “there is some one else; you have seen some one you like better!”

“John! Mr Lister! You hurt my wrist.”

“You do not answer me,” he cried, his voice growing more hoarse and intense, while I stood there with my heart palpitating, feeling as if I ought to run to Miss Carr’s help.

“I will not answer such a question,” she said angrily; “but I will tell you this: that I have looked upon myself as your betrothed wife; do not make me think upon our engagement with regret.”

“Forgive me, Miriam, pray forgive me,” he said in a low, pleading voice. “It is my wretched temper that has got the better of me. Say you forgive me, Miriam, or I shall be ready to make an end of myself. There, there, don’t take away this little hand.”

“Leave me now, I beg of you,” she said in a low, pained voice.

“Yes, directly, sweet,” he whispered; “but let there be an end of this, my darling. Say—in a month’s time—you will be my wife, and then I shall know I am forgiven.”

“I forgive you your cruel, passionate words, John,” she said, in such a tone that I began once more to look out of the window, wondering whether Mrs John Lister would be as kind to me as Miss Carr.

“And, in a month to-day, you will make me a happy man?”

“I cannot promise that,” she said after a pause.

“Yes, yes, you can, dearest—my own love!” he cried; and I felt now as if I should like to open the window and step out on the balcony.

“No, I cannot promise that, John,” she repeated. “You must—we must wait.”

“Then it is as I say,” he cried, evidently springing up from her feet, and stamping up and down the room. “You are a cruel, cold, heartless girl, and I’ll come begging and pleading no more. Our engagement holds good,” he said bitterly; “and you shall name the day yourself, and we shall be a happy pair, unless I have blown out my brains before we’re wed.”

I heard the little drawing-room door close loudly, descending steps, and then the front door shut almost with a bang, and from where I stood I saw Mr Lister, looking very handsome and well dressed, with a bouquet in his button-hole, stride hastily down the street, cutting at imaginary obstacles with his cane, and as he turned the corner I heard from the next room a low moan, and Miss Carr’s voice, saying:

“God help and teach me! I am a wretched woman! How shall I act?”

Chapter Thirty Four.

I Take the News to my Friends.

“Wretched!” I thought, “in the midst of wealth, and loved by that passionate, handsome man.” Then I recalled how I had often heard of lovers’ quarrels, and supposed that this was one that would soon be made up.

I felt very uncomfortable, and wondered what I ought to do. There was a deep silence in the next room that became painful, and I wondered whether Miss Carr had gone; but directly after I heard such a low bitter sobbing that it went to my heart, and, unable to bear it longer, I went to the door, looked in, and saw her half-lying on the couch, with her face buried in the pillow, weeping bitterly.

I hesitated for a moment, and then went in unheard over the soft thick carpet, and kneeling down, I took the inert hand hanging down, and kissed it.

In a moment she stood up with pale and angry face, flinging me off as if I had stung her.

“Oh, Antony, my boy; is it you?” she cried; and flinging her arms round me, she let her head fall upon my shoulder, and went passionately and long, while I tried to utter some feeble platitude to soothe her.

The storm passed off suddenly, and she wiped her swollen eyes.

“I had forgotten that you were there, Antony,” she said. “I have had a great trouble.”

She spoke with her face averted, and she was trying now to remove the traces of her tears.

“You could not hear what was said?” she asked.

“Yes, Miss Carr. I did not wish to, but I heard every word.”

“Oh!”

She turned her wild eyes upon me, and her pale face flushed crimson as she rose to leave the room, hurrying away and leaving me wondering whether I ought to go.

I had just concluded that I ought, and, taking up a sheet of paper, I had written a few lines saying how very sorry I was that I had been an unwilling listener, when she came back with her hair re-arranged, and looking pale and calm.

“Were you writing to me, Antony?” she said.

“Yes, Miss Carr.”

“Let me see.”

She read that which I had written, and smiled sadly. Then, tearing up the note, she took my hand and led me once more to the couch.

“I am sorry that you heard what passed, Antony,” she said; “but since I have known you, I have gradually grown to look upon you as a friend as well as a protégé; you have told me your little history, and every time I have seen you, you have shown me the fruit of the teachings of those to whom you were very dear. I feel quite happy in knowing that you, as the son of a gentleman, Antony, will hold all that you have heard quite sacred.”

“If you will only believe in and trust me,” I cried.

“I do believe in and trust you, Antony,” she said warmly. “Now I am going to ask you to leave me, and come again to-morrow, after you have been to the engineer’s office. I am not well, and I should be glad to be alone.”

I rose, and as she held out her hand I took it and kissed it reverently—so reverently, that she drew me to her, and touched my forehead with her lips.

“Go now, Antony,” she said, “and I think it will be better that you should not return to the printing-office. I will arrange with Mr Ruddle about that. A letter from me will be sufficient. And look here, Antony: you will come here to me every Saturday, and Sunday too, if you like. You need stand upon no ceremony—tut come. You will not be sorry to leave the office?”

“Oh no,” I said; “but I shall regret leaving Mr Hallett.”

I thought it was fancy then, as I seemed to see a spasm shoot through her. She said no more to me, but pressed something into my hand, and I went downstairs.

I felt very proud as I made my way along the streets, wondering what was in the packet Miss Carr had given me, and longing for an opportunity to open it.

The park seemed the most suitable place, and, making my way there, I lay down on the soft turf in a secluded place, opened the packet, and found in it a letter and a purse containing two five-pound notes.

The letter was dated the night before, and it was very brief:

“My dear Antony,—

“I have thought that you may need several things in commencing your new life, and as I wish you to appear as a gentleman’s son who means to work earnestly, I should provide serviceable clothes. I leave the rest to your common-sense and discretion.

“Yours affectionately,—

“Miriam Carr.”

“My dear Antony,” “yours affectionately,” I repeated to myself; and as I lay there, after safely placing the note and purse in my pockets, I wished earnestly that the dead could know and thank one who had so evidently my welfare at heart.

Mary soon knew of my good fortune, but did not seem at all surprised.

“No, my dear, it’s nothing more than natural,” she said, as I partook of tea with her; and in her affection for me she tried very hard to make me bilious with the amount of butter in which she soaked my toast. “You being a gentleman’s son, and having had a par and a mar, it was no more than one might expect, for gentlefolks to take notice of you. That Miss Carr’s a real lady, and I shouldn’t wonder if she was to leave you no end of money when she died.”

“Oh, Mary!” I cried, “just as if I wanted Miss Carr to die and leave me her money. I mean to earn some for myself, and when I get rich, you and Revitts shall come and live with me.”

“That we will,” said Mary. “I’ll be your cook, Master Antony, and Bill shall be—shall be—”

“Bailiff and steward.”

“Or else gardener,” she said. “So you’re going to buy some new clothes, are you?”

“Yes, Mary; I must go well dressed to the engineer’s.”

“Then I should buy two more suits,” said Mary eagerly. “Have a good dark blue for Sundays, with gilt buttons, and for every day have invisible green.”

I shook my head.

“No, I must have black still, Mary, and grey,” I said.

“I wouldn’t dear; I’d have blue, and as for invisible green, you wouldn’t know as it wasn’t black.”

However, Mary came to my way of thinking, and my choice of new things was in no wise outré.

I seemed to be plunged into a perfect atmosphere of love just then, for I left Revitts smiling foolishly at Mary, whose face reflected the lover as perfectly as a mirror, and went on to Hallett’s, where I unconsciously found myself mixed up with another trouble of the kind.

I have grown wiser since, but in those days it was a puzzle to me why people could not be friends and fond of one another without plunging into such heart-breaking passionate ways, to their own discomfort and that of all whom they knew.

I was rather later than usual at the Halletts’, and on going upstairs, full of my good news, I found that Mrs Hallett was in bed, and Linny with her brother.

I ran up, tapped, and went in according to my custom, and then drew back for it was evident that something was wrong, but Hallett called me to stay.

“We have no secrets from you, Antony,” he said excitedly. “You know what has taken place from the first, and you are as much Linny’s friend as mine.”

“Then if he is,” cried Linny, stamping her little foot, “I’ll appeal to him.”

“Why, Linny,” I said, “what is the matter?”

“Matter!” she cried, sobbing passionately, “have I not given up to him in all he wished? have not I obeyed him and been more like a prisoner here than his sister? And now he is not satisfied.”

“I am satisfied, my child,” he said kindly. “But go on: what have I done?”

“Done?” cried Linny; “wounded me where you knew my heart was sore; looked upon my every act with suspicion.”

“No, my child,” he said quietly, as he watched the pretty, wilful little thing more in grief than anger. “You know how happy we have been, these last few weeks, since you have had confidence in me, and listened to my words.”

“Happy?” she cried piteously, and with her hand upon her heart.

“Yes,” he said; “happy till this letter came to-day—a letter that has swept all your promises to the winds, and sown dissension between us. Once more, will you show me the letter?”

“Once more,” cried Linny passionately, “no! You assume too much. Even if you were my father, you could do no more.”

“I stand to you, my dear child, in the place of your dead father. Your honour is as dear to me as it would have been to him.”

“My honour!” echoed Linny. “Stephen, you degrade me, by talking in this way before a comparative stranger.”

“Antony Grace is not a comparative stranger,” said Hallett quietly. “If he were your own brother he could not have acted better to us both. I speak out before him, because I look to Antony, boy though he be, to help me to watch over you and protect you, since you are so weak.”

“To act as your spy?”

“No,” he said sadly, “we will not degrade ourselves by acting as spies, but you force it upon me, Linny, to take stern measures. You refuse to show me this letter?”

“I do. I would die first!” cried Linny.

“My poor child,” he said sadly, “there is no need. I can read it in your transparent little face. You thought, I believe, in the first hot sting of your wrong that night, that you had plucked this foolish love from your breast; and so long as he remained silent you were at rest. But now he writes to you and says—”

“Hush, Stephen! You shall not before Antony Grace.”

“Why not?” he cried. “He says in this letter that he has been wretched ever since; that he begs your pardon for the past; that upon your forgiveness depends his future; and he implores you, by all you hold sacred, to grant him an interview, that he may be forgiven.”

“Stephen!” cried Linny, but he went mercilessly on.

“And the foolish, trusting little heart, unused to the wiles of this world, leaped at the words, forgave him on the instant, and a brother’s words, her own promises, the vows of amendment, all are forgotten,” he said angrily, as his face now grew white and his hands clenched, “and all for the sake of a man who is an utter scoundrel!”

“How dare you!” cried Linny, and the hot passionate blood flashed to her little cheeks. Her eyes flamed, her teeth were set, and, in an access of rage, she struck her brother across the lips with the back of her hand. “How dare you call him a scoundrel?” she cried.

“Because,” said Hallett—while I stood by, unutterably shocked by the scene, which was the more intense from the low voices in which brother and sister spoke, they being in unison on the point that Mrs Hallett should not hear their quarrel—“because,” said Hallett, “his conduct is that of a villain. While professing love for you, he insults you. He tells you you are more dear to him than life, and he skulks like a thief and does not show his face. If he loved you—”

“Love! What do you know of love?” cried Linny passionately. “You—you cold-blooded groveller, without soul to worship anything greater than that!”

As she spoke, she stood with her head thrown back, looking the picture of scorn and rage, as she contemptuously pointed at poor Hallett’s model; while he, weak, nervous, and overwrought—stung almost to madness, caught her sharply by the shoulder, and in her fear she sank on her knees at his feet.

“My God!”

Chapter Thirty Five.

I Build a Castle in the Air.

If ever words were uttered with a wild intensity of fervour, it was that awful appeal; and, in the interval that followed, I felt my heart beat painfully, while Hallett, with the great drops standing on his knotted brow, clutched the little shoulder, so that Linny flinched from him.

“I cold-blooded—I know naught of love?” he whispered hoarsely; “when, for a year past, my life has been one long-drawn agony! I know naught of love, who have had to crush down every thought, every aspiration, lest I should be a traitor to the man whose bread I eat! Love? Girl, my life has been a torture to me, knowing, as I did, that I was a groveller, as you say, and that I must grovel on, not daring to look up to one so far above me, that—Heaven help me, what am I saying?” he cried, looking from one to the other. “Linny, for our dead father’s sake—for the sake of that poor, pain-wrung sufferer below, let there be no more of this. Trust me, child. Believe in me. I know so much of what you must suffer, that if he, whoever he be, prove only true and worthy of you, he shall be welcome here. But why raise this barrier between us? See, I am not angry now. It is all past. You roused that within me that I could not quell, but I am calm again, and, as your brother, I implore you, tell me who is this man?”

“I—I cannot,” said Linny, shaking her head.

“You cannot?”

“No,” she said firmly; “I gave my promise.”

“That you would not tell me—your own brother? Your mother then?”

“No, not now,” she said, shaking her head. “After a time I will.”

Without another word she turned and ran from the room, leaving Hallett gazing vacantly before him, as if suffering from some shock.

I went up to him at last. “Can I help you, Hallett?” I said; and he turned and gazed at me as if he had not understood my words.

“Antony,” he said at length, “a time back I should have thought it folly to make a friend and confidant of such a boy as you; but I have no man friend: I have shut myself up with those two below there, and when I have not been with them my hours have been spent here—here,” he said, pointing mockingly at the model, “with my love, and a strange, coquettish jade she is—is she not? But somehow, my boy, we two have drifted together, and we are friends, badly coupled as we may seem. You have heard what Linny said. Poor child, she must be saved at any cost, though I hardly know what course to pursue. There,” he said wearily, “let it rest for to-night; sometimes, in the thickest wilderness of our lives, a little path opens out where least expected, and something may offer itself even here.”

“I am very, very sorry, Hallett,” I said.

“I know it, my boy, I know it,” he said hurriedly; “but forget what you heard me say to-night. I was betrayed into speaking as I did by a fit of passion. Forget it, Antony, forget it.”

I did not answer, and he turned to me.

“I meant to have had a good work at the model to-night, but that little scene stopped it. Now about yourself. You are getting a sad truant from the office.”

He said it in a hesitating manner, and turned his face away directly after, but only to dart round in surprise at my next words.

“I am not coming back to the office any more—but don’t think me ungrateful.”

“Not coming back?”

“No, Hallett; Miss Carr sent for me—she has been away—and I am to go at once as a pupil to an engineer.”

He turned his back to me, and I ran to his side:

“Oh, Hallett,” I cried piteously; “don’t be angry with me. I told her I was sorry to go, because you were such a good friend.”

“You told her that, Antony?”

“Indeed, indeed I did; but I thought in being an engineer I might be some day such a help to you, and that it was for the best; and now you are vexed and think me ungrateful.”

He was silent for a few moments, and then he turned to me and took my hands, speaking in a low, husky voice:

“You must not heed me to-night, Antony,” he said. “You saw how upset and strange I was. This affair of Linny’s, and her letter, trouble me more than I care to own. No, no, my dear boy, I am not vexed with you, and I do not for a moment think you ungrateful.”

“You do not!” I cried joyfully.

“No, no, of course not. I rejoice to find that you have so good and powerful a friend in—Miss Carr. She must be—a truly good—woman.”

“She’s everything that’s good and beautiful and kind,” I cried, bursting into raptures about her. “I’m to have books and to go there every week, and she trusts to me to try and succeed well in my new life. Oh, Hallett, you can’t think how I love her.”

He laid his hand on my shoulder and gazed with a strange light in his eyes upon my eager face.

“That’s right,” he said. “Yes—love her, and never give her cause to blush for her kindness to you, my boy.”

He sat listening to me eagerly as I went on telling him her words, describing her home, everything I could think of, but the one subject tabooed, and of that I gave no hint, while he, poor fellow, sat drinking in what was to him a poisoned draught, and I unwittingly kept on adding to his pain.

“I’m only afraid of one thing,” I said with all a boy’s outspoken frankness.

“And what is that, Antony?”

“I’m afraid that when she is married to Mr Lister—”

His hand seemed to press my shoulder more tightly.

“Yes,” he said in a whisper, “she is to be married to Mr Lister.”

“Yes, I knew that the first day I came to the office.”

“It is the common talk there,” he said with knitted brows. “And what is your fear, Antony?”

“That when she is married to Mr Lister she will forget all about me.”

“You wrong her, boy,” he said almost fiercely; and I stared at his strange display of excitement, for I had not the key then to his thoughts, and went on blindly again and again tearing open his throbbing wound.

“You wrong her,” he said. “Antony, Miss Carr is a woman to have won whose esteem is to have won a priceless gem, and he who goes farther, and wins her love, can look but for one greater happiness—that of heaven.”

He was soaring far beyond my reach, grovelling young mole that I was, and I said in an uneasy way that must have sounded terribly commonplace and selfish:

“You don’t think she will forget me, then?”

“No,” he said sternly. “There is that in her face which seems to say that she is one who never forgets—never forgives. She is no common woman, Antony; be worthy of her trust, and think of her name in your prayers before you sleep.”

I gazed at him curiously, he seemed so strange; and, noticing my uneasy looks, he said in a cheerful voice:

“There, we will not talk so seriously any more. You see how I trust you, Antony, in return for your confidence in me. Now let’s talk of pleasant things. An engineer, eh?”

“Yes,” I said, delighted at the change in his conversation. “I am glad of it—heartily glad of it,” he said with kindling eyes. “Linny is right; I do love and idolise my model, and you shall share her love, Antony. Together we will make her the queen of models, and if in time, perhaps years hence, I do perfect her—nay, if we perfect her—there, you see,” he said playfully, “I have no petty jealousies—you will then be engineer enough to make the drawings and calculations for the machines that are to grow from the model. Is it a bargain, Antony?”

“That it is,” I cried, holding out my hand, which he firmly clasped; and that night I went back to Revitts’ walking upon air, with my head in a whirl with the fancied noise of the machinery made by Hallett and Grace, while, out of my share of the proceeds, I was going down to Rowford to pay Mr Blakeford all my father’s debt; and then—being quite a man grown—I meant to tell him he was a cowardly, despicable scoundrel, for behaving to me as he did when I was a boy.

Chapter Thirty Six.

Mr Jabez Rowle’s Money Matters.

Something like the same sensation came over me when I made my way to Great George Street, Westminster, as I had felt on the morning when I presented myself at the great printing-office. But my nervousness soon passed away on being received by Mr Girtley, a short, broad-shouldered man, with a big head covered with crisp, curly grey hair.

“Ah,” he said, speaking in a great hurry, “you’re Antony Grace, our new pupil, are you?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Miss Carr’s young friend. Knew Carr: clever, wealthy man.”

“Indeed, sir?”

“Yes, only had one fault—died twenty years too soon. Been a millionaire and a modest man combined. Rara avis, eh? Ha, ha, ha! Tom!”

“Yes, father.”

The answer came from an inner office, and a good-looking youth, wonderfully like Mr Girtley, came out with a pencil across his mouth, a pen behind his ear, a scale in one hand, and a pair of compasses in the other. “This is Antony Grace; you take charge of him and show him about. Take it coolly. Festina lente, you know. I say, Antony Grace, what does rara avis mean?”

“A rare or strange bird, sir.”

“Good lad. And festina lente?”

“Hasten slowly, sir.”

“Good lad. You’re all right with your Latin, then. I wasn’t when I began. Had to learn it after I was twenty. Well, I’m busy, Tom; you understand; he’ll be a bit nervous and strange, so don’t worry him. Let him take in spoonfuls first. He’ll learn to drink big draughts later on.”

“I’m very busy over those syphon plans, father.”

“Ah, the new syphon. Yes, that must be done. Well, I’ll set Browning to do them.”

“I’d—I’d much rather finish them myself,” said the youth.

“Of course you would. Well, then, I’ll give you a fortnight’s extension; then you can finish them and have plenty of time for Antony Grace as well. Take him round the works, and then you can go down the river for a run. And, by-the-way, Tom, go in one of the new boats, and tip the engineer. Have a good look at those fresh oscillating cylinders, and see whether you think they beat ours. I’m off. You were quite punctual, Antony Grace, or you wouldn’t have seen me. Always keep your appointments exactly. Good-morning; glad to see you. Hope you’ll get on and like the business. Work hard at it, and mind this—steady application wins. Bring him home to dinner to-night, Tom. Eh? yes.”

“Mr Williamson to see you, sir,” said a clerk.

“My compliments to Mr Williamson, and he must make another appointment. He is an hour after the time he named, and I am engaged for the rest of the day. Lesson in punctuality, Antony Grace,” he said, nodding. “I’m off.”

The door closed after his retreating figure, and Tom and I stood staring, probably thinking the same thing, whether we should like one another. The result of the scrutiny was satisfactory to me, for there was something very pleasant in the young fellow’s frank open countenance, and I longed to meet with a companion nearly my own age.

“Well,” he said quietly, “suppose we have a look round. I shan’t work any more at my plans this morning. This is my place,” he continued, taking me into the inner office, where a great broad mahogany desk was covered with papers. “You’ll have that one; it was Bailey’s; he was father’s pupil; he’s gone out to India on the Great Central.”

I said, “Has he?” but I had no idea whether the Great Central was a ship or a great engine.

“There are my plans for a self-acting syphon. Those parts coloured red are where the vacuum valves will come in, and, of course, this lower part takes the place of a steam-pump.”

“Does it?” I said, laughing. “But I don’t understand it a bit.”

“No, of course not,” he said, laughing too. “Well, you’ll soon learn. You’ll like father, and we’ll like you if you’ll work well. Bailey and he did not get on at all.”

“Didn’t Bailey work well?” I said, as a vision of the idle apprentice came before my eyes.

“Father used to say he was like an engine with a bad stoker. He was either racing, or there was no steam un. He’d work furiously for two days, and then he’d idle for a week.”

“Mr Girtley is fond of work, then?”

“Father says everyone was meant to work, and life’s too short for all we have to do. But he likes play, too. We have a cricket-field at home, and a billiard-table, and bowls—all sorts of games. Father plays at all of them when he’s at home and isn’t gardening. He calls it oiling his machinery and slackening his bands. Come along, I’ll show you the factory, and our workshop, where you and I will have to work, making models, and then we’ll oil our machinery.”

“Shall we have to make models?” I cried eagerly.

“You will, of course. I’m going to be a lawyer. Father thinks the man who is a good engineer is sure to have to invent, and if so, he ought to be able to take the tools out of his men’s hands, and show them how they should be used. Shall you like that? It makes your hands black.”

“Oh, I shan’t mind that,” I said, laughing. “I shall like it.”

We went over the office, and then, taking our caps, he showed me the way over Westminster Bridge to the great works in Lambeth, where steam was puffing and panting, wheels whirring, and iron and steel were shrieking as they were being tortured into shape.

It was a confusing place, and, after passing the timekeeper’s box at the entrance, we seemed to plunge into a kind of Pandemonium, where fires glared, and white-hot masses of metal were being dragged out and beaten till they sent sparks of brilliant fire flying in all directions. From there we ascended to a floor where wheels were whirring and great machines were at work, with men tending them, and pouring oil in the wounds made by mighty steam-worked chisels, or bored in pieces of black iron. In one place, shavings of iron were curling off before a plane like so much soft wood; and on touching them I found them rigid, and hot with the friction necessary to tear them away. Next we were in a higher shop, where lathes were at work, and iron, steel, and brass were being turned like so much ivory. Out of this great floor was a smaller workshop, whose walls were covered with tools; and on shelves around were dozens of strange models, which took my attention strongly as I thought of Hallett’s patient work, and longed to begin at something on the spot.

Here, too, there were lathes, vices, and all the necessary paraphernalia for the constructing engineers, and I left the place unwillingly to join young Girtley in his run down the river, where, the right steamer being chosen, we had our ride; the oscillating engines were examined, and we were back and down at Dulwich in good time for dinner and a look round the spacious grounds afterwards.

I returned to Caroline Street full of my day’s adventures, and ready to tell Mary of my progress towards prosperity, but, to my disappointment, she seemed in nowise dazzled. It was quite a matter of course to her, only a question of time before I should be a great engineer, and in that faith she was a strong believer.

Time glided on, and the half-work, half-play system, upon which I had commenced business at Great George Street had in the course of a month settled into regular hours, but the work did not trouble me, for I led so pleasant a life with Tom Girtley, and found his father so eager and willing a teacher, that I quite enjoyed the toil. There was the one idea, too, always before my mind that some day I should be able to help Hallett, whom I joined nearly every night, to pore over and try to scheme something new for the machine.

I could see that matters were in anything but a happy state at the Halletts’—Mrs Hallett being more complaining and querulous than ever, and, it seemed to me, rather disposed to side with Linny in her rebellion against her brother’s authority.

For they were not at one: Linny was pale, excitable, and troubled: Hallett, loving, kind, and firm. But from hints he let drop, I found that Linny was as obstinate as ever, and that she was still carrying on a correspondence with her unknown admirer.

One night, after leaving Great George Street, I made my way to Hallett’s, but he was out, and Linny assured me that he would not be back for hours. She evidently wanted me to go, and the reason was plain—she was busy writing a letter; and as I went away, wondering where to go, I bethought me of Mr Jabez Rowle, who lodged in the neighbourhood, and as it would be his time for being home, I determined to go and see him.

I easily found his lodgings, at a little grocer’s shop in a bystreet, where he had the first floor, the front window being turned into quite a garden with flowers, and some scarlet-runners twining up strings on either side.

I heard the familiar snap of his snuff-box as I tapped at the door, and in reply to his “Come in,” I entered, to find the old gentleman taking his leisure by poring over a long slip, and, pen in hand, darting in corrections with a grunt of satisfaction.

“Ah, young Grace,” he cried, “you here! I thought you were lost. Glad to see you, boy. Here, sit down—no, stand up; catch hold of that bit of manuscript, and read it to me—only a dozen sides.” And to my great astonishment I found myself reading away to him in the old style for quite half-an-hour before he reached the bottom of the slip proofs and laid his pen down with a satisfied grunt and took a pinch of snuff.

“Quite a treat, Grace—quite a treat,” he cried. “Sit down. I haven’t had a bit of copy read to me like that since you left. Boy I’ve got’s a fool, and I could knock his head against the wall. Shake hands. How are you?”

I replied that I was quite well, and could see that he was.

“No, I’m not,” he said tartly. “Much bothered. Money matters?” and he took another pinch of snuff. “So you’ve called to ask me to say a word for you to come back to the office, eh? Well, I’m glad, boy—I’m glad! Take it as settled. You can come back to-morrow morning! I will have you, or I’ll know the reason why.”

I stared at him aghast.

“Oh no, Mr Rowle,” I said, “I only came to see you. I thought I should like to. I’m getting on so well.”

“Are you, though? Engineering, eh? Well, I’m sorry for it. No, no: I’m glad of it, my lad. I hope you will get on. But I liked you for a reading-boy. You were the only chap I ever had who could stand by me when I took snuff without sneezing all over the slips, and that’s a great thing. Have a pinch?” he said, offering me his box. “No, no: of course not, I forgot. Glad you came to see me, Grace—very glad. Here, Mrs Jennings,” he cried, going to the door, and shouting down the stairs; “I’ve got a young friend here: bring up some sugar-candy and biscuits and cinnamon; anything nice you’ve got.”

“I really don’t want anything, Mr Jabez,” I said.

“Oh, yes, you do, boy. Ho, hi! Mrs Jennings, bring up some figs.”

He toddled back to his chair, but was up again directly, to shout down the staircase:

“Bring up some almonds and raisins, and candied peel, Mrs Jennings.”

“Lor’ bless the man, do you want the whole shop?” shouted a sharp voice.

“No, I don’t,” said Mr Jabez grumpily, as he toddled back. “I was an out-and-outer for candied peel when I was a boy,” he said, rubbing his hands. “Those dried apples, too, that look as if they had been sat upon by old women, Grace. Ah, I spent a lot of pennies on them when I was a boy.”

A red-faced woman here made her appearance with a plateful of the sweets that Mr Jabez had named, and she rather scowled at me, and banged the plate down hard enough almost to break it as she whisked out of the room again and slammed the door.

“Now, Grace, fall to, as they say in copy about feasts. See that woman?”

“Yes, Mr Jabez.”

“She’s a Tartar, she is. I live here because that woman acts as a lighthouse to me.”

“A lighthouse, sir? Because she has got such a red face?”

“Get out! No, you young joker. A warning, a beacon, a bell-buoy, a light-ship, to warn me off the rocks and shoals of matrimony. I should have married, Grace, years ago, if I hadn’t seen what a life a woman can lead a man. She has nearly made her husband a lunatic.”

“Indeed, Mr Jabez?”

“Well, say imbecile. Peg away, my boy,” he continued, laughing; “these figs are beautiful. Peel’s good, too.”

So it seemed, for Mr Jabez was feasting away with great gusto, and eating two of everything to my one.

“Yes, sir, I should have been married and a poor man, instead of comparatively rich—at least, was. Money matters are rather awkward just now.”

“I’m very sorry to hear it, Mr Jabez,” I said.

“I’m sorry to feel it,” said Mr Jabez, with a fig in one hand and a piece of candied peel in the other. “Come, you don’t eat. By Jingo, there’s Grimstone,” he cried, as a step was heard upon the stairs; and in his excitement and dread of being seen engaged in eating sweets, he stuffed a fig into one breeches-pocket, some peel into the other, and snatched up his snuff-box, while I felt terribly discomposed at the idea of meeting my old tyrant.

“Is it Mr Grimstone?” I faltered.

“Yes, but you don’t eat. Take another fig,” cried Mr Jabez, as, without knocking, Mr Grimstone entered the room.

“Hallo,” he said, without taking off his hat, “what the deuce are you doing here?”

“I’ve come to see Mr Jabez, Mr Grimstone,” I replied.

“Oh, have you? So have I. How long are you going to stop?”

“Oh, hours yet,” said Mr Jabez. “Sit down, Grim. He doesn’t matter; speak out. He doesn’t belong to the shop now. Well: what news?”

“Bad!” said Mr Grimstone, throwing himself into a chair. “Here, boy, take my hat.”

I took it quite obediently, and resumed my seat, while Mr Grimstone wiped his bald head with a bright orange handkerchief.

“You don’t say so?” said Mr Jabez uneasily.

“Yes, I do,” said Mr Grimstone, taking the box out of the reader’s hand and helping himself to a pinch; “I said it quite plain.”

“It’s a bad job.”

“Have you just found that out?” snarled the overseer. “Pretty pair of fools we’ve been. Look here, send that boy away.”

“No, no; no, no. Sit still, Grace. Eat some more figs, boy. I’ll call Mrs Jennings when you’ve eaten them. There, go on, Grim. Antony Grace isn’t a chatterer.”

“Just as you like,” said Grimstone. “Well, if he doesn’t get married to that gal right off, and bank her money, the game’s up, and your 500 pounds and my 750 pounds are gone to the deuce.”

“Is it 750 pounds, Grimstone?”

“Yes, curse him! he got round me with all sorts of promises.”

“Of bonus, Grim, eh?”

“Yes, I suppose so,” growled the overseer. “That bill-discounter chap, Brandysheim, or Brandyman or something’s, cornering him. He was at the office to-day, and there was a regular shine.”

“Was Ruddle there?”

“No, but I hear that Brandysheim threatened to come down on him if he wasn’t paid.”

“And what then?”

“What then?” growled Grimstone, with a show of his teeth; “why, Lister’s smashed up—bankrupt, and you and I may sit and stare at each other for a pair of fools.”

“But it won’t hurt Ruddle.”

“No, only bother him. If Lister’s bankrupt, he’s partner no longer, and Ruddle will have to find out what share he has in the business.”

“Yes, that’s what I thought,” said Mr Jabez dolefully.

“And we shan’t get a penny!”

“Not even interest,” said Mr Jabez.

“Not even interest,” echoed Grimstone.

“Not even bonus,” said Mr Jabez.

“Not even bonus,” echoed Grimstone again.

“What’s he done with his money, that’s what I want to know?” said Mr Jabez.

“Wine—women—horse-racing—foolery! He’s been carrying on like mad, and what I suspect is this—Miss Carr begins to smell a rat, and I shouldn’t be a bit surprised if the wedding didn’t come off.”

Mr Jabez stared dolefully at Mr Grimstone, and the overseer kept on taking pinches of snuff till the box was empty; and, after searching round with finger and thumb, threw the box impatiently down.

“Well, I don’t see that we can do anything,” said Mr Jabez at last, “except wait.”

“No,” said Grimstone, “unless we can see the lady, and make her consent to pay us our 1,250 pounds.”

“And interest,” said Mr Jabez.

“And bonus,” said Grimstone, “down on the nail.”

“Which we can’t do,” said Mr Jabez, shaking his head.

“Of course we can’t,” said Grimstone. “All I wish is that I hadn’t let you persuade me into lending him the money—the savings of a whole life.”

“Oh, I like that!” said Mr Jabez, catching up a pen, and making a mark as if he were correcting Grimstone.

“Like it or not, I don’t care,” said Grimstone, “there it is. Here! boy, my hat.”

“Going?” said Mr Jabez.

“Going! of course I’m going. Think I’m going to stop in this dog-hole, smelling of red-herrings and oil?”

“Won’t you take something? Try a fig.”

Mr Grimstone snatched his hat from my hands, gazed at me as if he would have liked to set me to pick up pie, and bounced out of the room.

“I don’t know which is most unpleasant, Grace,” said the old man, “Grimstone or his news. Well, he’s gone. Of course, you won’t talk about what you’ve heard. It’s a very bad job, though, for me—very—very. Hi! Mrs Jennings,” he cried at the top of the stairs, “half an ounce of best Scotch and Rappee.”

He tapped with his box on the handrail as he spoke, and having had it replenished, he came back to sit and take pinches, becoming so abstracted and ill at ease, that I rose to go when he was a quarter through the half-ounce.

“Going, Grace?” he said. “Ah, I’m bad company to-night, but come again. Let me see, though,” he said, fumbling at some letters in his breast-pocket, “I’ve got a letter here from that bad boy, Peter. Just the same as usual. Tut—tut—oh, here it is. ‘Remember me to that boy,’—ah, blunder I call it boy—‘Antony Grace. Tell him I shall come to see him if ever I get two London.’ There’s a fellow for you,” said Mr Jabez, “spells ‘to’ like the figure 2. But he always did want a deal of correcting, did Peter. Good-night, good-night.”

And I went my way, sadly troubled at heart about Miss Carr and Mr Lister, and wondering whether she would, after all, refuse to be his wife.

Chapter Thirty Seven.

An Angry Parting.

I had four days to wait before going to Westmouth Street to receive my usual welcome—at least, not my usual welcome, for though she seemed to grow more sad and pale, Miss Carr’s reception of me increased each time in warmth, till at last, had I been a younger brother she could not have been more kind. I was a good deal troubled at heart about what I knew, and puzzled myself as to my duties in the case. Ought I to take Mr Hallett into my confidence, and ask his advice, or ought I to tell Miss Carr herself? It was hard to settle, and I have often thought since of how strangely I was brought at so young an age into the consideration of the weighty matters of life of those with whom I was in contact.

It seemed to me that my patroness ought to know what people said about Mr Lister, and that if it were true she ought not to marry him. Certainly, at the interview at which I was an unwilling listener, there had appeared to be no probability of the wedding taking place soon, but all the same, Miss Carr had seemed to me terribly cut up, consequent upon the parting with Mr Lister.

I was so strange and quiet that afternoon that Miss Carr noticed it, and had just asked me what was the matter when the servant brought up a card and I saw her change colour.

“Show him up, Edward,” she said quietly; and though I did not see the card I felt sure from her manner that I knew who had come, and I looked up at Miss Carr, expecting to be told to go into the next room, but to my surprise she did not speak, and the next moment Mr Lister came in.

“Ah, Miriam!” he exclaimed; “how well—You here, Grace?”

“Yes, sir,” I said, feeling very much in the way, as I stood where I had risen.

“Sit down, Antony,” said Miss Carr quietly; and as I obeyed I saw an angry flush cross Mr Lister’s countenance.

“Will you give me a few minutes in the next room, Miriam dear?” he said in a low voice.

“In my last answer to your letters, John,” she replied, “I begged that you would not come to see me for a month or two. Why are you here now?”

“Why am I here now?” he said in a low, deep voice. “Can you ask me? Because I want to speak to you—particularly—come in the next room.”

I could not help looking hard at him as he spoke, and thinking about what I had heard concerning his affairs, and as I thought that he was to marry Miss Carr to pay off his debts, a strong feeling of resentment against him made me almost determine to utter some word of warning.

“He is so handsome, and has such a way with him,” I thought, “that she will do just as he wishes her;” but as the thoughts were in my mind, I was surprised and pleased by finding Miss Carr take quite a firm standing.

“You can have nothing more to say to me, John, than has been said already. I have told you that at least six months must elapse before I can consent to what you ask.”

“Will you come into the next room, or send away that boy?” he said in a low voice, but one which showed that he was fast losing his temper.

“No,” she said firmly; “and after my last letter I think it cruel of you to press me.”

“I cannot help whether it is cruel or not,” he said, growing white with anger at her opposition, “and you are forcing me to speak before this boy.”

“I leave that to your common-sense, John,” she said calmly, and with no little dignity in her manner. “I don’t know that I wish to hide anything from Antony Grace. He knows of our engagement.”

“Are you mad, Miriam?” he cried, unable to contain himself, and indirectly venting his spleen upon me. “You pick up a poor boy out of the gutter, and you take him and make him your bosom friend and confidant.”

Miss Carr caught my hand in hers, as I started, stung to the quick and mortified by his words.

“Shame, John Lister!” she said, with a look that should have brought him to his senses. “Shame! How can you speak like that in Antony Grace’s presence, and to me?”

“Because you make me desperate,” he cried angrily. “I can bear it no longer. I will not be trifled with. For months now you have treated me as a child. Once more, will you send away this boy, or come with me into another room?”

“Mr Lister,” she said, rising, “you are angry and excited. You are saying words now which you will afterwards grieve over, as much as I snail regret to have heard them spoken.”

“I can’t help that,” he exclaimed. “Day after day I have come to you, begging you to listen to me, but I have always been put off, until now I have grown desperate.”

“Desperate?” she said wonderingly.

“Yes, desperate. I do not wish to speak before this boy, but you force me to it.”

“What is there in our engagement that I should be ashamed to let the whole world hear?” she said proudly. “Why, if I listened to you, it would be published to every one who would hear.”

Mr Lister took a few strides up and down the room.

“Will you hear me, Miriam?” he cried, making an ineffectual effort to command his temper.

“John Lister,” she replied, “I have given you your answer, Come to me in six months’ time.”

“Am I to take that as final?” he said hoarsely.

“Yes. How can I reply otherwise to your violence?”

“Violence! It is enough to drive a man mad! But, once more, Miriam, give me your verbal answer to the note I sent you this morning. Yes or no. Pause before you answer, for you do not know how much depends upon it. You have made me desperate. Don’t leave me to repent of what I have done.”

“John, dear John!” she said softly, “I am alone in the world, with none to guide me, and I have prayed for help that I might give a right answer to your request.”

“Yes,” he said, with his lip curling, “and it is—”

“It is for both our sakes, John,” she said softly; “I could not in justice to us both say yes, now; it must be no!”

He did not speak, but stood glaring at her for a few moments. Then, looking very white, and drawing in his breath with a long, low hiss, he turned upon his heel and left the room.

For a few minutes Miss Carr sat gazing at the door through which he had passed, and then, turning and seeing my hot, flushed face, she seemed to recall Mr Lister’s words about me, and she took my hand, sitting very quietly for a time.

“When people are angry, Antony,” she said quietly, “they say things they do not intend or mean. You must forgive Mr Lister his words about you—for my sake.”

“I will do what you wish,” I said, and then I began wondering whether I ought to tell Miss Carr what I knew about Mr Lister’s affairs, for it seemed to me that the words I had heard must be true, and that this was the explanation of his great anxiety to fix the day.

A dozen times over the words were on my lips, but I felt that it would seem as if I took advantage of my position, and were trying to blacken Mr Lister to gain her favour. More likely, I thought, it would make her bitter and angry against me, and, reflecting that she had determinedly insisted that he should wait six months for her answer, I remained silent.

Miss Carr strove very hard to make me forget the unpleasantry of the early part of my visit, but she was at times very quiet and subdued, and I believe we both looked upon it as a relief when the time came for my departure.

Chapter Thirty Eight.

A Wedding Trip.

“You’re getting such a fine gent now. Ant’ny,” said Revitts to me one morning; “but, if so be as you wouldn’t mind, Mary and me’s made up our minds to have a bit of a trip out, a kind of s’rimp tea, just by way of celebrating my being made sergeant, and getting well again.”

“Why, my dear old Bill,” I cried, “why should I mind your having a trip? Where are you going?”

“Well, you see, it’s a toss up, Ant’ny; Gravesend’s best for s’rimps, but Hampton Court’s the nicer sorter place for a day, and Mary ain’t never been.”

“Then go to Hampton Court,” I said.

“Hampton Court it is, Mary,” he said. “That settles it.”

“And I hope you’ll both enjoy yourselves.”

“What, won’t you come?” said Revitts blankly.

“Come! what—with you?” I said.

“Why, of course, Ant’ny. You don’t suppose we should care about going alone. Won’t you come?”

“You didn’t ask me.”

“Oh, come now; that I did!” he exclaimed.

“That you did not,” I said stoutly. “Did he, Mary?”

“He meant to, Master Antony,” said Mary, looking up with a very red face, and one hand apparently in a grey boxing-glove, though it was only one of Revitts’ worsted stockings, in need of another darn.

“Well, I’ll ask you now, then,” exclaimed Revitts. “Will you come along with us?”

“When?”

“Sat’day next, being your half-holiday.”

“Yes,” I said, “but I must write and tell Miss Carr I’m not coming till Sunday.”

“That’s settled, then,” said Revitts, holding out his big hand for me to shake; and I could not help noticing how thin and soft it was; but he was fast recovering his strength, and was again on duty.

We walked down from Pentonville together, and as we went along, he introduced the subject of his accident for the first time for some weeks.

“You wouldn’t think as I’m a-trying hard to conjure out who it was fetched me that crack on the head, Antony?”

“No,” I said; “I thought you had forgotten all about it.”

“Not I,” he said, shaking his head. “What, me, a sergeant, just promoted, and let a case like that go by without conjuring it out! Why, it couldn’t be done! I should feel as if I was a disgrace to the force. That’s speaking ’ficially,” he said. “Now, speaking as a man, I’ve got this here to say, that I shan’t rest comfortable till I’ve put something on that there fellows wrists.”

“And shall you know him again?” I asked.

“Know him! Out o’ ten thousand—out o’ ten millions o’ men. I only wish I knew the gal. It would be such a clue.”

“It’s no use to be revengeful, Bill,” I said. “Let it go. It brought Mary up to town.”

“Yes, it did, didn’t it?” he said, with the sheepish, soft look coming over his face for a moment. But it was gone directly, and he was the officer once more. “’Taint revengeful,” he said; “it’s dooty. We can’t let outrageous outrages like that take place in the main streets. No, Antony: I feel as if my reputation’s at stake, to find out who did that, and I shan’t rest till I do.”

We parted then, and the rest of the week passed swiftly away. I told Hallett that I was going to spend the afternoon out on the Saturday, so that most likely I should go to Miss Carr’s on the Sunday, and he was not to expect me for my usual walk with him, one which had grown into a custom; and being thus clear, I went off in the morning to Westminster, it being understood that I was to meet Revitts and Mary at the White Horse Cellar. Piccadilly, and go down to Hampton Court at midday by the omnibus.

Punctual to my time, I went across the park and up Saint James’s Street and saw Revitts and Mary, long before I reached them, by the show they made. Mary was in white book muslin, with a long blade silk scarf, and a bonnet that I could not pretend to describe, save that over it she carried a blue parasol shot with red; and Revitts was in black frock-coat, buff waistcoat, and white trousers, with a tremendous show of collar standing bolt out of a sky-blue watered-silk stock, while his hat shone as if it was a repetition of the patent leather of his shoes.

I instinctively felt that something was the matter as I drew near them, and, but for my genuine love and respect for them both, I believe I should have run away. I rebuked my cowardly shame directly after, though, and went up and shook hands.

There was not a vestige of tantrums left in Mary’s countenance, for it had softened itself into that dreadful smile—the same that was playing upon Revitts’ face, as he kept looking at her in a satisfied, half-imbecile way, before giving me a nudge with his elbow, covering his mouth with his hand, and exclaiming in a loud whisper,—

“We’ve been and done it, Ant’ny! Pouf!” This last was a peculiar laugh in which he indulged, while Mary cast down her eyes.

“Done it!—done what? What does he mean, Mary?”

Mary grew scarlet, and became puzzled over the button of one of her white kid gloves.

“Here, what do you mean, Bill?” I said.

“Done it. Pouf!” he exclaimed, with another laugh from behind his hand. “Done it—married.”

“Married?” I echoed.

“Yes. Pouf! Mrs Sergeant Revitts. White Sergeant. Pouf!”

“Oh, Mary,” I said, “and not to tell me!”

“It was all his doing, Master Antony,” pleaded Mary. “He would have me, and the more I wanted to go back to service, the more he made me get married. And now I hope he’s happy.”

There was no mistaking William Revitts’ happiness as he helped his wife on to the outside of the omnibus, behind the coachman—he sitting one side of Mary, and I next him; but try as I would, I could not feel as happy. I felt vexed and mortified; for, somehow, it seemed as if it was printed in large letters upon the backs of my companions—“Married this morning,” and this announcement seemed reflected upon me.

I wouldn’t have cared if they could have sat still and talked rationally; but this they did not do, for every now and then they turned to look in each other’s faces, with the same weak, half-imbecile smile,—after which Mary would cast down her eyes and look conscious, while Revitts turned round and smiled at me, finishing off with a nudge in my side.

At times, too, he had spasmodic fits of silent laughter—silent, except that they commenced with a loud chuckle, which he summarily stifled and took into custody by clapping his great hand over his mouth. There were intervals of relief, though; for when, from his coign of vantage, poor Bill saw one of his fraternity on ahead—revealed to him, perhaps, by a ray of sunshine flashing from the shiny top of his hat—for, of course, this was long before the days of helmets—the weak, amiable look was chased off his face by the official mask, and, as a sergeant, though of a different division, Revitts felt himself bound to stare very hard at the police-constable, and frown severely.

At first I thought it was foolish pride on my part, that I was being spoiled by Miss Carr, and that I was extra sensitive about my friends; but I was not long in awakening to the fact that they were the objects of ridicule to all upon the omnibus.

The first thing I noticed was, that the conductor and driver exchanged a wink and a grin, which were repeated several times between Piccadilly and Kensington, to the great amusement of several of the passengers. Then began a little mild chaff, sprinkled by the driver, who started with—

“I say, Joey, when are you going to be married?”

“Married? oh, I dunno. I’ve tried it on sev’ral times, but the parsons is all too busy.”

The innocent fit was on Revitts just then, and he favoured Mary and me with a left and right nudge.

“Do adone, William,” whispered Mrs Sergeant; and he grinned hugely.

“Shall you take a public, Joey, when you do it?” said the driver, leaning back for another shot.

“Lor’, no; it won’t run to a public, old man,” was the reply. “We was thinking of the green and tater line, with a cellar under, and best Wallsend one and six.”

I could feel that this was all meant for the newly wedded couple, and sat with flaming cheeks. “See that there wedding in Pickydilly, last week, Bill?” Revitts pricked up his ears, and was about to speak, but the driver turned half round, and shouted—

“What, where they’d got straw laid down, and the knocker tied up in a white kid glove?”

“No-o-o!” shouted the conductor. “That wasn’t it. I mean clost ter’ Arfmoon Street, when they was just going off.”

“Oh, ah, yes; I remember now.”

“See the old buffer shy the shoe outer the front winder?”

“No-o-o!”

“He did, and it ’it one o’ the post-boys slap in the eye. Old boy had been having too much champagne.”

“Did it though?”

“Yes. I say, Bill.”

“Hal-low!”

“It’s the right card to have champagne on your wedding morning, ain’t it?”

“Ah! some people stands it quite lib’ral like, if they’re nobs; them as ain’t, draws it old and mild.”

I had another nudge from Revitts just then, and sat feeling as if I should like to jump down and run away.

“Drop o’ Smith’s cool out o’ the cellar wouldn’t be amiss, Joey, would it?”

“No, old man. I wish we could fall across a wedding-party.”

A passenger or two were picked up, and we went on in peace for a little while: but the chaffing was commenced again, and kept up to such an extent that I longed for the journey to be at an end.

“’Member Jack Jones?” said the driver.

“Ah! what about him?” said the conductor.

“He went and got married last year.”

“Did he?”

“Yes.”

“Who did he marry?”

“That there Mrs Simmons as kep’ the ‘Queen’s Arms’ at Tunnum Green.”

“Ah!”

“Nice job he made of it.”

“Did he?”

“Yes; he thought she was a widder.”

“Well, warn’t she?”

“No; she turned out a big-a-mee; and one day her fust husban’ comes back from ’Stralia, and kicks Jack Jones out, and takes his place; and when Jack ’peals against it, Mrs Simmons says it was all a mistake.”

“That was warm for Jack, wasn’t it?”

“Hot, I say.”

“Well,” said the conductor; “when I makes up my mind again, and the parsons ain’t so busy, I shall have the missus cross-examined.”

“What for, Joey?”

“So as to see as she ain’t a big-a-mee.”

Revitts, who was drinking all this in, looked very serious here, as if the conversation was tending towards official matters. Perhaps it occurred to him that he had not cross-examined Mary before he was married; but he began to smile again soon after, for the conductor took a very battered old copper key-bugle from a basket on the roof, and, after a few preliminary toots, began to rattle off “The Wedding-Day.” The driver shook the reins, the four horses broke into a canter, and as we swept past the green hedgerows and market-gardens, with here and there a pretty villa, I began to enjoy the ride, longing all the same, though, for Revitts and Mary to begin to talk, instead of smiling at each other in such a horribly happy way, and indulging in what was meant for a secret squeeze of the hand, but which was, however, generally seen by half the passengers.

The air coming to an end, and the bugle being duly drained, wiped, and returned to its basket, the driver turned his head again:

“Nice toon that, Joey.”

“Like it?”

“Ah, I was going to say ‘hangcore,’ on’y we’re so clost to Richmond. What was it—‘Weddin’ Day’?”

“That’s right, old man.”

“Ah! thought it was.”

Revitts sent his elbows into Mary and me again, and had a silent laugh under one glove, but pricked up his ears directly, as the conductor shouted again:

“Ain’t that Bob Binnies?”

“What, him on the orf side?” said the driver, pointing with his whip.

“Yes.”

“Well, what of him?”

“What of him? Why, he’s the chap as got married, and had such a large family.”

“Did he, though?” said the driver seriously.

“Ten children in five years, Bill.”

“Lor’! with only five-and-twenty shillings a week. How did he manage?”

Revitts looked very serious here, and sat listening for the answer.

“Kep’ him precious poor; but, stop a moment, I ain’t quite right. It was five children in ten years.”

Revitts made another serious assault on my ribs, and I saw Mary give herself a hitch; and whisper again to her lord.

There was a general laugh at this stale old joke, which, like many more well-worn ones, however, seemed to take better than the keenest wit, and just then the omnibus drew up in front of an inn to change horses.

The driver unbuckled and threw down his reins, previous to descending to join the conductor, who was already off his perch. Several of the passengers got down, and after bidding Mary and me keep our places, Revitts prepared to descend, rather more slowly though, for his wedding garments were not commodious.

“Don’t drink anything, William dear,” whispered Mary.

“Not drink anything to-day?” he said, laughing. “Oh, come, that won’t do!”

He jumped off the step, and I saw him join the driver and conductor, who laughed and nodded, and, directly after, each man had a foaming pint of ale, which they held before putting to their lips, till Revitts came round to our side with a waiter bearing two glasses of wine and another pint of ale, the driver and conductor following.

“Oh, I don’t want anything,” said Mary, rather sharply.

“It’s only sherry wine, my dear,” said Revitts magnificently; and, as if to avoid remark, Mary stooped down and took the glasses, one being for me, Revitts taking his shiny pewter measure of ale.

“Here is long life and happiness to you, mum, and both on you,” said the driver, nodding in the most friendly way.

“Aforesaid,” exclaimed the conductor, “and a bit o’ chaff on’y meant as fun. Long life and a merry one to both on you. Shaver, same to you.”

I was the “Shaver,” and the healths being drunk in solemn silence, and I accommodated with a tumbler, and some water to my sherry, the driver mounted again, the conductor took out his key-bugle, the streets of pretty Richmond echoed to an old-fashioned air, and the four fresh but very dilapidated old screws that did the journey to Hampton Court and back to Richmond were shaken into a scrambling canter, so that in due time we reached the royal village, the chaff having been damped at Richmond with the ale, and ceasing afterwards to fly.

I’ve learned that a return omnibus left the “Toy” at seven o’clock, and then started for our peregrination of the palace and grounds. But somehow that pint or ale seemed to have completely changed poor Revitts. The late injury to his head had made him so weak there, that the ale acted upon him in the strangest manner. He was excited and irritable, and seemed to be brooding over the remarks he had heard upon the omnibus.

The gardens, of course, took our attention first, and there being few people about, and those of a holiday class, the gay costume of my companions ceased to excite notice, and I began to enjoy our trip. There were the great smooth gravel walks, the closely shaven lawns, the quaintly clipped shrubs, and old-fashioned flower beds to admire. The fountain in the centre made so much spray in the pleasant breeze that from one point of view there was a miniature rainbow, and when we walked down to the iron railings, and gazed at the long avenue of the Home Park, with its bright canal-like lake between, Mary was enraptured.

“Oh, do look, dear!” she exclaimed; “isn’t it ’evingly, William?”

“Yes,” he said stolidly, as he took hold of the railing with his white kid glove; “but what I say is this: Every man who enters into the state of wedlock ought fust to make sure as the woman he marries ain’t a big-a-mee.”

Here he unbuttoned his waistcoat, under the impression that it was his uniform coat, so as to get out his notebook, and then, awakening to his mistake, hastily buttoned it again.

“Haven’t got a pencil and a bit o’ paper, have you, Ant’ny?” he said.

“What are you talking about, William?” exclaimed Mary. “Don’t be so foolish. Now, take us and show us the oranges Master Antony,” she said.

This was on the strength of my having invested in a guidebook, though both my companions seemed to place themselves in my hands, and looked up to me as being crammed with a vast amount of knowledge about Cardinal Wolsey, Henry the Eighth, and those who had made the palace their home.

So I took them to see the Orangery, which Revitts, who seemed quite out of temper, looked down upon with contempt.

“Bah!” he exclaimed; “call them oranges! Why, I could go and buy twice as good in Grey’s Inn Lane for three a penny. That there woman, Ant’ny, what was her name?”

“What woman?”

“Her as committed big-a-mee?”

“Oh, do adone with such stuff, William dear. Now, Master Antony, what’s next?”

“I know,” said Revitts oracularly, “Mrs Simmons. I say she ought to have been examined before a police magistrate, and after proper adjournments, and the case regularly made up by the sergeant who had it in charge, she ought to have been committed for trial.”

“Oh, William dear, do adone,” cried Mary, clinging to his arm.

“Cent. Crim. Court—”

“William!”

“Old Bailey—”

“William dear!”

“Before a jury of her fellow-countrymen, or,—I say, Ant’ny ain’t that wrong?”

“What?” I said, laughing.

“Oh, it ain’t a thing to laugh at, my lad. It’s serious,” he said, taking off his hat and rubbing his head, exhaling, as he did so, a strong smell of hair-oil.

“What is serious?” I said.

“Why, that,” replied Revitts, “I ain’t sure, in a case like that, it oughtn’t to be a jury of matrons.”

“Oh do, pray, hurry him along, Master Antony,” cried Mary piteously. “Whatever is the matter with you to-day, William?”

“I’m married,” he said severely.

“And you don’t wish you weren’t. William, don’t say so, please,” exclaimed Mary pitifully.

“I don’t know,” said Revitts stolidly. “Go on, Ant’ny.”

He went on, himself, towards the Vinery, Mary following with me, and looking at me helplessly, as if asking what she should do.

The sight of the great bunches of grapes in such enormous numbers seemed to change the course of William Revitts’ thoughts, and we went on pretty comfortably for a time, Mary’s spirits rising, and her tongue going more freely, but there were no more weak, amiable smiles.

At last we entered the palace, and on seeing a light dragoon on duty, Revitts pulled himself together, looked severe, and marched by him, as if belonging to a kindred force; but he stopped to ask questions on the grand staircase, respecting the painted ceilings.

“Are them angels, Ant’ny?” he said.

“I suppose so,” I replied.

“Then I don’t believe it,” he said angrily. “Why, if such evidence was given at Clerkenwell, everybody in the police-court would go into fits, and the reporters would say in the papers, ‘Loud laughter, which was promptly repressed’! or, ‘Loud laughter, in which the magistrate joined.’”

“Whatever does he mean, Master Antony? I don’t know what’s come to him to-day,” whispered Mary.

“Why, that there,” said Revitts contemptuously. “Just fancy a witness coming and swearing as the angels in heaven played big fiddles, and things like the conductor blew coming down. The painter must have been a fool.”

He was better pleased with the arms and armour, stopping to carefully examine a fine old mace.

“Yes, that would give a fellow a awful wunner, Ant’ny,” he said; “but it would be heavy, and all them pikes and things ain’t necessary. A good truncheon properly handled can’t be beat.”

Old furniture, tapestry, and the like had their share of attention, but Revitts hurried me on when I stopped before some of the pictures, shaking his head and nudging me.

“I wonder at you, Ant’ny,” he whispered.

His face was scarlet, and he had not recovered his composure when we reached another room, where a series of portraits made me refer to my guide.

“Ladies of Charles the Second’s Court,” I said, “painted by Sir Peter Lely.”

“Then he ought to have been ashamed of himself,” said Revitts sharply; and drawing Mary’s arm through his, he hurried me off, evidently highly disapproving of the style of bodice then in vogue.

Chapter Thirty Nine.

William Revitts is Eccentric.

The dinner we had at the inn was not a success. The waiters evidently settled that we were a wedding-party, and charged accordingly. Mary tried hard to keep Revitts from taking any more to drink; but he said it was necessary on a day like that, and ordered wine accordingly.

He drank slowly, and never once showed the slightest trace of intoxication; but the wine also produced a strange irritability, which made him angry, even to being fierce at times; and over and over again I saw the tears in poor Mary’s eyes.

Ever and again that bigamy case—real or imaginary—of which he had heard as we came down kept cropping up, and the more Mary tried to turn the conversation, the more eager he became to discuss it. The wedding-day, his wife, my remarks, all were forgotten or set aside, so that he might explain to us, with a vast amount of minutiae, how he would have got up such a case, beginning with the preliminary inquiries and ending with the culprit’s sentence.

We had it over the dinner, with the waiters in the room; we had it in culs-de-sac in the maze; and we had it over again in Bushy Park, as we sat under the shade of a great chestnut; after which Revitts lay down, seeming to drop asleep, and Mary said to me, piteously:

“I do believe, dear, as he’s took it into his head that I’ve committed big-a-mee?”

The words were uttered in a whisper, but they seemed to galvanise Revitts, who started up into a sitting posture, and exclaimed sharply:

“I don’t know as you ain’t. I never cross-examined you before we was married. But look here, Mary Revitts, it’s my dooty to tell you as what you say now will be took down, and may be used as evidence against you.”

After which oracular delivery he lay down and went off fast asleep, leaving Mary to weep in silence, and wish we had never come away from home.

I could not help joining her in the wish, though I did not say so, but did all I could to comfort her, as Mr Peter Rowle’s moral aphorisms about drink kept coming to my mind. Not that poor Revitts had, in the slightest degree, exceeded; and we joined in saying that it was all due to over-excitement consequent upon his illness.

“If I could only get him home again, poor boy, I wouldn’t, care,” said Mary; and we then comforted ourselves with the hope that he would be better when he awoke, and that then we would go to one of the many places offering, have a quiet cup of tea, which would be sure to do him good, and then go back home, quietly, inside the omnibus.

Revitts woke in about an hour, evidently much refreshed and better, but still he seemed strange. The tea, however, appeared to do him good, and in due time we mounted to our seats outside the omnibus, for he stubbornly refused to go within.

He did not say much on the return journey, but the bigamy case was evidently running in his head, from what he said; and once, in a whisper, poor Mary, who was half broken-hearted, confided to me now, sitting on her other side, that she felt sure poor William was regretting that they had been married.

“And I did so want to wait,” she said: “but he wouldn’t any longer.”

“Are you two whispering about that there case?” he cried sharply.

“No, William dear,” said Mary. “Do you feel better?”

“Better?” he said irritably. “There isn’t anything the matter with me.”

He turned away from her, and sat watching the side of the road, muttering every now and then to himself in a half-angry way, while poor Mary, in place of going into a tantrum, got hold of my hand between both hers, and held it very hard pressed against the front of her dress, where she was protected by a rigid piece of bone or steel. Every now and then, poor woman, she gave the hand a convulsive pressure, and a great sob in the act of escaping would feel like a throb against my arm.

So silent and self-contained did Revitts grow at last, that poor Mary began to pour forth in a whisper the burden of her trouble, while I sat wondering, and thinking what a curious thing this love must be, that could so completely transform people, and yet give them so much pain.

“It wasn’t my doing, Master Antony dear,” whispered Mary; “for I said it would be so much better for me to go back to service for a few years, and I always thought as hasty marriages meant misery. But William was so masterful, he said it was no use his getting on and improving his spelling, and getting his promotion, if he was always to live a weary, dreary bachelor—them was his very words, Master Antony; and now, above all times, was the one for us to get married.”

“He’s tired, Mary,” I said; “that’s all.”

“That’s all? Ah, my dear! it’s a very great all. He’s tired of me, that’s what he is; and I shall never forgive my self for being so rash.”

“But you have been engaged several years, haven’t you, Mary?”

“Yes, my dear; but years ain’t long when you’re busy and always hard at work. I dessay they’re a long time to gentlefolks as has to wait, but it never seemed long to me, and I’ve done a very rash thing; but I didn’t think the punishment was coming quite so soon.”

“Oh, nonsense, Mary; Bill will be all right again soon,” I said, as I could see, by the light of a gas-lamp we passed, that the poor disappointed woman had been crying till she had soaked and spoiled her showy bonnet-strings.

“No, my dear, I don’t think so; I feel as if it was all a punishment upon me, and that I ought to have waited till he was quite well and strong.”

It was of no avail to try and comfort, so I contented myself with sitting still and pressing poor Mary’s rough honest hand, while the horses rattled merrily along, and we gradually neared the great city.

I was obliged to own that if this was a specimen of a wedding-day, it was anything but a joyous and festive time; and it seemed to me that the day that had begun so unsatisfactorily was to be kept in character to the end.

For, before reaching Hammersmith, one of the horses shied and fell, and those at the pole went right upon it before the omnibus could be stopped, with the consequence that the vehicle was nearly upset, and a general shriek arose.

No harm, however, was done, and in a quarter of an hour we were once more under weigh, but Mary said, with a sigh and a rub of the back of my hand against the buttons of her dress, that it was a warning of worse things to come; and though very sorry for her, I could not help longing for our journey’s end.

“Just you come over here, Ant’ny,” said Revitts suddenly; and I had to change places and sit between him and his wife, of whom he seemed not to take the slightest notice.

“Are you better, Bill?” I said.

“Better?” he said sharply; “what do you mean by better? I’m all right.”

“That’s well,” I said.

“Of course it is. Now look here, Ant’ny, I’ve been thinking a good deal about that there big-a-mee as we come along, and I’ll just tell you what I should have done.”

I heard Mary give a gulp; but I thought it better not to try and thwart him, so prepared to listen.

“You see, Ant’ny,” he said, in a very didactic manner, “when a fellow is in the force, and is always taking up people and getting up cases, and attending at the police-courts, and Old Bailey sessions and coroners’ inquests, he picks up a deal of valuable information.”

“Of course, Bill.”

“He do; it stands to reason that he do. Well, then, I ought to know just two or three things.”

“Say two or three thousand, Bill.”

“Well,” he said, giving his head an official roll, as if settling it in his great stock, “we won’t say that. Let’s put it at ’undreds—two or three ’undreds. Now, if I’d had such a case as that big-a-mee in hand, I should have begun at the beginning.—Where are we now?” he said, after a pause, during which he had taken off his hat, and rubbed his head in a puzzled way.

“You were talking about the case,” I said, “and beginning at the beginning.”

“Don’t you try to be funny, young fellow,” he said severely. “I said, where are we now?”

“Just passing Hyde Park Corner, Bill.”

“Yes, of course,” he said. “Well, look here, my lad, there’s no doubt about one thing: women, take ’em all together, are—no, I won’t say a bad lot, but they’re weak—awful weak. I’ve seen a deal on ’em at the police-courts.”

“I suppose so,” I said, as I heard Mary give a low sigh.

“They’re not what they should be, Ant’ny, by a long chalk, and the way they’ll tell lies and deceive and cheat ’s about awful, that it is.”

“Some women are bad, I daresay,” I said, in a qualifying tone.

“Some?” he said, with a short, dry laugh; “it’s some as is good. Most women’s bad.”

“That’s a nice wholesale sort of a charge,” said a passenger behind him, in rather a huffy tone.

“You mind your own business,” said Revitts sharply. “I wasn’t talking to you;” and he spoke in such a fierce way that the man coloured, while Mary leaned forward, and looked imploringly at me, as much as to say, “Pray, pray, don’t let him quarrel.”

“I say it, and I ought to know,” said Revitts dictatorially, “that women’s a bad lot, and after hearing of that case this morning, I say as every woman afore she gets married ought to go through a reg’lar cross-examination, and produce sittifikits of character, and witnesses to show where she’s been, and what she’s been a-doing of for say the last seven years. If that was made law, we shouldn’t have poor fellows taken in and delooded, and then find out afterwards as it’s a case of big-a-mee, like we heerd of this morning. Why, as I was a-saying, Ant’ny, if I’d had that case in hand—eh? Oh, ah, yes, so it is. I’ll get down first. I didn’t think we was so near.”

For poor Bill’s plans about the bigamy case were brought to an end by the stopping of the omnibus in Piccadilly, and I gave a sigh of relief as we drew up in the bright, busy thoroughfare, after a look at the dark sea of shining lights that lay spread to the right over the Green Park and Westminster.

Carriages were passing, the pavement was thronged, and it being a fine night, all looked very bright and cheery after what had been rather a dull ride. Revitts got down, and I was about to follow, offering my hand to poor, sad Mary, when just as my back was turned, Revitts called out to me:

“Ant’ny, Ant’ny, look after my wife!” and as I turned sharply, I just caught sight of him turning the corner of the street, and he was gone.

Chapter Forty.

Hallett’s News.

I was so staggered by this strange behaviour that I did not think of pursuit. Moreover, I was in the act of helping poor Mary to the ladder placed for her to descend, while she, poor thing, gave vent to a cutting sigh, and clung tightly to my hand.

As we stood together on the pavement, our eyes met, and there was something so piteous in the poor woman’s face, that it roused me to action, and catching her hand, I drew it through my arm.

“He has gone to get a glass of ale, Mary,” I said cheerfully. “Let’s see if we can see him.”

“No,” she said huskily; “he has gone: he has left me for good, Master Antony, and I’m a miserable, wretched woman.”

“Oh, nonsense,” I cried. “Come along. We shall find him.”

“No,” she said, in a decisive way; “he has gone. He’s been regretting it ever since this morning.”

“Don’t, pray; don’t cry, Mary,” I whispered in alarm, for I was afraid of a scene in the streets.

“No, my dear; don’t you be afraid of that,” she said, with a sigh. “I’ll try and bear it till we get home; but I won’t promise for any longer.”

“Don’t you be foolish, Mary,” I said sharply. “He has not left you. He’s too fond of you. Let’s see if he is in the bar.”

Mary sighed; but she allowed herself to be led where I pleased, and for the next half-hour we stood peering about in every likely place for the truant husband, but in vain; and at last, feeling that it was useless to search longer, I reluctantly turned to poor, patient, silent Mary, wondering greatly that she had not burst out into a “tantrum,” and said that we had better go home.

“Go where?” she said dolefully.

“Home,” I replied, “to your lodgings.”

“My lodgings, Master Antony,” she wailed. “I have no lodgings. I’m a poor, helpless, forsaken woman!”

“Oh, what nonsense, Mary,” I cried, hurrying her along; “don’t be so foolish!”—for I was in mortal terror of a violent burst of tears. “Come along, do. Here!” I shouted; “cab!”—and I sighed with relief as I got her inside, and gave the man directions to take us to Caroline Street, Pentonville.

But even in the cab Mary held up, striving hard, poor woman, to master her emotion—her pride, no doubt, helping her to preserve her calmness till she got to the happy home.

“I dare say we shall find him upstairs,” I said, after giving the cabman a shilling more than his fare; but though there was a light burning, and the landlady had spread the table, to make the place look welcome to the newly wedded pair, there was no sign of Revitts, and we neither of us, in our shame, dared to ask if he had been back.

On the contrary, we gladly got to the rooms—Revitts’ one having now expanded to three—and once there, Mary gasped out: “Master Antony dear, shut and lock the door—quick—quick!” I hastily did as she bade me, and as I turned, it was to see poor Mary tear off her bonnet and scarf, throw herself on the little couch, cover her face with her hands, and lie there crying and sobbing in a very passion of grief, misery, and shame.

It was no noisy outburst: it was too deep for that; but the poor woman had to relieve herself of the day’s disappointment and agony, and there she lay, beating down and stifling every hysterical cry that fought for exit, while her breast heaved with the terrible emotion.

I was too young then to realise the full extent of the shame and abasement the poor woman must have felt, but all the same I sympathised with her deeply, and in my weak, boyish way did all I could to console her, but in vain. For quite an hour the outburst continued, till at last, quite in despair, I cried out: “Oh Mary, Mary! what can I do to comfort you?” She jumped up into a sitting position, then; threw back her dishevelled hair; wiped her eyes, and looked, in spite of her red and swollen lids, more herself.

“Oh, my own dear boy,” she cried, “what a wicked, selfish wretch I am!” and, catching me in her arms, she kissed me very tenderly.

“There,” she said with a piteous smile; “it’s all over now, Master Antony, and I won’t cry another drop. You’re a dear, good, affectionate boy—that you are, and I’ll never forget it, and you’re as hungry as a hundred hunters, I know.”

In spite of my protestations, she hastened to make that balm for all sorrows—a cup of tea.

“But I don’t want it, Mary,” I protested, “and I’m not hungry.”

“Then I do, and I am,” she said, smiling. “You won’t mind having a cup with me, I know, Master Antony dear. Just like old times.”

“Well, I will try,” I said, “and I dare say Revitts will be back by then.”

Mary glanced at the little Dutch clock in the corner, and saw that it pointed to eleven; then, shaking her head, she said sadly:

“No, I don’t think he’ll come back.”

“But you don’t think he has run away, Mary?”

“I don’t know what to think, my dear,” she said; “I only hope that he won’t come to any harm, poor boy. It’s his poor head, and that’s why he turned so strange.”

“Yes,” I said joyfully, as I saw that at last she had taken the common-sense view of the case, “that’s it, depend upon it, Mary; and if he does not come soon, we’ll give notice to the police, and they’ll find him out.”

“No, my dear, don’t do that,” she said piteously; “it would be like shaming the poor boy; for if his mates got to know that he had run away like on his wedding-day, he’d never hear the last of it.”

I was obliged to agree in the truth of this remark, and I began to realise then, in spite of poor Mary’s rough exterior and ignorance, what a depth of patient endurance and thoughtfulness there was in the nature of a woman. Her first outburst of uncontrollable grief past, she was ready to sit down and patiently bear her load of sorrow, waiting for what more trouble might come; for I am fully convinced that the poor woman looked forward to no pleasure in her married life. In spite of her belief that her husband’s strange conduct was in some way due to his late accident, she felt convinced that he was regretting his marriage, and, if that were so now, she had no hope of winning him to a better state.