Volume Three—Chapter Sixteen.

Volume Three—Chapter Sixteen.Mr Purkis does his Dooty.Mr Purkis stood in his shop carefully cutting out strips of white paper for the measurement of future customers’ feet, when he heard the pattering of feet, and anticipating trade for the establishment, he raised his eyes, slowly, and with due importance.“What’s this, Mr Purkis, sir?” cried the visitor, rushing into the shop with a violence that made the little bell give tongue furiously—so furiously that it seemed as if disposed to compete with little Tim Ruggles, excited and hot as he was with running. “What does all this mean, sir? How is it—when was it—and how did it happen? I must know—must, indeed.”Mr Purkis stood erect, with his hands beneath his black linen apron, and puffed out and collapsed his cheeks again and again, but without answering his visitor.“I must know, Mr Purkis, sir,” cried Tim again, as he took off his hat, put it on, and walked about the shop in his excitement. “I’ve been to Mr Pellet’s, sir, and he won’t tell me a word, so I’ve come to you.”“Well, you see, Mr Ruggles,” said Purkis, slowly, as if he sold his speech by the yard like shoe-string, after puffing and gasping three or four times like a fat old tench,—“you see—”“Don’t say a word, Joseph—don’t commit yourself,” exclaimed Mrs Purkis, coming forth in a great hurry from the back regions, and busily rolling her arms up in her apron as she came, perhaps to hide their red and chappy state—perhaps from modesty or for comfort.Mr Purkis looked at his wife, and then again at restless Tim, gave a gasp or two, puffed out his cheeks beadle-wise, and then opened his mouth as if to speak, but no words came.“Don’t say a word—don’t say anything about it!” exclaimed Mrs Purkis again in a great state of excitement, but unrolling one arm to place it through her husband’s, as if for protection, as she looked defiantly at Tim. “You know what the pleece said to the boy when he took him up for stealing the list-slippers. What you say now ’ll be used in evidence agen you! You’re mixed up enough with it as it is.”“Oh! please don’t stop him,” cried Tim Ruggles, in agony, as he wrung his hands and looked imploringly from one to the other. “What does it mean?”“Well you see, Mr Ruggles,” said Purkis, after another tenchy gasp.“Now, Joseph, don’t,” cried Mrs Purkis.“Hold your tongue, woman,” cried Mr Purkis, majestically—the beadle asserting itself over the husband.“Don’t stop him; pray don’t stop him, Mrs Purkis, ma’am,” cried Tim. “What, does it mean? Mrs Pellet began to tell me, when Mr Pellet stopped her; and now Mr Purkis begins to tell me, and you stop him.”Mrs Purkis shook her head fiercely, so that something, probably curl papers—for she was strong in crackers—rattled.“Please tell me,” implored Tim. “It’s about that robbery at the church; and Mrs Pellet says that you, sir, saw Mrs Ruggles at the boxes, and then Mr Pellet wouldn’t let her say another word.”“And so I did see her,” gasped Mr Purkis, rattling his halfpence as he spoke; “kiss the book and take my Bible oath I did—”“Now, Joseph—now, Joseph,” cried Mrs Purkis, interrupting him; “don’t say another word, or you’ll never forgive yourself.”“Hold your tongue, woman!” cried Mr Purkis again, more importantly, but without looking down at her, or taking his hands from where he had deeply thrust them—into his pockets.“Don’t speak to me in that rough way before people, Joseph!” cried Mrs Purkis, indignantly, and she gave the arm to which she clung a sharp shake.“Be quiet, then,” said Mr Purkis, importantly, and then he gave two or three more puffs out to his cheeks. “You see, Mr Ruggles,” he continued, “I’ve a great feeling of esteem for Mr Pellet, who is a fine musician, and not a better in London. It was through him, sir, that Mrs Ruggles got that there appointment of pew-opener, for if it hadn’t been for Mr Pellet, sir,Ishouldn’t have stirred in the matter.”“O Joseph!” whimpered Mrs Purkis, “I thought you would. You’re a committing yourself, and laying yourself open.”“Be quiet, woman!” roared Purkis, looking his beadlest.There was only Joseph Purkis of the boot and shoe emporium, in his black linen apron and shirt-sleeves, list-slippers, and, like a chain of office, a few slips of measuring paper over his shoulders, while he certainly had not been shaved for two or three days, and was consequently very stubbly; yet you could see a cocked-hat with broad gold lace in the pose of his large hair-streaked head; there was the broad red velvet and gold cape spreading over his shoulders, and his ponderous gilt mace of office seemed to recline in the hollow of his arm as he spoke. There was a majestic look about the man which told of habitual command, and he showed it in the way in which he crushed his wife with a side look.“Mr Ruggles, you see, I felt hurt to see Mr Pellet in trouble, and losing his organist-ship on account of that poor-box being robbed, for I knew as he was going, being p’raps the only man as did; and it troubled me, sir, dreadful, being plundered again and again; and more than once I was that uncomfortable about it that I could have sent in my uniform to Mr Timson, sir, which would have shown as I meant to resign; only I knew as my enemy the greengrocer would have took the post, and worn that hat in triumph—too big for him though it was—sizes—and padded with brown paper. So I wouldn’t send it in, sir, though an independent man, and able to live on my business.”“O Joseph, Joseph, Joseph!” whimpered his wife, “this’ll all be used in evidence; and you don’t know as the income-tax people ain’t listening, and you never paid a penny yet.”“Hush-sh-sh!” ejaculated Mr Purkis, as if he were in the loft amongst the whispering boys of Gunnis’ gift of charity, and removing one hand from his pocket, he seized a lady’s slipper, and slapped the counter with the sole; while poor Tim Ruggles stood wringing his hands, and looking appealingly from one to the other.“You see, Mr Ruggles,” said Purkis, waving the shoe, “having the cleaning and polishing of those poor-boxes, I felt as if I was answerable for them, and as if it was me as ought to know where the money went. They weren’t my tills, sir, but they was in my church; and the people as that there money was for was my poor people, as I’ve presided over in the giving of scores of doles at the vestry—people as respex me, sir; and, after a deal of consideration, I says to myself, I says—It’s some one as goes to the church on week days, and it’s either me—”“O Joseph, Joseph!” cried Mrs Purkis, beginning to sob.“Why can’t you be quiet, and let a man speak?” exclaimed Mr Purkis, in injured tones.“But—but—you’ll be getting yourself into trouble about it,” sobbed Mrs Purkis. “Please don’t let him say no more, Mr Ruggles.”“Women is so soft, Mr Ruggles,” said Purkis, benevolently.“Not always, sir—not always,” said Tim, standing first upon one leg, then upon the other, and rubbing the nap off his shabby hat till there was quite a bald place. “Not always, sir; I’ve known them as was very hard.”“So have I, sir,” said Mr Purkis, importantly, as a county magistrate pronouncing a sentence,—“so have I, sir; and I says to myself—Joseph Purkis, you’ve been parish officer at St Runnle’s a many years now, and with that there stain about the church, your uniform is a getting tarnished, and your sooperiors will look down upon you till you clear it away. Them boxes are in your charge, and therefore you owe a dooty to yourself to set all right. He didn’t look at you at all last Sunday, the vicar didn’t; and how do you know but what he suspects you, same as he may any innercent person? He may even now think as you have a hand in it, and be writing out your resignation for you. And really, Joseph Purkis, I says, it looks as if it were either you—”“O Joseph—Joseph!” sobbed Mrs Purkis.“Be quiet, woman, can’t you?” shouted Purkis. “Either you,” he continued, slapping the counter with the shoe, “or some one else familiar with the place.”“Oh!” gasped Mrs Purkis.“Now, just you go in there, and shut that door after you, Mrs Purkis, if you please,” said the beadle, more importantly than ever; and, taking his other hand from his pocket, he opened the parlour door as if it had been a pew, and made way with a flourish of the shoe for his wife to enter; while that lady, whose society had now become too demonstrative to be pleasant, raised her hands appealingly to the Wellingtons hung around the shop, as if to ask them to bear witness that it was in spite of her advice Mr Purkis persisted in committing himself. But the next minute she was invisible, on account of the dingy muslin blind over the half glass-door, and Mr Purkis walked back Astur-like in his stately stride.“So, Mr Ruggles,” he said, “speaking as a man to a man, I felt it to be my dooty, for the benefit of all parties concerned, to watch, sir; and I did watch, sir, night after night, sir, day after day, sir; and where do you think I was, sir? Why, high up, sir, in the pulpit, with the door jest ajar, and a few cushions, to make the place a bit easy. Ah! sir, I’ve seen Mr Jared Pellet and Ichabod Gunnis come, sir, and go; and often, when that dog of a boy has come by himself a waiting for the organist, I’ve been at my wits’ ends, sir, to see that there young dog a sliding down the bannisters of the gallery, or a swinging on the pew-doors, and my fingers have itched to that degree, sir, to get hold of my cane, that I ain’t been hardly able to bear it. It’s been orful, sir, sometimes—orful to see the wicked young villin! What do you think of a boy getting into the reading-desk, and beginning, ‘Dearly beloved brethren,’ and then going down to the clerk’s desk and singing ‘Amen,’ just like our old man? Why, sir, one night I felt a’most ready to bust with indignation when he came down first, with Mr Pellet stopping up in the loft to think, I s’pose. What do you think the young dog did, sir? Why, he took the kiver off the font, sir, and then if he didn’t go and commit sacrilege, and defame and disgrace the beautiful old stone thing by climbing up and standing upon his head, sir, in the font, and kicking his heels together, and playing up the what’s-his-name’s delight.“Ah! he’s a bad un, that boy. What do you think he did another night, sir? Put me in a cold prespiration he did, and then made me rise up with that big pulpit-cushion in my two hands. I should have heaved it and knocked him over like a skittle; only I knew it would not only upset him but all my plans as well; so I sat down again and filled my mouth full of pocket-handkerchief to stop back the indignation, for my pot was hot with thorns. What was he a doing of, sir? Why, I’ll tell you. A dog! he’d got both his shoes off, and one in each hand, a walking all over the church backards and forrards and ziggery-zaggery, balancing hisself like a monkey the while. Not very wrong that you’ll think, Mr Ruggles; but he was doing of it all on the narrow tops of the pews; and hang me, sir, if he didn’t try to jump across the middle aisle, only he came down flop on his back, and got up whimpering, and limped out of the church as hard as he could go. Then, I’ve seen Mr—what, sir?”“Pray put me out of my misery,” implored poor Tim.“I’m a coming to it fast, sir,” said Purkis. “I’ve seen Mr Pellet come down and stop by the poor-box on the side where the door was open, and sigh bitterly, and go away again; and though I’ve watched a deal that way, I couldn’t see nothing wrong out of the pulpit; so, to the utter neglect of Purkis’s boot and shoe emporium, and to the constant annoyance of Mrs Purkis, which said it was no business of mine, I kep’ on the watching, for I never give way, sir, in anything—not a peg. Why, sir, I’m a lion to that woman, sir; and as long as I’m a lion, why she’s a lamb; but if I was to stop being a lion, sir, it’s my belief she’d grow into a fierce tiger-cat, sir, and I should only be a mouse. Never give way to a woman, sir; they’re made on purpose to be ruled; and if you don’t rule ’em, sir, why, they’ll know as there’s something wrong, and they’ll rule you.“Well, sir, I took to t’other side then, and used to sit in the reading-desk; and there I never saw anything but aggravation. Young Ichabod playing pitch-and-nickem with buttons and nickers in the middle aisle, or turning summersets over the hassocks; and once, I declare solemnly, I could hardly bear it, for if he didn’t get my mace, sir, and begin by walking up and down, and making believe it was me; then he must get to balancing it on his chin till he let it go agen one of the lamp glasses and cracked it, and I’ll crack him for it now the thing’s found out, with the very cane too as he took and stole out of mischief. But the worst of all was when he took and put that there staff across a couple of the free-seats, and began taking races and jumps over it, just as if he was in a playground instead of the Holy Catholic Church. Why, sir, it was enough to make the stone images on the monnyments tumble on him and crush him into the pavement—a bad dog!“Then I tried the galleries; but I found out nothing there; and at last I took to the churchwarden’s pew, for I was determined to keep it up; though I must own, sir, as a man as always speaks the truth—for the truth may be blamed but can never be shamed—and as one who may soon be on his oath, but who respex you, and is sorry for you, Mr Ruggles—that I should have found it out sooner if it hadn’t been for the church being that bitter of a night that I was obliged to take a drop of something to keep the cold out of me for fear it might affect me so as to make me sneeze just at the most partickler time.”“Please, sir, do—oh! do go on,” cried Tim, imploringly.“Yes, yes! I’m going on,” said Purkis, solemnly. “So, sir, more than once I’m afraid I went to sleep in the big pew, same as I did on the night when I woke up and felt horribly frightened at hearing a something rattling about in the middle of the church; and for a time, sir, waking up fresh out of a long dream where I’d been heading a procession of thieves and poor-boxes, and policemen on the way to the Clerkenwell Police Court, I thought it had been something of what my old Scotch friend Sergeant Pike used to call ‘no canny.’ But there, sir, I soon shook that off, and rising very gently, I peeped over the edge of the pew, and I could just make out some one going along the middle aisle, and I knew the step as well as could be, besides a crackling staybone-and-busky noise as the figure made every time it stooped, while it never turned to the right or left without going altogether as if the neck was stiff.”“Then it was a figure?” said Tim, wringing his hands.“Oh yes, sir, it was a figure,” said Purkis, waving the slipper more and more; “a stiff figure, as went softly to first one and then the other poor-box; and I heard a key go and money chink after the figure had been well round the church. It sounded just like Mrs Purkis emptying out the till on Saturday nights.”“But pray—” exclaimed Tim.“Don’t interrupt, sir! Hush!” exclaimed Purkis pompously, as if he were frowning down a pack of boys, and making the chattering young dogs shake in their leather breeches; while gazing mournfully at him, as if he knew all now, Tim Ruggles, with his face full of wrinkles, waited to hear more.“I knew the step, sir,” said Purkis, “and I could see the figure turn all round at once, sir, without moving its head; and then, in my lair, I watched and watched with my heart beating fierce, for I knew that the time was come for me to vindicate innocence, and to—to—er—er—wait Mr Ruggles, sir. And I did wait, Mr Ruggles, sir, till I heard the church-door shut softly, when all was so still that I couldn’t help thinking it might be fancy.”“And it was fancy, Mr Purkis, wasn’t it?” exclaimed Tim, eagerly.“No, sir, it warn’t fancy,” said Purkis, austerely, as he waved Tim back with the slipper. It was all true as true; and I slapped my knees and rubbed my hands, and then I looked up towards the old organ and nodded at it; for I thought of the vally of what I’d found out, sir, to a good man, and no end of a family of children. And then, when I thought I’d waited long enough not to be seen, I went and knocked up Mr Timson, our churchwarden; fetched him out of bed, for it was one o’clock and past; and when he got down to me in his dressing-gown, he began a bullying me like anything; for he thought, you know, I’d come boxing with my Christmas-piece.“But, ‘gently, sir,’ I says; ‘don’t be rash—don’t be hasty.’ ‘Hasty!’ he says: ‘I’ll report you to Mr Grey. Get out, sir, you’re drunk: I can smell rum here.’ ‘And a good thing, too,’ I says, ‘for keeping cold out when you’re watching poor-boxes at night in a empty church?’ ‘What?’ he says, ‘what did you say, Purkis?’ he says. For answer, sir, I laid a finger solemn-like against one side of my nose, and looks at him out of the corners of my eyes. ‘Purkis,’ he says, ‘Purkis: you don’t mean as you have found it out?’ ‘But I do, sir,’ I says; and then I told him all, and he begged my pardon; and then, if he didn’t go into fits of delight, hopping about ‘I always said as it wasn’t Pellet,’ he kept on saying. Then he danced round the room, with his little bare legs popping out of the bottom of his dressing-gown, and he slapped me on the back over and over again. ‘Poor old Pellet!’ he says; ‘I’m glad: out and out glad!’ Then he called me a trump, which, though it was well meant, didn’t sound respectful to a man in my position in life, and beadle of St Runnle’s for all the years as I’ve been.“But I didn’t show no temper, sir, for he meant well, as I said before; and he gets out something in an ugly little bottle, as he poured into two of the wretchedest little glasses you ever see; but when you come to taste it, my! it was just like what he called it; ‘gold water,’ he said it was, and he chuckled and danced as he poured it out. ’Pon my word, sir, it was like swallowing melted sovereigns.”Tim groaned, but remained patient and motionless.“Then, sir,” continued Purkis, “I went away a happy man, promising that I’d be with him next morning—no, it wasn’t, though, it was the same morning—to run down with him to see the vicar, as was in the country.“‘Do you mean to report me, sir?’ I says. ‘Don’t be a fool, Purkis,’ he says. ‘I want you to tell him with your own lips.’”“Tell him what, sir?—tell him what?” said Tim, piteously.“That I’d seen—”“Stop—stop!” exclaimed Tim, imploringly, as if, now that it had come to the point, and he was about to have that which he already knew corroborated, he could not bear it. “I don’t think I can quite take it yet; but there!—yes—please go on.”“That I’d seen her, sir, as I could swear to, go to the poor-boxes one after another, and take something out, just like Mrs Purkis emptying the till, and then steal off, sir, so still that you could hardly hear her, only for the clicking of the key in the lock, and then she was gone.”“Shewas—shewas gone?” faltered Tim.“Yes, sir; she was. Dark as it was, I could make out all I have said; and then it puzzled me that we should never have settled it upon her before, when we found the money missing. But, you see, she was always so prim, and clean, and neat, and respectable.”“Always, Mr Purkis, sir,” said Tim; “always.”“And no one never would have thought it of her,” said Purkis.“No, sir; no one,” responded Tim, and then, sinking his voice to a whisper, he looked anxiously round the shop, dropping his hat, and then starting as he caught Purkis by one of his buttons—“Who was it, sir?—who was it?” he said, in a voice hardly above his breath.“Why, you don’t want me to tell you, I’m sure, sir?” said Purkis, stoutly.“Oh yes, I do!—oh yes, I do!” groaned Tim.“Then,” said the beadle, “I’ll tell you!” When there came the words “O Joseph!” plainly heard from the inner room, pointing to the fact that Mrs Purkis had been listening the whole time. But her lord heeded not the soft appeal, but, leaning forward, he placed a hand upon Tim’s shoulder, his lips close to his ear, and whispered the words.With a cry, the little tailor caught up his hat and dashed out of the shop, then, after silencing the irritated bell, Mr Purkis gave one of his customer-seeking looks up and down the street, but it was only to see poor Tim Ruggles disappear round the corner.“I knowed you’d commit yourself, Joseph,” whimpered Mrs Purkis, standing at the inner door, and rolling her arms tightly in her apron.“My dear,” said Mr Purkis pompously, “it was only my dooty!”

Mr Purkis stood in his shop carefully cutting out strips of white paper for the measurement of future customers’ feet, when he heard the pattering of feet, and anticipating trade for the establishment, he raised his eyes, slowly, and with due importance.

“What’s this, Mr Purkis, sir?” cried the visitor, rushing into the shop with a violence that made the little bell give tongue furiously—so furiously that it seemed as if disposed to compete with little Tim Ruggles, excited and hot as he was with running. “What does all this mean, sir? How is it—when was it—and how did it happen? I must know—must, indeed.”

Mr Purkis stood erect, with his hands beneath his black linen apron, and puffed out and collapsed his cheeks again and again, but without answering his visitor.

“I must know, Mr Purkis, sir,” cried Tim again, as he took off his hat, put it on, and walked about the shop in his excitement. “I’ve been to Mr Pellet’s, sir, and he won’t tell me a word, so I’ve come to you.”

“Well, you see, Mr Ruggles,” said Purkis, slowly, as if he sold his speech by the yard like shoe-string, after puffing and gasping three or four times like a fat old tench,—“you see—”

“Don’t say a word, Joseph—don’t commit yourself,” exclaimed Mrs Purkis, coming forth in a great hurry from the back regions, and busily rolling her arms up in her apron as she came, perhaps to hide their red and chappy state—perhaps from modesty or for comfort.

Mr Purkis looked at his wife, and then again at restless Tim, gave a gasp or two, puffed out his cheeks beadle-wise, and then opened his mouth as if to speak, but no words came.

“Don’t say a word—don’t say anything about it!” exclaimed Mrs Purkis again in a great state of excitement, but unrolling one arm to place it through her husband’s, as if for protection, as she looked defiantly at Tim. “You know what the pleece said to the boy when he took him up for stealing the list-slippers. What you say now ’ll be used in evidence agen you! You’re mixed up enough with it as it is.”

“Oh! please don’t stop him,” cried Tim Ruggles, in agony, as he wrung his hands and looked imploringly from one to the other. “What does it mean?”

“Well you see, Mr Ruggles,” said Purkis, after another tenchy gasp.

“Now, Joseph, don’t,” cried Mrs Purkis.

“Hold your tongue, woman,” cried Mr Purkis, majestically—the beadle asserting itself over the husband.

“Don’t stop him; pray don’t stop him, Mrs Purkis, ma’am,” cried Tim. “What, does it mean? Mrs Pellet began to tell me, when Mr Pellet stopped her; and now Mr Purkis begins to tell me, and you stop him.”

Mrs Purkis shook her head fiercely, so that something, probably curl papers—for she was strong in crackers—rattled.

“Please tell me,” implored Tim. “It’s about that robbery at the church; and Mrs Pellet says that you, sir, saw Mrs Ruggles at the boxes, and then Mr Pellet wouldn’t let her say another word.”

“And so I did see her,” gasped Mr Purkis, rattling his halfpence as he spoke; “kiss the book and take my Bible oath I did—”

“Now, Joseph—now, Joseph,” cried Mrs Purkis, interrupting him; “don’t say another word, or you’ll never forgive yourself.”

“Hold your tongue, woman!” cried Mr Purkis again, more importantly, but without looking down at her, or taking his hands from where he had deeply thrust them—into his pockets.

“Don’t speak to me in that rough way before people, Joseph!” cried Mrs Purkis, indignantly, and she gave the arm to which she clung a sharp shake.

“Be quiet, then,” said Mr Purkis, importantly, and then he gave two or three more puffs out to his cheeks. “You see, Mr Ruggles,” he continued, “I’ve a great feeling of esteem for Mr Pellet, who is a fine musician, and not a better in London. It was through him, sir, that Mrs Ruggles got that there appointment of pew-opener, for if it hadn’t been for Mr Pellet, sir,Ishouldn’t have stirred in the matter.”

“O Joseph!” whimpered Mrs Purkis, “I thought you would. You’re a committing yourself, and laying yourself open.”

“Be quiet, woman!” roared Purkis, looking his beadlest.

There was only Joseph Purkis of the boot and shoe emporium, in his black linen apron and shirt-sleeves, list-slippers, and, like a chain of office, a few slips of measuring paper over his shoulders, while he certainly had not been shaved for two or three days, and was consequently very stubbly; yet you could see a cocked-hat with broad gold lace in the pose of his large hair-streaked head; there was the broad red velvet and gold cape spreading over his shoulders, and his ponderous gilt mace of office seemed to recline in the hollow of his arm as he spoke. There was a majestic look about the man which told of habitual command, and he showed it in the way in which he crushed his wife with a side look.

“Mr Ruggles, you see, I felt hurt to see Mr Pellet in trouble, and losing his organist-ship on account of that poor-box being robbed, for I knew as he was going, being p’raps the only man as did; and it troubled me, sir, dreadful, being plundered again and again; and more than once I was that uncomfortable about it that I could have sent in my uniform to Mr Timson, sir, which would have shown as I meant to resign; only I knew as my enemy the greengrocer would have took the post, and worn that hat in triumph—too big for him though it was—sizes—and padded with brown paper. So I wouldn’t send it in, sir, though an independent man, and able to live on my business.”

“O Joseph, Joseph, Joseph!” whimpered his wife, “this’ll all be used in evidence; and you don’t know as the income-tax people ain’t listening, and you never paid a penny yet.”

“Hush-sh-sh!” ejaculated Mr Purkis, as if he were in the loft amongst the whispering boys of Gunnis’ gift of charity, and removing one hand from his pocket, he seized a lady’s slipper, and slapped the counter with the sole; while poor Tim Ruggles stood wringing his hands, and looking appealingly from one to the other.

“You see, Mr Ruggles,” said Purkis, waving the shoe, “having the cleaning and polishing of those poor-boxes, I felt as if I was answerable for them, and as if it was me as ought to know where the money went. They weren’t my tills, sir, but they was in my church; and the people as that there money was for was my poor people, as I’ve presided over in the giving of scores of doles at the vestry—people as respex me, sir; and, after a deal of consideration, I says to myself, I says—It’s some one as goes to the church on week days, and it’s either me—”

“O Joseph, Joseph!” cried Mrs Purkis, beginning to sob.

“Why can’t you be quiet, and let a man speak?” exclaimed Mr Purkis, in injured tones.

“But—but—you’ll be getting yourself into trouble about it,” sobbed Mrs Purkis. “Please don’t let him say no more, Mr Ruggles.”

“Women is so soft, Mr Ruggles,” said Purkis, benevolently.

“Not always, sir—not always,” said Tim, standing first upon one leg, then upon the other, and rubbing the nap off his shabby hat till there was quite a bald place. “Not always, sir; I’ve known them as was very hard.”

“So have I, sir,” said Mr Purkis, importantly, as a county magistrate pronouncing a sentence,—“so have I, sir; and I says to myself—Joseph Purkis, you’ve been parish officer at St Runnle’s a many years now, and with that there stain about the church, your uniform is a getting tarnished, and your sooperiors will look down upon you till you clear it away. Them boxes are in your charge, and therefore you owe a dooty to yourself to set all right. He didn’t look at you at all last Sunday, the vicar didn’t; and how do you know but what he suspects you, same as he may any innercent person? He may even now think as you have a hand in it, and be writing out your resignation for you. And really, Joseph Purkis, I says, it looks as if it were either you—”

“O Joseph—Joseph!” sobbed Mrs Purkis.

“Be quiet, woman, can’t you?” shouted Purkis. “Either you,” he continued, slapping the counter with the shoe, “or some one else familiar with the place.”

“Oh!” gasped Mrs Purkis.

“Now, just you go in there, and shut that door after you, Mrs Purkis, if you please,” said the beadle, more importantly than ever; and, taking his other hand from his pocket, he opened the parlour door as if it had been a pew, and made way with a flourish of the shoe for his wife to enter; while that lady, whose society had now become too demonstrative to be pleasant, raised her hands appealingly to the Wellingtons hung around the shop, as if to ask them to bear witness that it was in spite of her advice Mr Purkis persisted in committing himself. But the next minute she was invisible, on account of the dingy muslin blind over the half glass-door, and Mr Purkis walked back Astur-like in his stately stride.

“So, Mr Ruggles,” he said, “speaking as a man to a man, I felt it to be my dooty, for the benefit of all parties concerned, to watch, sir; and I did watch, sir, night after night, sir, day after day, sir; and where do you think I was, sir? Why, high up, sir, in the pulpit, with the door jest ajar, and a few cushions, to make the place a bit easy. Ah! sir, I’ve seen Mr Jared Pellet and Ichabod Gunnis come, sir, and go; and often, when that dog of a boy has come by himself a waiting for the organist, I’ve been at my wits’ ends, sir, to see that there young dog a sliding down the bannisters of the gallery, or a swinging on the pew-doors, and my fingers have itched to that degree, sir, to get hold of my cane, that I ain’t been hardly able to bear it. It’s been orful, sir, sometimes—orful to see the wicked young villin! What do you think of a boy getting into the reading-desk, and beginning, ‘Dearly beloved brethren,’ and then going down to the clerk’s desk and singing ‘Amen,’ just like our old man? Why, sir, one night I felt a’most ready to bust with indignation when he came down first, with Mr Pellet stopping up in the loft to think, I s’pose. What do you think the young dog did, sir? Why, he took the kiver off the font, sir, and then if he didn’t go and commit sacrilege, and defame and disgrace the beautiful old stone thing by climbing up and standing upon his head, sir, in the font, and kicking his heels together, and playing up the what’s-his-name’s delight.

“Ah! he’s a bad un, that boy. What do you think he did another night, sir? Put me in a cold prespiration he did, and then made me rise up with that big pulpit-cushion in my two hands. I should have heaved it and knocked him over like a skittle; only I knew it would not only upset him but all my plans as well; so I sat down again and filled my mouth full of pocket-handkerchief to stop back the indignation, for my pot was hot with thorns. What was he a doing of, sir? Why, I’ll tell you. A dog! he’d got both his shoes off, and one in each hand, a walking all over the church backards and forrards and ziggery-zaggery, balancing hisself like a monkey the while. Not very wrong that you’ll think, Mr Ruggles; but he was doing of it all on the narrow tops of the pews; and hang me, sir, if he didn’t try to jump across the middle aisle, only he came down flop on his back, and got up whimpering, and limped out of the church as hard as he could go. Then, I’ve seen Mr—what, sir?”

“Pray put me out of my misery,” implored poor Tim.

“I’m a coming to it fast, sir,” said Purkis. “I’ve seen Mr Pellet come down and stop by the poor-box on the side where the door was open, and sigh bitterly, and go away again; and though I’ve watched a deal that way, I couldn’t see nothing wrong out of the pulpit; so, to the utter neglect of Purkis’s boot and shoe emporium, and to the constant annoyance of Mrs Purkis, which said it was no business of mine, I kep’ on the watching, for I never give way, sir, in anything—not a peg. Why, sir, I’m a lion to that woman, sir; and as long as I’m a lion, why she’s a lamb; but if I was to stop being a lion, sir, it’s my belief she’d grow into a fierce tiger-cat, sir, and I should only be a mouse. Never give way to a woman, sir; they’re made on purpose to be ruled; and if you don’t rule ’em, sir, why, they’ll know as there’s something wrong, and they’ll rule you.

“Well, sir, I took to t’other side then, and used to sit in the reading-desk; and there I never saw anything but aggravation. Young Ichabod playing pitch-and-nickem with buttons and nickers in the middle aisle, or turning summersets over the hassocks; and once, I declare solemnly, I could hardly bear it, for if he didn’t get my mace, sir, and begin by walking up and down, and making believe it was me; then he must get to balancing it on his chin till he let it go agen one of the lamp glasses and cracked it, and I’ll crack him for it now the thing’s found out, with the very cane too as he took and stole out of mischief. But the worst of all was when he took and put that there staff across a couple of the free-seats, and began taking races and jumps over it, just as if he was in a playground instead of the Holy Catholic Church. Why, sir, it was enough to make the stone images on the monnyments tumble on him and crush him into the pavement—a bad dog!

“Then I tried the galleries; but I found out nothing there; and at last I took to the churchwarden’s pew, for I was determined to keep it up; though I must own, sir, as a man as always speaks the truth—for the truth may be blamed but can never be shamed—and as one who may soon be on his oath, but who respex you, and is sorry for you, Mr Ruggles—that I should have found it out sooner if it hadn’t been for the church being that bitter of a night that I was obliged to take a drop of something to keep the cold out of me for fear it might affect me so as to make me sneeze just at the most partickler time.”

“Please, sir, do—oh! do go on,” cried Tim, imploringly.

“Yes, yes! I’m going on,” said Purkis, solemnly. “So, sir, more than once I’m afraid I went to sleep in the big pew, same as I did on the night when I woke up and felt horribly frightened at hearing a something rattling about in the middle of the church; and for a time, sir, waking up fresh out of a long dream where I’d been heading a procession of thieves and poor-boxes, and policemen on the way to the Clerkenwell Police Court, I thought it had been something of what my old Scotch friend Sergeant Pike used to call ‘no canny.’ But there, sir, I soon shook that off, and rising very gently, I peeped over the edge of the pew, and I could just make out some one going along the middle aisle, and I knew the step as well as could be, besides a crackling staybone-and-busky noise as the figure made every time it stooped, while it never turned to the right or left without going altogether as if the neck was stiff.”

“Then it was a figure?” said Tim, wringing his hands.

“Oh yes, sir, it was a figure,” said Purkis, waving the slipper more and more; “a stiff figure, as went softly to first one and then the other poor-box; and I heard a key go and money chink after the figure had been well round the church. It sounded just like Mrs Purkis emptying out the till on Saturday nights.”

“But pray—” exclaimed Tim.

“Don’t interrupt, sir! Hush!” exclaimed Purkis pompously, as if he were frowning down a pack of boys, and making the chattering young dogs shake in their leather breeches; while gazing mournfully at him, as if he knew all now, Tim Ruggles, with his face full of wrinkles, waited to hear more.

“I knew the step, sir,” said Purkis, “and I could see the figure turn all round at once, sir, without moving its head; and then, in my lair, I watched and watched with my heart beating fierce, for I knew that the time was come for me to vindicate innocence, and to—to—er—er—wait Mr Ruggles, sir. And I did wait, Mr Ruggles, sir, till I heard the church-door shut softly, when all was so still that I couldn’t help thinking it might be fancy.”

“And it was fancy, Mr Purkis, wasn’t it?” exclaimed Tim, eagerly.

“No, sir, it warn’t fancy,” said Purkis, austerely, as he waved Tim back with the slipper. It was all true as true; and I slapped my knees and rubbed my hands, and then I looked up towards the old organ and nodded at it; for I thought of the vally of what I’d found out, sir, to a good man, and no end of a family of children. And then, when I thought I’d waited long enough not to be seen, I went and knocked up Mr Timson, our churchwarden; fetched him out of bed, for it was one o’clock and past; and when he got down to me in his dressing-gown, he began a bullying me like anything; for he thought, you know, I’d come boxing with my Christmas-piece.

“But, ‘gently, sir,’ I says; ‘don’t be rash—don’t be hasty.’ ‘Hasty!’ he says: ‘I’ll report you to Mr Grey. Get out, sir, you’re drunk: I can smell rum here.’ ‘And a good thing, too,’ I says, ‘for keeping cold out when you’re watching poor-boxes at night in a empty church?’ ‘What?’ he says, ‘what did you say, Purkis?’ he says. For answer, sir, I laid a finger solemn-like against one side of my nose, and looks at him out of the corners of my eyes. ‘Purkis,’ he says, ‘Purkis: you don’t mean as you have found it out?’ ‘But I do, sir,’ I says; and then I told him all, and he begged my pardon; and then, if he didn’t go into fits of delight, hopping about ‘I always said as it wasn’t Pellet,’ he kept on saying. Then he danced round the room, with his little bare legs popping out of the bottom of his dressing-gown, and he slapped me on the back over and over again. ‘Poor old Pellet!’ he says; ‘I’m glad: out and out glad!’ Then he called me a trump, which, though it was well meant, didn’t sound respectful to a man in my position in life, and beadle of St Runnle’s for all the years as I’ve been.

“But I didn’t show no temper, sir, for he meant well, as I said before; and he gets out something in an ugly little bottle, as he poured into two of the wretchedest little glasses you ever see; but when you come to taste it, my! it was just like what he called it; ‘gold water,’ he said it was, and he chuckled and danced as he poured it out. ’Pon my word, sir, it was like swallowing melted sovereigns.”

Tim groaned, but remained patient and motionless.

“Then, sir,” continued Purkis, “I went away a happy man, promising that I’d be with him next morning—no, it wasn’t, though, it was the same morning—to run down with him to see the vicar, as was in the country.

“‘Do you mean to report me, sir?’ I says. ‘Don’t be a fool, Purkis,’ he says. ‘I want you to tell him with your own lips.’”

“Tell him what, sir?—tell him what?” said Tim, piteously.

“That I’d seen—”

“Stop—stop!” exclaimed Tim, imploringly, as if, now that it had come to the point, and he was about to have that which he already knew corroborated, he could not bear it. “I don’t think I can quite take it yet; but there!—yes—please go on.”

“That I’d seen her, sir, as I could swear to, go to the poor-boxes one after another, and take something out, just like Mrs Purkis emptying the till, and then steal off, sir, so still that you could hardly hear her, only for the clicking of the key in the lock, and then she was gone.”

“Shewas—shewas gone?” faltered Tim.

“Yes, sir; she was. Dark as it was, I could make out all I have said; and then it puzzled me that we should never have settled it upon her before, when we found the money missing. But, you see, she was always so prim, and clean, and neat, and respectable.”

“Always, Mr Purkis, sir,” said Tim; “always.”

“And no one never would have thought it of her,” said Purkis.

“No, sir; no one,” responded Tim, and then, sinking his voice to a whisper, he looked anxiously round the shop, dropping his hat, and then starting as he caught Purkis by one of his buttons—“Who was it, sir?—who was it?” he said, in a voice hardly above his breath.

“Why, you don’t want me to tell you, I’m sure, sir?” said Purkis, stoutly.

“Oh yes, I do!—oh yes, I do!” groaned Tim.

“Then,” said the beadle, “I’ll tell you!” When there came the words “O Joseph!” plainly heard from the inner room, pointing to the fact that Mrs Purkis had been listening the whole time. But her lord heeded not the soft appeal, but, leaning forward, he placed a hand upon Tim’s shoulder, his lips close to his ear, and whispered the words.

With a cry, the little tailor caught up his hat and dashed out of the shop, then, after silencing the irritated bell, Mr Purkis gave one of his customer-seeking looks up and down the street, but it was only to see poor Tim Ruggles disappear round the corner.

“I knowed you’d commit yourself, Joseph,” whimpered Mrs Purkis, standing at the inner door, and rolling her arms tightly in her apron.

“My dear,” said Mr Purkis pompously, “it was only my dooty!”

Volume Three—Chapter Seventeen.John Brown.“It’s all against rule and regulation, and that sort of thing,” said the sergeant, as he and Harry Clayton were being jolted over the stones in a Hansom cab; “but ours is a particular case. The old gentleman’s there long before this, sir. He seemed to revive like magic as soon as ever I told him the news. He just hid his face for a few moments, and then said quite sharp, ‘Go and fetch Mr Clayton, and bring him after me,’ telling me, of course, where you were gone; and here I am, sir.”“But it seems so strange,” said Clayton. “I can’t understand it.”“Strange, sir! ’Pon my soul, sir, if you’ll excuse me for saying so, I’m quite ashamed of myself. Thought I was up to more than that. And yet, here’s all the wind taken out of my sails, and I’m nowhere.”Harry nodded, for he wanted to think, but the sergeant rattled on—“It’s always the way with your biggest puzzles, sir: the way to find them out is the simplest way—the way that’s so easy that you never even give it a thought if it occurs to you. Perhaps you remember that chap in the story, sir, as wanted to keep a certain dockyment out of the way of the foreign detectives—French police—over the water—secret police, I think they call themselves; not that there’s one of them who can hold a candle to our fellows. Spies, perhaps, would be the better name for them. Well, he knew that as soon as he was out, they’d search the place from top to bottom. Well, what does he do? Hide it in the most secret place he could think of? Not he; for places that he could think of as being the safest, perhaps they might think of too. He was too foxy, sir; and he just folds it up like a letter, sticks it in a dirty old envelope, and pops it into the card-rack over the chimney-piece,—plain, for all folk to see; and, as a matter of course, they never so much as look at it. That’s just been the case with the young squire here; he’s been stuck up in the card-rack over the chimney-piece, chock before my eyes, and I’ve been shutting ’em up close so as not to see him, when he’s been as good as asking me to look. There, sir! I haven’t patience with myself; and I’m going to ask to be put on the sooperannuation list, along with the pensioners as I call ’em. Mysterious disappearance! why, it wasn’t anything of the sort, sir. But here we are!”The cab was checked as he spoke, and alighting before a great gloomy looking building, the sergeant led the way up a flight of stone steps, and into a hall, where a liveried porter saluted him with a nod.“Here, bring us the book again, Tomkins,” said the sergeant; and the porter reached a large folio from a desk, and placed it before the sergeant upon a side-table.“Here you are, sir,” said the sergeant, eagerly, as he turned back some leaves, till he came to one which bore the date of Lionel’s disappearance. “Now, look here!”He pointed to an entry in the accident register; for they were in the entrance-hall of a large hospital.“Look at that, sir,” said the sergeant again; “and tell me what you think of it.”Harry Clayton bent over the book, and read—“Brown, John, stableman, run over by a cab. Severe concussion of the brain.”“Now, sir, what do you make of that?”“Nothing at all,” said Clayton, blankly.“No more did I, sir. I wasn’t looking after John Brown, a stableman; but Lionel Redgrave, Esq. But that wasn’t all. I’ve seen this case—I’ve been to the bedside, and then I didn’t think anything of it. I was so clever.”“But does that relate to him?”“To be sure it does, sir. I tell you it’s easy enough, now one can see through it; but I couldn’t put that and that together before. Name never struck me a bit, when it ought to have been the very key to it all. He was knocked down, and run over by a cab, when out on his larks. Got his hair cut short, and his mustacher shaved off. There’s his clothes too, up-stairs—reg’lar stableman’s suit—masquerading things—such togs for a gent like him to wear! Poor chap, it was a bad case, though, for he was nearly killed. Well, of course, they brought him here, and asked him his name, when, just being able to speak, he says the very last thing that was in his poor head, before the sense was knocked out of it, and all its works were brought to a stand still. ‘What’s your name?’ they says; and as I said before, he answers the very last thing as was in his head before he was stopped short, and that was the name of the place he had been to—Brownjohn Street; and, saying it, no doubt, very feebly, they didn’t hear any more than the Brownjohn, so they put him down as Brown, and his Christian name after it, as is their custom, John—Brown, John; and here he’s lain insensible to this day. But come on up, sir.”Following an attendant, Harry and the sergeant were ushered into a long, whitewashed ward, where, on either side, in their iron bedsteads, lay sufferers from the many accidents constantly occurring in the London streets. Here was a man who had fallen from a scaffold; there one who had had his arm crushed by machinery, and, all around, suffering enough to affect the stoutest heart. The sergeant, though, had no eye for these, and swiftly leading the way down the centre, he conducted Harry to where, weak, pale, and helpless, on his bed of suffering, lay Lionel Redgrave,—his hair shaven from his temples, and the large surgical bandages about his head adding greatly to the cadaverous expression of his countenance.There was not the slightest doubt of his having suffered severely—it was written too plainly on his face; but he seemed now to be perfectly sensible, and as Clayton approached, he tried feebly to hold out his hand, whispering as he did so, the one word—“Harry!”Sir Francis sat holding the other hand, anxiously watching his son’s face, and hardly reassured by the house-surgeon’s declaration that, with anything like care, the young man was now out of danger.“Don’t speak to him, Clayton,” said Sir Francis. “Don’t talk, my dear boy. Pray remember your condition.”“All right,” was the reply, but in very feeble tones. “Seems as if I had been to sleep, and only just woke up. Confounded Hansom!—over me in a moment—Martin’s Lane—remember no more.”“Yes, yes, we know all,” said Sir Francis; “but for my sake now be silent.”“I must put in a word, too,” said the house-surgeon, approaching. “I think he has borne as much as will be beneficial for one day. I must ask you to leave now. To-morrow he will be better able to bear a visit.”“Another ten minutes,” pleaded Sir Francis. “Not one instant more. We will not talk.”The surgeon bowed his head, when Harry, after warmly pressing the young man’s hand—for he somehow felt thoroughly at ease within his own breast—retired with the surgeon and the detective to another part of the ward.“Curious case this, sir, eh?” said the sergeant.“Well, yes,” said the surgeon. “But what a strange whim! We had not the most remote idea but that he was some young groom out of place. I judged the latter from the whiteness of his hands, and I must really do our young friend the credit of saying that he thoroughly looked his part.”“I believe you, sir,” said the sergeant, “for I was took in,—as reg’lar as I was ever took in before. But they will do this sort of thing, these young gents, with nothing else upon their hands. I don’t wonder at it. Must be a miserable life!”The last remark was made so seriously, and in such perfect good faith, that the surgeon and Harry Clayton exchanged glances, smiling the while.“I hope,” said the latter, “that he will soon be fit to be removed.”“Well, before long,” said the surgeon. “Ten days or so. Not sooner—bad case rather. It was only this morning that he became sensible; and I don’t think that even now he fairly realises the length of time that he has been lying there.”“But this must be a most unusual case,” said Clayton. “Surely you never had a suspension of the faculties for so long?”“Oh yes!” said the surgeon. “Such things do happen. Concussion of, or pressure upon the brain from a fracture, gives us at times some exceedingly interesting studies. In this case, the horse must have struck your friend full on the temple, and I wonder that he was not killed.”Then, according to the custom of hisconfrères, the surgeon proceeded to dilate upon the number of eighths of an inch higher or lower which would have been sufficient for the blow to have caused death. But he was interrupted in his discourse by the approach of Sir Francis, who now came up, watch in hand.“The ten minutes are at an end, and I thank you, sir,” he said. “I am indeed most grateful for your skilful treatment of my son. How can I ever disburden myself of the obligation?”“Oh! if you come to that, easily enough,” laughed the surgeon, who fully believed, and held unflinchingly to the faith, that his hospital was the best in London, sparing no pains to let every one know that it was also one of the poorest. “We don’t want such patients as your son here, Sir Francis Redgrave; and you may depend in future upon receiving our yearly report, with, I hope, your name down as one of our donors.”Sir Francis shook hands warmly, saying nothing, but thinking the more deeply; and then, bidding farewell to the sergeant at the door, he was accompanied by Clayton back to their temporary home.They had not been back long though, before there was a step on the stair, and Mr Stiff, the landlord, came up to announce a visitor.“Who?” said Sir Francis.“That there little jigging man, sir, as Mr Lionel used to buy his dogs of in—”“Tell him that I am unwell—that I cannot see him,” exclaimed Sir Francis; and Mr Stiff took his departure, but only to return at the end of five minutes.“Well, Mr Stiff?”“I can’t get rid of him, please, Sir Francis. He says he should be so glad if you’d see him only for a minute. He won’t detain you more, and he’s in a terrible way about your saying you can’t.”“Well, show him up,” said Sir Francis, who was not in the humour to refuse anything in the gladness and thankfulness which now filled his heart.“Shall I see him?” said Clayton, offering to relieve Sir Francis of the task.“No; perhaps it is something about poor Lionel. I will see him.”The next minute there was the peculiar thumping noise of D. Wragg’s feet in the passage, but Sir Francis found time to say a few words before the dealer readied the room.“Is not this the curious-looking man at the house we searched?”“The same,” said Harry.“Ah, yes!—I forgot,” said Sir Francis; “these troubles have tried me. But here he is.”Sir Francis was right, for the noise increased, the door was thrown open, and the next moment, in a tremendous state of excitement, D. Wragg stood confessed.

“It’s all against rule and regulation, and that sort of thing,” said the sergeant, as he and Harry Clayton were being jolted over the stones in a Hansom cab; “but ours is a particular case. The old gentleman’s there long before this, sir. He seemed to revive like magic as soon as ever I told him the news. He just hid his face for a few moments, and then said quite sharp, ‘Go and fetch Mr Clayton, and bring him after me,’ telling me, of course, where you were gone; and here I am, sir.”

“But it seems so strange,” said Clayton. “I can’t understand it.”

“Strange, sir! ’Pon my soul, sir, if you’ll excuse me for saying so, I’m quite ashamed of myself. Thought I was up to more than that. And yet, here’s all the wind taken out of my sails, and I’m nowhere.”

Harry nodded, for he wanted to think, but the sergeant rattled on—

“It’s always the way with your biggest puzzles, sir: the way to find them out is the simplest way—the way that’s so easy that you never even give it a thought if it occurs to you. Perhaps you remember that chap in the story, sir, as wanted to keep a certain dockyment out of the way of the foreign detectives—French police—over the water—secret police, I think they call themselves; not that there’s one of them who can hold a candle to our fellows. Spies, perhaps, would be the better name for them. Well, he knew that as soon as he was out, they’d search the place from top to bottom. Well, what does he do? Hide it in the most secret place he could think of? Not he; for places that he could think of as being the safest, perhaps they might think of too. He was too foxy, sir; and he just folds it up like a letter, sticks it in a dirty old envelope, and pops it into the card-rack over the chimney-piece,—plain, for all folk to see; and, as a matter of course, they never so much as look at it. That’s just been the case with the young squire here; he’s been stuck up in the card-rack over the chimney-piece, chock before my eyes, and I’ve been shutting ’em up close so as not to see him, when he’s been as good as asking me to look. There, sir! I haven’t patience with myself; and I’m going to ask to be put on the sooperannuation list, along with the pensioners as I call ’em. Mysterious disappearance! why, it wasn’t anything of the sort, sir. But here we are!”

The cab was checked as he spoke, and alighting before a great gloomy looking building, the sergeant led the way up a flight of stone steps, and into a hall, where a liveried porter saluted him with a nod.

“Here, bring us the book again, Tomkins,” said the sergeant; and the porter reached a large folio from a desk, and placed it before the sergeant upon a side-table.

“Here you are, sir,” said the sergeant, eagerly, as he turned back some leaves, till he came to one which bore the date of Lionel’s disappearance. “Now, look here!”

He pointed to an entry in the accident register; for they were in the entrance-hall of a large hospital.

“Look at that, sir,” said the sergeant again; “and tell me what you think of it.”

Harry Clayton bent over the book, and read—

“Brown, John, stableman, run over by a cab. Severe concussion of the brain.”

“Now, sir, what do you make of that?”

“Nothing at all,” said Clayton, blankly.

“No more did I, sir. I wasn’t looking after John Brown, a stableman; but Lionel Redgrave, Esq. But that wasn’t all. I’ve seen this case—I’ve been to the bedside, and then I didn’t think anything of it. I was so clever.”

“But does that relate to him?”

“To be sure it does, sir. I tell you it’s easy enough, now one can see through it; but I couldn’t put that and that together before. Name never struck me a bit, when it ought to have been the very key to it all. He was knocked down, and run over by a cab, when out on his larks. Got his hair cut short, and his mustacher shaved off. There’s his clothes too, up-stairs—reg’lar stableman’s suit—masquerading things—such togs for a gent like him to wear! Poor chap, it was a bad case, though, for he was nearly killed. Well, of course, they brought him here, and asked him his name, when, just being able to speak, he says the very last thing that was in his poor head, before the sense was knocked out of it, and all its works were brought to a stand still. ‘What’s your name?’ they says; and as I said before, he answers the very last thing as was in his head before he was stopped short, and that was the name of the place he had been to—Brownjohn Street; and, saying it, no doubt, very feebly, they didn’t hear any more than the Brownjohn, so they put him down as Brown, and his Christian name after it, as is their custom, John—Brown, John; and here he’s lain insensible to this day. But come on up, sir.”

Following an attendant, Harry and the sergeant were ushered into a long, whitewashed ward, where, on either side, in their iron bedsteads, lay sufferers from the many accidents constantly occurring in the London streets. Here was a man who had fallen from a scaffold; there one who had had his arm crushed by machinery, and, all around, suffering enough to affect the stoutest heart. The sergeant, though, had no eye for these, and swiftly leading the way down the centre, he conducted Harry to where, weak, pale, and helpless, on his bed of suffering, lay Lionel Redgrave,—his hair shaven from his temples, and the large surgical bandages about his head adding greatly to the cadaverous expression of his countenance.

There was not the slightest doubt of his having suffered severely—it was written too plainly on his face; but he seemed now to be perfectly sensible, and as Clayton approached, he tried feebly to hold out his hand, whispering as he did so, the one word—

“Harry!”

Sir Francis sat holding the other hand, anxiously watching his son’s face, and hardly reassured by the house-surgeon’s declaration that, with anything like care, the young man was now out of danger.

“Don’t speak to him, Clayton,” said Sir Francis. “Don’t talk, my dear boy. Pray remember your condition.”

“All right,” was the reply, but in very feeble tones. “Seems as if I had been to sleep, and only just woke up. Confounded Hansom!—over me in a moment—Martin’s Lane—remember no more.”

“Yes, yes, we know all,” said Sir Francis; “but for my sake now be silent.”

“I must put in a word, too,” said the house-surgeon, approaching. “I think he has borne as much as will be beneficial for one day. I must ask you to leave now. To-morrow he will be better able to bear a visit.”

“Another ten minutes,” pleaded Sir Francis. “Not one instant more. We will not talk.”

The surgeon bowed his head, when Harry, after warmly pressing the young man’s hand—for he somehow felt thoroughly at ease within his own breast—retired with the surgeon and the detective to another part of the ward.

“Curious case this, sir, eh?” said the sergeant.

“Well, yes,” said the surgeon. “But what a strange whim! We had not the most remote idea but that he was some young groom out of place. I judged the latter from the whiteness of his hands, and I must really do our young friend the credit of saying that he thoroughly looked his part.”

“I believe you, sir,” said the sergeant, “for I was took in,—as reg’lar as I was ever took in before. But they will do this sort of thing, these young gents, with nothing else upon their hands. I don’t wonder at it. Must be a miserable life!”

The last remark was made so seriously, and in such perfect good faith, that the surgeon and Harry Clayton exchanged glances, smiling the while.

“I hope,” said the latter, “that he will soon be fit to be removed.”

“Well, before long,” said the surgeon. “Ten days or so. Not sooner—bad case rather. It was only this morning that he became sensible; and I don’t think that even now he fairly realises the length of time that he has been lying there.”

“But this must be a most unusual case,” said Clayton. “Surely you never had a suspension of the faculties for so long?”

“Oh yes!” said the surgeon. “Such things do happen. Concussion of, or pressure upon the brain from a fracture, gives us at times some exceedingly interesting studies. In this case, the horse must have struck your friend full on the temple, and I wonder that he was not killed.”

Then, according to the custom of hisconfrères, the surgeon proceeded to dilate upon the number of eighths of an inch higher or lower which would have been sufficient for the blow to have caused death. But he was interrupted in his discourse by the approach of Sir Francis, who now came up, watch in hand.

“The ten minutes are at an end, and I thank you, sir,” he said. “I am indeed most grateful for your skilful treatment of my son. How can I ever disburden myself of the obligation?”

“Oh! if you come to that, easily enough,” laughed the surgeon, who fully believed, and held unflinchingly to the faith, that his hospital was the best in London, sparing no pains to let every one know that it was also one of the poorest. “We don’t want such patients as your son here, Sir Francis Redgrave; and you may depend in future upon receiving our yearly report, with, I hope, your name down as one of our donors.”

Sir Francis shook hands warmly, saying nothing, but thinking the more deeply; and then, bidding farewell to the sergeant at the door, he was accompanied by Clayton back to their temporary home.

They had not been back long though, before there was a step on the stair, and Mr Stiff, the landlord, came up to announce a visitor.

“Who?” said Sir Francis.

“That there little jigging man, sir, as Mr Lionel used to buy his dogs of in—”

“Tell him that I am unwell—that I cannot see him,” exclaimed Sir Francis; and Mr Stiff took his departure, but only to return at the end of five minutes.

“Well, Mr Stiff?”

“I can’t get rid of him, please, Sir Francis. He says he should be so glad if you’d see him only for a minute. He won’t detain you more, and he’s in a terrible way about your saying you can’t.”

“Well, show him up,” said Sir Francis, who was not in the humour to refuse anything in the gladness and thankfulness which now filled his heart.

“Shall I see him?” said Clayton, offering to relieve Sir Francis of the task.

“No; perhaps it is something about poor Lionel. I will see him.”

The next minute there was the peculiar thumping noise of D. Wragg’s feet in the passage, but Sir Francis found time to say a few words before the dealer readied the room.

“Is not this the curious-looking man at the house we searched?”

“The same,” said Harry.

“Ah, yes!—I forgot,” said Sir Francis; “these troubles have tried me. But here he is.”

Sir Francis was right, for the noise increased, the door was thrown open, and the next moment, in a tremendous state of excitement, D. Wragg stood confessed.

Volume Three—Chapter Eighteen.D. Wragg on Principle.“Sarvant, sir—sarvant, sir!” exclaimed D. Wragg, flourishing his hat first at Sir Francis, and then at Harry Clayton, while he worked and jerked himself about in a way that was perfectly frightful to contemplate. “Just give me a minute. I won’t keep you both more than that, only I couldn’t rest without coming in to tell you as it does us at home so much good ’cos that young gent’s found, as you can’t tell.”Sir Francis knit his brow as he listened, for he could not help associating the man before him with the cause of Lionel’s disappearance; but he did not speak.“Ah! I see you’re cross about it,” said D. Wragg, who caught the frown; “but never mind if you are; we’re glad all the same. You thought we had to do with it?”“My good fellow, yes!” exclaimed Sir Francis, hastily; for this touched him upon a tender point—he had been unjust. “Yes; we did think so, and I beg your pardon for it most heartily. It was a gross piece of injustice, and I beg that you will forgive it. If—”“You’re a reg’lar, thorough-bred, game gentleman! that’s what you are,” said D. Wragg; “and I respect you, sir, that I do. And if you’re sorry for having my place searched, why, there’s an end of it; and as to forgiving you, why, we won’t say any more about that.”“But if money—” continued Sir Francis.“No; money ain’t got nothing to do with it,” said D. Wragg, gruffly; “and yet it has too, something. You see, sir, I got hold of Sergeant Falkner, and he’s put me up to it all—how you found the young gent in the orspital and all; and so I wanted to come on about it. But what did I say to you when you came to me to search my place? Why, don’t you make no mistake, I says, and now I says it again. Don’t you make no mistake; I ain’t come after money; but just to say as I’m sorry as the young gent should have got into such trouble through coming to my place; and as to his getting better, all I’ve got to say now is, as he shan’t never come inside the shop again. I did have some of his money for different things; but there, lor’ bless you, I put it to you, Mr Clayton, sir, if I hadn’t had it to do me good, wouldn’t he have spent it in organ-grinders, or brass bands, or something? ’Pon my soul, sir, I never see a young gent as knowed so little of what money was worth.”“And do you mean,” said Sir Francis, “that if my son gets well, and comes to your place again, you will not admit him?”“Course I do. Don’t you make no mistake, sir. I’m in real earnest, I am; and if at any time you want a dorg, or a score o’—Blow it! hold your tongue, will you,” he said, breaking off short in his speech, this portion of which was born of constant repetition. “But don’t you make no mistake, sir—he shan’t come no more; and as to the place being searched, that wasn’t your doing; that was spite, that was, and Mr Jack Screwby—an ugly cuss! But they’ve got him for ’sault and violence, and he’ll get it hot, and no mistake, sir. And now my sarvice to you both, gents, and I’m off; but I thought I’d come to say as I was sorry and glad too, and you understands me, I knows.”As he turned to go, Sir Francis crossed the room, and tried to thrust a five-pound note into his hands; but D. Wragg waved him off.“No, sir; I promised ’em at home, if you wanted to do anything of that kind, as I wouldn’t take it—and I won’t—so there now. But look here! don’t you make no mistake; I ain’t proud, and if you says to me, ‘Mr D. Wragg, will you take a glass of wine to drink my son back again to health?’—why, hang me if I don’t.”Crash went D. Wragg’s hat down upon the floor as he spoke, and after his arms had flown about at all manner of angles with his body, he folded them tightly, and stood gazing from one to the other.“You shall drink his health, indeed, Mr Wragg,” said Sir Francis, smiling; and the decanters being produced, D. Wragg did drink Lionel’s health, and then in another glass that of Sir Francis, then took another to drink Harry Clayton’s, and yet one more for the benefit of all absent friends, when he stumped off, evidently wonderfully steadied in his action by what he had imbibed.

“Sarvant, sir—sarvant, sir!” exclaimed D. Wragg, flourishing his hat first at Sir Francis, and then at Harry Clayton, while he worked and jerked himself about in a way that was perfectly frightful to contemplate. “Just give me a minute. I won’t keep you both more than that, only I couldn’t rest without coming in to tell you as it does us at home so much good ’cos that young gent’s found, as you can’t tell.”

Sir Francis knit his brow as he listened, for he could not help associating the man before him with the cause of Lionel’s disappearance; but he did not speak.

“Ah! I see you’re cross about it,” said D. Wragg, who caught the frown; “but never mind if you are; we’re glad all the same. You thought we had to do with it?”

“My good fellow, yes!” exclaimed Sir Francis, hastily; for this touched him upon a tender point—he had been unjust. “Yes; we did think so, and I beg your pardon for it most heartily. It was a gross piece of injustice, and I beg that you will forgive it. If—”

“You’re a reg’lar, thorough-bred, game gentleman! that’s what you are,” said D. Wragg; “and I respect you, sir, that I do. And if you’re sorry for having my place searched, why, there’s an end of it; and as to forgiving you, why, we won’t say any more about that.”

“But if money—” continued Sir Francis.

“No; money ain’t got nothing to do with it,” said D. Wragg, gruffly; “and yet it has too, something. You see, sir, I got hold of Sergeant Falkner, and he’s put me up to it all—how you found the young gent in the orspital and all; and so I wanted to come on about it. But what did I say to you when you came to me to search my place? Why, don’t you make no mistake, I says, and now I says it again. Don’t you make no mistake; I ain’t come after money; but just to say as I’m sorry as the young gent should have got into such trouble through coming to my place; and as to his getting better, all I’ve got to say now is, as he shan’t never come inside the shop again. I did have some of his money for different things; but there, lor’ bless you, I put it to you, Mr Clayton, sir, if I hadn’t had it to do me good, wouldn’t he have spent it in organ-grinders, or brass bands, or something? ’Pon my soul, sir, I never see a young gent as knowed so little of what money was worth.”

“And do you mean,” said Sir Francis, “that if my son gets well, and comes to your place again, you will not admit him?”

“Course I do. Don’t you make no mistake, sir. I’m in real earnest, I am; and if at any time you want a dorg, or a score o’—Blow it! hold your tongue, will you,” he said, breaking off short in his speech, this portion of which was born of constant repetition. “But don’t you make no mistake, sir—he shan’t come no more; and as to the place being searched, that wasn’t your doing; that was spite, that was, and Mr Jack Screwby—an ugly cuss! But they’ve got him for ’sault and violence, and he’ll get it hot, and no mistake, sir. And now my sarvice to you both, gents, and I’m off; but I thought I’d come to say as I was sorry and glad too, and you understands me, I knows.”

As he turned to go, Sir Francis crossed the room, and tried to thrust a five-pound note into his hands; but D. Wragg waved him off.

“No, sir; I promised ’em at home, if you wanted to do anything of that kind, as I wouldn’t take it—and I won’t—so there now. But look here! don’t you make no mistake; I ain’t proud, and if you says to me, ‘Mr D. Wragg, will you take a glass of wine to drink my son back again to health?’—why, hang me if I don’t.”

Crash went D. Wragg’s hat down upon the floor as he spoke, and after his arms had flown about at all manner of angles with his body, he folded them tightly, and stood gazing from one to the other.

“You shall drink his health, indeed, Mr Wragg,” said Sir Francis, smiling; and the decanters being produced, D. Wragg did drink Lionel’s health, and then in another glass that of Sir Francis, then took another to drink Harry Clayton’s, and yet one more for the benefit of all absent friends, when he stumped off, evidently wonderfully steadied in his action by what he had imbibed.

Volume Three—Chapter Nineteen.Richard Pellet’s Visitors.The clerk whose duty it was to show visitors into Richard Pellet’s private office ought to have been well paid, for he must have been a valuable acquisition to his employer. Doubtless it was the result of training—he was for ever supposing that “the firm” was engaged. It was so when Jared last called. It was so when Harry Clayton determined to try and make friends with the husband of his late mother, and appeared at the office door. And it was so when, an hour after, a plainly-dressed, pale-looking woman asked to see Mr Richard Pellet. But if, the clerk said, she would give her name, he would go and see.“Ellen Pellet,” was the calm, quiet answer.“Mrs Ellen Pellet?” queried the clerk.“Yes,” was the reply.The man stared, hesitated, went half-way to the inner office, returned, hesitated again, and then turned to go; while more than one head was raised from ledger or letter to exchange meaning looks, after a glance at the very unusual kind of visitor to Austin Friars.“It ain’t my business,” muttered the clerk to himself, and passing down the little passage, he opened the private office door of the firm, heedless of a light, gliding step behind him, and announced Mrs Ellen Pellet.“Who?” roared Richard Pellet, leaping from his seat, and glaring at the clerk.“It is I,” said a quiet voice in the doorway, and Richard sank back pale and gasping in his seat.For the visitor was already in the room.“Oh yes! Ah, to be sure!” stammered Richard, striving hard to recover himself, with a miserable mask-like smile overspreading his features. “Glad to see you—sit down. That will do, Bailly; I’m engaged if any one should call.”The clerk left the office, and closed the door, walking back to his stool with a prominence in one cheek which drew forth sundry winks from fellow-labourers in Pellet and Company’s money-mill. But the door of Richard Pellet’s private office was thick and baize-lined, and no inkling of the scene within reached the ears of the clerks.No sooner had the door closed upon them, than the smile was driven from Richard’s face by a bitter scowl, and rising from his chair, he took two or three strides to where his visitor stood, hissing between his teeth—“Curse you! what brings you here?” Such a fierce aspect, accompanied as it was by threatening gestures, would have made many recoil; but Richard’s visitor stepped towards him, and caught him by the breast, exclaiming—“I have been unhappy lately; I could not rest there. I want my child!”“Curse your child!” cried Richard, in an angry whisper, and then, with a cowardly, back-handed blow, he sent the poor creature staggering against the wall; but her countenance hardly underwent a change, as, starting forward again, she caught him once more by the coat, repeating her words—“I want my child!”“How dare you come here?” he exclaimed, in a low, angry voice. “How dare you come here to disgrace and annoy me? How came you away from—from your lodging that I got for you?”“I came away—I want my child!” was the only reply.“There! hush! Don’t speak so loud!” said Richard, in an angry whisper, as he glanced uneasily at the door, and stepping to it, slipped into its socket a little brass bolt. “Did I not tell you never to come here? and did you not promise?”“Yes, yes!” was the hoarse answer; “but I want, I will have, our little one. I have been to the man who had it—I found him out; but he would not give it to me. You have told him not. I could not rest for thinking about it. I want my child, and then we will go far away together.”“Go and seek it where it has gone,” said Richard, brutally, almost beside himself with suppressed rage;—“it is dead!”“It is a lie—a lie!” cried the woman, excitedly, her pale face flushing with anger. “That man told me the same; but he is in your pay, and you have hidden it from me.”She clung to him now fiercely, clutching the ostentatiously-displayed smoothly-plaited shirt-front, and turning it into a crumpled rag.“Hush! hush! For God’s sake, be still!” he exclaimed. “They will hear you in the outer office. I have not got the child; it died months ago.”“It is a lie!” exclaimed the woman, more angrily. “You drove me mad once with your ill-treatment, but you shall not do it again.” Then, raising her voice—“I will have my child!”As Richard Pellet’s face turned of a ghastly muddy hue, he glanced again and again at the door, his hands trembling with the cowardly rage that, under different circumstances, might have made the life of the woman before him—his wife—not worth a moment’s purchase. The coarse, heavy, insolent smile was gone; for he was attacked in his weakest point, and already in imagination he could see the side looks and laughter of his clerks, and hear the sneering innuendoes of fellow-men of his own stamp when there was a publicexposé, and Richard Pellet, the wealthy banker, who for the sake of money had kept his weak insane wife in obscurity for years, that he might commit bigamy for the fortune of the Widow Clayton, was arraigned for his offence against his country’s laws, and the story of his wife’s wrongs came forth.What was he to do? He must get her away quietly—by subterfuge—he could lead her in one way he knew, and she would not believe the truth.The scandal, after so many years lying hidden, would now most certainly be bruited abroad. Some men would have laughed it to scorn, and faced it with brazen effrontery; but Richard Pellet was a religious man—a patron of philanthropic societies—even now upon his table lay half-a-dozen annual reports with his name thereon as steward or committee-man, for all men to read. Why, his very sober beneficent look carried weight, and he was always placed in the front rank upon the platform at Exeter Hall meetings. In fact, in May, during the meetings, he adopted white cravats and frills. And now, in spite of money, care, secrecy, this matter would be spread abroad. He could hear it already; and to hide this example of his cruel love of greed, had he dared, and could have hidden the crime, he would have struck down the patient sufferer whom he had treated with such a mingling of cruelty and neglect, dead at his feet, with as little compunction as he had already shown in sending her staggering to the wall.But the wife of long ago, whose reason had gone astray years before, the soft eyes, the pale face, and trembling lips were here no more; and Richard Pellet, as he shrank from her, felt himself to be almost helpless in the hands of one whose strength was augmented by her position, for he dared not raise his voice. He knew, too, that now the time had gone when he could command, and he must try subterfuge, and get her away abroad, where she would be safely kept. He blamed himself now that he had not placed her in an asylum, but he recalled his reason—it would have been too public a proceeding; and in these fleeting moments the question came, were the gold and position he had won worth the price that he had paid?As he stood there in her grasp, his mind was made up, and he said quietly, “Sit down.”“No—no—no!” was the hasty reply, as if she dreaded his influence. “I want my child: give me my child, and let me go.”“But, Ellen, this is madness and folly,” he whispered. “You know it is not here. He told you that it was dead, did he?”“Yes,” she cried, angrily; “but it was not true. You told him to say so. Where is she now?”“Look here!” said Richard, writing an address upon a card—that of one of the boarding—houses in the neighbourhood. “Take this and go and wait there till I come, and we will go and see about it. But, for my sake, do not make a disturbance here—it would be ruin to me.”The poor creature, half reft of her senses, gazed earnestly in his face for a few moments, while the angry light faded from her eye. In her tigress-like rage for her lost little one, if met by anger she was ready to dare, urged by her maternal instinct; but these gentle words disarmed her resentment, and falling on her knees at Richard Pellet’s feet, she burst into tears, sobbing as she begged of him to let her have her child.“Yes, yes! you shall; only get up,” said Richard. “It shall all be made right, only go now.”“Then you will give her to me?” she said, imploringly. “I will not say a word to any one about being your wife if you will give me my child. I know now why you shut me up there with Mrs Walls. I have thought it out: it was that you might marry some one rich; for I, when my head went, was not fit to be your wife. But I could not help it.”“Well, well; go now,” cried Richard, impatiently; “and we will talk about that afterwards.”She rose to her feet slowly, clasping his hand in both her own, and gazing earnestly in his face, as if trying to read his thoughts; and they must have been plain to read, for, as if she saw in his face cruelty, treachery, and a repetition of her long sufferings, she dashed the hand away, and stood defying him once more, the former rage flashing in her eyes as she repeated her demand—“Give me my child!”“Go and wait for me there, then,” said Richard, sullenly.“I will never leave you till I have my child,” she exclaimed.Again the cruel, malignant look came into his face as Richard Pellet cursed laws, protection, everything that stayed him from crushing out the life that now rose in rebellion against him. He cursed his own hypocrisy, which now fettered him with chains such as stayed him from setting this burden at defiance and casting it off for ever.“I told you before that she was dead,” he now said, throwing himself back in his chair.“Dead—dead—dead!” echoed his wife, “and I told you it was a lie—a cruel lie—like those you have told me before. But she is not dead. She was too young, too beautiful to die. Why, I tried to die a hundred times there, in that cold, bare room, in the bitter winters, and I could not. She could not die. You have taken her away, and I will not be cheated again. She is not yours, but mine—mine—my very own. Give me my little one!” she cried, raising her voice.“Here! come with me, then, and you shall have her!” cried Richard, desperately; and snatching up an overcoat, and buttoning it closely over his breast, he led the way into the outer office. “Back in an hour,” he said abruptly; and then, closely followed by his unwelcome visitor, he passed into the street, called the first cab he encountered, and, after giving some instructions to the driver, he motioned to his wife to enter; but she refused until he had set the example, when, following him, she took the opposite seat, and the door was slammed, and the vehicle driven off.The clerks in the outer office suspended work as soon as the heavy door swung to, and began to give due attention to this strange visit, which was on all sides declared to be “a rum go,” when the door again opened, and Harry Clayton entered.“Mr Pellet returned?” he asked.“Been at the office again, sir; but he has just gone out with a lady. Said he would be back in an hour.”“I’ll wait,” said Harry, and he sat for an hour, and then for another, but still Richard did not return, so he left, and slowly sauntered towards London Bridge.“I don’t want to give him the opportunity of saying I avoided him,” thought Harry, and then his thoughts turned towards money matters, and the possibility of Richard being compelled to disgorge a portion of the money that should by rights have been Mrs Clayton’s son’s—he did not know that it was in his power to make him give up all. Then he began to wonder what sort of a reception he should meet with. The last encounter had been far from cordial, and since his mother’s funeral, Harry’s letters had been but few and far between.“I will see him, though,” said Harry, “if I follow him for a week.”

The clerk whose duty it was to show visitors into Richard Pellet’s private office ought to have been well paid, for he must have been a valuable acquisition to his employer. Doubtless it was the result of training—he was for ever supposing that “the firm” was engaged. It was so when Jared last called. It was so when Harry Clayton determined to try and make friends with the husband of his late mother, and appeared at the office door. And it was so when, an hour after, a plainly-dressed, pale-looking woman asked to see Mr Richard Pellet. But if, the clerk said, she would give her name, he would go and see.

“Ellen Pellet,” was the calm, quiet answer.

“Mrs Ellen Pellet?” queried the clerk.

“Yes,” was the reply.

The man stared, hesitated, went half-way to the inner office, returned, hesitated again, and then turned to go; while more than one head was raised from ledger or letter to exchange meaning looks, after a glance at the very unusual kind of visitor to Austin Friars.

“It ain’t my business,” muttered the clerk to himself, and passing down the little passage, he opened the private office door of the firm, heedless of a light, gliding step behind him, and announced Mrs Ellen Pellet.

“Who?” roared Richard Pellet, leaping from his seat, and glaring at the clerk.

“It is I,” said a quiet voice in the doorway, and Richard sank back pale and gasping in his seat.

For the visitor was already in the room.

“Oh yes! Ah, to be sure!” stammered Richard, striving hard to recover himself, with a miserable mask-like smile overspreading his features. “Glad to see you—sit down. That will do, Bailly; I’m engaged if any one should call.”

The clerk left the office, and closed the door, walking back to his stool with a prominence in one cheek which drew forth sundry winks from fellow-labourers in Pellet and Company’s money-mill. But the door of Richard Pellet’s private office was thick and baize-lined, and no inkling of the scene within reached the ears of the clerks.

No sooner had the door closed upon them, than the smile was driven from Richard’s face by a bitter scowl, and rising from his chair, he took two or three strides to where his visitor stood, hissing between his teeth—“Curse you! what brings you here?” Such a fierce aspect, accompanied as it was by threatening gestures, would have made many recoil; but Richard’s visitor stepped towards him, and caught him by the breast, exclaiming—

“I have been unhappy lately; I could not rest there. I want my child!”

“Curse your child!” cried Richard, in an angry whisper, and then, with a cowardly, back-handed blow, he sent the poor creature staggering against the wall; but her countenance hardly underwent a change, as, starting forward again, she caught him once more by the coat, repeating her words—

“I want my child!”

“How dare you come here?” he exclaimed, in a low, angry voice. “How dare you come here to disgrace and annoy me? How came you away from—from your lodging that I got for you?”

“I came away—I want my child!” was the only reply.

“There! hush! Don’t speak so loud!” said Richard, in an angry whisper, as he glanced uneasily at the door, and stepping to it, slipped into its socket a little brass bolt. “Did I not tell you never to come here? and did you not promise?”

“Yes, yes!” was the hoarse answer; “but I want, I will have, our little one. I have been to the man who had it—I found him out; but he would not give it to me. You have told him not. I could not rest for thinking about it. I want my child, and then we will go far away together.”

“Go and seek it where it has gone,” said Richard, brutally, almost beside himself with suppressed rage;—“it is dead!”

“It is a lie—a lie!” cried the woman, excitedly, her pale face flushing with anger. “That man told me the same; but he is in your pay, and you have hidden it from me.”

She clung to him now fiercely, clutching the ostentatiously-displayed smoothly-plaited shirt-front, and turning it into a crumpled rag.

“Hush! hush! For God’s sake, be still!” he exclaimed. “They will hear you in the outer office. I have not got the child; it died months ago.”

“It is a lie!” exclaimed the woman, more angrily. “You drove me mad once with your ill-treatment, but you shall not do it again.” Then, raising her voice—“I will have my child!”

As Richard Pellet’s face turned of a ghastly muddy hue, he glanced again and again at the door, his hands trembling with the cowardly rage that, under different circumstances, might have made the life of the woman before him—his wife—not worth a moment’s purchase. The coarse, heavy, insolent smile was gone; for he was attacked in his weakest point, and already in imagination he could see the side looks and laughter of his clerks, and hear the sneering innuendoes of fellow-men of his own stamp when there was a publicexposé, and Richard Pellet, the wealthy banker, who for the sake of money had kept his weak insane wife in obscurity for years, that he might commit bigamy for the fortune of the Widow Clayton, was arraigned for his offence against his country’s laws, and the story of his wife’s wrongs came forth.

What was he to do? He must get her away quietly—by subterfuge—he could lead her in one way he knew, and she would not believe the truth.

The scandal, after so many years lying hidden, would now most certainly be bruited abroad. Some men would have laughed it to scorn, and faced it with brazen effrontery; but Richard Pellet was a religious man—a patron of philanthropic societies—even now upon his table lay half-a-dozen annual reports with his name thereon as steward or committee-man, for all men to read. Why, his very sober beneficent look carried weight, and he was always placed in the front rank upon the platform at Exeter Hall meetings. In fact, in May, during the meetings, he adopted white cravats and frills. And now, in spite of money, care, secrecy, this matter would be spread abroad. He could hear it already; and to hide this example of his cruel love of greed, had he dared, and could have hidden the crime, he would have struck down the patient sufferer whom he had treated with such a mingling of cruelty and neglect, dead at his feet, with as little compunction as he had already shown in sending her staggering to the wall.

But the wife of long ago, whose reason had gone astray years before, the soft eyes, the pale face, and trembling lips were here no more; and Richard Pellet, as he shrank from her, felt himself to be almost helpless in the hands of one whose strength was augmented by her position, for he dared not raise his voice. He knew, too, that now the time had gone when he could command, and he must try subterfuge, and get her away abroad, where she would be safely kept. He blamed himself now that he had not placed her in an asylum, but he recalled his reason—it would have been too public a proceeding; and in these fleeting moments the question came, were the gold and position he had won worth the price that he had paid?

As he stood there in her grasp, his mind was made up, and he said quietly, “Sit down.”

“No—no—no!” was the hasty reply, as if she dreaded his influence. “I want my child: give me my child, and let me go.”

“But, Ellen, this is madness and folly,” he whispered. “You know it is not here. He told you that it was dead, did he?”

“Yes,” she cried, angrily; “but it was not true. You told him to say so. Where is she now?”

“Look here!” said Richard, writing an address upon a card—that of one of the boarding—houses in the neighbourhood. “Take this and go and wait there till I come, and we will go and see about it. But, for my sake, do not make a disturbance here—it would be ruin to me.”

The poor creature, half reft of her senses, gazed earnestly in his face for a few moments, while the angry light faded from her eye. In her tigress-like rage for her lost little one, if met by anger she was ready to dare, urged by her maternal instinct; but these gentle words disarmed her resentment, and falling on her knees at Richard Pellet’s feet, she burst into tears, sobbing as she begged of him to let her have her child.

“Yes, yes! you shall; only get up,” said Richard. “It shall all be made right, only go now.”

“Then you will give her to me?” she said, imploringly. “I will not say a word to any one about being your wife if you will give me my child. I know now why you shut me up there with Mrs Walls. I have thought it out: it was that you might marry some one rich; for I, when my head went, was not fit to be your wife. But I could not help it.”

“Well, well; go now,” cried Richard, impatiently; “and we will talk about that afterwards.”

She rose to her feet slowly, clasping his hand in both her own, and gazing earnestly in his face, as if trying to read his thoughts; and they must have been plain to read, for, as if she saw in his face cruelty, treachery, and a repetition of her long sufferings, she dashed the hand away, and stood defying him once more, the former rage flashing in her eyes as she repeated her demand—“Give me my child!”

“Go and wait for me there, then,” said Richard, sullenly.

“I will never leave you till I have my child,” she exclaimed.

Again the cruel, malignant look came into his face as Richard Pellet cursed laws, protection, everything that stayed him from crushing out the life that now rose in rebellion against him. He cursed his own hypocrisy, which now fettered him with chains such as stayed him from setting this burden at defiance and casting it off for ever.

“I told you before that she was dead,” he now said, throwing himself back in his chair.

“Dead—dead—dead!” echoed his wife, “and I told you it was a lie—a cruel lie—like those you have told me before. But she is not dead. She was too young, too beautiful to die. Why, I tried to die a hundred times there, in that cold, bare room, in the bitter winters, and I could not. She could not die. You have taken her away, and I will not be cheated again. She is not yours, but mine—mine—my very own. Give me my little one!” she cried, raising her voice.

“Here! come with me, then, and you shall have her!” cried Richard, desperately; and snatching up an overcoat, and buttoning it closely over his breast, he led the way into the outer office. “Back in an hour,” he said abruptly; and then, closely followed by his unwelcome visitor, he passed into the street, called the first cab he encountered, and, after giving some instructions to the driver, he motioned to his wife to enter; but she refused until he had set the example, when, following him, she took the opposite seat, and the door was slammed, and the vehicle driven off.

The clerks in the outer office suspended work as soon as the heavy door swung to, and began to give due attention to this strange visit, which was on all sides declared to be “a rum go,” when the door again opened, and Harry Clayton entered.

“Mr Pellet returned?” he asked.

“Been at the office again, sir; but he has just gone out with a lady. Said he would be back in an hour.”

“I’ll wait,” said Harry, and he sat for an hour, and then for another, but still Richard did not return, so he left, and slowly sauntered towards London Bridge.

“I don’t want to give him the opportunity of saying I avoided him,” thought Harry, and then his thoughts turned towards money matters, and the possibility of Richard being compelled to disgorge a portion of the money that should by rights have been Mrs Clayton’s son’s—he did not know that it was in his power to make him give up all. Then he began to wonder what sort of a reception he should meet with. The last encounter had been far from cordial, and since his mother’s funeral, Harry’s letters had been but few and far between.

“I will see him, though,” said Harry, “if I follow him for a week.”

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