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CHAPTER XIII

Abbey Gardens, the street in front, was dark and all but deserted. Only a drunken woman went reeling along. But the dull buzz in the distance, and the white sheet in the sky, told that, somewhere near, the wild heart of the night beat high.

Hugh Ritson looked up at the heavy mass of the convent building as he crossed the street. The lights were already out, and all was dark within. He went on, but presently stopped by a sudden impulse, and looked again.

It was then he was aware that something moved in the deep portico. The lamp on the pavement sent a shaft of light on to the door, and there, under the gas-light, with the face turned from him, was the figure of a woman. She seemed to cast cautious and stealthy glances around, and to lift a trembling hand to the bell that hung above her. The hand fell to her side, but no ring followed. Once again the hand was lifted, and once again it fell back. Then the woman crept totteringly down the steps and turned to go.

Hugh Ritson recrossed the street. Amid all the turmoil of his soul, the incident had arrested him.

The woman was coming toward him. He put himself in her path. The light fell full upon her, and he saw her face.

It was Mercy Fisher.

With a low cry, the girl sunk back against the railings of the convent, and covered her face with her hands.

"Is it you, Mercy?" said Hugh.

She made no answer. Then she tried to steal away, but he held her with gentle force.

"Why did you leave Hendon?" he asked.

"You did not want me," said the girl, in a tone of unutterable pain. And still her face was buried in her hands.

He did not reply. He let her grief spend itself.

Just then a drunken woman reeled back along the pavement and passed them close, peering into their midst, and going by with a jarring laugh.

"What's he a-doing to ye, my dear, eh?" she said, jeeringly. "Sarve ye right!" she added, and laughed again. She was a draggled, battered outcast – a human ruin, such as night, the pander, flings away.

Mercy lifted her head. A dull, weary look was in her eyes.

"You know how I waited and waited," she said, "and you were so long in coming, so very long." She turned her eyes aside. "You did not want me; in your heart you did not want me," she said.

The wave of bitter memory drowned her voice. Not unmoved, he stood and looked at her, and saw the child-face wet with tears, and the night breeze of the city drift in her yellow hair.

"Where have you been since?" he said.

"A man going to market brought me up in his wagon. I fainted, and then he took me to his home. He lives close by, in the Horse and Groom Yard. His wife is bedridden, and such a good creature, and so kind to me. But they are poor, and I had no money, and I was afraid to be a burden to them; and besides – besides – "

"Well?"

"She saw that I was – she saw what was going to – being a woman, she knew I was soon – "

"Yes, yes," said Hugh, stopping another flood of tears with a light touch of the hand. "How red your eyes look. Are they worse?"

"The man was very good; he took me to the doctors at a hospital, and they said – oh, they said I might lose my sight!"

"Poor little Mercy!" said Hugh.

He was now ashamed of his own sufferings. How loud they had clamored awhile ago; yet, what were they side by side with this poor girl's tangible sorrows! Mere things of the air, with no reality.

"But no matter!" she burst out. "That's no matter."

"You must keep up heart, Mercy. I spoke angrily to you the other night, but it's over now, is it not?"

"Oh, why didn't you leave me alone?" said the girl.

"Hush, Mercy; it will be well with you yet." His own eyes were growing dim, but even then his heart was bitter. Had he not said in his wrath that passion was the demon of the world? He might say it in his sorrow, too. The simple heart of this girl loved him, even as his own lustier soul loved Greta. He had wronged her. But that was only a tithe of the trouble. If she could but return him hate for wrong, how soon everything would be right with her! "What brought you here, Mercy?"

"One of the sisters – they visit the sick – one of them visited the house where they gave me lodgings, and I heard that they sometimes took homeless girls into the convent. And I thought I was homeless, now, and – and – "

"Poor little woman!"

"I came the night before last, but saw your brother Paul walking here in front. So I went away."

"Paul?"

"Then I came last night, and he was here again. So I went away once more, and to-night I came earlier, and he wasn't here, but just as I was going to ring the bell, and say that I had no home, and that my eyes were growing worse, something seemed to say they would ask if I had a father, and why I had left him; and then I couldn't ring – and then I thought if only I could die – yes, if only I could die and forget, and never wake up again in the morning – "

"Hush, Mercy. You shall go back home to your father."

"No, no, no!"

"Yes; and I shall go with you."

There was silence. The bleared eyes looked stealthily up into his face. A light smile played there.

"Ah!"

A bright vision came to her of a fair day when, hand in hand with him she loved, she should return to her forsaken home in the mountains, and hold up her head, and wipe away her father's tears. She was in the dark street of the city, then; she and her home were very far apart.

He laughed inwardly at a different vision. In a grim spirit of humor he saw all his unquenchable passion conquered, and he saw himself the plain, homely, respectable husband of this simple wife.

"Was Paul alone when you saw him?" said Hugh.

"Yes. And would you tell them all?"

The girl's sidelong glance was far away.

"Mercy, I want you to do something for me."

"Yes, yes."

Again the sidelong glance.

Hugh lifted the girl's head with his hand to recall her wandering thoughts.

"Paul will come again to-night. I want you to wait for him and speak to him."

"Yes, yes; but won't he ask me questions?"

"What if he does? Answer them all. Only don't say that I have told you to speak to him. Tell him – will you remember it? – are you listening? – look me in the face, little woman."

"Yes, yes."

"Tell him that Mr. Christian – Parson Christian, you know – has come to London and wishes to see him at once. Say he has looked for him at the hotel in Regent Street and not found him there, and is now at the inn in Hendon. Will you remember?"

"Yes."

"Where were you going, Mercy – back to your poor friends?"

"No. But will he be sure to come to-night?"

"No doubt. At what time was he here last night?"

"Ten o'clock."

"It is now hard on nine. Tell him to go to Hendon at once, and when he goes, you go with him. Do you understand?"

"Yes."

"Don't forget – to-night; to-morrow night will not do. If he does not come, you must follow me to Hendon and tell me so. I shall be there. Don't tell him that – do you hear?"

The girl gave a meek assent.

"And now good-bye for an hour or two, little one."

He turned away, and she was left alone before the dark convent. But, she was not all alone. A new-born dream was with her, and her soul was radiant with light.

CHAPTER XIV

Hugh Ritson walked rapidly through Dean's Yard in the direction of the sanctuary. As he turned into Parliament Street the half moon rose above the roof of Westminster Hall. But the night was still dark.

He passed through Trafalgar Square and into the Haymarket. The streets were thronged. Crowds on crowds went languidly by. Dim ghosts of men and women, most of them, who loitered at this hour in these streets. Old men, with the souls long years dead within them, and the corruption reeking up with every breath to poison every word, or lurking like charnel lights in the eyes to blink contagion in every glance. Young girls hopping like birds beside them, the spectres of roses in their cheeks, but the real thorns at their hearts. There had been no way for them but this – this and one other way: either to drift into the Thames and be swallowed up in the waters of death, or to be carried along for a brief minute on the froth of the waves of life.

Laughing because they might not weep; laughing because their souls were dead; laughing in their conscious travesty of the tragedy of pleasure – they tripped and lounged and sauntered along. And the lamps shone round them, and above them was the glimmering moon.

As Hugh Ritson went up the steep Haymarket, his infirmity became more marked, and he walked with a sliding gait. Seeing this, a woman who stood there halted and limped a few paces by his side, and pretending not to see him, shouted with a mocking laugh, "What is it – a man or a bat?"

How the wild, mad heart of the night leaped up!

A man passed through the throng with eyes that seemed to see nothing of its frantic frenzy and joyless joy – a stalwart man, who strode along like a giant among midgets, his vacant eyes fixed before him, his strong white face expressionless. Hugh Ritson saw him. They passed within two paces, but without recognition. The one was wandering aimlessly in his blind misery toward the Convent of St. Margaret, the other was making for the old inn at Hendon.

An hour later Hugh Ritson was standing in the bar of the Hawk and Heron. His mind was made up; his resolve was fixed; his plan was complete.

"Anybody with him?" he said to the landlady, motioning toward the stairs.

"Not as I knows on, sir, but he do seem that restless and off his wittals, and I don't know as I quite understands why – "

Hugh Ritson stopped her garrulous tongue. "I have found the girl. She will come back to you to-night, Mrs. Drayton. If she brings with her the gentleman who left these boxes in your care, take him to your son's bedroom and tell him the person he wishes to see has arrived, and will be with him directly."

With this he went up the stairs. Then, calling down, he added: "The moment he is in the room come up and tell me."

A minute later he called again: "Where's the key to this door? Let me have it."

The landlady hobbled up with the key to Drayton's bedroom; the room was empty and the door stood open. Hugh Ritson tried the key in the lock and saw that the wards moved freely. "That will do," he said, in a satisfied tone.

The old woman was hobbling back. Hugh was standing in thought, with head bent, and the nail of his forefinger on his cheek.

"By the way, Mrs. Drayton," he said, "you should get the girl to help you a little sometimes."

"Lor's, sir, I never troubles her, being as she's like a visitor."

"Nonsense, Mrs. Drayton. She's young and hearty, and your own years are just a little past their best, you know. How's your breathing to-day – any easier?"

"Well, I can't say as it's a mort better, neither, thanking you the same, sir," and a protracted fit of coughing bore timely witness to the landlady's words.

"Ah! that's' a bad bout, my good woman."

"Well, it is, sir; and I get no sympathy, neither – leastways not from him as a mother might look to – in a manner of speaking."

"Bethink you. Is there nothing the girl can do for you when she comes? Nothing wanted? No errand?"

"Well, sir, taking it kindly, sir, there's them finings in the cellar a-wants doing bad, and the boy as ought to do 'em, he's that grumpysome, as I declare – "

"Quite right, Mrs. Drayton. Send the girl down to them the moment she comes in, and keep her down until bed-time."

"Thank you, sir! I'm sure I takes it very kind and thoughtful of a gentleman to say as much, and no call, neither."

The landlady shuffled down-stairs, wagging gratefully her dense old noddle; the thoughtful gentleman left the key of Drayton's room in the lock on the outside of the door, and ascended a ladder that went up from the end of the passage. He knocked at a door at the top. At first there was no answer. A dull shuffling of feet could be heard from within. "Come, open the door," said Hugh, impatiently.

The door was opened cautiously. Drayton stood behind it. Hugh Ritson entered. There was no light in the room; the red, smoking wick of a tallow candle, newly extinguished, was filling the air with its stench.

"You take care of yourself," said Hugh. "Let us have a light."

Drayton went down on his knees in the dark, fumbled on the floor for a box of lucifers, and relighted the candle. He was in his shirt-sleeves.

"Cold without your coat, eh?" said Hugh. A sneer played about his lips.

Without answering, Drayton turned to a mattress that lay in the gloom of one corner, lifted it, took up a coat that lay under it, and put it on. It was the ulster with the torn lapel.

Hugh Ritson followed Drayton's movements, and laughed slightly. "Men like you are always cautious in the wrong place," he said. "Let them lay hands on you, and they won't be long finding your – coat." The last word had a contemptuous dig of emphasis.

"Damme if I won't burn it, for good and all," muttered Drayton. His manner was dogged and subdued.

"No, you won't do that," said Hugh, and he eyed him largely. The garret was empty save for the mattress and the blanket that lay on it, and two or three plates, with the refuse of food, on the floor. It was a low room, with a skylight in the rake of the roof, which sloped down to a sharp angle. There was no window. The walls were half timbered, and had once been plastered, but the laths were now bare in many places.

"Heard anything?" said Drayton, doggedly.

"Yes; I called and told the police sergeant that I thought I was on the scent."

"What? No!"

The two men looked at each other – Drayton suspicious, Hugh Ritson with amused contempt.

"Tell you what, you don't catch me hobnobbing with them gentry," said Drayton, recovering his composure.

Hugh Ritson made no other answer than a faint smile. As he looked into the face of Drayton, he was telling himself that no man had ever before been at the top of such a situation as that of which he himself was then the master. Here was a man who was the half-brother of Greta, and the living image of her husband. Here was a man who, despite vague suspicions, did not know his own identity. Here was a man over whom hung an inevitable punishment. Hugh Ritson smiled at the daring idea he had conceived of making this man personate himself.

"Drayton," he said, "I mean to stand your friend in this trouble."

"Tell you again, the best friend to me is the man as helps me to make my lucky."

"You shall do it, Drayton, this very night. Listen to me. That man, my brother, as they call him – Paul Ritson, as his name goes – is not my father's son. He is the son of my mother by another man, and his true name is Paul Lowther."

"I don't care what his true name is, nor his untrue, neither. It ain't nothing to me, say I, and no more is it."

"Would it be anything to you to inherit five thousand pounds?"

"What?"

"Paul Lowther is the heir to as much. What would you say if I could put you in Paul Lowther's place, and get you Paul Lowther's inheritance?"

"Eh? A fortune out of hand – how?"

"The way I described before."

There was a slight scraping sound, such as a rat might have made in burrowing behind the partition.

"What's that?" said Drayton, his face whitening, and his watchful eyes glancing toward the door. "A key in the lock?" he whispered.

"Tut! isn't your own key on the inside?" said Hugh Ritson.

Drayton hung his head in shame at his idle fears.

"I know – I haven't forgot," he muttered, covering his discomfiture.

"It's a pity to stay here and be taken, when you might as easily be safe," said Hugh.

"So it is," Drayton mumbled.

"And go through penal servitude for life, when another man might do it for you," added Hugh, with a ghostly smile.

"I ain't axing you to say it over. What's that?" Drayton cowered down. The bankrupt garret had dropped a cake of its rotten plaster. Hugh Ritson moved not a muscle; only the sidelong glance told of his contempt for the hulking creature's cowardice.

"The lawyer who has charge of this legacy is my friend and comrade," he said, after a moment's silence. "We should have no difficulty in that quarter. My mother is – Well, she's gone. There would be no one left to question you. If you were only half shrewd the path would be clear."

"What about her?"

"Greta? She would be your wife."

"My wife?"

"In name. You would go back, as I told you, and say: 'I, whom you have known as Paul Ritson, am really Paul Lowther, and therefore the half-brother of the woman with whom I went through the ceremony of marriage. This fact I learned immediately on reaching London. I bring the lady back as I found her, and shall ask that the marriage – which is no marriage – be annulled. I deliver up to the rightful heir, Hugh Ritson, the estates of Allan Ritson, and make claim to the legacy left me by my father, Robert Lowther.' This is what you have to say and do, and every one will praise you for an honest and upright man."

"Very conscientious, no doubt; but what about him?"

"He will then be Paul Drayton, and a felon."

Drayton chuckled. "And what about her?"

"If he is in safe keeping, she will count for nothing."

"So I'm to be Paul Lowther."

"You are to pretend to be Paul Lowther."

"I told you afore, as it won't go into my nob, and no more it will," said Drayton, scratching his head.

"You shall have time to learn your lesson; you shall have it pat," said Hugh Ritson. "Meantime – "

At that instant Drayton's eyes were riveted on the skylight with an affrighted stare.

"Look yonder!" he whispered.

"What?"

"The face on the roof!"

Hugh Ritson plucked up the candle and thrust it over his head and against the glass. "What face?" he said, contemptuously.

Again Drayton's head fell in shame at his abject fear.

There was a shuffling footstep on the ladder outside. Drayton held his head aside, and listened. "The old woman," he mumbled. "What now? Supper, I suppose."

CHAPTER XV

At that moment there was a visitor in the bar down-stairs. He was an elderly man, with shaggy eyebrows and a wizened face; a diminutive creature with a tousled head of black and gray. It was Gubblum Oglethorpe. The mountain peddler had traveled south to buy chamois leather, and had packed a great quantity of it into a bundle, like a panier, which he carried over one arm.

Since the wedding at Newlands, three days ago, Gubblum's lively intelligence had run a good deal on his recollection of the man resembling Paul Ritson, whom he had once seen in Hendon. He had always meant to settle for himself that knotty question. So here, on his first visit to London, he intended to put up at the very inn about which the mystery gathered.

"How's ta rubbun on?" he said, by way of salute on entering. When Mrs. Drayton had gone upstairs she had left the pot-boy in charge of the bar. He was a loutish lad of sixteen, and his name was Jabez.

Jabez slowly lifted his eyes from the pewters he was washing, and a broad smile crossed his face. Evidently the new-comer was a countryman.

"Cold neet, eh? Sharp as a step-mother's breath," said Gubblum, throwing down the panier and drawing up to the fire.

The smile on the face of Jabez broadened perceptibly, and he began to chuckle.

"What's ta snertan at, eh?" said Gubblum. "I say it's hot weather varra. Hasta owt agenn it?"

Jabez laughed outright. Clearly the countryman must be crazy.

"What's yon daft thingamy aboot?" thought Gubblum. Then aloud, "Ay, my lad, gie us a laal sup o' summat."

Jabez found his risible faculties sorely disturbed by this manner of speech. But he proceeded to fill a pewter. The pot-boy's movements resembled those of a tortoise in celerity.

"He's a stirran lad, yon," thought Gubblum. "He's swaddering like a duck in a puddle."

"Can I sleep here to-neet?" he asked, when Jabez had brought him his beer.

Then the sapient smile on the pot-boy's face ripened into speech.

"I ain't answering for the sleeping," said Jabez, "but happen you may have a bed – he, he, he! I'll ask the missis – he, he, haw!"

"The missis? Hasta never a master, then?" said Gubblum.

Now, Jabez had been warned, with many portentous threats, that in the event of any one asking for the master he was to be as mute as the grave. So in answer to the peddler's question he merely shook his wise head and looked grave and astonishingly innocent.

"No? And how lang hasta been here?"

"Three years come Easter," said Jabez.

"And how lang dusta say 'at missis has been here?"

"Missis? I heard father say as Mistress Drayton has kep' the Hawk and Heron this five-and-twenty year."

"Five-and-twenty! Then I reckon that master would be no'but a laal wee barn when she coomt first," said Gubblum.

"Happen he were," said Jabez. Then, recovering the caution so unexpectedly disturbed, Jabez protested afresh that he had no master.

"It's slow wark suppen buttermilk wi' a pitchfork," thought Gubblum, and he proceeded to employ a spoon.

"Sista, my lad, wadsta like me to lend thee a shilling?"

Jabez grinned, and closed his fat fist on the coin thrust into his palm.

"I once knew a man as were the varra spitten picter of your master," said Gubblum. "In fact, his varra sel', upsett'n and doon thross'n. I thowt it were hissel', that's the fact. But when I tackled him he threept me down, and I was that vexed I could have bitten the side out of a butter-bowl."

"But I ain't got no master," protested Jabez.

"I were riding by on my laal pony that day, but now I'm going shankum naggum," continued Gubblum, unmindful of the pot-boy's mighty innocent look. "'A canny morning to you, Master Paul,' I shouted, and on I went."

"Then you know his name?" said Jabez, opening wide his drowsy eyes.

"'Master Paul's half his time frae home,' says the chap on t'road. 'Coorse he is,' I says: 'it's me for knowing that,' Ah, I mind it same as it were yesterday. I looked back, and there he was standing at the door, and he just snitit his nose wi' his finger and thoom. Ey, he did, for sure."

Jabez found his conscience abnormally active at that moment. "But I ain't got none," he protested afresh.

"None what?"

"No master."

"That's a lie, my lad, for I see he's been putten a swine ring on yer snout to keep ye frae rooting up the ground."

After this Gubblum sat a good half-hour in silence. Mrs. Drayton came down-stairs and arranged that Gubblum should sleep that night in the house. His bedroom was to be a little room at the back, entered from the vicinity of the ladder that led to the attics.

Gubblum got up, said he was tired, and asked to be shown to his room. Jabez lighted a candle, and they went off together.

"Whereiver does that lead to?" said Gubblum, pointing to the ladder near his bedroom door.

"I dunno," said Jabez, moodily. He had been ruminating on Gubblum's observation about the swine ring.

"He's as sour as vargis," thought Gubblum.

There was the creak of a footstep overhead.

"Who sleeps in the pigeon loft?" Gubblum asked, tipping his finger upward.

"I dunno," repeated Jabez.

"His dander's up," thought Gubblum.

Just then the landlady in the bar heard the sound of wheels on the road, and the next moment a carriage drew up at the open door.

"I say there, lend a hand here, quick!" shouted the driver.

Mrs. Drayton hobbled up. The flyman was leaning through the door of the fly, helping some one to alight.

"Take a' arm, missy; there, that's the size of it. Now, sir, down, gently."

The person assisted was a man. The light from the bar fell on his face, and the landlady saw him clearly. It was Paul Ritson. He was flushed, and his eyes were bloodshot. Behind him was Mercy Fisher, with recent tears on her cheeks.

"Oh, he's ill, Mrs. Drayton," said Mercy.

Paul freed one of his arms from the grasp of the girl, waved with a gesture of deprecation, smiled a jaunty smile, and said:

"No, no, no; let me walk; I'm well – I'm well."

With this he made for the house, but before he had taken a second step he staggered and fell against the door-jamb.

"Deary me, deary me, the poor gentleman's taken badly," said Mrs. Drayton, fussing about.

Paul Ritson laughed a little, lifted his red eyes, and said:

"Well, well! But it's nothing. Just dizzy, that's all. And thirsty – very – give me a drink, good woman."

"Bring that there bench up, missy, and we'll put him astride it," said the driver. "Right; that's the time o' day. Now, sir, down."

"Deary me, deary me, drink this, my good gentleman. It'll do you a mort o' good. It's brandy."

"Water – bring me water," said Paul Ritson, feebly; "I'm parched."

"How hot his forehead is," said Mercy.

"And no light 'un to lift, neither," said the driver. "Does he live here, missis?"

Mrs. Drayton brought a glass of water. Paul drained it to the last drop.

"No, sir; I mean yes, driver," said the landlady, confusedly.

"He warn't so bad getting in," the driver observed.

"Oh, dear, oh, dear! where is Mr. Christian – Parson Christian?" said Mercy, whose distracted eyes wandered around.

"The gentleman's come, sir; he's upstairs, sir," said the landlady, and, muttering to herself, Mrs. Drayton hobbled away.

Paul Ritson's head had fallen on his breast. His hat was off, and his hair tumbled over his face. The strong man sat coiled up on the bench. Then he shook himself and threw up his head, as if trying to cast off the weight of stupor that sat on him.

"Well, well! who'd have thought of this? Water – more water!" he mumbled in a thick voice.

Mercy stood before him with a glass in her hand.

"Is it good for him, I wonder?" she said. "Oh, where is Mr. Christian?"

Paul Ritson saw the glass, clutched at it with both hands, then smiled a poor, weak smile, as if to atone for his violence, and drank every drop.

"Well, well! – so hot – and dizzy – and cold!" he muttered, incoherently.

Then he relapsed into silence. After a moment, the driver, who was supporting him at the back, looked over at his face. The eyes were closed, and the lips were hanging.

"He's gone off unconscious," said the flyman. "Ain't ye got a bed handy?"

At that moment Mrs. Drayton came hastily down-stairs, in a fever of agitation.

"You've got to get him up to his room," she said, between gusts of breath.

"That's a job for two men, ain't it, missis?" said the driver.

Mercy had loosened Paul's collar, and with a nervous hand she was bathing his burning forehead.

"Oh, tell Mr. Christian," she said; "say he has fainted."

Mrs. Drayton hobbled back. In another instant there was a man's step descending the stairs. Hugh Ritson entered the bar. He looked down at the unconscious man and felt his pulse. "When did this happen?" he asked, turning to Mercy.

"He said he was feeling ill when I met him; then he was worse in the train, and when we reached Hendon he was too dizzy to stand," said Mercy.

"His young woman, ain't it?" said the flyman, aside, to Hugh.

Hugh nodded his head slightly. Then, turning toward Mrs. Drayton, with a significant glance, "Your poor son is going to be ill," he said.

The landlady glanced back with a puzzled expression, and began in a blundering whimper, "The poor gentleman – "

"The old lady's son?" said the flyman, tipping his finger in the direction of the landlady.

"Paul Drayton," said Hugh.

Mercy saw and heard all. The tears suddenly dried in her eyes, which opened wide in amazement. She said nothing.

Hugh caught the altered look in her face.

"Mrs. Drayton," he said, "didn't you say you had something urgent for Mercy to do? Let her set about it at once. Now, driver, lend a hand – upstairs; it's only a step."

They lifted Paul Ritson between them, and were carrying him out of the bar.

"Where's the boy?" asked Hugh. "Don't let him get in the way. Boys are more hindrance than help," he added, in an explanatory tone.

They had reached the foot of the stair. "Now, my man, easy – heavy, eh? rather."

They went up. Mercy stood in the middle of the floor with a tearless and whitening face.

Half a minute later Hugh Ritson and the flyman had returned to the bar. The phantom of a smile lurked about the flyman's mouth. Hugh Ritson's face was ashen, and his lips quivered.

The boxes and portmanteaus which Paul and Greta had left in the bar three nights ago still lay in one corner. Hugh pointed them out to the driver. "Put them on top of the cab," he said. The flyman proceeded to do so.

When the man was outside the door, Hugh Ritson turned to Mrs. Drayton. The landlady was fussing about, twitching her apron between nervous fingers. "Mrs. Drayton," said Hugh, "you will go in this fly to the Convent of St. Margaret, Westminster. There you will ask for Mrs. Ritson, the lady who was here on Friday night. You will tell her that you have her luggage with you, and that she is to go with you to St. Pancras Station to meet her husband, and return to Cumberland by the midnight train. You understand?"

"I can't say as I do, sir, asking pardon, sir. If so be as the lady axes why her husband didn't come for her hisself – what then?"

"Then say what is true – nothing more, Mrs. Drayton."

"And happen what may that be, sir?"

"That her husband is ill – but mind – not seriously."

"Oh, well, I can speak to that, sir, being as I saw the poor gentleman."

Mrs. Drayton was putting on her bonnet and shawl. The flyman had fixed the luggage on top of the cab, and was standing in the bar, whip in hand.

"A glass for the driver," said Hugh. Mrs. Drayton moved toward the counter. "No, you get into the cab, Mrs. Drayton; Mercy will serve."

Mercy went behind the counter and served the liquor in an absent manner.

"It's now ten-thirty," said Hugh, looking at his watch. "You will drive first to the convent, Westminster, and from there to St. Pancras, to catch the train at twelve."

Saying this, he walked to the door and put his head through the window of the cab. The landlady was settling herself in her seat. "Mrs. Drayton," he whispered, "you must not utter a syllable about your son when you see the lady. Mind that. You understand?"

"Well, sir, I can't say – being as I saw the gentleman – wherever's Paul?"

"Hush!"

The driver came out. He leaped to his seat. In another moment the cab rattled away.

Hugh Ritson walked back into the house. The boy Jabez had come down-stairs. "When do you close the house?" Hugh asked.

"Eleven o'clock, sir," said Jabez.

"No one here – you might almost as well close now. No matter – go behind the bar, my lad. Mercy, your eyes are more inflamed than ever; get away to bed immediately."