'I have to see a friend,' said Mr. Wogan, and they shook hands and parted.
'You will warn the Crow to be on the wing?' said Wogan over his shoulder, and the other nodded. Mr. Wogan could not but smile to think of the Crow winging an unsteady flight across the Channel. He managed to steer across, after all, thanks to Tyrell. Then Wogan read Lady Oxford's billet again, and he walked to Bury Street.
He knocked, and the door was opened by Mrs. Barnes.
'Mr. Johnson at home?'
'It would appear, Mr. Hilton, that I did not give satisfaction,' said Mrs. Barnes, whose aspect was of a severity.
'Give satisfaction?'
'Mr. Kelly has thought to better himself, and if he prefers bed-fellows such as shall be nameless, and the coals disappearing, and his letters pryed into, and if he thinks that I ever mention my gentlemen's affairs...!'
Here Mrs. Barnes threw her apron over her head, but gulps of lamentation escaped aloud, though her emotion was veiled like that of the Greek gentleman in the picture.
Mr. Wogan was not unpractised in the art of consoling Mrs. Barnes. He led her within, she was slowly induced to unshroud her pleasing features, and, at last, revealed the strange circumstance that Kelly had left her rooms two days before without giving in any sound justifying plea for this treason. Mr. Wogan, who was well aware of Mrs. Barnes's curiosity and the fluency of her tongue, was in no doubt as to the cause which had led the Parson to leave her, and thought the step in this posture of their affairs altogether prudent.
'But he will return,' he reassured her. 'What!--you know Mr. Johnson, he will never desert you.'