“Well, you see, Charles,” said the gipsy, “we’ve all got our weak places. The most callous cove as ever lived finds that out some time or another, though maybe he don’t care to confess it, and somehow or another I aint come off scot-free. The lady as called on you was, when I first knew her, one of the purtiest creatures as ever broke the bread of life. I met her when she warn’t but a wee bit of a thing, a chit of a girl, as one might say—and—to meet her was to love her.”
“Oh, scissors! it came to that—did it? What you, Bill the gipsy, fall in love with a ladylike person such as she appears to be?”
“It doesn’t seem natural, does it?” returned Rawton; “and now nobody would b’lieve it; perhaps can’t quite b’lieve it myself. But mind yer, she aint nuffin to me, nor has been for more than—well, getting on for twenty year. I hadn’t set eyes on her for all that time, nor she me—supposed her to be dead—I had been dead to her for ever so long a time. Well, you see, Charlie, lately, by the merest accident in the world, I met with her. She was at this time the wife of that doctor chap named Bourne, and I was well-nigh upsetting the apple cart when I got acquainted with old Gallipot. I wished myself at Jericho—in quod—anywhere, rather than where I was.”
“What harm did you do, then?”
“A goodish bit of harm—that is, I might have done, but as matters turned out, there wasn’t much call for grumbling, though it was a narrow squeak.”
“I’m blessed if I know what you’re driving at, Bill, and that’s the truth. You’re getting into a fog, and no mistake.”
“No I aint, I sees my way clear enough.”
“Glad you do. It’s more than I can. How was it that you were so near upsetting the apple-cart?”
“Cause Gallipot was a varmint, a bad un, and wanted an excuse to get rid of his wife—that’s why—don’t you see?”
“Not just at present.”