"But the boy, Mr. T.?"
"I have my child. Yes,—I have my child. Poor infant. Bozzle, I look to you to see that none of them learn our retreat."
"As for that, Mr. Trewillian,—why facts is to be come at by one party pretty well as much as by another. Now, suppose the things was changed, wicey warsey,—and as I was hacting for the Colonel's party."
"D—— the Colonel!" exclaimed Trevelyan.
"Just so, Mr. Trewillian; but if I was hacting for the other party, and they said to me, 'Bozzle,—where's the boy?' why, in three days I'd be down on the facts. Facts is open, Mr. Trewillian, if you knows where to look for them."
"I shall take him abroad,—at once."
"Think twice of it, Mr. T. The boy is so young, you see, and a mother's 'art is softer and lovinger than anything. I'd think twice of it, Mr. T., before I kept 'em apart." This was a line of thought which Mr. Bozzle's conscience had not forced him to entertain to the prejudice of his professional arrangements; but now, as he conversed with his employer, and became by degrees aware of the failure of Trevelyan's mind, some shade of remorse came upon him, and made him say a word on behalf of the "other party."
"Am I not always thinking of it? What else have they left me to think of? That will do for to-day. You had better come down to me to-morrow afternoon." Bozzle promised obedience to these instructions, and as soon as his patron had started he paid the bill, and took himself home.
Lady Rowley, as she travelled back to her house in Manchester Street, almost made up her mind that the separation between her daughter and her son-in-law had better be continued. It was a very sad conclusion to which to come, but she could not believe that any high-spirited woman could long continue to submit herself to the caprices of a man so unreasonable and dictatorial as he to whom she had just been listening. Were it not for the boy, there would, she felt, be no doubt upon the matter. And now, as matters stood, she thought that it should be their great object to regain possession of the child. Then she endeavoured to calculate what would be the result to her daughter, if in very truth it should be found that the wretched man was mad. To hope for such a result seemed to her to be very wicked;—and yet she hardly knew how not to hope for it.
"Well, mamma," said Emily Trevelyan, with a faint attempt at a smile, "you saw him?"