"We will go there to-morrow; there will be little sleep for us to-night, Corrie. As regards Annette do you draw any conclusions about her character--for the Child and the woman are frequently at odds with one another--from the incident of the bird?"
"I do; Master Basil. I draw the sign of constancy. None but a constant nature would have kept the bird so long, would have valued it so long, would have taught it new words.
"New words!"
"Yes, Master Basil. If it said 'dear Basil' once, it said it twenty times while the woman and I were talking. When I gave the bird to little lady it couldn't say 'dear,' so she must have taught the lesson with her own pretty lips. A straw will tell which way the wind blows."
"Thank you, Corrie. When you have heard me out you will understand what all this means to me." The recital of his adventures occupied him over an hour, and Corrie listened with bent brows and without a single word of interruption. His pipe went out, and he made no attempt to relight it; the only movement he made was to turn his head occasionally, as though something Basil had just said had inspired a new thought. Basil brought his narrative down to this very night, and paused only when he came to where Old Corrie accosted him at the street door. "What do you think of it, Corrie?" he asked, when he had finished. "It is wonderful," said Corrie. "My story is but a molehill by the side of your mountain. There's no time to lose, Master Basil; a day, an hour, may be precious, if little lady is to be saved."
"No time shall be lost," said Basil; "an hour's rest in our clothes after we've done talking, and at daybreak we are off to see how soon and how quickly we can get to Bournemouth. There is a question I haven't asked you. How long is it since you were in Bournemouth?"
"It must be six months, quite; but I kept no account of time. What a fool I was not to go back and see Emily Crawford!"
"We'll waste no time in lamenting. What is past is past, and no man can foresee what is in the future. Do you see, now, how important your evidence is likely to be to me? Without it I might be compelled to pass through life bearing the shameful name of the villain who betrayed me. Corrie, there are anxious and dreaded possibilities in the future to which I dare not give utterance. I can only hope and work. Now let us rest."
He wanted Corrie to take his bed, but Corrie refused, and, throwing himself on the floor, was soon asleep. Not so Basil; the events of the night had been too exciting for forgetfulness, and though he dozed off now and then, his brain did not rest a moment. He was none the worse for it in the morning; despite the trials he had undergone his naturally strong constitution asserted itself and enabled him to bear more than an ordinary amount of fatigue. The moment he arose from his bed Old Corrie jumped to his feet as brisk as a lark.
"I'm a new man, Master Basil," he said; "the prospect of something to do is as good as wine to me. There's no curse like the curse of idleness."