'Do you think Jim Naldret would like to see his son talking to Saul Fielding?'
'No, I don't suppose he would,' he replies quietly; 'but for all that, I shall do George no harm. I would lay down my life to serve him. You don't know what binds me and George together. And he is going away soon--how soon, Mrs. Naldret?'
'In a very few days,' she answers, with a sob in her throat.
'God speed him! Ask him to see me before he goes, will you, Mrs. Naldret?'
'Yes, I will, Saul; and thank you a thousand times for the good feeling you show to him.'
'Tell him that I have joined the waits, and that he will hear my flute among them any night this week. I'll manage so that we don't go away from this neighbourhood till he bids good-bye to it.'
'Joined the waits!' she exclaims. 'Good Lord! Have you come to that?'
'That's pretty low, isn't it?' he says, with a light laugh, and with a dash of satire in his tone. 'But, then, you know--playing the flute--is one of my gifts--(I learnt it myself when I was a boy)--and if s the only thing I can get to do. Is there any tune you're very fond of, and would like to hear as you lie a-bed? If there is, we'll play it.'
'If you could play a tune to keep George at home,' says Mrs. Naldret, 'that's the tune I'd like to hear.'
'Your old Gospel of contentment, Mrs. Naldret,' he remarks.