"My dear Aunt Rob," said Dick, interrupting her, "no son could love a mother more than I love you. If I were base enough to harbour animosity towards you or yours I shouldn't deserve to live. There's the postman's knock!"
They both ran out for the letter. "It's from Florence--from Florence!" cried Aunt Rob.
"My Darling Mother and Father" (Florence wrote)--"I am writing a hurried line to relieve your anxiety, only to let you know that I am safe and well, and that I will write again to-morrow. When you know all I am sure you will forgive me. Never forget, dear Mother, what I said to you last night, that I have done nothing wrong. God bless you both. With my dearest, fondest love,
"Ever your faithful and affectionate daughter,
"Florence."
"If you see Dick, give him my love, and tell him all."
"That ought to satisfy you, Aunt Rob," said Dick. "She is safe, she is well. My love to Uncle Rob."
He kissed her, waved his hand, and was gone.
The fog had entirely disappeared, and the contrast between the weather of yesterday and that of to-day struck him as no less marked than the contrast between himself of yesterday and himself of to-day. Yesterday he was one of the idlest of young fellows, lounging about with his hands in his pockets, with no work to do, and no prospect of any. To-day the hours were not long enough for the work he had to perform. As there are sluggish horses which need but the whip to make them go like steam, so there are men who cannot work without a strong incentive. Dick was of this order, and the incentive which had presented itself was in its nature so stirring as to bring into play all his mental and physical resources. Thus spurred on, you might have searched London through without meeting his match.
The immediate object he had in view was to gain an entrance into the house of Samuel Boyd, and this must be done to-night. Whatever discoveries he made there, or if he made none, the ground would to some extent be cleared. To accomplish his purpose he required a rope, with a grapnel at the end of it, strong enough to bear a man's weight. His funds were low. Of the sovereign Uncle Rob had given him, 3s. 6d. had gone for a week's rent, and 2s. for food; he had 14s. 6d. left. Knowing that there was a chance of picking up in some second-hand shop a rope and grapnel for half the money which they would cost new, he turned down the meanest streets, where humble dealers strove to eke out a living. He passed a wardrobe shop in which male and female attire of the lowest kind was exposed for sale; a rag and bone shop, stuffed with articles fit for the dunghill, and over the door of which an Aunt Sally in a perpetual slate of strangulation was spinning round and round to the tune of a March wind; a fried fish shop through the window of which he saw a frowzy, perspiring woman frying penny pieces (heads), three halfpenny pieces (tails), and two penny pieces (middles); more wardrobe shops, more fried fish shops, more rag and bone shops, with black dolls spinning and strangling. In one of these he chanced upon the very thing he needed, and after a heated discussion with a dirty-faced old man in list slippers and a greasy skull cap, he issued from the fetid air within to the scarcely less fetid air without, with the rope and grapnel wrapped in the torn copy of an evening paper.