"Why did not you?"
"Why? How could I? He would have recognized me. There would have been a scene,—a row, a flare up, a mob round us, I dare say. I had no idea it would so upset me; to see him selling matches too; glad we did not meet at Gatesboro'. Not even for that L100 do I think I could have faced him. No; as he said when we last parted, 'The world is wide enough for both.' Give me some brandy; thank you."
"You did not speak to the old man; he did not see you: but you wanted to get back the child; you felt sure she must be with him; you followed him home?"
"I? No; I should have had to wait for hours. A man like me, loitering about London Bridge! I should have been too conspicuous; he would have soon caught sight of me, though I kept on his blind side. I employed a ragged boy to watch and follow him, and here is the address. Now, will you get Sophy back for me without any trouble to me, without my appearing? I would rather charge a regiment of horse-guards than bully that old man."
"Yet you would rob him of the child,—his sole comfort?"
"Bother!" cried Losely, impatiently; "the child can be only a burden to him; well out of his way; 't is for the sake of that child he is selling matches! It would be the greatest charity we could do him to set him free from that child sponging on him, dragging him down; without her he'd find a way to shift for himself. Why, he's even cleverer than I am! And there—there; give him this money, but don't say it came from me."
He thrust, without counting, several sovereigns—at least twelve or fourteen—into Mrs. Crane's palm; and so powerful a charm has goodness the very least, even in natures the most evil, that that unusual, eccentric, inconsistent gleam of human pity in Jasper Losely's benighted soul shed its relenting influence over the angry, wrathful, and vindictive feelings with which Mrs. Crane the moment before regarded the perfidious miscreant; and she gazed at him with a sort of melancholy wonder. What! though so little sympathizing with affection that he could not comprehend that he was about to rob the old man of a comfort which no gold could repay; what though so contemptuously callous to his own child,—yet there in her hand lay the unmistakable token that a something of humanity, compunction, compassion, still lingered in the breast of the greedy cynic; and at that thought all that was softest in her own human nature moved towards him, indulgent, gentle. But in the rapid changes of the heart feminine, the very sentiment that touched upon love brought back the jealousy that bordered upon hate. How came he by so much money? more than days ago he, the insatiate spendthrift, had received for his task-work? And that POCKETBOOK!
"You have suddenly grown rich, Jasper."
For a moment he looked confused, but replied as he rehelped himself to the brandy, "Yes, rouge-et-noir,—luck. Now, do go and see after this affair, that's a dear good woman. Get the child to-day if you can; I will call here in the evening."
"Should you take her, then, abroad at once to this worthy lady who will adopt her? If so, we shall meet, I suppose, no, more; and I am assisting you to forget that I live still."