"Would it be decent to intrude at such a moment?"
"Decent!" Sharp was frantically endeavouring to button up his coat.
"D—n it, decent! Which is the way? My girl—my poor girl!"
"Show him," I contrived to say to Hanger, and he took the landlady's directions, while I passed my arm through Reuben Sharp's. We stumbled and blundered along in Hanger's footsteps, round muddy corners, past heaps of yellow ore, Sharp muttering and cursing and gesticulating by the way. We came suddenly to a halt at the little green door of a four-roomed cottage.
"Knock! knock!" Sharp shouted, pressing with his whole weight against the door. "Let me see her!—the villain!—Mounseer Glendore!—No, no, Herbert Daker!"
The power of observation is at its quickest in moments of intense excitement. I remember looking with the utmost calmness at Sharp's face and figure, as he stood gasping before the door of Herbert Daker's lodging. It was the head of a satyr in anger.
"Daker—Herbert Daker!" Sharp cried.
The door was suddenly thrown open, and an English clergyman, unruffled and full of dignity, stood in the entrance. Sharp was a bold, untutored man; but he dared not force his way past the priest.
"Quiet, gentlemen—be quiet. Step in—but quiet—quiet."
We were in the chamber of Matthew Glendore in a moment. A lady rose from the bedside. Humble, and yet stately, a white face with red and swollen eyelids, eyes with command in them. We were uncovered, and in an instant wholly subdued.