It was using him extremely ill to treat his letter with so much contempt. He was never more near being very angry in his life. It was strange that Elsie Melville, whose manner was so remarkably gentle and winning, should on two important occasions have treated him with such marked discourtesy. No doubt, his letter was not worth very much in itself; but to him it was great consequence. If she wanted a month for consideration, why not write and tell him so? Or, if she feared to commit herself, she might have got Jane to write. Could she have taken the fever? That was a solution—but a very sad one—of her conduct. Jane would have certainly written in that case if she had not got the fever too. He would alter his plans: he would go back overland; or, rather, he would sail up the Murray, and not pass through Melbourne at all. So he took his passage and Edgar's by one of the Murray steamers, and felt that if he was not a very ill-used man, he ought to feel a very unhappy one.
Chapter II.
Mrs. Peck
In a poor-looking room of a small wayside public-house, about twenty miles out of Adelaide, were seated one evening, shortly after Brandon's departure up the Murray, a man and a woman, neither of them young or handsome or respectable-looking. If they had been so once they had outgrown them all. The woman certainly had what is called the remains of a fine woman about her, but her face had so many marks of care, of evil passions, and of irregular living, that it was perhaps more repulsive than if it had been absolutely plain in features; her dress was slatternly and ill-fitting, her gray hair untidily gathered under a dingy black cap, with bright, though soiled yellow flowers stuck in it; her eyes, which had still some brightness, had a fierce, hungry expression; and the very hands, thin and long, and with overgrown nails, had less the appearance of honest work than of dishonest rapacity. The man was a rougher-looking person, more blackguardly, perhaps, in appearance, but not so dangerous. He had been at the nearest post-office, and brought a letter addressed to Mrs. Peck, which the woman tore open and read with impatient eagerness.
"This is from Mr. Talbot at last," said the man. "Long looked for—come at last. I hopes as how it is worth waiting for."
"Worth waiting for!" said she, stamping on the letter with her foot, and standing up, with such a look of frenzy that her companion moved a little out of the way. "Hang him, and his clients too!"
"Won't this man come down with the ready, Liz? Does he send to make inquiries? A cool hand—cooler than the old man. Won't out with the blunt till he knows what he's paying for."
"It's not about him at all," said Mrs. Peck. "Not a word has he ever said, good or bad—taken no notice of my letters, no more nor if I had not been such a mother to him. I should have had an answer to my second letter by this time, and I know it was directed all right; he must have got them both. I'll have it out of him, though. I'll have my revenge, as sure as I am a living woman."
"Don't go into such a scot, woman. Then, if it is not from young Cross Hall, what has that lawyer said to put you into such a tantrum?"