"Now, John dear! Good night, May! Good night, Bertha!"
Could she kiss them? Could she be blithe and cheerful in her parting? Could she venture to reveal her face to them without a blush? Yes. Tackleton observed her closely, and she did all this.
Tilly was hushing the baby, and she crossed and recrossed Tackleton a dozen times, repeating drowsily:
"Did the knowledge that it was to be its wives, then, wring its hearts almost to breaking; and did its fathers deceive it from its cradles but to break its hearts at last!"
"Now, Tilly, give me the Baby! Good night, Mr. Tackleton. Where's John, for goodness' sake?"
"He's going to walk beside the horse's head," said Tackleton; who helped her to her seat.
"My dear John! Walk? To-night?"
The muffled figure of her husband made a hasty sign in the affirmative; and, the false stranger and the little nurse being in their places, the old horse moved off. Boxer, the unconscious Boxer, running on before, running back, running round and round the cart, and barking as triumphantly and merrily as ever.
When Tackleton had gone off likewise, escorting May and her mother home, poor Caleb sat down by the fire beside his daughter; anxious and remorseful at the core; and still saying, in his wistful contemplation of her, "Have I deceived her from her cradle, but to break her heart at last?"
The toys that had been set in motion for the Baby had all stopped and run down long ago. In the faint light and silence, the imperturbably calm dolls, the agitated rocking-horses with distended eyes and nostrils, the old gentlemen at the street-doors, standing half doubled up upon their failing knees and ankles, the wry-faced nut-crackers, the very Beasts upon their way into the Ark, in twos, like a Boarding-School out walking, might have been imagined to be stricken motionless with fantastic wonder at Dot being false, or Tackleton beloved, under any combination of circumstances.