"I'll run up to town to-morrow and see Maitland, Hollis, Cripps about the whole matter. They've paid the money; they are the men to know all about it. Stop a moment! Hunt was clever enough to have an exact date for the marriage. What was it again?"
"October 22d, 1853."
"I think he said Chelsea parish church?"
"He did."
Claude scribbled a note of each point on his shirt-cuff.
"That's all I want," said he. "I'll run up by the first train, and back by the last. Meanwhile, take my word for it, you're as safe as the Queen upon her throne."
"And you?" said Jack.
"Oh, never mind me; I'm very well as I am."
Claude was fully conscious of his semi-heroic attitude; indeed he enjoyed it, as he had enjoyed many a less inevitable pose in his day. But that he could not help; and Jack was perhaps the last person in the world to probe beneath the surface of a kind action. His great hand found Claude's, and his deep voice quivered with emotion.
"I don't know how it is," he faltered, "but this thing has got at me more than I meant it to. Hark at that! Three o'clock; it'll be light before we know where we are; you won't leave a fellow till it is, will you? I'm in a funk! I've got to believe the worst till I know otherwise—that's all about it. The day I shan't mind tackling by myself, but for God's sake don't go and leave me to-night. You've got to go in the morning; stop the rest of the night out here with me. You shall have the bunk, and I'll doss down on the floor. I'll light the fire and brew a billy of tea this minute if only you'll stay with me now. Didn't you once say you'd have hold of my sleeve? And so you have had, old man, so you have had: only now's your time—more than ever."