A little later Stewart Routh made certain changes in his dress, very carefully, and departed from Tokenhouse-yard in a hansom, looking as unlike a man with any cares, business or other kind, upon his mind as any gentleman in all London. "Queen's-gate, Kensington," he said to the driver; and the last words of the letter, daintily sealed, and written on board-like paper, which was in his breast-pocket at that moment, were:
"I will wait for you in the carriage at Queen's-gate."
"I'm glad I see'd that 'ere letter," said Jim Swain to himself, as, deeply preoccupied by the circumstances of the preceding day, he faced towards Routh's house, "because when I put Mr. Dallas on this here lay, I needn't let out as I spied 'em home. I can 'count for knowin' on the place permiskus." And then, from an intricate recess of his dirty pocket, much complicated with crumbs and fragments of tobacco, Jim pulled out a crumpled scrap of paper. "Teddy wrote it down quite right," he said, and he smoothed out the paper, and transferred it, for safer keeping, to his cap, in which he had deposited the missive with which he was charged.
When Jim Swain arrived at his destination, and the door was opened to him, Harriet was in the hall. She seemed surprised that he had brought her a written answer. She had expected merely a verbal reply, telling her how soon Routh would be home. Jim pulled his cap off hastily, taken by surprise at seeing her, and while he handed her the note, looked at her with a full renewal of all the compassion for her which had formerly filled his untaught but not untender heart. He guessed rightly that he had brought her something that would pain her: She looked afraid of the note during the moment she held it unopened in her hand; but she did not think only of herself, she did not forget to be kind to him.
"Go down to the kitchen, and cook will give you some dinner, Jim," she said, as she went into the dining-room and shut the door; and the boy obeyed her with an additional sense of hatred and suspicion against Routh at his heart.
"I'm beginning to make it all out now," he thought, as he disposed of his dinner in most unusual silence. "The other one put Routh up to it all, out of spite of some kind. It was a plant of hers, it was; and this here good 'un--for she is good--is a-sufferin' for it all, while he's a carryin' on." Shortly after Jim Swain took a rueful leave of the friendly cook, and departed by the area-gate. Having reached Piccadilly, he stood still for a moment, pondering, and then took a resolution, in pursuance of which he approached the house at which he had made a similar inquiry the day before, and again asked if there was any news of Mr. Felton. "Yes," the servant replied; "a telegram had been received from Paris. The rooms were to be ready on the following day. Mr. Felton and Mr. Dallas were coming by the tidal train."
"I've a mind to go back and tell her," said Jim to himself. "She must want to know for some particular reason, or she wouldn't have sent me to ask yesterday, and she wouldn't have let me catch her out in tellin' a crammer if there warn't somethin' in it. But no," said Jim sagely, "I won't. I'll wait for Mr. Dallas; there ain't long to wait now."
Jim Swain's resolution had an important consequence, which came about in a very ordinary and trifling way. If the boy had gone back to Routh's house, and had been admitted into the hall, he would have seen a piece of paper lying on the door-mat, on which his quick eyes would instantly have recognized the calligraphic feat of his accomplished friend, Teddy Smith; and he would have regained possession of it. But Jim did not return, and the paper lay there undisturbed for some hours--lay there, indeed, until it was seen by the irreproachable Harris when he went to light the gas, picked up, perused by him, and taken to his mistress, who was sitting in the drawing-room quite unoccupied. She looked up as the servant entered; and when the room was lighted, he saw that she was deadly pale, but took no notice of the paper which he placed on the table beside her. Some time after he had left the room her glance fell upon it, and she stretched out her hand wearily, and took it up, with a vague notion that it was a tax-gatherer's notice. But Harriet Routh, whose nerves had once been proof against horror, dread, suffering, danger, or surprise, started as if she had been shot when she saw, written upon the paper: "Mrs. Bembridge, 4 Hollington-square, Brompton."