"Write your name on it," she said to George, who took up a pen and obeyed her. She opened a drawer at the side of the desk, and put away the little parcel quite at the back. Then she took from the same drawer seven sovereigns, which George said would be as much as he would require for the present, and which he carefully stowed away in his pocket-book. Then he sat down at the desk, and playfully wrote an IOU for the amount.
"That's business-like," said George, smiling, but the smile by which she replied was so wan and weary, that George again commented on her fatigue, and began to take leave of her.
"I'm off, then," he said, "and you won't forget to tell Routh how much I wanted to see him. Among other things to tell him--However, I suppose he has seen Deane since I have been away?"
Harriet was occupied in turning down the gas-burner by which she had just lighted the candle again. She now said:
"How stupid I am! as if I couldn't have lighted you to the door first, and put the gas out afterwards! The truth is, I am so tired; I'm quite stupified. What did you say, Mr. Dallas? There, I've knocked your coat off the chair; here it is, however. You asked me something, I think?"
George took the coat she held from her, hung it over his arm, felt for his hat (the room being lighted only by the feeble candle), and repeated his words:
"Routh has seen Deane, of course, since I've been away?"
"No," Harriet replied with distinctness, "he has not--he has not."
"Indeed!" said George. "I am surprised at that. But Deane was huffed, I remember, on Tuesday, when Routh broke his engagement to dine with him, and said it must depend on whether he was in the humour to meet him the next day, as Routh asked him to do. So I suppose he wasn't in the humour, eh? And now he'll be huffed with me, but I can't help it."
"Why?" asked Harriet; and she spoke the single word with a strange effort, and a painful dryness of the throat.