"Because I promised to give him his revenge at billiards. I won ten pounds from him that night, and uncommonly lucky it was for me; it enabled me to get away from my horrible old shrew of a landlady, and, indeed, indirectly it enables me to start on this business to-morrow."
"How?" said Harriet. Again she spoke but one word, and again with difficulty and a dryness in the throat. She set down the candle, and leaned against the table, while George stood between her and the door, his coat over his arm.
"You didn't notice that I told you I was all packed up and ready to go. It happened luckily, didn't it?" And then George told his listener how he had paid his landlady, and removed his modest belongings on the previous Wednesday morning to a coffee-house, close to the river too. "By Jove! I'm in luck's way, it seems," he said; "so I shall merely go and sleep there, and take my traps on board the Argus. I have only such clothes as I shall want, no matter where I am," he said. "They'll keep the trunk with my books until I come back, and Deane must wait for his revenge with the balls and cues for the same auspicious occasion. Let's hope he'll be in a better temper, and have forgiven Routh. He was awfully riled at his note on Tuesday evening."
"Did--did you see it!" asked Harriet; and, as she spoke, she leaned still more heavily against the table.
"No," replied Dallas, "I did not; but Deane told me Routh asked him to meet him the next day. He didn't, it seems."
"No," said Harriet; "and Stewart is very much annoyed about it. Mr. Deane owed him money, and he asked him for some in that note."
"Indeed," said George; "he could have paid him then, I happen to know. He had a lot of gold and notes with him. The tenner he lost to me he paid in a note, and he changed a fiver to pay for our dinner, and he was bragging and bouncing the whole time about the money he had about him, and what he would, and would not, do with it. So it was sheer spite made him neglect to pay Routh, and I hope he'll dun him again. The idea of Routh being in the hole he's in, and a fellow like that owing him money. How much is it, Mrs. Routh?"
"I--I don't know," said Harriet.
"There, I'm keeping you talking still. I am the most thoughtless fellow." It never occurred to George that she had kept him until she had learned what she wanted to know. "Good-bye, Mrs. Routh, good-bye."
She had passed him, the candle in her hand, and this farewell was uttered in the hall. He held out his hand; she hesitated for a moment, and then gave him hers. He pressed it fervently; it was deadly cold.