"Of course not."
"Then that will enable me to serve here as usual until the hour of closing, and then give me time to catch the midnight train to Richmond."
"Oh, well, if you can do that it will be all right, and I can have no objection to your going to-night," said Bastiennello.
And so the affair was concluded.
The great village bazaar closed at eleven that night.
As soon as he had put up the last shutter, Craven Kyte rushed off to his humble lodgings, stuffed a carpet-bag full of needed clothing and hurried to the railway station to catch the train.
It came thundering along in due time, and caught up the waiting victim and whirled him along on his road to ruin, as far as Richmond, where it dropped him.
It was nearly eleven o'clock in the morning, and all the church bells were ringing, when the train ran in to the station.
Craven Kyte, carpet-bag in hand, rushed for the gentlemen's dressing-room nearest the station, hastily washed his face, combed his hair, brushed his clothes, put on a clean collar and bosom-piece, and fresh gloves, and hurried off to old St. John's Church, which he thought the most likely place on that Sunday forenoon to meet Mary Grey.
The service was more than half over when he reached the church, but he slipped in and seated himself quietly on one of the back seats near the door and looked all over the heads of the seated congregation to see if he could discover his beloved in the crowd.