'Well, you are a little witch. I think you have cast a spell over me. I will wait till then. Come, thank me—give me a sign of gratitude.'
Bryda put out her little hand, and the Squire took it, bowed over it, raised it to his lips, and then said,—
'If I keep this hand your grandfather shall keep the money.'
'But I do not promise, sir—mind, I do not promise. I only crave for delay—understand me, sir.'
'I do understand,' was the reply, and then there were steps along the pavement of the square, as the apprentice hurried home for his midday meal in the kitchen.
Bryda reached the door at the same moment, but Chatterton made no remark.
He was in one of his unquiet moods. No news from Horace Walpole—no reply to his repeated demands for his manuscripts—nothing but complaints of him at the office—nothing but indignities in the house where he lived as a servant. What was it to him that Bryda's sweet face was clouded by distress—that tears stood on her long curled lashes—and that Mrs Lambert's voice was heard from the parlour door, raised in no pleasant tones?
'Miss Palmer, you are late in returning. Unpunctuality I cannot tolerate. Remember, miss, you are bound to follow my instructions, and—'
Then the door closed, and Chatterton heard no more.
But that afternoon he went into Mr Antony Henderson's office in Corn Street, where poor Jack Henderson sat on his low stool, with his long legs bent up under the watchmaker's counter, pulling to pieces a large watch in a pinchbeck case, and thinking more of Bryda than the wheels of that cumbrous bit of mechanism.