"Dear Miss Gray," it ran, "we have resolved upon the operation to-day. Sidney is prepared—calm and hopeful of the result. I never knew a fellow with so little fear in him. Bring Miss Wesden if you think fit.
"Yours very truly,
"Maurice Hinchford."
Bring Miss Wesden! Mattie had never thought of that, and for the first time the woman's natural jealousy seized her. Take her rival to his side, and let her comfort him, and she standing aloof and unacknowledged!—why should she do that? Thrust upon Sidney Hinchford's thoughts, at such a time, the old love; let him see, perhaps, Harriet Wesden's beauty and her own plain face side by side, the very instant that he stepped back, as it were, to his old self!
Then came better thoughts—thoughts more true to this high-minded stray of ours. It was light, or madness, or death; if it were a failure, and he should die, swiftly and suddenly—if till the last he had deceived her, and his true nature were to assert itself, and he express a wish—one last yearning wish to see Harriet Wesden—what could she say?—in the future how that reproach of not having done her best would crush her with remorse!
She was in the cab; she had made up her mind; there was to be no longer any hesitation.
"Drive to Myer's Street, Camberwell."
The thorough-bred mare stepped out and cleared the roadway; the shop and the little excited man at its door were in the background, and Mattie was being whirled along to Mr. Wesden's house. In a very little while, Mattie was driven to the old friend's. Mr. Wesden was gardening in his fore-court, or attempting something of the kind, with a little rake he had bought at a toy-shop; he dropped his rake, and stared over the private cab and its occupant at the up-stairs windows of the opposite residence.
"Mattie," he said, when she was at the gate, and had opened it and entered before he had recovered his astonishment, "what's the matter? Who's cab is that?—the stationery business won't stand cabs, yet awhile, I know."
"Where is Harriet?—not out again?"
"No, in the parlour—this way."
Mattie and Mr. Wesden entered the house. Harriet was in the front parlour—the best room, which had been Mrs. Wesden's pride, and a dream of the old lady's in business days,—working busily away at a pair of crimson slippers, with large black crosses on the instep—High Church slippers, every inch of them. Not slippers for a simpering curate to receive anonymously, as a mark of esteem from a fair unknown—Harriet was above that; but good colossal slippers, for the gouty feet of her pastor and master, who could not wear tight boots in the house, and had even been known to preach in something easy.