"Oh! yes—I have been warned, sir; there's not a doubt of it—I'm afraid I have put you to a great deal of trouble?" said Maurice, not yet recovered from his confusion.
"In a good cause, I don't mind trouble."
"Very kind of you, I'm sure. In the parlour, you said, Miss Gray?—then I'll go to him at once. It must be getting very late."
Mr. Gray was proceeding to follow Maurice, when Mattie touched him on the arm and arrested his progress.
"I think we had better leave them together. Their business is scarcely ours."
"What?—ah! exactly so, my dear. But I wish you had not interrupted me quite so unceremoniously—the impression I was making upon that young man was wonderful! Great heaven! if it is left for me to work his regeneration at the last, how proud I shall be! Mattie, I think I have moved him—he has already said something about building a tabernacle, a chapel, or something; but I scarcely caught the words at the moment—think of that man, so wicked, and perverse, and designing, proceeding after all, in the straight and narrow way! It's wonderful!"
In the meantime, Maurice Hinchford had entered the parlour, closed the door behind him, and advanced towards the figure at the table, sitting in the full light of the gas above his head. Maurice paused and looked at him.
Sidney had changed; he was looking older; there was a thread or two of silver in the dark waving hair; and the eyes, which blindness had not dimmed, had that melancholy vagueness of expression, by which such eyes are always characterized.
"Well, Sidney—I am here at last."
"I am sorry that you have taken the trouble to call."