Suddenly he recollected the unknown trouble which had been upon the girl when he had last seen her. She was not yet free from that secret sorrow which he had hoped it might be in his power to dispel. He and he only had seen Captain Jackson speaking to her in the green room at Covent Garden, and he only had good reason to believe that her sorrow had originated with that man. Under these circumstances he asked himself if he was justified in leaving her to fight her battle alone. She had not asked him to be her champion, and he felt that if she had done so, it was a very poor champion that he would have made; but still he knew more of her grief than any one else, and he believed he might be able to help her.
He tore up the letter which he had written to her.
“I will not leave her,” he cried. “Whatever may happen—whatever blame people who do not understand may say I have earned, I will not leave her until she has been freed from whatever distress she is in.”
He had scarcely seated himself when his servant announced Captain Horneck.
For an instant Goldsmith was in trepidation. Mary Horneck's brother had no reason to visit him except as he himself had visited Evans and Kenrick. But with the sound of Captain Horneck's voice his trepidation passed away.
“Ha, my little hero!” Horneck cried before he had quite crossed the threshold. “What is this that is the talk of the town? Good Lord! what are things coming to when the men of letters have taken to beating the booksellers?”
“You have heard of it?” said Oliver. “You have heard of the quarrel, but you cannot have heard of the reason for it!”
“What, there is something behind the London Packet, after all?” cried Captain Horneck.
“Something behind it—something behind that slander—the mention of your sister's name, sir? What should be behind it, sir?”
“My dear old Nolly, do you fancy that the friendship which exists between my family and you is too weak to withstand such a strain as this—a strain put upon it by a vulgar scoundrel, whose malice so far as you are concerned is as well known as his envy of your success?”