"No, she was not," answered Weston; "she told me a month ago that she would leave me."
"But what made me tell you so?" cried Ida Mara, bursting forth; "why don't you tell what you said to me? Will you tell what you wanted me to do?"
"Nothing, you fool," cried Weston, with his sharp eyes flashing fire; "you mistook what I said; but if ever I catch you, I'll take the skin off your back."
"That you shall never do," said Sir Harry West. "I think your worship," he continued, turning to the justice, "that the case is very clear."
"So I think too, Sir Harry," replied the magistrate; "the girl must be discharged--the girl must be discharged; and if he attempts to molest her, we will punish him."
"I have some doubts whether he does not deserve punishment already," said Sir Harry West. "However, as we have no charge against him, I suppose he must be suffered to depart for the present."
"I should think, your worships," observed the clerk, in a sweet tone, while the perfumer took two or three steps towards the door, and then paused, as if unwilling to depart without making another effort--"I should think he might be put in the stocks, as a vagabond going about from place to place, not in his lawful calling."
"He is a vagrant certainly, your worships," said the constable, "that I can certify, for he does go from place to place."
Master Jonas Weston, seeing that he was in sufficiently distressed circumstances to have an ill word from everybody, determined not to provoke further hostility by his presence, and consequently made his way out without loss of time, while Sir Harry West and the justice consulted together for a moment, as to whether he should be suffered to depart.
"It is better, perhaps," said the knight, "to let him go. I think I have seen the man's face somewhere before; but as no one has made a charge against him of which you can take cognizance, I do not know how we could proceed with him--and now, my poor girl, what is to be done with you, I wonder?"