"I ought to be glad to hear it for his own sake, I suppose," returned the bookseller. "But I don't know as I am, for all that."
"Have patience, have patience," said the parson, and walked on, taking Thomas by the arm.
For the rest of the evening Mr. Fuller avoided much talk with the penitent, and sent him to bed early.
CHAPTER XLVII.
THOMAS AND MR. STOPPER.
Thomas did not sleep much that night, and was up betimes in the morning. Mr. Fuller had risen before him, however, and when Thomas went down stairs, after an invigorating cold bath which his host had taken special care should be provided for him, along with clean linen, he found him in his study reading. He received him very heartily, looking him, with some anxiety, in the face, as if to see whether he could read action there. Apparently he was encouraged, for his own face brightened up, and they were soon talking together earnestly. But knowing Mr. Stopper's habit of being first at the counting-house, Thomas was anxious about the time, and Mr. Fuller hastened breakfast. That and prayers over, he put twelve pounds into Thomas's hand, which he had been out that morning already to borrow from a friend. Then, with a quaking heart, but determined will, Thomas set out and walked straight to Bagot Street. Finding no one there but the man sweeping out the place, he went a little farther, and there was the bookseller arranging his stall outside the window. Mr. Kitely regarded him with doubtful eyes, vouchsafing him a "good-morning" of the gruffest.
"Mr. Kitely," said Thomas, "I am more obliged to you than I can tell, for what you did last night."
"Perhaps you ought to be; but it wasn't for your sake, Mr. Worboise, that I did it."
"I am quite aware of that. Still, if you will allow me to say so, I am as much obliged to you as if it had been."