I could not help laughing—he had so much the look of a dog with his tail between his legs, or a beast of prey that had made his spring and missed his game. I watched him for some time, for Lilith being pulled both ways—towards home, and after her late companion—was tolerably quiescent, but he never cast a glance behind him. When at length a curve in the road hid him from my sight, I turned and went quietly home, thinking what the significance of the unwelcome discovery might be. If the entry of the marriage under that date could not be proved a mere blunder, of which I could see no hope, then certainly my grandfather must be regarded as born out of wedlock, a supposition which, if correct, would account for the dropping of the Daryll.
On the way home I jumped no hedges.
Having taken my farewell of Lilith, I packed my ‘bag of needments,’ locked the door of my uncle’s room, which I would have no one enter in my absence, and set out to meet the night mail.
CHAPTER LI. CHARLEY AND CLARA.
On my arrival in London, I found Charley waiting for me, as I had expected, and with his help soon succeeded in finding, in one of the streets leading from the Strand to the river, the accommodation I wanted. There I settled and resumed the labour so long and thanklessly interrupted.
When I recounted the circumstances of my last interview with Mr Coningham, Charley did not seem so much surprised at the prospect which had opened before me as disappointed at its sudden close, and would not admit that the matter could be allowed to rest where it was.
‘Do you think the change of style could possibly have anything to do with it?’ he asked, after a meditative silence.
‘I don’t know,’ I replied. ‘Which change of style do you mean?’
‘I mean the change of the beginning of the year from March to January,’ he answered.