“Perhaps she may find her way here though, after all; these mad folks are very cunning when they are after anything.”
“Here! go now,” exclaimed Richard, hurriedly thrusting some money into the woman’s hands. “You must not give her up, Mrs Walls. We’ll make a fresh settlement, and—and we’ll talk it over to-morrow when I come.”
The woman smiled as she made her way out of the library, and Richard Pellet stood for a few moments wiping the cold dew from his forehead, before rejoining his guests.
The city gentlemen heard no more that night respecting limited liability companies, when, after giving the strictest orders that, if anybody else should come, she was to be shown into the library, Richard Pellet returned to the assembled company, and took coffee, unaware that the two gentlemen in coach-lace had thrust their tongues into their cheeks at one another, after a fashion meant to express the extreme of derision; and then, as soon as they were at liberty, went and related the affair in large text, with redundant flourishes, in the servants’ hall.
“If she had chosen any other day it would not so much have mattered,” said Richard Pellet to himself, as he probed a lump of sugar at the bottom of his half-cold coffee: “but to have come to-day!”
It was no wonder that, until the last guest departed, Richard Pellet’s eyes were turned anxiously towards the door every time it opened, when, Nemesis-like, he expected to see enter the tall, pale figure he had looked upon that day in Borton Street, his heart too much crusted with gold to allow of a single tender thought for the afflicted woman, who was sure enough to clasp her hands and ask that she might be with her child.