May placed her hands in his, and looked up in his face with the faintest dawning of a smile upon her lip, and this time she did not shrink back when he kissed her forehead, but hung upon his arm as if resigned to her fate; the sound of wheels was heard in the narrow street; the friends ready to accompany them were summoned from the room below—two old friends of Mr Brough’s, for old Richards had, as he often boasted, no friends; May was led out, the door was heard to close, wheels rattled away, and then, for a wonder, there fell a dead silence upon Walbrook, one which seemed to affect old Richards, even as he sat there looking haggard and drawn of feature, thinking of the past, and of the day he wed his own wife long before gold had become his care—almost his god. For the first time remorse had seized upon him, and it wanted not the words of Keziah Bay, who now entered the room, for reproach to be heaped upon his head.
But Keziah’s words were not fierce now, only the words of sorrow; and at last she sank down sobbing before him, and said:
“O, Master Richards—Master Richards—what have you done?”
He did not turn round fiercely to bid her begone, but shrank from her, farther and farther, into his great roomy chair, and at that moment, could he have done so, he would have arrested the farther progress of the ceremony, for remorse was beating strongly at his heart.
But the time was passed now, and with him action was impossible. He sat there motionless, listening to the sobs of his old servant till nearly an hour had passed, when suddenly Keziah rose, wiping her eyes, and saying,—
“I hadn’t the heart to go and see it, and now it is too late!”
“Yes, yes,” said old Richards softly; “it is now too late!”
The next moment Keziah was hurrying from the room, for there was the sound of wheels and a heavy knocking at the door, which she opened to admit old Tom Brough, red and excited, and his first act upon the door being closed was to catch Keziah round the waist, to hug her and give her a sounding kiss before waltzing her down the passage, she struggling the while till she got free, and stood panting, trembling, and boiling over with ire.
“It’s all right, ’Ziah!” he exclaimed, “the knot’s tied.”
“You ought to be ashamed of yourself, that you ought,” panted Keziah, darting away to avoid another embrace. “And pray where’s Miss May?”