“No, you don’t!” cried Mary, setting her back against the door. “You don’t go till he comes back. He’ll come and bring your sister here. And you may take her home. I’ll talk to him. What?” she cried triumphantly; “what did I say?”
She turned, and threw open the door; for just then a heavy step was heard below, and, as if expecting some strange scene, Hallett and I stood watching, as step after step creaked beneath a heavy weight, till whoever was coming reached the landing and staggered into the room.
“You—”
Mary’s sentence was never finished; for her husband’s look, as he strode in with Linny in his arms, seemed to crush her.
“I couldn’t get him, too, but I marked him,” he said, panting, “and I’ve stopped his little game.”
“Linny!” cried Hallett to the half-insensible girl, who seemed to glide from Revitts’ arms, and sink in a heap at his feet, while I stood gazing in utter amazement at the turn things had taken.
“Mary, my lass! a drop of something—anything—I’m about done.”
Mary’s teeth gritted together, and she darted a vindictive look at her husband; but she obeyed him, fetching out a bottle of gin and a glass, which he filled and drained before speaking.
“Not so strong as I was,” he cried excitedly. “Glad you’re here, sir. I ketched sight of him with her from the ’bus as we come in. I’d a known him from a thousand—him as give it me, you know. ‘Look arter Mary,’ I says to Master Antony here, and I was after him like a shot, hanging on to the hansom cab he’d got her in, and I never left ’em till it stopped down at Richmond, at a willa by the water-side.”
“Richmond?” said Hallett blankly.