‘Thank yer, Josh. It’ll remind me o’ you often. I shall fancy it’s you a torking sometimes when it’s extra strong in its languidge. Come back soon, old pal.’
‘All right—now you hook it. I don’t want to be seen along of nobody.’
‘All right, Josh! but, bless you, nobody knows me here—I arn’t distinguished enough in the perfesshun yet to be a universal sileberity.’
The friends parted, the young sinner and the old. The young sinner went back to London, and the sinner went over the seas, with the suspicion that he was a murderer added to the many things which should have been on his conscience if he had such an article in his kit.
CHAPTER XLIX.
MR. MARSTON GOES TO CHURCH.
The affairs of Mr. John Adrian having been thoroughly investigated, it was found that the tremendous call already made by the liquidators of the Great Blankshire Bank would sweep away so much of his capital that, after clearing off other outstanding liabilities, he would have an income of about £200 a year from all sources wherewith to enjoy himself for the remainder of his days, support his wife, maintain his daughter, and keep a little girl and a dog, that daughter’s protégés. Since the crash, however, one item in this catalogue had been removed. Mr. Edward Marston had very generously offered to take Ruth off her father’s hands.
Marston and Ruth were discussing the future together one morning, and naturally Gertie’s unfortunate position had to be considered.
‘Whatever shall I do about Gertie, Ned?’ said Ruth. ‘I can’t leave her a burden upon poor papa now, and I can’t turn her out and desert her, for it was really my fault that she lost her home.’
‘A pretty home!’ answered Marston. ‘But I have no cause to speak against it, for it was there I met you, Ruth. I often wonder if things would have turned out as they have but for that chance meeting.’
‘I wonder,’ said Ruth, with a far-away look in her beautiful eyes. ‘Oh, Ned, do you know I often think how strange it was that poor Gertie should be the means of bringing us together again! I never thought, when I took pity on a poor neglected little girl in the Dials, that my reward was to be so great. We owe a good deal to Gertie.’