The domestic was fully roused now, and she let the shabby gentleman have it. She knew a thing or two; and she wasn’t going to be made a fool of, like the silly girls master read to her about in the newspapers.
Her particular instructions were never, under any circumstances, to admit a visitor when her master was out, and she meant to obey them. Besides, what could a shabby fellow like this want but what he’d no right to?
The shabby gentleman wasn’t angry in the least. He accepted the attack with a smile.
‘Bravo, Jemima! or whatever your name is,’ he said. ‘You are a shrewd girl, and deserve encouragement. I’ll report to the doctor, when I see him, what an admirable watch-dog you make.’
‘Dog yourself! and my name ain’t Jemima; and if it was, I shouldn’t be ashamed on it, like you are o’ yourn. Go away. There ain’t nothing to be got here.’
Bang went the flap, and the shabby gentleman was still on the wrong side of the door.
He was about to stroll away when a carriage came dashing down the narrow roadway, and was pulled up in front of The Lodge. Dr. Birnie jumped out, the carriage drove off, and then the shabby gentleman, coming close up to the doctor as he was putting his latchkey into the garden gate, touched him gently on the arm.
The doctor turned.
For a moment he hesitated and turned slightly pale, then he looked closely into the shabby gentleman’s face and gasped out: ‘Good God, Marston! I thought you were dead.’
Edward Marston smiled.