"Your instructions shall be fulfilled to the letter," replied Gibbet.
Greenwood expressed his thanks; and the hump-back took his departure.
CHAPTER CCLV.
GIBBET AT MARKHAM PLACE.
It was at about eight o'clock in the evening when Gibbet alighted from a cab at the entrance of Markham Place.
He knocked timidly at the door; but the servant who answered the summons received him with respect—for not the veriest mendicant that crawled upon the face of the earth ever met with an insulting glance nor a harsh word from any inmate of that dwelling.
To Gibbet's question whether "His Highness was at home?" the domestic replied by a courteous invitation to enter; and being shown into a parlour—the very same where more than two years previously he and his father had one evening supped with our hero—he was shortly joined by the Prince.
The hump-back, well as he had been enabled to judge of the excellent qualities of Richard, was nevertheless surprised at the kind and affable manner in which that exalted personage hastened forward to welcome him; and tears of gratitude rolled down the poor creature's face as he felt his hands clasped in those of one whom he so profoundly respected and so enthusiastically admired.
Markham made him sit down, and rang the bell for wine and refreshments: then, noticing that the hump-back was in deep mourning, he hastened to question him as to the cause—which he nevertheless could well divine.
"Alas! my lord," answered Gibbet, "my poor father is no more! And latterly—ever since he knew your Highness—he was so affectionate, so kind towards me, that I feel his loss very painfully indeed!"
"Compose yourself, my good friend," said Richard; "and be solaced with the thought that your father has gone to a better world."