"Off!" exclaimed the lady: "what—to Liverpool at once?"
"No: but to another lodging—or to a tavern rather—for it will be difficult to obtain apartments on a Sunday. I must stay in town for a day or two longer—or at least till I have seen Villiers. Come—pack up your things, my love—and let us be gone."
"Are you afraid of that lad who has just been?" demanded the Jewess.
"Not a whit! He is staunch to the backbone—I will swear to it! But he might be followed—or he might commit himself somehow or another, and betray me involuntarily. By-the-bye," ejaculated Tom, after an instant's pause, "I tell you what we will do! We will return to Lock's Fields. It is clear that Mrs. Bunce has found out that we are not living there now—otherwise she would not have set this Jacob to watch me, which she has done; and she would never suspect that we have gone back to our old quarters. So look alive, my love; and pack up the things, while I settle with our landlady here and send for a coach."
Tom Rain's directions were speedily obeyed; and by mid-day the Jewess, Charley, and himself were once more located in Lock's Fields.
CHAPTER XLII.
THE PARAGRAPH IN THE NEWSPAPER.
Having partaken of a good dinner and imbibed a glass or two of wine, Tom Rain returned to the perusal of the Sunday newspaper, which he had brought with him to his old lodgings; for the highwayman loved a newspaper dearly—especially the police reports and Old Bailey trials.
But as his eye glanced down a column principally devoted to "Fashionable Intelligence," he was struck with mingled horror and astonishment by the ensuing announcement:—
"It is rumoured that the young and wealthy Earl of Ellingham will shortly lead to the hymeneal altar, the beautiful and accomplished Lady Hatfield. Her ladyship is a peeress in her own right, that distinction having been conferred upon her in consequence of the eminent services of her ladyship's deceased father."
Tom Rain was absolutely stupefied by this paragraph:—so stupefied, indeed, that he sate gazing upon it in a species of vacant wonderment,—not starting, nor uttering any ejaculation—so that neither the Jewess nor Charley Watts, who were both in the room, noticed his emotion.