“Burial!” cried Newman, with a burst of laughter. “Why, to bury you now would be a sad piece of extravagance. It’s only rascals who have to be buried to get respectable. Honest folks like you and me can live our time out—and live together. Come! Did you bring your baggage?”
“My box is locked and corded; but I haven’t yet spoken to my lady.”
“Speak to her, then, and have done with it. I should like to have your chance!” cried Newman.
“I would gladly give it you, sir. I have passed some weary hours in my lady’s dressing-room; but this will be one of the longest. She will tax me with ingratitude.”
“Well,” said Newman, “so long as you can tax her with murder—”
“Oh, sir, I can’t; not I,” sighed Mrs. Bread.
“You don’t mean to say anything about it? So much the better. Leave that to me.”
“If she calls me a thankless old woman,” said Mrs. Bread, “I shall have nothing to say. But it is better so,” she softly added. “She shall be my lady to the last. That will be more respectable.”
“And then you will come to me and I shall be your gentleman,” said Newman; “that will be more respectable still!”
Mrs. Bread rose, with lowered eyes, and stood a moment; then, looking up, she rested her eyes upon Newman’s face. The disordered proprieties were somehow settling to rest. She looked at Newman so long and so fixedly, with such a dull, intense devotedness, that he himself might have had a pretext for embarrassment. At last she said gently, “You are not looking well, sir.”