"You'd do me a kindness if you'd let me carry it," said the man.
It was not the tone of a common loafer, hanging about the station for any chance job, and Felix turned to look at him in the light of the street-lamp. It was the old story, he thought to himself, a decent mechanic from the country, out of work, and lost in this great labyrinth of a city. He handed his bag to him and walked on along the crowded thoroughfare, soon forgetting that he was treading the flagged streets of a city; he was back again, strolling through dewy fields in the cool twilight, with Alice beside him, accompanying him to the quiet little station. He thought no more of the stranger behind him, or of the bag he carried, until he hailed an omnibus travelling westward.
"Here is your bag, sir," said the man.
"Ah! I'd forgotten it," exclaimed Felix. "Good night, and thank you."
He had just time to drop a shilling into his hand before the omnibus was off. But the man stood there in front of the Mansion House, motionless, with all the busy sea of life roaring around him, hearing nothing and seeing nothing. This coin that lay in his hand had been given to him by his son; his son's voice was still sounding in his ears. He had walked behind him taking note of his firm strong step, his upright carriage and manly bearing. It had been too swift a march for him, full of exquisite pain and pleasure, which chance might never offer to him again.
"Move on, will you?" said a policeman authoritatively; and Jean Merle, rousing himself from his reverie, went back to his lonely garret.
CHAPTER XV.
HAUNTING MEMORIES.
Felicita was slowly recovering her strength at the sea-side. She had never before felt so seriously shaken in health, as since she had known of the attachment of Felix to Alice Pascal; an attachment which would have been quite to her mind, if there was no loss of honor in allowing it whilst she held a secret which, in all probability, would seem an insuperable barrier in the eyes of Canon Pascal.