"Are we not to meet again?" Bufton asked, his face haggard from all he had gone through that day; and, perhaps--since, although half-knave and half-fool, he was still human--feeling doubly wretched at this withdrawal of his principal ally and bottle-comrade.
"Not yet. I, too, leave this part of the town now. The other, the east of the city, will be my portion for some time to come."
"What is it?" almost whispered Bufton, "what? What have you found?"
"A commercial pursuit," the other answered; "one connected with the sea and the colonies of America. Enough! No more as yet. Say, where shall I write you if aught arises that may be of benefit?"
"Send word to the 'Rummer'--no! no! they know me there. Instead, give me a house to which I may send to you. I pray you do so."
For a moment Granger paused, meditating; turning over in his mind more matters than one. Then he said, "Write to the 'Czar of Muscovy' on Tower Hill. It will find me. And," he added to himself, "it is not too near." Then, aloud, he exclaimed finally, "Now, farewell!"
And so these two men parted for the time.
That night, as Granger sat alone in his garret, while he occupied himself with flinging hastily into a valise a second suit of clothes which he possessed, some odd linen, and other necessaries, he muttered more than once to himself:
"The first act is played out, and so far it is successful. He is married to that girl, and much I doubt if he will ever free himself from the yoke. Yet it is not enough. Enough--my God! What can ever be enough? What can repay me for my own wasted life; my mother's death; the loss of the woman who loved me; and--Heaven help us both!--believed in me? Enough! What can be enough?" While, even as he mused thus, he went to a cupboard and took from out of it a bottle. "Still half full," he whispered, "still half full. Ah, well! it will be empty ere day breaks."
He sat down after he had brought forth a glass also, into which he poured a dram of spirit, and, supping it, continued his meditations, though still they were on the same subject, and still, therefore, full of bitterness.