The Duke put his lips to the tankard sooner than disoblige the good lady. Mr. Rich came straight to the point—Walker’s new lodging.
“ ’Twas but two days ago he moved in and the landlady and husband went off junketing for a week to her mother at Hampstead village,” cries Mrs. Scawen, who indeed knew everybody’s business.— “Like a good-natured gentleman, which I always found him, Mr. Walker said he would eat at the coffee houses till they returned. Number 4, Wooton Street, ten minutes from here. Take the first turn to the right and to the right again and there you are. But what’s this about my dear Mrs. Fenton, Mr. Rich? I hope no harm——”
For these questions however they could not stay and told her so, leaving her curtseying still like a puppet and with one eye on the couple of guineas Bolton left on the table.
Outside, Mr. Rich halted.
“Your Grace, I had best not go with you to Walker’s, for this reason. I believe the man’s name has been traded on as well as Mrs. Fenton’s. He dare not meddle with her. Depend on’t ’tis my Lord Baltimore, and you’re on a wrong scent. Now I don’t want to quarrel with Walker unless needs must. Look how my company’s melting away! Mrs. Bishop gone, Walker hanging in the balance, if he don’t hang in a worse place, and my Polly—the Lord knows where! Ask yourself how I’m to face the public tomorrow, and spare me Walker if you can.”
The Duke acknowledged it reasonable.
“True. I’ll see him alone,— But, Rich, I tell you this for truth also. If I find him mixed up in this scoundrelly business you may whistle for your Macheath, for I’ll deal with the villain.”
On this they parted.
During the ten minutes of his walk to Wooton Street, Bolton turned the question of Baltimore over and over in his mind, but could see no light—so dense was now the maze of intrigue and falsehood. He suspected all about him—only one person stood clear above it. Whoever he might doubt he never doubted her. There was a look in her honest eyes that spoke for her as true as a dog’s speak when he looks up in his master’s face, and he could as soon suspect her of windings and treachery. But his thoughts were bitter. What a world for honest men and women to move in! Did the great Dr. Swift say too much against the race of human beings when he depicted them as foul and filthy Yahoos in his terrible book that Bolton had read from cover to cover, finding food in it for his own scorn and melancholy? Diana—yes, but she moved like the Lady in Mr. Milton’s “Comus,” a virginal figure solitary amid the rabble rout of lust and hatred. And he—what could he do for her, but drag her down as low as any of them in their basest will? God in Heaven!—what a world! And still he strode on, and the women in the street fell back from his set face and wondered.
Arrived at the door, the house was dark but for a faint light on the first floor, where a rotten wooden balcony hung against the wall. There was no knocker. Clearly those that went in and out had their own keys. He stood dead silent listening. A man’s voice he could not distinguish in the distance. Now a word from a woman equally indistinguishable. Growing impatient, he shouted aloud.