"Beg pardon, sir, but you mentioned there would be a letter to send shortly?"
"By Jove! so I did!" exclaimed Bulstrode. "I beg your pardon; will you excuse me while I write a line at the desk?" The line was an order to the florist.
For some reason the eyes of the Englishman had not quitted the butler's face, and Ruggles, with cold insolence, had stared at him in turn. Waring, albeit in another man's clothes, fed and seated before a friendly hearth, and once again within the pale of his own class, had regained something of his natural air and feeling of superiority. He resented the servant's insolence, and his face was angrily flushed as Bulstrode gave his orders, and the man left the room.
"I must go away," he said, rather brusquely. "I can never thank you for what you have done. I feel as if I had been in a dream."
"Sit down." His companion ignored his words. "Sit down."
"It's late."
"For what, my friend?"
"I must find some place to sleep."
"You have found it," gently smiled Bulstrode. "Your room is prepared for you here." Then he interrupted: "No thanks—no thanks. If what you tell me is all I think it is, I'm proud to share my roof with you, Waring."
"Don't think well of me—don't!" blurted out the other. "You don't know what a ruined vagabond I am. When you send me out to-morrow I shall begin again; but let me tell you that although I've herded with tramps and thieves, been in the hospital and lock-up, and worked in the hell of a furnace in a ship's hold, nothing hurt me any more, not after I left England—not after those days when I waited in Liverpool for a word—for a sign—not after that, all you see the marks of now—nothing hurts now but the memory. I'm immune."