They were passing the old Clock Tower, situated on the Citadel Hill. Camperdown looked up at its impenetrable face. “Sin and misery have been in the world ever since it began,” he said hopelessly; “always will be till it ends.”
“Ah, but what a grand thing to put a stop to a little of the sin and iniquity!” exclaimed the woman, turning up to the stars her bright and eager face. “That is one’s only consolation.”
“I wish you would not walk along the street with your face turned up in that way,” was Camperdown’s unexpected and jealous reply. They had just passed two soldiers who stared curiously at the beautiful woman on his arm, and just as he spoke a girl standing in a near doorway with an apron flung over her head made a saucy remark with regard to Stargarde to a broad-shouldered workman standing by her.
“Hist,” said the man angrily; “you’re new here, or you’d know who that is,” and he took off his cap as Stargarde passed by. “There’s hands as’ll be raised to slap your mouth, woman as you be,” he continued half apologetically to the girl as the two people went by, “if you dares to pass a word agin her. She’s the poor man’s friend. She’s always with ’em, sick an’ dyin’ and dead. She put my old mother in a handsome coffin——” and he broke off abruptly.
Camperdown and Stargarde were walking slowly so that they heard every word that had been said. “Brian,” she said passionately, “do you hear that? and can you still want me to live only for pleasure and society? Oh, how dare you? how can you? Shame to you, Brian!” and the very stars seemed to have got tangled in the glitter and radiance and unearthly beauty of the eyes that she turned upon him.
He looked at her, growled something in a low, happy voice that she could not hear, then said dryly, “Hadn’t you better give me my pocketbook?”
She stopped short. “How stupid I am; pray forgive me. Here it is,” and she handed it to him. “How did you know that I had it?”
“By your face,” he said shortly.
“I wonder who Zeb’s mother is?” said Stargarde, as they walked slowly on. “She talks like a lady at times. I must find out. There’s a mystery about them that I can’t fathom. They’ve been dwellers in big cities. They’re not like our poor people, Brian. I wonder; I wonder——” and still wondering she arrived at her own doorway.
“You’re crying!” exclaimed Camperdown, when he put out his hand to say good-bye to her. “What’s the matter?”