"Yes, I do. I only wonder he hasn't let you find it out long ago. He came to me and persuaded me to help him, telling me you were ready to run off with him any time he asked you, which I knew myself. I'm sorry for it now, but it can't be helped."
"Very well, Mr. Blake," said Cherrie, whose cheeks were red, and whose eyes were flashing, "you may both be proud of your work. You are fine gentlemen, both of you, to distress a poor girl like me, as you have done. But I'll go back to Speckport, and I'll tell every soul in it how I have been taken in; and I hope they'll tar and feather the two of you for what you have done."
"Well," said Mr. Blake, in a subdued tone, "we deserve it, I dare say, but Cavendish is the worst after all. Why, Cherrie, my girl, you don't know half the wrong he has done you. He would have been married three mouths ago, if the lady had not changed her mind and married another man."
"Would he?" said Cherrie, vindictively, between her closed teeth. "Oh, if ever I get a chance, won't I pay him off! Who was the lady?"
"The new heiress of Redmon—Miss Henderson she was then, Mrs. Wyndham she is now. He was crazy about her, as all Speckport can tell you; and he asked her to marry him; and she consented first, and backed out afterward. You never saw any one in the state he was in, Cherrie; and he started off to Canada, because he couldn't bear to stay in the place and see her married to another man."
"But he's back, now," said Cherrie. "I had a letter from him two weeks ago, with a couple of pounds in it. He's the meanest, stingiest miser on the face of the earth, and I have to write and write, before I get enough from him to pay my board. I haven't had a decent dress these six months; and I can't leave the place, because I never have enough to pay my way back. I'm the worst-treated and most unfortunate creature in the whole world!"
And here poor Cherrie's tears broke out afresh.
"And that's not the worst, either," pursued Mr. Blake. "Do you know what has brought him back to Speckport, as you say? Of course, you don't—you are the last he would tell; but it is because he is selling out of the army, and going back to England for good. He wants to be rid of you entirely; and once he is there, and married to some one else with a fortune, many a fine laugh he will have at you."
"Never!" cried Cherrie, wrought up to the right pitch of indignation; "never shall he leave Speckport, if I can help it! I'll tell all, if I was to hang for it myself, sooner than let him get off like that, the villain!"
"But you won't hang for it, Cherrie, if you tell; it's only if you refuse to tell, that you are in danger. Whoever turns Queen's evidence gets off scot free, you know; and if you only do what is right, and take my advice, which means the same thing, you may triumph over Captain George Percy Cavendish yet."