“I have resumed my true name, Everty,” he said to me in low tones. “The former trouble, that sent me away a wanderer, is over. Many men, I believe, are forced into such episodes in life.”
“You are with Mr. Smith?”
“These two years past. I came to him as head-clerk; I now have a commission on sales, and make a most excellent thing of it. I don’t think the business could get on without me now.”
“Is it true that you are to marry Miss Chalk?” I asked, speaking on a sudden impulse.
“Quite true; if she does not throw me over,” he answered, and I wondered at his candour. “I suppose you have heard of it indoors?”
“Yes. I wish you all success.”—And didn’t I wish it in my inmost heart!
“Thank you. I can give her a good home now. Perhaps you will not talk about that old time if you can help it, Mr. Ludlow. You used to be good-natured, I remember. It was a dark page in my then reckless life; I am doing what I can to redeem it.”
I dare say he was; and I told him he need not fear. But I did not like his eyes yet, for they had the same kind of shifty look that Roger Monk’s used to have. He might get on none the worse in business; for, as the Squire says, it is a shifty world.
Sophie Chalk engaged to Mr. Everty, and he Roger Monk! Well, it was a complication. I went back to Miss Deveen’s without, so to say, seeing daylight.