“It is quite true; he is very, very ill; he can't give you any advice, or assist you in any way, should grandpapa be unkind. He could not even understand if you told him what has happened.”
Once more Cotsdean's knees knocked against each other in the shadow of the counter. His very lips trembled as he stood regarding his strange visitor with scared and wondering eyes.
“Now listen, please,” said Phœbe, earnestly; “if any one comes to you about the bill to-day, don't say anything about him. Say you got it—in the way of business—say anything you please, but don't mention him. If you will promise me this, I will see that you don't come to any harm. Yes, I will; you may say I am not the sort of person to know about business, and it is quite true. But whoever comes to you remember this—if you don't mention Mr. May, I will see you safely through it; do you understand?”
Phœbe leant across the counter in her earnestness. She was not the kind of person to talk about bills, or to be a satisfactory security for a man in business; but Cotsdean was a poor man, and he was ready to catch at a straw in the turbid ocean of debt and poverty which seemed closing round him. He gave the required promise with his heart in his mouth.
Then Phœbe returned down the street. Her fatigue began to tell upon her, but she knew that she dared not give in, or allow that she was fatigued. However heavy with sleep her eyes might be, she must keep awake and watchful. Nothing, if she could help it, must so much as turn the attention of the world in Mr. May's direction. By this time she was much too deeply interested to ask herself why she should do so much for Mr. May. He was her charge, her burden, as helpless in her hands as a child; and nobody but herself knew anything about it. It was characteristic of Phœbe's nature that she had no doubt as to being perfectly right in the matter, no qualm lest she should be making a mistake. She felt the weight upon her of the great thing she had undertaken to do, with a certain half-pleasing sense of the solemnity of the position and of its difficulties; but she was not afraid that she was going wrong or suffering her fancy to stray further than the facts justified; neither was she troubled by any idea of going beyond her sphere by interfering thus energetically in her friend's affairs. Phœbe did not easily take any such idea into her head. It seemed natural to her to do whatever might be wanted, and to act upon her own responsibility. Her self-confidence reached the heroic point. She knew that she was right, and she knew moreover that in this whole matter she alone was right. Therefore the necessity of keeping up, of keeping alert and vigilant, of holding in her hand the threads of all these varied complications was not disagreeable to her, though she fully felt its importance—nay, almost exaggerated it in her own mind if that could be. She felt the dangerous character of the circumstances around her, and her heart was sore with pity for the culprit, or as she called him to herself the chief sufferer; and yet all the same Phœbe felt a certain sense of satisfaction in the great role she herself was playing. She felt equal to it, though she scarcely knew what was the nest step she ought to take. She was walking slowly, full of thought, to Tozer's door, pondering upon this, when the sound of rapid wheels behind roused her attention, and looking up, surprised, she suddenly saw leaping out of a dog-cart the imposing figure of Clarence Copperhead, of whom she had not been thinking at all. He came down with a heavy leap, leaving the light carriage swinging and quivering behind him with the shock of his withdrawal.
“Miss Phœbe!” he said, breathless; “here's luck! I came over to see you, and you are the first person I set eyes on—”
He was rather heavy to make such a jump, and it took away his breath.
“To see me?” she said, laughing, though her heart began to stir. “That is very odd. I thought you must have come to see poor Mr. May, who is so ill. You know—”
“May be hanged!” said the young man; “I mean—never mind—I don't mean him any harm, though, by Jove, if you make such a pet of him, I don't know what I shall think. Miss Phœbe, I've come over post-haste, as you may see; chiefly to see you; and to try a horse as well,” he added, “which the governor has just bought. He's a very good 'un to go; and pleased the governor would be if he knew the use I had put him to,” he concluded, with a half-laugh.
Phœbe knew as well as he did what that use was. He had brought his father's horse out for the first time, to carry him here to propose to her, in spite of his father. This was the delicate meaning which it amused him to think of. She understood it all, and it brought a glow of colour to her face; but it did not steel her heart against him. She knew her Clarence, and that his standard of fine feeling and mental elevation was not high.