She flung herself upon his neck, and sobbed bitterly.
Mr. Harper coughed, a watery mist shrouded everything from the sight of young Vivian, but Mr. Jukes, declaring that he had no warrant of arrest against any “gals,” turned spitefully on old Wilton, tore him from the agonised embrace of his weeping child, and bore him away. Mr. Harper followed them down the stairs, to see that no unnecessary harshness was employed in conveying the trembling prisoner into the street.
When they were gone, Flora Wilton sank, half-fainting, into a chair, Hal approached her, and, in a gentle voice, he said to her—
“Your brother Mark and I were intimate friends, Miss Wilton, before he went abroad—will you not also look upon me as a friend? It is not in my power to do much, yet all that I can do to serve you shall be done with my whole heart. Pray believe me. I will not obtrude upon the very natural grief which now so heavily weighs you down, but I entreat you, when you may need aid not to forget me.”
Flora rose up. She turned her large, beautiful eyes—yet more lustrous from the tears which filled them—upon him, and with a quivering lip, murmured—
“Oh, Mr. Vivian, kindness at a moment like this is doubly valuable. It has a language which of late has been very, very strange in our ears; and now that—that he—he is gone, I—I”—
Her voice gradually became inaudible, as her features were overspread with a death-like paleness. She stretched out her small white hand, as though to feel for some place to lean upon for support. She appeared at a moment to have been stricken with blindness; she tottered, swayed, to and fro, and would have fallen heavily upon the ground but that Hal, with a sudden cry, caught her in his strong arms and saved her.
The exclamation uttered by Vivian attracted the attention of Mr. Nutty. He was making out an inventory of the furniture in the room, and had just written down in a penny memorandum book, “4 ’orsaire cheers, 1 tabbel,” when he heard the same voice cry—“Run for some water! Quick! Run!”
He responded instantly:
“Water be blowed; I can’t go for no water; I’m the man in possession.”