"Good-night. I will listen to no more such awful talk."
"Good-night, Kitty; yet, take my word for it, he set fire to that house."
But then, as Mrs. Farraday had remarked, her brother did not know the man; nor, moreover, did he live at Richmond.
No one suggested that there was any reason for delaying the marriage between Goddard and the widow. He had not yet secured his patent, and therefore could not start his company. Now and then he had to go up to London for a day or two to see the artificers who were carrying out his designs for the machines to be employed in converting his plant into cloth. When he returned to Singleton Terrace after these brief absences, he made up for lost time by increased tenderness and devotion.
He never came back empty-handed, and he never brought any splendid present; always a book, or a bouquet, or a basket of fruit--nothing more. He had bought her a ring, of course; but even that was inexpensive and simple--three small diamonds in a plain gold band.
"I shall be poor, Nellie, until I am rich; and I shall not be rich in money until my patent and my company are all right."
"But when you get your patent and your company, you will not want to go away again to America?" she asked anxiously. "I do not think I could face so long a voyage."
"O, no! There will be no need for me to go out again. I have all arranged over there. I have an intelligent and energetic agent there. I will remain at home attending to the interests of the company (of which I shall, of course, be chairman), and hunting up markets for my fibre. We shall very likely have to leave this place and live in town, take a good house in Bayswater or Kensington, for we must do a little entertaining. You would not mind changing Richmond for Bayswater or Kensington?"
"Nothing could please me better than to be of any use I can to you; and if my health keeps good, as good as it is now, I could manage the entertaining very well indeed."
"You grow stronger every day. I have not a particle of fear on the score of your health. I dare not have any fear of that, Nellie. You must not even refer to such a thing again. When we have taken that new place I lay you a bunch of roses you will dance at our house-warming, ay, out-dance all the young girls in the place."