She lay in a kind of torpor for a few hours; then having got up and made some small arrangements, she wrote a note for Mrs. Pemberton, placed it in her trunk, and, putting a lock of hair and an old worn glove of her boy's in her bosom, went down-stairs and slipped out by the private door beside the shop.
CHAPTER XXVIII.
[WILLIAM CRAWFORD'S LUCK.]
When William Crawford found himself safe aboard the moving steamboat, he uttered an exclamation of intense relief and satisfaction. He looked quickly behind him, and noticed with a laugh that pursuit was out of the question. He was safe! His life had been twice imperilled that day, and he had escaped with nothing worse than a wetting. He had been in imminent danger of death from drowning, had been saved by a woman whom he had ruined, and then escaped from her deadly demoniacal, maniac wrath. After all this, who could say that there was not luck in the world? and who could deny that luck had befriended him in a phenomenal manner?
Yes, he was lucky; he had been lucky all his life up to this, except at cards, and he should be lucky to the end. If Fate had meant ever to do him an ill turn, surely it would not have let slip two such remarkable opportunities. No, he was born to good fortune; and the saying was true that it was better to be born lucky than rich. And, thinking of riches, this day's mishaps had not even cost him the fifty pounds, for he still held the notes in his hand. What a fool that woman was not to take them! But then she had always been a fool.
And with this generous thought of the woman who had sacrificed everything for him, he dismissed her from his mind.
He was hatless, and his clothes were all rumpled and creased; and the water dripped from the ends of his trousers, making a wet patch on the deck wherever he stepped.
The people on the steamboat had noticed the hasty manner of his coming aboard, his rush out of the pier-master's room, and his leap from the hulk. They also observed that his clothes were wet, and that he was without any covering for his head. They were observing him with interest and curiosity. Becoming conscious of this, and feeling a slight shiver pass through him, he turned to one of the crew and said:
"In coming from the shore to the pier I fell into the water. Is there any brandy aboard?"
"Plenty, sir, in the fore-cabin."