And now they were parted for ever and ever and ever, and she should miss him to-day and to-morrow and all the days of the year now half spent, and of all the after years of her life.
She should miss him in death. She should not lie by his side in the grave. She should not be with him in the Life to Come.
All the glory of the world was only a vapour, a mist. The sunlight was a purposeless weariness. The smell of the flowers in the window-sill was thin and foretold decay. What was the use of a house and servants and food. Lethe was a river of Hell. Why? Why not a river of Paradise?
She should not be with him even in the grave--even in the grave where he could have no fear of her betraying him!
She would now take any share of humbleness in life if she might count on touching his hand and being for ever near him in the tomb.
CHAPTER XXXI.
[WINDING UP THE CLOCK.]
It was eleven o'clock that night when Tom Stamer, dressed in the seedy black clothes and wearing the false beard and whiskers he had on in the morning, started from the Borough once more for the West. He had not replaced the spectacles broken in his fall at the Hanover in Chetwynd Street. He carried a very substantial-looking walking-stick of great thickness and weight. It was not a loaded stick, but it would manifestly be a terrible weapon at close quarters, for, instead of consisting of metal only in one part of one end, it was composed of metal throughout. The seeming stick was not wood or leaded wood, but iron It was not solid, but hollow like a gas pipe, and at the end intended to touch the ground, the mouth of the tube was protected by a brass ferrule to which a small tampion was affixed. The handle was massive and crooked, and large enough to give ample hold to the largest hand of man. About a couple of inches from the crook there was a joining where the stick could be unscrewed.
Stamer accounted to the eyes of observers for carrying so massive a stick by affecting a lameness of the right leg. When he entered a dense crowd or came upon a point at which the people were hurrying, he raised the stick up from the ground and laid aside his limp. But where people were few and close observation of him possible, his lameness grew very marked, and not only did his stick seem indispensable, but he put it down on the pavement as gingerly as though the least jar caused him pain. Sympathetic people who saw him fancied he had but just come out of hospital, and were inclined to be indignant that he had not been supplied with more effectual support, such as crutches.
One old gentleman asked him if he ought not to have a second stick; Stamer snivelled and said he knew he ought, but declared with a sigh he had no money to buy another one. The old gentleman gave Stamer a shilling. Stamer touched his hat, thanked the old gentleman for his kindness and his gift, and requested Heaven to bless him. The old gentleman wore a heavy gold chain and, no doubt, a watch. But Stamer had important business on hand, and there were a great number of people about, and he did not want to run, for running would make his arm unsteady, so he asked Heaven to bless the old gentleman and forebore to rob him.