“Indeed they were most mercifully dealt with, those scullions. The King of France would have sent a troop of horse to sabre them back into their kennels. ‘Strike through!’ cried his lordship, and, by God! ’t is a good phrase, most suitable motto for a coat of arms, a hand grasping a dagger above it. ‘Strike through!’ I shall not forget it. But ’t was a softer and more endearing theme I wished to——”
“Sir, I beseech your polite consideration. I am nigh distraught with what I have seen, and am filled with a fear of London. ’T is not the courtly city I expected to behold. I am not myself.”
“But you will at least bid me hope?”
“Surely, surely, all of us may hope.”
“Why, ’t was the last and only gift left in Pandora’s casket, and London were grim indeed to be more bereft than the receptacle of that deceitful woman. May I make my first draught on Madam Pandora’s box by hoping that I am to see you at this hour tomorrow?”
“Yes—to-morrow—to-morrow,” gasped the girl faintly.
CHAPTER V.—EXACTION.
A ‘drizzling rain had set in and had driven the crowds from the streets. Frances drew a chair to the window of the library and sat there meditating on the strange events in which she was taking some small part, so different from the tranquil happenings of the district she had known all her life. She had imagined London a city of palaces facing broad streets, fanciedly, if not literally, paved with gold; a town of gaiety and laughter: and here was the reality, a cavernous, squalid, gloomy, human warren, peopled with murky demons bent on outrage of some sort, ill-natured and threatening. As the day waned, she saw that in spite of the rain the mob was collecting again, its atoms running hither and thither, calling to each other; bedraggled beings labouring under some common excitement. And now its roar came to her again, farther off than before,—a roar that chilled her while she listened, and the wave of sound this time seemed to have a fearful note of exultation in it. She wondered what had happened, and was anxious for her father if he were at the mercy of it. Mrs. Jarrett came into the room, followed by a man-servant, and also by one of her father’s secretaries, as the woman whispered to the girl: