'Then you will allow Orange Trampleasure and her mother to come to me. See you! they are at Launceston, and are left without money.'
'I promised in your name to place five thousand pounds to the account of Miss Orange.'
'Yes, I do wish that. But that is not sufficient. They are not comfortable at Launceston. It was there that they met with their great reverse. It was in that house that Mr. Trampleasure died. The people of Launceston suffered by the failure of the gold mine, and they will not forgive Mrs. Trampleasure and Orange, though only the old man and Mr. Sampson were guilty of wrong towards them. I know that Orange and her mother would like to leave the town, and go elsewhere, where they are not known. That also is a reason why I wish them to come to me.'
'Very well,' said Herring: 'if it must be so, let it be so. It is a compromise, and a compromise is never satisfactory. I retain Genefer and you Orange. Ask them to come here to you on a visit of a couple or three months—temporarily—not as a permanence, and only till they have made up their minds where they will finally settle.'
'I must accept this,' said Mirelle, with a sigh: 'you were so very, very kind to me before—now that we are married, you are only half as kind.'
'Do not speak like this,' said Herring, hastily. 'I am what I was before, a friend, nothing further—I can be nothing further.'
'You will be always my friend?'
'Always.'
He drew a long breath. His heart was swelling and likely again to rend the crust and show its fires. He conquered himself and held out his hand.
'You will find that one drawer of my desk in the office is locked; I keep the key to that. Everything else is open to you. Good-bye!'