"Bless'd if ever I see'd two such beautiful women afore. I don't half like it; I wish we'd nabbed him in the street—and" he lowered his whisper—"if there's much o' this here sort o' work to be done, I've had enough of being a bum already, an' 'll go back to my business again, bad as times is!"
"Kind—good men!" said Kate, approaching them, and speaking with forced calmness—pushing aside her disordered hair from her pale cheeks, "Can't you leave him here—only a day longer?"
"Can't, miss—it's quite unpossible; it's not to be done for no money short of debt and costs," said the officer, respectfully, but rather doggedly—as if he were getting tired of the scene—"one would think we were a-going to murder the gemman! Once for all, if so be as he will only go as a gemman should, to my little place in Chancery-Lane—(my name's Grab, miss, at your service, and there a'n't a better conducted lock-up nor mine in London, I assure you, nor where debtors is more comfortably looked arter)—he's no need to be there above a day or two—it may be less—and of course his friends will come and bail him out; so don't be a-going on so when it's no manner o' use!"
"Charles! My love!" murmured Mrs. Aubrey, faintly—"they surely will not separate us? Oh! let us go together; I don't care where we go to, so long as I am with you."
"Do not ask it, my darling! my heart's love!" replied Mr. Aubrey, tenderly, as he supported her in his arms, and against his knee—and a tear fell from his eye upon her cheek—"I shall be exposed to but little inconvenience, I am certain; there can be no violence or insult offered me so long as I submit myself peaceably to the laws! And I shall soon, please God, be back!"
"Oh, Charles! I shall die—I shall never survive seeing you carried away!" she replied—and her manner was becoming increasingly vehement.
"Agnes, Agnes!" said her husband, reprovingly, "the mother must not desert her children; my heart will ache every moment that I am absent, if I think that my dear little ones have not a mother's protection."
"Kate will take care of them, love!" said Mrs. Aubrey, faintly; and her husband tenderly kissed her forehead. While this hurried colloquy between the wretched couple was proceeding, Kate was talking in low but impassioned tones to the two officers, who listened to her respectfully, but shook their heads.
"No, miss—it can't be; it can't indeed."
"But you shall have everything in the house for your security—I have still a good many handsome dresses; jewels, all—all; surely they will produce something; and then there's plate, and books, and furniture—you can't think Mr. Aubrey's going basely to run away!"——