"And where's Pilcher now?"
"Can't say. Somewhere about the old quarter, no doubt."
"Ah, well, I am sorry for him, poor devil. Goodnight. Shall see you again before long." And with that the earl made a rush for his carriage.
Next day he wrote to Clement, asking him to hunt up Pilcher's address. A week later "poor Pilcher" received by post a twenty-pound note simply endorsed, "From a friend."
[CHAPTER XIV.]
"TWELVE IT IS."
We must now go back a little space in our history.
When Lord Loughton, on the occasion of his first dinner at Bourbon House, was introduced to Miss Tebbuts, the aunt of Mr. Larkins, he did not forget what he had been told respecting that lady. "Wellclose said she was thirty-six, but she looks at least half a dozen years older than that," muttered the earl to himself. "But twenty thousand pounds can gild with youth and beauty a demoiselle of even that mature age." And his lordship became at once very attentive to Miss Tebbuts.
Hannah Tebbuts was sister to Orlando's mother. In conjunction with another sister, also unmarried, she had for several years kept a select seminary for young ladies in a little town in one of the midland counties. When her sister married Mr. Larkins that gentleman had not risen to fame and fortune. He was still brooding over the Pill that was ultimately to make his name known to the ends of the earth. Even then Hannah Tebbuts saw but little of her married sister, and she saw still less of her when Mrs. Larkins went to live in a big mansion in the outskirts of London.
By and by Mrs. Larkins died, and after that a dozen years passed away without Miss Hannah catching even a passing glimpse of her rich relations in London. But at the end of that time there came a message for her to go up to town with the least possible delay. Her famous brother-in-law was dangerously ill, and he had asked that she might be sent for to go and nurse him. Miss Hannah was less loath to go because she had lately lost the sister with whom she had lived for so many years, and had, in consequence, given up her school. Once in London, there she remained till Mr. Larkins died. His illness was a long and tedious one, but through it all Miss Hannah nursed her brother-in-law with the most devoted care and attention. As a reward for her services, and a token of the high esteem in which he held her, the sick man, by a codicil added to his will only a few days before his death, bequeathed to her the very handsome legacy of twenty thousand pounds.