“No, no news,” said the girl, with a guilty blush. She knew the reason why. Reginald’s last letter, written just before his arrest, was at that moment in her pocket.
“Has Mr Horace started to the office?”
“No; he’s a-going to wait and see the doctor, and he says I was to ask you to tell the gentleman so.”
“Can I see him?”
“No; he’s asleep just now,” said the girl.
So Booms had to go down alone to the Rocket, as far as ever from getting the burden of Jemima’s secret off his mind.
He had a good mind to pass it on to Waterford, and might have done so, had not that young gentleman been engaged all the morning on special duty, which kept him in Mr Granville’s room.
Booms grew more and more dispirited and nervous. Every footstep that came to the door made him tremble, for fear it should be the signal for the unhappy disclosure. He tried hard to persuade himself it would be kinder after all to say nothing about it. What good could it do now?
Booms, as the reader knows, had not a very large mind. But what there was of it was honest, and it told him, try how he would, there was no getting out of a promise. So he busied himself with concocting imaginary phrases and letters, by way of experiment as to the neatest way of breaking his bad news.
Still he dreaded his friend’s arrival more and more; and when at last a brisk footstep halted at the door, he started and turned pale like a guilty thing, and wished Jemima at the bottom of the sea!