Mr. Jaggers was busy at his desk tearing up papers, some of which already blazed upon the hearth. The desk itself was open, and by the light of the shaded lamp she could see that it contained a heavily bound box in which hung a bunch of keys. As she delivered Mr. Dryce's message, still in the shadow of the door, he looked up with a scared face, and dropping the lid of the desk with a loud slam, peered into the darkness.
Mrs. Harris repeated her message, and returned swiftly up the stairs, nor stopped even to go in for the child, but shut herself into her own room. Somehow or other Mr. Jaggers felt a cold perspiration break out all over him, and yet he need scarcely have been cold, for he already had his greatcoat on, and there was a decent fire in the grate burning behind a guard. Still he shivered, and after taking the lamp and once more looking into the entry, gave a deep sigh of relief, and in a half-absent manner locked both box and desk and carefully placed the keys in a breast pocket. Leaving the lamp still burning, he went upstairs and found Mr. Dryce alone, sitting at the table with the books open before him. He looked up as his clerk entered. "Take a seat, Jaggers," he said, "I shall want you for an hour or more, for there are several things here that require explanation."
Mr. Jaggers turned pale, but he took off his coat and laid it along with his hat on the great horsehair sofa at the other end of the room. Then both he and his employer plunged into figures, till the chimes of a distant clock sounded nine. "We must finish this the day after to-morrow, Jaggers," said Mr. Dryce. "I won't keep you longer."
Mr. Jaggers put on his coat and hat, and bade his employer good-night, and he had no sooner left the room than Mrs. Harris came in to fetch the little one, for, as she said, "it was already past his bedtime."
Richard Dryce fell into his chair, and was as near having a fit as ever he had been in his life.
"Good heaven! Mrs. Harris—you don't mean to say you haven't got the boy. He's not here; run and see whether he has gone into Betsy's room; she runs away with him sometimes."
"Mamma!" said a sleepy little voice under the sofa, and Mr. Dryce and the nurse were both on their knees in a moment.
"The precious! why, if he hasn't been asleep all the time!" said Mr. Dryce, kissing the warm rosy cheek; "take him off to bed directly, and bring him down to breakfast in the morning."
Mrs. Harris only just escaped meeting Jaggers on the stairs, up which he was coming, followed by Betty with a flaring tallow candle, and looking carefully on every stair. "I beg your pardon, sir," he said, with a scared look, as he opened the room door, "but have you seen my keys anywhere? I must have dropped them somewhere in the room, I think."
"No," replied Mr. Dryce, "I've seen nothing—most extraordinary!" he said to himself, thinking of the child and forgetting Jaggers.