“There—don’t cry, little one. I know I’ve been a brute—or, at least, I suppose I have; and I——”
“No—you haven’t,” sobbed the girl. “And please don’t mind me; you’d better go away; you’d better not be seen with me. He’ll kill you, if he finds us together—he said he would.”
“Who’ll kill me?” asked Philip, glancing round involuntarily.
“Harry.” She was still sobbing, but he caught the name distinctly.
“And who the deuce is Harry?”
“As if you didn’t know! Why, Harry, of course—your servant. And he’ll keep his word, too.”
CHAPTER V
AN HONEST SAILOR-MAN
Philip Chater sat over the fire late that night, in a futile endeavour to see his new position clearly, and to decide upon the best course of action for him to adopt. Try as he would, however, the thing resolved itself merely into this: that Dandy Chater was dead, and that he (Philip), together with possibly one other man, alone knew of his death; that Philip Chater was accepted by every one—even the most intimate—as the real Dandy; that, in that capacity, he was already engaged to be married—had left a girl crying in the wood, that very day, whose name he did not know, but who obviously regarded him with considerable tenderness; and that there was, in addition, a certain Patience Miller, whom he was to have married, and who, up to the present, was not accounted for in the least.
“Altogether—a pretty state of affairs!” he muttered to himself, as he sat brooding over the fire. “Why, I don’t even know whether I’m rich or poor, or in what my property consists; I may meet Dandy Chater’s dearest friend to-morrow, and cut him dead; and, equally on the same principle, embrace my tailor, and hail him as a brother! I can’t disclose my real identity, for the question would naturally be asked—‘If you are not Dandy Chater, where is he?’ and I should have to tell them that he was dead—murdered—and I don’t know by whom. No; there’s not the slightest doubt that you are in a very tight place, Phil, my boy, and your only chance is to go through with the business.”
His thoughts strayed—and pleasantly, too—to the girl of more than average height, with the eyes that had looked so frankly into his own; he found himself remembering, with something very like a sentimental sigh, that she had held his hands, and had kissed him on the lips; remembered, too, with some indignation, that the man she supposed she loved had arranged to take another woman to London, on that very night of his death, and to marry her.