"I suppose not," I answered him. "But what will he want me to do. Be patient with me," I pleaded, "because I'm not used to the ways of the world yet; I'm afraid of everything. Be patient with me."
"I'll be patient with you, dolt!" he exclaimed wrathfully. "In the first place, I suppose you understand that our friend Mr. Murray Olivant happens to take a very deep interest in matters in which you and I once interested ourselves, but with which we now have nothing further to do. In other words, as I have explained to you partly already, there is a new generation grown up in the place you knew; and our friend Olivant knows that generation well. More than that, he knows one at least of the old generation."
I knew to what he referred; I remembered the new Barbara I had seen—so like her mother, and so unconsciously living again, as it seemed, her mother's story. It was so clear to me now that I was almost prepared for the next words Fanshawe said, and they did not come upon me with any real shock.
"And the new generation that is growing up is rather like what the old one was, and is represented by a girl. They call her Barbara. That makes you jump—eh?" he demanded vindictively. "And our friend Murray Olivant takes a deep interest in this Barbara—in other words—loves her."
It was all coming true—it was all happening as I knew instinctively in my own mind it must happen. Fate was marching on grimly enough, and I saw that not only was there a new Barbara and a new Charlie Avaline, but that here, menacing them, was a new Gavin Hockley. I was afraid, and I suppose the terror that was growing up in me showed itself in my face. At all events my guardian saw it, but mistook the reason for it.
"There's nothing for you to be frightened about," he said scornfully; "I don't suppose any one is likely to recognize you. You'll only be poor Tinman, the hanger-on and servant; no one is likely to ask questions about you. I don't doubt Murray Olivant will give you plenty of dirty work to do; and you must do it with a smiling face, and be thankful that you've found some one to keep you out of the workhouse. By the way," he added suddenly, as the thought occurred to him—"where have you been last night and to-day?"
"Oh, just wandering about," I replied vaguely; for I did not mean to tell him that I had taken that surprising plunge back into the past. "I have not seen London for so long," I added lamely.
"Well, that's all right; but don't try that game again," he said. "You'll be landing some of us into difficulties, to say nothing of yourself, if you wander about in your present muddle-headed condition. Stay where you can be looked after, and do as you're told."
I meekly promised that I would obey; I ventured presently, as we sat there with the table between us, to put a question or two about the past.
"I want you to tell me," I said—"I want to know what has happened down at Hammerstone Market in all these years. You tell me that a new Barbara has grown up to take the place of the old, but what of the old one?" It was all absurd and impossible, and I was a poor shabby broken grey-haired man, to whom love should mean nothing; but my voice trembled as I asked the question.