"Did he see him?" Julia inquired.
"No, he was out. To tell the truth, I don't believe your father ever knew he came," Johnny confessed; "I meant to tell him, of course, but he was late home that day, and when he came he was—was—well, you know, he couldn't—it didn't seem—"
"Yes," said Julia, coming to the rescue, "he was drunk and could not understand, and afterwards you forgot it; it does not matter; indeed, it is better so; I am glad of it."
Mr. Gillat was fumbling in his shabby letter-case; he took out a card; it bore Rawson-Clew's name and address of a London club.
"He gave me this," he said, "and told me to let him know if I heard from you, if you were in any trouble, or anything—if I thought you were."
Julia held out her hand. "You had better give it to me," she said; "I'll let him know all that is necessary. Thank you;" and she put the card away.
Soon after she went to her room, for it was growing late. But she did not hurry over undressing; indeed, when she sat down to take off her stockings, she paused with one in her hand, thinking of Rawson-Clew. So he had tried to find out where she was; he did not then accept her answer as final; he was bent on seeing that she came to no harm through him—honourable, certainly, and like him. He had come to Berwick Street and nearly seen her father—drunk; quite seen Mr. Gillat, in the first floor sitting-room certainly, but no doubt shabby and not very wise as usual. She was not ashamed; though for a moment she had been glad he had missed her father; now she told herself it did not matter either way. He knew what she was and what her people were; what did it matter if he realised it a little more? They were not of his sort, it was no good pretending for a moment that they were. His sort! She laughed silently at the thought. The girls of his sort eating steak and onions in a back bedroom with Johnny Gillat! Caring for Johnny as she cared, liking to sit with him in the pokey little room while he smoked Dutch cigars; not doing it out of kindness of heart and charity, but finding personal pleasure in it and a sense of home-coming! If Rawson-Clew had come that evening while they were at supper, or while she cured the smoky fire or mended the blind, or while they sipped black coffee out of earthenware breakfast-cups and talked of her father's delinquencies! It would not have mattered; he knew she was of the stoke-hole—she had told him so—and not like the accomplished girls whom he usually met—who could not have got him the explosive!
She dropped her stocking to take the wide-necked bottle in her hands, deciding now how best to send it. It must go by post, in a good-sized wooden box, tightly packed, with a great deal of damp straw and wool; it ought to be safe that way. She would send it to the club address, it was fortunate she had it; but not yet, not until her own plans were clearer. It was just possible he might suspect her; it was hardly likely, but it was always as well to provide against remote contingencies, for if he tried and succeeded in verifying the suspicion everything would be spoiled. He had made sensible efforts to find her before, he might make equally sensible and more successful ones again, unless she left a way of escape clear for herself. Accordingly, so she determined, the explosive should not go yet, thought it had better be packed ready. She would get a box and packing to-morrow; to-night she could only copy the formula. She did this, printing it carefully on a strip of paper which she put on the bottle and coated with wax from her candle. She knew Herr Van de Greutz waxed labels sometimes to preserve them from the damp, so she felt sure the formula would be safe however wet she might make the packing.
The next day she went to the lawyer's office and heard all about the legacy and what she must do to prove her own identity and claim it. Mr. Gillat waited outside, pacing up and down the street, striving so hard to look casual that he aroused the suspicions of a not too acute policeman. The official was reassured, however, when Julia came out of the office and carried Johnny away to hear about the legacy.
"It is more than I thought," she said, before they were half down the street. "Fifty pounds a year, a small house—not much more than a cottage—and a garden and field; that's about what it comes to. The house is not worth much; it is in an unget-at-able part of Norfolk, in the sandy district towards the sea—the man spoke as if I knew where that was, but I don't—and the garden and field are not fertile. I don't suppose one could let the place, but one could live in it, if one wanted to."