"Judith!" he called after her, but she was gone.
Percival went into his own room. The money had come just in time, for his landlady's weekly account was lying on the table. He looked at the three coins with lingering tenderness, and after a moment's hesitation he took one of them and vowed that he would never part with it. Yet in the midst of his ardent resolution he smiled rather bitterly to think that it was not the sovereign, but one of the halves, he meant to keep for ever. Poverty had taught him many lessons, and among them how to combine economy and sentiment. "If she had given me the ten shillings' worth of silver, I suppose I should have saved the threepenny bit!" he said to himself as he locked his little remembrance in his desk.
A couple of days later, as he was walking home with Bertie, they passed three or four men who were sauntering idly along, and Thorne felt sure that his companion received and returned a silent glance of recognition. He glanced over his shoulder at them, and disliked their look exceedingly. "Do you know who those fellows were we passed just now?" he said.
Bertie looked back: "One is the brother of a man in our choir."
"Hm! I wouldn't have one of them for my brother at any price," said Percival. The matter dropped, but he could not forget it. He fancied that there was a slight change in Bertie himself—that the boy's face was keener and haggard, and there was an anxious expression in his eyes. But he owned frankly that he was not at all sure that he should have noticed anything if his suspicions had not been previously aroused.
"Come in this evening," said Bertie when they went up stairs. He leant against the door of Percival's room, and as his friend hesitated he called to his sister: "Here, Judith! tell Thorne to come and have some tea with us: they've let his fire out, and his room is as warm and cheerful as a sepulchre."
"Do you think I order other people about as I do you?" she replied.—"Will you come, Mr. Thorne? I can, at any rate, promise you a fire and a welcome."
When she met him she was quite calm, tranquil and clear-eyed. Do the ripples of the summer sea recall that distant line, the supreme effort of wind and tide some stormy night? Percival would have thought that it had been all a dream but for the little coin which that wave had flung at his feet for a remembrance. And he had called after her "Judith!" The tide had ebbed, and he did not even think of her as other than Miss Lisle. Had she heard him that evening? He would almost have hoped not, but that twilight moment seemed so far away that it must be absurd to link it with his every-day life.
Apparently, she and Bertie were on their usual footing. Did the young fellow know of that absurd mistake about old Fordham? Did Percival really detect a shade of dim apprehension on Judith Lisle's face, as if she hid an unspoken fear? As Bertie leant forward and the lamplight shone on his clearly-cut features, Percival was more than ever certain of the change in him. Could his sister fail to see it?
"Bertie," she said when they had finished their tea and were standing round the fire—"Bertie, I'm afraid you have lost one of your pupils."