CHAPTER XXXIV.
Reuben May had been but a short time back in London when one evening, as he was closing the shutters of his small shop, a boy presented himself, saying he was the landlady's nephew at Knight's Passage, and had been sent by her to ask Mr. May for some of the things he was taking care of for Eve Pascal.
"Why, what does she want them for?" asked Reuben curtly.
"She wants them for Eve Pascal herself," said the boy. "Eve Pascal has come back again: she came back this morning, only she hadn't got any one to send till now."
"All right," said Reuben, returning to his shutter-closing and then proceeding to fasten the door: "I'll go round and speak to her myself."
"Then you won't want me?" said the boy, not sorry to be released by his stern-looking companion.
"No: you can go your own way," replied Reuben, already several paces in advance, and walking with such rapid strides that a few minutes brought him to the house which had been the scene of all the romance his life had ever known.
"Oh, Mr. May!" but, paying no heed to the landlady's voice and without a pause, Reuben ran up the different flights of stairs, knocked at the door, opened it, and found himself at once in the presence of Eve: "Eve!"
"Reuben!"
And then silence, each looking at the other, wondering what could have wrought such a change; for the bodily fatigue and mental anxiety undergone by Reuben had told as heavily on his appearance as the sorrow Eve had endured had told on hers, although the absence of original comeliness made the alteration in him less generally noticeable.