But his impatience to examine the Bracelet got the better of his repentance, as it had already got the better of every other thought and feeling in him. He stopped under a gas lamp, and drew his prize out of his pocket. He could see that it was made of two kinds of hair, and that something was engraved on the flat gold of the clasp. But his hand shook, his eyes were dimmer than usual, the light was too high above him, and try as he might he could make out nothing clearly.
He put the Bracelet into his pocket again, and, muttering to himself impatiently, made for Kirk Street at his utmost speed. His landlord’s wife happened to be in the passage when he opened the door. Without the ceremony of a single preliminary word, he astonished her by taking her candle out of her hand, and instantly disappearing up-stairs with it. Zack had not come from the theater—he had the lodgings to himself—he could examine the Hair Bracelet in perfect freedom.
His first look was at the clasp. By holding it close to the flame of the candle, he succeeded in reading the letters engraved on it.
“M. G. In memory of S. G.”
“Mary Grice. In memory of Susan Grice.” Mat’s hand closed fast on the Bracelet—and dropped heavily on his knee, as he uttered those words.
* * * * * *
The pantomime which Zack had gone to see, was so lengthened out by encores of incidental songs and dances, that it was not over till close on midnight. When he left the theater, the physical consequences of breathing a vitiated atmosphere made themselves felt immediately in the regions of his mouth, throat, and stomach. Those ardent aspirations in the direction of shell-fish and malt liquor, which it is especially the mission of the English drama to create, overcame him as he issued into the fresh air, and took him to the local oyster shop for refreshment and change of scene.
Having the immediate prospect of the private Drawing Academy vividly and menacingly present before his eyes, Zack thought of the future for once in his life, and astonished the ministering vassals of the oyster shop (with all of whom he was on terms of intimate friendship), by enjoying himself with exemplary moderation at the festive board. When he had done supper, and was on his way to bed at the tobacconist’s across the road, it is actually not too much to say that he was sober and subdued enough to have borne inspection by the President and Council of the Royal Academy, as a model student of the Fine Arts.
It was rather a surprise to him not to hear his friend snoring when he let himself into the passage, but his surprise rose to blank astonishment when he entered the front room, and saw the employment on which his fellow lodger was engaged.
Mat was sitting by the table, with his rifle laid across his knees, and was scouring the barrel bright with a piece of sand paper. By his side was an unsnuffed candle, an empty bottle, and a tumbler with a little raw brandy left in the bottom of it. His face, when he looked up, showed that he had been drinking hard. There was a stare in his eyes that was at once fierce and vacant, and a hard, fixed, unnatural smile on his lips which Zack did not at all like to see.