“I kept Miss Hughes pretty late this afternoon, working the things into shape, so as to get them to the papers at once. I just give her the main points, and she has such a neat touch.”
Ray left his publisher with a light heart, and a pious sense of the divine favor. He had conceived of a difficult duty, and he had discharged it with unflinching courage. He had kept his word to Hughes; he had done all that he could for him, even to offering his own chance of fame and fortune a sacrifice to him. Now he could do no more, and if he could not help being glad that the sacrifice had not been accepted of him, he was not to be blamed. He was very much to be praised, and he rewarded himself with a full recognition of his virtue; he imagined some words, few but rare, from Peace, expressing her sense of his magnanimity, when she came to know of it. He hoped that a fact so creditable to him, and so characteristic, would not escape the notice of his biographer. He wished that Hughes could know what he had done, and in his revery he contrived that his generous endeavor should be brought to the old man’s knowledge; he had Hughes say that such an action was more to him than the publication of his book.
Throughout his transport of self-satisfaction there ran a nether torment of question whether Peace Hughes could possibly suppose that he was privy to that paragraphing about his book, and this finally worked to the surface, and become his whole mood. After his joyful riot it was this that kept him awake till morning, that poisoned all his pleasure in his escape from self-sacrifice. He could only pacify himself and get some sleep at last by promising to stop at the publisher’s on his way down to the Every Evening office in the morning, and beseech her to believe that he had nothing to do with priming the press, and that he wished Mr. Brandreth had not told him of it. Nothing less than this was due him in the character that he desired to appear in hereafter.
He reached the publisher’s office before Mr. Brandreth came down, and when he said he would like to see Miss Hughes, the clerk answered that Miss Hughes had sent word that her father was not so well, and she would not be down that day.
“He’s pretty low, I believe,” the clerk volunteered.
“I’m afraid so,” said Ray.
He asked if the clerk would call a messenger to take a note from him to his office, and when he had despatched it he went up to see Hughes.
“Did you get our message?” Peace asked him the first thing.
“No,” said Ray. “What message?”
“That we sent to your office. He has been wanting to see you ever since he woke this morning. I knew you would come!”