Loe raamatut: «Mad: A Story of Dust and Ashes», lehekülg 24
Volume Three – Chapter Seven.
A Meeting and its Result
It was late before Arthur Sterne left Bennett’s-rents that night. Septimus Hardon had been terribly excited – talking long and wildly of his poverty being the cause of the insult offered to his child. He had walked hurriedly up and down the room, gesticulating and threatening the scoundrel who had so repaid Lucy’s kindness; and again and again it was upon the curate’s lips to speak of the little one, and of Lucy’s strange intimacy with its mother; but his spirit revolted from the task. In another case he would have spoken instantly; but here duty seemed to move in fetters that he could not break. In all concerning the poor girl he seemed bound to preserve silence till such time as some explanation should be given, and through all he had been in constant dread lest he should give her pain.
“I must prosecute the villain!” exclaimed Septimus.
“But the pain – the exposure – your child?” said the curate.
“What! would you have him go unpunished?” exclaimed Septimus.
“I would say ‘No!’ directly,” replied the curate; “but I cannot help thinking of the painful scene in court, the public examination, and the cross-examination by the prisoner’s counsel; and these men can always among themselves manage to get some able person to undertake their cause. It would be a most painful position in which to place your child. Her actions would be distorted to suit a purpose; and such a scene – ”
Mr Sterne’s speech dwindled off, and became inaudible; for he felt that he had spoken unadvisedly, and a strange chill came over him as he thought, in the event of the affair being in court, what hold the opposing counsel could take of certain acts in Lucy’s life; for, let them he ever so innocent, the light in which they would place her would be of the most painful character; and his lips were rather white as he said, “Sleep on it, Mr Hardon, sleep on it.”
“I will,” said Septimus proudly. “We are poor, Mr Sterne; but there is no act in my dear child’s life that will not bear the light of day.”
“Doubtless, doubtless,” replied the curate in a low tone; “but, believe me, my advice is given with the best of wishes and intentions, Mr Hardon. Have I not always tried to be a friend? And if there was somewhat of selfishness in my advances, I feel no shame in owning to you that I am moved by a feeling of more than esteem for Miss Grey; to whom any proceedings would, I am sure, be as painful as to myself.”
Septimus Hardon started, for this was as sudden as unexpected. Such a thought had never entered his breast, and he gazed wonderingly at the calm, pale face before him; as in the silence which ensued they both sat listening to the painful, low sob which came now and again from the next room, where, forgetful of her own infirmities, Mrs Hardon had been trying to soothe the agitated girl.
And then, hour after hour, Septimus sat talking with Mr Sterne – for the first time now giving himself up entirely to his advice, and promising to give up all thought of prosecution, while he sought at once for some more suitable home for his wife and child, though, as he thought of his narrow, precarious income, he made the latter promise with a sigh. He talked long and earnestly, too, about his own affairs, being ready now to take the counsel that Mr Sterne so freely offered; and when, with a lighter heart, the curate rose to leave, Septimus shook hands, with a puzzled expression upon his face, as if he hardly believed in the events of the past evening.
Upon slowly descending and reaching the door, Mr Sterne drew back, asking himself whether he should be content, or seize the opportunity that now offered for him to know that of which it was evident, from his language, Septimus Hardon was still ignorant. The desire was strong to know more, and he yielded to it; for there before him, standing in the open court, and gazing anxiously up at the lighted window, was the woman who had caused him so much uneasiness; but neither he nor the woman saw that in the shade of the opposite doorway a villainous pair of eyes were on the watch.
Again and again he had encountered this woman since he had determined to question her – upon the bridge at early dawn; by night, in the crowded streets, dressed in the extreme of fashion; shabbily dressed by day; but she always fled, and contrived to elude him. Who was she? What was she? How came she intimate with Lucy? Was it merely for the child’s sake? Then why Lucy’s dread?
The opportunity was here, he told himself, and he would know; and then, as he formed the determination, he stepped quickly out; but no sooner did Agnes Hardon catch sight of the curate’s pale, stern face by the sickly flicker of the one lamp than she turned and fled, while, without pausing to think, the curate closed the door and pursued her.
A dark, gusty time, late, for two had struck but a minute before by church after church – some sending their booming announcement clearly out upon the night air, others discordantly, and jangling with the bells of others. Turning towards the end of the court, Agnes ran swiftly, her dress rustling, and fashionable boots pattering upon the pavement; but her pursuer was quick of foot, and followed her along the end row, through Harker’s-alley, Ray’s-court, along one labyrinth and down another of the old district, now falling beneath the contractor’s pick, till they had nearly returned to the point from whence they started. But flight was of no avail, and soon Arthur Sterne overtook the panting woman, himself breathless, and, heedless of her fierce looks, caught her by the wrist.
“Come with me,” he said sternly, as he drew her towards the entrance of the dark court where they stood.
“Why, why?” she exclaimed passionately, struggling with him the while. “Why do you stop me? Why do you pursue me – you, too, a clergyman?”
The answer to the taunt was a cold look, which Agnes Hardon saw and felt; for the next moment she was weeping passionately. “Why do you track and follow me, sir?” she exclaimed through her tears. “Let me go; you hurt my arm!”
“Will you stand and answer my questions, then?” said the curate, as they now stood at the entrance of the court – a dark, gloomy archway, with a doorway here and there.
“Yes, yes,” exclaimed Agnes wearily, “if you will be quick; but there, I know what you would say, and it is of no use; I am past all that!”
“Past all what?” cried the curate sternly.
“Hope of better things,” said the woman with so weary and despondent a wail, that her hearer shuddered.
“Hush!” he said; “you speak rashly, and without thinking;” and releasing her wrist, he laid his hand gently upon her arm. “Listen,” he said; “you have your woman’s feelings yet!”
“No,” she replied hastily, “all – all gone; driven out of me – dead. Let me go, please; it’s late, sir. I am a wretch, and it is useless to talk.”
“But why do you pursue that young girl?” he said, pointing across the street to where Bennett’s-rents debouched. “Would you tempt her to be your companion?”
“No, no, no; my God, no!” half-shrieked Agnes, as she caught at his hands; “don’t think that, sir.”
“Then you have some womanly feeling left,” said Mr Sterne.
“Towards her, perhaps, yes.”
“And your child?”
“Yes, yes, yes,” wailed Agnes; “but don’t torture me. What do you know? – what do you wish me to do? – why do you follow me?”
“What is your name?” said the curate sternly; “and how came you to know her?” and he pointed again towards Bennett’s-rents.
“Don’t ask me, I cannot tell you,” sobbed Agnes.
“But you bring misery on her and on her home. You have some hold upon her?”
“No, no, no,” sobbed Agnes hysterically; “none, none; but she knows who I am, and pities me and my poor child. God’s blessing on her!”
“Amen!” muttered the curate under his breath, and his companion sobbed so convulsively that she could not speak, while, as they stood in the dark entry, a policeman came slowly by, flashed the light of his bull’s-eye upon them for an instant, recognised the curate and passed on, and, till he was out of hearing, Agnes Hardon clutched the curate’s arm.
“You are not afraid of the world and it’s opinions,” she said bitterly; “it cannot hurt you. Stay with me and I will tell you all, for I believe you mean me well.”
The curate bowed his head.
“I am miserable, wretched,” she sobbed, “and what can I do? That man in the court has my poor child, and for some reason he will not give it up. I have tried to get it away again and again, even to stealing it, sir – my own little one; but something has always prevented me, and he watches me till, hardened as I am, I am afraid of him, for he comes over my spirit like the shadow of some great horror about to crush me. I love my child, my pure little angel, for – O sir, have pity on me, have pity! – I am its mother, and what else have I here to cling to? Can you not think how I must love it though I left it with that poor dead woman? But she had a mother’s heart, and was kind to it always. I could see it in my darling’s blue eyes even when it racked my heart; but I was glad, though it would not come to me, and called her mother. I was happy then, for did not she – she you say I injure – watch over it for me, and tell me of its bright eyes and sunny hair and winning ways, while, when I have listened to her, the tears have come gently to quench the fire in my brain, and I could think of home and the past, while she – she who loves my little one – lets me weep upon her breast, and I forget for a while that I am lost, lost, lost for ever!”
“Lost, lost, lost for ever!” She uttered these words so hopelessly, with such a wail of agony, that they seemed to echo along the archway, and to float off upon the night breeze, rising and falling, an utterance never to fade away, but to go on for ever and ever while this world lasts; to smite upon the sleeping ears of the cruel, the dissolute, and the profligate; to awaken here, perhaps, one sorrowful thought for wrong done, one thought of repentance; there, a desire to pause, ere it be too late, on the brink of some iniquity that should break a trusting woman’s heart.
Tenderly, and with such a strange feeling of compassion in his heart as might have pervaded that of his Master whose words he taught, Arthur Sterne took the weeping woman’s hands in his, as, sobbing more bitterly than ever, she sank upon her knees on the cold stones at his feet, weeping as though her heart would break; nay, as if through the torn walls of that broken citadel the flood of tears went seething and hissing, the ruins yet smouldering and burning with the fire of the fatal passion that had been their fall.
“What shall I do, sir?” she cried at length, wearily looking up in the face that bent over her. “I would take my little one away and go near the place no more, for I have been seldom lately, not liking that he should see me with her, for he followed us once, and I did not like it. I would have told her not to go near my child, but there is a woman sometimes there. He will not let me take it away. But tell me what to do, sir,” she said wearily, “and I will do it.”
“What!” she cried, starting up, “what!” she half-shrieked, as he related to her the incident of the past night; “and this through me? Am I to bring misery everywhere? O God, O God!” she cried, “that my weakness, my sin, should be ever growing and bringing its misery upon others! But stop, sir; listen,” she exclaimed huskily, as she clung to his arm; “what shall we do? If I could have seen this, sir, I’d have died sooner than it should have happened; believe me, I would.”
The curate bent his head once more, as they stood facing the street, and said, in low, impressive tones, “I do believe you;” but he took no heed to a light, stealthy pace in the alley behind.
“What shall I do, sir?” cried Agnes eagerly.
“Take the child away at once,” replied Mr Sterne, “and leave this life. But will you?”
“If the gates of heaven were opened, sir, and One said, ‘Come in, poor sinner, and rest,’ should I go?”
The stealthy step came nearer, but was unnoticed.
“Now tell me your name, and how came the intimacy of which I complain,” said Mr Sterne.
“I – I knew the family; I knew Lucy – Miss Grey – before her father – and – pray, pray ask me no more,” gasped Agnes appealingly. “I will do all you wish, sir. Help me to get my child, and I will go anywhere you may tell me; but don’t ask me that, sir.”
“Nay,” said Mr Sterne, with beating heart, for he felt that her reply would drive away his last doubt, “tell me now; you may trust me.”
“Yes, yes,” sobbed Agnes; “I know, but I cannot.”
The step sounded very close now, while the light from the lamp in the alley was for a moment obscured.
“I will do all that you ask,” sobbed Agnes. “Tell me what else you wish, and I will be as obedient as a child, but – ”
“Prove it, then, by telling me how began your intimacy with Miss – ”
There was a wild scream from Agnes Hardon as she thrust the curate aside; but too late, for a heavy, dull blow from behind crushed through his hat, and stretched him upon the pavement, where, for an instant, a thousand lights seemed dancing before his eyes, and then all was blank.
It was no unusual sound that, a woman’s shriek, especially the half-drunken cry of some street wanderer; but one window was opened, and a head thrust out, whose owner muttered for a moment and then closed the sash, for though he had seen a woman struggling with a man, he did not hear the words that passed, nor could he see that the man was trying hard to extricate himself from the woman’s grasp; but there were other wakeful eyes upon the watch.
Volume Three – Chapter Eight.
Waste-Paper
“Well, yes, sir,” said Matt, standing hat in hand, “’tis snug and comfortable, sir; and I’m glad to see the change, and I’m sure I wish you long life to enjoy it. Glad you’ve got here all right, sir; and sorry I was too weak to help you move. I’ve got the address down all right in my memo-book: look here, sir – 150 Essex-street, Strand, sir.”
“And now we’ll go, then, Matt,” said Septimus, rising.
“Go, sir?” said Matt.
“Yes,” said Septimus, “if you will; for the thing has been too long neglected already.”
“Very true, sir,” said Matt: “but you told me as the parson, sir, Mr Sterne, was going to take it in hand; and if so – ”
“Now, Matt,” said Septimus appealingly, “isn’t he lying upon a bed of sickness, weak and helpless, and unable to move?”
“Well, yes, sir, that’s true; and a rum start that was, too. Wonder who would have a spite against him? But I thought that now, sir, as you’d – ”
Septimus Hardon took the old man by the arm and placed him in a chair; for it was evident that he was a little testy and jealous of other interposition in the matters in which he had taken so much interest; but the cordiality of Mrs Septimus seemed to chase it away; while Lucy, returning from a walk, beamed so happily upon the old man, that he looked his old self again, and owned to the feeling that, as he expressed it, he had expected that he was going to be “pitched overboard,” now there were new friends.
It was partly by Mr Sterne’s advice that Septimus had sought out and asked Matt to accompany him this day; for though much hurt, and weak from loss of blood, the curate had taken great interest in the future of the Hardon family. At his request Septimus had sought and removed to lodgings in Essex-street, and since then passed an evening by the curate’s bedside; for he had been found by a policeman perfectly insensible, and carried home; and, though nearly certain of who was his assailant, he felt indisposed to take any steps in the matter for fear that affairs might be made public which he wished concealed. He had not seen Lucy since; but somehow there was a feeling of repose and content within his breast that it had not known for months; and he longed for the time when he could again meet with the woman whose words would have, he now felt, set him at rest for ever.
There seemed, too, a brightness in Lucy foreign to her looks, as Septimus leaned over her and whispered a few words before leaving; then, after kissing her tenderly, he descended to the street with old Matt, who, though weak, still refused sturdily every offer of a ride, and they trudged steadily on till they reached Finsbury.
“Hallo!” said Matt, “what d’ye call this? Same name, but the business is changed, and that’s her a-cutting up paper. To be sure – why it is her! I thought I knew her face, but I was in such a muddle just then that all my letter was mixed, and whenever I wanted a p, I got a q, and all on like that. Why, she came and chattered away, and bought an old set of tobacco-jars and covers and a heap of waste-paper of Mother Slagg, just before I went into hospital; and there they are, sir – that’s them, fresh varnished and painted, and stuck on the shelf. Ikey took ’em home for her, and I remember asking myself ever so long as to where I’d seen her before. Well, come on, sir. I want a bit of snuff, so that’s an excuse for going in. P’r’aps, after all, she’s bought the very paper.”
The visitors made their way into the old formal registry-office, turned into a very smart little shop, fitted up with some taste; where Miss Tollicks herself was busily weighing and packing a pile of those little rolls of tobacco known as “screws.” Fine thick paper, too, she was using, such as would weigh well and add to the rather fine profit she obtained upon her fragrant weed. For there was no mistake: Miss Tollicks had executed her threat, turned the registering out of doors, and taken to the business most popular in the streets of London. No seat now existed for maids to sit and wait to be hired from ten to four; no green baize; no intense air of respectability, but all quite the correct thing as established by custom in the weedy way. There was a monster cigar outside, set perpendicularly, with an internal gas-jet, and a transparency bearing the legend, “Take a light.” On the other side of the door was a little, freshly-varnished, red-nosed, chip-elbowed Scotchman, taking snuff in the imperfect tense, with his fingers half-way to his nose; an imitation roll of tobacco hung over the door; while just inside, upon a tub, stood a small black gentleman in a very light feather petticoat, smoking a pipe about double the length of his body. Then there were clay pipes, crossed and tied into diamond-pattern d’oyleys, swung in the top panes of the windows; while beneath them “so gracefully curled” a perfect anaconda of a hookah – one that it would have taken a bold Turk to smoke. There were meerschaums and brier-roots, cutty- and billiard-pipes; glass, cherry, and jasmine stems; tobacco-pouches of india-rubber, looking like fresh-flayed negro-skin; snuff-boxes of all sorts and sizes, embracing miniature, scene, and tartan of every pattern; stacks of cigar-boxes carefully branded but very European in their look; bundles of cigars tied with fancy ribbon; the day’s playbills on the walls; rows of snuff- and tobacco-jars, as pointed out by Matt, and labelled from “Scotch” to “Hardham’s 37,” and from “Returns” to “Latakia.” There was a whole tubful of odorous shag, and a stack of packets of Bristol bird’s-eye; the scales were of the glossiest, the glass-case of the cleanest, and altogether the shop owned by Miss Tollicks seemed to be of the most prosperous; for things looked smart and well attended to – a rare sign of plenty of business, as, according to the old saying, “the less there is to do, the worse it is done;” but there was a strong smell of varnish, and it was evident that Miss Tollicks had been picking up her fittings here and there at various secondhand stores, or, as Matt Space called it, “on the cheap.”
Matt advanced to the counter and asked for his penn’orth of snuff.
“Then you’re not dead!” exclaimed Miss Tollicks, putting down the jar in a most businesslike way, with motions rapid as her speech; for she had banished the black-velvet blackbird and deportment along with the green baize; but, not quite used to her business, in spite of her ability of adapting herself to circumstances, she sneezed loudly as she lifted the lid. “And how do you do? – there, dear me, how I do sneeze! – and I thought I had quite conquered it, for it does look so – tchisher-er – so – er-tchisher! There, I’m sure I beg your pardon. And how do you do? and you’ve got well again, like poor Mary did, in that horrible place, who was dying too, and didn’t. And Mr Harding too! and I’m so glad to see you, for you were that kind to me, I don’t know what I should have done else. Now you’ve come to ask me about the doctor again – now haven’t you?”
Septimus said he had.
“Well, now, I hadn’t forgotten it, and you were both right, you know; but I shall never forget your kindness, Mr Harding, for but for you that day, everyone must have seen that I had been crying. But you were right; and the doctor did live here, and died here too, ages ago; and then his widow went to live somewhere in one of those quiet streets by the Strand, going down to the river, you know; and then she died, and there was a sale, and that’s all; and it isn’t much, is it?”
Septimus said it was not, certainly.
“But then, you know,” said Miss Tollicks, “it’s no use to try and make more of things of that sort, is it? No, he didn’t know the street, nor anything more about it, for he bought the lease of the house of someone else.”
As for Matt, he did not speak, but took snuff ferociously, and glared at the paper squares upon the counter.
“But there, do come in,” cried Miss Tollicks; “and, dear me, Mr – Mr – I don’t know your name, but don’t, pray, take snuff like that; you’ll make yourself ill. But there, do come in;” and in spite of refusals Miss Tollicks soon had her visitors seated in her bower, in company with a spirit-bottle and a couple of tumblers and sugar, a tiny kettle upon the fire singing merrily.
“I do suffer so from spasms,” said Miss Tollicks as she placed the suspicious-looking spirit-bottle upon the table; but all these preparations were not made at once, for, from her many pops in and out of the shop, and the rattling of the scales, it was evident that Miss Tollicks had chosen the right business at last, and was prospering famously. The decanter was brought out of a Berlin-wool-worked overgrown dice-box on one side of the fire, the glasses from its ditto on the other, the kettle out of a window-locker, and divers other ways of economising space were shown; while the visitors were informed that so much of the house was let off. “It all helps so,” said Miss Tollicks; “for London rents are enough to kill you; and you doing nothing but feed your landlord.”
Old Matt grunted acquiescence.
“Now one each, please,” said Miss Tollicks, “just to be sociable; and then you can speak up for the quality of my goods. How do you find the snuff, Mr – ?”
“Space, ma’am,” said Matt. “Good; very good, ma’am, but not durable.”
“That’s right,” exclaimed Miss Tollicks, as she pressed the two mild Havannas she had brought in upon her visitors. “Don’t mind me, pray – I am trying to get used to smoke as well as snuff.”
Septimus and Matt were both non-smokers, but as they exchanged glances they came to the conclusion that they could extinguish their cigars as soon as they were outside. So Septimus set the example, with a very ludicrous cast of countenance, by placing the little vegetable roll in his mouth, and Miss Tollicks tore off a piece of paper from a square on the counter, doubled, lit, and handed it to the smoker.
Septimus Hardon’s face was a regular study as Matt, grumbling to himself, “Why didn’t she make it snuff?” watched him trying to light his cigar – a new feat to him entirely.
“The other end first, sir,” growled Matt; and in a rather confused way Septimus made the requisite alteration, and then sucked and puffed so vigorously that he extinguished the light, which he re-lit at the fire. But the next moment his face changed from one of comical resignation to a state of intense wonder, as old Matt, under the excuse of helping himself to a light, was turning over some leaves of a heap of waste-paper on a chair by the door.
Suddenly Septimus dashed the lighted paper upon the table, hurriedly extinguishing it with trembling hands, but not without oversetting his glass of spirits-and-water.
“What is the matter? Have you burnt yourself?” cried Miss Tollicks.
“Is it, sir?” cried old Matt, reaching across the table.
But Septimus Hardon did not move for a few seconds, but stood with his hands pressed down over the roughly-folded piece of paper, into which the spirits-and-water was now soaking, as it made a way between his fingers.
“Why didn’t I give you a splint!” exclaimed Miss Tollicks, whose mind was full of goose-grease, starch-powder, and cotton-wool. “Is it very bad?”
But Septimus Hardon did not speak, only slowly and with palsied hands unfolded the soaked paper; but even then he could hardly read it for the mist that swam before his eyes. Old Matt, though, not to be behindhand, pulled out his glasses, and stretched out his hand to reach the paper; but Septimus shrank back, and then read with difficulty, for the ink had begun to look blurred with the wet:
S. Hardon,
Medicine and at-dance 2.
And that was all. Septimus turned it over carefully and found a list of names, but no other entry; there was a figure, part of a date evidently, at one edge, but it was charred, and as he touched it and held it towards the window it crumbled away into brown tinder. He read the entry again and again, and then looked at the ashes of the paper to see if anything could be made of them. Then, as if for a forlorn hope, he turned to his hostess, saying in a strange, husky voice:
“The date’s burnt off. Where did you get this?”
“O, what have I done?” exclaimed Miss Tollicks. “What is the matter?”
“Nothing, nothing,” said Septimus, looking in a dreary, bewildered way at Matt. “It’s of no use; it’s my usual ill luck, and it’s of no use to fight against it.”
“I never saw such a thing in my life!” cried Matt, bringing his fist down upon the table so that the glasses jumped again. “Put it in a book, and no one would believe it: and yet there it is. I wouldn’t have believed it myself if I had not seen it with my own eyes.”
“But where is the piece you tore it from?” exclaimed Septimus, trembling still.
“To be sure!” cried Matt exultingly. “But I was right – I did see it, and she bought it, and Ikey brought it here, and it’ll all come right yet. – Where’s the piece you tore it from, ma’am?” and he again greatly endangered Miss Tollicks’ glasses by thumping the table.
Miss Tollicks hastily produced the other half of the square of paper; but on one side the list of names was continued, while upon the other there was the tail of a flourish, the tops of a few letters, and the rest was blank.
“Have you any more of these sheets – these book-leaves?” exclaimed Septimus; when Miss Tollicks hastily took up the little heap on the chair by the door, the same that had excited Matt’s curiosity, and into which he had been quietly peering.
“Those are not the same,” said Septimus despondently; “this is thicker.”
“Yes,” said Miss Tollicks dolefully, as she examined the few remaining squares upon the counter; “these are all different, too, and I don’t know how that scrap came to be left. I used all that thick paper first, because it weighed well, and I used it for screws.”
“But,” stammered Septimus, “it is a part of the very man’s books – the very man who lived here, and about whom we came to ask you.”
“Bless me!” said Miss Tollicks dolefully, “and I’ve been letting it go for weeks past in screws to the Sun, and the Green Dragon, and the Duke.”
“But let’s see if there’s any more,” said Matt. “A leaf would almost do all we want if it has only got the right dates.”
Matt’s advice was taken: screws were examined, turned over, unrolled; the tied-up squares of paper were looked at; Matt went down upon his knees behind the counter and routed about amongst some rubbish; the squares freshly cut up were looked over; and then once more the heap on the chair in the room was scanned, leaf by leaf, but only one more fragment was found, evidently a portion of the same book; but it bore a date four years prior to the marriage of Septimus Hardon’s parents.
“Makes worse of it,” muttered old Matt to himself; “but perhaps he was only a young doctor, and one book lasted him a long time. S’pose we go and have a look round at some of the publics,” he said aloud, “eh, sir?”
Septimus jumped at the suggestion, and together they noted down the names of Miss Tollicks’ principal customers for screws, for she said that she was sure the thick paper had been used entirely for that purpose; but on making inquiry at the different pewter-covered bars, one and all of the stout gentlemen in shirt-sleeves and short white aprons declared that they were sold out, and could have got rid of “twiced as much.”
“I suppose,” said Septimus to one red-faced gentleman, “it would be of no use to ask you who bought the screws?”
The man stood, and softly rubbed with a strange rasping noise his well-shorn range of stubble on chin and cheek; then pulled open the screw-drawer, looked in it, then at the counter, then at Septimus, as if doubtful of his sanity, and said:
“Well, no, sir, I don’t think as it would.”
They returned to the little tobacconist’s shop, Septimus holding tightly to the newly-found scrap of paper. And yet it was useless – waste-paper; no more. There could be no doubt about it’s being the entry made when he saw the light; but now it was found, with his own hand he had destroyed the most precious part, for without date it was of no avail.
Septimus Hardon felt sick at heart when he again sat down in Miss Tollicks’ room, and gazed with woebegone looks in his companion’s face. The prize as it were within his reach; his old troubles swept away; his legitimacy proved – the cup almost at his lips, and then dashed away. It was in vain that Miss Tollicks vented her well-meant platitudes, and shone with hospitable warmth; Septimus Hardon seemed crushed, and Matt had scarcely a word to say.
