Recognizant and Reflective
Among sundry minor alterations in Mr Carker’s life and habits that
began to take place at this time, none was more remarkable than the
extraordinary diligence with which he applied himself to business, and
the closeness with which he investigated every detail that the affairs
of the House laid open to him. Always active and penetrating in such
matters, his lynx-eyed vigilance now increased twenty-fold. Not only
did his weary watch keep pace with every present point that every day
presented to him in some new form, but in the midst of these engrossing
occupations he found leisure—that is, he made it—to review the past
transactions of the Firm, and his share in them, during a long series
of years. Frequently when the clerks were all gone, the offices dark
and empty, and all similar places of business shut up, Mr Carker, with
the whole anatomy of the iron room laid bare before him, would explore
the mysteries of books and papers, with the patient progress of a man
who was dissecting the minutest nerves and fibres of his subject.
Perch, the messenger, who usually remained on these occasions, to
entertain himself with the perusal of the Price Current by the light of
one candle, or to doze over the fire in the outer office, at the
imminent risk every moment of diving head foremost into the coal-box,
could not withhold the tribute of his admiration from this zealous
conduct, although it much contracted his domestic enjoyments; and
again, and again, expatiated to Mrs Perch (now nursing twins) on the
industry and acuteness of their managing gentleman in the City.
The same increased and sharp attention that Mr Carker bestowed on the
business of the House, he applied to his own personal affairs. Though
not a partner in the concern—a distinction hitherto reserved solely to
inheritors of the great name of Dombey—he was in the receipt of some
percentage on its dealings; and, participating in all its facilities
for the employment of money to advantage, was considered, by the
minnows among the tritons of the East, a rich man. It began to be said,
among these shrewd observers, that Jem Carker, of Dombey’s, was looking
about him to see what he was worth; and that he was calling in his
money at a good time, like the long-headed fellow he was; and bets were
even offered on the Stock Exchange that Jem was going to marry a rich
widow.
Yet these cares did not in the least interfere with Mr Carker’s
watching of his chief, or with his cleanness, neatness, sleekness, or
any cat-like quality he possessed. It was not so much that there was a
change in him, in reference to any of his habits, as that the whole man
was intensified. Everything that had been observable in him before, was
observable now, but with a greater amount of concentration. He did each
single thing, as if he did nothing else—a pretty certain indication in
a man of that range of ability and purpose, that he is doing something
which sharpens and keeps alive his keenest powers.
The only decided alteration in him was, that as he rode to and fro
along the streets, he would fall into deep fits of musing, like that in
which he had come away from Mr Dombey’s house, on the morning of that
gentleman’s disaster. At such times, he would keep clear of the
obstacles in his way, mechanically; and would appear to see and hear
nothing until arrival at his destination, or some sudden chance or
effort roused him.
Walking his white-legged horse thus, to the counting-house of Dombey
and Son one day, he was as unconscious of the observation of two pairs
of women’s eyes, as of the fascinated orbs of Rob the Grinder, who, in
waiting a street’s length from the appointed place, as a demonstration
of punctuality, vainly touched and retouched his hat to attract
attention, and trotted along on foot, by his master’s side, prepared to
hold his stirrup when he should alight.
“See where he goes!” cried one of these two women, an old creature, who
stretched out her shrivelled arm to point him out to her companion, a
young woman, who stood close beside her, withdrawn like herself into a
gateway.
Mrs Brown’s daughter looked out, at this bidding on the part of Mrs
Brown; and there were wrath and vengeance in her face.
“I never thought to look at him again,” she said, in a low voice; “but
it’s well I should, perhaps. I see. I see!”
“Not changed!” said the old woman, with a look of eager malice.
“He changed!” returned the other. “What for? What has he suffered?
There is change enough for twenty in me. Isn’t that enough?”
“See where he goes!” muttered the old woman, watching her daughter with
her red eyes; “so easy and so trim a-horseback, while we are in the
mud.”
“And of it,” said her daughter impatiently. “We are mud, underneath his
horse’s feet. What should we be?”
[Illustration]
In the intentness with which she looked after him again, she made a
hasty gesture with her hand when the old woman began to reply, as if
her view could be obstructed by mere sound. Her mother watching her,
and not him, remained silent; until her kindling glance subsided, and
she drew a long breath, as if in the relief of his being gone.
“Deary!” said the old woman then. “Alice! Handsome gall Ally!” She
gently shook her sleeve to arouse her attention. “Will you let him go
like that, when you can wring money from him? Why, it’s a wickedness,
my daughter.”
“Haven’t I told you, that I will not have money from him?” she
returned. “And don’t you yet believe me? Did I take his sister’s money?
Would I touch a penny, if I knew it, that had gone through his white
hands—unless it was, indeed, that I could poison it, and send it back
to him? Peace, mother, and come away.”
“And him so rich?” murmured the old woman. “And us so poor!”
“Poor in not being able to pay him any of the harm we owe him,”
returned her daughter. “Let him give me that sort of riches, and I’ll
take them from him, and use them. Come away. Its no good looking at his
horse. Come away, mother!”
But the old woman, for whom the spectacle of Rob the Grinder returning
down the street, leading the riderless horse, appeared to have some
extraneous interest that it did not possess in itself, surveyed that
young man with the utmost earnestness; and seeming to have whatever
doubts she entertained, resolved as he drew nearer, glanced at her
daughter with brightened eyes and with her finger on her lip, and
emerging from the gateway at the moment of his passing, touched him on
the shoulder.
“Why, where’s my sprightly Rob been, all this time!” she said, as he
turned round.
The sprightly Rob, whose sprightliness was very much diminished by the
salutation, looked exceedingly dismayed, and said, with the water
rising in his eyes:
“Oh! why can’t you leave a poor cove alone, Misses Brown, when he’s
getting an honest livelihood and conducting himself respectable? What
do you come and deprive a cove of his character for, by talking to him
in the streets, when he’s taking his master’s horse to a honest
stable—a horse you’d go and sell for cats’ and dogs’ meat if you had
your way! Why, I thought,” said the Grinder, producing his concluding
remark as if it were the climax of all his injuries, “that you was dead
long ago!”
“This is the way,” cried the old woman, appealing to her daughter,
“that he talks to me, who knew him weeks and months together, my deary,
and have stood his friend many and many a time among the
pigeon-fancying tramps and bird-catchers.”
“Let the birds be, will you, Misses Brown?” retorted Rob, in a tone of
the acutest anguish. “I think a cove had better have to do with lions
than them little creeturs, for they’re always flying back in your face
when you least expect it. Well, how d’ye do and what do you want?”
These polite inquiries the Grinder uttered, as it were under protest,
and with great exasperation and vindictiveness.
“Hark how he speaks to an old friend, my deary!” said Mrs Brown, again
appealing to her daughter. “But there’s some of his old friends not so
patient as me. If I was to tell some that he knows, and has spotted and
cheated with, where to find him—”
“Will you hold your tongue, Misses Brown?” interrupted the miserable
Grinder, glancing quickly round, as though he expected to see his
master’s teeth shining at his elbow. “What do you take a pleasure in
ruining a cove for? At your time of life too! when you ought to be
thinking of a variety of things!”
“What a gallant horse!” said the old woman, patting the animal’s neck.
“Let him alone, will you, Misses Brown?” cried Rob, pushing away her
hand. “You’re enough to drive a penitent cove mad!”
“Why, what hurt do I do him, child?” returned the old woman.
“Hurt?” said Rob. “He’s got a master that would find it out if he was
touched with a straw.” And he blew upon the place where the old woman’s
hand had rested for a moment, and smoothed it gently with his finger,
as if he seriously believed what he said.
The old woman looking back to mumble and mouth at her daughter, who
followed, kept close to Rob’s heels as he walked on with the bridle in
his hand; and pursued the conversation.
“A good place, Rob, eh?” said she. “You’re in luck, my child.”
“Oh don’t talk about luck, Misses Brown,” returned the wretched
Grinder, facing round and stopping. “If you’d never come, or if you’d
go away, then indeed a cove might be considered tolerable lucky. Can’t
you go along, Misses Brown, and not foller me!” blubbered Rob, with
sudden defiance. “If the young woman’s a friend of yours, why don’t she
take you away, instead of letting you make yourself so disgraceful!”
“What!” croaked the old woman, putting her face close to his, with a
malevolent grin upon it that puckered up the loose skin down in her
very throat. “Do you deny your old chum! Have you lurked to my house
fifty times, and slept sound in a corner when you had no other bed but
the paving-stones, and do you talk to me like this! Have I bought and
sold with you, and helped you in my way of business, schoolboy, sneak,
and what not, and do you tell me to go along? Could I raise a crowd of
old company about you to-morrow morning, that would follow you to ruin
like copies of your own shadow, and do you turn on me with your bold
looks! I’ll go. Come, Alice.”
“Stop, Misses Brown!” cried the distracted Grinder. “What are you doing
of? Don’t put yourself in a passion! Don’t let her go, if you please. I
haven’t meant any offence. I said ‘how d’ye do,’ at first, didn’t I?
But you wouldn’t answer. How you do? Besides,” said Rob piteously,
“look here! How can a cove stand talking in the street with his
master’s prad a-wanting to be took to be rubbed down, and his master up
to every individgle thing that happens!”
The old woman made a show of being partially appeased, but shook her
head, and mouthed and muttered still.
“Come along to the stables, and have a glass of something that’s good
for you, Misses Brown, can’t you?” said Rob, “instead of going on, like
that, which is no good to you, nor anybody else. Come along with her,
will you be so kind?” said Rob. “I’m sure I’m delighted to see her, if
it wasn’t for the horse!”
With this apology, Rob turned away, a rueful picture of despair, and
walked his charge down a bye street. The old woman, mouthing at her
daughter, followed close upon him. The daughter followed.
Turning into a silent little square or court-yard that had a great
church tower rising above it, and a packer’s warehouse, and a
bottle-maker’s warehouse, for its places of business, Rob the Grinder
delivered the white-legged horse to the hostler of a quaint stable at
the corner; and inviting Mrs Brown and her daughter to seat themselves
upon a stone bench at the gate of that establishment, soon reappeared
from a neighbouring public-house with a pewter measure and a glass.
“Here’s master—Mr Carker, child!” said the old woman, slowly, as her
sentiment before drinking. “Lord bless him!”
“Why, I didn’t tell you who he was,” observed Rob, with staring eyes.
“We know him by sight,” said Mrs Brown, whose working mouth and nodding
head stopped for the moment, in the fixedness of her attention. “We saw
him pass this morning, afore he got off his horse; when you were ready
to take it.”
“Ay, ay,” returned Rob, appearing to wish that his readiness had
carried him to any other place.—“What’s the matter with her? Won’t she
drink?”
This inquiry had reference to Alice, who, folded in her cloak, sat a
little apart, profoundly inattentive to his offer of the replenished
glass.
The old woman shook her head. “Don’t mind her,” she said; “she’s a
strange creetur, if you know’d her, Rob. But Mr Carker—”
“Hush!” said Rob, glancing cautiously up at the packer’s, and at the
bottle-maker’s, as if, from any one of the tiers of warehouses, Mr
Carker might be looking down. “Softly.”
“Why, he ain’t here!” cried Mrs Brown.
“I don’t know that,” muttered Rob, whose glance even wandered to the
church tower, as if he might be there, with a supernatural power of
hearing.
“Good master?” inquired Mrs Brown.
Rob nodded; and added, in a low voice, “precious sharp.”
“Lives out of town, don’t he, lovey?” said the old woman.
“When he’s at home,” returned Rob; “but we don’t live at home just
now.”
“Where then?” asked the old woman.
“Lodgings; up near Mr Dombey’s,” returned Rob.
The younger woman fixed her eyes so searchingly upon him, and so
suddenly, that Rob was quite confounded, and offered the glass again,
but with no more effect upon her than before.
“Mr Dombey—you and I used to talk about him, sometimes, you know,” said
Rob to Mrs Brown. “You used to get me to talk about him.”
The old woman nodded.
“Well, Mr Dombey, he’s had a fall from his horse,” said Rob,
unwillingly; “and my master has to be up there, more than usual, either
with him, or Mrs Dombey, or some of ’em; and so we’ve come to town.”
“Are they good friends, lovey?” asked the old woman.
“Who?” retorted Rob.
“He and she?”
“What, Mr and Mrs Dombey?” said Rob. “How should I know!”
“Not them—Master and Mrs Dombey, chick,” replied the old woman,
coaxingly.
“I don’t know,” said Rob, looking round him again. “I suppose so. How
curious you are, Misses Brown! Least said, soonest mended.”
“Why there’s no harm in it!” exclaimed the old woman, with a laugh, and
a clap of her hands. “Sprightly Rob, has grown tame since he has been
well off! There’s no harm in it.”
“No, there’s no harm in it, I know,” returned Rob, with the same
distrustful glance at the packer’s and the bottle-maker’s, and the
church; “but blabbing, if it’s only about the number of buttons on my
master’s coat, won’t do. I tell you it won’t do with him. A cove had
better drown himself. He says so. I shouldn’t have so much as told you
what his name was, if you hadn’t known it. Talk about somebody else.”
As Rob took another cautious survey of the yard, the old woman made a
secret motion to her daughter. It was momentary, but the daughter, with
a slight look of intelligence, withdrew her eyes from the boy’s face,
and sat folded in her cloak as before.
“Rob, lovey!” said the old woman, beckoning him to the other end of the
bench. “You were always a pet and favourite of mine. Now, weren’t you?
Don’t you know you were?”
“Yes, Misses Brown,” replied the Grinder, with a very bad grace.
“And you could leave me!” said the old woman, flinging her arms about
his neck. “You could go away, and grow almost out of knowledge, and
never come to tell your poor old friend how fortunate you were, proud
lad! Oho, Oho!”
“Oh here’s a dreadful go for a cove that’s got a master wide awake in
the neighbourhood!” exclaimed the wretched Grinder. “To be howled over
like this here!”
“Won’t you come and see me, Robby?” cried Mrs Brown. “Oho, won’t you
ever come and see me?”
“Yes, I tell you! Yes, I will!” returned the Grinder.
“That’s my own Rob! That’s my lovey!” said Mrs Brown, drying the tears
upon her shrivelled face, and giving him a tender squeeze. “At the old
place, Rob?”
“Yes,” replied the Grinder.
“Soon, Robby dear?” cried Mrs Brown; “and often?”
“Yes. Yes. Yes,” replied Rob. “I will indeed, upon my soul and body.”
“And then,” said Mrs Brown, with her arms uplifted towards the sky, and
her head thrown back and shaking, “if he’s true to his word, I’ll never
come a-near him though I know where he is, and never breathe a syllable
about him! Never!”
This ejaculation seemed a drop of comfort to the miserable Grinder, who
shook Mrs Brown by the hand upon it, and implored her with tears in his
eyes, to leave a cove and not destroy his prospects. Mrs Brown, with
another fond embrace, assented; but in the act of following her
daughter, turned back, with her finger stealthily raised, and asked in
a hoarse whisper for some money.
“A shilling, dear!” she said, with her eager avaricious face, “or
sixpence! For old acquaintance sake. I’m so poor. And my handsome
gal”—looking over her shoulder—“she’s my gal, Rob—half starves me.”
But as the reluctant Grinder put it in her hand, her daughter, coming
quietly back, caught the hand in hers, and twisted out the coin.
“What,” she said, “mother! always money! money from the first, and to
the last. Do you mind so little what I said but now? Here. Take it!”
The old woman uttered a moan as the money was restored, but without in
any other way opposing its restoration, hobbled at her daughter’s side
out of the yard, and along the by-street upon which it opened. The
astonished and dismayed Rob staring after them, saw that they stopped,
and fell to earnest conversation very soon; and more than once observed
a darkly threatening action of the younger woman’s hand (obviously
having reference to someone of whom they spoke), and a crooning feeble
imitation of it on the part of Mrs Brown, that made him earnestly hope
he might not be the subject of their discourse.
With the present consolation that they were gone, and with the
prospective comfort that Mrs Brown could not live for ever, and was not
likely to live long to trouble him, the Grinder, not otherwise
regretting his misdeeds than as they were attended with such
disagreeable incidental consequences, composed his ruffled features to
a more serene expression by thinking of the admirable manner in which
he had disposed of Captain Cuttle (a reflection that seldom failed to
put him in a flow of spirits), and went to the Dombey Counting House to
receive his master’s orders.
There his master, so subtle and vigilant of eye, that Rob quaked before
him, more than half expecting to be taxed with Mrs Brown, gave him the
usual morning’s box of papers for Mr Dombey, and a note for Mrs Dombey:
merely nodding his head as an enjoinder to be careful, and to use
dispatch—a mysterious admonition, fraught in the Grinder’s imagination
with dismal warnings and threats; and more powerful with him than any
words.
Alone again, in his own room, Mr Carker applied himself to work, and
worked all day. He saw many visitors; overlooked a number of documents;
went in and out, to and from, sundry places of mercantile resort; and
indulged in no more abstraction until the day’s business was done. But,
when the usual clearance of papers from his table was made at last, he
fell into his thoughtful mood once more.
He was standing in his accustomed place and attitude, with his eyes
intently fixed upon the ground, when his brother entered to bring back
some letters that had been taken out in the course of the day. He put
them quietly on the table, and was going immediately, when Mr Carker
the Manager, whose eyes had rested on him, on his entrance, as if they
had all this time had him for the subject of their contemplation,
instead of the office-floor, said:
“Well, John Carker, and what brings you here?”
His brother pointed to the letters, and was again withdrawing.
“I wonder,” said the Manager, “that you can come and go, without
inquiring how our master is”.
“We had word this morning in the Counting House, that Mr Dombey was
doing well,” replied his brother.
“You are such a meek fellow,” said the Manager, with a smile,—“but you
have grown so, in the course of years—that if any harm came to him,
you’d be miserable, I dare swear now.”
“I should be truly sorry, James,” returned the other.
“He would be sorry!” said the Manager, pointing at him, as if there
were some other person present to whom he was appealing. “He would be
truly sorry! This brother of mine! This junior of the place, this
slighted piece of lumber, pushed aside with his face to the wall, like
a rotten picture, and left so, for Heaven knows how many years he’s all
gratitude and respect, and devotion too, he would have me believe!”
“I would have you believe nothing, James,” returned the other. “Be as
just to me as you would to any other man below you. You ask a question,
and I answer it.”
“And have you nothing, Spaniel,” said the Manager, with unusual
irascibility, “to complain of in him? No proud treatment to resent, no
insolence, no foolery of state, no exaction of any sort! What the
devil! are you man or mouse?”
“It would be strange if any two persons could be together for so many
years, especially as superior and inferior, without each having
something to complain of in the other—as he thought, at all events,”
replied John Carker. “But apart from my history here—”
“His history here!” exclaimed the Manager. “Why, there it is. The very
fact that makes him an extreme case, puts him out of the whole chapter!
Well?”
“Apart from that, which, as you hint, gives me a reason to be thankful
that I alone (happily for all the rest) possess, surely there is no one
in the House who would not say and feel at least as much. You do not
think that anybody here would be indifferent to a mischance or
misfortune happening to the head of the House, or anything than truly
sorry for it?”
“You have good reason to be bound to him too!” said the Manager,
contemptuously. “Why, don’t you believe that you are kept here, as a
cheap example, and a famous instance of the clemency of Dombey and Son,
redounding to the credit of the illustrious House?”
“No,” replied his brother, mildly, “I have long believed that I am kept
here for more kind and disinterested reasons.”
“But you were going,” said the Manager, with the snarl of a tiger-cat,
“to recite some Christian precept, I observed.”
“Nay, James,” returned the other, “though the tie of brotherhood
between us has been long broken and thrown away—”
“Who broke it, good Sir?” said the Manager.
“I, by my misconduct. I do not charge it upon you.”
The Manager replied, with that mute action of his bristling mouth, “Oh,
you don’t charge it upon me!” and bade him go on.
“I say, though there is not that tie between us, do not, I entreat,
assail me with unnecessary taunts, or misinterpret what I say, or would
say. I was only going to suggest to you that it would be a mistake to
suppose that it is only you, who have been selected here, above all
others, for advancement, confidence and distinction (selected, in the
beginning, I know, for your great ability and trustfulness), and who
communicate more freely with Mr Dombey than anyone, and stand, it may
be said, on equal terms with him, and have been favoured and enriched
by him—that it would be a mistake to suppose that it is only you who
are tender of his welfare and reputation. There is no one in the House,
from yourself down to the lowest, I sincerely believe, who does not
participate in that feeling.”
“You lie!” said the Manager, red with sudden anger. “You’re a
hypocrite, John Carker, and you lie.”
“James!” cried the other, flushing in his turn. “What do you mean by
these insulting words? Why do you so basely use them to me,
unprovoked?”
“I tell you,” said the Manager, “that your hypocrisy and meekness—that
all the hypocrisy and meekness of this place—is not worth that to me,”
snapping his thumb and finger, “and that I see through it as if it were
air! There is not a man employed here, standing between myself and the
lowest in place (of whom you are very considerate, and with reason, for
he is not far off), who wouldn’t be glad at heart to see his master
humbled: who does not hate him, secretly: who does not wish him evil
rather than good: and who would not turn upon him, if he had the power
and boldness. The nearer to his favour, the nearer to his insolence;
the closer to him, the farther from him. That’s the creed here!”
“I don’t know,” said his brother, whose roused feelings had soon
yielded to surprise, “who may have abused your ear with such
representations; or why you have chosen to try me, rather than another.
But that you have been trying me, and tampering with me, I am now sure.
You have a different manner and a different aspect from any that I ever
saw in you. I will only say to you, once more, you are deceived.”
“I know I am,” said the Manager. “I have told you so.”
“Not by me,” returned his brother. “By your informant, if you have one.
If not, by your own thoughts and suspicions.”
“I have no suspicions,” said the Manager. “Mine are certainties. You
pusillanimous, abject, cringing dogs! All making the same show, all
canting the same story, all whining the same professions, all
harbouring the same transparent secret.”
His brother withdrew, without saying more, and shut the door as he
concluded. Mr Carker the Manager drew a chair close before the fire,
and fell to beating the coals softly with the poker.
“The faint-hearted, fawning knaves,” he muttered, with his two shining
rows of teeth laid bare. “There’s not one among them, who wouldn’t
feign to be so shocked and outraged—! Bah! There’s not one among them,
but if he had at once the power, and the wit and daring to use it,
would scatter Dombey’s pride and lay it low, as ruthlessly as I rake
out these ashes.”
As he broke them up and strewed them in the grate, he looked on with a
thoughtful smile at what he was doing. “Without the same queen beckoner
too!” he added presently; “and there is pride there, not to be
forgotten—witness our own acquaintance!” With that he fell into a
deeper reverie, and sat pondering over the blackening grate, until he
rose up like a man who had been absorbed in a book, and looking round
him took his hat and gloves, went to where his horse was waiting,
mounted, and rode away through the lighted streets, for it was evening.
He rode near Mr Dombey’s house; and falling into a walk as he
approached it, looked up at the windows The window where he had once
seen Florence sitting with her dog attracted his attention first,
though there was no light in it; but he smiled as he carried his eyes
up the tall front of the house, and seemed to leave that object
superciliously behind.
“Time was,” he said, “when it was well to watch even your rising little
star, and know in what quarter there were clouds, to shadow you if
needful. But a planet has arisen, and you are lost in its light.”
He turned the white-legged horse round the street corner, and sought
one shining window from among those at the back of the house.
Associated with it was a certain stately presence, a gloved hand, the
remembrance how the feathers of a beautiful bird’s wing had been
showered down upon the floor, and how the light white down upon a robe
had stirred and rustled, as in the rising of a distant storm. These
were the things he carried with him as he turned away again, and rode
through the darkening and deserted Parks at a quick rate.
In fatal truth, these were associated with a woman, a proud woman, who
hated him, but who by slow and sure degrees had been led on by his
craft, and her pride and resentment, to endure his company, and little
by little to receive him as one who had the privilege to talk to her of
her own defiant disregard of her own husband, and her abandonment of
high consideration for herself. They were associated with a woman who
hated him deeply, and who knew him, and who mistrusted him because she
knew him, and because he knew her; but who fed her fierce resentment by
suffering him to draw nearer and yet nearer to her every day, in spite
of the hate she cherished for him. In spite of it! For that very
reason; since in its depths, too far down for her threatening eye to
pierce, though she could see into them dimly, lay the dark retaliation,
whose faintest shadow seen once and shuddered at, and never seen again,
would have been sufficient stain upon her soul.
Did the phantom of such a woman flit about him on his ride; true to the
reality, and obvious to him?
Yes. He saw her in his mind, exactly as she was. She bore him company
with her pride, resentment, hatred, all as plain to him as her beauty;
with nothing plainer to him than her hatred of him. He saw her
sometimes haughty and repellent at his side, and some times down among
his horse’s feet, fallen and in the dust. But he always saw her as she
was, without disguise, and watched her on the dangerous way that she
was going.
And when his ride was over, and he was newly dressed, and came into the
light of her bright room with his bent head, soft voice, and soothing
smile, he saw her yet as plainly. He even suspected the mystery of the
gloved hand, and held it all the longer in his own for that suspicion.
Upon the dangerous way that she was going, he was, still; and not a
footprint did she mark upon it, but he set his own there, straight.