DISPOSED OF.
It was very late when George Dallas arrived at Routh's lodgings in
South Molton-street, so that he felt it necessary to announce his
presence by a peculiar knock, known only to the initiated. He made the
accustomed signal, but the door was not opened for so abnormally long
an interval that he began to think he should have to go away, and
defer the telling of the good news until the morning. He had knocked
three times, and was about to turn away from the door when it was
noiselessly opened by Harriet herself. She held a shaded candle in her
hand, which gave so imperfect a light that Dallas could hardly see her
distinctly enough to feel certain that his first impression, that she
was looking very pale and ill, was not an imagination induced by the
dim light. She asked him to come into the sitting-room, and said she
had just turned the gas out, and was going to bed.
"I am sorry to have disturbed you," he said, when she had set down the
candle on a table without re-lighting the gas, "but I want to see
Routh particularly. Is he in?"
"No," said Harriet, "he is not. Did you get his letter?"
"What letter? I have not heard from him. I have only just come up from
Amherst. But you look ill, Mrs. Routh. Does anything ail you? Is
anything wrong?"
"No," she said, hurriedly, "nothing, nothing. Routh has been worried,
that's all, and I am very tired."
She pushed the candle further away as she spoke, and, placing her
elbow on the table, rested her head on her hand. George looked at her
with concern. He had a kind heart and great tenderness for women and
children, and he could forget, or, at all events, lay aside his own
anxieties in a moment at the sight of suffering in a woman's face. His
look of anxious sympathy irritated Harriet; she moved uneasily and
impatiently, and said almost harshly:
"Never mind my looks, Mr. Dallas; they don't matter. Tell me how you
have sped on your errand at Poynings. Has your mother kept her
promise? Have you got the money? I hope so, for I am sorry to say
Stewart wants it badly, and has been reckoning on it eagerly. I can't
imagine how it happened you did not get his letter."
"I have succeeded," said George. "My mother has kept her word, God
bless her, and I came at once to tell Routh he can have the money."
He stopped in the full tide of his animated speech, and looked
curiously at Harriet. Something in her manner struck him as being
unusual. She was evidently anxious about the money, glad to see him,
and yet oddly absent. She did not look at him, and while he spoke she
had turned her head sharply once or twice, while her upraised eyelids
and parted lips gave her face a fleeting expression of intense
listening. She instantly noticed his observation of her, and said
sharply:
"Well, pray go on; I am longing to hear your story."
"I thought you were listening to something, you looked as if you heard
something," said George.
"So I am listening--to you," Harriet replied, with an attempt at a
smile. "So I do hear your adventures. There's nobody up in the house
but myself. Pray go on."
So George went on, and told her all that had befallen him at Amherst,
with one important reservation; he said nothing of Clare Carruthers or
his two meetings with the heiress at the Sycamores; but he told her
all about his interview with his mother, and the expedient to which
she had resorted to supply his wants. Harriet Routh listened to his
story intently; but when she heard that he had received from Mrs.
Carruthers, not money, but jewels, she was evidently disconcerted.
"Here is the bracelet," said George, as he took the little packet from
the breast-pocket of his coat, and handed it to her. "I don't know
much about such things, Mrs. Routh, but perhaps you do. Are the
diamonds very valuable?"
Harriet had opened the morocco case containing the bracelet while he
was speaking, and now she lifted the beautiful ornament from its satin
bed, and held it on her open palm.
"I am not a very capable judge," she said; "but I think these are fine
and valuable diamonds. They are extremely beautiful." And a gleam of
colour came into her white face as she looked at the gems with a
woman's irrepressible admiration of such things.
"I can't tell you how much I feel taking them from her," said George.
"It's like a robbery, isn't it?" And he looked full and earnestly at
Harriet.
She started, let the bracelet fall, stooped to pick it up, and as she
raised her face again, it was whiter than before.
"How can you talk such nonsense?" she said, with a sudden resumption
of her usual captivating manner. "Of course it isn't. Do you suppose
your mother ever had as much pleasure in these gewgaws in her life as
she had in giving them to you? Besides, you know you're going to
reform and be steady, and take good advice, are you not?" She watched
him very keenly, though her tone was gay and trifling. George
reddened, laughed awkwardly, and replied:
"Well, I hope so; and the first step, you know, is to pay my debts. So
I must get Routh to put me in the way of selling this bracelet at
once. I suppose there's no difficulty about it. I'm sure I have heard
it said that diamonds are the same as ready money, and the sooner the
tin is in Routh's pocket the better pleased I'll be. None the less
obliged to him, though, Mrs. Routh; remember that, both for getting me
out of the scrape, and for waiting so long and so good-humouredly for
his money."
For all the cordiality of his tone, for all the gratitude he
expressed, Harriet felt in her inmost heart, and told herself she felt
that he was a changed man; that he felt his freedom, rejoiced in it,
and did not mean again to relinquish or endanger it.
"The thing he feared has happened," she thought, while her small white
fingers were busy with the jewels. "The very thing he feared. This man
must be got away--how am I to do it?"
The solitary candle was burning dimly; the room was dull, cold, and
gloomy. George looked round, and was apparently thinking of taking his
leave, when Harriet said:
"I have not told you how opportune your getting this money--for I
count it as money--is. Stay; let me light the gas. Sit down there
opposite to me, and you shall hear how things have gone with us since
you went away." She had thrown off the abstraction of her manner, and
in a moment she lighted the gas, put the extinguished candle out of
sight, set wine upon the table, and pulled a comfortable arm-chair
forward, in which she begged George to seat himself. "Take off your
coat," she said; and he obeyed her, telling her, with a laugh, as he
flung it upon a chair, that there was a small parcel of soiled linen
in the pocket.
"I did not expect to have to stay at Amherst, so I took no clothes
with me," he explained, "and had to buy a shirt and a pair of
stockings for Sunday, so as not to scandalize the natives. Rather an
odd place to replenish one's wardrobe, by the by."
Harriet looked sharply at the coat, and, passing the chair on which it
lay on her way to her own, felt its texture with a furtive touch. Then
she sat down, gave Dallas wine, and once more fell to examining the
bracelet. It might have occurred to any other man in George's position
that it was rather an odd proceeding on the part of Mrs. Routh to keep
him there at so late an hour with no apparent purpose, and without any
expressed expectation of Routh's return; but George seldom troubled
himself with reflections upon anybody's conduct, and invariably
followed Harriet's lead without thinking about it at all. Recent
events had shaken Routh's influence, and changed the young man's views
and tastes, but Harriet still occupied her former place in his regard
and in his habit of life, which in such cases as his signified much.
With a confidential air she now talked to him, her busy fingers
twisting the bracelet as she spoke, her pale face turned to him, but
her eyes somewhat averted. She told him that Routh had been surprised
and annoyed at his (Dallas) being so long away from town, and had
written to him, to tell him that he had been so pressed for money, so
worried by duns, and so hampered by the slow proceeding of the company
connected with the new speculation, that he had been obliged to go
away, and must keep away, until Dallas could let him have one hundred
and forty pounds. George was concerned to hear all this, and found it
hard to reconcile with the good spirits in which Routh had been when
he had seen him last; but he really knew so little of the man's
affairs beyond having a general notion that they were hopelessly
complicated, and subject to volcanic action of an utterly
disconcerting nature, that he regarded his own surprise as
unreasonable, and forbore to express it.
"It is of the utmost importance to Stewart to have the money at once,"
Harriet continued. "You see that, yourself; he told you all in his
letter."
"Very extraordinary it should have been lost! Directed to P.O.,
Amherst, of course? I wish I had got it, Mrs. Routh; I'd have gone at
once and sold the bracelet before I came to you at all, and brought
the money. But I can do it early in the morning, can't I? I can take
it to some good jeweller and get cash for it, and be here by twelve
o'clock, so as not to keep Routh a moment longer than I need in
suspense. Will a hundred and forty square him for the present, Mrs.
Routh? I'm sure to get more for the bracelet--don't you think
so?--and of course he can have it all, if he wants it."
The young man spoke in an eager tone, and the woman listened
with a swelling heart. Her full red lip trembled for a passing
instant--consideration for--kindness to the only human creature she
loved touched Harriet as nothing besides had power to touch her.
"I am sure the bracelet is worth more than that sum," she said; "it is
worth more than two hundred pounds, I dare say. But you forget, Mr.
Dallas, that you must not be too precipitate in this matter. It is of
immense importance to Stewart to have this money, but there are
precautions to be taken."
"Precautions, Mrs. Routh! what precautions? The bracelet's my own,
isn't it, and principally valuable because there's no bother about
selling a thing of the kind?"
She looked at him keenly; she was calculating to what extent she might
manage him, how far he would implicitly believe her statements, and
rely upon her judgment. His countenance was eminently reassuring, so
she went on:
"Certainly the bracelet is your own, and it could be easily sold, were
you only to consider yourself, but you have your mother to consider."
"My mother! How? when she has parted with the bracelet on purpose."
"True," said Harriet; "but perhaps you are not aware that diamonds, of
anything like the value of these, are as well known, their owners,
buyers, and whereabouts, as blood horses, their pedigrees, and
purchasers. I think it would be unsafe for you to sell this bracelet
in London; you may be sure the diamonds would be known by any jeweller
on whose respectability you could sufficiently rely, to sell the
jewels to him. It would be very unpleasant, and of course very
dangerous to your mother, if the diamonds were known to be those
purchased by Mr. Carruthers, and a cautious jeweller thought proper to
ask him any questions."
George looked grave and troubled, as Harriet put these objections to
his doing as he had proposed, for the immediate relief of Routh,
clearly before him. He never for a moment doubted the accuracy of her
information, and the soundness of her fears.
"I understand," he said; "but what can I do? I must sell the bracelet
to got the money, and sooner or later will make no difference in the
risk you speak of; but it may make all the difference to Routh. I
can't, I won't delay in this matter; don't ask me, Mrs. Routh. It is
very generous of you to think of my risk, but--"
"It is not your risk," she interrupted him by saying; "it is your
mother's. If it were your own I might let you take it, for Stewart's
sake,"--an indefinable compassion was in the woman's face, an unwonted
softness in her blue eyes--"but your mother has done and suffered much
for you, and she must be protected, even if Stewart has to lie hidden
a day or two longer. You must not do anything rash. I think I know
what would be the best thing for you to do."
"Tell me, Mrs. Routh," said George, who highly appreciated the
delicate consideration for his mother which inspired Harriet's
misgivings. "Tell me, and whatever it is, I will do it."
"It is this," said Harriet; "I know there is a large trade in diamonds
at Amsterdam, and that the merchants there, chiefly Jews, deal in the
loose stones, and are not, in our sense, jewellers. You could dispose
of the diamonds there without suspicion or difficulty; it is the
common resort of people who have diamonds to sell--London is not. If
you would go there at once you might sell the diamonds, and send the
money to Stewart, or rather to me, to an address we would decide upon,
without more than the delay of a couple of days. Is there anything to
keep you in town?"
"No," said George, "nothing. I could start this minute, as far as any
business I've got to do is concerned."
Harriet drew a long breath, and her colour rose.
"I wish you would, Mr. Dallas," she said, earnestly. "I hardly like to
urge you, it seems so selfish; and Stewart, if he were here, would
make so much lighter of the difficulty he is in than I can bring
myself to do, but you don't know how grateful I should be to you if
you would."
The pleading earnestness of her tone, the eager entreaty in her eyes,
impressed George painfully; he hastened to assure her that he would
accede to any request of hers.
"I am so wretched when he is away from me, Mr. Dallas," said Harriet;
"I am so lonely and full of dread. Anything not involving you or your
mother in risk, which would shorten the time of his absence, would be
an unspeakable boon to me."
"Then of course I will go at once, Mrs. Routh," said George. "I will
go to-morrow. I am sure you are quite right, and Amsterdam's the place
to do the trick at. I wish I could have seen Routh first, for a
moment, but as I can't, I can't. Let me see. Amsterdam. There's a boat
to Rotterdam by the river, and--Oh, by Jove! here's a Bradshaw; let's
see when the next goes."
He walked to the little sideboard, and selected the above-named
compendium of useful knowledge from a mass of periodicals, circulars,
bills, and prospectuses of companies immediately to be brought out,
and offering unheard-of advantages to the investors.
The moment his eyes were turned away from her, a fierce impatience
betrayed itself in Harriet's face, and as he sat slowly turning over
the sibylline leaves, and consulting the incomprehensible and
maddening index, she pressed her clasped hands against her knees, as
though it were almost impossible to resist the impulse which prompted
her to tear the book from his dilatory fingers.
"Here it is," said George, at length, "and uncommonly cheap, too. The
Argus for Rotterdam, seven A.M. That's rather early, though, isn't it?
To-morrow morning, too, or rather this morning, for it's close upon
one now. Let's see when the Argus, or some other boat, goes next. H'm;
not till Thursday at the same hour. That's rather far off."
Harriet was breathing quickly, and her face was quite white, but she
sat still and controlled her agony of anxiety. "I have urged him as
strongly as I dare," she thought; "fate must do the rest."
Fate did the rest.
"After all, I may as well go at seven in the morning, Mrs. Routh. All
my things are packed up already, and it will give me a good start. I
might get my business done before Wednesday night, almost, if I'm
quick about it; at all events early the following day."
"You might, indeed," said Harriet, in a faint voice.
"There's one little drawback, though, to that scheme," said Dallas. "I
haven't the money. They owe me a trifle at the _Mercury_, and I shall
have to wait till to-morrow and get it, and go by Ostend, the swell
route. I can't go without it, that's clear."
Harriet looked at him with a wan blank face, in which there was
something of weariness, and under it something of menace, but her tone
was quite amiable and obliging as she said:
"I think it is a pity to incur both delay and expense by waiting. I
have always a little ready money by me, in case of our having to make
a move suddenly, or of an illness, or one of the many contingencies
which men never think of, and women never forget. You can have it with
pleasure. You can return it to me," she said, with a forced smile,
"when you send Routh the hundred and forty."
"Thank you," said Dallas. "I shan't mind taking it from you for a day
or two, as it is to send help to Routh the sooner. Then I'll go,
that's settled, and I had better leave you, for you were tired when I
came in, and you must be still more tired now. I shall get back from
Amsterdam as quickly as I can, tell Routh, but I see my way to making
a few pounds out of the place. They want padding at the _Mercury_, and
I shan't come back by return of post." He had risen now, and had
extended his hand towards the bracelet, which lay in its open case on
the table. A sudden thought struck Harriet.
"Stop," she said; "I don't think it would do to offer this bracelet in
its present shape, anywhere. The form and the setting are too
remarkable. It would probably be re-sold entire, and it is impossible
to say what harm might come of its being recognized. It must be taken
to pieces, and you must offer the diamonds separately for sale. It
will make no appreciable difference in the money you will receive, for
such work as this is like bookbinding--dear to buy, but never counted
in the price when you want to sell."
"What am I to do, then?" asked George, in a dismayed tone. "I could
not to take out the diamonds, you know; they are firmly set--see
here." He turned the gold band inside out, and showed her the plain
flat surface at the back of the diamonds and turquoises.
"Wait a moment," said Harriet. "I think I can assist you in this
respect. Do you study the bracelet a bit until I come to you."
She left the room, and remained away for a little time. Dallas stood
close by the table, having lowered the gas-burners, and by their light
he closely inspected the rivets, the fastenings, and the general form
of the splendid ornament he was so anxious to get rid of, idly
thinking how well it must have looked on his mother's still beautiful
arm, and wondering whether she was likely soon to "be obliged to wear
the counterfeit. His back was turned to the door by which Harriet had
left the room, so that, when she came softly to the aperture again, he
did not perceive her. She carefully noted his attitude, and glided
softly in, carrying several small implements in her right hand, and in
her left held cautiously behind her back a coat, which she dexterously
dropped upon the floor quite unperceived by Dallas, behind the chair
on which he had thrown his. She then went up to the table, and showed
him a small pair of nippers, a pair of scissors of peculiar form, and
a little implement, with which she told him workers in jewelry
loosened stones in their setting, and punched them out. Dallas looked
with some surprise at the collection, regarding them as unusual items
of a lady's paraphernalia, and said, gaily:
"You are truly a woman of resources, Mrs. Routh. Who would ever have
thought of your having all those things ready at a moment's notice?"
Harriet made no reply, but she could not quite conceal the
disconcerting effect of his words.
"If I have made a blunder in this," she thought, "it is a serious one,
but I have more to do, and must not think yet."
She sat down, cleared a space on the table, placed the bracelet and
the little tools before her, and set to work at once at her task of
demolition. It was a long one, and the sight was pitiful as she placed
jewel after jewel carefully in a small box before her, and proceeded
to loosen one after another. Sometimes George took the bracelet from
her and aided her, but the greater part of the work was done by her.
The face bent over the disfigured gold and maltreated gems was a
remarkable one in its mingled expression of intentness and absence;
her will was animating her fingers in their task, but her mind, her
fancy, her memory, were away, and, to judge by the rigidity of the
cheeks and lips, the unrelaxed tension of the low white brow, on no
pleasing excursion. The pair worked on in silence, only broken
occasionally by a word from George, expressive of admiration for her
dexterity and the celerity with which she detached the jewels from the
gold setting. At length all was done--the golden band, limp and
scratched, was a mere commonplace piece of goldsmith's work--the
diamonds lay in their box in a shining heap, the discarded turquoises
on the table; and all was done.
"What shall we do with these things?" asked George. "They are not
worth selling--at least, not now--but I think the blue things might
make up prettily with the gold again. Will you keep them, Mrs. Routh?
and some day, when I am better off, I'll have them set for you, in
remembrance of this night in particular, and of all your goodness to
me in general."
He was looking at the broken gold and the turquoises, thinking how
trumpery they looked now--not at her. Fortunately not at her, for if
he had seen her face he must have known--even he, unsuspicious as he
was--that she was shaken by some inexplicably powerful feeling. The
dark blood rushed into her face, dispersed itself over her fair throat
in blotches, and made a sudden dreadful tingling in her ears. For a
minute she did not reply, and then Dallas did look at her, but the
agony had passed over her.
"No--no," she said; "the gold is valuable, and the turquoises as much
so as they can be for their size. You must keep them for a rainy day."
"I'm likely to see many," said George, with half a smile and half a
sigh, "but I don't think I'll ever use these things to keep me from
the pelting of the pitiless shower. If you won't keep them for
yourself, Mrs. Routh, perhaps you'll keep them for me until I return."
"O yes," said Harriet, "I will keep them. I will lock them up in my
desk; you will know where to find them."
She drew the desk towards her as she spoke, took out of it a piece of
paper, without seeing that one side had some writing upon it, swept
the scattered turquoises into the sheet, then folded the gold band in
a second, placed both in a large blue envelope, with the device of
Routh's last new company scheme upon it, and sealed the parcel over
the wafer.
"Write your name on it," she said to George, who took up a pen and
obeyed her. She opened a drawer at the side of the desk, and put away
the little parcel quite at the back. Then she took from the same
drawer seven sovereigns, which George said would be as much as he
would require for the present, and which he carefully stowed away in
his pocket-book. Then he sat down at the desk, and playfully wrote an
IOU for the amount.
"That's business-like," said George, smiling, but the smile by which
she replied was so wan and weary, that George again commented on her
fatigue, and began to take leave of her.
"I'm off, then," he said, "and you won't forget to tell Routh how much
I wanted to see him. Among other things to tell him--However, I
suppose he has seen Deane since I have been away?"
Harriet was occupied in turning down the gas-burner by which she had
just lighted the candle again. She now said:
"How stupid I am! as if I couldn't have lighted you to the door first,
and put the gas out afterwards! The truth is, I am so tired; I'm quite
stupified. What did you say, Mr. Dallas? There, I've knocked your coat
off the chair; here it is, however. You asked me something, I think?"
George took the coat she held from her, hung it over his arm, felt for
his hat (the room being lighted only by the feeble candle), and
repeated his words:
"Routh has seen Deane, of course, since I've been away?"
"No," Harriet replied with distinctness, "he has not--he has not."
"Indeed!" said George. "I am surprised at that. But Deane was huffed,
I remember, on Tuesday, when Routh broke his engagement to dine with
him, and said it must depend on whether he was in the humour to meet
him the next day, as Routh asked him to do. So I suppose he wasn't in
the humour, eh? And now he'll be huffed with me, but I can't help it."
"Why?" asked Harriet; and she spoke the single word with a strange
effort, and a painful dryness of the throat.
"Because I promised to give him his revenge at billiards. I won ten
pounds from him that night, and uncommonly lucky it was for me; it
enabled me to get away from my horrible old shrew of a landlady, and,
indeed, indirectly it enables me to start on this business to-morrow."
"How?" said Harriet. Again she spoke but one word, and again with
difficulty and a dryness in the throat. She set down the candle, and
leaned against the table, while George stood between her and the door,
his coat over his arm.
"You didn't notice that I told you I was all packed up and ready to
go. It happened luckily, didn't it?" And then George told his listener
how he had paid his landlady, and removed his modest belongings on the
previous Wednesday morning to a coffee-house, close to the river too.
"By Jove! I'm in luck's way, it seems," he said; "so I shall merely go
and sleep there, and take my traps on board the Argus. I have only
such clothes as I shall want, no matter where I am," he said. "They'll
keep the trunk with my books until I come back, and Deane must wait
for his revenge with the balls and cues for the same auspicious
occasion. Let's hope he'll be in a better temper, and have forgiven
Routh. He was awfully riled at his note on Tuesday evening."
"Did--did you see it!" asked Harriet; and, as she spoke, she leaned
still more heavily against the table.
"No," replied Dallas, "I did not; but Deane told me Routh asked him to
meet him the next day. He didn't, it seems."
"No," said Harriet; "and Stewart is very much annoyed about it. Mr.
Deane owed him money, and he asked him for some in that note."
"Indeed," said George; "he could have paid him then, I happen to know.
He had a lot of gold and notes with him. The tenner he lost to me he
paid in a note, and he changed a fiver to pay for our dinner, and he
was bragging and bouncing the whole time about the money he had about
him, and what he would, and would not, do with it. So it was sheer
spite made him neglect to pay Routh, and I hope he'll dun him again.
The idea of Routh being in the hole he's in, and a fellow like that
owing him money. How much is it, Mrs. Routh?"
"I--I don't know," said Harriet.
"There, I'm keeping you talking still. I am the most thoughtless
fellow." It never occurred to George that she had kept him until she
had learned what she wanted to know. "Good-bye, Mrs. Routh, good-bye."
She had passed him, the candle in her hand, and this farewell was
uttered in the hall. He held out his hand; she hesitated for a moment,
and then gave him hers. He pressed it fervently; it was deadly cold.
"Don't stay in the chill air," he said; "you are shivering now."
Then he went away with a light cheerful step.
Harriet Routh stood quite still, as he had left her, for one full
minute; then she hurried into the sitting-room, shut the door,
dropped on her knees before a chair, and ground her face fiercely
against her arms. There she knelt, not sobbing, not weeping, but
shuddering--shuddering with the quick terrible iteration of mortal
agony of spirit, acting on an exhausted frame. After a while she rose,
and then her face was dreadful to look upon, in its white fixed
despair.
"If I have saved him," she said, as she sat wearily down by the table
again, and once more leaned her face upon her hands--"if I have saved
him! It may be there is a chance; at all events, there is a chance.
How wonderful, how inconceivably wonderful that he should not have
heard of it! The very stones of the street seem to cry it out, and he
has not heard of it; the very air is full of it, and he knows nothing.
If anything should prevent his going? But no; nothing will, nothing
_can_. This was the awful danger--this was the certain, the inevitable
risk; if I have averted it; if I have saved him, for the time!"
The chill of coming dawn struck cold to her limbs, the sickness of
long watching, of fear, and of sleeplessness was at her heart, but
Harriet Routh did not lie down on her bed all that dreadful night.
Terrible fatigue weighed down her eyelids, and made her flesh tremble
and quiver over the aching bones.
"I must not sleep--I should not wake in time," she said, as she forced
herself to rise from her chair, and paced the narrow room, when the
sudden dumbness of sleep threatened to fall upon her. "I have
something to do."
Dawn came, then sunrise, then the sounds, the stir of morning. Then
Harriet bathed her face in cold water, and looked in her toilet-glass
at her haggard features. The image was not reassuring; but she only
smiled a bitter smile, and made a mocking gesture with her hand.
"Never any more," she murmured--"never any more." The morning was cold
and raw, but Harriet heeded it not. She glanced out of the window of
her bed-room before she left it, wearing her bonnet and shawl, and
closely veiled. Then she closed the shutters, locked the door,
withdrew the key, and came into the sitting-room. She went to a chair
and took up a coat which lay at the back of it; then she looked round
for a moment as if in search of something. Her eye lighted on a small
but heavy square of black marble which lay on the writing-table, and
served as a paper-press. She then spread the coat on the table, placed
the square of marble on it, and rolled it tightly round the heavy
centre, folding and pressing the parcel into the smallest possible
dimensions. This done, she tied it tightly with a strong cord, and,
concealing it under her shawl, went swiftly out of the house. No one
saw her issue from the grim, gloomy door--the neighbouring housemaids
had not commenced their matutinal task of door-step cleaning,
alleviated by gossip--and she went away down the street, completely
unobserved. Went away, with her head down, her face hidden, with a
quick, steady step and an unfaltering purpose. There were not many
wayfarers abroad in the street, and of those she saw none, and was
remarked by only one.
Harriet Routh took her way towards the river, and reached
Westminster-bridge as the clock in the great tower of the new palace
marked half-past six. All was quiet. A few of the laggards of the
working classes were straggling across the bridge to their daily toil,
a few barges were moving sluggishly upon the muddy water; but there
was no stir, no business yet. Harriet lingered when she reached the
centre of the bridge; a figure was just vanishing at the southern end,
the northern was clear of people. She leaned over the parapet, and
looked down--no boat, no barge was near. Then she dropped the parcel
she had carried into the river, and the water closed over it. Without
the delay of an instant, she turned and retraced her steps toward
home. As she neared South Morton-street, she found several of
the shops open, and entering one, she purchased a black marble
letter-press. It was not precisely similar to that with which she had
weighted the parcel, which now lay in the bed of the river; but the
difference was trifling, and not to be perceived by the eye of a
stranger.
Near the house in which the Rouths occupied apartments there was an
archway which formed the entrance to some mews. As she passed this
open space, Harriet's glance fell upon the inquisitive countenance of
a keen-looking, ragged street-boy, who was lying contentedly on his
back under the archway, with his arms under his head, and propped upon
the kerbstone. A sudden impulse arrested her steps. "Have you no other
place to lie than here?" she asked the boy, who jumped up with great
alacrity, and stood before her in an attitude almost respectful.
"Yes, ma'am," he said, "I have, but I'm here, waiting for an early
job."
She gave him a shilling and a smile--not such a smile as she once had
to give, but the best that was left her--and went on to the door of
the house she lived in. She opened it with a key, and went in.
The boy remained where she had left him, apparently ruminating, and
wagging his tousled head sagely.
"Whatever is she up to?" he asked of himself, in perplexity, "It's a
rum start, as far as I knows on it, and I means to know more. But how
is she in it? I shan't say nothing till I knows more about it." And
then Mr. Jim Swain went his way to a more likely quarter for early
jobs.
Fortune favoured Mrs. Routh on that morning. She gained her bed-room
unseen and unheard, and having hastily undressed, lay down to rest, if
rest would come to her--at least to await in quiet the ordinary hour
at which the servant was accustomed to call her. It came, and passed;
but Harriet did not rise.
She slept a little when all the world was up and busy--slept until the
second delivery of letters brought one for her, which the servant took
at once to her room.
The letter was from George Dallas, and contained merely a few lines,
written when he was on the point of starting, and posted at the
river-side. He apologized to Harriet for a mistake which he had made
on the previous night. He had taken up Routh's coat instead of his
own, and had not discovered the error until he was on his way to the
steamer, and it was too late to repair it. He hoped it would not
matter, as he had left his own coat at South Molton-street, and no
doubt Routh could wear it, on an occasion. When Harriet had read this
note, she lay back upon her pillow, and fell into a deep sleep, which
was broken by Routh's coming into her room early in the afternoon. He
looked pale and haggard, and he stood by the bedside in silence. But
she--she sat up, and flung her arms round him with a wonderfully good
imitation of her former manner; and when she told him all that had
passed, her husband caught her to his breast with passionate fondness
and gratitude, and declared over and over again that her ready wit and
wonderful fortitude had saved him. Saved him? How, and from what?