On ordinary days Richard of necessity rose early; a holiday did not lead
him to break the rule, for free hours were precious. He had his body
well under control; six hours of sleep he found sufficient to keep
him in health, and temptations to personal ease, in whatever form, he
resisted as a matter of principle.
Easter Monday found him down-stairs at half-past six. His mother would
to-day allow herself another hour. ‘Arry would be down just in time to
breakfast, not daring to be late. The Princess might be looked for--some
time in the course of the morning; she was licensed.
Richard, for purposes of study, used the front parlour. In drawing
up the blind, he disclosed a room precisely resembling in essential
features hundreds of front parlours in that neighbourhood, or, indeed,
in any working-class district of London. Everything was clean; most
things were bright-hued or glistening of surface. There was the
gilt-framed mirror over the mantelpiece, with a yellow clock--which
did not go--and glass ornaments in front. There was a small round table
before the window, supporting wax fruit under a glass case. There was
a hearthrug with a dazzling pattern of imaginary flowers. On the blue
cloth of the middle table were four showily-bound volumes, arranged
symmetrically. On the head of the sofa lay a covering worked of blue
and yellow Berlin wools. Two arm-chairs were draped with long white
antimacassars, ready to slip off at a touch. As in the kitchen, there
was a smell of cleanlines--of furniture polish, hearthstone, and
black-lead.
I should mention the ornaments of the walls. The pictures were: a
striking landscape of the Swiss type, an engraved portrait of Garibaldi,
an unframed view of a certain insurance office, a British baby on a
large scale from the Christmas number of an illustrated paper.
The one singular feature of the room was a small, glass-doored bookcase,
full of volumes. They were all of Richard’s purchasing; to survey them
was to understand the man, at all events on his intellectual side.
Without exception they belonged to that order of literature which, if
studied exclusively and for its own sake,--as here it was,--brands a man
indelibly, declaring at once the incompleteness of his education and the
deficiency of his instincts. Social, political, religious,--under
these three heads the volumes classed themselves, and each class was
represented by productions of the ‘extreme’ school. The books which a
bright youth of fair opportunities reads as a matter of course, rejoices
in for a year or two, then throws aside for ever, were here treasured to
be the guides of a lifetime. Certain writers of the last century, long
ago become only historically interesting, were for Richard an armoury
whence he girded himself for the battles of the day; cheap reprints or
translations of Malthus, of Robert Owen, of Volney’s ‘Ruins,’ of Thomas
Paine, of sundry works of Voltaire, ranked upon his shelves. Moreover,
there was a large collection of pamphlets, titled wonderfully and of yet
more remarkable contents, the authoritative utterances of contemporary
gentlemen--and ladies--who made it the end of their existence to prove:
that there cannot by any possibility be such a person as Satan; that the
story of creation contained in the Book of Genesis is on no account
to be received; that the begetting of children is a most deplorable
oversight; that to eat flesh is wholly unworthy of a civilised being;
that if every man and woman performed their quota of the world’s labour
it would be necessary to work for one hour and thirty-seven minutes
daily, no jot longer, and that the author, in each case, is the one
person capable of restoring dignity to a down-trodden race and happiness
to a blasted universe. Alas, alas! On this food had Richard Mutimer
pastured his soul since he grew to manhood, on this and this only.
English literature was to him a sealed volume; poetry he scarcely knew
by name; of history he was worse than ignorant, having looked at this
period and that through distorting media, and congratulating himself on
his clear vision because he saw men as trees walking; the bent of
his mind would have led him to natural science, but opportunities of
instruction were lacking, and the chosen directors of his prejudice
taught him to regard every fact, every discovery, as _for_ or _against_
something.
A library of pathetic significance, the individual alone considered.
Viewed as representative, not without alarming suggestiveness to those
who can any longer trouble themselves about the world’s future. One
dreams of the age when free thought--in the popular sense--will have
become universal, when art shall have lost its meaning, worship its
holiness, when the Bible will only exist in ‘comic’ editions, and
Shakespeare be down-cried by ‘most sweet voices as a mountebank of
reactionary tendencies.
Richard was to lecture on the ensuing Sunday at one of the branch
meeting-places of his society; he engaged himself this morning in
collecting certain data of a statistical kind. He was still at his work
when the sound of the postman’s knock began to be heard in the square,
coming from house to house, drawing nearer at each repetition. Richard
paid no heed to it; he expected no letter. Yet it seemed there was
one for some member of the family; the letter-carrier’s regular tread
ascended the five steps to the door, and then two small thunderclaps
echoed through the house. There was no letter-box; Richard went to
answer the knock. An envelope addressed to himself in a small, formal
hand.
His thoughts still busy with other things, he opened the letter
mechanically as he re-entered the room. He had never in his life been
calmer; the early hour of study had kept his mind pleasantly active
whilst his breakfast appetite sharpened itself. Never was man less
prepared to receive startling intelligence.
He read, then raised his eyes and let them stray from the papers on the
table to the wax-fruit before the window, thence to the young leafage
of the trees around the Baptist Chapel. He was like a man whose face had
been overflashed by lightning. He read again, then, holding the letter
behind him, closed his right hand upon his beard with thoughtful
tension. He read a third time, then returned the letter to its envelope,
put it in his pocket, and sat down again to his book.
He was summoned to breakfast in ten minutes. His mother was alone in
the kitchen; she gave him his bloater and his cup of coffee, and he cut
himself a solid slice of bread and butter.
‘Was the letter for you?’ she asked.
He replied with a nod, and fell patiently to work on the dissection of
his bony delicacy. In five minutes Henry approached the table with a
furtive glance at his elder brother. But Richard had no remark to make.
The meal proceeded in silence.
When Richard had finished, he rose and said to his mother--
‘Have you that railway-guide I brought home a week ago?’
‘I believe I have somewhere. Just look in the cupboard.’
The guide was found. Richard consulted it for a few moments.
‘I have to go out of London,’ he then observed. ‘It’s just possible I
shan’t get back to-night.’
A little talk followed about the arrangements of the day, and whether
anyone was likely to be at home for dinner. Richard did not show much
interest in the matter; he went upstairs whistling, and changed the
clothing he wore for his best suit. In a quarter of an hour he had left
the house.
He did not return till the evening of the following day. It was presumed
that he had gone ‘after a job.’
When he reached home his mother and Alice were at tea. He walked to
the kitchen fireplace, turned his back to it, and gazed with a peculiar
expression at the two who sat at table.
‘Dick’s got work,’ observed Alice, after a glance at him. ‘I can see
that in his face.’.
‘Have you, Dick?’ asked Mrs. Mutimer.
‘I have. Work likely to last.’
‘So we’ll hope,’ commented his mother. ‘Where is it?’
‘A good way out of London. Pour me a cup, mother. Where’s ‘Arry?’
‘Gone out, as usual.’
‘And why are you having tea with your hat on, Princess?’
‘Because I’m in a hurry, if you must know everything.’
Richard did not seek further information. He drank his tea standing. In
five minutes Alice had bustled away for an evening with friends. Mrs.
Mutimer cleared the table without speaking.
‘Now get your sewing, mother, and sit down,’ began Richard. ‘I want to
have a talk with you.’
The mother cast a rather suspicious glance. There was an impressiveness
in the young man’s look and tone which disposed her to obey without
remark.
‘How long is it,’ Richard asked, when attention waited upon him, ‘since
you heard anything of father’s uncle, my namesake?’
Mrs. Mutimer’s face exhibited the dawning of intelligence, an
unwrinkling here and there, a slight rounding of the lips.
‘Why, what of him?’ she asked in an undertone, leaving a needle
unthreaded.
‘The old man’s just dead.’
Agitation seized the listener, agitation of a kind most unusual in her.
Her hands trembled, her eyes grew wide.
‘You haven’t heard anything of him lately?’ pursued Richard.
‘Heard? Not I. No more did your father ever since two years afore we was
married. I’d always thought he was dead long ago. What of him, Dick?’
‘From what I’m told I thought you’d perhaps been keeping things to
yourself. ‘Twouldn’t have been unlike you, mother. He knew all about us,
so the lawyer tells me.’
‘The lawyer?’
‘Well, I’d better out with it. He’s died without a will. His real
property--that means his houses and land--belongs to me; his personal
property--that’s his money--‘ll have to be divided between me, and
Alice, and ‘Arry. You’re out of the sharing, mother.’
He said it jokingly, but Mrs. Mutimer did not join in his laugh. Her
palms were closely pressed together; still trembling, she gazed straight
before her, with a far-off look.
‘His houses--his land?’ she murmured, as if she had not quite heard.
‘What did he want with more than one house?’
The absurd question was all that could find utterance. She seemed to be
reflecting on that point.
‘Would you like to hear what it all comes to?’ Richard resumed. His
voice was unnatural, forcibly suppressed, quivering at pauses. His eyes
gleamed, and there was a centre of warm colour on each of his cheeks. He
had taken a note-book from his pocket, and the leaves rustled under his
tremulous fingers.
‘The lawyer, a man called Yottle, just gave me an idea of the different
investments and so on. The real property consists of a couple of houses
in Belwick, both let, and an estate at a place called Wanley. The old
man had begun mining there; there’s iron. I’ve got my ideas about that.
I didn’t go into the house; people are there still. Now the income.’
He read his notes: So much in railways, so much averaged yearly from
iron-works in Belwick, so much in foreign securities, so much disposable
at home. Total--
‘Stop, Dick, stop!’ uttered his mother, under her breath. ‘Them figures
frighten me; I don’t know what they mean. It’s a mistake; they’re
leading you astray. Now, mind what I say--there’s a mistake! No man with
all that money ‘ud die without a will. You won’t get me to believe it,
Dick.’
Richard laughed excitedly. ‘Believe it or not, mother; I’ve got my ears
and eyes, I hope. And there’s a particular reason why he left no will.
There was one, but something--I don’t know what--happened just before
his death, and he was going to make a new one. The will was burnt. He
died in church on a Sunday morning; if he’d lived another day, he’d have
made a new will. It’s no more a mistake than the Baptist Chapel is in
the square!’ A comparison which hardly conveyed all Richard’s meaning;
but he was speaking in agitation, more and more quickly, at last almost
angrily.
Mrs. Mutimer raised her hand. ‘Be quiet a bit, Dick. It’s took me too
sudden. I feel queer like.’
There was silence. The mother rose as if with difficulty, and drew water
in a tea-cup from the filter. When she resumed her place, her hands
prepared to resume sewing. She looked up, solemnly, sternly.
‘Dick, it’s bad, bad news! I’m an old woman, and I must say what I
think. It upsets me; it frightens me. I thought he might a’ left you a
hundred pounds.’
‘Mother, don’t talk about it till you’ve had time to think,’ said
Richard, stubbornly. ‘If this is bad news, what the deuce would you call
good? Just because I’ve been born and bred a mechanic, does that say
I’ve got no common sense or self-respect? Are you afraid I shall go
and drink myself to death? You talk like the people who make it their
business to sneer at us--the improvidence of the working classes, and
such d--d slander. It’s good news for me, and it’ll be good news for
many another man. Wait and see.’
The mother became silent, keeping her lips tight, and struggling to
regain her calmness. She was not convinced, but in argument with her
eldest son she always gave way, affection and the pride she had in him
aiding her instincts of discretion. In practice she still maintained
something of maternal authority, often gaining her point by merely
seeming offended. To the two who had not yet reached the year of
emancipation she allowed, in essentials, no appeal from her decision.
Between her and Richard there had been many a sharp conflict in former
days, invariably ending with the lad’s submission; the respect which his
mother exacted he in truth felt to be her due, and it was now long since
they had openly been at issue on any point. Mrs. Mutimer’s views were
distinctly Conservative, and hitherto she had never taken Richard’s
Radicalism seriously; on the whole she had regarded it as a fairly
harmless recreation for his leisure hours--decidedly preferable to a
haunting of public-houses and music-halls. The loss of his employment
caused her a good deal of uneasiness, but she had not ventured to do
more than throw out hints of her disapproval; and now, as it seemed, the
matter was of no moment. Henceforth she had far other apprehensions, but
this first conflict of their views made her reticent.
‘Just let me tell you how things stand,’ Richard pursued, when his
excitement had somewhat subsided; and he went on to explain the
relations between old Mr. Mutimer and the Eldons, which in outline had
been described to him by Mr. Yottle. And then--
‘The will he had made left all the property to this young Eldon, who was
to be trustee for a little money to be doled out to me yearly, just to
save me from ruining myself, of course.’ Richard’s lips curled in scorn.
‘I don’t know whether the lawyer thought we ought to offer to give
everything up; he seemed precious anxious to make me understand that the
old man had never intended us to have it, and that he _did_ want these
other people to have it. Of course, we’ve nothing to do with that.
Luck’s luck, and I think I know who’ll make best use of it.’
‘Why didn’t you tell all this when Alice was here?’ inquired his mother,
seeming herself again, though very grave.
‘I’ll tell you. I thought it over, and it seems to me it’ll be better if
Alice and ‘Arry wait a while before they know what’ll come to them.
They can’t take anything till they’re twenty-one. Alice is a good girl,
but--’
He hesitated, having caught his mother’s eye. He felt that this
prudential course justified in a measure her anxiety.
‘She’s a girl,’ he pursued, ‘and we know that a girl with a lot o’ money
gets run after by men who care nothing about her and a good deal about
the money. Then it’s quite certain ‘Arry won’t be any the better for
fancying himself rich. H’s going to give us trouble as it is, I can see
that. We shall have to take another house, of course, and we can’t keep
them from knowing that there’s money fallen to me. But there’s no need
to talk about the figures, and if we can make them think it’s only me
that’s better off, so much the better. Alice needn’t go to work, and I’m
glad of it; a girl’s proper place is at home. You can tell her you want
her to help in the new house. ‘Arry had better keep his place awhile.
I shouldn’t wonder if I find work for him myself before long I’ve got
plans, but I shan’t talk about them just yet.’
He spoke then of the legal duties which fell upon him as next-of-kin,
explaining the necessity of finding two sureties on taking out letters
of administration. Mr. Yottle had offered himself for one; the other
Richard hoped to find in Mr. Westlake, a leader of the Socialist
movement.
‘You want us to go into a big house?’ asked Mrs. Mutimer. She seemed to
pay little attention to the wider aspects of the change, but to fix
on the details she could best understand, those which put her fears in
palpable shape.
‘I didn’t say a big one, but a larger than this. We’re not going to play
the do-nothing gentlefolk; but all the same our life won’t and can’t be
what it has been. There’s no choice. You’ve worked hard all your life,
mother, and it’s only fair you should come in for a bit of rest. We’ll
find a house somewhere out Green Lanes way, or in Highbury or Holloway.’
He laughed again.
‘So there’s the best of it--the worst of it, as you say. Just take a
night to turn it over. Most likely I shall go to Belwick again to-morrow
afternoon.’
He paused, and his mother, after bending her head to bite off an end of
cotton, asked--
‘You’ll tell Emma?’
‘I shall go round to-night.’
A little later Richard left the house for this purpose. His step was
firmer than ever, his head more upright Walking along the crowded
streets, he saw nothing; there was a fixed smile on his lips, the smile
of a man to whom the world pays tribute. Never having suffered actual
want, and blessed with sanguine temperament, he knew nothing of that
fierce exultation, that wrathful triumph over fate, which comes to men
of passionate mood smitten by the lightning-flash of unhoped prosperity.
At present he was well-disposed to all men; even against capitalists and
‘profitmongers’ he could not have railed heartily Capitalists? Was he
not one himself? Aye, but he would prove himself such a one as you do
not meet with every day; and the foresight of deeds which should draw
the eyes of men upon him, which should shout his name abroad, softened
his judgments with the charity of satisfied ambition. He would be the
glorified representative of his class. He would show the world how a
self-taught working man conceived the duties and privileges of wealth.
He would shame those dunder-headed, callous-hearted aristocrats, those
ravening bourgeois. Opportunity--what else had he wanted? No longer
would his voice be lost in petty lecture-halls, answered only by the
applause of a handful of mechanics. Ere many months had passed, crowds
should throng to hear him; his gospel would be trumpeted over the land.
To what might he not attain? The educated, the refined, men and women--
He was at the entrance of a dark passage, where his feet stayed
themselves by force of habit. He turned out of the street, and walked
more slowly towards the house in which Emma Vine and her sisters lived.
Having reached the door, he paused, but again took a few paces forward.
Then he came back and rang the uppermost of five bells. In waiting, he
looked vaguely up and down the street.
It was Emma herself who opened to him. The dim light showed a smile of
pleasure and surprise.
‘You’ve come to ask about Jane?’ she said. ‘She hasn’t been quite so bad
since last night.’
‘I’m glad to hear it. Can I come up?’
‘Will you?’
He entered, and Emma closed the door. It was pitch dark.
‘I wish I’d brought a candle down,’ Emma said, moving back along the
passage. ‘Mind there’s a pram at the foot of the stairs.’
The perambulator was avoided successfully by both, and they ascended
the bare boards of the staircase. On each landing prevailed a distinct
odour; first came the damp smell of newly-washed clothes, then the
scent of fried onions, then the workroom of some small craftsman exhaled
varnish. The topmost floor seemed the purest; it was only stuffy.
Richard entered an uncarpeted room which had to serve too many distinct
purposes to allow of its being orderly in appearance. In one corner was
a bed, where two little children lay asleep; before the window stood a
sewing-machine, about which was heaped a quantity of linen; a table in
the midst was half covered with a cloth, on which was placed a loaf and
butter, the other half being piled with several dresses requiring the
needle. Two black patches on the low ceiling showed in what positions
the lamp stood by turns.
Emma’s eldest sister was moving about the room. Hers were the children;
her husband had been dead a year or more. She was about thirty years of
age, and had a slatternly appearance; her face was peevish, and seemed
to grudge the half-smile with which it received the visitor.
‘You’ve no need to look round you,’ she said. ‘We’re in & regular
pig-stye, and likely to be. Where’s there a chair?’
She shook some miscellaneous articles on to the floor to provide a seat.
‘For mercy’s sake don’t speak too loud, and wake them children. Bertie’s
had the earache; he’s been crying all day. What with him and Jane we’ve
had a blessing, I can tell you. Can I put these supper things away,
Emma?’
‘I’ll do it,’ was the other’s reply. ‘Won’t you have a bit more, Kate?’
‘I’ve got no mind for eating. Well, you may cut a slice and put it on
the mantelpiece. I’ll go and sit with Jane.’
Richard sat and looked about the room absently. The circumstances of his
own family had never fallen below the point at which it is possible to
have regard for decency; the growing up of himself and of his brothers
and sister had brought additional resources to meet extended needs, and
the Mutimer characteristics had formed a safeguard against improvidence.
He was never quite at his ease in this poverty-cumbered room, which he
seldom visited.
‘You ought to have a fire,’ he said.
‘There’s one in the other room,’ replied Kate. ‘One has to serve us.’
‘But you can’t cook there.’
‘Cook? We can boil a potato, and that’s about all the cooking we can do
now-a-days.’
She moved to the door as she spoke, and, before leaving the room, took
advantage of Richard’s back being turned to make certain exhortatory
signs to her sister. Emma averted her head.
Kate closed the door behind her. Emma, having removed the eatables to
the cupboard, came near to Richard and placed her arm gently upon his
shoulders. He looked at her kindly.
‘Kate’s been so put about with Bertie,’ she said, in a tone of excuse.
‘And she was up nearly all last night.’
‘She never takes things like you do,’ Richard remarked.
‘She’s got more to bear. There’s the children always making her anxious.
She took Alf to the hospital this afternoon, and the doctor says he must
have--I forget the name, somebody’s food. But it’s two-and-ninepence for
ever such a little tin. They don’t think as his teeth ‘ll ever come.’
‘Oh, I daresay they will,’ said Richard encouragingly.
He had put his arm about her. Emma knelt down by him, and rested her
head against his shoulder.
‘I’m tired,’ she whispered. ‘I’ve had to go twice to the Minories
to-day. I’m so afraid I shan’t be able to hold my eyes open with Jane,
and Kate’s tireder still.’
She did not speak as if seeking for sympathy it was only the natural
utterance of her thoughts in a moment of restful confidence. Uttermost
weariness was a condition too familiar to the girl to be spoken of in
any but a patient, matter-of-fact tone. But it was priceless soothing
to let her forehead repose against the heart whose love was the one and
sufficient blessing of her life. Her brown hair was very soft and fine;
a lover of another kind would have pressed his lips upon it. Richard was
thinking of matters more practical. At another time his indignation--in
such a case right good and manful--would have boiled over at the thought
of these poor women crushed in slavery to feed the world’s dastard
selfishness; this evening his mood was more complaisant, and he smiled
as one at ease.
‘Hadn’t you better give up your work?’ he said.
Emma raised her head. In the few moments of repose her eyelids had
drooped with growing heaviness; she looked at him as if she had just
been awakened to some great surprise.
‘Give up work? How can I?’
‘I think I would. You’d have more time to give to Jane, and you could
sleep in the day. And Jane had better not begin again after this. Don’t
you think it would be better if you left these lodgings and took a
house, where there’d be plenty of room and fresh air?’
‘Richard, what are you talking about?’
He laughed, quietly, on account of the sleeping children.
‘How would you like,’ he continued, ‘to go and live in the country? Kate
and Jane could have a house of their own, you know--in London, I mean,
a house like ours; they could let a room or two if they chose. Then
you and I could go where we liked. I was down in the Midland Counties
yesterday; had to go on business; and I saw a house that would just suit
us. It’s a bit large; I daresay there’s sixteen or twenty rooms. And
there’s trees growing all about it; a big garden--’
Emma dropped her head again and laughed, happy that Richard should jest
with her so good-humouredly; for he did not often talk in the lighter
way. She had read of such houses in the weekly story-papers. It must be
nice to live in them; it must be nice to be a denizen of Paradise.
‘I’m in earnest, Emma.’
His voice caused her to gaze at him again.
‘Bring a chair,’ he said, ‘and I’ll tell you something that’ll--keep you
awake.’
The insensible fellow! Her sweet, pale, wondering face was so close to
his, the warmth of her drooping frame was against his heart--and he
bade her sit apart to listen.
She placed herself as he desired, sitting with her hands together in her
lap, her countenance troubled a little, wishing to smile, yet not quite
venturing. And he told his story, told it in all details, with figures
that filled the mouth, that rolled forth like gold upon the bank-scales.
‘This is mine,’ he said, ‘mine and yours.’
Have you seen a child listening to a long fairy tale, every page a
new adventure of wizardry, a story of elf, or mermaid, or gnome, of
treasures underground guarded by enchanted monsters, of bells heard
silverly in the depth of old forests, of castles against the sunset,
of lakes beneath the quiet moon? Know you how light gathers in the eyes
dreaming on vision after vision, ever more intensely realised, yet ever
of an unknown world? How, when at length the reader’s voice is silent,
the eyes still see, the ears still hear, until a movement breaks the
spell, and with a deep, involuntary sigh the little one gazes here and
there, wondering?
So Emma listened, and so she came back to consciousness, looking about
the room, incredulous. Had she been overcome with weariness? Had she
slept and dreamt?
One of the children stirred and uttered a little wailing sound. She
stepped lightly to the bedside, bent for a moment, saw that all was
well again, and came back on tip-toe. The simple duty had quieted her
throbbing heart. She seated herself as before.
‘What about the country house now?’ said Richard.
‘I don’t know what to say. It’s more than I can take into my head.’
‘You’re not going to say, like mother did, that it was the worst piece
of news she’d ever heard?’
‘Your mother said that?’
Emma was startled. Had her thought passed lightly over some danger? She
examined her mind rapidly.
‘I suppose she said it,’ Richard explained, ‘just because she didn’t
know what else to say, that’s about the truth. But there certainly is
one thing I’m a little anxious about, myself. I don’t care for either
Alice or ‘Arry to know the details of this windfall. They won’t come in
for their share till they’re of age, and it’s just as well they should
think it’s only a moderate little sum. So don’t talk about it, Emma.’
The girl was still musing on Mrs. Mutimer’s remark; she merely shook her
head.
‘You didn’t think you were going to marry a man with his thousands
and be a lady? Well, I shall have more to say in a day or two. But at
present my idea is that mother and the rest of them shall go into a
larger house, and that you and Kate and Jane shall take our place. I
don’t know how long it’ll be before those Eldon people can get out
of Wanley Manor, but as soon as they do, why then there’s nothing to
prevent you and me going into it. Will that suit you, Em?’
‘We shall really live in that big house?’
‘Certainly we shall. I’ve got a life’s work before me there, as far as
I can see at present. The furniture belongs to Mrs. Eldon, I believe;
we’ll furnish the place to suit ourselves.’
‘May I tell my sisters, Richard?’
‘Just tell them that I’ve come in for some money and a house, perhaps
that’s enough. And look here, I’ll leave you this five-pound note to go
on with. You must get Jane whatever the doctor says. And throw all that
sewing out of the windows; we’ll have no more convict labour. Tell Jane
to get well just as soon as it suits her.’
‘But--all this money?’
‘I’ve plenty. The lawyer advanced me some for present needs. Now it’s
getting late, I must go. I’ll write and tell you when I shall be home
again.’
He held out his hand, but the girl embraced him with the restrained
tenderness which in her spoke so eloquently.
‘Are you glad, Emma?’ he asked.
‘Very glad, for your sake.’
‘And just a bit for your own, eh?’
‘I never thought about money,’ she answered. ‘It was quite enough to be
your wife.’
It was the simple truth.