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
Thursday, 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
caudle, 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
Friday 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 Thursday 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 numbness 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 bedroom 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