case from his pocket and gave it to Cissy: “what you asked me to get from London, dear Mrs. Turldon. You know I never forget promises.”
Cissy uttered a little scream of pleasure, and in another moment a new emerald ring was shining on her small white finger. With the vanity and glee of a petted child, she ran to Charles and said, “Isn’t it sweet, cousin?” Then she ran to George and scolded him for saying “very pretty” before he had glanced at it, and said he was a bear to-night.
Meanwhile Charles was pre-occupied with one idea, and the words “ten o’clock” still sounded in his ears. Once, he thought his lips had mechanically uttered them, for Cairtree gave him a glance of curiosity, and fixed his eyes upon him for a moment in a searching manner that perplexed him.
George took Cairtree by the arm, and conducted him to the library. “You have traced none of the notes?”
Cairtree shook his head. “You have no hope of recovering the packet of securities?”
“I am sorry to say, none.”
“Then I must tell my wife to prepare for ruin with all its terrors—to date from to-morrow the commencement of a new, miserable era, of her existence.”
“Young Thornberg has acted throughout with such deep-laid cunning, that I fear there is little hope of materially mending matters. In spite of all our efforts to discover his whereabouts we are still at a loss, and meanwhile, your position is hopeless. I need not say how much I grieve to tell you this.”
George’s old foreman was affected, and passed his hand across his eyes.
George took his other hand, and said: “My dear friend, we had hoped, one day, to repay the kind affection you have always borne for us—I’m not much given to the exhibition of feeling: I never was. Even now, I would much rather take a practical view of the matter, and consider what is best to be done to mitigate our position, than waste time in idle repining. But I must tell Cissy.” Here George, for the first time, looked distressed. “I must tell Cissy what’s in store for her.”
Cairtree took leave of George with a sigh. “I can do no good here. I shall be at my desk till late to-night, and if anything fresh occurs, I will not fail to let you know.”
Charles and Cissy were together in the green-papered parlour. Charles was mentioning, among other things, his intention to take a trip on the Continent, when George suddenly thrust in his head at the door and called to Cissy—“Come and see something else Mr. Cairtree has brought to you from London.”
When Cissy obeyed this summons, and left her cousin alone with Effie, who again approached him with that smiling confidence she displayed towards none other of their acquaintance, Charles was once more haunted by the words “ten o’clock.” The time-piece seemed to mutter it on the mantel-piece. When Effie looked at him, with her large mournful eyes, it seemed that she was trying to utter the words. Every sound, every movement, every rustle seemed to echo it, and an irresistible voice called him away.
He heard George’s low calm voice in the adjoining room, and once a little shriek from Cissy—then a silence—then a sob—and then George’s voice again. George soothed her grief as if she were a child, and there was something almost of pity for her weak nature, in his way of leading her, a few moments afterwards, into the room where her cousin sat. “There, Cissy, go and speak with Charles; it’s of no use to grieve.”
The words “ten o’clock” were so loudly clamouring to him to come out into the fog, that Charles scarcely made an effort to cheer her, as she sat down and gave way to a wild, ungovernable burst of grief.
“Oh, cousin!” she cried, with a shudder, “George has been saying such dreadful, dreadful things to me: he has quite frightened me. You can’t tell what shocking things he’s been saying.”
It really seemed, as she rocked herself to and fro, and sobbed as if her heart would break, that George, in telling her, had been the guilty origin of all their misfortunes.
It was nearing ten o’clock, and as Charles had already formed the project of meeting the white-haired gentleman in the fog that night, and receiving from him the packet in the silent manner enjoined upon Abel, he muttered a few words of common-place sympathy to Cissy, and rising, announced his intention of returning home by the last night-train. “I leave early for fear of missing the train, and losing my way in the fog.”
“Oh, yes; it’s dreadfully, dreadfully foggy,” cried poor Cissy, clasping her hands with a fresh outburst of grief; and as if the fog, too, were not altogether blameless of their trouble.
He left her, cowering over the fire, and weeping bitterly at the dreadful things George had been saying to her. This pretty ornament of George’s drawing-room, this graceful flower of George’s garden, this little creature that would trip so lightly and laughingly towards the garden gate, to meet him of a summer evening, was but a sorry support for him, in the times of troubles like these.
Once out of the house, Charles walked briskly through the fog, which seemed to thicken at every step. As he walked, his ears were attracted by sounds as of water, dripping, dripping at regular intervals. Sometimes they seemed in advance of him; at others they appeared to proceed from behind. Once he stopped and listened intently: half inclined to attribute the sounds to some illusion of his fancy. When he crossed the yard these drips ceased altogether, and he heard nothing but the sound of his own footsteps, as they echoed through the deserted rooms of the factory.
He soon arrived at the little stream which gurgled all day long within sound of George’s counting-house, and ran down far away into the valley beyond. Standing for a moment beside this stream, he thought its voice had changed. He remembered how often on summer days he had listened to its dreamy sound as it flowed quietly and peacefully past the factory, laughing as it leapt the little break of stones which marked the point where its way lay under overhanging
