took
refuge in his daily work at this hour of anxiety and sad distress. In
such sorrows it is well for a man to have disciplined his mind till
it obeys him instinctively, like a managed steed bearing its rider at
will out of the crowd of assailants by whom he is beset.

Dorothea, scrubbing her face with yellow soap till it shone again,
proceeded to array herself in raiment of many colours, and, when got
up to her own satisfaction, scuttled off to a distant part of London,
making use of more than one omnibus in her journey; and so, returning
almost upon her tracks, confronted Gentleman Jim as he emerged from
his usual house of call in the narrow street out of Holborn.

He started, and his face lengthened with obvious disgust.

"What's up now, lass?" said he. "I've business tonight. D'ye mind?
Blessed if my mouth isn't as dry as a cinder-heap. You go home, like
a good gal, and I'll take ye to the theaytre, perhaps, to-morrow. I
haven't a minnit to stop. I didn't ought to be here now."

The promised treat, the hurried manner, above all the affected
kindness of tone, roused her suspicions to the utmost; and Dorothea
was woman enough to feel for the moment that she dared match her wits
against those of her betrayer.

"It's lucky," she answered coolly; "for I've got to be home afore
dark, and they're lighting the lamps now. I've been down to see arter
him, Jim, an' I thought I'd just step round and let you know. I footed
it all the way back, that's why I'm so late now."

She paused and looked steadily in his face.

"Well?" said Jim, turning very pale, while his eyes glared in hers
with a wild horrible meaning.

She answered his look rather than his exclamation.

"He's a trifle better since morning. He don't know nothing yet, nor he
won't neither, not for a while to come. But he ain't a-goin' to die,
Jim--not this turn."

His colour came back, and he laughed brutally. "Blast him! d'ye think
I care?" said he, with a wild flourish of his arm; but added in a
quieter voice, "Perhaps it's as well, lass. Cold meat isn't very handy
to hide, and he's worth more alive than dead. I couldn't hardly keep
from laffin' this mornin' when I saw them bills. I'll stand ye a drop,
lass, if you're dry, but I mustn't stop with ye to drink it."

Dorothea declined this liberal offer.

"Good-night, Jim," said she, and turned coldly away. She had no heart
for a more affectionate farewell; and could their positions have been
reversed he