hole
width of the staircase.

"It's strange, Mr. Thomas," she continued, pushing the hair off her
face. "Lor! I was that frightened and that surprised, as you might
have 'eard my 'eart beatin' like carpets. Who she may be, an' wot she
may be, I know no more than the dead. But her words was these--I'm
tellin' you her werry words--If you can make sure of seeing Mr. Ryfe,
says she,--that's _you_, Mr. Thomas,--any time afore to-night, says
she, tell him, as I must have a word with him in priwate atween him
and me this werry evening, or it would have been better for both of
us, poor things, says she, if we'd 'a never been born!"

Tom Ryfe stared.

"What do you mean?" he said. "Am I to understand that the--the
lady who spoke to you was desirous of an interview with me here in
chambers, or where?"

"An' a born lady she is an' were!" answered Dorothea, incoherent, and
therefore in the acute lawyer's opinion more likely to be telling
the truth. "A beautiful lady, too--tall and pale, 'aughty and
'andsome--(Tom started)--dressed in 'alf-mourning, with a
black-and-white parasol in her 'and. It's to see you priwate, Mr.
Thomas, as she bade me to warn of you. To-night at height in the
Birdcage Walk, without fail, says she, for it's life and death as is
the matter, or marriage, says she, which is sometimes wuss nor both."

Dorothea then removed herself, her pail, and her scrubbing-brushes to
one side, as though inviting him to follow out his assignation without
delay.

"I ask yer pardon," said she, "Mr. Thomas, if I done wrong. But the
young lady she seemed so anxious and aggrawated-like. No offence, sir,
I 'umbly 'ope, and she guv' me 'alf-a-sovereign."

"And I'll give you another," exclaimed Tom, placing a coin of that
value in Dorothea's damp hot hand. "The Birdcage Walk, at eight. And
it's past six now. Thank you, Dorothea. I've no doubt it's all right.
I'll start at once."

Leaving Gray's Inn, the warm tears filled his eyes to think he had
so misjudged her. Evidently she was in some difficulty, some
complication; she had no opportunity of confiding to him, and hence
her apparent heartlessness, the inconsistency of her conduct which he
had been unable to understand. Obviously she loved him still, and the
conviction filled him with rapture, all the more thrilling and intense
for his late misgivings.

He pulled her written promise from his pocket, and kissed it
passionately, reading it over and over again in the fading