spreading false reports about me, and issuing scandals
against me. They found out my address at the Nag's Head, and came there
after me not half an hour after you were gone, and I only got out of
their way by good luck. You ought to give me credit for not giving any
living soul the secret of our whereabouts, so that all I have got to do
is to keep quiet here until our little business is settled, and then I
shall be able to face them boldly again, and set everything straight."

"How cruel!" she said; "how unjust! I will never believe anything
against you, George."

"I am sure of that, my darling;" he said, kissing her. "But now, there
is another matter I must speak about, though I don't like to,--I am
getting short of money, love."

"I have got nearly a hundred pounds, George," she said; "and, as I told
you, I have five thousand pounds in the funds, which I can sell out at
any time I like."

"We shall do well, then, my Polly. Now let us go for a walk."

All that week George stayed with her quietly, till the time of
residence necessary before they could be married was expired. He knew
that he was treading on a mine, which at any time might burst and blow
his clumsy schemes to the wind. But circumstances were in his favour,
and the time came to an end at last. He drank hard all the time without
letting Mary suspect it, but afterwards, when it was all over, wondered
at his nerve and self-possession through all those trying days, when he
was forced eternally to have a smile or a laugh ready, and could not
hear a step behind him without thinking of an officer, or look over his
head without thinking he saw a gallows in the air.

It was during this time that he nursed in his heart a feeling of
desperate hatred and revenge against William Lee, which almost became
the leading passion of his life. He saw, or thought he saw, that this
man was the author of all the troubles that were gathering so thick
around his head, and vowed, if chance threw the man in his way again,
that he would take ample and fearful vengeance, let it cost what it
might. And though this feeling may have sometimes grown cold, yet he
never to the last day forgot or forgave the injuries this man had done
him.

Mary was as innocent of business as a child, and George found little
difficulty in persuading her, that the best thing she could do under
present circumstances, was to sell out the money she had in the funds,
and place it in a bank, to be drawn on