n't be afeard for 'is livin'. An' them great fules
as ha' bin runnin' in a string arter 'er, an' cacklin' about their
eighteen-pence a score, as I've told 'em times, I'll eat my apron the
fust week as iver they get it. I don't hold wi' ladies--no, nor passons
neither--not when it comes to meddlin' wi' your wittles, an' dictatin'
to yer about forgivin' them as ha' got the better ov yer. That young
lady there, what do she matter? That sort's allus gaddin' about? What'll
she keer about us when she's got 'er fine husband? Here o' Saturday,
gone o' Monday--that's what she is. Now Jimmy Gedge, yer kin allus count
on '_im._ Thirty-six year ee ha' set there in that 'ere shop, and I
guess ee'll set there till they call 'im ter kingdom come. Be's a
cheatin', sweatin', greedy old skinflint is Jimmy Gedge; but when yer
wants 'im yer _kin_ find 'im."

* * * * *

Marcella hurried home, she was expecting a letter from Wharton, the
third within a week. She had not set eyes on him since they had met that
first morning in the drive, and it was plain to her that he was as
unwilling as she was that there should be any meeting between them.
Since the moment of his taking up the case, in spite of the pressure of
innumerable engagements, he had found time to send her, almost daily,
sheets covered with his small even writing, in which every detail and
prospect of the legal situation, so far as it concerned James Hurd, were
noted and criticised with a shrewdness and fulness which never wavered,
and never lost for a moment the professional note.

"Dear Miss Boyce"--the letters began--leading up to a "Yours
faithfully," which Marcella read as carefully as the rest. Often, as she
turned them over, she asked herself whether that scene in the library
had not been a mere delusion of the brain, whether the man whose wild
words and act had burnt themselves into her life could possibly be
writing her these letters, in this key, without a reference, without an
allusion. Every day, as she opened them, she looked them through quietly
with a shaking pulse; every day she found herself proudly able to hand
them on to her mother, with the satisfaction of one who has nothing to
conceal, whatever the rest of the world may suspect. He was certainly
doing his best to replace their friendship on that level of high
comradeship in ideas and causes which, as she told herself, it had once
occupied. His own wanton aggression and her weak