ollett," replied Dick. "With your permission,
madam, we'll accompany you to your lodgings."

They sat around the fireplace, with their backs to her, and talked
with easy gaiety, while she packed her possessions; Ned having first
followed them in, and then fled to appease his mind at an ale-house.
Finally Dick and one of the gentlemen closed her trunks for her, while
the other went for a coach; wherein all three accompanied her to the
house of a wigmaker known to Dick, in High Holborn; where they roused
the inmates, made close terms, and left her installed in a decent room
with her belongings.

As they took their leave, after an almost tearful burst of thanks on
her part, Dick said:

"From some of your expressions, madam, I gather that your resources
are limited--resources of one kind, I mean. But in your appearance,
your air, and your voice, you possess resources, which if ever you
feel disposed to use, I beg you will let me know. Pray don't
misunderstand me; the world knows how much I am in love with my
wife."[9]

When he had gone, leaving her puzzled and astonished, she turned to
the wigmaker's wife, who was putting the room to rights, and asked:

"Pray what is that last gentleman's name?"

"Wot, ma'am! Can it be you don't know _'im?_"

"He forgot to tell me."

"Sure 'e thought as you must know already. Everybody in London knows
the great Mr. Sheridan."

"What! Mr. Richard Brinsley Sheridan, the dramatist?"

"And manager of Drury Lane Theaytre. Didn't you 'ear 'im hoffer to put
you on the stage, w'en 'e spoke about your looks and voice?"

Madge turned to the mirror; and saw, for the--first time in weeks, a
sudden light of hope, a sense of triumphs yet in her power, dawn upon
her face.

CHAPTER XVII.

_I Hear Again from Winwood._

Meanwhile we passed through a time of deep sorrow at the Faringfield
house and ours. The effect of Tom's untimely fate, coming upon
Margaret's departure and the disclosures regarding her and Ned, was
marked in Mr. Faringfield by a haggardness of countenance, an averted
glance, a look of age, pitiful to see. His lady considered herself
crushed by affliction, as one upon whom grief had done its worst; and
she resigned herself to the role of martyr in the comfortably
miserable way that some people do, without losing her appreciation of
the small consolations of life, such as morning chocolate, afternoon
tea, and neighbourly conversation upon the subject of her woes. Po