you hate her, I tell you that I hate her a thousand times
more. You thought that I was fond of her. All that is over now, and
you may set your mind at ease."

"Why do you want her so well cared for, then?" asked the girl
suspiciously.

"I want some one who feels towards her as I do to be by her side.
If she were never to come back from Bedsworth it would be nothing to
me."

"What makes you look at me so strangely?" she said, shrinking away from
his intense gaze.

"Never mind. You go. You will understand many things in time which
seem strange to you now. At present if you will do what I ask you will
oblige me greatly. Will you go?"

"Yes, I will go."

"There's a good lass. Give us a kiss, my girl. You have the right
spirit in you. I'll let you know when the train goes to-morrow, and I
will write to my father to expect you. Now, off with you, or you'll
have them gossiping downstairs. Good night."

"Good night, Mister Ezra," said the girl, with her hand upon the handle
of the library door. "You've made my heart glad this night. I live in
hope--ever in hope."

"I wonder what the deuce she hopes about," the young merchant said to
himself as she closed the door behind her. "Hopes I'll marry her, I
suppose. She must be of a very sanguine disposition. A girl like that
might be invaluable down at Bedsworth. If we had no other need for her,
she would be an excellent spy." He lay for some little time on the
couch with bent brow and pursed lips, musing over the possibilities of
the future.

While this dialogue had been going on in the library of Eccleston
Square, Tom Dimsdale was still wending his way homewards with a feeling
of weight in his mind and a presentiment of misfortune which
overshadowed his whole soul. In vain he assured himself that this
disappearance of Kate's was but temporary, and that the rumour of an
engagement between her and Ezra was too ridiculous to be believed for a
moment. Argue it as he would, the same dread, horrible feeling of
impending trouble weighed upon him. Impossible as it was to imagine
that Kate was false to him, it was strange that on the very day that
this rumour reached his ears she should disappear from London.
How bitterly he regretted now that he had allowed himself to be
persuaded by John Girdlestone into ceasing to communicate with her.
He began to realize that he had been duped, and that all these specious
promises as to a future consent to their union