agance, and folly of Colonel Newcome
had reduced them! Looking out from the window as she spoke I saw--we
both saw--the dear old gentleman sadly advancing towards the house, a
parcel in his hand. Seeing his near approach, and that our interview was
likely to come to an end, Mrs. Mackenzie rapidly whispered to me that
she knew I had a good heart--that I had been blessed by Providence with
a fine fortune, which I knew how to keep better than some folks--and
that if, as no doubt was my intention--for with what other but a
charitable view could I have come to see them?--and most generous
and noble was it of you to come, and I always thought it of you, Mr.
Pendennis, whatever other people said to the contrary. If I proposed
to give them relief, which was most needful--and for which a mother's
blessings would follow me--let it be to her, the Campaigner, that my
loan should be confided--for as for the Colonel, he is not fit to be
trusted with a shilling, and has already flung away immense sums upon
some old woman he keeps in the country, leaving his darling Rosey
without the actual necessaries of life.

The woman's greed and rapacity--the flattery with which she chose to
belabour me at dinner, so choked and disgusted me, that I could hardly
swallow the meal, though my poor old friend had been sent out to
purchase a pate from the pastrycook's for my especial refection.
Clive was not at the dinner. He seldom returned till late at night on
sketching days. Neither his wife nor his mother-in-law seemed much to
miss him; and seeing that the Campaigner engrossed the entire share of
the conversation, and proposed not to leave me for five minutes alone
with the Colonel, I took leave rather speedily of my entertainers,
leaving a message for Clive, and a prayer that he would come and see me
at my hotel.

CHAPTER LXXIII. In which Belisarius returns from Exile

I was sitting in the dusk in my room at Hotel des Bains, when the
visitor for whom I hoped made his appearance in the person of Clive,
with his broad shoulders, and broad hat, and a shaggy beard, which he
had thought fit in his quality of painter to assume. Our greeting it
need not be said was warm; and our talk, which extended far into the
night, very friendly and confidential. If I make my readers confidants
in Mr. Clive's private affairs, I ask my friend's pardon for narrating
his history in their behoof. The world had gone very ill with my poor
Clive, and I do not thi