n to the metropolis was not gone. He would slink
round the town to the station: he and Sir Isaac at that hour might
secure places unnoticed.

When Merle found it was in vain to press him to stay over the night,
the good-hearted Cobbler accompanied him to the train, and, while Waife
shrank into a dark corner, bought the tickets for dog and master. As he
was paying for these, he overheard two citizens talking of Mr. Chapman.
It was indeed Mr. Williams explaining to a fellow-burgess just returned
to Gatesboro', after a week's absence, how and by what manner of man Mr.
Hartopp had been taken in. At what Williams said, the Cobbler's cheek
paled. When he joined the Comedian his manner was greatly altered; he
gave the tickets without speaking, but looked hard into Waife's face,
as the latter repaid him the fares. "No," said the Cobbler, suddenly, "I
don't believe it."

"Believe what?" asked Waife, startled. "That you are--"

The Cobbler paused, bent forward, whispered the rest of the sentence
close in the vagrant's ear. Waife's head fell on his bosom, but he made
no answer.

"Speak," cried Merle; "say 't is a lie." The poor cripple's lip writhed,
but he still spoke not.

Merle looked aghast at that obstinate silence. At length, but very
slowly, as the warning bell summoned him and Sir Isaac to their several
places in the train, Waife found voice. "So you too, you too desert and
despise me! God's will be done!" He moved away,--spiritless, limping,
hiding his face as well as he could. The porter took the dog from
him, to thrust it into one of the boxes reserved for such four-footed
passengers.

Waife thus parted from his last friend--I mean the dog--looked after Sir
Isaac wistfully, and crept into a third-class carriage, in which luckily
there was no one else. Suddenly Merle jumped in, snatched his hand, and
pressed it tightly.

"I don't despise, I don't turn my back on you: whenever you and the
little one want a home and a friend, come to Kit Merle as before, and
I'll bite my tongue out if I ask any more questions of you; I'll ask the
stars instead."

The Cobbler had but just time to splutter out these comforting words and
redescend the carriage, when the train put itself into movement, and
the lifelike iron miracle, fuming, hissing, and screeching, bore off
to London its motley convoy of human beings, each passenger's heart a
mystery to the other, all bound the same road, all wedged close within
the same whirling me