ed down one's
throat; but I hate what your women call propriety. I suppose what we
have been doing to-night is very improper; but I am quite sure that it
has not been in the least wicked.'

'I don't think it has,' said Paul Montague very tamely. It is a long
way from the Haymarket to Islington, but at last the cab reached the
lodging-house door. 'Yes, this is it,' she said. 'Even about the
houses there is an air of stiff-necked propriety which frightens me.'
She was getting out as she spoke, and he had already knocked at the
door. 'Come in for one moment,' she said as he paid the cabman. The
woman the while was standing with the door in her hand. It was near
midnight,--but, when people are engaged, hours do not matter. The woman
of the house, who was respectability herself,--a nice kind widow, with
five children, named Pipkin,--understood that and smiled again as he
followed the lady into the sitting-room. She had already taken off her
hat and was flinging it on to the sofa as he entered. 'Shut the door
for one moment,' she said; and he shut it. Then she threw herself into
his arms, not kissing him but looking up into his face. 'Oh Paul,' she
exclaimed, 'my darling! Oh Paul, my love! I will not bear to be
separated from you. No, no;--never. I swear it, and you may believe me.
There is nothing I cannot do for love of you,--but to lose you.' Then
she pushed him from her and looked away from him, clasping her hands
together. 'But Paul, I mean to keep my pledge to you to-night. It was
to be an island in our troubles, a little holiday in our hard
school-time, and I will not destroy it at its close. You will see me
again soon,--will you not?' He nodded assent, then took her in his arms
and kissed her, and left her without a word.

CHAPTER XXVIII - DOLLY LONGESTAFFE GOES INTO THE CITY

It has been told how the gambling at the Beargarden went on one Sunday
night. On the following Monday Sir Felix did not go to the club. He
had watched Miles Grendall at play, and was sure that on more than one
or two occasions the man had cheated. Sir Felix did not quite know
what in such circumstances it would be best for him to do. Reprobate
as he was himself, this work of villainy was new to him and seemed to
be very terrible. What steps ought he to take? He was quite sure of
his facts, and yet he feared that Nidderdale and Grasslough and
Longestaffe would not believe him. He would have told Montague, but
Montague had, he thought,