is own money? If
he could get his L6,000 back and have done with the railway, he would
certainly think himself a lucky man. But he did not know how far he
could with honesty lay aside his responsibility; and then he doubted
whether he could put implicit trust in Melmotte's personal guarantee
for the amount. This at any rate was clear to him,--that Melmotte was
very anxious to secure his absence from the meetings of the Board.

Now he was again at Mrs Pipkin's door, and again it was opened by Ruby
Ruggles. His heart was in his mouth as he thought of the things he had
to say. 'The ladies have come back from Southend, Miss Ruggles?'

'Oh yes, sir, and Mrs Hurtle is expecting you all the day.' Then she
put in a whisper on her own account. 'You didn't tell him as you'd
seen me, Mr Montague?'

'Indeed I did, Miss Ruggles.'

'Then you might as well have left it alone, and not have been
ill-natured,--that's all,' said Ruby as she opened the door of Mrs
Hurtle's room.

Mrs Hurtle got up to receive him with her sweetest smile,--and her smile
could be very sweet. She was a witch of a woman, and, as like most
witches she could be terrible, so like most witches she could charm.
'Only fancy,' she said, 'that you should have come the only day I have
been two hundred yards from the house, except that evening when you
took me to the play. I was so sorry.'

'Why should you be sorry? It is easy to come again.'

'Because I don't like to miss you, even for a day. But I wasn't well,
and I fancied that the house was stuffy, and Mrs Pipkin took a bright
idea and proposed to carry me off to Southend. She was dying to go
herself. She declared that Southend was Paradise.'

'A cockney Paradise.'

'Oh, what a place it is! Do your people really go to Southend and
fancy that that is the sea?'

'I believe they do. I never went to Southend myself,--so that you know
more about it than I do.'

'How very English it is,--a little yellow river,--and you call it the
sea! Ah;--you never were at Newport!'

'But I've been at San Francisco.'

'Yes; you've been at San Francisco, and heard the seals howling. Well;
that's better than Southend.'

'I suppose we do have the sea here in England. It's generally supposed
we're an island.'

'Of course;--but things are so small. If you choose to go to the west of
Ireland, I suppose you'd find the Atlantic. But nobody ever does go
there for fear of being murdered.' Paul thought of the gentleman in
Orego