"Of course."

Cannon sighed.

"What do you want me to do?" asked Edwin gloomily. In secret he was rather pleased that George Cannon should have deemed him of the sort likely to help. Was it the flattery of a mendicant? No, he did not think it was. He believed implicitly everything the man was saying.

"Money!" said Cannon sharply. "Money! You won't feel it, but it will save me. After all, Mr. Clayhanger, there's a bond between us, if it comes to that. There's a bond between us. And you've had all the luck of it."

Again Edwin blushed.

"But surely your wife--" he stammered. "Surely Mrs. Cannon isn't without funds. Of course I know she was temporarily rather short a while back, but surely--"

"How do you know she was short?" Cannon grimly interrupted.

"My wife sent her ten pounds--I fancy it was ten pounds--towards expenses, you know."

Cannon e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed, half to himself, savagely:

"Never told me!"

He remained silent.

"But I've always understood she's a woman of property," Edwin finished.

Cannon put both elbows on the desk, leaned further forward, and opened his mouth several seconds before speaking.

"Mr. Clayhanger, I've left my wife--as you call her. If I'd stayed with her I should have killed her. I've run off. Yes, I know all she's done for me. I know without her I might have been in prison to-day and for a couple o' years to come. But I'd sooner be in prison or in h.e.l.l or anywhere you like than with Mrs. Cannon. She's an old woman. She always was an old woman. She was nearly forty when she hooked me, and I was twenty-two. And I'm young yet. I'm not middle-aged yet. She's got a clear conscience, Mrs. Cannon has. She always does her duty. She'd let me walk over her, she'd never complain, if only she could keep me.

She'd just play and smile. Oh yes, she'd turn the other cheek--and keep on turning it. But she isn't going to have me. And for all she's done I'm not grateful. Hag. That's what she is!" He spoke loudly, excitedly, under considerable emotion.

"Hsh!" Edwin, alarmed, endeavoured gently to soothe him.

"All right! All right!" Cannon proceeded in a lower but still impa.s.sioned voice. "But look here! You're a man. You know what's what.

You'll understand what I mean. Believe me when I say that I wouldn't live with that woman for eternal salvation. I couldn't. I couldn't do it. I've taken some of her money, only a little, and run off..." He paused, and went on with conscious persuasiveness now: "I've just got here. I had to ask your whereabouts. I might have been recognised in the streets, but I haven't been. I didn't expect to find you here at this time. I might have had to sleep in the town to-night. I wouldn't have come to your private house. Now I've seen you I shall get along to Crewe to-night. I shall be safer there. And it's on the way to Liverpool and America. I want to go to America. With a bit o' capital I shall be all right in America. It's my one chance; but it's a good one. But I must have some capital. No use landing in New York with empty pockets."

Said Edwin, still shying at the main issues:

"I was under the impression you had been to America once."

"Yes, that's why I know. I hadn't any money. And what's more," he added with peculiar emphasis, "I was brought back."

Edwin thought:

"I shall yield to this man."

At that instant he saw the shadow of Hilda's head and shoulders on the gla.s.s of the door.

"Excuse me a second," he murmured, bounded with astonishing velocity out of the room, and pulled the door to after him with a bang.

III

Hilda, having observed the strange, excited gesture, paused a moment, in an equally strange tranquillity, before speaking. Edwin fronted her at the very door. Then she said, clearly and deliberately, through her veil:

"Auntie Hamps has had an attack--heart. The doctor says she can't possibly live through the night. It was at Clara's."

This was the first of Mrs. Hamps's fatal heart-attacks.

"Ah!" breathed Edwin, with apparently a purely artistic interest in the affair. "So that's it, is it? Then she's at Clara's."

"Yes."

"What doctor?"

"I forget his name. Lives in Acre Lane. They sent for the nearest.

She can't get her breath--has to fight for it. She jumped out of bed, struggling to breathe."

"Have you seen her?"

"Yes. They made me."

"Albert there?"

"Oh, yes."

"Well, I suppose I'd better go round. You go back. I'll follow you."

He was conscious of not the slightest feeling of sorrow at the imminent death of Auntie Hamps. Even the image of the old lady fighting to fetch her breath scarcely moved him, though the deathbed of his father had been harrowing enough. He and Hilda had the same thought: "At last something has happened to Auntie Hamps!" And it gave zest.

"I must speak to you," said Hilda, low, and moved towards the inner door.

The clerk Simpson was behind them at his ink-stained desk, stamping letters, and politely pretending to be deaf.

"No," Edwin stopped her. "There's someone in there. We can't talk there."

"A customer?"

"Yes ... I say, Simpson. Have you done those letters?"

"Yes, sir," answered Simpson, smiling. He had been recommended as a "very superior" youth, and had not disappointed, despite a const.i.tutional nervousness.

"Take them to the pillar, and call at Mr. Benbow's and tell them that I'll be round in about a quarter of an hour. I don't know as you need come back. Hurry up."

"Yes, sir."

Edwin and Hilda watched Simpson go.

"Whatever's the matter?" Hilda demanded in a low, harsh voice, as soon as the outer door had clicked. It was as if something sinister in her had been suddenly released.