I watched round the house. I saw the light high up, burning still and steady. Then I saw it moved. It was the crisis, in one way or other.

Chapter XXVIII

‘MR MORGAN CAME out. Good old man! The tears were running down his cheeks: he could not speak; but kept shaking my hands. I did not want words. I understood that she was better.

‘“Dr Hamilton says, it was the only medicine that could have saved her. I was an old fool, sir. I beg your pardon. The Vicar shall know all. I beg your pardon, sir, if I was abrupt.”

‘Everything went on brilliantly from this time.

‘Mr Bullock called to apologise for his mistake, and consequent upbraiding. John Brouncker came home, brave and well.

‘There was still Miss Tomkinson in the ranks of the enemy; and Mrs Rose too much, I feared, in the ranks of the friends.

Chapter XXIX

‘ONE NIGHT SHE had gone to bed, and I was thinking of going. I had been studying in the back room, where I went for refuge from her in the present position of affairs – (I read a good number of surgical books about this time, and also Vanity Fair) – when I heard a loud, long-continued knocking at the door, enough to waken the whole street. Before I could get to open it, I heard that well-known bass of Jack Marshland’s, once heard never to be forgotten, pipe up the negro song –

‘“Who’s dat knocking at de door?”

‘Though it was raining hard at the time, and I stood waiting to let him in, he would finish his melody in the open air; loud and clear along the street it sounded. I saw Miss Tomkinson’s night-capped head emerge from a window. She called out “Police! police!”

‘Now there were no police, only a rheumatic constable in the town; but it was the custom of the ladies, when alarmed at night, to call an imaginary police, which had, they thought, an intimidating effect; but as every one knew the real state of the unwatched town, we did not much mind it in general. Just now, however, I wanted to regain my character. So I pulled Jack in, quavering as he entered.

‘“You’ve spoilt a good shake,” said he, “that’s what you have. I’m nearly up to Jenny Lind; and you see I’m a nightingale, like her.”

‘We sat up late; and I don’t know how it was, but I told him all my matrimonial and misadventures.

‘“I thought I could imitate your hand pretty well,” said he. “My word! it was a flaming valentine! No wonder she thought you loved her!”

‘“So that was your doing, was it? Now I’ll tell you what you shall do to make up for it. You shall write me a letter confessing your hoax – a letter that I can show.”

‘“Give me pen and paper, my boy! you shall dictate. ‘With a deeply penitent heart –’ Will that do for a beginning?”

‘I told him what to write; a simple, straightforward confession of his practical joke. I enclosed it in a few lines of regret that, unknown to me, any of my friends should have so acted.

Chapter XXX

‘ALL THIS TIME I knew that Sophy was slowly recovering. One day I met Miss Bullock, who had seen her.

‘“We have been talking about you,” said she, with a bright smile; for since she knew I disliked her, she felt quite at her ease, and could smile very pleasantly. I understood that she had been explaining the misunderstanding about herself to Sophy; so that when Jack Marshland’s note had been sent to Miss Tomkinson’s, I thought myself in a fair way to have my character established in two quarters. But the third was my dilemma. Mrs Rose had really so much of my true regard for her good qualities, that I disliked the idea of a formal explanation, in which a good deal must be said on my side to wound her. We had become very much estranged ever since I had heard of this report of my engagement to her. I saw that she grieved over it. While Jack Marshland stayed with us, I felt at my ease in the presence of a third person.