Jeremiah!"
The currents of his blood seemed to be suddenly arrested. Was he so soon discovered? Were they after him already?
"Jeremiah! Jeremiah!"
His mother, panting, laid her hand upon his shoulder. He shook her off violently, and was about to fly when he recognized her.
"How fast you walk, Jeremiah!" He glared at her, and raised his hand with the intention of striking her, but she caught his arm and prevented him.
"Well, then!" he said, suddenly. "What do you come running after a fellow like that for? Just as if – " He did not finish the sentence.
"Just as if what, Jeremiah?" asked Mrs. Pamflett.
"Ask no questions and you'll hear no lies," he replied. "How is it that you're here instead of at Parksides?"
"Miser Farebrother sent me with a message to the telegraph office."
"A telegram!" he cried, all his fears reviving. "To whom?"
"To you, telling you to come here without a moment's delay."
"Oh, the old thief wants me?"
"He wants you badly, Jeremiah!"
"Does he? Was there nothing else in the telegram except that I was to come here without a moment's delay?"
"You were to bring the account-books."
"I have them, you see. Was the old thief in a good humour?"
"Jeremiah, I was listening outside his room, and I heard him limping up and down, muttering to himself. I didn't catch what he was saying, but he was in a desperate temper. Yet when he rang his bell, and I answered it, he was sitting at the writing-table, with the sweetest smile on his face, and his voice was like honey. 'Take this to the telegraph office,' he said, giving me the message; and he asked me how you were getting on, and whether you were saving money, and whether I had saved any. I told him I had a little – "
"How much?" asked Jeremiah, interrupting her.
"I didn't tell him that, Jeremiah."
"Of course you didn't; but I want to know."
"I have got more than a hundred pounds, Jeremiah."
"So – you've been saving up secretly, unbeknown to me!"
"It was done for your good, Jeremiah; it is all for you. Women are not as strong as men, nor as bold and venturesome, but they see further sometimes. 'Perhaps,' I thought to myself, 'one day Jeremiah may want a little help; there may be something he wishes to do and is just a little short. Then I will give him my savings, and he will praise me for my prudence and foresight."
"I praise you now, mother," said Jeremiah. "Can you lay your hands on the money? Is it in your room?"
"No, Jeremiah; it is in the Post-office Savings-bank."
"Curse it! You can't get it out to-day. What's the good of it when I want it now – this very minute?"
"What for, Jeremiah?"
"That's my business. Go on about the old thief. He pretended to be very sweet, did he, and tried to pump you? What's that?"
He clutched his mother, shaking like one in an ague. They were in a narrow lane, and a boy in their rear had uttered a loud shout, and had thrown a stone at a bird. The boy ran on, and the colour returned to Jeremiah's face.
"Jeremiah!" whispered Mrs. Pamflett.
"Well?"
"You have been doing something wrong. You are in trouble."
"Yes, I am in trouble. I have been robbed – swindled – tricked and ruined by a damned scoundrel. If I had him here now, in this quiet lane, with no one near, his life wouldn't be worth a moment's purchase. There, the murder's out! What did I say?"
"You said, 'the murder's out.'"
"Did I?" he exclaimed, with a nervous laugh. "Murder, eh? Well, if it's my life against another man's – "
"Is it as bad as that, Jeremiah?"
"It is. I am in a fearful hole, and I must get out of it. Look here, mother. Ever since I was born you've been drumming in my ears that you cared for nothing in the world but me, that you lived only for me, that you loved no one but me, that you would do anything for me – never mind what – anything, anything! Is it true, or a lie?"
"It is true, Jeremiah," said Mrs. Pamflett, her thin lips set, but slightly parted, and her eyes glittering like cold steel. "If you're in danger, you must get out of it. If I can help you to get out of it, you have only to show me the way. You don't know what a woman like me – what a mother like me – is capable of. I will show you. A scoundrel has ruined you, and something must be done to save you. I understand; I understand. Whatever it is, if it is for me to do it, I am ready. I have never spoken one false word to you, and I won't say one word to you now to reproach you for not having confided in me before to-day. If you had made your fortune I was to share it. You are in trouble now, and I will share it. Give me a kiss, and say you love me!"
"I should be a beast if I didn't," said Jeremiah, kissing her. "You're something like a mother!"
"Jeremiah, if that venomous wretch Phœbe Farebrother had married you, would you be in danger now?"
"No; there would be nothing to trouble me if she hadn't rounded on me. I shouldn't have been compelled to do what I have done."
"Ah! She called you a reptile, and I am your mother. Oh, to be even with her – to be even with her!"
Half an hour afterward Jeremiah Pamflett was in the presence of Miser Farebrother. The miser received his managing clerk with more than graciousness; there was even cordiality in his manner, and had Jeremiah's usually clear mind not been unbalanced by the threatening clouds which hung above him, this apparently favourable demeanour would have rendered him suspicious, and put him on his guard. Experience had taught him that there was always mischief in the wind when Miser Farebrother's words were smooth and fair.
"I sent a telegram for you, Jeremiah," said Miser Farebrother.
"Yes, sir," said Jeremiah; "my mother told me so. Fortunately I was on my way to you."
"You have brought the books with you?"
"Here they are, sir."
"You anticipate my wishes, Jeremiah. What master was ever served as I am served by you – so conscientiously, so faithfully! Is the bank-book here? Yes, yes; I see it is. We will go into the accounts presently. Before I sent for you, Jeremiah, I was in great pain, and feared I had not long to live. That kind of feeling makes a man sad – it unsettles him, and he is apt to repine at the hard fate which seems determined to snatch him from all the joys of life. I have not had many of them, and the consolation I had looked forward to in your contemplated union with my ungrateful child has been denied me. You look tired, Jeremiah. Doubtless you have been up late at night, attending to correspondence connected with the business, and running through the accounts."
"I have been working very hard," said Jeremiah.
"That is it. When I did the work myself I also used to sit up night
