face. I don’t think he belongs to Beckenham.”
“Why, if I had n’t have sent you that ’ere Life, you would n’t have know’d, would you, now?” said the man.
“No, no, perhaps not,” answered Aurora. She had taken her porte-monnaie from her pocket, and Mr. Harrison was furtively regarding the little morocco receptacle with glistening eyes.
“You don’t ask me about any of the particulars?” he said.
“No. What should I care to know of them?”
“No, certainly,” answered the man, suppressing a chuckle; “you know enough, if it comes to that; and if you wanted to know any more, I could n’t tell you, for them few lines in the paper is all I could ever get hold of about the business. But I always said it, and I always will, if a man as rides up’ard of eleven stone —”
It seemed as if he were in a fair way of rambling on for ever so long if Aurora had not checked him by an impatient frown. Perhaps he stopped all the more readily as she opened her purse at the same moment, and he caught sight of the glittering sovereigns lurking between leaves of crimson silk. He had no very acute sense of color; but I am sure that he thought gold and crimson made a pleasing contrast, as he looked at the yellow coin in Miss Floyd’s porte-monnaie. She poured the sovereigns into her own gloved palm, and then dropped the golden shower into Mr. Harrison’s hands, which were hollowed into a species of horny basin for the reception of her bounty. The great trunk of an oak screened them from the observation of Talbot and Lucy as Aurora gave the man the money.
“You have no claim upon me,” she said, stopping him abruptly, as he began a declaration of his gratitude, “and I protest against your making a market of any past events which have come under your knowledge. Remember, once and for ever, that I am not afraid of you; and that if I consent to assist you, it is because I will not have my father annoyed. Let me have the address of some place where a letter may always find you — you can put it into an envelope and direct it to me here — and from time to time I promise to send you a moderate remittance, sufficient to enable you to lead an honest life, if you or any of your set are capable of doing so; but I repeat, if I give you this money as a bribe, it is only for my father’s sake.”
The man muttered some expression of thanks, looking at Aurora earnestly; but there was a stern shadow upon that dark face that forbade any hope of conciliation. She was turning from him, followed by the mastiff, when the bandy-legged dog ran forward, whining, and raising himself upon his hind legs to lick her hand.
The expression of her face underwent an immediate change. She shrank from the dog, and he looked at her for a moment with a dim uncertainty in his bloodshot eyes; then, as conviction stole upon the brute mind, he burst into a joyous bark, frisking and capering about Miss Floyd’s silk dress, and imprinting dusty impressions of his fore paws upon the rich fabric.
“The pore hanimal knows yer, miss,” said the man, deprecatingly; “you was never ‘aughty to ’im.”
The mastiff Bow-wow made as if he would have torn up every inch of ground in Felden Woods at this juncture; but Aurora quieted him with a look.
“Poor Boxer!” she said, “poor Boxer! so you know me, Boxer!”
“Lord, miss, there’s no knowin’ the faithfulness of them animals.”
“Poor Boxer! I think I should like to have you. Would you sell him, Harrison?”
The man shook his head.
“No, miss,” he answered, “thank you kindly; there a’n’t much in the way of dawgs as I’d refuse to make a bargain about. If you wanted a mute spaniel, or a Russian setter, or a Hile of Skye, I’d get him for you and welcome, and ask you nothin’ for my trouble; but this here bull-terrier’s father, mother, and wife, and fambly to me, and there a’n’t money enough in your pa’s bank to buy him, miss.”
“Well, well,” said Aurora, relentingly, “I know how faithful he is. Send me the address, and don’t come to Felden again.”
She returned to the carriage, and, taking the reins from Talbot’s hand, gave the restless ponies their head; the vehicle dashed past Mr. Matthew Harrison, who stood hat in hand, with his dog between his legs, until the party had gone by. Miss Floyd stole a glance at her lover’s face, and saw that Captain Bulstrode’s countenance wore its darkest expression. The officer kept sulky silence till they reached the house, when he handed the two ladies from the carriage, and followed them across the hall. Aurora was on the lowest step of the broad staircase before he spoke.
“Aurora,” he said, “one word before you go up stairs.”
She turned and looked at him a little defiantly; she was still very pale, and the fire with which her eyes had flashed upon Mr. Matthew Harrison, dog-fancier and rat-catcher, had not yet died out of those dark orbs. Talbot Bulstrode opened the door of a long chamber under the picture-gallery — half billiard-room, half library, and almost the pleasantest apartment in the house — and stood aside for Aurora to pass him.
The young lady crossed the threshold as proudly as Marie Antoinette going to face her plebeian accusers. The room was empty.
Miss Floyd seated herself in a low easy-chair by one of the two great fireplaces, and looked straight at the blaze.
“I want to ask you about that man, Aurora,” Captain Bulstrode said, leaning over a prie-dieu chair, and playing nervously with the carved arabesques of the walnut-wood frame-work.
“About which man?”
This might have been prevarication in some; from Aurora it was simply defiance, as Talbot knew.
“The man who spoke to you on the avenue just now. Who is he, and what was his business with you?” Here Captain Bulstrode fairly broke down. He loved her, reader, he loved her, remember, and he was a coward, a coward under the influence of that most cowardly of all passions, LOVE— the passion that could leave a stain upon a Nelson’s name; the passion which might have made a dastard of the bravest of the three hundred at Thermopylæ, or the six hundred at Balaklava. He loved her, this unhappy young man, and he began to stammer, and hesitate, and apologize, shivering under the angry light in her wonderful eyes. “Believe me, Aurora, that I would not for the world play the spy upon your actions, or dictate to you the objects of your bounty. No, Aurora, not if my right to do so were stronger than it is, and I were twenty times your husband; but that man, that disreputable-looking fellow who spoke to you just now — I don’t think he is the sort of person you ought to assist.”
“I dare say not,” she said; “I have no doubt I assist many people who ought by rights to die in a workhouse or drop on the high-road; but, you see, if I stopped to question their deserts, they might die of starvation while I was making my inquiries; so perhaps it’s better to throw away a few shillings upon some unhappy creature who is wicked enough to be hungry, and not good enough to deserve to have anything given him to eat.”
There was a recklessness about this speech that jarred upon Talbot, but he could not very well take objection to it; besides, it was leading away from the subject upon which he was so eager to be satisfied.
“But that man, Aurora, who is he?”
“A dog-fancier.”
Talbot shuddered.
“I thought he was something horrible,” he murmured; “but what, in Heaven’s
