‘My niece not here, Mr. Sampson?’ he said, looking about.
‘Miss Niner seemed to feel a chill in the air after the sun was down, and has gone home.’
He looked surprised, as though she were not accustomed to do anything without him; even to originate so slight a proceeding.
‘Ah!’ said he. ‘She is easily persuaded—for her good. Thank you, Mr. Sampson; she is better within doors. The bathing-place was farther than I thought, to say the truth.’
‘Miss Niner is very delicate,’ I observed.
He shook his head and drew a deep sigh. ‘Very, very, very. You may recollect my saying so. The time that has since intervened has not strengthened her. The gloomy shadow that fell upon her sister so early in life seems, in my anxious eyes, to gather over her, ever darker, ever darker. Dear Margaret, dear Margaret! But we must hope.’
The hand-carriage was spinning away before us at a most indecorous pace for an invalid vehicle, and was making most irregular curves upon the sand. Mr. Slinkton, noticing it after he had put his handkerchief to his eyes, said:
‘If I may judge from appearances, your friend will be upset, Mr. Sampson.’
‘The servants of old gentlemen will get drunk sometimes,’ said I.
‘The major draws very light, Mr. Sampson.’
By this time the carriage, much to my relief, was lost in the darkness. We walked on for a little, side by side over the sand, in silence. After a short while he said, in a voice still affected by the emotion that his niece’s state of health had awakened in him,
‘So soon? But business always holds you in request. Men like Mr. Sampson are too important to others, to be spared to their own need of relaxation and enjoyment.’
‘I don’t know about that,’ said I. ‘However, I am going back.’
I knew that as well as he did. But I did not tell him so. Any more than I told him what defensive weapon my right hand rested on in my pocket, as I walked by his side. Any more than I told him why I did not walk on the sea side of him with the night closing in.
We left the beach, and our ways diverged. We exchanged good-night, and had parted indeed, when he said, returning,
‘Mr. Sampson, _may_ I ask? Poor Meltham, whom we spoke of,—dead yet?’
‘Not when I last heard of him; but too broken a man to live long, and hopelessly lost to his old calling.’