The window and the door stood face to face; the bed was on the left of the door, with the head at the door-end. The narrow alcove in which the girl stood was to the left of the window, and in front of the window there was a dressing-table. Drayton stepped up to this table to fix the cravat by the glass. The faint moonlight that fell on his grinning face was reflected dimly into the mirror.
At that moment Mercy's sickening eyes turned toward the bed. There, in repose that was like death itself, lay the upturned face of Paul Ritson. Two faces cast by nature in the same mold--one white and serene and peaceful, the other bloated, red, smirking, distorted by passion, with cruel eyes and smoking lips.
"The very thing--the very thing--damme if his own mother wouldn't take me for her son!"
Hugh Ritson stepped to Drayton's side. When he spoke his voice was like a cold blast of wind.
"Now listen: From this moment at which you change your coat for his you cease to be Paul Drayton, and become Paul Ritson."
"Didn't you say I was to be Paul Lowther?"
"No matter; say nothing to yourself but this, 'I am to pretend to be Paul Ritson.'"
"Ready?" asked Hugh. He returned to the bed-head.
"Then give a hand here. We must put him up into your garret. When the police come for him he must seem to be in hiding and in drink. You understand?"
Then they lifted the unconscious man from the bed, opened the door, and carried him into the passage.
Mercy recovered her stunned senses. When the men were gone she crept out on tiptoe and tripped down the passage to her own room. At the door she reeled and fell heavily. Then, in a vague state of consciousness, she heard these words passed over her--"Carry her back into her room and lock her in." At the same instant she felt herself being lifted in a strong man's arms.
Before Gubblum Oglethorpe parted with Jabez, he tried to undo the mischief he had done. "Give us a shak' o' thy daddle," he said, holding out his hand. But Jabez had not forgotten the similitude of the swine ring. He made no response.
"Dang him for a fool!" thought Gubblum. "He's as daft as a besom." Then Gubblum remembered with what lavish generosity he had bribed the pot-boy to no purpose. "He cover't a shilling dammish," he thought; "I'll dang his silly head off!"