"With _me_?" cried Lizzie, much confused.
"Yes, madam. I heard whispering, and I am sure somebody just passed through that side door."
"Oh, that was nobody but Margaret!" exclaimed Mrs. Burgess, hastily.
Hamilton could ill conceal his vexation; but he did not intimate to his wife that he suspected her of equivocation, nor did she see fit to attempt a full exposition of the matter.
Nothing was said of this incident afterwards; but for many weeks it occupied Hamilton's mind. All this time he was harassed with cares of business, and his brow became more darkly shrouded in gloom as his perplexities thickened. At last the crisis came! Mr. Burgess saw the utter impossibility of longer continuing his almost profitless trade, under heavy expenses, which not only absorbed his small capital, but actually plunged him into debt. But one honest course was left for him to pursue; and he resolved to close up his affairs, and sell off what stock he had to pay his debts.
It was at this time that Mr. Burgess saw in its true light the error of which he had been guilty, in opposing his wife's desire to economize, and devote a portion of her time to useful occupation.
"Had I allowed her to lighten our expenses in this way," thought he, "I might not have been driven to such extremities. And what has been the result of my folly? Why, I have kept her ignorant of our poverty until the very last, and now the sudden intelligence that we are beggars, will well nigh kill her!"
Satisfied of the danger, if not the impossibility, of keeping the secret longer from his wife, Mr. Burgess went home one day, resolved to break the intelligence to her without hesitation. Entering the house with his latch-key, he went directly to Lizzie's room, which he entered unceremoniously. To his surprise, he found on the table a gentleman's cap, of that peculiar fashion which he had seen worn by postmen and dandies about town. Anxious for an explanation, he looked around for his wife; but Lizzie was not in the room. Then hearing voices in another part of the house, he left the room by a different door from that by which he had entered, and hastened to the parlour, where he expected to find Mrs. Burgess in company with the owner of _that cap_. To his surprise, he found the parlour vacant, and meeting Margaret in the hall a moment after, he impatiently demanded his wife.