"No message, Binstock?" He asked with timid glance, while he fumbled very clumsily with his nails (now bitten short, during many sad hours of dark brooding) to get his poor card out of graven heraldry--"not a word of any sort, from--from anybody?"
"Had there been a message, sir, I should have delivered it."
"I beg your pardon, Binstock. To be sure--of course, you would. Very well. Good afternoon. There is nothing more to say. I will put this in my pocket, for--for a last remembrance."
He put the rejected card in his waistcoat-pocket, and glanced round, as if to say "Good bye," to the old haunt of many a pleasant hour.
Then Binstock, that grave and majestic butler, surprised him by giving a most unmajestic wink. Whether he was touched with reminiscence of his youth--for he had been a faithful man, in love, as well as wine--or whether sweeter memory of crown-pieces moved him; from sympathy, or gratitude, or both combined, beyond any question, Binstock winked. Fox felt very thankful, and received a lasting lesson, that he had not given utterance to the small contempt within him.
"There was a little pipe, sir," said the butler, glancing round, and speaking in a low voice rather fast, "That our poor Sir Thomas gived to you, from the Spanish, now called the provincial war. John Hutchings made the observation, that he had heard you pronounce opinion that it was very valuable; and never would you part with it, high or low. And John says that to his certain knowledge now, it is lying in our Camelia house."
"Oh never mind about it now. It is kind of you to think of it. Perhaps you will put it by for me."
"Moreover John was a-saying, sir," continued Mr. Binstock, with a still more solemn wink, "that you ought almost to have a look at our poor little dog, that all the parish is so full of, including our Miss Nicie, sir. Vets may be all very well in their way; but a human doctor more immortal. And that makes the young lady so particular no doubt, to keep her in the Camelia house, because of being cool and warm, sir."
"Oh to be sure! That poor dear little _Jess_! What a fine heart you have, Binstock! I suppose I may go out that way?"
"The same to you, sir;" said Binstock, as he proved the truth of the proverb--"a fine heart is a vein of gold." "The shortest way out, sir, John always says, when her ladyship's nerves have locked her up. And the quietest way, with no one about, unless it should happen to be Miss Nicie, certainly is through the west quarry door."