A sudden thought swept the filmy clouds-landed him with a bump upon hard rock. He was not supposed to know their address. How, to the dragon, could he explain the venal trick by which he had acquired it? Now he beheld a new picture. Himself in the drawing-room; to him the dragon; her first words, “How did you know where we lived?”; his miserable answer.
This was very unpleasant. As a red omnibus took him on towards St. John's Wood he decided that the meeting must be otherwise effected. The girl must sometimes go out. She had called herself a mother's-help; it suggested children; and, if children, doubtless her task to take them walking. Well, he would take up a post near to the house, and wait--just wait.
And then there came a final thought that struck him cold and staring. What if she did not live at the house?--was merely about to visit there when the accident befell the cab?
It was a sorely agitated young man that stepped off the 'bus and struck up Palace Gardens.
AS that cab swung round the corner bearing away the nameless haunter of George's dreams, she to the red wrath beside her turned, and, “Oh, Mrs. Chater,” she said, “I hope you are not hurt!”
By a mercy Mrs. Chater was not hurt. By a special intervention of Providence she had escaped a fearful death. Whether she would ever recover from the shock was another matter. Whether the shock would prove to be that sudden strain on her heart which she had been warned would end fatally, might at any moment be proved. Much anybody, except her darling children, would care if she were brought home dead in this very cab. Never had she known a heart to act as hers was acting now--thumping as if it would burst, first quickly then slowly. Perhaps Miss Humfray would feel it, and give her opinion.
Where the girl now laid her small hand five infant Chaters had been nourished; the massive bosom was advertisement that they had done well. Beneath the mingled gusts of hysteria and of wrath it violently contracted and dilated; but the heart, terrificly though Mrs. Chater said it throbbed, lay too deep to be discerned.
The agitated woman panted, “Can it go on like that?”
“I'm afraid I hardly--” Miss Humfray shifted her hand.
The white kid clung to the warm flesh. Nervous and clumsy the girl struggled with it.