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“Poor George! poor George!”

“I went back to Audley, and I went straight to the Sun Inn, and asked for you, meanin’ to deliver both letters faithful, so help me God! then; but the landlord told me as you’d started off that mornin’ for London, and he didn’t know when you’d come back, and he didn’t know the name o’ the place where you lived in London, though he said he thought it was in one o’ them law courts, such as Westminster Hall or Doctors’ Commons, or somethin’ like that. So what was I to do? I couldn’t send a letter by post, not knowin’ where to direct to, and I couldn’t give it into your own hands, and I’d been told partickler not to let anybody else know of it; so I’d nothing to do but to wait and see if you come back, and bide my time for givin’ of it to you.

“I thought I’d go over to the Court in the evenin’and see Phoebe, and find out from her when there’d be a chance of seein’ her lady, for I know’d she could manage it if she liked. So I didn’t go to work that day, though I ought to ha’ done, and I lounged and idled about until it was nigh upon dusk, and then I goes down to the meadows behind the Court, and there I finds Phoebe sure enough, waitin’ agen the wooden door in the wall, on the lookout for me.

“I hadn’t been talkin’ to her long before I see there was somethink wrong with her and I told her as much.

“Well,’ she says, ‘I ain’t quite myself this evenin’, for I had a upset yesterday, and I ain’t got over it yet.’

“‘A upset,’ I says. ‘You had a quarrel with your missus, I suppose.’

“She didn’t answer me directly, but she smiled the queerest smile as ever I see, and presently she says:

“No, Luke, it weren’t nothin’ o’ that kind; and what’s more, nobody could be friendlier toward me than my lady. I think she’d do any think for me a’most; and I think, whether it was a bit o’ farming stock and furniture or such like, or whether it was the good-will of a public-house, she wouldn’t refuse me anythink as I asked her.’

“I couldn’t make out this, for it was only a few days before as she’d told me her missus was selfish and extravagant, and we might wait a long time before we could get what we wanted from her.

“So I says to her, ‘Why, this is rather sudden like, Phoebe;’ and she says, ‘Yes, it is sudden;’ and she smiles again, just the same sort of smile as before. Upon that I turns round upon her sharp, and says:

“I’ll tell you what it is, my gal, you’re a-keepin’ somethink from me; somethink you’ve been told, or somethink you’ve found out; and if you think you’re a-goin’ to try that game on with me, you’ll find you’re very much mistaken; and so I give you warnin’.”

“But she laughed it off like, and says, ‘Lor’ Luke, what could have put such fancies into your head?’

“‘Perhaps other people can keep secrets as well as you,’ I said, ‘and perhaps other people can make friends as well as you. There was a gentleman came here to see your missus yesterday, warn’t there-a tall young gentleman with a brown beard?’

“Instead of answering of me like a Christian, my Cousin Phoebe bursts out a-cryin’, and wrings her hands, and goes on awful, until I’m dashed if I can make out what she’s up to.

“But little by little I got it out of her, for I wouldn’t stand no nonsense; find she told me how she’d been sittin’ at work at the window of her little room, which was at the top of the house, right up in one of the gables, and overlooked the lime-walk, and the shrubbery and the well, when she see my lady walking with a strange gentleman, and they walked together for a long time, until by-and-by they-”