“Without fail we shall.”

CHAPTER XXXVI.

THE OMEN.

Mrs. Coe was as good as her word, and her husband and son were Mrs. Basil’s lodgers within four-and-twenty hours.  Solomon Coe was not very particular as to furnished apartments, and left such arrangements wholly to his wife.  On the other hand, he confided to her but little respecting his affairs, nor was she, on her part, curious to inquire into them.  Man and wife had few things in common, and affection was not one of them.  Solomon had married Harry with the full consciousness that another was preferred before him; the disclosures at the trial, and the subsequent gossip of his neighbors, had placed that fact beyond a doubt.  But he was not to be balked of the bride that had been promised him so long; nor, above all, should his rival enjoy even the barren victory of Harry’s remaining unwedded for his sake.  There are marriages born of pique and spite on man’s part as well as woman’s; and Solomon’s was one of them, although he reaped, of course, material advantages besides.  Trevethick had survived more than ten years, during which he had largely increased his savings; and at his death all these had reverted to his daughter and her husband.  The wealth that had thus poured in upon Solomon through Harry’s means did not purchase for her any new regard; he had never ill-treated her, in a material sense, but he had spoken ash-sticks, though he had used none.  On the slightest quarrel, that “jail-bird friend of yours” had been thrown in her face, and the cowardly missile was still cast at her upon occasion.  The birth of their child had not cemented their union.  As he grew up his character showed itself as foreign to that of his father as was his personal appearance.  He was slight in figure, delicate in appearance (though not in constitution), and fastidious in taste.  His choice of an artist’s calling was not so objectionable to Solomon as might be imagined; he had not sensitiveness enough to abhor it from association, and, as has been said, he thought it might be made to co-operate with his own commercial schemes.  But the artist nature was in antagonism to his own, and Charles and his father were not on affectionate terms with one another.

The wayward, handsome lad was, on the other hand, adored by his mother.  Her intelligence, not naturally acute, was quickened to see his faults, not indeed as such, but as possible causes of misfortune to him.  His too lively impulses, his indecision, his love of pleasure, were all sources of apprehension to her, though scarcely ever of rebuke.  She saw in Agnes Aird, his tutor’s daughter—­so simple, yet so sensible and sterling, so faithful, pure, and true—­the very girl to make her son a fitting wife; an antidote for what was amiss in him; her honest heart a sheet-anchor to hold him fast, not in the turbid ocean of excess, for her Charley was too good to tempt it, but through that sparkling sea of gayety