“Her husband?” inquired Dick.

“No—­”

“I congratulate you, madam.”

“I’m her brother,” said Ned.

“And condole with you in the same breath,” finished Dick, to Margaret.  “You’re a lady, I see.  Pardon my familiarity at first.  Sure you needn’t fear me—­I have a wife as beautiful as yourself.  As for this relation of yours—­”

“He tried to rob me of my necklace and rings.  We lodge yonder, where the light is in the window.  He found me packing my trunks to leave him—­”

“And leave him you shall.  Shall she not, gentlemen?”

His two companions warmly assented.  Ned savagely measured them with his eyes, but did not dare a trial of prowess against three.  Moreover, their courtly address and easy manners disconcerted him.

“Oh, I sha’n’t harm her,” he grumbled. “’Twas but a tiff.  Let her come back home; ’twill be all well.”

But Madge was not for resigning herself a moment to his mercy.  She briefly explained her situation and her wishes.  The upshot of all was, that the young gentleman called Dick turned to his friends and said: 

“What say you, gentlemen?  Our friends at Brooks’s can wait, I think.  Shall we protect this lady while she packs her trunks, find lodgings for her this very night, and see her installed in them?”

“Ay, and see that this gentle brother does not follow or learn where she goes,” answered one.

“Bravo!” cried the other. “’Twill be like an incident in a comedy, Dick.”

“Rather like a page of Smollett,” replied Dick.  “With your permission, madam, we’ll accompany you to your lodgings.”

They sat around the fireplace, with their backs to her, and talked with easy gaiety, while she packed her possessions; Ned having first followed them in, and then fled to appease his mind at an ale-house.  Finally Dick and one of the gentlemen closed her trunks for her, while the other went for a coach; wherein all three accompanied her to the house of a wigmaker known to Dick, in High Holborn; where they roused the inmates, made close terms, and left her installed in a decent room with her belongings.

As they took their leave, after an almost tearful burst of thanks on her part, Dick said: 

“From some of your expressions, madam, I gather that your resources are limited—­resources of one kind, I mean.  But in your appearance, your air, and your voice, you possess resources, which if ever you feel disposed to use, I beg you will let me know.  Pray don’t misunderstand me; the world knows how much I am in love with my wife."[9]

When he had gone, leaving her puzzled and astonished, she turned to the wigmaker’s wife, who was putting the room to rights, and asked: 

“Pray what is that last gentleman’s name?”

“Wot, ma’am!  Can it be you don’t know ’im?”

“He forgot to tell me.”

“Sure ’e thought as you must know already.  Everybody in London knows the great Mr. Sheridan.”