I told him I always took one, at least.

“Well; I would take two,” he observed.  “There was that murder last week, in Lincoln’s Inn Fields—­put down to the Mohocks.  Well; it was a gentleman of my own who was killed, though that is not known; and it was no more Mohocks than it was you or I.”

* * * * *

As we were still talking my man James came up to seek me, with a letter that he had found in my lodgings, waiting for me.  I knew the hand well enough; and I suppose that I shewed it; for when I looked up from reading it, Mr. Chiffinch was looking at me with a quizzical face.

“That is good news, Mr. Mallock, is it not?”

I could not refrain from smiling; for indeed it was as if the sun had risen on my dreariness.

“It is very good news,” I said.  “It is from my cousin—­the ’pretty cousin,’ Mr. Chiffinch.  She is come to town with her maid; and asks me to sup with her.”

“Well; take your two men when you go to see her,” said he, laughing a little.  “They can entertain the maid, and you the mistress.”

* * * * *

I cannot say how wonderfully the whole aspect of the world was changed to me, as I set out in a little hired coach I used sometimes, with my two men, half an hour later, for my old lodgings in Covent Garden where, she said, she had come that evening.  It was a very short letter; but it was very sweet to me.  She said only that she could wait no more; that she knew how ill things must be going with me, and that she must see with her own eyes that I was not dead altogether.  I had striven in my letters to her to make as light as I could of my troubles; but I suppose that her woman’s wit and her love had pierced my poor disguises.  At least here she was.

* * * * *

She was standing, all ready to greet me, in that old parlour of mine where I had first met her six years ago; and she was more beautiful now, a thousand times, in my eyes, than even then.  The candles were lighted all round the walls, and the curtains across the windows; and her maid was not there.  She had already changed her riding dress, and was in her evening gown with her string of little pearls.  As I close my eyes now I can see her still, as if she stood before me.  Her lips were a little parted, and her flushed cheeks and her bright eyes made all the room heaven for me.  I had not seen her for six months.

“Well, Cousin Roger,” she said—­no more.

* * * * *

Presently, even before supper came in, she had begun her questioning.

“Cousin Roger,” she said—­(we two were by the fire, she on a couch and I in a great chair)—­“Cousin Roger, you have treated me shamefully.  You have told me nothing, except that you were in trouble; and that I could have guessed for myself.  I am come to town for three days—­no more:  my father for a long time forbade me even to do that.  If he were not gone to Stortford for the horse-fair I should not be here now.”