Crosbie such a thrashing that no man had ever received such treatment before and lived through it.  Wonderful stories were told about that thrashing, so that it was believed, even by the least enthusiastic in such matters, that the poor victim had only dragged on a crippled existence since the encounter.  ‘For nine weeks he never said a word or ate a mouthful,’ said one young clerk to a younger clerk who was just entering the office; ’and even now he can’t speak above a whisper, and has to take all his food in pap.’  It will be seen, therefore, that Mr John Eames had about him much of the heroic.

That he was still in love, and in love with the same lady, was known to everyone in the office.  When it was declared of him that in the way of amatory expressions he had never in his life opened his mouth to another woman, there were those in the office who knew that to be an exaggeration.  Mr Cradell, for instance, who in his early years had been very intimate with John Eames, and who still kept up the old friendship—­although, being a domestic man, with wife and six young children, and living on a small income, he did not go out much among his friends—­could have told a very different story; for Mrs Cradell herself had, in the days before Cradell had made good his claim upon her, been not unadmired by Cradell’s fellow-clerk.  But the constancy of Mr Eames’s present love was doubted by none who knew him.  It was not that he went about with his stockings ungartered, or any of the old acknowledged signs of unrequited affection.  In his manner he was rather jovial than otherwise, and seemed to live a happy, somewhat luxurious life, well contented with himself and the world around him.  But still he had this passion within his bosom, and I am inclined to think that he was a little proud of his own constancy.

It might be presumed that when Miss Dale wrote to her friend Grace Crawley about going beyond friendship, pleading that there were so many ‘barriers’, she had probably seen her way over most of them.  But this was not so; nor did John Eames himself at all believe that he had given the whole thing up as a bad job, because it was the law of his life that the thing never should be abandoned as long as hope was possible.  Unless Miss Dale should become the wife of somebody else, he would always regard himself as affianced to her.  He had so declared to Miss Dale herself and to Miss Dale’s mother, and to all the Dale people who had ever been interested in the matter.  And there was an old lady living in Miss Dale’s neighbourhood, the sister of the lord who had left Johnny Eames the bank shares, who always fought his battles for him, and kept a close look-out, fully resolved that Johnny Eames should be rewarded at last.  This old lady was connected with the Dales by family ties, and therefore had the means of close observation.  She was in constant correspondence with John Eames, and never failed to acquaint him when any of the barriers were, in her judgment, giving way.  The nature of some of the barriers may possibly be made intelligible to my readers by the following letter from Lady Julia De Guest to her young friend:-