“Indeed he will,” said Butterwell.

“And I am quite sure that you will perform them with equal credit to yourself, satisfaction to the department, and advantage to the public.  We shall always be glad to have your opinion on any subject of importance that may come before us; and as regards the internal discipline of the office, we feel that we may leave it safely in your hands.  In any matter of importance you will, of course, consult us, and I feel very confident that we shall go on together with great comfort and with mutual confidence.”  Then Mr Optimist looked at his brother commissioners, sat down in his arm-chair, and taking in his hands some papers before him, began the routine business of the day.

It was nearly five o’clock when, on this special occasion, the secretary returned from the board-room to his own office.  Not for a moment had the weight been off his shoulders while Sir Raffle had been bragging or Mr Optimist making his speech.  He had been thinking, not of them, but of Lily Dale; and though they had not discovered his thoughts, they had perceived that he was hardly like himself.

“I never saw a man so little elated by good fortune in my life,” said Mr Optimist.

“Ah, he’s got something on his mind,” said Butterwell.  “He’s going to be married, I believe.”

“If that’s the case, it’s no wonder he shouldn’t be elated,” said Major Fiasco, who was himself a bachelor.

When in his own room again, Crosbie at once seized on a sheet of note-paper, as though by hurrying himself on with it he could get that letter to Allington written.  But though the paper was before him, and the pen in his hand, the letter did not, would not, get itself written.  With what words was he to begin it?  To whom should it be written?  How was he to declare himself the villain which he had made himself?  The letters from his office were taken away every night shortly after six, and at six o’clock he had not written a word.  “I will do it at home to-night,” he said, to himself, and then, tearing off a scrap of paper, he scratched those few lines which Lily received, and which she had declined to communicate to her mother or sister.  Crosbie, as he wrote them, conceived that they would in some way prepare the poor girl for the coming blow,—­that they would, at any rate, make her know that all was not right; but in so supposing he had not counted on the constancy of her nature, nor had he thought of the promise which she had given him that nothing should make her doubt him.  He wrote the scrap, and then taking his hat walked off through the gloom of the November evening up Charing Cross and St. Martin’s Lane, towards the Seven Dials and Bloomsbury into regions of the town with which he had no business, and which he never frequented.  He hardly knew where he went or wherefore.  How was he to escape from the weight of the burden which was now crushing him?  It seemed to him as though he would change his position with thankfulness for that of the junior clerk in his office, if only that junior clerk had upon his mind no such betrayal of trust as that of which he was guilty.