going to the party yourself.  The old lady told me she wanted gentlemen; and would be glad to see any friends of mine I liked to send her.  You have only to mention my name:  Mannion will do the civil in the way of introduction.  There! there’s an envelope with the address to it—­they won’t know who you are, or what you are, at Margaret’s aunt’s—­you’ve got your black dress things on, all right and ready—­for Heaven’s sake, go to the party yourself, and then I hope you’ll be satisfied!”

Here he stopped; and vented the rest of his ill-humour by ringing the bell violently for “his arrow-root,” and abusing the servant when she brought it.

I hesitated about accepting his proposal.  While I was in doubt, Mrs. Sherwin took the opportunity, when her husband’s eye was off her, of nodding her head at me significantly.  She evidently wished me to join Margaret at the party—­but why?  What did her behaviour mean?

It was useless to inquire.  Long bodily suffering and weakness had but too palpably produced a corresponding feebleness in her intellect.  What should I do?  I was resolved to see Margaret that night; but to wait for her between two and three hours, in company with her father and mother at North Villa, was an infliction not to be endured.  I determined to go to the party.  No one there would know anything about me.  They would be all people who lived in a different world from mine; and whose manners and habits I might find some amusement in studying.  At any rate, I should spend an hour or two with Margaret, and could make it my own charge to see her safely home.  Without further hesitation, therefore I took up the envelope with the address on it, and bade Mr. and Mrs. Sherwin good-night.

It struck ten as I left North Villa.  The moonlight which was just beginning to shine brilliantly on my arrival there, now appeared but at rare intervals; for the clouds were spreading thicker and thicker over the whole surface of the sky, as the night advanced.

VII.

The address to which I was now proceeding, led me some distance away from Mr. Sherwin’s place of abode, in the direction of the populous neighbourhood which lies on the western side of the Edgeware Road.  The house of Margaret’s aunt was plainly enough indicated to me, as soon as I entered the street where it stood, by the glare of light from the windows, the sound of dance music, and the nondescript group of cabmen and linkmen, with their little train of idlers in attendance, assembled outside the door.  It was evidently a very large party.  I hesitated about going in.

My sensations were not those which fit a man for exchanging conventional civilities with perfect strangers; I felt that I showed outwardly the fever of joy and expectation within me.  Could I preserve my assumed character of a mere friend of the family, in Margaret’s presence?—­and on this night too, of all others?  It was far more probable that my behaviour, if I went to the party, would betray everything to everybody assembled.  I determined to walk about in the neighbourhood of the house, until twelve o’clock; and then to go into the hall, and send up my card to Mr. Mannion, with a message on it, intimating that I was waiting below to accompany him to North Villa with Margaret.