Page:Braddon--The Trail of the Serpent.djvu/196

192 What she would have done without the assistance of Mr. Peters, it is impossible to say; for that gentleman showed himself the very genius of order; cut thin bread-and-butter enough for half-a-dozen, which not one of the party touched; re-filled the teapot before it was empty; lit the gas-lamp which hung from the ceiling; shut the door which communicated with the shop and the other door which led on to the staircase; and did all so quietly that nobody knew he was doing anything.

Poor Richard! In spite of the gratitude and happiness he feels in his release, there is a gloom upon his brow and an abstraction in his manner, which he tries in vain to shake off.

A small, round, chubby individual, who might be twelve or twenty, according to the notions of the person estimating her age, removed the tea-tray, and in so doing broke a saucer. Gus looked up. "She always does it," he said, mildly. "We're getting quite accustomed to the sound. It rather reduces our stock of china, and we sometimes are obliged to send out to buy tea-things before we can have any breakfast; but she's a good girl, and she doesn't steal the honey, or the jujubes, or the tartaric acid out of the seidlitz-powders, as the other one did; not that I minded that much," he continued; "but she couldn't read, and she sometimes filled up the papers with arsenic for fear of being found out; and that might have been inconvenient, if we'd ever happened to sell them."

"Now, Gus," said Richard, as he drew his chair up to the fireplace and lit his pipe—permission being awarded by Bell, who lived in one perpetual atmosphere of tobacco-smoke—"now, Gus, I want Peters to tell you all about this affair; how it was he thought me innocent; how he hit upon the plan he formed for saving my neck; how he tried to cast about and find a clue to the real murderer; how he thought he had found a clue, and how he lost it."

"Shall my sister stop while he tells the story?" asked Gus.

"She is your sister, Gus," answered Richard. "She cannot be so unlike you as not to be a true and pitying friend to me. Miss Darley," he continued, turning towards her as he spoke, "you do not think me quite so bad a fellow as the world has made me out; you would like to see me righted, and my name freed from the stain of a vile crime?"

"Mr. Marwood," the girl answered, in an earnest voice, "I have heard your sad story again and again from my brother's lips. Had you too been my brother, I could not, believe me, have felt a deeper interest in your fate, or a truer sorrow for your misfortunes. It needs but to look into your face, or hear your voice, to know how little you deserve the imputation that has been cast upon you."

Richard rises and gives her his hand. No languid and lady-