Page:Ethel Churchill 3.pdf/277

Rh him—his gift!" said she, in a low sad whisper; and then, with the haste of one who makes a sudden resolution, with which they are almost afraid to trust themselves, she rapped loudly at the door. There was a moment's silence, then whispering within, and a voice asked— "Who's there?" "Oh!" replied Lavinia, "you know me very well; let me in, I have a locket you must take to-night, or you shall not have it to-morrow!" It was a locket that Walter Maynard had given her immediately after her appearance in his comedy; one of the incidents turned upon a locket, and she had made, what is theatrically called, a hit in the scene. A heavy step approached the door; a sound was heard, as of a falling chain; then bolt after bolt was withdrawn, and at last the actress was admitted, and the door was instantly closed after her. It was a pawnbroker's shop, that last receptacle of human wretchedness—wretchedness that takes the most squalid and