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228 "Aid him—now!" said Williams, with a snort. "At it again! you're not a man, you're an angel!"

"But if he is penitent, Williams."

"So! so! so!" murmured Waife. "Thank Heaven it was not he who spoke against me—it was but a strange woman. Oh!" he suddenly broke off with a groan. "Oh—but that strange woman—who, what can she be? and Sophy with her and him. Distraction! Yes, yes, I take the money. I shall want it all. Sir Isaac, pick up that bag. Gentlemen, good-day to you!" He bowed; such a failure that bow! Nothing ducal in it! bowed and turned toward the door; then, when he gained the threshold, as if some meeker, holier thought restored to him dignity of bearing, his form rose, though his face softened, and stretching his right hand toward the Mayor, he said: "You did but as all perhaps would have done on the evidence before you. You meant to be kind to her. If you knew all, how you would repent! I do not blame—I forgive you."

He was gone; the Mayor stood transfixed. Even Williams felt a cold, comfortless chill." He does not look like it," said the foreman. "Cheer up. Sir, no wonder you were taken in—who would not have been?"

"Hark! that hoot again. Go, Williams, don't let the men insult him. Do, do. I shall be grateful."

But before Williams got to the door, the cripple and his dog had vanished; vanished down a dark narrow alley on the opposite side of the street. The rude workmen had followed him to the mouth of the alley, mocking him. Of the exact charge against the Comedian's good name they were not informed: that knowledge was confined to the Mayor and Mr. Williams. But the latter had dropped such harsh expressions, that, bad as the charge might really be, all in Mr. Hartopp's employment probably deemed it worse, if possible, than it really was. And wretch indeed must be the man by whom the Mayor had been confessedly taken in, and whom the Mayor had indignantly given up to the reproaches of his own conscience. But the cripple was now out of sight, lost amidst those labyrinths of squalid homes which, in great towns, are thrust beyond view, branching off abruptly behind High Streets and Market-places; so that strangers passing only along the broad thoroughfares, with glittering shops and gas-lit causeways, exclaim, "Where do the Poor live?"