alone and private—and yet only a few steps to reach a struggling crowd, all new faces which one will never see again. There is a fine field for contemplation! There is variety! It is more comfortable to be one of a million than one of a dozen. And I don't like country people over much; they are friendly but bumptious, kind but conceited, and they hold Little Peddlington to be the garden of the world!"
"I am quite shocked at your opinions," said Violet; "and the way in which you talk of the country and of country people I account as a personal affront. I only wish Madge could have heard you."
"I shouldn't have dared to speak so openly had your sister been present."
"Madge would have gone exploding about the room like a firework," said Wilford, laughing.
"And you call this assisting me, Mr. Martin, to persuade Wilford to go out of town! Thanks for your aid! You are a most dangerous ally—you overpower those you profess to help. I shall leave you now to persuade Wilford by yourself. Perhaps you want to enjoy exclusively the credit of bringing him round to my opinion. I must go, for I think I hear baby calling."
Violet quitted the room. The two friends drew their chairs more nearly together.
"Jesting apart," said Martin, "I agree with Mrs. Wilford. You are really not looking very well, and a little change would do you a great deal of good."
"You are right," said Wilford, after a slight pause. "I am not well, but I would not confess so much to Violet; it would only occasion her uneasiness and alarm. Let me push forward with my book, for that must be attended to now, and I'll take a holiday—a good one—and recruit thoroughly. Yet I hardly know why I should be ill."
"You have worked very hard of late. Does your head pain you?"
"At times. But my sleep is very broken, and I dream terribly when I do sleep. I am nervous somehow. Small things distract me—the sudden opening of a door, a slight noise in the street, anything happening unexpectedly, sets my heart beating quite painfully. I tease myself with all sorts of anxieties about my book and career. I have all sorts of presentiments about Violet and my child. I look forward to the future with a sort of dread of I know not what. Even while I speak of these things I am seized with a nervous trembling I am totally unable to control. Have you ever felt like this?"
"Once or twice. Something like it."
"And what have you done?"
"I have brought myself to believe thoroughly in the realities of life. I have gone by the express to Paris and dined sumptuously at the Trois Frères. I have left off work and enjoyed myself, and I have found my nervous system to recover rapidly under such a course of treatment. Try it in your case."
"I think that mine requires rather more serious remedies. But something I must do shortly, for the thing grows upon me. I seem to have a difficulty at least in severing what is fact from what is mere matter of fancy and foreboding."
He stopped for a few minutes, and then asked in an agitated tone:
"Did you ever feel as though you were followed in the street—continually followed by some one whom you did not know, could not see, go where you would? Tell me, Martin?"
"Never. But do you imagine that you have been so followed?"
"It seems to me so, and I am not sure that it is simply imagination."
"You think you have been really followed?"
"Sometimes I feel quite sure of it."
"But the fact can be easily ascertained."
"Not so easily. Go where I will I hear foot-steps behind me; turn when I will to discover who follows me, and I can see no one. May one not grow nervous in such a case?"
"Bah! Wilford, the nervousness occasions this fancy—is not occasioned by it. I have heard of some literary men being frequently followed," said Martin, laughing, 'but it was for debt. That is not your case, I know. Besides, the sheriff's officer is not a phantom, he can be seen and felt, on the shoulder especially."
"Hush! Not a word more of this, Violet returns."
A cup of tea, one or two of Violet's favourite songs—Wilford's favourites, too—from the Mozart book,—the voice of the singer has lost nothing of its old exquisite beauty and music,—and George Martin, delighted with the melody, and though it is yet early, rises to depart.
"Indeed I must go," he says, pressing the hand of Mr. Wilford, "I have an hour or two's work to-night that may not be postponed. What am I to say to the printer when he comes to-morrow for copy, if I stay longer now? Good-night."
"One moment, Martin. I'll walk part of your way. I've hardly been out all day."
They were in the hall putting on their hats.
"A letter, sir," cried the Rembrandt from the kitchen-stairs.
"You're so abrupt, Sally, you quite frighten one," said Wilford.
"It's a bill, Wilford; the precursor of the bailiff," and Martin laughed.
"It was left by a boy, sir, just this moment," Sally stated.
A gentleman in the front parlour overheard this conversation. It seemed that he had not gone half-price to the play.
"A boy!" said Mr. Phillimore to himself, "yes, but a very bad specimen—not at all a nice head. I saw him. There are faces like his in some of Hogarth's works; especially in the Idle Apprentice and the Progress of Cruelty."
"Take care of the letter till I come back, Sally; or—stay, you may be gone to bed,—I'll put it in my pocket."
And the two friends went out. They passed down Freer Street on their way towards the Temple. They had failed to perceive that a boy, of small stature, leaning against a lamp-post on the opposite side of the way, had watched their departure from Mr. Phillimore's, and was now stealthily following them, though at some distance. A boy