not
by any means a tidy one, she could love very dearly--she had seen, I
say, the man she loved gradually learning to despise her affection,
and to estrange himself from her society. She was a good deal afraid
of "Gentleman Jim"--perhaps she liked him none the less for that--and
dared neither tax him with falsehood nor try to worm out of him the
assurance that she had or had not a rival. Nevertheless, she was
determined to ascertain the cause of her lover's indifference to
herself, and his changed conduct in other relations of life.

Jim had always been somewhat given to the adornment of his person,
affecting that flash and gaudy style of decoration so much in favour
with dog-stealers and men of like dubious professions. Of late,
however, he had adopted, with different tastes and habits, a totally
different costume--when "off duty," as he called it--meaning thereby
release from the fulfilment of some business engagement subject to
penalties affixed by our criminal code. He now draped himself in white
linen, dark-coloured clothes, a tall hat, and such outward marks of
respectability, if not station, going even so far as to invest in kid
gloves and an "umbrellier," as he called that instrument. At first
sight, but for his boots, Jim might almost have been mistaken for a
real gentleman. About this period, too, he left off vulgar liquors,
and shamefully abandoned a short black pipe that had stuck by him
through many ups and downs, substituting for these stimulants a great
deal of brown sherry and certain sad-coloured cigars, demanding strong
lungs and a strong stomach as well. These changes did the forlorn
Dorothea note with increasing anxiety, and, because every woman
becomes keen-sighted and quick-witted where her heart is concerned,
drew from them an augury fatal to her future happiness. After a while,
when the suspense grew intolerable, she resolved on putting a stop to
it by personal inquiry, and with that view, as a preliminary,
kept herself tolerably sober for twenty-four hours, during which
probationary period she instituted a grand "clean up" of his premises;
and so, as she mentally expressed it, "with a cool head and a clean
house and a clear conscience," confronted her employer on the stairs.

Old Bargrave had of late become very nervous and uneasy. The full
meals, the daily bottle of port, the life of self-indulgence, though
imparting an air of portliness and comfort while everything went well,
had unfitted hi